Thursday, February 22, 2007

Season 6; Hour Ten (3:00PM - 4:00PM)

Air Date: 19 Feb 2007
Reviewer: J

Could it be that we just had our third straight episode without Sandra or Walid? Is it possible that the writers of 24 have decided, “The hell with it. Let’s abandon the stupid storylines nobody cares about and just focus on CTU, Jack, the terror threat and the President.”? I suppose it is possible but really not likely. Especially with how this hour ends.

But before we get to that, let’s talk about what an awesome hour this was. Scanning the Internet, I think I was in the minority in thinking last week’s double-dip was excellent so who knows what people thought about this week. I happened to enjoy it again, mainly because I’ve suspended my disbelief somewhere in orbit over Jupiter and I’m no longer questioning the wacky-ass things that are happening within Jack’s family. Phillip Bauer is willing to kill his son(s) and threaten the life of his grandson in order to protect his company? Sure, let’s go with it. Jack and Marilyn have a history that up until now has been unmentioned? Sure! I mean, we know Jack was with Teri at least 17 years or so, right? Kim was 16 in Season One. And the show’s lifespan has been about ten years in 24-universe, meaning that we’d have to go back twenty-seven years to find the time when Jack wasn’t with Teri. Is that when he and Marilyn had their thing? Because Rena Sofer is only 37 years old so that would have made her ten which is kind of To Catch a Predator. So I guess Jack had a thing with Marilyn while he was with Teri. Stud. Wait! There I go trying to apply logic again! Dammit!

We pick up Hour Ten with Milo and Marilyn on the run from Phillip’s men. The Fox Website says the lead commando/henchman (the one with the speaking part) is named “Hacker.” Come on. I guess it was too dorky to name a computer hacker Hacker, so they gave it to a gunman? What’s Phillip’s computer hacker’s name? Shooter?

Anyway, they get Marilyn and Milo pinned down behind a dumpster and Milo tells her to run when he provides cover fire. Aside from hiding behind a dumpster instead of staying on the move and heading into, you know, a more populated area than an alley, Milo’s doing okay here. He’s not a field agent (to our knowledge) and yet he seems to have an idea of what to do.

True to his word, he bravely puts down cover fire with the one magazine of ammo he took with the pistol (I can’t tell for sure if he hits anyone but I don’t think so) and Marilyn freezes like a helpless Bond girl and doesn’t go anywhere. Milo gets winged in the arm and is more than a little pissed that it’s for nothing since Marilyn didn’t get away. Hacker and the Hackettes are about to execute Milo (Jesus, take no prisoners, huh Phillip?) when Jack arrives on the scene and guns them down. He also gets Hacker to disarm himself, pointing out that he would have killed Marilyn already if that was his charge. Well, they hadn’t killed Milo yet, had they Jack? Neither here nor there.

I like how Jack gives Milo a cursory examination and tells him he’ll be fine. I’d be like, “Shitfuck, Jack! This HURTS!”

Jack does his patented, interrogation-by-the-throat technique on Marilyn and she admits the truth about Phillip having Josh held hostage. Jack is gobsmacked and chides himself for being “so stupid.” Well, yeah, on this one anyway.

Jack recovers long enough to check in with CTU and tell Bill where they need teams. Marilyn has given up the exact address of Grendenko’s house – the house she vaguely might remember if driven by it – and Jack suggests a team be dispatched there. Well, okay, but what if she’s got the address wrong by a digit or two? Some already jittery neighbors will probably crap themselves, what with houses blowing up and nukes going off all around them.

Jack then asks Bill for a smaller team for himself at the hotel where Phillip is. When Bill asks for more info and seems pretty steadfast in refusing to take Jack’s orders without getting it, Jack simply apologizes and says “It’s personal” and then hangs up. Yeah, Jack, that’ll surely get you support from Bill. Oh, and is it just now personal? Like, more than when your brother tried to have you killed and you then interrogated him to death?

Back at CTU, we have the ongoing storyline of Morris’ PTSD angling for “silly plot of the week.” Morris is still morose and Chloe again pokes him with a stick. Nadia comes by and announces that Milo will probably be up for a commendation as he held three hostiles at bay “single-handedly.” Is that a joke about his arm, Nadia? And, really, he didn’t hold them at bay so much as run like a girl after driving like an imbecile and then getting himself cornered. But, hey, if by “held them at bay” you mean “had his ass saved by Jack” then sure, I guess he did. But in reality, he was about to be shot when Jack saved the day. Which is exactly what happened to Morris. Well, that plus Morris triggered three more kilotons of nuclear disaster. So, yeah, I guess it’s different.

