Season 8, 3-4AM: Back in the Saddle

For those old fogeys:



Or maybe those older fogeys:



24 might have finally found his legs again. We got a kidnapping, a ransom, a feint (how come the terrorists are smarter than all of CTU, including Jack this time? More on that later, I hope), a head of state and a daughter, a bank vault, an internet feed, aerial drone coverage of the baddies that's almost good enough (I love the drones idea this season, but it looks like the writers aren't using it much different from how they've used traffic light cameras in LA--giving just enough info to tease us, but not enough to help Jack get to the baddies in time. This newfangled technology doesn't look like it's much of an improvement over the older stuff--kinda like the address book on a cell phone compared to pencil and paper--but maybe if you combine the drones and the traffic cameras you could get the best of both!), Energizer bunny subplots (Dana and Freddy), and CTU compromised by the baddies. Now we're cooking!

Except the only "ends justifying the means" that Jack gets to do is (arguably) stomp over a corner of the 4th Amendment--which gives him his only chance to do more with his gun that brandish it, even if it's when only his friends are around--he blows away a defenseless plate glass door to a bank so he can get in and look around. And he is such a bad influence--he gets Freddy to help him, without all that hand-wringing Renee did last season (4 years ago show time--a lot can change in 4 years). Too bad Janice isn't around anymore to give him a chance to patronizingly justify his actions. Too bad Jack doesn't get to interact directly with baddies anymore. I guess they've wised up to what happens when he gets near them.

Jack spends most of this hour driving a big gas-guzzling SUV while talking on the hands-free (he's become sensitized to his over-use of torture and cell phones while driving this season but not his contributing to global warming, yet).  Oh yeah, and being right most of the time (but either too late or "Casandrized")--telling New York's finest to set up a perimeter rather than trying to catch Tarin themselves (ooops, they try, Tarin escapes, and otherwise innocent cops are red-shirted), realizing Tarin was playing them because he wouldn't be using THAT staircase (oops, Jack wasn't sharp enough to realize Tarin had help coming--if only the cops had set up that perimeter), telling the Islamic president the pres to sacrifice his daughter because he is responsible for the threat to Jack's country (yeah, self-righteously arguing with a henpecked Islamic president who's daughter is held by terrorists is gonna work), realizing (only after Chloe's facial recognition picked up Tarin after Kayla said he was dead) that the terrorists let Kayla escape so she could get a bomb into CTU that would disable the city's nuclear defenses (oops, too late, it goes off, after Jack asked Cloe to stay in there to help him--she did some good facial shrivels after that request.  I guess it's only fair after he wouldn't help her out in the first hour that she should risk her life for him.  Good thing the bomb was only an EMP, which wiped out CTU's technical capability but not its personnel).  Was it a nice touch that as the EMP ticked to under 10 a no-name CTU guard says, "I can drive it out in time," but doesn't make it?  Nice in that finally a timer goes off doing damage rather than counting down to 1 before everyone is saved.  24 getting back to its roots again in that--no way they'll (the writers) will go there--but they do!

But here's a theme that though it wouldn't have helped this storyline, I was thinking about.  Pres is supposed to give up a file in 15 min for the safety of his daughter.  One thing I'm wondering is why give him 15 min?  If you think he has it, why give him that much time to produce it?  It only serves to provide an opportunity for drama!  Oh, wait, I get it--the writers needed to inject some suspense and drama into this episode!  And to tell us how much time is gonna pass while they do it.  (But on to the theme I had in mind.)  OK, Pres OKs it.  Jack's smart enough to say CTU will prepare a dummy file.  Pres says terrorists will figure that out pretty fast.  Jack says it'll at least buy some time.  But from past seasons we already know Jack is smart enough to have a back-up idea, isn't he (didn't we learn that's SOP for CTU)?  Prepare 2 dummy files, so that when the baddies think they've seen through your 1st ruse, they'll be less suspicious when you send the second one!  But that leads me to wonder when Jack will need 3 or 4 or more dummy files.  More turtles all the way down?

But that wouldn't have helped, as we learn at the end that the whole idea was to get the EMP bomb into CTU.  Now, how many of you out there thought CTU would direct Kayla right to them?  Another barrel-fish, sorry.  And now I'm wondering, how are the baddies gonna confirm that CTU is down before they try to get the dirty bomb into Manhattan?  And if the bomb is already in Brooklyn, why do they have to get it into Manhattan?  Didn't we already learn from TV that Brooklyn might make a worthy target?



Ah, but here's where that EMP has helped out.  Parole officer Root is hounding Dana for video of Kev's robbery of the evidence locker.  OK, there's the why is this Louisiana nobody allowed to roam CTU during a national emergency, but let's chalk that up to his downhominess and dissembling nature, though he does get under Dana's skin, like any good detective closing in.  But now that the EMP took out CTU, Dana doesn't have to--can't possibly--come clean and give him the video.  Looks like Dana and Freddy will get to ride off happily into the honeymoon sunset.  Those terrorists finally help out the good guys.

Sorry, it took me all week to get to this this time 'round.  Thank goodness for the internet.  But watching episodes on the computer prevents me from seeing my favorite part of each week--scenes from next week!  Now, I can hardly wait till Monday so I can see what I would have seen already at the end of this week! Sphere: Related Content