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| “ | No one's life is worth the destruction of everything I've built. | „ |
| ~ Phillip Bauer explains his motivations. |
Phillip Bauer is one of the two main antagonists (alongside Charles Logan) of the 24 franchise. Phillip is the estranged father of the series' protagonist Jack Bauer, and the pair soon come into conflict when Jack gradually unveils his father's illicit activities. Phillip is also the father - and murderer - of Jack's brother Graem.
Along with Logan, Bauer coordinated the sale of nerve gas to terrorists and the deaths of several main characters. He was then blackmailed with this information into giving five suitcase nuclear weapons to terrorists, one of which is detonated in Los Angeles. Obsessed with preserving his company legacy, Bauer then attempted to start World War III with the Chinese, who had promised him safe passage to China in exchange for a valuable piece of circuitry he was working on. Although he was defeated and this plan failed, Phillip Bauer's actions then inadvertently led to the events of the remainder of the series.
He was portrayed by James Cromwell, who also played Dr. Arthur Arden in American Horror Story: Asylum, Lionel Canter in Surrogates, Euclid Baker in Tank, Miles Darman in Law & Order: Organized Crime, William Donahue in Eraser, Captain Dudley Smith in L.A. Confidential, Joseph Campbell in The General's Daughter, The Colonel in Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, Warden Hazen in the 2005 remake of The Longest Yard, and Professor Robert Callaghan in Big Hero 6.
Biography[]
Season 1[]
Phillip is a wealthy oil tycoon and the founder of BXJ Technologies, a multinational company that would later be secretly involved in terrorism. Phillip always preferred his younger son Jack over Graem, his older son. However, Jack did not want anything to do with the family business and instead chose a career in public service and counter-terrorism. This act greatly disappointed Phillip, who viewed Jack as the continuation of his company's legacy and life's work. He reluctantly entrusted Graem to manage the family business as the company's chief executive officer, while Phillip remained as the owner of the company as the chairman of the board of directors. This caused Jack's relationship with his father and brother to become very strained. After a time, Jack lost any remaining contact with his family when Jack's wife Teri was killed by the traitorous Nina Myers during one of his missions; Jack would later manage to avenge Teri's death by killing Nina with the help from his and Teri's daughter Kim, who had earlier been told by her father that he is currently estranged from his family due to his lawful commitment. Jack does not speak much about his family background, and from this, it is clear that his relationship with his family is not a good one. In Season 6, Jack claims that he hadn't spoken to his father in nine years. In the show's timeline, this would be around the events of Season 1. This probably means that Phillip saw his son at Teri's funeral and they hadn't spoken since. This is all but confirmed when Jack reminds Graem that the last time he saw him was at Teri's funeral, so it is a certainty that Phillip was there as well. Jack stated in the final moments of Season 6 that his father "was dead to him years ago", further emphasizing an estranged history between the two.
Season 5[]
Six months prior to Season 5, someone remotely hacked into Chloe O'Brian's hard drive and came to the conclusion that Jack was still alive. This person was probably Phillip, or possibly Graem, since Phillip had an uplink to CTU's network during the events of Season 6. Presumably, Phillip or Graem had a feeling that Jack was still alive and wanted to confirm their suspicions, because David Palmer needed to die to protect a nefarious conspiracy that Phillip and Graem were major figures in orchestrating. It was decided that Jack would need to be pulled out of hiding so the assassination could be pinned on him. Six months after this, the conspiracy unraveled, which was sold Sentox nerve gas to a group of terrorists led by Vladimir Bierko, but then to betray and covertly gas them to look like an accident. This would result in a stronger US military presence in Central Asia, which would then increase oil flow to America. Phillip's oil company, BXJ Technologies, stood to profit considerably as a result. Furthermore, Phillip and Graem have managed to get both public individuals, including President Charles Logan, Russian consul Anatoly Markov and defense contractor and former intelligence agent Christopher Henderson involved in the conspiracy. During the day's events, Graem and Phillip orchestrated the deaths of David Palmer and Michelle Dessler, and attempted to kill both Tony Almeida and Chloe O'Brian. Jack managed to stop and kill Markov, Bierko and Henderson, as well as expose Logan's involvement in the conspiracy. However, despite being caught and arrested for his crimes, Logan did not implicate any other high-ranking members of the conspiracy. Phillip and Graem managed to get away, along with another powerful member of the conspiracy.
