Category: 24 (Page 4 of 25)

All season, I’ve been looking forward to the episode where Dana Walsh kicks some felon dirtbag butt, just so I could name one of these entries “And if you don’t look now, then you’re gonna get Starbucked,” which is a lyric from a great little pop tune by the little-heard UK band Bond. Tonight, the moment finally came…and it was Buffy pulling the trigger. Damn. Worse, there is no video for “Starbucked” on YouTube. It clearly wasn’t meant to be.

Ah, but what a small price to pay to have this year’s most annoying subplot vanquished. Yes, Starbuck and Buffy will have some ‘splaining to do, but so what? I’m just glad the rednecks are gone.

Which gets us to this blog’s actual title. Man, they just don’t make those organized crime figures like they used to. Sark betrays father Wolfhausen by stealing the nuclear rods, and killing the two men charged with guarding them in order to do it, and then minutes later he agrees to bring the rods to the authorities. Granted, they portrayed Sark as more of a lover than a fighter from the beginning, but for God’s sake, man, do you have a cause or what? That’s just wishy-washy. Likewise, Jason Schwartzman is willing to knife one of his government’s security guards in the neck in order to escape and launch his insurrection, and have Sark killed in order to keep from having to pay for the rods, but using the rods against the Americans is suddenly a deal-breaker? Who did he think he was going to use them on?

“So tell me how this process works.” “Well, you lie down in front of the bus, and then we run you over with it. We may even back over your lifeless body and run it over again, just to be sure. Any questions?”

Personally, I just don’t think the writers thought this part through very well. They start with CTU picking up Jason Schwartzman’s voice on Sark’s cell phone, despite the phone not being on speaker and a good ten feet away from Schwartzman when he spoke. (They had to have a reason to confirm that it was really Schwartzman when he called later asking for help, I know, but ugh.) Then they have Schwartzman meet up with the people who helped him get this far, and only then does he realize that they are waaaaaaaay more committed to the cause than he is, to the point where they don’t care if their home country gets bombed back to the Stone Age in retaliation for the crimes they intend to put into motion. By my reasoning, that’s counter-productive to their ultimate goal, since their country wouldn’t really exist anymore. “You can’t turn us into an American-run police state!” “Oh, don’t worry, that’s not really much of an option anymore. We hope you find clean drinking water soon. ”

The big takeaway from this episode has to be that Bubba got the CTU gig because Chris Something Really Greek (real actor’s name, not his character’s) appointed him, and each of them understood that if they want to survive politically, they need to be willing to sacrifice the careers of anyone who does their bidding. Bubba obviously didn’t want to leave his comfy perch so soon, so he found Greek Boy’s suggestion agreeable. But now he has a much bigger problem; Bubba made a deal with Jack in order to keep Crazy Jackie out of trouble, and you just know that he’s going to try and weasel out of that later. I’m guessing this is the part where Chloe helps Jack set a trap, thus sending Bubba packing, proving Chloe’s worth and netting herself Starbuck’s spot as head analyst, since Starbuck will finish the season behind bars and Merv the Perv doesn’t have the career ambition to aspire to a spot like that. And this will pave the way for Jack and Jackie to walk into the proverbial sunset together like we thought they ultimately would a few episodes into last season.

Until, of course, Jackie is killed. And you know that is going to happen before the final clock tick. Especially now that Jack is luring her in as a life partner. Big Dick Heller once told Jack that he’s a curse, and he’s right. Jackie, of all people, should know this, but we’ll grant her a temporary pass because, well, she’s nuts. Having said that, she’s bar none my favorite character on the show at the moment, so I do not take her imminent death lightly. Still, bitch is going down. And I’ll pour out a 40 in her honor on the eve of her death for every year that I take a breath.

Even though I couldn’t use the Bond lyric as a title, here’s the tune, anyway. And here is the video for this week’s real title. Look closely, and you’ll see Sean “Puff Daddy Diddy” Combs. Seriously.

Faithful “24” blog readers, I am in need of some clarification. Tonight’s entire episode revolved around the mysterious whereabouts of Wolfhausen, to the point where Jack volunteered to be kidnapped in order to pinpoint his location. Meanwhile, Mrs. “24” blogger and I are thinking:

Why not check Vladimir’s cell phone?

Hastings focused repeatedly on the fact that Crazy Jackie gutted Vladimir Guerrero like a salmon before they had a chance to interrogate him, and yes, it’s true that dead men tell no tales. As the same time, cell phones do not lie. Find his phone, look up the most recent calls made, and go from there. Boom, problem solved. Did they address the issue of the phone in the previous hour? Did the Russian goons take Vlad’s phone or at least destroy it? If so, then fine, I’ll quit bellyaching. No, you know what, I won’t quit bellyaching. Jack and Renee discussed it all before anyone else arrived on the scene. They could have taken his phone right then and there. That’s it: I’m applying for the job of director of CTU. Someone has to stop the madness.

