Season 6; Hour Eight (1:00PM - 2:00PM)
Air Date: 12 Feb 2007
Reviewer: J
Damn. Those were two good hours! Two in a row! Both edge-of-your-seat, like the 24 we all came to love and admire! Blood! Gore (not Al)! Rena Sofer being hot! No Sandra Palmer! No Walid! Hooray!
Seriously, though, I loved this past Monday night. The first hour certainly earned its graphic violence warning. It’s interesting to me that they no longer say anything about graphic violence and instead start with the voice over guy intoning – far more seriously than he used to – “Viewer Discretion……is advised.” No shit, voice over guy.
We pick up Hour Eight right where Hour Seven left off, with McCarthy and his woman racing around in his silver Maserati with Morris cuffed in the backseat and fully aware that he just got schnookered. CTU is busily trying to locate him with Jack in a helicopter and Chloe trying to get the info up on her screen. When it’s clear that she’s flipping the fuck out about her husband (ex-husband?) being kidnapped, Milo tattles on her to Buchanan who removes her from her station and hands it over to Milo. Milo very dramatically removes his sport coat to get down to business. He has the satellite footage almost instantly (much to Chloe’s visible surprise) and, damn, that’s some good satellite footage! Not only can we see Morris’ car and McCarthy’s car, but we can see that McCarthy’s woman is blonde and that it’s a Maserati! Damn good satellites! Is there one pointed at every streetcorner in L.A. at all times? Because that seems rather fortuitous.
The chase is on as Jack and unnamed, unspeaking chopper pilot (we’ll call him Herman) track the Maserati, though not inconspicuously. McCarthy catches on quickly and has Rita, the chick he’s allowed to drive his $90,000 car, perform evasive maneuvers. Wait, does McCarthy not realize a chopper can go anywhere and isn’t bound by the restrictions of paved roads? What’s even more amusing is that they don’t even know where they’re going because Fayed hasn’t told them yet. So they’re just driving around aimlessly in Los Angeles? What if they need gas or something?
Meanwhile, Jack has been informed of his brother’s demise but he’s kind of focused so it seems not to affect him much. You just have to know somewhere inside he suspects foul play. I mean, he definitely does… and it’s his own foul play and overdoing it with Graem that he thinks is to blame. Oh well, poor Jack. No time to sulk, though, because they need to catch the Maserati.
McCarthy smartly directs Rita under a huge interchange of freeways where they park the Maserati and McCarthy hijacks another vehicle. During this interlude, Morris pleads with Rita and when she learns this has to do with nukes, she gets a little jittery. Morris points out that they don’t even know who she is (CTU, that is) and so she should hit the trail now. The wheels are turning in blondie’s head. Never a good sign.
Herman drops Jack off on top of a truck and Jack of course finds the Maserati empty… and then a second later a TAC team on the ground pulls up and picks up Jack. Wait, they were that close?? Shit, for all those times we accuse CTU of catching good breaks (like intercepting one of 450,000 cell phone calls) this should be evidence of them just missing catching a break.
Fayed does indeed call with a location once the McCarthy-Rita-Morris triumvirate are on the road again, now in a jaunty Dodge pickup truck (fortunately with a crew cab for Morris, lest he ride in the bed). Rita lets McCarthy punch the address into the GPS of the truck (good thing that’s there – maybe that’s what he was looking for when trying to find suitable vehicles to steal) and then blasts him two or three times with his gun. Morris shocked as she pushes McCarthy out and takes off with the truck. I loved Morris’ comment: “Thank god! A bit extreme, but still, you made the right decision.” It turns out she didn’t since she’s going to hand over Morris’ limey ass to Fayed for the $7 Mill since, as Morris told her, CTU doesn’t know who she is. Bet McCarthy never saw this coming. But why didn’t he have her drive while he held the gun, like they were doing in the Maserati? Oh well.
Just ten minutes later, Jack has found McCarthy’s body with the TAC team. Speaking of TAC teams, I thought they were all gone a few hours ago when they done got blow’d up? No? Did I daydream Milo telling Buchanan that all their TAC teams were dead? Maybe these are backups from San Diego.
