Tag: 24 Season 8 (Page 3 of 5)

Or, Weekend at Jason’s.

I’m not sure about the rest of you, but I’m pretty sure that if I’ve just escaped from the clutches of terrorists that will surely kill me if they find me, I do not hole up and call CTU to bail me out, especially if I’ve got a head start. Find a way out, get a cab, and go, man. And, if I do hole up, I don’t wait until he’s on top of me before making a break for it. This guy knifed one of his own security men in the neck just a few hours ago; he’s not lacking the killer instinct.

But if Jason Schwartzman gets captured alive, “24” becomes “12,” so die he must, sigh. In the writers’ defense, the plan Jack devised after his death is a pretty good one, certainly better than, say, having Kim Bauer pretend to be a brunette librarian. I laughed out loud at Marcos emptying his clip into Jason’s lifeless body, only to see…nothing happen. But the way they set up that scene, you just knew that Marcos would dive out the window – especially after they showed that scene in the previews last week – and you had to think that Jack considered that a possibility, too. Why, then, didn’t he aim for Marcos’ legs the second Marcos broke for the windows? This is, after all, the man that whipped a bread knife across a room and pierced a guy’s throat. Jack should be able to shoot a guy in the leg blindfolded. While getting strangled. And eaten by dogs.

“I’m helping you hide the body of your convicted felon of an ex-boyfriend, and you’re asking me about ‘us’? Neither the time nor the place, honey.”

So Princess Jasmine has run off with her secret love, and I can’t see any reason why it matters. Outside of the obvious risk of her getting taken out by the dirty bomb, this plot thread means nothing to me. She’s lovely to look at, but when she talks, all I hear is “Blah blah blah blah Ginger blah blah blah Ginger.” (Stop me before I sub-reference again. Hell, even that was a sub-reference.) She just doesn’t matter to me. Heaven help us if this subplot grows to Starbuck/redneck proportions.

Speaking of which…just when we thought we had seen the end of this thread – though I figured it would last for at least one more hour, since they were looking at returning to CTU wet, and smelling of swamp water – it appears that it’s not going away anytime soon, and for those of you who refuse to watch the scenes for the next episode, I will say no more. With regard to tonight’s actions, I don’t know; I would think that burying bodies together would be one of those bonding moments. But then again, I’ve always buried my bodies alone, so I can’t really speak from experience.

My beloved Jacqueline Bauer spent this week recovering in CTU, but her brief conversation with Jack proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that she will die before the final clock tick. I understand it, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. I’m trying to set up another interview with Annie Wersching, so I can ask her about how exhilarating it is to play Crazy Jackie. Wish me luck.

Bubba finally grew a pair and told Weiss that he wasn’t prosecuting Jackie. It was a cool moment, but it left me wondering: why is Weiss so hell-bent on sending Jackie down the river, to the point that, as the ever-astute John Paulsen pointed out, he would send someone from the Justice department to CTU at midnight in order to expedite the process? In the real world, that one can wait, for days if need be. And despite the fact that CTU had another lead in the absence of Vladimir Guerrero’s death, Weiss still seemed upset about the fact that Jackie was not going to get thrown under the bus. Do those two have a history? God help them if Weiss turns out to be some Starbuck-type baddie that Jackie wronged when undercover, and he’s out for revenge. If that happens, this blog ends with that episode.

Lastly, we must mention the face-off that Presidents Madame and Slumdog had with regard to the potential fallout, both literally and figuratively, if his countrymen’s plans to detonate a dirty bomb in the city are successful. I liked seeing that Taylor, once again, was unafraid to make the hard choice, and you could tell that Slumdog knew that Allison wasn’t fucking around. Girl power, indeed.

Which brings us to this blog’s title. For some reason that I can’t dispute, since I don’t know how to disarm a detonator by remote, Chloe just had to see the wiring of Marcos’ suicide bomb, thus forcing Red Shirt Owen to take a stand in front of the security cameras and force Marcos to give up the goods. And after a quick brainstorming session on what to name this week’s blog, my lovely, brilliant wife came up with a “Simpsons” reference before I could. I hang my head in shame. Which, for the record, is a “Simpsons” reference. Oh, the irony.

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.