Season 5; Hour Twenty-Three (5:00AM - 6:00AM)
Air Date: 22 May 2006
Reviewer: D
Shocker! What a complete shocker! Like nothing else this show has ever done, a revelation this hour nearly knocked me on my ass. I am of course talking about Chloe’s ex-husband. Just when you think 24 has used up all of its tricks, it pulls another one out of the bag. And the fact that Chloe’s ex is a flirtatious, boorish, British (?) techie geek is just icing on the cake.
The introduction of Morris O’Brian at this late hour was just one of the many awesome (sorry – this season has exhausted my storehouse of adjectives; we’ll have to go with this one) elements of this finale. Even though Hour 24 had some even more cool things going on, this hour was no slouch. Let’s get into it, shall we:
We start out with Bierko the Jierko giving his troops the rah-rah speech I’m sure they need as they sit in a completely sealed metal container with no viable exit strategy. Translation of his speech: keep up the faith boys because we are all going to be meeting our maker before too long. I think this scene was one last shot at giving Julian Sands – a pretty damn good actor in certain circumstances and pretty much underutilized on 24 – a chance to strut his stuff. The PR folks were really touting Sands as the big bad of this season before it started; who would’ve thought the real big bad would turn out to be Dr. Romano?
I loved the geeky little computer interface Audrey used to hook up with the Point (Mr.) Mugu Admiral, particularly the big advertisement for Cisco Systems! Might as well plug someone else besides Ford, HP and Apple. All these explosions on 24 cost money!
With those rockets set to fly off in less than 20 minutes we have a real time crunch now, something missing from usually time-intensive 24 for a while. I wonder, though, if Chloe could get such accurate information on when the missile launches were going to happen, why she couldn’t also shut them down. Oh well.
How about those explicit instructions from Jack on how to slit someone’s throat? There wasn’t even a little “don’t try this at home” disclaimer with it, which I would expect during these litigious times (hey, there’s an adjective I haven’t used these season!) I was almost certain little engineer Rooney was going to catch a bullet later on for his trouble but luckily there was a disposable CTU agent around to go down for the cause.
The newly armed (or is he???) Henderson apparently is well enough versed in the weapon systems of Russian subs to disarm the launches. Is there anything these CTU guys can’t do? With all the cool graphics of the warheads, I’m surprised the whole operation wasn’t a point-n-click sort of thing, with message boxes that pop up and say “Are you sure you would like to annihilate the west coast? [OK] [Cancel]”
The final confrontation with Bierko was cool enough – does the Jack Bauer action figure have that same scissor-kick leg action used to break bad guy’s necks? Doesn’t it make you wonder whether Jack used to be a gymnast? Maybe a gymkata fan? You know, “the skill of gymnastics, the kill of karate???” Anyway, you knew Bierko’s time was up before they even got in the sub. The whole sub thing mostly served as a nice way to set up the final confrontation between Henderson and Jack. With RoboChris always seeming a step ahead of Jack (as J pointed out last week), it was gratifying to see Jack finally end up one step ahead of Henderson. I’ve read some chatter that folks think Henderson might not be dead, with his last line (something like “this is how it works”) actually referring to how he was going to be allowed to disappear. I would go for that if either a) there was an audience around for the scene to play out of in front of and/or b) Jack had pushed Henderson into the ocean, allowing him to swim away relatively stealthfully. But without those, I’m thinking he’s dead. As dead as a doorknob. Just as dead as Tony, Michelle, and David Palmer. Even deader than Edgar (but not Better Than Ezra). Another bad guy sent to hell. Amen.
And hey, we finally have a commercial break. I really had to take a leak at this point but seriously could have sat for another 90 minutes with my legs crossed as gripping as it all was so far.
So, I left out the scene where President Bird Neck is getting briefed by Novick because really that just was put in there to remind us that the Commander in Chief has quickly gone from the triumph of last hour to being a peeved little boy again. It’s surprising he doesn’t get whiplash. Pierce is biding his time, looking for new places to bleed, while waiting for Martha to enlist the help of someone who isn’t quite as loony as she is. Finally, after the whole sub mess is over, Novick leaves the side of his main man and Martha grabs him.
Now we have a lot of redundant explication, with Novick getting brought up to speed but hey you need to make allowances for that kind of thing. Particularly when the resolution is one of the great interpersonal moments of the night, the sort of hug, moving toward kiss but non-kiss show of affection between Martha and Aaron. What, are these guys teenagers? I can understand Aaron being a little reserved – hell, she is the First Lady (I’d think you’d want to take on the Second or Third Lady first before moving right in on the First one.) But hell, Martha, this guy did save your life and almost got killed for his trouble! How about spreading a little love on Aaron’s blood and spittle laden puss? (Wow, I’m finding that last sentence more disgusting than the throat-slitting description. What does that say about me?)
OK, while this has been going on, Jack is off on what appears to be a mini-rampage in order to bring Logan to justice. With the blood of Bierko and Henderson on his hands already, Logan almost seems like small potatoes. He of course needs whipping-girl Chloe’s assistance, now equipped with sidekick Morris for near-comic relief. Is there a sitcom spin-off in this relationship somewhere? A sort of “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” for the seriously techno-geeky?
