Season 5; Hour Ten (4:00PM - 5:00PM)

Air Date: 27 Feb 06
Reviewer: D

My, what a difference a couple of weeks makes!

Hour Eight my attention started to wander. But with Hour Nine -- thanks to Lynn’s freak-out, the Jack-on-Curtis action, and the First Lady’s impetuous limo-hopping -- I was glued to the tube again. And then this latest hour paid off with a tightly-wound, suspenseful series of events full of nice surprises and scads of the moments we 24-philes salivate over. My formerly droopy BauerHour flag is now flapping wildly and, thanks to the little tidbits dropped by the coming attractions, well, let’s just say I expect to be at full attention next week. And I think you know why. [Is this review bordering on soft-core porn only one paragraph in? -J]

But before I get to k…k…k…KIM [Ah, yes, it is... -J], let’s review, shall we, and distribute the appropriate props all around. First off, we see Novick and Logan already starting to sort out the political wheat from the chaff in the presumed aftermath of a shredded Suvarov. But then what a sweet slap in the face for Logan to find out…for the umpteeth time…that when he actually goes so far as to make a decision, there are consequences, some of them unexpected. Particularly when you have a wild-card wife like Marty.

Now if America was a true meritocracy and Logan had a station in life appropriate to his actual leadership ability, the land of 24 would be fine since the most important thing he’d be deciding would be “paper or plastic” But when you’re the President you may think you’re going to save the country, but then find out you’re going to get your wife killed. Just goes with the territory. Next time, Logie-boy, you might want to think outside the little 10 minute window of time you usually live in.

Most curious to me is the role of Novick here. Clearly, he wouldn’t mind Marty getting a little shrapnel injection and yet his entire dialogue for this episode was, “Do you want me to call the Secret Service? Should I have them divert the motorcade? Do you want to stop this? Yo, Prez, do you want to save your wife’s comely ass or not? Hellooooo Logie!” Is Mike just trying to be a good egg, reneg on his previous advice, or divert attention from the possibility that he’s in with the terrorists?

I mention that last thing because there’s been a fair amount of chatter about this in the fan sites. I have to say, I can’t conceive of Mike being in with the bad guys. He’s shown himself to be a political opportunist, not an ideologue. Of course, by stating this in print, given my track record, I’m probably guaranteeing that Mike starts tossing Molotov cocktails next week. [I'm with you -- no way Novick is dirty. -J]

Wouldn’t it have been great if, as the tension mounted and the motorcade neared the downtown corridor, Mike had turned to Logan and said, “Buck up, Charles, there’s plenty of fish in the sea. Hell, I hear that Keeler’s wife’s available – and she already knows the job!”

The phone call between Logan and Martha was priceless and cemented my affection for the First Lady that has only grown since she flashed her cleavage back in Hour Three. Though it didn’t have the satisfying physical impact of her slapping him a few hours back, it had virtually the same emotional effect, tying poor Logan up into tight, balding, jowly, little knots. At the same time, I’m wondering whether Russian President Suvarov is cruising along idly in the back of the limo thinking, “First Lady threesome? That’d be one for the Guiness Book!”

But the action that really drove this episode was the intrigue and infighting at CTU. If CTU were a real federal agency, it’d be FEMA during Katrina. Lynn is so out of control that he’s firing people before we even know who the hell they are. Carrie? Cary? [Keri? Kerry? -J]We’ll never know since the Fox website just calls her “a techie.” Anyway, the writers have clearly decided they can make more dramatic hay out of Lynn the Paranoid Hobbit versus the brief glimmer we saw of Lynn the Brilliant Division Stiff Who Shows Us that Following Protocol is Good back when he saved Jack’s ass at the airport. So the screw that got loosened when Lynn got rolled in the parking lot has come completely unthreaded and his head is nearly spinning on his neck like Linda Blair’s. [Ah, D...showing your age again. -J]

My favorite line of the show happens early on at CTU when Audrey approaches Edgar and, in a moment of Bart Simpson-esque guilt, Edgar responds “Am I in trouble?” Is Edgar’s tail just permanently stapled between his legs or what? And to stick with our rotund friend for a moment: was it just me, or were you too afraid that Edgar might stumble and start rolling as he lumbered down the corridor to the CTU server room, becoming a human bowling ball that would flatten the stick-figures Audrey and Chloe like a 5-9 split?

So Audrey has the techies on her side. But what does she gain from Edgar’s nervous complicity in her little behind-the-back operation? When challenged by McGill, Edgar says that Chloe stepped away for a minute. Brilliant! This is clearly someone who should be working for the CIA!

I have to give props to Audrey though. Clearly some of Jack rubbed off on her back when they were sleeping together (hey, you want G-rated commentary, you gotta surf elsewhere) because she was practically channeling the man during this hour. She even blurted out his favorite “We haven’t got time” line when she was talking to Curtis. She’s taking the role that Michelle used to play at CTU (short moment of silence please…), that of the clear-headed woman focused on the real problem in the midst of the politics. But I like Audrey in it better than Michelle (blasphemy I know) because she’s not CTU, so she has the leverage to go a little ape-shit if she wants to. And there’s nothing quite as noisy as when a brittle stick cracks. Audrey also clearly doesn’t care that Lynn’s dick is bigger than Buchanan’s so she doesn’t think twice about usurping his authority.