Morris sees my point and accuses Nadia of rubbing salt in his wounds. She gives him a terrific bitch-stare and moves right along. Morris claims to need to go for a walk. I assumed he meant around the compound that is CTU but we learn eventually that he meant out in Los Angeles. Which is odd to me because Morris is clearly suffering some traumatic stress issues and the last time he left the cozy confines of CTU he was apprehended and tortured. Plus, I don’t know about you, but I’d be asking where the hell my Jaguar convertible was at this point.

Back at the alleyway, Jack has Hacker tell Phillip that he has Marilyn who in turn refuses to tell them Grendenko’s location without first getting Josh back. Got all that? There’s a lot of pseudo-drama and back-and-forth but eventually Phillip realizes he’s on a timeframe and wants to get to Gredenko so he relents and provides the hotel location where he is. I did like Phillip suggesting he and Marilyn and Josh could attempt to salvage whatever is left of their family after this is all done. Right.

Of course, during all this, Phillip is careless enough to let Josh overhear that he’s willing to kill him (Josh) and so he makes a Kim Bauer-ish escape attempt, replete with stammering, lame excuses and furtive glances. Phillip almost seems to let him go downstairs before stopping him by brandishing a gun and telling Josh that nobody’s life is worth everything he’s built. Does that include Lego battleships and the like?

Back at the White House bunker, Tom Lennox has handed over the President’s itinerary and Reed is now asking for Tom to grant access to the bunker by some security specialist who will carry out Wayne’s assassination and then they’ll pin it on Assad. Like that wasn’t obvious. Tom looks sickened by this and I’m still hoping at this point that Tom will turn out to be an okay guy but my faith is getting weaker.

On the streets of Los Angeles, Morris wanders into a store and buys a pint of whiskey and some breath mints and goes outside to have himself a good slug of whiskey. And damn does he down nearly the whole pint at once. He then forces himself to vomit it back up, something I wouldn’t have had to force myself to do. Chloe picks this time to call him and, unlike me, Morris answers his cell phone and says he’s on his way back but that without his car it might take a while. Only he doesn’t say that last part.

We switch back to the parking garage of the hotel Phillip and Josh are at and Jack is telling Marilyn to put on a bulletproof vest “under her clothes.” Jack, you sly dog, I’ll have to try that method of getting a woman to take off her shirt sometime. Do you have any flak pants?

Jack politely turns his back but Marilyn dawdles because it looks like she wants him to watch. Jack eventually complies and comes over to help button up her blouse. How tender. And how backwards of what Jack obviously has experience doing in the past. He even tenderly caresses her face. Wouldn’t this be the perfect time for Audrey to show up? Just, you know, to happen to be staying at that hotel?

Back at the PrezBunker, Reed and Tom are (yet again) meeting secretly in the boiler room. Doesn’t anyone notice them in the hallway? Or is this where all homosexual encounters among those in the White House take place?

Lennox delays about the guy Reed wants to gain access to the bunker but says it’s in the works. This is where I finally began to have hope again that Tom’s conscience would come around. Reed departs and Tom decides to make an ill-advised phone call from the one unmonitored room in the bunker. Well-played, Tom. He calls the Secret Service (not Aaron, unfortunately) and says he’s coming to meet with the ranking agent on site. He whips open the door and is immediately cold-cocked in the melon by Reed, who is wielding a flashlight like a SWAT baton. Tom hits the floor and groggily tells Reed nothing justified killing a President. I like to assume that Tom wasn’t certain this was the path Reed was heading down and that maybe Tom was holding out hope that Reed had some sort of plan to remove the President with underhanded but not deadly means. But when he learned of the plan to out-and-out kill the President, he knew he had to act. But who knows. Point is, he’s out of play now and I have to wonder how long the Chief of Staff could be missing before a search would happen. I guess we’ll find out.

At CTU, Chloe can smell the whiskey that Morris had pass through his lips twice. He begs her not to rat him out and she complies. More swell judgment at CTU. I think maybe Morris should be sent home. Or to a holding tank. Milo also suspects it and Chloe gets Milo to agree not to rat Morris out, either. So now Milo knows about Morris being a drunk and is keeping quiet for Chlose, has broken security guidelines in the hopes of getting into Nadia’s lacy black (just guessing) underthings, and has literally taken a bullet for Marilyn. If he doesn’t get some ass out of this, you know he’s going to be pissed.

At Phillip’s hotel room, there’s nobody there. And that’s because Phillip is nobody’s fool and knows not to underestimate Jack, whom he thought was dead but whatever. He calls the phone in the room and reveals that he’s across the street on a rooftop. “Bomb the building,” Jack doesn’t say.

