Bledsoe: “You won’t take the shot, it’s too risky! I’ll kill her before you…”
Jack: *Blam*
Seriously, that was one of the best deaths in “24” history. Here was Toepick, trying to act all intimidating, when Jack was a mere five or six feet away. He may as well have had the gun on Toepick’s forehead. Heck, I’m pretty sure Jack has made that shot across a windy rooftop with a pea shooter in a previous season.
As Jack continues to thwart I.M. Weasel’s nefarious plans, Logan’s conversations with Allison remind me of a “Simpsons” episode – in full disclosure, it should be noted that pretty much everything reminds me of a “Simpsons” episode – where Apu is trying to get out of his arranged marriage to a family friend, and Homer suggests that he pretend that he’s married to Marge, and Bart and Lisa are his kids. When the plan continues to go wrong, Apu finally grows tired of Homer’s wacky schemes:
Apu: Is it me, or do all of your plans involve some horrible web of lies?
Homer: It’s you.
Logan is Homer. Allison is Apu. Only she’s still going along with Logan’s ridiculous suggestions, even though each one is riskier and more conspicuous than the last one. Again, the woman who sent her own daughter to prison is authorizing Logan to put his assistant (official “24” nickname: Dominic, from his “Dollhouse” days) in charge of the hunt for Jack at CTU. Because that doesn’t look at all suspicious that you’re putting someone in between Jack and Chloe. Yumpin’ yiminy.
“Well, I say he does have to shoot me now! So shoot me now!”
There was a time when I hoped that they could come up with a way to take the bad guys down without getting Allison’s hands dirty, but as she continues to acquiesce, I am running out of patience with her. She’s had more than enough time to realize the grievous error in judgment she’s committed, but the problem at this point is that she can’t go back, so the web of lies expands. Still, go back to the beginning of this subplot, and think of Logan and Taylor as exes. Would you take ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ assistance from an ex – a known liar, to boot- even when they assured you that none of it would come back to haunt you? Of course you wouldn’t, because the two of you broke up for a reason, remember? There isn’t a parallel universe on this or any other world where Allison would accept that kind of help from someone like I.M. Weasel, and I’m growing tired of seeing them continue with the ruse.
Now let’s get to the other great death in tonight’s episode. Was anyone else shocked at the remorselessness Jack showed in dispatching Starbuck? Yes, she could not be trusted, and yes, she had killed several innocent civilians in order to facilitate her escape, as well as conceal her cover. And yes, Jack is going to have hell to pay from Buffy, even though Starbuck spared his life when hatching her Plan B to go off the grid. But for someone who said he was only interested in justice, Jack killing an unarmed Starbuck seemed a bit dark, didn’t it? How about chaining her to something and having the police deal with her? If the Russians kill her before she gets processed, so be it. She had her chance to escape on Jack’s terms, and she reneged. But just deciding that she had to die…that’s not going to help his case when he sees what’s on the video file and tries to make his case for, well, overthrowing the government. It seems the smarter play would have been from the Richard Kimble playbook, where you try to keep as many people alive as possible, even when they mean you harm. You’re trying to make a big, big case; it’s a lot easier to do that when there is no blood on your hands.
Only four hours left. I traded messages with onetime “Prison Break” blogger John “You Must Suspend Disbelief” Paulsen about the perils of blogging TV shows, and he told me that when “Prison Break” went off the air, he threw a party. As much as I’ve loved watching this show and writing this silly, silly blog, I’m harboring similar plans. I am grateful to all six of you who have stuck with this blog until the very end, but I’m officially at the point where I cannot wait for this show to be over. And with any luck, our colleague Will Harris will find himself in the same room with Cherry Jones at the next TCA gathering, and I can ask him to get her to talk about how she felt about getting lobotomized mid-season. Hey, at the very least, we might get a good off-the-record story from her on the subject.
In the meantime, I leave you with this clip from the Cranberries’ first album. It seemed to fit, given that Jack put Starbuck down like a dog, but not before putting Toepick down like a rabid dog. Plius, I have been sitting here for about an hour trying to find a clever lyric as a subtitle for this week’s blog, and I’m tired, man. Cranberries it is. Good night.
