This week's cover: Jack Bauer and '24' are back, dammit!

Jack Bauer never dies — he just waits until a U.S. president is being shadowed by an assassin, so he comes out of hiding to torture the bad guys (quite literally).

In this week’s Entertainment Weekly, West Coast News Editor Lynette Rice talks with Kiefer Sutherland and the creators of 24 about the May 5 premiere of Live Another Day, an abbreviated version of the classic 24-episode tale that spends a day in the life of TV’s most-beloved (anti)hero. Unlike the drama’s eight, heart-stopping seasons on Fox, this latest iteration will only feature 12 installments — a much easier way to tell an action-packed story about an ex-government agent who never sleeps (or seems to ever use the commode).

“It was very stressful, making the choice to come back,” Sutherland told EW. “That sense of responsibility to the show has not dissipated at all. When we started out, I said to [director Jon Cassar] to watch me like a hawk. If there was something that wasn’t feeling right, don’t wait to see if it works its way out. I was very scared I couldn’t remember Jack. It had been awhile.”

In addition to obtaining exclusive access to 24‘s London set, EW also chatted with its newest castmembers, including Benjamin Bratt, Yvonne Strahovski, and the incomparable Michelle Fairley (Game of Thrones). And because any story about 24 wouldn’t be complete without one (or several) uses of the word “dammit,” we’ll also explain how it became Jack Bauer’s go-to expletive in the series — and exactly when we’ll hear it again.

“No one ever wrote a ‘dammit’ or anything,” explains Sutherland. “It was a button to a scene that I would just kind of throw in as a nervous reaction to whatever was happening. And then it just became this thing.”

In the exclusive Live Another Day sneak peek below, we learn that Jack and Chloe (Mary Lynn Rajskub) are at odds when the show returns:

For more on 24: Live Another Day, pick up the new issue of Entertainment Weekly, on stands Friday, April 4. And be sure to tune into EW Radio’s Inside TV on April 8 at 5 p.m. PT/8 p.m. ET to hear Executive Producers Manny Coto and Evan Katz talk about Jack Bauer’s return with host Lynette Rice!

As an added bonus, here’s a gif of our cover!