Tag: Jack Bauer (Page 9 of 10)

24 7.6: Sweet dreams and flying machines land in pieces on the ground

January 27, 2009 /

Come on out, you tinfoil-wearing conspiracy theorists. After playing coy for the first six seasons, “24” has finally delivered an episode that does what the show had previously been reluctant to do: hit us where we live. Where we all live.

But first thing’s first: Save Freckles! (Insert Ferris Bueller water tower joke here.) Her predicament was actually more dire than I made it out to be, and she had stopped breathing by the time 4B and Chloe arrived. The scene created a clip show of sorts in my head, a History of Cinema Resuscitations. I thought of Ed Harris pounding the bejeezus out of Mary Elizabeth Mastrontonio in “The Abyss,” which is still one of the most powerful scenes I think I’ve ever seen. Then Chloe pulls out the syringe filled with adrenalin, and I thought: what on earth did we do before “Pulp Fiction”? That movie really did rewrite the rules, didn’t it?

My next thought, by the way, was of Nicolas Cage injecting himself in the heart with the VX gas antidote in “The Rock.” Anyone else have that same thought?

Emerson is taken out after foolishly putting a gun to Jack’s head, which did not surprise me one bit. Jack and Tony were asking way too many questions, and it was only a matter of time before Emerson decided to call them on it. Tony’s now in charge, but he also knows, after the botched attempt on his life, that Col. Dubaku has no further use for him. Prime Minister Matobo/Bassett is now in play with a wire (Chloe, once again, gets the line of the week with “No, I’m a stay-at-home-mom” as she’s putting the chip on one of his teeth), but something tells me that Jack and Tony need to worry more about Freckles than they do the Prime Minister. You just know that she’s going to spill the beans to someone before the next hour is over, and blow their cover.

“Seriously, did you read my file? If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead. Now shut up and marry me.”

As for the other B-story, I was stunned when SS Agent Gedge actually succeeded with half of his plan to kill Samantha and the First Man, and man, was his murder of Samantha brutal. I hate seeing pretty girls die, but to be fair, she was a dead girl walking from the very beginning. At the same time, I watched Gedge throwing the rope over the rafters and thought, “Isn’t this crime scene going to look just a tad suspicious?” Seriously, you just know that the forensics people on any of the “CSI” staffs would see right through that ruse and suspect foul play. But hey, Gedge was young; maybe he hadn’t done enough killing yet to have a feel for the subtle.

And now, the main story: President Taylor knew an attack was imminent, and refused to stand down to a butcher, even though doing so meant risking the lives of innocent Americans. This is about as unwinnable a position as one person can be in. If she capitulates to General Candyman, then she’s admitting that terrorism works as a form of diplomacy, and opens the door for anyone to take a shot at squeezing us for this or that. If she holds her ground, and lives are lost – and they were, in the form of two colliding planes, and possibly a power plant somewhere in Ohio (I’ve never heard of the city, and I live in Ohio) – then she’s the President that had the chance to stop it but chose not to.

Sound familiar? The President that had a horrific attack happen on their watch, with the world speculating how much they knew before it happened? Uh huh, they just went there.

Granted, the circumstances are much more black-and-white here – Bush wasn’t dealing with rampant corruption, or the dreaded CIP device – but I never thought “24” would get this close to real life, ever. I have to think that an episode like this is going to get the 9/11 conspiracy chatter going again. I’m not sure there is a point to getting it started again, but I don’t expect that to stop people from wondering what Bush “knew.” Mind you, I was not W’s biggest fan, but here’s the thing: whatever it is that Bush knows, you can bet that it’s something you don’t ever want to know. Just sayin’.

I either wasn’t paying enough attention, or there wasn’t a single “Damn it” this week. Can anyone confirm this?

Jack finally killed someone, yay! The streak is over. And from the looks of the preview for next week, he makes up for lost time. Ehhhhhxcellent….

