A week after Kiefer Sutherland landed in hot water for head-butting a fashion designer in New York City on May 5, the star turned up in L.A. to help promote 24’s seventh season DVD release and Sunday’s two-hour season finale. Reporters were asked not to ask the star about his arrest, allowing Sutherland to focus instead on his character, Jack Bauer.

Here’s what we know about the show’s eighth, and perhaps final season. A year-and-a-half to two years will have elapsed since the end of Season 7, with the action moving from the White House to the U.N. building in New York City. Cherry Jones is back as President Allison Taylor. “I don’t think they know quite what to do with me yet,” says Jones. “At first I heard they needed me for only a couple episodes, but I do seem now to have a little bit more to do.” Cherry says the new season will expand beyond an American threat to a global concern. “It has to deal more with the state of the world—not just the state of us,” she says.

"Slumdog Millionaire" star Anil Kapoor plays the head of a foreign country, which enters into a peace agreement with President Taylor, but assassins plan to bring Kapoor’s character down before the treaty can be signed. “It’s a call back to the very first season when the very charismatic president David Palmer has to be saved for the greater good,” teases executive producer Howard Gordon, who plans to shoot 7 to 10 days on the streets of New York City and construct U.N. sets in L.A. “The eighth day is the culmination of all Jack has had to do—good bad and otherwise. When he’s finally enlisted to help protect the peace, he’s preserving something that is very personal to him.”

Producers are undecided at this time if the president’s estranged husband and daughter will return. “Both family members are waiting to hear how they might be employed,” says Jones. But one person who will be back is Renee Walker. Annie Wershing says something from Renee’s past comes back to haunt her and directly involves her in the U.N. crisis.

President Taylor has reconstituted CTU, but the organization is now more budget-conscious. “There is a new head of CTU named Brian Hastings, who is extremely smart and very possessive,” says Gordon of the yet-to-be-cast role. “He’s a little blinded by his possessiveness.” This will lead to conflicts with both Jack and Chloe, who will find herself in danger of losing her job. “That’s going to be trouble for me,” says Mary Lynn Rajskub (Chloe). “She had a special place for Bill Buchanan, so I see some bashing heads with authority.”

Since head-bashing wasn’t a topic I could broach with Sutherland, I spoke to him instead about the possibility of a romance developing between Jack and Renee. Though Gordon confirms that the two characters will not have hooked up at the onset of Season 8, New York at night can be a very romantic setting, eh, Kiefer? “It can be,” says Kiefer, with a knowing chuckle. “It can be romantic...and it can be dangerous, but it’s always exciting.”