At some point during the course of the day, probably around noon, when Walt Cummings was exposed as part of the conspiracy by Jack, Phillip and Graem decided that they needed a way to get rid of Jack. Knowing that Jack had faked his death fifteen months prior to escape from Cheng Zhi because of his attack on the Chinese Consulate (information they would have known from hacking into CTU six months prior), the two conspired to sell out Jack to the Chinese as a way to get rid of him. One of them (probably Phillip) must have personally reached out to Cheng Zhi and informed him that Jack was still alive and in Los Angeles. This would have given Cheng plenty of time to fly to the United States and ambush Jack. This was the plan to "take Jack out" that Graem alluded to in a phone conversation with Charles Logan around 4 AM later that night. Graem was also in constant contact with Charles Logan at the time Cheng captured Jack, so Graem and Phillip would have known Jack's exact location at the time, explaining not only how Cheng knew that Jack was alive, but also where he was. By the time Cheng and his men captured Jack, Logan had already been exposed for his role in the conspiracy. For this reason, Graem and Phillip, who would have known exactly where Jack was (as he was at the location where Logan had been arrested) would have called Cheng and told him to move in immediately. It is later confirmed in Season 6 that selling Jack out to the Chinese was, in fact, Phillip and Graem's plan to "take Jack out". This betrayal led to Jack being incarcerated and tortured in a Shanghai black site for almost two years. Phillip and Graem later told Jack that they did everything he could to save him, but in reality, they were the ones who put him there. With Jack out of the way, they believed it would prevent the truth about his family's terrorist activities going public. However, Charles Logan's arrest and removal from office at the end of the day collapsed the conspiracy. Although Phillip and Graem were not exposed, this led to the Russian anti-terrorism treaty being upheld. The Russians continued to share their technology with the United States, and BXJ Technologies ended up profiting handsomely off of this when Russian weaponry was sent to the United States for deactivation, which Graem claimed happened "all the time". One such example was five suitcase nukes, sent to BXJ about two years later.
Season 6[]
| “ | You're involved in something that's much bigger than you can possibly imagine. So here's the deal: Unless you do exactly what I say, I will hurt Josh. If you don't believe that, you might want to consider this: Graem's death was not an accident. I killed him. | „ |
| ~ Phillip threatening to hurt his own grandson. |
At some point during the 20 months after Season 5, former Russian general Dmitri Gredenko learned about Phillip's involvement in the Sentox nerve gas conspiracy from the Russian consul, Anatoly Markov. Gredenko used the information to blackmail Phillip for five suitcase nukes which BXJ had been hired to deactivate by the U.S. government. Gredenko got the nuclear weapons in the United States and handed them over to BXJ's custody, Phillip and Graem agreed to cooperate with the blackmail by secretly smuggling five of the bombs back to Gredenko. The Bauers and Gredenko agreed to have BXJ subcontract Darren McCarthy of Elegra Global to dismantle the weapons, who would then save five of the weapons and secretly return them to Gredenko. But instead, McCarthy sold the five nukes directly to Gredenko's co-conspirator, Abu Fayed, for 3 million dollars.
Gredenko claimed that he was going to take them back to Russia where they would await the eventual restoration of the Soviet Union. Phillip apparently believed that Gredenko's plans would never come to fruition, and he also knew that the triggers were deactivated, so the weapons were useless. However, Phillip didn't know that Gredenko was lying; he had no intention of returning the nukes to Russia, and instead planned to detonate them on U.S. soil as revenge on the United States for the collapse of communism in Europe. At this point, Abu Fayed had acquired the bombs and hired an expert reactivate the triggers, arming all five of the nuclear weapons. One of the bombs was detonated in Valencia, California, leveling much of the city and killing at least 12,000 civilians. At this point, Jack, who had finally been released from the Chinese prison by President Wayne Palmer, has been recruited by his former employer, the Los Angeles Counter-Terrorist Unit, to find the rest of the suitcase nukes. Jack learns that BXJ was the last firm to have custody of the bombs and went to the offices of Elegra Global to get more information on Darren McCarthy.