24, TV, TV Action

TCA Tour, Jan. 2009: “24”

January 21, 2009 /

As readers of David Medsker’s weekly blog are already well aware, “24” is back on Fox in a big way, and the show was back at the January TCA Tour in similar fashion, earning its own panel this time around. (The decision in July to relegate the series to a half-hearted “24”-sponsored luncheon, with critics being forced to fight from scrum to scrum in order to get their questions answered, earned my ire in this entry.) From the questions being posed, it was clear that, after a less-than-stellar sixth season, many in the audience have found themselves becoming fans of the show again in Season 7. In particular, it seems that the little moments are what’s doing it for them, such as the scene in the car with Jack and the cop, where Jack acknowledges that maybe they were right in questioning him.

“I think Jack Bauer is certainly in a position where he’s questioning a lot of the things that he has had to do either by his own choice or by orders,” said our man Kiefer Sutherland, “and certainly at the beginning of the season, you see him in Africa, very disconnected from the United States. And so he is wrestling with his own history, about what he actually believes was right and fair and whether or not he was, in fact, the kind of person that should have been put in the position to do these things. It’s a through-line that really travels all 24 episodes this year. And so there’s this constant balance of defending, for instance, in the Senate investigation, his own actions. On a much cleaner level and a much more personal moral level, he questions those things greatly, so this inner struggle is something that carries him through all 24 episodes.”

Of course, if you’ve been watching this season, then you’ve probably already noticed how many times Jack has been standing up for his actions after being condemned by others. This might…just maybe…be a case of the show’s writers lashing out at their critics.

“I would be lying if I said there wasn’t some of that in there,” said producer Howard Gordon, with a laugh. “Obviously, there was the conundrum of how do we do a show that had taken quite a bit of heat for allegedly advocating this way of law enforcement and this way of countering terrorism. It was a nuance and it is an evolving question that plays, as Kiefer said, throughout the entire season. So I counsel patience, and I hope people have the patience and the appetite and the desire to watch through the whole season, because I think the answer to these questions will not be known until the very last episode.”

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24, Actors, Actresses, Celebrities, External Entertainment, External TV, News, TCA Blog 2009, TCA Press Tour, TV, TV Action, TV Dramas

24 7.5: Bury my lovely

January 19, 2009 /

If you gave me an endless amount of bullets and bodies, I don’t think there is any way that I could “nick” someone with a gunshot. I’m either missing them completely, or splitting their head in two. Of course, that’s because I’m not as awesome as Jack Bauer, who manages to get just enough skin to make Jacqueline bleed, but steers clear of those pesky veins that would cause her to, you know, bleed out. Is there anything this man can’t do?

They used the silent clock tick at the end of the hour. The last time I remember them using that was Day Three, when Jack was forced to kill his former director Chappelle. I’m sure I’m wrong about that, but that’s the last time I can think of right now. It’s a powerful way to end an episode, yes, but did they really feel this episode deserved it? Come on, does anyone really think that Freckles is not going to survive? And how long do you suspect it will take before the decision to spare her bites Jack square in the ass? Once Jackie goes back to the bureau, General Candyman’s source will tell Emerson that Jack didn’t kill her, not to mention she’ll then have to answer to the Attorney General, who’s practically carrying a torch, a cross, and a pitchfork. The only way Candyman’s people do not find out that she’s alive is if she goes dark, which she will never do. Bonus points for the death scene, though. It couldn’t have been easy to pretend to die when every nerve in her body had to have been screaming, “HOLY SHIT! I’VE BEEN SHOT!”

“Hey, boss. I’m just calling to tell you that I’m about to do something colossally stupid. Bye.”

Just when we thought that we couldn’t think any less of Billy Walsh, he finds a way. He clearly married out of his league, but that didn’t stop him from hooking up with a co-worker. (This subplot sponsored by Bad Idea Jeans.) Maybe Billy’s guilt is what drove him to get his wife out of the sky? Look for Janis’ “instinct” to kick in on his budding affair before the day is done.

