Lynn McGill

articleissues
plot = October 2008
cleanup = October 2008Infobox character
series=24


caption = Sean Astin as Lynn McGill
name =Lynn McGill
portrayer =Sean Astin
lbl1=Appearances

data1=5

Lynn McGill is a fictional character on the television series 24, portrayed by Sean Astin.

Characterization

Lynn was an upper-level administrator from the Regional Division of CTU. He had met Chloe O'Brian and Kim Bauer at a memory lecture prior to Day 5. Also, he recognized Bill Buchanan on sight, but did not mention if they had previously met in person.

Little is known about Lynn's personal life beyond his relationship to his sister Jenny, an addict who regularly exploited her brother for money in order to get drugs.

Appearances

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During the hostage crisis at Ontario Airport, Lynn was appointed by the White House to CTU-Los Angeles to supervise Bill Buchanan and the rest of the team. Initially portrayed as confident, Lynn's competence came into question as he worked and operated with a rigid and unyielding "by the book" naïveté. Buchanan and the rest of CTU often used an improvised approach to stay one step ahead of their enemies, putting them at odds with Lynn's methodology. His thoroughness, however, led him to correctly identify a coded message sent by Jack Bauer when talking with CTU while under duress, preventing a potentially deadly ambush.

Later, Lynn was lured outside of CTU and robbed by his sister and her junkie boyfriend. They took his CTU keycard along with his money and bank cards. The loss of the keycard, combined with Bauer's rejection of his authority, caused Lynn to become increasingly erratic while obsessively micromanaging CTU activities. He discovered that several members of CTU defied his order to take Bauer into custody for disobedience, so he had Buchanan taken to a holding room for insubordination.

Lynn's control of CTU came to an end when Curtis Manning invoked Section 112, which enables a ranking agent to remove a Director who is mentally unfit for duty. Once Lynn was transferred to a holding cell, his stolen keycard came back to haunt him. Buchanan informed him that his sister and her boyfriend had been killed in a professional hit. Lynn posited that they were murdered for his keycard, and an analysis of CTU security logs revealed that an agent of terrorist leader Vladimir Bierko used it to gain access to CTU in order to release a canister of deadly Sentox nerve gas into the ventilation system.

About 40% of CTU staffers were unable to evacuate the facility in time, and perished from exposure. The holding rooms were sealed, so Lynn survived along with a security guard stationed with him, an agent named Harry Swinton.

The Sentox agent was delivered with a corrosive gas that was breaking down the airtight seals. It would be only a matter of time before any remaining survivors would be fatally exposed. Staffers in the CTU situation room, which was also sealed, frantically considered their options. Chloe O'Brian discovered that a remote program was blocking her attempts to interface with the ventilation system to disperse the gas. Risking exposure to the Sentox gas, Bauer left the safety of the room to disable the rogue computer only to discover that he could not reach it. The only people still alive and close enough to disable the program were Lynn and Swinton. However, to open the door of the holding room was a death sentence.

Lynn decided to sacrifice his life for his comrades, knowing that everyone left at CTU would die of nerve gas exposure were he to do nothing. On the other hand, Swinton had intense reservations. Lynn convinced Swinton that they would die anyway, so Swinton agreed and tearfully called his wife and daughter to hear their voices one last time.

Lynn and Swinton each took a deep breath, held it, and stuffed cloth over their noses and mouths. Lynn opened the door, quickly closing it behind him as he exited. He found the computer and disabled the rogue program. Upon returning to the room, he heard Bauer over the intercom, informing him that he saved the lives of everyone still alive inside CTU.

Swinton was unable to hold his breath any longer and inhaled deeply. After a brief moment, it appeared that the nerve gas hadn't penetrated the holding cell to fatal levels. Sadly, that was not the case, and seconds later, Swinton gasped, vomited, and fell dead to the floor.

Lynn held on a little longer, but upon breathing, he too was overcome. Twitching uncontrollably, he fell and died in a puddle of his own vomit.

From the CTU situation room, Bauer and the other staffers watched Lynn's death throes in horror, owing their lives to his valiant effort.

References

*http://24.neoseeker.com/24_season_five/Movie/pages/lynn_mcgill_former_staff/