Phillip was there, attempting to erase any evidence linking the company to the terrorists in an attempt to save BXJ Technologies after it was responsible for a nuclear detonation on U.S. soil. Phillip's guards attempt to kill Jack, but Phillip stops them, claiming that he is his son. Then Phillip told Jack that McCarthy was responsible for the theft of the bombs, leaving out his own role in the terrorism. Phillip attempted to prevent Jack from turning Graem into the authorities, but Graem had Phillip's guards kidnap both his father and brother to stop this evidence from getting out. Phillip and Jack were taken to an abandoned oil refinery (no doubt a property that Graem and Phillip owned), where Graem allegedly planned to have them shot and buried under cement. However, Jack escaped and fought them off, shooting one in self-defense. Phillip then acquired a firearm and executed the other in cold blood. Jack was furious, because he needed to interrogate the guard, but Phillip needed him dead so Jack would not learn the truth about his involvement in the day's events. In reality, the execution was a trick: Phillip was never in any danger and the whole situation was an act to shift suspicion away from Phillip and, subsequently, the rest of the company.
Jack then arrived at Graem's home where he placed his brother into custody and questioned him while administering a chemical called hyoscine-pentothal, which causes severe pain to the nervous system. Graem was able to reveal some of the plot to him but not enough that would compromise their father's involvement. Jack left to follow up on the information and Phillip spoke to his son privately. Graem told Phillip that he could handle any pain and only confessed to the conspiracy to make his brother think he cracked and revealed everything. However, Phillip was angry that Graem admitted his involvement in Palmer's assassination and knew that not only did Jack know that Graem did not tell him everything, but that it was also only a matter of time before Graem confessed Phillip's involvement after more serious interrogation at CTU. Phillip lied to his son, saying he was proud of him and that he did everything he asked, but this time he asked too much. Phillip then injected his son with an overdose of hyoscine-pentothal, killing him. After kissing his son's body, Phillip then called for help, claiming that Graem had suffered a seizure. As the agents tried to save Graem's life, Phillip pretended to be concerned, warning them that they would suffer dire consequences if his son died in their custody.
Back at CTU, Phillip went through Graem's belongings and continued to cover up evidence that could implicate him in the day's events. When Phillip learned that his daughter-in-law, Marilyn (who had previously seen Gredenko's location), was going to assist Jack to find Gredenko, he asked her if he could take Josh, Graem's son and his grandson, with him and Marilyn agreed. While Jack drove Marilyn to Gredenko's home, Phillip called Marilyn, telling her that he killed Graem and would do the same to Josh if she told Jack where Gredenko was located. He fed Marilyn a bogus address and she reluctantly led Jack to it. Once a SWAT team entered the premises, they found it to have been a decoy rigged with explosives, which detonated and killed everyone inside. Jack and Marilyn were not inside at the time, and narrowly survived the blast, but Phillip believed Jack had been killed. Meanwhile, Josh realizes his grandfather is prepared to kill him and attempts to escape, only for Phillip to threaten him directly with a gun.
After Phillip realized Jack survived, Marilyn and Jack arrived at the hotel room, but Phillip was waiting for them in a building nearby. He called them and told them to look outside, where they saw him threatening Josh with a gun. Jack offered to exchange himself for Josh, and Phillip agreed to the terms. As Phillip prepared to execute Jack, he apologized to Phillip for his failures as a son and being unwilling to continue the family legacy. As Jack prepared for death, he realized that Phillip was gone, having left behind his PDA, which told Jack to call a phone number on the screen. Jack called the number, and was shocked when Charles Logan answered the phone. Phillip had his number because Graem was in constant contact with Logan on his personal cell phone throughout Day 5. Logan told Jack that he knew a way to help CTU find Gredenko's location. Jack told the authorities to find Phillip, but he slipped away. It is uncertain why Phillip spared Jack's life, but it is probable that he either could not bring himself to kill his favorite son, or perhaps he knew that if he helped Jack find Gredenko, it would distract the authorities and buy him enough time to come up with a plan to escape the country.
