Category: 24 (Page 23 of 25)

Seems Jack Bauer will be tormenting terrorists and disregarding direct orders from his superiors for at least a few more years. Kiefer Sutherland, who was settling for roles in films like “Beat” opposite Courtney Love before falling ass backwards into “24,” has reportedly inked a three-year deal with 20th Century Fox Television, a contract that also includes a two-year development deal for Sutherland’s soon-to-be-launched production company.

Details on the deal were sketchy, but sources pegged the acting portion alone at more than $40 million for the three seasons, which could make Sutherland the highest-paid actor in drama series…. Under the pact, Sutherland also will be elevated from a co-executive producer to executive producer on “24” next season alongside Joel Surnow, Robert Cochran, Howard Gordon and Evan Katz.

Sutherland has been quoted as saying that his five years on “24” have been “one of the most creative and rewarding experiences in my career.” Not to mention “resuscitative”.

I would claim that I’m a prophet, but the truth is that until a couple weeks ago, which is a good two and a half years in TV time after I originally made my prediction, I had no right whatsoever to suspect Audrey Raines as a baddie. I picked her last season because Jack showed a weakness for bad girls in the past (Nina Meyers), and the situation involving the abduction of her father, then Secretary of Defense James Heller, provided decent cover for a bad girl.

That being said, I will now proudly refer to my post on February 20, where I said:

“The better bit was when the chip that Nathanson gave Jack to track the canisters was formatted with DOD software. That points a bony finger in Audrey’s direction. Or who knows, maybe even her father, former Secretary of Defense James Heller. I find this amusing as well, since Audrey was my dark horse bad guy pick last year. I was wrong then, of course, but how funny would it be if I were right in the end? Yeah, I know. It’s not gonna happen. “

Unless, of course, it does happen. Guess who gave up the schematics to whatever facility the Warlock is about to gas? Yep, our little Audrey, allegedly. Of the myriad of questions that remain, my first is: what is the building in the schematic? I’d say the L.A. subway, but everyone knows that no one rides the subway in Los Angeles. Who knows, maybe it’ll end where it started, at Ontario Airport. The irony is not lost on me that Jack has to interrogate yet another girlfriend, and of course he’s going to be harder on her than he was on Nina. Will he kill Audrey, only to find out that she’s innocent? Sure, why not? Jack doesn’t have enough on his conscience as it is.

My dark horse from this year, Wayne Palmer, showed up to give a “valuable piece of information” to Old Yeller. Palmer’s entrance, however, was intercepted thanks to the curfew instituted by “President Logan” (it was clearly orchestrated by Vice President Leland Palmer, who couldn’t help but grin like a Cheshire cat at Marty Logan once it had taken effect). VP Leland Palmer, of course, lets Wayne into the compound, and the second he did, I said, “Ambush.” Man, I hate it when I’m right like that. I’ll be curious to see if they whack both Wayne Palmer (who survived the first attempt on his life) and Old Yeller. If they do, I hope the producers know there will be hell to pay for it.

At the same time, you have to admire the producers’ willingness to get rid of anyone and everyone for the sake of exciting television, which is a rarity these days. President Palmer, Edgar, Tony, Michelle and Rudy Gamgee (how I didn’t think of this nickname first, I’ll never know, but all credit goes to my stepbrother Tony for that) are dead. Audrey is fingered as a spy. Kim is under the spell of a really bad psychiatrist. How much more upside down can you turn Jack’s life from what it was a mere 13 hours ago?

Anyway, Desmond (“Lost” fans will get that reference) shows up as a Ralph Fiennes-circa-“Strange Days” English spy working for the Germans who’s also trying to bring in our information broker femme fatale. Jack makes a Faustian deal to get the girl, only to temporarily screw the agent, something that will surely come back to haunt him during the off week when Marty Logan’s poker face doesn’t come back to haunt her when the Suvarovs exact their revenge for not telling them they were about to be killed. So we have a lead – an internal one, no less – so my big questions at this point are:

– Who knew that Jack was still alive? All along, the plot has survived on the understanding that someone else outside of Tony, Michelle and Chloe knew that Jack was still alive. Who the hell was it? There are a ton of people who could have known – Bill, Audrey, Edgar, Wayne, Old Yeller, Logan – but how many of them would have set today’s events into motion? Leland Palmer may look like a villain, but it would be a total cheat if they write up some heretofore imaginary background involving him with any of the above characters. Audrey, however, makes much more sense. Jack tortured her husband Paul, who wound up dying in order to save Jack’s life. You wanna talk about “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned”? It doesn’t come any more gift-wrapped than Audrey. She had the means, and she had the motive.

