The last ten minutes of the tonight’s episode of “24” almost completely erase the lazy conveniences of the season’s first three hours and 50 minutes. This, quite simply, is how last night’s show should have ended, and I can’t imagine that it would have been any more difficult to manufacture the conflict (another phrase patent pending by the former Eli Cash) that delayed the plot up to this point after the bomb went off than it would have been to do so beforehand. Picture the first two hours of “24” ending with the death of Curtis (more on that later) and the detonation of a nuclear bomb in Los Angeles: wouldn’t that have been spectacular? You bet your ass it would have. And if a simple caveman like me can see that, why couldn’t the producers?
Once again, Fox gives us an empty promise with the whole “something will happen that will change everything” tease from last night. Curtis was as good as bagged and tagged from his first minute onscreen this season, and it had nothing to do with the “Simpsons”-esque eye darting he did every time Hamir Al-Assad’s name came up: It was because the two words preceding his name in the credits were “Guest Starring.” In the “24” universe, that’s code for “short life expectancy.” If you need any clarification, you can ask Kal Penn, who was also quickly dispatched after taking Aaron Burr, Mrs. Burr and Baby Ben McKenzie hostage. And speaking of that whole ordeal: is there really a chance in hell that her case falls into Bauer’s hands that quickly? I have to think that the local police probably get calls like that by the ton – especially if terror attacks are occurring that frequently – and they wouldn’t dare to burden the Feds with every call that came in to their 911 call center. That was a stretch of Elastigirl proportions.
So we learn that “visitor” is code for weapon, and we learn from the illegally detained but nonetheless traitorous foreigners (as tempting as it is to offer some personal political commentary on that subplot, I will refrain) that there are in fact five visitors waiting to make their formal introduction. Here’s the part that I’m confused about, though: as the master bomb maker was connecting the suitcase nuke to the detonator, the Feds came in, guns a-blazing. Fayed ordered him to set off the weapon at once, which he did, and that was cool. But wouldn’t that mean that Fayed was killed in the blast? I could swear that the scenes for next week’s episode showed him with the other four “visitors,” threatening to detonate all of them within the hour. If that’s true, then I have two questions: how was he able to escape the blast radius, and how is he going to set off the other four bombs? He just waited four hours for the first detonator. Where does he think he’s going to get four more detonators in an hour’s time?
I will give them credit for the dynamic they’ve set up between Wayne Palmer and the Biscuit. The Biscuit clearly does not see eye to eye with Palmer on, well, anything, but he is much more diplomatic and cooperative than previous “24” White House chicken hawks have been…which means that he is probably the least trustworthy of them all (notice how he intervened between President Palmer and his recently fabricated “sister”). I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
Lastly, we must discuss the ridiculous ad promoting the fact that these first four episodes of “24” will be available on DVD on Tuesday. Who on earth absolutely must own the first four episodes of “24” right this very second? Never mind the fact that the episodes weren’t that good: are we really so consumed by instant gratification that we can’t wait until the entire season is released on DVD next year? More importantly, aren’t our landfills overflowing as it is? “The Simpsons” joked about this years ago, when they did a pan across a landfill to an empty space, where there was a sign that said, “Reserved for DVDs.” That’s not a joke, my friends: that is prophecy.
President Wayne Palmer (any chance they’ll explain how a former Chief of Staff ascended to the White House in 20 months?) springs Jack Bauer from the clutches of the Chinese in order to use him as collateral in exchange for the whereabouts of the man behind the numerous bombings taking place all over the country. What does this say about the effectiveness of the US government? For things to get this bad, they would have to be either incompetent or corrupt on a scale that this country has never known, which makes the premise a tad hard to swallow. Picture the government offering to allow terrorists to kill you because they have no other scenarios to stop the attacks. The former Eli Cash would call this a You Must Suspend Disbelief moment, and he wouldn’t be wrong.
The most egregious, preposterous character addition, on the other hand, has to be the introduction of Regina King as Sandra Palmer, the sister to Wayne and David Palmer that, mysteriously, had never existed before today. Would it have been so hard to make her a half-sister or an ex-wife? Perhaps a hooker with a heart of gold? Anything but a blood relative to David Palmer. That’s insulting to both his memory and ours.
– The U.S. government, somehow, managed to secure the release of Jack Bauer from the torture-happy Chinese.
– Wayne Palmer is now President of the United States.
– Everyone and his brother is guest-starring on “24” this season.
– Official Bullz-Eye girlfriend Chloe O’Brien is now a brunette.
