Lynn McGill

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24 character
Image:Lynn-mcgill-on-24.jpg
Lynn McGill
Gender: Male
Jobs held: CTU Supervisor, Division LA

Acting Special Agent in Charge CTU-LA

Affiliation: CTU
Family: Jenny McGill (Sister)
Spouse: {{{spouse}}}
Current status: Deceased
Portrayed by: Sean Astin
Seasons: 5

Lynn McGill was a fictional character played by Sean Astin on the popular television drama 24.

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 being extremely naive towards the inner workings of CTU and operated as a very rigid and unyielding "by the book" way. This put him directly at odds with Bill Buchanan and the rest of CTU, who know that dealing with terrorism requires outside the box/radical thinking in order to stay one step ahead of their enemies. Lynn appeared young and to have less field experience than many of the CTU personnel. He did however correctly identify a code Jack Bauer submitted when talking with CTU while under duress from terrorists during a hostage crisis at a nearby airport. Chloe O'Brian did not recognize his "flank two position" code because it was an old code used when Jack worked at CTU 18 months ago. 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 successfully saved Jack and the hostages.

Little is known about Lynn's personal life outside his sister Jenny, being a drug addict who regularly shook her brother down 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, complete with them stealing his CTU keycard.

The loss of the keycard, combined with Jack Bauer defying Lynn and the President's order that he allow the murder of innocent civilians so as to track down a group of Russian terrorists who possessed biological weapons, caused Lynn to show signs of losing his collective cool and he became a much more anal-retentive and micromanaging supervisor, similar to Captain Queeg. 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 invokes 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 were 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.

The only people still alive and close enough to disable the program were Lynn and Harry. However, to open the door of the holding room was a death sentence.

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 and Harry 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 Jack over the intercom, informing him of his success and that he saved the lives of everyone still alive inside CTU.

Harry 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, Harry 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, Jack and the other staffers watched Lynn's death throes in horror, owing their lives to his effort.

Preceded by:
Bill Buchanan
Director of CTU
Day 5 (7 Hours)
Succeeded by:
Curtis Manning