I had a feeling that we couldn’t trust the First Husband’s bodyguard. He just had that look, literally. It was his eyes; they were always too squinty. His plan to kill both Henry and Samantha, and frame Henry for it, is sure to go horribly wrong, though. Should be amusing.

It was an off week for the “Damn it” counter, which only goes up one for a total of ten. Slackers.

Finally, as a tip of the hat to the song I stole for this week’s column title:
October Project – Bury My Lovely

24, TV, TV Action

24 7.3-4: Tony’s the dude playing the dude, disguising an undercover dude.

January 13, 2009 /

It turns out our conversation about Tony Almeida pulling a Harvey Dent was one of two “Batman” references that this season of “24” would boast. Yes, he switched teams for a few years, and did some bad stuff. But the business with General Candyman reset his moral compass. So if the FBI has no record of him working undercover, then who is he working for?

Why, Big Balls Bill Buchanan, of course, who has also recruited Chloe – presumably after he hit up Vidal Sassoon for a makeover – in a quest to expose government corruption on a massive scale. So who is Bill working for? This is where it gets a little fuzzy – he doesn’t work for anyone, since no one can be trusted. Doesn’t this mean that Bill, Tony and Chloe are just vigilantes, and their acts against the government could be classified as treason? How is their operation funded? And what exactly do they plan to do with the evidence that they obtain? Take it straight to the President? What if she’s one of the dirty ones?

Actually, one of the things that I like about these first four hours is that there are no clear-cut bad guys. There are lots of stupid guys – Renee knows there is a leak in her department, but that doesn’t stop her from having a candid conversation about it in a crowded hallway – but at the moment, everyone looks like they could be in on it. That’s the point, of course, and odds are that none of the truly suspicious characters are bad (I’m reserving judgment on Ethan Kanin, a.k.a. Warden Norton, for the moment). But I like the paranoia that floats around the new characters. Is Morris the leak? Janis? Surly Sean? The First Husband’s Secret Service agent? Have we even met the leaks yet? There are still 20 hours to go, which is plenty of time to meet a whole new group of scumbags. Odds are, though, we know half of them already. Remember, this is the show that dangled Nina Myers in front of us early on in Season One, at a time when we didn’t want to believe it. There is no reason to think they wouldn’t do that again.

“Guys, someone’s hacking into our mainframe. Oh, and they’re sending me catty, passive-aggressive comments while they do it.”

Something just occurred to me: someone at the FBI called Tony to tell him that Jack and Renee (new nickname forthcoming) were on their way to see Gabriel Schecter. Doesn’t that mean that Tony knows who the leak is? If so, why is everyone still in the dark about the rogue agent’s identity? Perhaps the turncoat only deals with Emmerson, who forwarded the message to Tony. Some clarification on this point is in order.

Is anyone else as surprised by Renee Walker’s sudden metamorphosis from contemptuous do-gooder into a results-only renegade? (Until she gives me reason to do otherwise, she will henceforth be known on this blog as Jacqueline Bauer.) You can count the minutes since she first met Jack, and like some traumatized Stockholm Syndrome victim, she seems to have fallen in love with him, or at least his methods. She watches Jack deprive Tony of oxygen in the interrogation room, then employs the same technique to Schecter’s killer as he lies in a hospital bed in critical condition. She says she wants to make things right by bringing Bauer in after he knocked her out and took her gun – gotta say, that garage escape is one of the more plausible and exciting shootouts the show’s ever done – but on a subconscious level, she has to know that Jack is the reason for, well, every single piece of intel they’ve acquired since they brought him in. And you have to know that once he sees her implement his techniques, he’s going to be on one knee in a nanosecond. Girls like that don’t come around every day, you know.

Small conversation about the B-story: it turns out the First Husband isn’t nuts, and his son was in fact murdered. No shocker here, but one small (which is to say, HUGE) question: how did Samantha come into possession of a flash drive that contains every piece of incriminating evidence that got her ex killed, yet she lives? Ugh.