“Aw, you’re going to torture me? That’s so cute! I just want to pinch your cheeks for not knowing how this will end.”

There was something about Sark that was throwing me off this entire episode. Previously, he appeared to be a sniveling wimp. In tonight’s episode, he’s Wolfhausen’s Luca Brasi, putting a gun to Jason Schwartzman’s head and talking the talk like a true “family man.” I should have known that he had a hidden agenda. What will be interesting to learn, should they reveal it, is which one of them initiated the backup plan. I have to think it was Sark, because if Jason Schwartzman does it, he looks desperate. If Sark does it, he looks cunning. But there I go again, getting all rational.

In Hour 5, I said:

“…no good will come from trying to make [Kevin] disappear. Guys like that, they don’t disappear. It’s like feeding a cat.”

Fast-forward three hours, and Kevin is making it rain at a strip club with his ill-gotten gains, telling Starbuck that he plans on holding her big secret over her head for as long as he can. Surprise! Yes, we all saw this coming down Broadway, but here is my big question: I’m no gangster, but I’m pretty sure that New York strip clubs know who the real players are, both above the table and otherwise, and who the two-bit, illiterate degenerate scumbags are. When a halfwit like Kevin comes in with obscene amounts of cash, odds are he’s stolen it from another one of the club’s more loyal patrons, at which point the halfwits are escorted out the back door, chopped to bits, stuffed in a duffel bag and thrown in the Hudson. In the “24” universe, however, they live la vida loca. Fugh.

And to think, Starbuck had the perfect chance to come clean…and didn’t do it. Granted, I’m not a con artist like Kate or Sawyer from “Lost,” so I don’t think about potential ways out of a predicament like your typical con, but I have to think that Starbuck is so far against the wall that she feels her shoulder blades coming through her chest. But nope, she still doesn’t come clean, choosing instead to fix it herself. I am predicting that this will result in the death of Kevin but not his idiot sidekick Nick, who will then put even more pressure on Starbuck using…wait for it…Kevin’s cell phone.

Quick note on Jack’s footwork while tortured: at least it was more believable than last week’s knife toss.

On the Presidential front – this is, after all, President’s Day – our Madame President was shortchanged. Even Jack upstaged her conference call with Bubba. Ah, but Slumdog President continued on his path to full-blown paranoia, even telling his daughter Princess Jasmine that the love of her life, who has served her father loyally for ages, is probably a plant and working for Jason Schwartzman instead. See, this is why good people don’t get into politics. Not worth the trouble. And we wonder why things are so fucked up.

And on that note, I’ll let Billy Joel take us home. Think about it, Starbuck. Please.

I was tempted to go with one of two songs for tonight’s episode. The runner-up to the Nirvana lyric above was Garbage’s “Stupid Girl,” in reference to the subplot where Starbuck lets her hilljack ex-con lover and his troglodyte friend loose in an evidence warehouse…but it didn’t seem emphatic enough. No, for that to be the lead, I needed a song with a title along the lines of “You Are the Dumbest Motherfuckers in the History of Dumb Motherfuckers,” and a quick check of my iTunes library reveals nothing that has both ‘dumb’ and ‘motherfucker’ in it. I am clearly listening to the wrong bands.

Slumdog President is fast becoming my second-favorite character on the show this season (though he’s admittedly a distant, distant second to Renee Walker). He was smoove like Wilt Chamberlain – take that any way you like – when the peace accord was about to be signed, but Jason Schwartzman’s betrayal has evidently shaken him to the core…or has it? That’s the beauty, if you want to call it that, of this show; we only know what we’ve seen, so we have no way of determining Slumdog’s next move, since we don’t know really know him at all. On the surface, the sudden paranoia and ruthlessness is in stark contrast to his affability in the first two hours. But who knows, maybe the reason he’s so shaken is because he thought he and Jason Schwartzman were on the same page, only to discover that little brother was much more hardcore than he ever knew.

Speaking of Jason Schwartzman and hardcore, he has now been screwing those two hookers for three hours. Good on ya, mate.

If you take a step back, you have to wonder how Vladimir Guerrero didn’t see that he had been set up for failure six years ago when Jackie first entered his life. She’s suddenly back, and she has this “German” partner who speaks perfect English, and would you look at that, he wants to buy uranium rods, something totally out of Vladimir’s league. Could you make some calls, for old time’s sake? Even funnier that he thought that any of these Russian godfathers would actually tell him over a cell phone, “Why yes, I do have some enriched uranium rods. Why do you ask?” I’m no small-time gangster, but if I were, I would not be making awkward phone calls late at night to guys who could erase my entire family tree in 24 hours. Just sayin’, it would be bad for business.

“What’s my sign? ‘Out of order.'”

