Category: 24 (Page 16 of 25)

Scout’s honor: from the moment that Wheelbarrow Wayne said that he was getting out of the bunker to give his press conference, I said out loud, “Oh good, that way you can die on national television.” Come on, you all saw this coming, right? He had all of his ducks in a row. The suitcase nukes were secured, and Senator Roark was planning to resign. As a favor to Jack – and frankly, Wayne did owe Jack, since Jack agreed to be Wayne’s martyr a mere 17 hours earlier – he agreed to a zany plan to extract Audrey Raines from the clutches of the Chinese that involved potentially handing over Russian missile technology to the Chinese. There is no way in hell that the leader of any country agrees to this, of course, but dammit, we have six hours to kill.

Like I said, it was all in the cards. Wayne had to take a fall. And Roark didn’t waste any time swinging his dick around, smacking Karen Hayes on the forehead with it the first chance he got. Big surprise, that, though I did get a big laugh out of his assistant’s reaction when he said, before the President collapsed and Roark was planning on resigning, “At least we’ll have more time to spend together.” She seemed completely repulsed by the idea. That better come into play before season’s end.

The entire time that Jack was making his Draconian deal with the Chinese, I’m thinking, “Tell Buchanan.” Not because I thought that CTU would go along with it, but because I have grown tired of Jack always having to double-deal. When Morris forced Chloe’s hand, I was actually pleased. And when Palmer went down, I knew that the first thing Roark would do was repeal that order. Hell, I would have done the same thing in his shoes. I’m sorry, you want to give the Chinese what, exactly? Um, no. Sorry dude, tough break for your girlfriend. Pity her other TV show was canceled, or she wouldn’t be in this position.

So Jack has gone rogue, whatever the hell that means anymore. Roark has assumed the presidency for the foreseeable future, and I’m guessing his first Presidential act will be to have the Biscuit drawn and quartered on the White House lawn. Chloe has been taken out of the loop as Jack’s lifeline…oh, hell, I’ve already gotten bogged down in more minutiae than the writers have. But if the writers must remember one thing, it’s that we still haven’t forgotten that they have yet to reveal what Wayne had to do to get Jack out of prison in the first place. We won’t suffer flogging as well as Karen Hayes does. In fact, I’m pretty sure the Neilsen numbers already reflect that.

In the space of about two minutes, Jack Bauer dropped a guy with a sharp jab to the back of his knees, and then broke his neck. He then shot and killed about five or six hostiles, all of whom were much better armed than he was. Lastly, he fought hand to hand with Abu Fayed in a slugfest that involved a pipe to the forearm, stabbing, biting off flesh, a headbutt, and ultimately with Jack hanging Fayed with a chain, a la John McClane in “Die Hard.” “Say hello to your brother,” Jack said, which, curiously enough, is something McClane said in “Die Hard with a Vengeance.”

So will someone please explain to me exactly how Jack lost to Indiana Jones in our Badass Bracket? It seemed like a slam dunk to us that Bauer would lay Junior Jones to waste. Not only that, Jack beds way more women. It just don’t add up, I tells ya! But what do we know: McClane is now facing off against Indiana in the Elite Eight, and Jones is beating him too, though by a very slim margin.

Speaking of Fayed’s death scene, I was just waiting for an acting coach to walk on the set, pull a closed fist to his chest and say, “Aaaaaand, scene.” The whole thing seemed rather abrupt. Wait a minute: did I just see the season finale seven episodes early? What the hell is going on here? And then it hit me: the show’s producers realized that they were just as bored with this whole suitcase nuke thing as we are, so they (quickly, rudely) shifted gears. Now that Jack has the nukes, he must turn them over to the Chinese, or they will kill…the heretofore deceased Audrey Raines. Come on, you knew she wasn’t dead. Her other show was canceled! Of course she’s alive!

But more on that in a second: let’s get to the action in the White House. I’m anointing Wayne Palmer the new nickname of Wheelbarrow Wayne, since he clearly needs a wheelbarrow to carry those elephantine onions of his. He’s playing nuclear chicken with a country known for harboring terrorists? Are you kidding me? We all shook our heads last week at how the dove turned into a vulture, but give them credit: that was easily the ballsiest thing Wheelbarrow Wayne has ever done. It’s like the kill-‘em-all philosophy of Senator Roark, only clever. It was a nice touch. Pity that he’ll probably wind up in a coma within 10 minutes of asking Senator Roark to resign.

As for the CTU melodrama, quoth Phil Collins, I don’t care anymore. Milo gets jealous about a comment Nadia makes towards the Ricker. Morris intervenes. Chloe is marginalized more than ever. Yawn. If I’m Mary Lynn Rajskub, I start looking for a way to get my character in the field and “tragically killed.” Seeing Chloe like this is like watching a relative spend years on life support. She deserves better.

So, back to the Chinese.