With tonight’s two hours, the “Damn it” counter is at nine, by my count. Props for giving one of them to a nurse. Why should the leads have all the fun?

One last thought: doesn’t the Prime Minister of Sangala look like he could be Angela Bassett’s brother? Just sayin’.

24, TV, TV Action

24 7.1-2 – I see dead people

January 12, 2009 /

First off, a thousand lashes to the exec at Fox who thought it would be a good idea to run the season premiere of “24” opposite the Golden Globes. I don’t care if you had the date booked years before NBC decided to host the awards that night; you move the show back a week. Or even a day. But you don’t run a premiere against an awards show, and not just an awards show but one of the biggies. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Having said that, hats off to Mickey Rourke and “Slumdog Millionaire” for their wins.

As season premieres go, “24” has certainly had more explosive openings, but I liked what they did here, and also what they didn’t do. The show had gotten way too insular in terms of everything happening in Los Angeles, so moving the show to the east coast is a nice change of pace. Even better, the terrorist plot involves a threat that would actually affect the entire country. (No power or drinking water? Yikes.) Yes, it’s a riff on the plot from “Live Free or Die Hard” – and there is absolutely no way that they would ever get those planes synced up so that they would both hit the crossing point of two runways at the exact same time – but if it means that we don’t have to worry about a nuclear weapon this season, that can only be a good thing. They were also smart to acknowledge what a walking cliche Jack Bauer had become. “WHO ARE YOU WORKING FOR?” (*stabs man in genitals with spork*) That couldn’t have been easy for the producers to admit, but it needed to be done.

“Mr. Bauer, do you swear to kick the butt, the whole butt and nothing but the butt, so help you God?”

However, I’m still trying to wrap my head around Tony Almeida as this year’s villain. We still don’t know why he switched teams – and that’s good that they haven’t revealed that yet, that was the ‘what they didn’t do’ that I was referring to – but I’m not sure they can possibly come up with a rationale that will satisfy me. At the moment, he appears to be a free agent of sorts, a contract guy that offers his services to anyone willing to pay for them. God knows he wouldn’t be doing the bidding of a mass murderer like General Candyman any other way, right? And are we really to believe that Jack is only now learning that Tony is still alive? Yes, he was kidnapped by the Chinese hours after Tony’s supposed death, but he came back…years ago. I’m thinking the first thing someone at CTU would have told him is that Tony is not dead. They better have an answer for that as this season unfolds.

And man, did they stunt-cast the bejeezus out of this season. Janeane Garofalo as an easily stressed techie? Please tell me that Chloe O’Brien literally eats her alive at some point in the season. Bob Gunton, aka the warden in “The Shawshank Redemption,” is on Madame President’s staff, and Colm Feore is the First Man? There’s no way I’m looking at him without thinking of “Storm of the Century.” Bonus points if they work the phrase “Give me what I want, and I’ll go away” into the dialogue. Lastly, the great Kurtwood Smith is the senator that is trying to bring Jack to “justice.” Now, I like Kurtwood Smith, but did they really need him to play that part? You get the sense that the suits were nervous, so they snagged as many name actors as they could. It’s overkill, of course, but that’s Hollywood for you.

For those of you playing the “24” drinking game, The “Damn it” counter is at three, though Jack only said one of them.

All in all, not a bad way to start the season. Not great, but who knows, maybe that’s a good thing; in years past, they would blow the doors off the show in the premiere, only to implode six episodes later (ahem, abandoned plot involving Jack’s “nephew” in season six). The ads for hours three and four even hint at a big bombshell dropping. Maybe they finally get it now: the premiere is useless if everything that follows is shit. Yep, that’s what blogging a show will do to a person: turn them from a fan to someone who simply hopes that he’s not blogging about shit. Sigh.

24, TV, TV Action

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