Pausing finally to think about it at the end of the day today
(5/14/14), I could have thought I was in an episode myself today—out-of-control
fire by the airport at my doorstep:
I survived, no doubt having learned a few tricks of the
trade from Jack. He provides more than just good entertainment.
One, perhaps arbitrary and inaccurate, measure of good
entertainment for me: heart rate. I find myself getting excited and my heart
racing in anticipation watching 24. Hence, the “inaccurate,” because the metric occurs
before the event, meaning I’m relying on the known-fallacious
reasoning of induction (ironic
characters interspersed in that post? Ask the experts and the crowd if that’s irony?). On
the other hand, once I’m caught up in the episode and my heart rate increases,
there’s a more accurate metric. This episode got my heart rate up.
I often wonder why when that happens—I know it’s a TV show,
I know the people aren’t real, why do I care enough to drive physiological
change about something that doesn’t matter? Expand that thought—sports events
involving teams I choose to care about get my heart rate up. Why do I identify
with a team? I recognize the act as a choice, a rational choice, and I
recognize that my caring carries not one whit of influence, and the result
might as well be fiction to me for how far I am away from affecting it or it
playing a role in my life and how distant the participants are from my life.
Yet I’m moved.
Here, look at Floyd
Landis’s Tour de France “victory.” His defining stage
win, after “cracking” on the Alps’ previous stage and losing the yellow
jersey, he plans and executes a miraculous victory of epic proportions in the
next stage. Am I inspired by that? Yes, it still gives me chills. I still feel
the power of his passion, his desire, his will, his figurative and literal ascent from the depths of despair and loss to crowning achievement. Was he on testosterone? Drug
tests say so. Do I care? Not especially—it’s
still inspiring. Do I care? Well, yes, he “cheated.”
But I can’t relate to any of it directly—is Floyd a real
person? I don’t know, never met him or anyone claiming to. Is the Tour real?
Ditto. What does testosterone do for athletes? I don’t know. Doping and PEDs
(like most of life) is a simple subject only if you don’t think about it. How
do you determine what’s unfair doping, what’s not? In the end, I, the layman,
rely on the “arbiters of the sport.” And here again, I don’t know them, so I
have to trust their judgment. Are they even real? Do I hear the call of solipsism? For sure. And for me, this path is gnarly.
And most of Jack’s predicaments seem gnarly, too. Maybe
that’s what gets my heart rate up. And here again trust plays a role—trust of
the writers. I trust that they’ve made a rational world otherwise I
don’t suspend disbelief and get wrapped up in the happenings. So, although I
complain at times about continuity or things that don’t make sense (the tiny
mental lapses that the characters say show Pres. Heller’s loosing it), I let
that stuff go. At least on the emotional, heart rate level.
Sorry, though, 2 days from show, I don’t remember what got
my heart rate up.
But I do remember seeing some of the things that keep me
liking 24. Intrigue. Surprisingly little of it within the US intelligence this
season, so far. That’s a bit disappointing, but perhaps that’s just falsely sensed
security. All we got on that front in this episode is BG telling DQ that he
thinks she’s really sharp. Then asking how come she didn’t know hubby was a
spy. She says she wonders, too. Wow, that’s all it takes to make up? Not even a
kiss?
And I do wonder about her makeup. She’s looking as
rough-skinned in close-ups this episode as last, even though I see lipstick and
eyeliner. I don’t know what that incongruity is all about—CIA field agent in
make-up? Lead actor with splotchy skin but otherwise made up? OK, it’s not
possible to completely suspend my disbelief. I’d get you a shot or two of her,
but all I find online looks airbrushed up. So, you’ll have to watch for
yourself. At least till I have the time to find some good representative images.
No, the intrigue is in the terrorists. Yup, Mummy is Mummy,
and daughter escapes Jack with the device back to Mummy. Mummy asks daughter if
she’s sure she wasn’t followed. Daughter says, “Yup,” and somehow I feel that’s
not good enough, but Mummy lets her slide. Mummy reunites daughter with middle
eastern hubby who seems none too pleased
to see wifey, even with wifey saying, “I love you” in his language. Mummy gives
MEH a private talking to, telling him that wifey had to be close with other men
for the sake of the mission, as ordered by her. MEH doesn’t look any more
pleased, and behind closed doors he pours himself a strong one and confides with passionate
wifey that he’s having uncomfortable thoughts about all the people, innocents,
who’ll die because of their plans. Wifey says it’s no big deal once you kill
your first man.
And now I wonder—was the knife in the ear she gave the
device maker in the last episode her first? The one that when Jack saw the dead
guy he said, “professional”?
But that terrorist intrigue strikes me as new—I don’t
remember it much from other seasons. Albeit this seems formulaic to me—MEH
with a conscience can’t last long there, especially with Mummy watching the whole thing on CCTV.
The other intrigue? Pres. Heller’s chief of staff forges his
name on the order to extraordinarily render Jack (if caught). The
disappointment here is that the White House staff doesn’t look big enough to
sustain much intrigue.
The really good part of this episode: Pres. Heller going
before British Parliament. He gets behind lectern, says, “Ladies and
gentlemen,” and both a “gentleman” and a “lady” immediately interrupt him with
rude questions that he doesn’t answer. At least they took turns. Chief of Staff and Prime Minister exchange glances. And that’s the
end of that scene. So, now I’m looking forward to Heller giving them, er, what
for in the next episode—especially because next week’s scenes didn’t show me
that scene!
We had some close-ups
of Chloe this week, showing vulnerability, reminding me/us she used to have a
kid. She sees a kid who reminds her she used to have a kid, who died. She gets
teary-eyed (tough to tell with all that goth makeup), misses wifey’s escape
from subway, giving Jack the slip. Jack’s upset Chloe lost concentration, she
explains why and starts crying, Jack immediately turns to much mush, tries to
comfort her, succeeds, they’re all happy again (well, happy in 24 means
unemotional), and head back to team-Assange
(Chloe’s cohorts) for support in Jack’s backup plan.
Jack wants to break into some security compound—I can’t
remember if it’s Brit or US, but I think US. With demonstrators outside.
Assange-leader sabotages Jack’s hastily made-up credentials. Hey, here my heart
rate speeds up…. But Chloe and Jack figure it out at about the same time as
guard checking it does. Jack creates a diversion by shooting some demonstrators
and yelling, “They’re shooting at us!”; then he sneaks into the compound—see?
Jack always gets what he wants. No need for my heart to have raced when his
cover is about to blow as fast as it was ginned up.
So, he’s in. And those who don’t like spoilers, don’t watch
scenes from next week’s show, should stop reading now. Because the scenes tell
me that getting out will be harder than getting in. Wow, will my heart stop
beating, oops, stop beating so fast, before I find out in the next episode?
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