In an act of shameless cross-promotion, I am pleased to be the first to inform the world that Bullz-Eye’s upcoming TV Power Rankings poll, that taste-making barometer that can literally make or break a television show these days, has “24” in the driver’s seat, once again. By the end of last season, “24” was in danger of giving the honor away, what with the whole fraidy-cat decision not to kill anyone, combined with President Buck Buck Brawwwwwk’s endless concern over how history would view his presidency.
This year, however, they have wasted no time in whacking people and giving up the true intentions of all concerned. Which brings me to this question: did anyone think that Walt the Weasel would give himself up so easily and, well, so honestly? The funny thing is that you want to say that it is merely a script device that led Walt to confess to Logan that he was working “with” some Russian baddies in order to strengthen America’s stance on terrorism, but in truth I really believe that Walt was naïve enough to think he was in control of the situation, and that President Buck Buck Brawwwwwwk was indeed gullible enough to go along with whatever Walt the Weasel whispered in his ear, since Brawwwwwwk’s legacy mattered more to him than anything else, including his wife.
Still, you have to stop and pause at the whole ‘my wife is nuts’ angle. Granted, I’m lucky in that regard, in that my wife, Buffybot, is in fact way smarter, funnier, and far less nuts than I will ever be, but still, no husband would ever, ever, EVER put his wife away like that, especially the president of the United States. For a guy that is supremely worried about his perception, he sure as hell wouldn’t send his wife to the loony bin solely at the behest of his most trusted advisor. I mean, come on, man, is your thirtysomething, most trusted advisor actually making decisions about the well being of your wife of thirtysomething years? No, of course he’s not.
One astute reader brought up the question about Walt’s cell phone not being monitored by the feds while he was calling the Russian baddies, and that idea came back to roost big time. We have the US government pulling a phone call between First Lady Marty Logan (who is my favorite new character this season, bar none) and former president David Palmer, and yet, they’re not able to catch any of the phone calls Walt makes to his Russian “friends”? Even worse, the Russians are able to tap Mike Novick’s phone, but no one on the government side is either a) capable of doing the same, or b) aware that someone else is listening in, hours after a former President was killed? Come on, people. We’re the United States. We invented sneaky. There is no way that the cell phone of any government employee isn’t tapped, wired, monitored, or emitting some kind of suicide frequency when it’s convenient for us.
But back to the main point: the very fact that Walt the Weasel has been taken off the map so quickly makes me even more sure of my Oliver Stone-esque theory about Wayne Palmer. I know that the previews for this week wanted to suggest that Some Dark Haired Guy That We All Know is going to pop out from behind the couch, but after looking at the couch about a hundred times, I’m pretty sure it’s no one that we know at this point in the series. Not even Tony Almeida, whose melon has the closest match to what they showed in the previews for next week, could possibly be the bad guy. He’s still in intensive care. Who else could it be? Audrey Raines’ ex-husband Paul? He’s dead. Edgar? Not as much hair as the “bad guy,” and a much bigger melon, never mind the fact that he apparently ate Chloe in the offseason. I guess we’ll all just have to tune in to next week, and wait for them to jerk our chains like they always do…though they’re getting much better at jerking chains than they were a couple years ago, and if that means taking the life President Palmer, then, well, I guess certain sacrifices indeed have to be made. We’ll still tune in, won’t we?
Yes, we will.