Little good can come of this, of course. On the plus side, maybe – maybe – we’ll finally find out what kind of deal Palmer struck with the Chinese in order to secure Jack Bauer’s release. Then again, maybe there was no deal to be struck. Maybe the Chinese were playing both Miss Gredenko and Fayed against each other in order to put the Number One Super Spy in play so that he can inadvertently secure the nukes on their behalf. No, that can’t be right: Wheelbarrow Wayne said early on that he paid a high price to have Jack freed. What was it, dammit? Speaking of dammits, tonight’s episode had the funniest ‘dammit’ ever, as Jack is trying to talk to CTU from the bottom of a sanitation truck. Couldn’t he have just sent them a text message once he realized they couldn’t hear him? Heck, I was watching the Cubs home opener today, which a friend of mine was attending, and when I wanted to tell him something, I didn’t even bother calling him: I just sent him a text message. He, of course, called me back, and I couldn’t understand a damn thing he said.

And once again, we STILL don’t know what’s up with Farmer Hoggett, President Buck buck Brawwwwk, Heidi Petrelli, and Jack Jack. Is there some dangerous liaison between Hoggett, Logan, and the Chinese? Do the producers of “24” know that their precious little moneymaker is running out of gas? Will the movie be finished in time for anyone to care? It’s like watching “Lost”: you may have lost of questions, but good luck getting them answered.

…and I couldn’t have picked a better time. Seriously, who knew that doves, when injected with adrenaline, turned into ravenous, psychotic vultures?

Other questions that sprang to mind:

– How many lines did Chloe have this week?

– Why would Miss Gredenko agree to have his own forearm cut off in order to help Fayed escape, only to rat out Fayed’s identity in a bar, then fall to his (supposed) death underneath the pier? As escape plans go, that one, as they say in “Meet the Robinsons,” was not well thought out.

– How many more hours before Senator Roark squashes the Biscuit like a bug?

– Where the hell are President Buck Buck Brawwwwk and Farmer Hoggett?

And lastly…

– Is there any way they can save this season? I’m not saying the show is over — they’ve endured worse story lines than this — but they’re going to need a really special ending (I’m still hoping for a videotape of David Palmer explaining how Wayne isn’t half the innocent he’s perceived to be) in order to wow us.

I now open the floor to you, good readers. Discuss. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go play with my son. See you next week.

Stupid TiVo. I usually plop in front of the TV around 20 minutes into each episode so we can skip the commercials, and as we did it tonight, we noticed that the record light was not on. The DVR thought it was recording the show, only…it wasn’t. “This show is not currently available,” it said. Nor will it ever be. If I were Jack, this is the moment where I’d say “Dammit,” and then torture the dog down the street.

The first thing I see is Jack talking with Brady, who has some kind of learning disability. He’s supposed to give a flash drive to Gredenko in the place of his injured turncoat brother, who’s now helping CTU. Lord have mercy, how many times have they sent newbies to do drops with the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted? For a second, I thought they were going to have Brady suffer an accidental death, but then I realized: they can’t kill the mentally challenged kid. That’s bad karma. Torturing the shit out of Arabs, that’s cool. But you can’t cap the slow guy.

They then cut to the brouhaha over the wrongfully imprisoned Nadia, whose PC was being accessed by remote, therefore absolving her of any wrongdoing. Everyone apologizes to Nadia, Milo shares a painfully awkward and forceful kiss with her, and then everyone gives Nadia her space…

…and Nadia’s about to make them pay for it. Capitalizing on the white guilt they all feel for doubting her, Nadia is in the perfect position to begin the sinister second phase of her infiltration for Fayed. No one would dare question her motives now, for fear of being branded a racist. Even better, she can manipulate Milo nine ways to Sunday for “doubting” her, even when he was absolutely right in the first place and had no idea. Oh man, is this sweet.

For the record, I don’t really think that Nadia will kill Bill Buchanan. I just couldn’t resist the tie-in.

“Let me ask you a question. If I were Commander in Chief and suffered a debilitating accident that left me borderline comatose, what would you do?”

“I’d have you removed from office on the grounds that you were unfit to run the country, then I would hire a covert ops group to have you killed and set up some Islamic extremist group for the fall. Lastly, I’d piss all over your grave and leave a flaming bag of dogshit at your sister’s front door every day for the next 20 years.”

“Congratulations, Noah, you’re my running mate.”

What, the, fuck. This is the most glaring problem with “24” this year. Never in a million, billion, bazillion years would a dove like Wayne Palmer have a warmongerer like Senator Roark as his second in command. Roark clearly doesn’t want to relinquish his authoritah, and that’s understandable. Still, he’s not as smart as Wayne, and Wayne will find a way to make him pay for his transgressions. It’s going to be sweet to watch, even if it kills my Season Five conspiracy theory once and for all.