At some point during the course of the day, Jack's former torturer, Cheng Zhi, learned that Jack was leading an investigation to recover the suitcase nukes. Cheng knew that the nukes contained a special FB sub-circuitboard that would allow China to completely bypass Russia's entire defense network. This would give China a huge advantage against Russia, which would give them the perfect opportunity to become the new world superpower. Cheng forced Jack to dismantle one of the bombs and deliver him the component, otherwise he would kill Audrey Raines, who he had kidnapped when she attempted to rescue Jack from China personally. Jack knew that if China acquired the technology, it would lead to World War III, and Russia would declare war on the United States for allowing China to sabotage their defense systems. Jack attempted to kill himself and Cheng with a bomb before the component could reach China, but the plan was accidentally foiled by another CTU agent. Cheng escaped with the component, but discovered that it was damaged. Cheng learned, probably from Chinese intelligence, that Phillip Bauer's company, BXJ, was hired to dismantle the nukes.
At this point, Cheng recruited Phillip Bauer to repair the sub-circuitboard, with Phillip agreeing to do so as long as Cheng delivered him his grandson, Josh, and escorted them to China. Phillip gaining residency in China with Josh would allow him to continue running his company freely, and give him the opportunity to raise Josh as his new protégé, so his company legacy can continue after his death. Because Phillip had murdered Graem earlier that day, and Jack refused to work for his father, Phillip was desperate to preserve his life's work after the catastrophic events of the day that made doing so in the United States impossible. In order to meet Phillip's demands, Cheng was forced to hire mercenaries to break into CTU and kidnap Josh. Jack manages to save Josh from Cheng's men, and an enraged Phillip appeared to switch sides. At this point, the White House, now led by Vice President Noah Daniels, is panicked at the potential of a world war over the component. Phillip proved to the government that he was in possession of the component and claimed he was prepared to hand it back to the military as long as they handed over Josh and allowed him safe passage to a country of his choosing. Desperate, the White House agrees, despite resistance from the President's advisors and CTU personnel, including Jack.
As a condition for the return of the component, Phillip forced CTU to shut down their satellite surveillance so he could be sure they wouldn't try to find their location and rescue the boy. Phillip's commandos retrieved Josh from CTU on the coast, exchanging him for the component. However, the component was a copy that was rigged to explode, nearly killing the CTU agent who made the trade-off. Phillip then ordered his men to disable the tracking device CTU had planted on Josh, leaving him completely at his unhinged grandfather's mercy. Although it seems hopeless, Jack realizes where Josh has been taken: there are several decommissioned BXJ oil rigs up and down the coast that are still in Phillip's name. Realizing that they were betrayed and Phillip was still prepared to hand the component over to the Chinese, President Daniels dispatches a fleet of F-18 fighter jets to destroy the oil rig Phillip, Cheng and Josh are on and the component before they can escape to China with the technology. Knowing that Josh, an innocent boy, will be killed in the airstrike, Jack and his boss, Bill Buchanan, commandeer a CTU helicopter and head to the oil rig, where Cheng and Phillip are waiting for a Chinese submarine to pick them up and take them to China with the component.
Jack and Bill arrive at the oil rig to rescue Josh, and Bill captures Cheng. Jack kills all of Phillip's commandos while Phillip goes to the lowest level, where he tries to escape with Josh. Phillip is hit on the head by Josh, who is terrified of his grandfather, and takes his gun. Josh then shoots Phillip in the lung, but before he can finish the job, Jack arrives and stops the boy from making a mistake he will regret. Jack attempts to arrest Phillip so he can face justice for his many heinous crimes, but his dying father is too weak to move. Phillip tells Jack that there's not enough time to carry him to the top of the platform, and that Jack doesn't want to die there for nothing, alongside his traitorous father. Jack reluctantly leaves Phillip to die, telling him that he got off easy. Phillip gives a faint smile and Jack takes one last look at his disgraced father, before reluctantly leaving Phillip to die in the airstrike. Jack narrowly escapes the rig on the helicopter before the F-18s launch twelve missiles that destroy it completely, killing Phillip and destroying the FB sub-circuitboard for good. With his death, Phillip's obsessive plans to preserve his company legacy were a total failure.
