Season 5; Hour Eight (2:00pm - 3:00pm)

Air Date: 13 Feb 06
Reviewer: D

As time goes on this season, I'm starting to really appreciate the nearly insurmountable task the writers and directors of 24 have. It gets harder and harder to surprise us and, as J detailed excellently with Hour 7, more and more plot elements/twists start to feel like old news. In this latest hour, I felt this most distinctly at the end of the ep. I was convinced ole Erwich had rigged the garage to go boom. I was actually physically bracing myself for the explosion. Instead, we get just another terrorist suicide (ho hum). One question here: do Chechen rebels really have the same suicidal fervor that our Muslim friends have? I mean, "Dosvedonya" doesn't have the same poetic ring that "Allah Akbar" has.

Anyway, before I get too deeply into this episode, which was OK I guess but for 2/3 of it's duration didn't do much to divert me away from swimsuit.com, I'd like to offer my 3 simple suggestions to 24 management. These may never be read by anyone above the level of Joel Surnow's pool boy, but it'll make me feel better to get them out there. At least I'm taking action instead of sitting idly by while things go to hell. And after all, Hollywood producers need a little help once in a while too. To whit:

1. Leave Jack outside the system. This season started with the promise that Jack would be somehow wilder and crazier since he no longer had to adhere to strict CTU protocols (short aside here: CTU protocols seem to primarily involve hiring only those with a propensity toward being a mole or having an unstable relative, disrespecting the chain of command, and never allowing anyone to leave the CTU clinic alive). But so far, with very little exception, Jack's done what he would have done as a CTU agent which of course means whatever the f*** he's wanted. The only time he hasn't is when it has served the plot, as in when he was forced to back away from a promise to a subsequently homicidal sex slave.

Now Jack is apparently in some quasi-reinstated mode, though it seems like he's soon going to plummet quickly from President Logan's best buddy to an aggravated zit on the Commander in Chief's ass that he can't quite reach to pop. Do us a favor: keep Jack on the outside. It complicates the relationship with Chloe, makes the internal dynamics at CTU more interesting (smackdown between McGill and Buchanan, anyone? I imagine this as a "Bluto-Popeye" type matchup with Buchanan throwing McGill through a wall whereupon, instead of spinach, Lynnie finds a magical golden ring and is thereafter able to thwart all who oppose him...), might eventually provide a good way to get Tony involved (once he's conscious and out of that death trap of a clinic), and brings out the McGyver in Jack, which makes it almost like getting two shows in one.

2. Develop an interesting parallel story. Who knows, maybe the blink-and-you-missed-it plot development of Lynn getting mugged by his sister's thug pal will lead somewhere. But, given the ability of interesting things to develop from 24's wacko relative side plots in the past, rabid llamas are more likely to fly out of my butt. In the past, we had true parallel stories in 24 land, ones that had their own complicated dynamics and where the links to the main story weren't so clearly delineated. Remember Kim's kidnapping the first year? Behrooz's family drama last year? Anything involving Sherry Palmer? (OK, strike that last one.) These were plotlines that had internal drama of their own, separate from the central action. I'm not seeing anything like that this year so far.

3. Make us care about someone else. OK, we all love Jack, even as troubled and brutal as he can be. But who else are we supposed to root for this season? Dianne and Derek have been the only other moderately human characters with whom we could identify with and the only place they seem likely to re-emerge is as nerve gas fodder maybe somewhere down the line. Chloe? Be serious. I think she's entertaining and all but unless sleeping with Spenser eventually transforms her into a raging nympho, she doesn't exactly touch my heart. Audrey, aka, Twiggie? Brittle as a stick and just as cuddly? Nuh-uh. The First Lady? I pity crazy people, don't love them. Edgar? Get thee to Jennie Craig! McGill? Hobbitt boy wants to kill everybody at the food court? Not terribly endearing. Curtis? Sure, he's tall, dark and handsome but also a little chilly. The best bet at this point is Evelyn, the first lady's moderately inept keeper but I'm thinking she might have killed Cummings (call me crazy) so I'm not investing a whole lot in that relationship. Who else is there to love? Nada, zip, zilch. Sorry but all adrenaline all the time gets a little old if it's not balanced by a human moment once in a while.

There you go, Surnow. Ignore me at your peril.

So, on to the action, such as it was. We get our nicely inserted situation recap thanks to Lynnie coming back from getting his ass whupped. Can't believe Buchanan doesn't say anything to McGill, like for instance, "long pee break, huh Lynnie?" Or possibly, "off on same quest, hairy toes?"

Then it's off to recently perferated sex creep's apartment where his lack of a pulse ends up not impeding the situation. I loved that after Jack picks up the phone and Erwich just blurts out the plan for the meeting, Jack says "I think we caught a break." Only Jack Bauer would call having the opportunity to meet up with homicidal terrorists armed with nerve gas "catching a break." Jack, honey, catching a break is a dud grenade, two packs of Oreos out of the snack machine for the price of one, or a false positive on a pregnancy test. What you are about to get into, Jack, is a break in the same way that Wittington scoring a gig hunting with the Veep was a break. (C'mon, you knew that was coming...)

