Watch Kiefer Sutherland shock himself and short out a city in Rabbit Hole trailer

Kiefer Sutherland is on the case again. But it's not what you think it is. Or even what he thinks it is.

The 24 alum returns to episodic TV in the Paramount+ thriller Rabbit Hole, premiering Mar. 26. He stars as John Weir, a highly skilled technician in the world of corporate espionage. When a job goes sour, he's framed for the murder of Treasury Department official Edward Homm (Rob Yang) and fighting for [voice drops an octave] democracy itself, as someone has designs on controlling populations.

As you can see in the first full-length trailer for the series, above, things seem suspicious all around John, including the old business associate (Jason Butler Harner) who hooked him up with the mission that might sink him; the FBI agent (Enid Graham) who smells some kind of corporate-espionage conspiracy; and the lawyer (Meta Golding) who entered his life last night romantically (and possibly for another more sinister reason).

Let us not forget about Dr. Ben Wilson (Charles Dance), who co-creator Glenn Ficarra described to EW as "a spy who's been out in the cold too long." Ben is heard as the voice of reason (or treason, who knows?) throughout the trailer. "You need to know what you're getting into," he tells John & Co. "This isn't cops and robbers. The enemy is everywhere, but he can't be seen. So what's it going to be? Are you going to be heroic and difficult? Or are you going to be sensible and help us save the world?"

Paramount+ Kiefer Sutherland on 'Rabbit Hole'

Over a montage of political rallies and protests pocked with emotions and explosions, Ben reminds: "No one's ever succeeded in toppling a democracy as ours. But a country rife with anger and division... is a job already half done."

The job ahead for the increasingly paranoid John is dangerous and confusing. ("I can't tell the difference between what's real and what's not," he laments.) It includes manipulation, deception, technology, a lot of explosions, and a cell phone in a blender. It also involves him needing to jam a rod of metal into a power station, blowing him back and shorting out the city's power grid.

Sutherland, whose recent credits include The First Lady and Designated Survivor, said he was intrigued to inhabit a protagonist that was highly skilled yet suddenly found himself in a losing battle with reality. "To have the opportunity to play a character whose entire essence is founded in being in control, only to have that stripped away, and then thrust into a world where up is down, left is right, etc., was very exciting to me," the actor recently told EW. "Also, to have the opportunity to work with [co-creators] John Requa and Glenn Ficarra, who I have so much respect for as directors and writers, made this one of the easier decisions I've had to make."

Check out the trailer — which opens with John perpetrating a bomb threat that Jack Bauer would approve of — and decide if you are in. (Much more intel from Requa and Ficarra can be found here.)

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