And finally, in the perhaps the best and certainly oogiest scene of this hour, we finish up with Martha coming to her nasty-ass husband willing to give her all for the cause. At the beginning of the scene, I never would have thought it ended up the way it did. Gregory Itzin continues in what I can only hope is a juggernaut roll to Emmy-town with some great stuff. He seems alternately suspicious of Martha, mad at her, imperious at one point and then nearly breaking down when he says that he needs her. Oh my, this boy can act. And, oh but how my flesh doth crawl when I think of him and Martha doing the nasty. (In my musical version of 24, there’d be a song called “You’re a cruel one, Mr. Prez” to the tune of the Grinch song but I’ll leave appropriate lyrics to someone with more adjectives at their disposal…) Certainly sex was the most conclusive way to delay Bird Neck but I wouldn’t have thought Martha could do it without wretching. Nothing the Chinese will do to Jack could be as bad as what our girl Marti went through for her country…
Of course, I also laughed out loud when we find that the whole interlude lasted about 5 minutes. Apparently, Charles is a little quick on the trigger. Perhaps this contributed to Martha’s mental fragility? Years and years without an orgasm can take its toll. [I’ll say. I mean, um… uhhh, nothing. – J]
This hour ends with Jack on deck to sneak on to Logan’s helicopter and willing, of course, to go “as far as I have to” to get Logan to confess. And all of us little 24 lemmings are thereby well-conditioned to think that Jack is going to beat bad ole Bird Neck to a pulp, torture him like he’s hurt no one before. Oh you clever 24 writers, with your ingenious psychological tricks. Do you really think we’re going to be lead so easily down this path? Well, I daresay we are!
Anyway, I’m getting into J’s territory here so I’ll leave the rest to the master. But before I go I’ll put my little endorsement in for this being the best damn season of 24 ever. Sure, some of the novelty of some of the twists has worn off and there was sloppiness in some of the plotting as per usual. But all in all, there was less filler and more wicked coolness than ever before. And some truly amazing performances, Itzin taking the gold but some spectacular second places as well. I’m more than stoked to see what next year will bring.
And thank you all (or should I say, you both) for reading. On to the grand finale…
Reviewer: D
Shocker! What a complete shocker! Like nothing else this show has ever done, a revelation this hour nearly knocked me on my ass. I am of course talking about Chloe’s ex-husband. Just when you think 24 has used up all of its tricks, it pulls another one out of the bag. And the fact that Chloe’s ex is a flirtatious, boorish, British (?) techie geek is just icing on the cake.
The introduction of Morris O’Brian at this late hour was just one of the many awesome (sorry – this season has exhausted my storehouse of adjectives; we’ll have to go with this one) elements of this finale. Even though Hour 24 had some even more cool things going on, this hour was no slouch. Let’s get into it, shall we:
We start out with Bierko the Jierko giving his troops the rah-rah speech I’m sure they need as they sit in a completely sealed metal container with no viable exit strategy. Translation of his speech: keep up the faith boys because we are all going to be meeting our maker before too long. I think this scene was one last shot at giving Julian Sands – a pretty damn good actor in certain circumstances and pretty much underutilized on 24 – a chance to strut his stuff. The PR folks were really touting Sands as the big bad of this season before it started; who would’ve thought the real big bad would turn out to be Dr. Romano?
I loved the geeky little computer interface Audrey used to hook up with the Point (Mr.) Mugu Admiral, particularly the big advertisement for Cisco Systems! Might as well plug someone else besides Ford, HP and Apple. All these explosions on 24 cost money!
With those rockets set to fly off in less than 20 minutes we have a real time crunch now, something missing from usually time-intensive 24 for a while. I wonder, though, if Chloe could get such accurate information on when the missile launches were going to happen, why she couldn’t also shut them down. Oh well.
How about those explicit instructions from Jack on how to slit someone’s throat? There wasn’t even a little “don’t try this at home” disclaimer with it, which I would expect during these litigious times (hey, there’s an adjective I haven’t used these season!) I was almost certain little engineer Rooney was going to catch a bullet later on for his trouble but luckily there was a disposable CTU agent around to go down for the cause.
The newly armed (or is he???) Henderson apparently is well enough versed in the weapon systems of Russian subs to disarm the launches. Is there anything these CTU guys can’t do? With all the cool graphics of the warheads, I’m surprised the whole operation wasn’t a point-n-click sort of thing, with message boxes that pop up and say “Are you sure you would like to annihilate the west coast? [OK] [Cancel]”
The final confrontation with Bierko was cool enough – does the Jack Bauer action figure have that same scissor-kick leg action used to break bad guy’s necks? Doesn’t it make you wonder whether Jack used to be a gymnast? Maybe a gymkata fan? You know, “the skill of gymnastics, the kill of karate???” Anyway, you knew Bierko’s time was up before they even got in the sub. The whole sub thing mostly served as a nice way to set up the final confrontation between Henderson and Jack. With RoboChris always seeming a step ahead of Jack (as J pointed out last week), it was gratifying to see Jack finally end up one step ahead of Henderson. I’ve read some chatter that folks think Henderson might not be dead, with his last line (something like “this is how it works”) actually referring to how he was going to be allowed to disappear. I would go for that if either a) there was an audience around for the scene to play out of in front of and/or b) Jack had pushed Henderson into the ocean, allowing him to swim away relatively stealthfully. But without those, I’m thinking he’s dead. As dead as a doorknob. Just as dead as Tony, Michelle, and David Palmer. Even deader than Edgar (but not Better Than Ezra). Another bad guy sent to hell. Amen.
