Category: 24 (Page 22 of 25)

The producers of “24” are masters at misdirection. And I don’t mean misdirection in terms of twisting the plot in a way that you wouldn’t expect, but in their ability to keep you so enthralled with the events at hand that you never take the time to think: hey, where did half the cast go?

Unless you’re me, anyway. Don’t get me wrong: I’ve been enjoying this season of “24” more than any other, by a country mile. But let’s do a quick rundown of the characters that have conveniently disappeared for at least two episodes now:

– Vice President Leland Palmer
– Wayne Palmer
– Old Yeller
– The Warlock

This, after Mike Novick disappeared for about four hours earlier in the season. Surely, each one of these characters has a role to play. When are they going to play it? And what exactly will that role be? Are they all taking a much-needed nap? The answers to those questions intrigue me more than the events at hand, the whole ‘Sutherlands on a Plane’ thing.

But at least they ended the episode exploring the option that occurred to me the second that Bauer boarded the plane: shoot the damn thing down. It solves every problem. Bauer’s dead, the recording is destroyed, everybody’s happy. Yes, it looks extremely suspicious to everyone else, but the public doesn’t know squat about the day’s events, and the government won’t move an inch without concrete evidence against I.M. Weasel, which is why they fucking better examine the other thing about this plot thread that’s driving our astute readers nuts: play the Goddamn recording so someone else can tape it. This has gone on way too long. Someone, anyone, should have multiple copies of this by now. Hell, CTU should have uploaded it to Limewire and Kazaa for the world to hear by this time, since God knows that’s what someone would have done with a recording of a phone call that Tupac Shakur had with his gardener about how to prune the azaleas. (Note: I am merely speculating on the existence of such a recording. Surely, if such a thing existed, Death Row Records – excuse me, Tha Row – would have put it to a beat and released it as a single. They need the money.)

Forgive me, but I just started geeking out over how sweet it would be if the producers decided to use one of those p2p sites as CTU’s salvation. Of course, they won’t, since Fox owns a movie studio and copying movies is akin to raping your children in the eyes of the Hollywood elite. Still, some indie movie’s gonna use that plot device, and I’m going to laugh my ass off when they do.

We got a small glimpse at President I.M. Weasel’s old fraidy-cat self this week, when Novick was pushing him to give Marty some more drugs. He instantly went into “Buck buck brawwwwwk” mode, but calmed down once he knew what the shot was (“Glengarry Glen Ross,” holla). Suddenly, doping up his wife and giving Novick some cock and bull story about his marriage being a shambles solved a lot of problems. Of course, we’ll see how he feels about that decision when Marty overdoses. Are we all in agreement that that is not an if, but a when?

So anyway, the co-pilot is carrying the recording. Pretty smart, since it puts a locked door between Jack and the bad guy. Of course, Jack finds a way around that – I loved the bit where the one passenger thought he’d go all “United 93” on Bauer, only to nearly get his head blown off – and now they have to find a way to land the plane without getting blown out of the sky. Should be interesting.

Last but not least, mega super monster props to my girl Chloe for doing precisely what I thought she’d do with the drunk letch at the hotel bar. I didn’t want to ruin the moment for Buffybot, but as soon as I saw him, I knew that he would hit on Chloe, and I knew that Chloe would taser him…twice. It all went down exactly how I envisioned it, and it was bee-yoo-tee-ful. If I didn’t worry about Chloe cutting my dick off in my sleep, I’d marry her.

I knew that there were a couple big twists on the horizon, and leave it up to the writers to introduce, in the 19th hour, a whole new group of villains. Who are these people, besides Dr. Robert Romano? (“ER” fans, holla!) Whose interests do they represent, and how exactly is it that the President, the President, is appreciative of their kind, if faint, praise? What, are they Masons or something? Nah, can’t be. They have a black guy in their group. The Masons would never have let that happen.

First, let’s get to what will surely be Eli Cash’s “You Must Suspend Disbelief” moment: James Heller sending his car hurtling headlong into the black, Pacificy goodness. There are so many things that could have gone wrong with a stunt like that, it’s not even funny. Yes, Sydney Bristow survived a similar stunt on “Alias” years ago, but she was driving her car off a pier six feet off the ground and landed on her wheels, as opposed to flying off a gigantic mountainside and landing on her roof. And yet, despite the laundry list of things that could have gone wrong, I’m convinced that Heller is alive, for more reasons than you think.

Audrey Raines has an incredible reserve of inner strength, given the fact that she is supposed to be bleeding to death. Okay, so they explained that Robocop didn’t actually sever the artery that he said he severed, but would someone who isn’t battle trained and has never been interrogated really be strong enough to hold up like that? Dunno, but I was still glad to see the long-missing Curtis come in and save the day.

But I wasn’t nearly as glad about that as I was to see Karen Hayes come to her senses and warn Buchanan that the Feds were coming to collect Chloe, after she discovered that he was harboring her. Good for Miles for being the blindly loyal lapdog that surely would have made Chief of Staff in President I.M. Weasel’s administration (I reserve the right to give Logan a new nickname every week). But he’s letting his vendettas get in the way of what’s important, and it’s good to see Hayes realize that.

And then, we have the scene at the airport, where they apparently check the underneath of all service vehicles, but don’t bother with checking the roofs, which are, hello, much, much easier on which to find a good place to hide. As a result, we have a scene not unlike Bill Murray’s bank robbery in “Groundhog Day,” beautifully timed and completely preposterous. But hey, it gives us Sutherlands on a plane. And you know what Samuel Jackson would say if he knew that there were Sutherlands on a plane.

