Below The Beltway

In addition to the return of Aaron Pierce, it looks like tonight will finally see Chloe and Janis meeting face-to-face:

In most offices, having even one sarcastic, socially artless computer expert is barely tolerable. But on “24,” the Fox action serial, the collision of two acerbic, tech-savvy employees played by Janeane Garofalo and Mary Lynn Rajskub is a welcome development for viewers.

Monday night’s episode of “24” features the pairing up of sorts between Chloe O’Brian (Ms. Rajskub), the computer hacker who has long helped guide the hero Jack Bauer through his life-or-death adventures, and Janis Gold (Ms. Garofalo), an F.B.I. agent deeply suspicious of her new office mate Chloe.

It is a rivalry meant to leaven the often-grim, high-pressure thriller with humor. And it’s an inside joke for Ms. Rajskub and Ms. Garofalo, longtime pals whose careers often intersect.

“It was just a weird mixture of my goofy buddy and then, like, ‘Oh, God, it’s Jack Bauer,’ ” Ms. Rajskub said of the pairing in a telephone interview. “It’s so intense that it’s kind of crazy.”

When Ms. Rajskub (pronounced RICE-cub), a comedian and actor, joined the counterterrorism team of “24” in its third season, her character was designed to provide support to Bauer by hacking computers and providing him with escape routes. She also offered assistance to viewers by delivering crucial exposition as well as comic relief, often as a result of her tendency to say exactly what’s on her mind, no matter the situation. (Introduced to the F.B.I.’s computer system in Monday’s episode, Chloe tells an agent, “Whoever set your network up that way didn’t know what they were doing.” The agent sheepishly responds, “I set our network up that way.”)

Howard Gordon, an executive producer of “24,” said: “Chloe was the slightly out-of-sync person who was strangely competent but lacked certain social cues. She had a really unique charm that could be set against the deadpan urgency of the show.”

The plan for Season 7, Mr. Gordon said, was to discredit Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) and his team, forcing them to work alongside their counterparts at the F.B.I. “It would be interesting to see someone who was like Mary Lynn in many ways, and who did the same thing as Chloe,” Mr. Gordon said. “What would happen if two competing and complementary characters were doing the same job?”

Personally, I’ll be rooting for Chloe.