Following Phillip's death, Jack told James Heller: "I just watched my father die, and I felt nothing. You know why? Yeah... you know why. Because that man was dead to me years ago." Jack further told Heller that he looked up to him as a father, and he was the kind of man that he wanted to be, not Phillip. This is the last mention or allusion to Phillip in the series, although Phillip's actions continue to haunt Jack and cause him problems for the rest of his life.
Personality[]
Phillip Bauer is often considered to be the most evil villain on 24 because of his willingness to kill virtually his entire family to protect himself and his company. TV Tropes wrote: "He is pushing the 70s and is one of the worst villains in the show. ... Phillip may be in his older years, but he's still a badass capable of defeating much younger men." Phillip was so evil that his actor, James Cromwell, at one point went up to the writers and asked: “Look, are there any redeeming qualities to this character?” He further said: "Where's the human being in this guy?" Kiefer Sutherland originally asked his father Donald Sutherland to play the role of Phillip Bauer, but he turned it down, not wanting to portray a father who is so evil that he is willing to kill both his sons—and does in fact, kill one of them. Phillip Bauer's motivations for his many heinous crimes essentially boil down to him attempting to further his wealth, power and influence. By Season 6, he was solely concerned with covering up his involvement in Abu Fayed acquiring nuclear weapons, attempting to preserve his company and his "legacy" at any cost. His will to achieve this end was so great that he was prepared to kill members of his own family, kidnap his own grandson and betray his country to the Chinese. Phillip appears to be a sociopath. He is referred to as such by multiple characters, including Tom Lennox and Karen Hayes. Further evidence for Phillip being a sociopath is him telling Josh that he must learn to control his emotions and must never let them control him. Phillip never shows any emotions at all, or even fear when faced with his own death.
Unlike his son, Graem, who was fiercely loyal to his father and was willing to sacrifice himself to prevent law enforcement from discovering Phillip and BXJ's involvement in terrorist activity, Phillip did not care about anyone but himself. This is confirmed by Josh Bauer, who told Phillip that he only cared about himself, despite Phillip's false claims that he was doing everything for his grandson. Knowing that Jack was going to continue interrogating Graem and worried that he would break, Phillip selfishly murdered his own son to save himself. He then tormented his son, Jack, by falsely claiming that Jack killed Graem, and also tormented Marilyn by telling her that he was Graem's true killer and would do the same to Josh if she did not obey his instructions. Phillip even murdered his own men who participated in a mock execution, worried that Jack would get him to talk. Some have speculated that Phillip did genuinely love Jack, because he spared his life. However, it is possible that he only did this so he could escape, allowing Jack to use the information from Charles Logan to go after Anatoly Markov and try to find the other bombs instead of looking for him. Had he not started working with Cheng Zhi, Phillip probably would have escaped the country, because CTU was far too busy with Fayed, Gredenko and Cheng for the rest of the day to look for him. Phillip told Jack that he deserved a better family, but it is possible he just said this to manipulate his son into trusting him, especially since he only said this before a fake mock execution that Phillip had planned with Graem.
Trivia[]
- Phillip Bauer was ranked at number 10 on Den of Geek's "The 10 Best 24 Villains", number 6 on ScreenRant's "10 Best Villains In 24, Ranked" and The Richest's "10 Most Memorable Villains from 24", number 4 on the Miami Herald's "The top 10 villains of ‘24’ we love to hate" and number 1 on TVFanatic's "9 Awesomely Scary 24 Villains". Den of Geek wrote: "Installing Jack’s own father Phillip (James Cromwell) as the big bad of season 6 is absolutely a move straight out of a soap opera. And the choice was weirdly fitting for the increasingly operatic drama of 24." ScreenRant wrote: "While drawing comparisons to soap opera plot devices, the decision to make Jack's father the main antagonist effectively heightens the drama. Phillip's complex machinations and the far-reaching consequences of his actions solidify his position as a memorable and significant villain in the series." TV Tropes wrote that he was the Big Bad of Season 6, further saying: "He's revealed to have been The Man Behind the Man to the masterminds of Day 5 and is Jack's Archnemesis Dad and most personal foe. He forms a Big Bad Duumvirate with Cheng Zhi in the latter half of Day 6 due to his plan to defect to China."