Some gobbledy-gook ensures, wherein CTU figures out where Fayed was calling dead McCarthy’s cell phone from. Yeah, I don’t understand how, either, but they were able to find a perfect satellite image of where McCarthy jacked Morris so whatever. Point is, they know where Fayed is and, by extension, where Morris is and, by extension, where nukes are likely to be. Rather than head in the exact opposite direction like I would do, Jack wants to go there. Of course he does.
Meanwhile, let’s digress and discuss what’s happening at the White House bunker. Tom Lennox has pitched a classic bitch-fit and is so mad the President won’t listen to him that he wants to resign. His bitch – err, I’m sorry, assistant – Reed, doesn’t want him to. Lennox is convinced he cannot help the President and insists Reed go draft his resignation.
Reed, as if you didn’t know he was bad already, calls some equally white dude named “Carson” and they agree their “plan” needs to be implemented. What the H? They need Lennox in place, though, since that’s how Reed gets his access. Okay. So does that mean Lennox is not a bad guy? Or he is a bad guy?
Meanwhile, the President has been meeting with Assad and asking him to go on TV to call on the terrorists hidden within the U.S. to lay down their arms and come out for the ass-whipping and lynching they so desperately deserve. Oh, did I say “lynching”? I meant lunching. Yes, the President wants to have lunch. Assad is predictably skeptical but not really in any position to negotiate, given that he’s a known terrorist in the President’s underground bunker. Not exactly home-court advantage. I hope someone points this out to him soon by suggesting he might make good fertilizer for the rose garden.
Reed goes back to Lennox and pitches the idea of the VP being in charge. Tom says that while he might not agree with the President, he hardly thinks this merits holding hearings. Oh, Tom, you really are innocent, aren’t you? Reed, with a really creepy look, suggests that something “more immediate” would have to happen. Lennox points out that that’s treasonous talk and again dispatches Reed to write his resignation letter. Shit, Tom, just write the damn thing yourself: “I, Thomas Lennox, hereby resign my position as Chief of Staff to the President of the United States. Sincerely, Tom.”
See? Not so hard.
Back at Fayed’s hangout, Rita brings in Morris and Fayed says she gets paid when he completes his tasks. Uh-oh. Not good, Rita. Morris, of course, refuses to program the nuke and Fayed’s men start torturing him. And I have to say, Fayed’s team is really good at this. People get on Jack for using torture but he’s still bound by some rules. Fayed can do whatever he wants to get results. And this was an interesting scene. I think any of us would probably refuse to arm a nuke for somebody. And I think many of us would die in order to stop many, many thousands of people from being nuked. But once the torture begins, how long could you last? I’m fairly certain the drill would have broken me, too.
I was amazed at the gore in this episode – and it was the 8 PM hour! Well-done, Fox! Morris, after having the ¾ inch drill but bored into the back of his shoulder, collapses to the ground and this is all Rita can take. She volunteers to forgo the money if she can just hit the road in her stolen pickup truck. Fayed makes kind of a funny face about her being willing to waive the $7M fee and then he turns around the blasts her twice with his gun. Her own blood splatters up onto her face as she makes that, “What the fuck?” face for the last time. She collapses and is face-to-face with Morris who, despite his history in that field, does not comment on her fantastic shoes.
It’s at this point that Morris agrees to do what Fayed wants. He does and, predictably, that meanie Fayed plans to have him killed as he leaves the room… but it’s Jack and the Jackettes to the rescue! Morris survives though he’s unconscious and Jack finds the nuke he just armed in the next room. Yikes.
There’s a big, tense scene where Jack has to disarm the nuke but, fortunately, the writers didn’t write it so Jack had some special knowledge and only he could disarm it. He actually has no idea what the hell he’s doing and needs Chloe to walk him through it. Wow, Chloe’s talents keep expanding. I had no idea computer programmers and excellent satellite camera operators could also detonate nukes. As per standard Hollywood timing, Jack succeeds in disarming the bomb with mere seconds to spare. And then he learns that Morris built Fayed a device that could arm any of them… and he actually gets pissed off at Morris! I mean, I see Jack’s point and he would gladly die before doing that but to expect that of others? I mean, I’m fairly sure Morris isn’t a field agent and I wonder if he would have reacted this way had it been Chloe who created the nuke-armer-device-thingy.
