Lynn McGill


 * "He may be in charge, Bill, but he's not in control."
 * – Audrey Raines, "3:00pm-4:00pm"

Lynn McGill was the Regional District Director sent to oversee CTU Los Angeles during Day 5, in response to pressure from the White House to keep Jack Bauer in line.

Before Day 5
Lynn had previously met Chloe O'Brian at a lecture on memory management, and apparently recognized Bill Buchanan on sight. He had also worked once before with Spenser Wolff, who told Chloe that Lynn's management style included slowing down operations and firing 20% of his employees everywhere he was assigned.

Lynn had a drug addicted sister, Jenny McGill.

Day 5
After arriving at CTU Los Angeles, Lynn met with Bill Buchanan. He requested that Buchanan refer to him as "Mr. McGill" and insisted on using Buchanan's office. At that point, Jack Bauer had been feeding CTU information from inside Ontario Airport, but had been been out of contact for twenty minutes. Meanwhile, a tactical team headed by Curtis Manning was preparing to strike the airport and take out Anton Beresch and his men.

Captured by the terrorists, Jack was forced to call in to CTU and change the location of the assault. He reported that he was in a "flank 2 position." Uncomfortable with authorizing a plan he had not personally checked, Lynn told Buchanan that he wanted to see the playbook before Manning's team entered the airport. Buchanan was defensive, but ordered Chloe O'Brian to send the plan to Lynn's laptop.

Despite pressure from the White House to resolve the hostage situation in time for President Logan's treaty signing, Lynn insisted on examining not only the revised assault plan, but also the transcripts of Jack's calls to CTU. After thorough examination of all the materials available, Lynn determined that flank 2 was not a statement of Jack's position, but a signal that he was being used to send misinformation, an outdated code used when Jack used to work there. Manning changed to Plan Bravo and took the terrorists unawares, saving the lives of not only the CTU tactical team, but all the hostages as well.



Nonetheless, Lynn felt that Jack had not been sufficiently acquitted in the matter of David Palmer's assassination, and ordered him brought into custody over the objections of Audrey Raines. After reviewing the evidence, however, Lynn was inclined to believe in Jack's innocence, and ordered Audrey to debrief Diane Huxley. When Jack returned to CTU, Lynn gave him a key card with a level 2 security clearance so that he could work with them more easily. He also approved Jack's plan to go as a lone civilian to extract information from Walt Cummings.

When Jacob Rossler insisted on taking his sex slave with him as part of an agreement to help CTU catch Ivan Erwich, Lynn ordered Jack to take the deal no matter what it entailed. He then slipped out of the building to meet his sister, Jenny, who had called to ask for money earlier in the hour. On meeting Jenny, Lynn was mugged by her boyfriend, Dwayne Thompkins, who stole Lynn's CTU key card. Despite not having his entry card, Lynn made it back into the building in time to hear and approve Jack's plan to pose as Rossler in order to get to Erwich.

After Jack was kidnapped and forced to help release a canister of nerve gas at the Sunrise Hills Shopping Mall, Lynn ordered the tactical teams to stay hidden and Jack to maintain his cover. Once the target was clear, Lynn took the position that Jack should stay undercover and allow the terrorists to release the gas, so that the tac teams could still follow them back to Erwich. Audrey objected, appealing to Bill Buchanan's authority. Lynn told her that he was in charge, but Bill deferred to a higher authority: President Logan.

With both Lynn and Bill backing that course of action, Logan decided to allow the terrorists to strike the mall. However, Jack disobeyed the order, tipping off the terrorists. CTU was able to track Polakov, but he shot himself before he could be captured. Logan took Lynn to task for the failure of the mission. Bristling at the rebuke, Lynn ordered Jack taken into custody, over the objections of Bill, Audrey, and Curtis Manning.

While Jack was in transit, Audrey received a call from James Nathanson, who demanded to be put in touch with Jack. She patched the call through, and Jack escaped from custody shortly thereafter. Suspicious, Lynn looked up her phone records, but she had erased them with Chloe's help. He hovered around Audrey to keep her tied up until Jack needed Department of Defense codes, at which point Audrey enlisted Bill to distract Lynn while she sent the information to Jack. Picking up on the tactic, Lynn had Bill taken into holding and put a Section 2.3 redundancy into effect, mirroring all stations through his office so that he could keep tabs on things. Later, he fired Carrie Bendis for not mirroring her station quickly enough.



Audrey continued to use Chloe to operate behind Lynn's back. When Chloe and Edgar Stiles brought him intel suggesting an attack on the Suvarov motorcade, Lynn told them not to waste their time on it. Audrey and Curtis objected, saying that CTU should hand the tip to the Secret Service. As the only person on site with the clearance to do that, Lynn continued to refuse, suggesting that they pass the information along to the National Security Agency, who would have to submit to a lengthy approval process before giving the intel to the Secret Service. Instead, Audrey convinced both Edgar and Chloe to help her forge the tipoff so it would appear to come from Lynn. She then had Curtis declare Lynn unfit for duty pursuant to Section 112, and Lynn was taken to holding.

Stuck in holding, Lynn asked Bill for a phone and called Jenny for a second time to ask for his key card. Jenny and Dwayne met with Ostroff to sell the key card, at which point he executed them and reprogrammed the card so that he could use Lynn's high-level entry and access privileges.

When Bill informed him of Jenny's apparently professional murder, Lynn realized the key card may have been the objective. With this information, Bill discovered that the card had indeed been used to enter the building. Bill ordered an evacuation and then a lockdown, but was too late to stop the attack. Nerve gas flooded the building, killing 40% of the staff (56 people).



Lynn was one of a handful of survivors, as Holding Room 4 was one of the secured areas. He confessed to Harry Swinton, also trapped in Holding Room 4, that the attack was his fault because he was too embarrassed to report the theft of his key card. Meanwhile, the gas was eating through the protective seals and threatening to kill everyone who was left. Lynn was the closest person to the computer console that could restore control of the ventilation system, so he agreed to do the job. Jack promised both he and Harry that their families would be notified of their sacrifice.

Background information and notes

 * Sean Astin was only supposed to guest-star in a few episodes, but his role was extended. Beginning with the "4:00pm-5:00pm" episode, he was credited as a Special Guest Star.
 * In his first appearance, when he introduced himself to Chloe, McGill said he was from District. In the following episode, when he assumed custody of Jack from Mara Tyler, he said he was from Division. The latter line seems to be an error, and McGill is considered to be a Regional District Director.


 * When Lynn was killed off the show, Sean Astin received a cake that said "Good-Bye Sean".