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.
