Lynn McGill

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24 character
Lynn McGill
Gender	Male
Jobs held	CTU Supervisor, Division LA Acting Special Agent in Charge CTU-LA
Affiliation	CTU
Family	Jenny McGill (Sister) (Deceased)
Spouse	NA
Current status	Deceased
Portrayed by	Sean Astin
Seasons	5

Lynn McGill is a fictional character played by Sean Astin on the television drama 24. He appeared in 10 episodes of the fifth season, being credited as a special guest star in the final four episodes.

[edit] Background

Lynn had met Chloe O'Brian & Kim Bauer at a memory lecture prior to Day 5. He also recognized Bill Buchanan on site, but did not mention if they had previously met in person.

[edit] Day 5

Lynn was an upper-level employee at Regional Division, but was appointed by the White House to CTU-Los Angeles to supervise Bill Buchanan and the rest of the team. Despite his confident appearance, Lynn was portrayed as socially naive and operated in a rigid and unyielding "by the book" way. This put him directly at odds with Bill Buchanan and the rest of CTU, who adopt a highly professional, but often improvised approach in order to stay one step ahead of their enemies. His thoroughness, however, led him to correctly identify a coded message sent by Jack Bauer when talking with CTU while under duress during a hostage crisis at a nearby airport. Chloe O'Brian did not recognize his "flank two position" statement as it used an obsolete code used when Jack worked at CTU 18 months earlier. His realization that Jack had been taken prisoner prompted CTU field agents to abort an assault that would have led them right into an ambush. A second, successful assault was launched soon after which saved Jack and the hostages.

Little is known about Lynn's personal life beyond his relationship to his sister Jenny, a drug addict who regularly exploited her brother for money in order to get drugs. Shortly after Lynn's first appearance on the show, he 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 Jack Bauer's rejection of his authority caused Lynn to become increasingly erratic while obsessively micromanaging CTU activities. When he learned that several members of CTU defied his order to take Jack Bauer into custody for disobeying his direct order regarding the murder of innocent civilians, Lynn had Bill Buchanan (who stood up for Bauer and for the other CTU employees helping Jack) taken to holding 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.

Shortly after he was taken to a holding cell, the keycard incident came back to haunt him when Buchanan informed Lynn that his sister and her boyfriend had been murdered in a professional hit. Lynn suspected that the killer stole his keycard, and an analysis of CTU security logs revealed that an agent of terrorist leader Vladimir Bierko used the keycard to gain access to CTU and release a canister of deadly Sentox nerve gas into CTU's ventilation system.

About 40% of CTU staffers were unable to evacuate the facility in time, and perished from exposure. Lynn survived, along with CTU security guard Harry Swinton, in his holding cell, one of the few sealed rooms.

The Sentox agent was delivered with a corrosive gas that was breaking down the airtight seals, meaning it would be only a matter of time before the remaining survivors would be fatally exposed. Surviving staffers in the CTU situation room frantically considered their options. Chloe discovered a remote program was blocking her attempts to interface with the ventilation system to disperse the gas. Risking exposure to the Sentox gas, Jack left the safety of the room to disable the rogue computer only to discover that he could not reach it. Lynn and Harry were the only people in CTU still alive who were able to disable the program. Knowing that everyone left alive at CTU would die of nerve gas exposure were he to do nothing, Lynn decided to sacrifice his life for his comrades. On the other hand, Harry had intense reservations. Lynn convinced Harry that if they did nothing, they would die anyway. Upon agreeing, Harry tearfully called his daughter to hear her voice one last time.

Lynn was able to find the computer and disable the program. Jack told Lynn and Harry over the intercom, that they saved the lives of everyone still alive inside CTU. Lynn and Harry died from the nerve gas soon after.

Preceded by Bill Buchanan

Director of CTU Day 5 (7 Hours)

Succeeded by Curtis Manning