To continue with the props (where did that word even come from anyway?), I gotta give it to my man Curtis. I like the way he calmly played the middle in his interaction both with Lynn and Audrey. He also gets a cool little twist to his mouth that says, “man, I wish I could just start busting some asses around here.” And then, in the showdown scene of the night, played endlessly in previews but no less cool in the context of the show, Curtis gets all emphatic with “I WILL draw my weapon.” As I’ve said so many times that it probably makes you want to give me a frontways wedgie and staple my underwear to my forehead, it’s the small moments that really make 24 soar, and that brief interlude where the nameless Red Guardsmen are making up their minds is what tension is all about. Of course, the conclusion was never in doubt. Let’s see here: large black man with gun on one hand, pasty-faced white man with suit on the other. You make the call.

Meanwhile, Jack is taking nearly as long to get to OmniMegaExoCron (or whatever) as it would take in real life. We are treated to a nice “Insert exposition here” scene when Audrey calls Jack and he spills the backstory on Christopher Henderson. He recruited Jack…too bad there’s never any flashbacks on this show. I’d love to see that scene. Was a toaster offered? Was Jack pulling the wings off flies during college biology lab when Henderson spotted him? Did their eyes meet across a crowded room? Were they both rescuing the same old lady getting mugged in an alley? Was it clown camp? Come on – how about some details?!?

Anyway, I think the fact the Jack was part of an investigation that implicated Henderson in something nasty is a nice bone to throw us long-term fans. Way back during Day One there were insinuations about Jack being involved in an internal investigation that pissed a bunch of people off. I can’t remember the details (hell, I can’t remember my kids’ names half the time) but still, it was enough to give me a warm fuzzy feeling.

The technology mumbo-jumbo that Chloe has to run through actually made vague sense to me (pushing a web page of information into a system that only updates periodically) but I wonder if a truly on-the-ball guard wouldn’t have seen the little “updated as of 2 seconds ago” message on the bottom of the screen and been a little suspicious.

And I gotta hand it to the writers for finally having someone get half a step on Jack. I didn’t see the taser shot to Jack’s neck coming and clearly, Jack didn’t either. Then of course the writers blow it to some extent by making Henderson wait two full minutes before blowing up the lab. This is a guy who apparently hides behind the door whenever his secretary goes to take a leak; you think someone that paranoid is going to give Jack more than 30 seconds to figure out he’s locked in a bunker? I don’t think so.

Anyway, there’s a lot of great stuff between Henderson and Jack in these scenes. Henderson’s “Buchanan? What a stiff!” line is a classic, for instance. But what were these guys doing in the half-hour between their scenes? Reminiscing? Telling their favorite “he’s so stiff” jokes? (Buchanan is so stiff he makes Al Gore look like a slinky. Buchanan is so stiff that his face splintered when he smiled. Buchanan is so stiff that he pees starch. I gotta million of ‘em…) Frolicking about the OmniMegaUberCron grounds, sniffing daisies? Unless this bunker was in Seattle, they spent way too much time walking.

Back at the White House, Logan is thanking god for Polaroid cameras so he can still rifle through those shots of Martha in velvet handcuffs (skipping over the ones of her in the straightjacket) after she’s been blown to First Lady bits. Showing both their knowledge of history and their clever construction of this wimpy, maddening creature that is President Logan, the writers have him go full-blown Nixon on us and ask Mike to pray with him. All they need is to bring in a new Secretary of State with a German accent and the cast will be complete (confused? Go here).

Lynn pops his cork back at CTU, Curtis invokes “section 112” (are sections 1 through 111 all about chain of command and how to subvert it?), and finally Billy B. is back in the saddle (Buchanan is so stiff he craps Viagra.) His first call is to the White House of course and then we have another one of those priceless moments, possibly the one that wins Mr. Itzin his Emmy. When Buchanan tells him they’re about to call Secret Service with their suspicions of a hit on the Russian motorcade, what’s happens on Logan’s face is priceless. I used to see that look on my son’s face when he was about 4 and it meant there was no way we were going to make it to the Porta-Potty in time. I expect it was the same for Logan (and he probably doesn’t carry around Baby-Wipes like I used to…) Just how many ways can this get more fucked up, Mr. President?

In another classic stroking of the 24-phile’s sweet spot, a very groovy shoot-out breaks out in downtown L.A., complete with missiles and flamethrowers, in which it appears that fan favorite Agent Pierce is creamed. But NO! He comes to in time to blow away the last of the bad guys before they can give the Russian first family a third-degree tan that no sunscreen will protect them from. Dude, they have got to be setting this guy up for a spin-off series. Sure, Dennis Haysbert has his “Unit” but wait until next year and maybe we’ll see “Pierce, Impervious.”

So Logan is screwed at this point and Bad Boy Bierko calls him to make sure he knows it. Of course, we viewers with half a brain (apparently disqualifying us from leading the free world) knew he was screwed regardless. Even if Bierko had successfully stewed up some Suvarov stir-fry, he still would have the gas and still could have used it at his leisure. As madwoman Marty insinuated last hour, there’s a reason you don’t negotiate with terrorists.

Jack, meanwhile, is digging himself out from a nasty little blast at OgreMaxiMultiCron, and will undoubtedly be quickly on the tail of his old pal Henderson to ask him more pointedly why they can’t just be friends.

And so now let’s speculate about our two hour event scheduled for next Monday. Among the highlights we saw were: Tony wakes up, some nerve gas gets released somewhere, and D gets an erection. The last one of course has to do with the return of Kim who will find out that her dad lives. This is not a good sign. In fact, what I’m predicting is that a perfect storm of circumstances will collide in which Bierko somehow gets Lynn’s key card, uses it to smuggle Sentox into CTU, then releases it whereupon Kim and every other even vaguely hot woman on CTU’s staff dies. This will make Jack go truly beserk and he…then he…well, I haven’t worked that part out yet. But I expect the good folks at 24 have, which is why I’ll be riveted, eyes fixed with eager intent, in front of my TV one hour earlier than usual next week.