Naturally, in all the commotion and shootouts, Fayed escaped down some hidden shaft. My first thought was that they must have had plenty of time to disarm the bomb since Fayed couldn’t possibly expect to get out of the blast radius that fast. But Agent Turner (presumably the replacement for Agent Castle from a couple years back) points out that a medivac chopper lifted off a couple minutes ago and that was probably Fayed. Nice work, CTU perimeter.
In a rarity, we get no splitscreen as the hour closes. Lennox learns of the device Fayed now has and he calls Reed, saying maybe he will consider listening to what devious devices Reed has with which to remove the President from power. Or, you know, gentlemen, you could just approach the President with this new news and try to convince him again. And then remember that if the country get vaporized, it’s on his head – not yours. But hey, what do I know? I’m just a taxpayer.
The next hour starts immediately and I just love the previouslies after you’ve just watched an hour.
Reviewer: J
Damn. Those were two good hours! Two in a row! Both edge-of-your-seat, like the 24 we all came to love and admire! Blood! Gore (not Al)! Rena Sofer being hot! No Sandra Palmer! No Walid! Hooray!
Seriously, though, I loved this past Monday night. The first hour certainly earned its graphic violence warning. It’s interesting to me that they no longer say anything about graphic violence and instead start with the voice over guy intoning – far more seriously than he used to – “Viewer Discretion……is advised.” No shit, voice over guy.
We pick up Hour Eight right where Hour Seven left off, with McCarthy and his woman racing around in his silver Maserati with Morris cuffed in the backseat and fully aware that he just got schnookered. CTU is busily trying to locate him with Jack in a helicopter and Chloe trying to get the info up on her screen. When it’s clear that she’s flipping the fuck out about her husband (ex-husband?) being kidnapped, Milo tattles on her to Buchanan who removes her from her station and hands it over to Milo. Milo very dramatically removes his sport coat to get down to business. He has the satellite footage almost instantly (much to Chloe’s visible surprise) and, damn, that’s some good satellite footage! Not only can we see Morris’ car and McCarthy’s car, but we can see that McCarthy’s woman is blonde and that it’s a Maserati! Damn good satellites! Is there one pointed at every streetcorner in L.A. at all times? Because that seems rather fortuitous.
The chase is on as Jack and unnamed, unspeaking chopper pilot (we’ll call him Herman) track the Maserati, though not inconspicuously. McCarthy catches on quickly and has Rita, the chick he’s allowed to drive his $90,000 car, perform evasive maneuvers. Wait, does McCarthy not realize a chopper can go anywhere and isn’t bound by the restrictions of paved roads? What’s even more amusing is that they don’t even know where they’re going because Fayed hasn’t told them yet. So they’re just driving around aimlessly in Los Angeles? What if they need gas or something?
Meanwhile, Jack has been informed of his brother’s demise but he’s kind of focused so it seems not to affect him much. You just have to know somewhere inside he suspects foul play. I mean, he definitely does… and it’s his own foul play and overdoing it with Graem that he thinks is to blame. Oh well, poor Jack. No time to sulk, though, because they need to catch the Maserati.
McCarthy smartly directs Rita under a huge interchange of freeways where they park the Maserati and McCarthy hijacks another vehicle. During this interlude, Morris pleads with Rita and when she learns this has to do with nukes, she gets a little jittery. Morris points out that they don’t even know who she is (CTU, that is) and so she should hit the trail now. The wheels are turning in blondie’s head. Never a good sign.
Herman drops Jack off on top of a truck and Jack of course finds the Maserati empty… and then a second later a TAC team on the ground pulls up and picks up Jack. Wait, they were that close?? Shit, for all those times we accuse CTU of catching good breaks (like intercepting one of 450,000 cell phone calls) this should be evidence of them just missing catching a break.