Ah, but Crazy Jackie has Vladimir’s number, and when that happens, you can throw all logic out the window. (Trust me on this, I speak from experience.) And if you didn’t already know that the producers of “24” are expecting their audience to suspend a certain amount of disbelief, you sure as hell did after tonight’s episode, where Jackie, having just filleted Vladimir with a bread knife (knew that was making a callback), accidentally stabs Jack in the stomach during her fit of rage. Jack falls to the ground, but still has his wits and faculties enough to throw the bread knife at Vladimir’s suspicious right-hand man…and stab him perfectly in the neck, killing him instantly. Gales of laughter came from the “24” blog headquarters when that happened. “Thank you, Senor MacGyver. You saved our village.” “Don’t thank me. Thank the moon’s gravitational pull.” Both are equally as likely to actually happen.

Oh, and apparently Jackie’s stabbing of Jack was just a flesh wound. Whew. (*slaps forehead*)

Finally, let’s get to Starbuck and her dumb, dumb, super-fucking dumbass plan to send Kevin on his way by giving him access to an warehouse filled with evidence lockers. Oh noes! Kevin’s even dumber buddy – don’t be surprised if they reveal that he’s illiterate – is going to mess everything up by poking around in the cell to look for more bling, and when we revisit them, he’s trashed the place like a toddler in a toy store…and the supposedly street-smart Kevin allowed it to happen. In the name of “South Park” character Jimmy, “C-C-C’mon, fellas.” For those of you who have been reading these rants since the season premiere, you know that I’ve been begging Starbuck to come clean for weeks now. She had everything in her favor then. Now, not so much, especially since Shoeless Joe beat down a cop with a baseball bat. Ugh, Dumb, mother, fuckers.

If there was a positive note to tonight’s episode, it was that Wolfhausen’s minions brought Jack through sewer tunnels as a means of evading government surveillance. That was a nice callback to when Jack called the Russians a dirty people in the previous hour. I guess they showed him.

All right, let’s get to the tune. I think it’s incredible what Dave Grohl has done in the wake of Kurt Cobain’s death, but damn, man, what I would give for one more Nirvana album.

It was 9:38 on the “24” clock, and I had a funny thought: nothing’s happened yet. This was one of those “bridge” episodes where they inch a bunch of stories along, and open a few new doors (Slumdog President’s daughter is now in play), but that’s about it. They’re necessary evils in the “24” universe, and if anything, provide a brief moment of realism, since we do not live in a world where everything happens at the top of the hour. However, that doesn’t make these episodes any less ponderous.

The good news is that, with regard to the two unwanted subplots, one of them is dead…literally. That scene of Papa Bazhaev (pending “24” nickname: Jesus, for his role in “The Seventh Sign”) knocking Sark around, then shooting his sick son to death, was producing serious flashbacks to “The Godfather.” All I could see were rowboats and Brando yelling, “Act like a man!” The only question is how Sark uses some of that bodily fluid the doctor so carefully warned him about to poison his father. ‘Cause you know that’s going down before the final clock tick. It damn well better.

Did anyone else laugh out loud when the thug that came to get Jesus’ sons told Jesus, “No one will know we were here”? Well, they may not know YOU were there, but when they see a trail of dead bodies, they’ll know someone was there, and since the Feds know the Russians are looking to move weapons-grade uranium, they’re probably going to start with you. Which, in the end, means that yeah, they knew you were there. Dumbass.

And then there’s Starbuck, who appears to actually be helping her convicted felon of an ex to score a bunch of money. Giant forehead slap on three, ready? She has the perfect opportunity to send him down the river for life (if she comes clean before they hit the warehouse), but if next week’s scenes are any indication, she’s going to cling to the microscopic chance she has left of getting through this without anyone discovering her sordid past. Fool. Give it up, girl. It’s over. Put the scumbag away, already.

“If you don’t quit looking down my top, I’m going to have Jack cut your balls off with a spoon. Perv.”

So what are we to make of Slumdog daughter? My gut says that the UN advisor that was just sent away is a good guy, and the one feeding Slumdog the intel is in league with Jason Schwartzman. That dude is going to kidnap Slumdog daughter, and use her as a chip to force Slumdog to back off on the crackdown of the insurrection. Look at her, for crying out loud. Cute as a button, innocent…naive. She’s toast.

Watching Jack verbally undress a Russian – in German – was easily the highlight of the evening. (“German is such a dirty language.” “Well, you are a dirty people.” Oh, snap!) Well, that and Buffy playing “Goldeneye” on the goons assigned to kill Jack once Vladimir Guerrero got his money. That was pretty sweet.

There was a shot of Renee in Vladimir’s lair where her eyes looked like hollow, soulless holes in her head. It’s the most emotional depth that the show has ever displayed. And granted, that’s not saying a heck of a lot, but it’s a start, and I’m glad Annie Wersching was the one who got to go there. And did you see the scenes for next week’s episode? Jack reached out to Renee and asked her to give up her death wish…for him, which is like giving up one death wish for another.

This week’s “24” blog title comes courtest of Sir Bob Geldof and the Boomtown Rats, from one of my all-time favorite albums, The Fine Art of Surfacing. Take it away, Bob.

The Boomtown Rats – Nothing Happened Today