Season 8, 12-1AM: rising nuclear threat and other memorable moments

The truck is at a weigh station on the Wantagh Parkway?!?!?!?  How hard is it for CTU to get locals working for them who know trucks aren't allowed on the Parkway, so that's gotta be another red herring?  Must be even harder for the writers to hire a local, or even just ask one if this idea works.  (About as hard as it was the first time V came 'round to hire a starving graduate physics student to help them plug some plot holes--IMPOSSIBLE).

So we're at the mid-season, sub-plot cleanup, mini-climax resolution, setup for the next arc of the season part of 24.  The biggest suspense for me for the first 6 hours or so of the day is what's the conspiracy that lies beneath.  Did we see it tonight?  Well, we probably saw it when Jack first said 'nucular' this season (did he pronounce it that way every season?).  Yup, the baddies have their hands on the U235 rods, and they know how to use them!  They also have a mad-on for the US and think they're smart enough to know they'd get caught no matter how they tried to get the rods out of the country.  So, they're gonna try to detonate them in NYC.  This is my surprised face.  What's that you say?  It looks like my normal face?  Hmmm, I guess I'm not as surprised as I expected.  But then again, how surprised can one be when one is expecting.

What do you do when your best laid nefarious plans go awry?  And suddenly your co-conspirators are taking things somewhere you don't want them to go?  And now you're starting to feel all alone?  And threatened.  I tried that one on for size, really trying to imagine the what if.  Give it a moment yourself....

I know, you climb on-board and ask to make a phone call to someone who can help your "friends" take things in a new direction.  And you say, "But I have to call in private."  OK, how deep does this stupidity go?  That they're stupid enough to fall for that one?  That you're stupid enough to think they'll fall for it?  That they're stupid enough to think you're stupid enough to think they're stupid enough?  Sounds like it's "turtles all the way down" or it's the path to madness or both.

But the thought process can impede the enjoyment of 24, and I'm all for turning off the thinking and just being entertained.  So, I'm  totally on-board with president's-brother-who-tried-to-kill-him-and-get-U235-to-take-over-the-country running back (OK, making a phone call) to CTU to save his own hide when his "buds" decide to use the U235 right there, that day!!!  Talk about a weasel.  Somehow he even looks like one.  I tell ya, though, Akbar Kurtha won't get the credit he deserves for his acting in this role, but he brings it.  He makes me believe what the writers are doing to him could actually happen!

And in the spirit of mini-conclusions, Chief Data Analyst LBD is still trying to use the gun instead of her smarts.  At least fiancee Freddy finally gets to take part in the extracurriculars of this sub-plot and show that he deserves to be field OP #1 in the reformulated CTU.  Slimy analyst gets him the 20 on LBD via her cell phone (now they can locate them without even calling them--and track them with an unattended download real time to a PDA?  Sorry, I swore off the barrel fish, so just ignore that).  Fiancee Freddy finds her and stops her before she hurts someone (herself?) while Kev's psycho buddy is off taking a leak.  I have to show my surprised face here--OK, they didn't spot her tailing them because they had their attention on the exotic dancers in the van with them and she had her headlights off (where'd a data analyst learn that trick?), but with all the bright brake lights, the car doors closing, the cars pulling up, the dancers getting fed up and leaving (conveniently), the peaceful silence of a whiz in the woods, the opportunity for LBD to walk up on one and be caught by the other she'd lost track of during the whiz, wow, Fiancee Freddy really is good.  Also pretty amazing fiancee Freddy could get the story from LBD in two sentences ("My name is not Dana, it's Jenny."  And "I'm a convicted felon, but now I'm just a victim of blackmail.").  Is that a testament how good these writers are or how good an agent Freddy is?  (The earlier, "Tell me anything, I'll love you no matter what," and LBD's "You'd do the same thing, wouldn't you?" from this episode probably answers that question for you).

Freddy does a pretty good job of scaring the pants off (not literally, but the dancers couldn't do it either) Kev.  Scared straight?  Not quite, but Kev really seems smart enough to know when he's over his head.  Freddy?  Well, he got most of the acting down for that scene, but at the very end of the confrontation, he left it a little weak.  Psycho partner?  He's pretty good at psycho, and he stabs Kev, heads off after LBD and Freddy because "we have a good deal going with LBD" (shows how pyscho he is--how's he gonna keep that deal going after he kills Kev, LBD, and Freddy?).  Kev, with his next-to-dying breath screams, "Jenny, look out!"  Psycho shoots and misses, LBD musta learned civil defense, Freddy uses the shotgun he took from the van rather than his own gun and that's it for psycho.

But not quite for this sub plot.  Kev still has a breath left, and Jenny/Dana/LBD runs to his side.  OMG, she still has feelings for him.  OK, now this is getting downright awkward (in a Patty Hearst way?).  Wow, will LBD be next season's Renee Walker?

Ha, you thought the Renee subplot was done!  Nope.  Director Dopey continues to live up to his name when President Taylor's flunky (I'd flunk him out of my White House pretty darn fast) wants to make Walker the fall guy, rather than himself.  He convinced Director Dopey that it's either Dopey or Renee going down, and Dopey buys it.  How'd such a spineless dope ever convince him to restart CTU in the first place?  Musta been watching too many seasons of 24 turned his critical reasoning capacity to mush.

But maybe it's winding up.  Jack once again (all but) declared his devotion to her.  Can't guys ever just come out and say it?  (Renee: you said you'd be there for me--I have to know, what did that mean?  Jack: just what it sounds like.  Yup, that clears it up for me.)  And when he had the chance to walk into the sunset again (even though it's now nigh 1 AM), he agrees with Director Dopey to come on full time in exchange for Renee not taking the fall.  Oh, and Jack explains to Dopey how he has more power over the White House than he thinks he does.  Dopey at least made a good reference to last season and how President Taylor sent her daughter to the big house.  One of the best moments for the writers this season.

And another good moment--Jack gets off a line on a par with "be glad I'm retired."  Yeah, it was in the teasers all week, but it was still good to see it live.  Junior CTU guard pulls a gun on Jack, and Jack tells him to "put it away because you don't want to get hurt."  Nice, but Jack isn't as bright as he thinks.  JR lets Jack past, only so he could taser Jack in the back--duh!  Did Jack really think he could just walk out with Renee???

We had a little bit of Chloe mother-henning some more over Renee.  Nice to see her caring side, even though she gets shooed away pretty easily.  And we see her business side when she interrupts Dopey in his private negotiations with Jack for an important phone call.  Dopey hasn't worked with her long enough to know she means it when she means it, but he catches on to that pretty quickly.

And that gave us a chance to see Chloe wrinkle her face up some more as Dopey learned that Freddy was indisposed, leaving Dopey only a second rate field op to go after the weasel.  Jack sees that wrinkled look, too, and he knows what that means--bargaining power for him to spring Renee!  Oh, that was the cutest little smile he had when Dopey said that he had full confidence in his backup field op.  It's little moments like this one that make us love this show.  Seems like this episode was full of these moments.  And now we finally see the purpose of the LBD-Kev-fiancee sub plot!!!  Finishing a complex, intricate puzzle is so fulfilling.  But am I foolish enough to think this is the end of ramifications from that sub-plot?  What, am I wearing my foolish face now?

Cleaning up from an earlier post, we saw Jack talking on the cell phone while driving tonight, but this one was a hands free!!!  (Maybe it was the other time I complained, too--I might have missed that detail back then.)  This guy really is mending his ways, he's not so "ends justify the means" anymore.  Don't forget--he's a grandpa now (or maybe the writers have sensed a change in the political climate). Sphere: Related Content