Fayed does indeed call with a location once the McCarthy-Rita-Morris triumvirate are on the road again, now in a jaunty Dodge pickup truck (fortunately with a crew cab for Morris, lest he ride in the bed). Rita lets McCarthy punch the address into the GPS of the truck (good thing that’s there – maybe that’s what he was looking for when trying to find suitable vehicles to steal) and then blasts him two or three times with his gun. Morris shocked as she pushes McCarthy out and takes off with the truck. I loved Morris’ comment: “Thank god! A bit extreme, but still, you made the right decision.” It turns out she didn’t since she’s going to hand over Morris’ limey ass to Fayed for the $7 Mill since, as Morris told her, CTU doesn’t know who she is. Bet McCarthy never saw this coming. But why didn’t he have her drive while he held the gun, like they were doing in the Maserati? Oh well.
Just ten minutes later, Jack has found McCarthy’s body with the TAC team. Speaking of TAC teams, I thought they were all gone a few hours ago when they done got blow’d up? No? Did I daydream Milo telling Buchanan that all their TAC teams were dead? Maybe these are backups from San Diego.
Some gobbledy-gook ensures, wherein CTU figures out where Fayed was calling dead McCarthy’s cell phone from. Yeah, I don’t understand how, either, but they were able to find a perfect satellite image of where McCarthy jacked Morris so whatever. Point is, they know where Fayed is and, by extension, where Morris is and, by extension, where nukes are likely to be. Rather than head in the exact opposite direction like I would do, Jack wants to go there. Of course he does.
Meanwhile, let’s digress and discuss what’s happening at the White House bunker. Tom Lennox has pitched a classic bitch-fit and is so mad the President won’t listen to him that he wants to resign. His bitch – err, I’m sorry, assistant – Reed, doesn’t want him to. Lennox is convinced he cannot help the President and insists Reed go draft his resignation.
Reed, as if you didn’t know he was bad already, calls some equally white dude named “Carson” and they agree their “plan” needs to be implemented. What the H? They need Lennox in place, though, since that’s how Reed gets his access. Okay. So does that mean Lennox is not a bad guy? Or he is a bad guy?
Meanwhile, the President has been meeting with Assad and asking him to go on TV to call on the terrorists hidden within the U.S. to lay down their arms and come out for the ass-whipping and lynching they so desperately deserve. Oh, did I say “lynching”? I meant lunching. Yes, the President wants to have lunch. Assad is predictably skeptical but not really in any position to negotiate, given that he’s a known terrorist in the President’s underground bunker. Not exactly home-court advantage. I hope someone points this out to him soon by suggesting he might make good fertilizer for the rose garden.
Reed goes back to Lennox and pitches the idea of the VP being in charge. Tom says that while he might not agree with the President, he hardly thinks this merits holding hearings. Oh, Tom, you really are innocent, aren’t you? Reed, with a really creepy look, suggests that something “more immediate” would have to happen. Lennox points out that that’s treasonous talk and again dispatches Reed to write his resignation letter. Shit, Tom, just write the damn thing yourself: “I, Thomas Lennox, hereby resign my position as Chief of Staff to the President of the United States. Sincerely, Tom.”
See? Not so hard.
Back at Fayed’s hangout, Rita brings in Morris and Fayed says she gets paid when he completes his tasks. Uh-oh. Not good, Rita. Morris, of course, refuses to program the nuke and Fayed’s men start torturing him. And I have to say, Fayed’s team is really good at this. People get on Jack for using torture but he’s still bound by some rules. Fayed can do whatever he wants to get results. And this was an interesting scene. I think any of us would probably refuse to arm a nuke for somebody. And I think many of us would die in order to stop many, many thousands of people from being nuked. But once the torture begins, how long could you last? I’m fairly certain the drill would have broken me, too.