Meanwhile, Old Yeller was “reassigned,” in the middle of the night. Marty may indeed be nuts, but this looks fishy from every possible angle. Leaving his cell phone behind? And Logan still lets Marty go even though she’s extremely suspicious and tells I.M. Weasel that she hates him? Nope, an already paranoid President doesn’t make that mistake. He either locks her up, dopes her up, or kills her with a Russian weapon. That way, it can look like retaliation for the events earlier in the day.

So back to Big Dick Heller: I found his actions last week/hour highly suspicious, given the manner in which he ambushed Jack. Maybe he has more to hide than we thought. Perhaps Robert Romano and friends are answering to Heller? Perhaps he did jump out of the car out of sight of our view but not out of the view of Robocop’s men…and they’re okay with that? Too many possibilities, but one thing’s for sure: don’t ever assume that when you see someone die, they’re actually dead. After all, even Michael Vaughn, who was shot about 750 times, showed up on last week’s “Alias.”

And that reminds me: where the hell is Wayne Palmer? Buchanan took him in, right? We haven’t seen the guy since he got into Bill’s car. There’s no way he’s sleeping through this. So where is he? You can get away with that kind of misdirection for an hour, but not for two hours. Billy’s got some ‘splaining to do.

I really need to stop anticipating the actions of the next episode, because my average is looking like Barry Bonds’ stat line. My latest (faulty) prediction was that James “Big Balls” Heller was in on the plot, and that he came to set Logan back on track. Of course, Robocop obtained the recording at the most convenient time, right when Logan was about to announce his resignation in front of VP Leland Palmer, and President Zen wasted no time turning the tables and demanding Heller’s resignation instead.

But there are still two things about Heller that are bothering me. For starters, the way that he ambushed Jack after Jack gave him proof that Logan was behind the day’s events, punching him in the face and preaching about responsibility, seemed a little off to me. Even if Heller’s words made sense, his actions didn’t. They seemed forced, like he was reading a speech, and never mind the fact that he just had not only Jack but his own daughter ordered to be tied up in an empty airplane hangar. WTF? Secondly, we have to remember that the schematic of the natural gas plant was encrypted on DOD software, which still points us to one of the two Hellers.

Okay, one last thing: when Heller was talking to Chicken Little about what Logan had done – with Logan confessing everything – he held his arms folded across his chest, with his coat in his arms, and he refused to shake the President’s hand. Was I the only one that thought he was holding a recorder of his own underneath that coat? And who knows, maybe he was, and he just didn’t want to let on while Logan’s goons were escorting him off of the premises.

And if Heller doesn’t prove to be Logan’s undoing, there are about half a dozen people who could be. Mike Novick, who’s been inexplicably absent the last few hours – shooting a scene for the “Sin City” sequel? – gets a tip from Karen at HTU that Logan’s acting not funny ha-ha but funny different, and after a chat with a military general, he realizes that Logan has just lied to him about the “special forces” going after Bauer. Novick asks Logan about it, gets a Samwise Gamgee-esque “I don’t like your tone” reply, and immediately knows that Something Is Up. Little does he know that he has a support group all around him.

If only they don’t come up missing. Marty presses Old Yeller for info, and Old Yeller tells Marty that he’ll meet her behind the stables (as soon as those words left his lips, I thought, “Uh oh”), and when Marty goes to meet him and he’s not there, she calls his cell…and hears it ring right next to her. Did Old Yeller get hijacked, or was his coyness part of a bigger plan to get Marty out of the way? Until I have irrefutable proof that Old Yeller is rabid, I will assume that he’s still a good dog. But where did he go?

Buchanan was finally brought back into the mix, taking in Wayne Palmer and even Chloe after she snaked Miles’ keycard from him (oh, the irony). Chloe’s confrontation with Harrassment Girl was a joke, since she’s clearly a company player and would have done whatever HTU wanted, evidenced by her wearing a wire to implicate Chloe in the first place. One question, though: why didn’t we see Wayne Palmer at Buchanan’s place? And how on earth did Chloe even get out of the HTU parking lot? They had to have known she was gone within a matter of minutes. They’re making this martial law thing a mockery.

Lastly, there’s the exchange between Robocop and Jack over the recording and Audrey. What a stone cold motorscooter Robocop is for handing over Audrey, but only after severing one of her arteries and giving her minutes to live. Jack used to work for this guy. This guy tazered him and, hello, tried to blow him up just a few hours ago. How on earth did Jack think that any negotiation with Robocop would be on the level? Even Audrey’s going, “Don’t do it, Jack!” Still, they show a shot in the scenes for next week with Audrey holding a gun to Robocop’s head, but we all saw what happened the last time someone tried to kill him. The girl’s bleeding to death. She has to be pretty weak.

So many lives in the balance. There are hints that Marty’s been disposed of. We don’t know what happened to Old Yeller. Audrey is bleeding to death. Big Balls is being forced to resign. They still haven’t dealt with the unconscious Warlock, who may be able to implicate Logan in a way that he hadn’t anticipated. But then again, Logan never anticipates anything, does he? Buffybot and I were laughing out loud when Logan was openly dismissing all of the advice Mike Novick had given him earlier in the day. Well, sure, Cluck Cluck Chuck, if you had ever wanted to do the right thing at any point during the last 18 hours, then he could have helped you. Pity you were too busy laying siege on your own country.