Season 5; Hour Six (12:00PM - 1:00PM)

Who was the chick behind the bed?

There are a lot of questions I have about this episode of America’s favorite action thriller starring the SAG Award winning Kief-ster Sutherland. But none of them is really as intriguing as wondering who the person is we barely see hiding behind the bed at the end of the coming attractions. Clearly Fox wants us to wonder who this is or else they would have shown us more of her. And note that I’m assuming it’s a ‘her’ – it could be a somewhat effeminate guy (because what self-respecting macho guy would be hiding behind a bed?)

Any answer to the question begs a great response:

-- Kim! (who upon seeing Jack says, “You’re alive? I’ll kill you!!!”)

-- Diane! (to which Jack says, “Well, I guess you don’t waste any time moving on to someone else…”)

-- Mandy! (to which Jack says, “Do you sleep with every freaking terrorist in the entire world?”)

-- Michelle! (to which Jack says, “You got some ‘splainin’ to do, Lucy!”) (This is a very old TV reference. If you get it, your pacemaker probably can’t handle a show as exciting as ’24.’)

-- Chloe! (to which Jack says, “Chloe, put your clothes on and get a satellite link patched through to Division stat!”)

-- Son of the Secretary of Defense, Richard Heller (to which Curtis says, “I wish I could quit you, Heller!)

Sorry about that last one but any article about popular media today is required to have a “Brokeback Mountain” joke in it, no matter how lame. [That line makes me laugh every time someone uses it, though! -J]

I don’t have any prediction whatsoever about this. It could be an opportunity to introduce a new character or shine a new light on an old one (in other words, Kim). It seems like an interesting context to bring Kim back – particularly the fact that she’s hiding behind a bed and therefore may be clad only in her underwear. Beyond that, I’m pretty much befuddled which is why I can’t stop thinking about it.

Well, while I try to come up with a good possibility for who it is, I’ll move on to the other significant questions this episode raised. Among these:

- What the hell was with those glasses Audrey was wearing? They were perhaps the ugliest spectacles I have ever seen. They looked like a barely sleeker version of a welder’s mask. There are only two possible reasons for a moderately attractive woman to be wearing such a face-damaging accessory: in her personal agony over the loss of both Paul and Jack, she is purposely making herself less attractive to push potential suitors away OR the glasses have some high-tech DoD X-ray doo-dads built in to them. If it’s the first thing, Audrey would do better by taking the route most women do in these kinds of situations: eat more. I mean, c’mon: the chick disappears when she turns sideways. Her nose is the curviest feature she’s got. If it’s the second thing, she needs to get someone from James Bond’s shop to make her some spiffier toys.

- How about our favorite Secret Service dude, Aaron Pierce?!? This season has made excellent use of the history of ‘24’ and putting Pierce into the thick of things is one of the best so far. His relationship with David Palmer was a poignant part of the second season in particular, showing that people can still act like human beings with each other even when their jobs compel them to do unsavory things. While Pierce has always been a steady background character, in this ep he shows a little tightly controlled anger (“Why is Jack Bauer under arrest?” he says through tight lips) and some serious balls by aligning himself with Jack in protecting the prez. Jack and Aaron offering up their weapons and badges (does Jack have an official anything at this point? Maybe a spy decoder ring at least? A tin sheriff’s badge perhaps?) was a nice touch. Logan’s response was the only sensible thing he’s done since, well, maybe since he didn’t hop on board the plane with the REAL president last season.

- Speaking of which, where the hell IS President Keeler? Is he a turnip somewhere, living on life support? A disembodied head being used for scientific experiments? A semi-conscious love slave for Mandy? Are the writers holding on to his potential revival as a possible late-season plot twist?

- How about some more love for our man Curtis? As we saw very occasionally last season, Roger Cross is a great actor who should be given something more interesting to do than poke around at dead rats (by the way, he’s been poking around in TV for more than 15 years, starting out with a role on “Wiseguy” and even playing Justice Thurgood Marshall in a movie 6 years ago). Last night, his entire contribution to the show was trotting in to say, “Feed’s up!” when the satellite feed from the shipyard was established, a line my wife misheard as “Pizza!” I guess that wouldn’t be out of the question since, a) it’s lunch time in the ‘24’ universe, and b) they’ve relegated poor Curtis to little more than a pizza delivery guy anyway.