– Why is VP Leland Palmer so eager to see Wayne Palmer sleeping with the fishes? What could Wayne Palmer possibly have to justify using a government strike force to take out a former member of a presidential cabinet? Sounds like treason, doesn’t it? But then again, if the scenes of next week’s episode are any indication, it is Robocop that is most curious to see Wayne Palmer sleeping with fishes. Strange bedfellows, indeed, Leland Palmer and Robocop.

Then again, I might know exactly why everyone in the know – President Buck Buck Brawwwwk, of course, hasn’t a fucking clue what is going on – wants Wayne Palmer on ice. In my second blog from this year, I said:

“Look for a secret tape of President Palmer to surface midseason, revealing clues to the day’s events.”

Perhaps that is what Wayne wanted to deliver to Old Yeller, since he didn’t know that Jack Bauer was alive. And yes, I know that saying that invalidates my dark horse theory of this year. But knowing my predictions, that means that Wayne will be next year’s baddie. You heard it here first.

This is getting ridiculous. Has President Buck Buck Brawwwwk ever said no to anyone’s idea? Besides his wife’s, that is?

First he lets Walt the Weasel talk him into shipping his wife off to the loony bin when she starts interfering with Walt’s misguided attempt at patriotism. Then he lets Mike Novick talk him into giving up the Russian president to a terrorist cell, a thread that will surely come back to haunt him. And now, he’s adopting Vice President Leland Palmer’s plan to declare martial freaking law in Los Angeles. Palmer’s not just a hawk: he’s a fucking velociraptor. Maybe Logan’s afraid that Palmer will eat him if he dares to stand up to him.

The rest of the episode took place inside the nerve gas-riddled CTU, and the gas is not content with this safe zone nonsense. It’s eating the sealing in those rooms, and they will all die, unless Samwise Gamgee gives himself up to disable a program on a computer in a contaminated zone. Doing so meant taking a security guard trapped in the safe zone with him, who had the best line when he found out how the whole thing happened: “So we’re all going to die because you were embarrassed?”

Note to self: if you can choose your cause of death, try to avoid syntox VX nerve gas. Nasty stuff, that. Samwise’s death scene was not pleasant. But in defense of Samwise, his death scene was much more realistic than Edgar’s.

Are Kim and Ponyboy gone for good? If so, that was the sorriest excuse for bringing Kim back to the show that I have ever seen. She comes back to get locked into a room for an hour and then leave? Lame. She tells Jack that she doesn’t blame him for all of the bad stuff that goes down when they’re together, but Kim, that’s exactly what you’re doing. She sounds brainwashed, and I’m disappointed that the writers did nothing with the whole Ponyboy-slept-with-his-patient angle. You think Jack wouldn’t have kicked his sorry ass all over the room? God, it was painful to watch how neutered Jack was. Oh, and Ponyboy, shave that ridiculous beard, stat. (There’s actually a reason for that facial hair. Go see these shots from that TV remake of “War of the Worlds,” you’ll see that Father Time has not been too kind to our Hitcher-happy friend. Did you know there was a video sequel of “The Hitcher” in 2003? And that it stars my beloved Kari Wuhrer? Sigh.)

Looks like Bill Buchanan is about to get the boot, again. This Karen Hayes from Homeland Security, who plans on gutting CTU like a fish, has bigger balls than Logan does. How soon before Jack goes rogue in order to Get The Job Done?

But back to the martial law thing. This is bound to blow up in Logan’s face. When you declare martial law before the public is aware of any known threat, you don’t look proactive; you look scared, and Velociraptor Palmer, if the musings of Marty and Mike are to be believed, is counting on that to ruin Logan and pave the way for his ascension to the Big Chair. The public is not going to cooperate with the clampdown – not only are they Americans, who were founded on the principle of revolution, but they’re Los Angeles residents; rioting is in their blood – and when the city of Los Angeles erupts in civil disobedience, Logan’s going to wish Marty had died along with the Suvarovs, just so he doesn’t have to hear her telling him “I told you so” for the next 40 years. Do you suppose that Leland Palmer is the phantom menace here, the other person in the President’s inner circle that is behind the day’s events? It’s as good a guess as any. I still like my Wayne Palmer angle, though.

Lastly, we send a sad farewell to Tony Almeida, who was about to kill Robocop, only to have Robocop kill him when Tony gave him a half-second window of opportunity. Tony’s dying thought surely must have been, “Man, Robocop moves pretty fast for a guy whose nervous system has supposedly shut down.”

Okay, one more last thought: Desmond, the possibly magical resident of “Lost,” has a great agent, landing him spots in two of the biggest shows on television. What next, a slot as a terminally ill patient on “House”? A three-episode arc on “Entourage”?