- Phillip can be considered to be the main antagonist of 24 (alongside Charles Logan) because he gave orders to Logan through his son Graem in the nerve gas conspiracy of Season 5. Phillip and Logan's actions affected Jack for the rest of his life, causing the events of the rest of the series. Their actions directly and indirectly resulted in nerve gas being used on American citizens, Jack being captured and tortured by the Chinese for two years, a nuclear weapon being detonated on American soil, Tony Almeida's involvement with the Prion Cabal in Season 7, Jack Bauer's murder of Mikhail Novakovich during the events of Season 8, and Jack's arrest by the Russians during 24: Live Another Day. Had Phillip somehow survived Season 6 like Wilson did, Tony would have come for him due to his involvement in Michelle's death in the Sentox nerve gas conspiracy.
- While Phillip has been called one of two main antagonists of Season 6 (alongside Cheng Zhi) it is more appropriate to label him as the season's main antagonist. Phillip was the one who drove the plot for the entire season, communicating with Dmitri Gredenko, handing over nuclear weapons to Abu Fayed, effectively blackmailing Cheng into doing his bidding in exchange for the circuitry component and then kidnapping Josh.
- Phillip is also one of the overarching main antagonists of Season 5, having helped to mastermind the Sentox nerve gas conspiracy and give the orders to Graem to carry out.
- Graem confirms in Season 6 that they should have had Jack killed "instead of handing him over to the Chinese". This all but confirms that Graem and Phillip were the ones who contacted Cheng in the first place with the information that Jack was still alive. This means that Graem and Phillip sold out their own family in an attempt to protect the conspiracy. Graem later lied to his brother, claiming that him and Phillip did everything they could to get Jack out of China. In reality, they were the ones who put him there.
- If Phillip called Cheng personally, then this could also emphasize a prior working relationship between Cheng and Phillip, which would be yet another reason why Cheng and Phillip were working together during the events of Season 6.
- An issue of the 24: The Official Magazine confirmed that there was a season 6 deleted scene that revealed that Phillip Bauer was Josh's real father, as he had raped Marilyn years ago. However, this was dropped from the show for being "too twisted".
- However, this twist does provide a clear explanation for why Phillip was so obsessed with the boy and kept referring to Josh as "his legacy".
- The casting of Phillip Bauer is often criticized by viewers because of the height difference between him and Jack. Kiefer Sutherland is notoriously short (at 5'8½") but James Cromwell is one of the tallest actors in Hollywood, standing at 6'6 ½". However, Kiefer's real-life father, the late Donald Sutherland, was almost as tall as Cromwell, standing at 6'3 ½".
- Phillip appears to be quite a ladies' man. Graem tells Jack that Phillip has three girlfriends he divides his time with, one of whom is quite attractive. However, it is unclear if this was yet another lie from Graem in an attempt to distract his brother.
- Phillip could have been involved in the terrorist plot of Season 2 alongside the oil baron Peter Kinsgley, as both men were based out of Los Angeles and Phillip's company, BXJ Technologies, sheltered numerous corporations owning oil leases. Phillip was also involved in the Sentox nerve gas conspiracy, where he stood to profit handsomely off of the flow of oil from the middle east. This was Peter Kingsley's exact motivation in Season 2.
- Phillip Bauer's sidearm is an expensive Springfield Armory Custom Professional 1911. The Springfield Custom Professional is entirely custom hand-fitted and has an MSRP of $3,539.
- Due to him effectively playing both sides, Phillip Bauer would have undoubtedly escaped had his son, Jack, not remembered he owned decommissioned oil leases on the coast.
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