And hey, we finally have a commercial break. I really had to take a leak at this point but seriously could have sat for another 90 minutes with my legs crossed as gripping as it all was so far.
So, I left out the scene where President Bird Neck is getting briefed by Novick because really that just was put in there to remind us that the Commander in Chief has quickly gone from the triumph of last hour to being a peeved little boy again. It’s surprising he doesn’t get whiplash. Pierce is biding his time, looking for new places to bleed, while waiting for Martha to enlist the help of someone who isn’t quite as loony as she is. Finally, after the whole sub mess is over, Novick leaves the side of his main man and Martha grabs him.
Now we have a lot of redundant explication, with Novick getting brought up to speed but hey you need to make allowances for that kind of thing. Particularly when the resolution is one of the great interpersonal moments of the night, the sort of hug, moving toward kiss but non-kiss show of affection between Martha and Aaron. What, are these guys teenagers? I can understand Aaron being a little reserved – hell, she is the First Lady (I’d think you’d want to take on the Second or Third Lady first before moving right in on the First one.) But hell, Martha, this guy did save your life and almost got killed for his trouble! How about spreading a little love on Aaron’s blood and spittle laden puss? (Wow, I’m finding that last sentence more disgusting than the throat-slitting description. What does that say about me?)
OK, while this has been going on, Jack is off on what appears to be a mini-rampage in order to bring Logan to justice. With the blood of Bierko and Henderson on his hands already, Logan almost seems like small potatoes. He of course needs whipping-girl Chloe’s assistance, now equipped with sidekick Morris for near-comic relief. Is there a sitcom spin-off in this relationship somewhere? A sort of “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” for the seriously techno-geeky?
And finally, in the perhaps the best and certainly oogiest scene of this hour, we finish up with Martha coming to her nasty-ass husband willing to give her all for the cause. At the beginning of the scene, I never would have thought it ended up the way it did. Gregory Itzin continues in what I can only hope is a juggernaut roll to Emmy-town with some great stuff. He seems alternately suspicious of Martha, mad at her, imperious at one point and then nearly breaking down when he says that he needs her. Oh my, this boy can act. And, oh but how my flesh doth crawl when I think of him and Martha doing the nasty. (In my musical version of 24, there’d be a song called “You’re a cruel one, Mr. Prez” to the tune of the Grinch song but I’ll leave appropriate lyrics to someone with more adjectives at their disposal…) Certainly sex was the most conclusive way to delay Bird Neck but I wouldn’t have thought Martha could do it without wretching. Nothing the Chinese will do to Jack could be as bad as what our girl Marti went through for her country…
Of course, I also laughed out loud when we find that the whole interlude lasted about 5 minutes. Apparently, Charles is a little quick on the trigger. Perhaps this contributed to Martha’s mental fragility? Years and years without an orgasm can take its toll. [I’ll say. I mean, um… uhhh, nothing. – J]
This hour ends with Jack on deck to sneak on to Logan’s helicopter and willing, of course, to go “as far as I have to” to get Logan to confess. And all of us little 24 lemmings are thereby well-conditioned to think that Jack is going to beat bad ole Bird Neck to a pulp, torture him like he’s hurt no one before. Oh you clever 24 writers, with your ingenious psychological tricks. Do you really think we’re going to be lead so easily down this path? Well, I daresay we are!
Anyway, I’m getting into J’s territory here so I’ll leave the rest to the master. But before I go I’ll put my little endorsement in for this being the best damn season of 24 ever. Sure, some of the novelty of some of the twists has worn off and there was sloppiness in some of the plotting as per usual. But all in all, there was less filler and more wicked coolness than ever before. And some truly amazing performances, Itzin taking the gold but some spectacular second places as well. I’m more than stoked to see what next year will bring.
And thank you all (or should I say, you both) for reading. On to the grand finale…
Labels: Season Five
posted by J Money at 9:23:00 AM
2 Comments:
Should I comment before the review is up? Feels very weird, to tell you the truth!
Let's just say this for now: I was happy with what happened to Henderson.
And Martha would do anything for her country.
A great, great episode.
Really though, how long did that sub/missile plot last? an hour?! What was the point? just to get Henderson and Beirko killed off? Eh, it was tense, and Jack Bauer's step by step guide on how to slit a guys throat made me chuckle.
And what's going on with Billy B and Mr Chloe? There were some looks between them.
It's been good reading your blogs D+J. Thanks for doing every week :)
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