CTU, apparently, is stationed on Arlington Road.
“24” pulls out an oldie but a goodie this week, as the IRK bad guys – who are remarkably well funded and well connected, even on foreign soil – set up Princess Jasmine to “escape” to CTU…and bring a massive EMP with her. Boom boom pow. Dark is the night for all. Can’t find my way home, etc.
Now, let’s put aside the probability, and even the predictability, of it all for just a second. The cutting back and forth between Jack trying to reach Chloe and the utter chaos at CTU was the most action-packed moment of the season. I mean, they are seriously fucked right now. The radiation sensors are down, and they have no way of getting in touch with, well, anyone. It’s a hell of an ending to the first half of the season.
But is anyone else just a little tired of seeing how easily compromised our nation’s counter-terrorist unit is? First bombs, then nerve gas, and now an EMP. (The previous EMP was set off at McLennan and Forster’s office, thus causing Go-Betweens fans around the world to giggle to themselves.) Honestly, CTU deserves to fail if they can’t come up with fail-safe measures to prevent this sort of thing from happening. Is there really unsecured access to directly below the building? You may as well leave a trail of gasoline, and supply the bad guys with a match.
Likewise, you have to just smile to yourself at the precision timing of Jasmine’s arrival in relation to the gigantic ticking clock in the back seat, that she wasn’t delayed by traffic (hey, even at four in the morning, it can happen in New York), or one of those mad squeegee guys, or simply got lost. That whole watch-your-daughter-die thing couldn’t have been cheap or easy to set up, especially when it is nothing but a smoke screen. Deep breath, Med, deep breath. It’s a TV show. It’s a TV show that asks us to believe that everything happens at the top of the hour. Let it go.
“I used to own this town. I was Jimmy James, Macho Business Donkey Wrestler, damn it.”
Same with tracking cell phone signals. They use it only when it suits them. Of course, while I was wondering why they didn’t try tracking Jasmine using her cell as tonight’s stuff was going on, the truth is that Slumdog President doesn’t have that ability, and CTU didn’t know she was missing, so I guess they’re covered on that one.
And then there’s Starbuck, who’s doing a Katherine Heigl happy dance (see “The Ugly Truth” if you want to get that reference, or better yet, don’t) now that an EMP just granted her a stay of execution. My prediction for her is that she performs a couple selfless, game-changing acts…and dies protecting the ones she loves. I think we all know she’s not coming back for another season – assuming there is another season, and there is rampant speculation that this may indeed be “24’s” final hour, at least on the small screen – so why not let her go with grace? She gets the sendoff her past-life BSG character deserves, and Cole receives the comfort of knowing that while Dana had secrets, he wasn’t wrong about what kind of person she was.
Which brings us to Jimmy James, Capitalist Liontamer. Last week I was terrified that he was using the parole officer thing as a ruse to continue the con in the event that Kevin failed, but on the surface, it looks as though that he’s a legit good guy…or possibly the ballsiest con man in the history of the world. He said he had a friend on the force, but all of the evidence that he hit Starbuck with – the phone calls, the storage locker break-in, the mangled cop – could very easily have been provided by Kevin and his wacko friend before they were killed, and Jimmy is just bluffing that Starbuck won’t question the authenticity of whatever that paper he presented her with that demanded access to the security feeds. If he’s a con, then he’s the craziest con ever, because even the good ones stay the hell away from the authorities if they can help it. Doesn’t he know that they have facial recognition software…or at least that they did until Princess Jasmine blew the electronics sky-high? This character might turn out to be my litmus test for “24” going forward. If he turns out to be a con, then I will officially never believe a single thing I see on this show, unless it’s Jack doing it.
Twelve hours down, which means, to use another musical reference, twelve stops and home. (The Feeling. Twelve Stops and Home. All Anglophiles should head to iTunes at once.) New York has not been good to CTU so far, and that’s been while the city was sleeping. It will be very curious to see if the surly commuters are any more accomodating. Considering my brief experience with said people. the answer is a defiant ‘no,’ but who knows, maybe they’ve mellowed out since then. (*Stifles chuckle*)
Tonight’s blog title comes from Naked Eyes’ third Top 40 single – yes, they had more than two hits, and in fact had one more before all was said and done – and even more curiously, this song does not appear on any of the band’s hits compilations. This has always baffled me, as it’s easily one of their best songs, hence the decision to release it as a single. Maybe it was the midgets in the video that embarrass them to this day, who knows. All I know is that I like the song.