From the terrorists, we find out that they are figuring out how to release the happy gas without the fancy remote control doo-hickeys. But they drop the little detail that they'll have to be onsite with the cannisters. Did you see all of the suicidal henchmen start to salivate over that one?

Back at Camp David Palmer (west coast Presidential retreat), Mike Novick has recovered from being put under arrest by his supreme leader nicely and is now working at guaranteeing that the president will never have sex with his wife ever again. Vindictive much, Mike? No, really, his effort to get Logan to cover up Cummings' plot certainly seems sincere just as much as it certainly seems liable to fail. If Mike is all calculating and stuff, why not keep the option open to use Cummings' death later as an out for the administration? And is there any real reason to say anything at all definitive about Walt's death?

Meanwhile, the First Lady is using her Apple to surf the Internet looking for other crazy people to have IM sex with when Evelyn asks her probing questions about Walt's suicide. Call me suspicious but between the lines I heard her asking, "Does anyone suspect that it might have been some inconsequential Secret Service chick behind Walt's death?" Marty collects her marbles long enough to blow a viable smoke screen.

And I'll just interject here that I think J and I are on the road toward a confrontation about ole Marty. I actually like the First Lady. Because she is crazy, the writers can use her to say all those decent, wholesome things that we want to believe our leaders actually would do, like you know tell the truth and stuff. She also gets to haul off and smack Logan once in a while which certainly puts her up a notch or two in my book. Plus, she's a wild card, dammit, and for all we know may start rending garments and speaking in tongues any minute. While the terrorists keep doing the expected, I'll take my wild cards where I can get 'em.

Was it just my mother-in-law's TV or was the music particularly intrusive in this episode? On the way to the mall, there was a persistent melody in the background that sounded like a Doors song to me. It wasn't "Break on Through" either, though that would've worked nicely during the airport raid a few hours ago.

At CTU, Lynn finally gets to say out loud that his dick is bigger than Buchanan's during which moment Chloe looks like a pre-teen whose parents are fighting (not that I've ever seen that look before. Really. Never. Or at least, not much.) [A friend of mine is convinced there's another dynamic we've yet to see with those two... such as Lynn blurting out, "Dammit, Dad!" - J] Lynn once again puts Jack in the position of doing something unsavory, the second time in less than an hour so I'm thinking our Jack has no great love for Lynnie right now. At around the half-way point Chloe has broken into the mall's internal monitoring system which is more than likely completely ridiculous. Those systems are more than likely closed, not even attached to the Internet or anywhere else that could be hacked into, and plus, it would be impossibel to get the bandwidth you would need to get all those video feeds to draw over a hacked line. If I suspend my disbelief much longer it's going to go the same route as my moral fiber and sense of decency and blow town altogether.

Since we never would suspect that a terrorist attack on a mall would kill scads of innocent children, we are subjected to happy, celebrating children who can't hold on to their balloons. So sad that some child may grow up thinking that terrorists attack whenever he/she loses something. That would be one OCD kid, my friend.

CTU has to confer with the Wussy in Chief about allowing some 800 or so folks to go all frothy at the mouth which gets Audrey's morality meter squealing. And sure enough, Logan ends up looking like the bad guy. He obviously didn't see the whole thing with the balloon.

One positive note here: I love the way Jack wakes up from getting knocked out cold: a little twitchy like he's having a bad dream with a little flinch thrown in because he's probably got a goose-egg the size of Elisha Cuthbert's left one on the back of his head. More kudos for Kief. We now have the somewhat predicatible escape and thwart scenario with Jack the only unknowns being: a) will the gas actually get to anyone and b) why does it automatically retract when it's electonics are all ripped up? Is that a special safety measure built into cannisters of deadly gas? Those weaponizers are so thoughtful! [I loved how Jack went running through the mall with a gas mask and a gun. Almost like: "I know I'm usually invincible, but screw the potential panic, I'm not taking this circa-WWII thing off!" - J]

So finally we end the episode pretty much in the same state we were in about two hours ago, waiting for some lucky clue to drop in from heaven to point CTU's way to the cannisters. Are these little interludes going to continue to run on two hour shifts? Did they establish some kind of two hour pattern at the season's beginning and now can't break out of it?

I also think Fox has a great gimmick available to them now: terrorists have 19 cannisters and each week, they'll target someplace new while CTU tries to track them down. The terrorists will have to double-up to make it under 24 hours, like maybe dropping a couple at the Simpson's house, one for Ashley, one for Jessica. It could be kind of a twisted reality show, or the inverse of "My Name is Earl" -- instead of trying to generate good karma, the terrorists will try to generate horrendous karma. If the karma gets bad enough, Logan's presidency implodes; if it doesn't, when the cannisters are all accounted for, Jack gets his choice of comely sweethearts from previous seasons.

Come on now, Surnow, admit it. It doesn't sound much worse than some of the stuff you all are cooking up lately as '24' heads into the potentially troublesome middle hours. Why not give it a shot?