- Will we see Diane and Derek again? Oh, I’d like to say we will since, in comparison to Audrey, Diane seems more down-to-earth, devoted, warm, loving, and substantial. Substantial, that is, in that she wouldn’t be sent flying by a strong breeze. Derek has also had a bit of trial by fire and since Jack doesn’t have any rogue agent-in-training in his life right now, Derek might fit that bill. But ‘24’ has written out characters who seemed like principles in the past (anyone remember Kyle Singer?) so who knows with D&D? The most obvious thing would be to put them in the line of fire of the nerve gas, upping the ante for Jack. Clearly, Jack would not want Derek any more disoriented than he is. And foamy pink milkshake stuff coming out of Diane’s mouth would NOT compliment her skin tone.

- And how about that DVD of a nerve gas victim? Can you get that through NetFlix? Novick says that it came from “the terrorists.” Who exactly sent it? Nathanson’s people or yellow tie man’s people or maybe Walt made it in his basement? And where did they find nerve gas in order to make the video?

Now, don’t get the wrong idea about all of these questions. You might think so many questions means I was annoyed/disappointed/confused by this episode. Quite the contrary, I thought it was great. Complications are what ‘24’ is all about and the more questions I ask means the more complications there are. And the more intent I am on finding out where they’re going to go next with all of this stuff.

Of course, the big questions YOU the average viewer (or obviously above average viewer, because you’re reading this sterling commentary) are probably asking are:

1. What exactly was Walt’s plan that he blurted out to the president? and
2. Why did they waste so much time in this episode with Audrey and Jack whispering sweet nothings to each other?

First off, the Fox website details in a few sentences what Walt says he was trying to do. It’s one of those ideas that might sound good on paper but, if Walt actually thought it all the way through, he would have pulled the plug once things started to spiral out of control, like for instance, when they had to assassinate a former president. You have to wonder whether Walt’s motives were really so pristine. After all, this plot isn’t something you pull off with some college buddies from Ohio. Walt’s got some dirty friends and I’m not just saying that Nathanson needs a shower (In fact, it looks to me like he’s constantly bathed in a cleansing blue light that is probably anti-bacterial.) I’m thinking/hoping that we’re going to find out more about Walt and his nefarious contacts and pretty darn soon.

And hey, while you’re at the Fox website, you should be sure and take their poll, which if you’ve been following it, has been something of a hoot. Last week, it asked whether Chloe would ever trust men again. Better questions would be “was Chloe a virgin before having sex with Spenser?” or “Even if Chloe gets banged four times a day, will she ever stop acting like a frigid bitch?” This week, they’re asking whether Jack really would have carved up Cummings. To which I respond, why the hell didn’t he carve up Cummings? A shot like the one in “Minority Report” with the eyeballs rolling down the corridor would have been some welcome comic relief.

Second off, there’s been plenty of fan blather about the drippy lovey stuff between Audrey and Jack. C’mon, people, part of what makes this stuff interesting is the knowledge that Jack isn’t a machine, that he had a family, that his soul is tortured by the torturing and killing he’s had to dish out. And in fact, when he’s under those harsh CTU lights, Jack frankly looks like shit. Though “distant” Audrey is hardly the warm, fuzzy type (fur doesn’t grow on a twig, after all), Jack’s love for her does humanize him and de-freezes her a bit too. Having Jack and Audrey breathe meaningful nothings to each other isn’t the way I’d have gone – being in favor of a hair-pulling, clothes-rending smack down between Dianne and Audrey – but we’ve already established clearly why I’m not a writer for ’24.’

The less I have to say about Logan the better but I have to say that his decision to play along with Cummings came as no surprise and is the biggest argument so far that the boy has got to get a balls transplant from somewhere. Could they check Palmer’s organ donor card?

Yellow tie guy finally has a name – Erwich – that sounds vaguely like an insect (“What’s that crawling up your neck? Eww…it’s an Erwich!”) Along with the name comes some new cred as quite a bad guy. But some key questions remain:

-- Will we find out Erwich is still working with Nathason?

-- Are we now in the same territory we were two seasons ago with the bio-terrorist plot – wondering where the gas is going to show up next? Has that hotel opened back up? I bet their rates are really low.

-- What’s the first lady going to do now that people believe her? Try to get traction on her Kennedy assassination theories? Also, will President Logan ever have sex again?

-- Now that McGill has been beaten down by the dual force of Buchanan and Jack, will he go back to his (Buchanan’s) office to sulk and maybe pick at his big Hobbit toes?