Season 8, 10-11AM: I'm hungry

The elephant in the room when you watch 24 is when do they go the bathroom (well, this is TV after all, and only Archie Bunker goes to the terlet--unless there's a chance for suspense in the airport restroom), when do they sleep, when do they eat???  Jack's been up for over 24 hours already I'm guessing (everybody else pretty much, too, unless they're dead), and OK he took 5 minutes off to have sex, but the only other bodily function he's taken care of is breathing.  Come on, get real here!

Look, I've climbed Tahquitz, this climb many times--I'll take you up it if you want.  I know if I don't at least snack once on the way up, I get loopy, and you don't want to get loopy a couple hundred feet above the pine trees.  Can Jack really afford to let that happen to him when he's packin' serious heat, has serious heat aimed at him, is disobeying the President (treason?), has the fate of the US, let alone world peace in the balance?  So, when he calls Sidewinder (and many more colorful characters) (that's why I love this show--all the great actors it pulls outta nowhere!) and demands repayment for a favor consisting of all sorts of weapons and spy gear, then stops by to pick up the gear (declaring the debt still due), why doesn't he ask for even a granola bar?  Or at least a Tigers Milk?

But Jack's too focused to realize he's running on empty.  He stuffs all his stuff into a pig bigger than anything I'd ever want to jug up a big wall (OK, that's a pretty geeky link) and heads off into an ambush Chloe has set up for him.  Doesn't he know her better than that?

Of course he does.  Doesn't Chloe know him better than that?  Of course not.  And Jack turns the tables on Freddy without killing any of the good guys.  He sets it up like he's been captured for Chloe's benefit, convinces Freddy to help him (when Jack's first lame attempt doesn't work--"What if you're wrong, Jack?"  "I'm not"-- Jack slides the gun to Freddy and tells him to decide, a ploy that worked very well, on both Freddy and me--it makes sorta sense because if Jack needs Freddy's help to succeed, if Freddy decides taking Jack in is the best path, Jack might just as well give up anyway), and they head off together because Jack can't do it alone--there's another whopper I have to believe or else I'll give up on this show.

But now's not the time to give up on it.  Now, they're getting to the really good stuff.  Like Dana getting a chance to come into her own.  The baddies have her, and though the President told them to use gentle persuasion first and resort to the rough stuff only if the easy stuff fails, they're opting for the tough stuff from the start--waterboarding.  This show is so cutting edge.  Showing that only the baddies, even when under the auspices of the goodies who have sorta turned bad, use waterboarding.  No more torture for Jack.

Seems, though, that Dana should be prepped for this.  OK, she looks all scared (great make-up job, too), and at 1st says she doesn't know anything.  They proceed nonetheless.  So here's where she should start using her back-up stories (what, she doesn't have any?  What kinda spy is that without contingency plans out the ying yang?).  Here she should show them just how unreliable torture is.  Start telling them any story you can think of!  They go check it out, when it's wrong, what are they gonna do, torture you some more?  OK, so tell them something else.  If they don't believe you, they're admitting their methods don't work, but they've so bought into them, that they have to believe.

OK, that's as much as I want to get into the head of a torturer.  Thank you very much, 24.  But at least it's taught me to always have at least one back-up plan/dummy plant.

I bet if Jack had her, he'd be doing something not nice to her.  Last they were together he bashed her head against a table.  She's a softy because that's all it took for her to try to deal.  Jack's a softy, too, because he took her deal rather than try to beat the info out of her.  And he fell for that one twice!  She knows she has Jack wrapped around her finger.  That's why as the baddies are taking her away from CTU, she's pleading with Chloe to let Jack have her.  What other season has anyone preferred Jack's torture over anyone else's?  Jack's rep is so blown since he's a grandpa.

This is still great 24 for other reasons.  First, actually last, at the end of the episode, Ethan tells Charles that if Charles steers Taylor wrong, Ethan will make Charles pay.  Charles says, "Is that a threat?"  Ethan says it's a warning.  And that just makes me wonder all over again, what is the difference between a threat, a warning, and a promise?  Just why do you ask someone, "Is that a threat?"  Is it because you want to know?  Or are you making threat back?  And I mean in the real world here, not the land of 24.  Because in TV-land, the reason you have that stupid back and forth is to add drama or suspense.  But in the real world?  I just don't get the distinction.  Do you?

And we have more fun, too.  Last week we learned that Taylor would hide the truth about a terrorist attack for her peace deal, even if under no reasonable construction that idea makes sense.  This week we learn that we were right, it was a stupid idea.  President Taylor learns it, too, but rather than listening to her closest adviser and friend, she goes with that weasel, whom she knows is a weasel, Charles and tries to hide the truth some more (hence the baddies absconding with Dana, well sort of absconding because they took her with Chloe's blessing and though they didn't know it, Chloe knows where they went).  Charles is so good at looking stupid, but we're coming to believe he had this scenario all figured out.

Taylor is just running faster and faster down the slope to self-destruction.  Ethan sees it happening, tries to talk her out of it, she tells him she's made up her mind, and he resigns.  Some friend he is.  More like a rat fleeing a sinking ship.  A real friend, even after having a heart attack, would find some way, some less direct way, to help her do the right thing.  But please, let's have not one more person tell her, "You're doing the right thing."  I think she as well as we have already figured out that anybody saying that is simply happy she's doing what they want her to do, which is not always the right thing!  (Like the salesperson saying, "She'll love that sweater," even though the salesperson doesn't even know her!)

And to show us that she's fully bought into the peace deal, in her UN speech she says the peace deal is more important than anything else.  Which we kinda knew already because after last episode when she hides the terrorist plot for the sake of the deal, this episode she authorizes torture for peace.  Looks like Jack's taught everybody his brand of justification--I'm right so any way I can get my way is right, just so long as I get my way.  Hence his trying to convince Freddy to follow him simply because he says he's not wrong.  Duh!  Why does he have to even say it?!!!  (Must be for the benefit of new viewers.)

Five hours left.  Looks like Dana escapes next week.  I sure hope she lasts another couple weeks.  We've invested a lot in her.  Watched her simper for weeks.  Let's see her really start showing more than just sparks of competence.  She has so much more potential here.  And Taylor.  Charles telling Ethan at the end of the episode that Taylor's smarter than the both of them.  Ooooch he's smarmy.  But I'm hoping he's also right.  Taylor's not been herself this season.  I'm hoping here that she's got more upstairs than she's showing.  She bought into Charles's story waaaay too fast.  With so many twists and turns in this show, I just can't believe she's not brighter than that.  She always has been.  Drat.  I thought I'd checked my disbelief at the door! Sphere: Related Content