I was amazed at the gore in this episode – and it was the 8 PM hour! Well-done, Fox! Morris, after having the ¾ inch drill but bored into the back of his shoulder, collapses to the ground and this is all Rita can take. She volunteers to forgo the money if she can just hit the road in her stolen pickup truck. Fayed makes kind of a funny face about her being willing to waive the $7M fee and then he turns around the blasts her twice with his gun. Her own blood splatters up onto her face as she makes that, “What the fuck?” face for the last time. She collapses and is face-to-face with Morris who, despite his history in that field, does not comment on her fantastic shoes.
It’s at this point that Morris agrees to do what Fayed wants. He does and, predictably, that meanie Fayed plans to have him killed as he leaves the room… but it’s Jack and the Jackettes to the rescue! Morris survives though he’s unconscious and Jack finds the nuke he just armed in the next room. Yikes.
There’s a big, tense scene where Jack has to disarm the nuke but, fortunately, the writers didn’t write it so Jack had some special knowledge and only he could disarm it. He actually has no idea what the hell he’s doing and needs Chloe to walk him through it. Wow, Chloe’s talents keep expanding. I had no idea computer programmers and excellent satellite camera operators could also detonate nukes. As per standard Hollywood timing, Jack succeeds in disarming the bomb with mere seconds to spare. And then he learns that Morris built Fayed a device that could arm any of them… and he actually gets pissed off at Morris! I mean, I see Jack’s point and he would gladly die before doing that but to expect that of others? I mean, I’m fairly sure Morris isn’t a field agent and I wonder if he would have reacted this way had it been Chloe who created the nuke-armer-device-thingy.
Naturally, in all the commotion and shootouts, Fayed escaped down some hidden shaft. My first thought was that they must have had plenty of time to disarm the bomb since Fayed couldn’t possibly expect to get out of the blast radius that fast. But Agent Turner (presumably the replacement for Agent Castle from a couple years back) points out that a medivac chopper lifted off a couple minutes ago and that was probably Fayed. Nice work, CTU perimeter.
In a rarity, we get no splitscreen as the hour closes. Lennox learns of the device Fayed now has and he calls Reed, saying maybe he will consider listening to what devious devices Reed has with which to remove the President from power. Or, you know, gentlemen, you could just approach the President with this new news and try to convince him again. And then remember that if the country get vaporized, it’s on his head – not yours. But hey, what do I know? I’m just a taxpayer.
The next hour starts immediately and I just love the previouslies after you’ve just watched an hour.
Labels: Season Six
posted by J Money at 4:58:00 PM
3 Comments:
J - Seeing you use the word Sh*t so many times in this review REALLY shows the intensity of this hour.
And yes, Tom's little rant was perhaps the WHINIEST rant I've EVER heard in an hour of 24. "The President changed his mind AND JUST rejected ALL of MY Proposals and he's even gone back on the centers WE ALREADY HAVE IN PLACE!!" (Or something like that). Come on, Tom -- Palmer NEVER changed his mind. He was against it in 6.1 and he was STILL against it after you blackmailed Karen Hayes.
But I was surprised to see Tom's initial reaction to Reed's proposal. Its clear that Tom repsects the President and the Presidency (remember when he chewed off that General), and its clear he's not stupid and willing to be a pawn. So Tom's still interesting in my eye, even though he DOES seem to go to the path of Darkness.
And I can't have another Presidential Removal/Assassination.
Seriously, how does the American public ALREADY feel about having FIVE Presidents in office in just over eight years??
Anonymous #2:
Okay, couldn't Morris at least try to avoid being taken up to Fayed's hideout. Yeah, blondies got a gun, and she's used it, but she's thin as a rail and a good body sham against the wall once they got out of the car certainly would have been worth a try. Better than the certain torture and death he knows he'll receive at Fayed's.
And as much as I am a fan of positive reviews, I'm already growing tired of the Presidential coup storyline. Second verse same as the first - except instead of voting him out, they'll try to kill him. Big deal. We all know they won't succeed, so I feel like I'm wasting time watching it.
Anon -- I thought the same thing about Morris. He should have tried stuggling with Rita for the gun... better option than facing Fayed.
Post a Comment
<< Home