So what did I miss in the first 20 minutes? Did former President Buck Buck Brawwwwwk bite in en route to the hospital? Did the First Lady of Crazy kill herself out of grief, or craziness posing as grief? Is Old Yeller out for revenge, dunh dunh duuuuuuuunh? Or did they do what I suspect they did, and ignore those plot threads altogether? And don’t forget that Farmer Hoggett is still in play. Did Mark work for Farmer Hoggett? I really don’t know as I’m typing this. Stupid TiVo.

Correction to the Hour 13 blog: the Doom board I found that was so awesome is called “Go 2 It.” I play the ultra-violent version in “God mode,” which gives me the most bang for my buck with no consequences for my inability to actually survive the level legitimately. The sheer chaos on the screen makes me giggle.

This episode brought about a million lyrics from ‘80s pop songs to mind, but I decided to name-check a super-obscure Duran Duran B-side. You know, to bolster my street cred.

Here is what I said last week about the preview for this week’s episode:

As CTU is tracking the “drone” plane that houses one of the suitcase nukes, it is clear to them that someone within CTU is manipulating the action. Is this when they finally play the Nadia/Milo card? Does Nadia sell Milo down the river? Of course she does. Isn’t that what he’s been here for all this time?

As usual, I got it half right. Nadia was indeed fingered as the internal leak that is supplying the satellite intel to the Russian flight simulator, but she maintains her innocence, and has the nerve to dismiss Milo for not believing her. And knowing “24,” it’s safe to assume that she is indeed innocent. They did allow one new girl have a speaking line in this episode. Maybe she’ll be outed as the mole next week. And as much of a cocky jerk as the Ricker is, and as much as he seemed to enjoy choking Nadia, I don’t believe he has the technical savvy to pull such a stunt, his lust for hurting people be damned. Maybe Milo set her up? That’d be a surprise, but it would also be a cheat. Given Eric Balfour’s reputation as a show-killer of Ted McGinley proportions, it’s safe they’re not about to make him a bad guy. It’s one thing to do something that no one expects, but it’s another entirely to do it solely because no one will expect it. Ask David Lynch about that, he knows all about cheating in his movies.

Senator Roark, meanwhile, is one step away from off ripping his clothes, jumping on the table in a crouched position, beating his chest with his fists, shrieking, “WAR! WAR! WAR!” at the top of his lungs, and throwing a pile of feces at Karen Hayes. He’s using the same logic that a high school teacher of mine used once to give me and a classmate a zero on an exam. His proof: we couldn’t prove that we weren’t cheating. Very clever, Mr. Steve Clippinger. Why didn’t you ask me when I stopped beating my girlfriend while you were at it?

Anyway, Roark is doing the same thing, blatantly fitting his square-peg, square-peg, square, square, peg “Killing an Arab” policy into whatever round hole he can find, even when he’s told at every turn that what he’s doing is fucking nuts and he himself knows that he’s making gross assumptions in order to make his case. It all seems like a whole lot of time-killing bluster when you consider the timeline: it’s dark, and the day/season ends in ten hours, which means that this is going to end before you see any daytime shots of riled-up citizens arguing about the civil rights of the Muslim community or the backlash from bombing Fayed and Dr. Bashir’s homeland. It’s all a distraction, people. Let’s move on.

Now, what to make of this whole ‘Audrey is dead’ thing? Is it true? My first instinct was to say that it was bogus, but we have to remember that when they were writing these episodes, they had no idea if “The Nine,” the new show of Audrey Raines actress Kim Raver (who showed all kinds of skin that you only wished she had shown on “24”) was going to be picked up. As it turns out, the show was canned – which is too bad, because it had its merits despite a lack of longevity as a series – so they have the liberty of either leaving her in the ground or bringing her back. And given the number of unanswered questions on the show, I would bet on her showing up in just enough time to make Heidi Petrelli jealous. Speaking of which, was anyone else surprised to see her make a pass at Jack within the confines of CTU? Dr. Romano’s body’s still warm, for crying out loud.

Here’s what I want to know, though, stat: Farmer Hoggett left his son with a cell phone that had President Buck Buck Brawwwwk’s number. Why hasn’t anyone investigated a link between Hoggett and Former President I.M. Weasel? In fact, given that Jack now knows that his father was partially responsible for not only the current day’s events but the assassination of his boy David Palmer – not to mention the framing of Jack for said events – why the hell isn’t CTU using every exhaustible resource to find Hoggett? It’s as if he flew to another planet or something. He’s in Los Angeles, you halfwits! Go get him!

Also, what about the shady group that Mr. Hilary Swank works for? They were the ones that set this whole plan in motion, after all. Don’t think for a second that we’ve forgotten that. Sometimes I feel as though the writers of “24” treat us like cats, that they can jangle keys in our face and we’ll forget about whatever we were thinking about beforehand. That’s not a smart tactic, since cats are fickle and will forget your precious show when they lose interest. All hail the fickle cats!