Jack offers himself up in trade for Josh. My, that’s magnanimous of you, Jack. Could it be that Josh is actually your offspring? I think it’s possible. Kim will be so thrilled to have a brother almost as dippy as herself.

Jack proceeds with the exchange and it goes off according to the agreement. Phillip lets Josh Bauer go and, in coming unarmed, Jack gave his gun to Marilyn. I thought at this point that Marilyn might come in and save Jack but no, she has what she wants and takes off with Josh to parts unknown. Bye, Marilyn.

Jack and Phillip have a discussion wherein Phillip admits that Gredenko began blackmailing him when he found out about Phillip’s role in David Palmer’s assassination. Wait, what? What did Phillip have to do with it? So he was the mastermind behind the mastermind (Graem) we thought was behind things last year? But what purpose did killing Palmer serve? Oh, right, to make the first hour of last season rather gripping. That’s right.

Phillip lays on some more guilt about how none of this would have happened if Jack had worked for the family. Really? That’s kind of shitty, Phil, and hey, why not take some responsibility for what happened instead of putting it on Jack who, up until a day ago, was rotting in a Chinese prison.

Anyway, Jack is put on his knees, Chappelle-style, and it looks like Phillip’s about to execute his own son which is just insane. It’s at this point that my fiancée turns to me and says, “Jack signed another contract, right??” I think it’s funny when her questioned is so frantic that she meshes the fictional Jack with the real-life world of television.

Jack tries to have a final heartfelt moment with his father, telling him he never wanted to turn his back on the family and just had to go his own way. Like Journey. What I don’t get is why is Jack trying to make his father feel better when Phil’s about to effin’ execute him? Eventually, though, Jack bravely says, “anyway, I’m ready.” To die, we are to presume. When there’s no blast, Jack figures he’s invincible. Or not. He turns around the Phillip is gone, vanished like a fart in the wind.

Jack bolts outside but apparently Phillip committed suicide by jumping off the building and his cellie fell out of his pocket and landed on the ledge of the building. Only you know he didn’t. I’m just being flippant.

The cell phone is there, though, and it’s a good thing that Jack A) notices it, and B) doesn’t accidentally fumble it off the rooftop. It’s got a message on it that telling him to call a number. The cell number for Behrooz’ dead girlfriend’s mom from a couple seasons back. Wow, that’s weird.

Oh, wait, it’s not her number anymore. Apparently it’s been reassigned and is now a cell number for a former President of the United States. Clinton? No, it’s Charles Logan, looking like a mountain man and also looking distinctly like he’s not in prison. Unless prison cells have gotten a lot bigger and more luxurious. Hell, it’s California, who knows?

Okay, so Logan is now back in the mix so that means my fantasy that he was what Wayne traded for Jack is certainly not true. So maybe Wayne gave China his baseball card collection or ownership rights to Ellis Island. I don’t know.

What I do know is that it’s always fun to have Logan around but I’m hard-pressed to believe he can help in he current mess. But we’ll see.

Can Mike Novick, Martha Logan or Aaron Pierce be far behind?

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2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Anonymous #2:

It was sickening seeing Jack apologize to his father. I thought that was totally out of character, and probably just a lame way for the writers to allow Phillip to disappear.

Otherwise great hour! Keep it up J!

3:35 PM  
Blogger Phoenician said...

How was that out of character?? This IS his father, and for crying out loud Jack's probably really suicidal right now . . . for Jack, I imagine, he's probably blaming himself for how his father turned out (makes no sense to us, but come on, Jack's ALWAYS willing to take the blame -- even when he thought it was impossible that he killed Graem, he still took the blame).

As for the rest of the hour -- I thought it was great, but CTU still feels very odd to me, and I have no idea why. I love all the characters (Sheesh, they're all veterans except for Nadia, whom I've enjoyed as well), and we've gotten through character deaths before AND full cast changes at CTU, so why does it feels so "odd" for lack of a better word.

When it came to Tom & Reed, I thought Tom was actually doing what Reed WANTED when he called Secret Service. After all, Reed JUST told him to get that level clearance and junk approved quicker, and that's what I thought Tom was doing.

So when Reed comes out of nowhere and slugs Tom, I honestly shouted:

WHAT THE HECK WAS THAT FOR, REED?? HE WAS DOING WHAT YOU TOL -- OOOooooo, he WASN'T doing what you wanted! Ouch."

And when Jack told Bill he needed another Team withougt explanation, I loved Bill's reaction: That's not good enough, what's going on. And then Jack says, "It's Peprsonal, Bill," to which Bill must have thought: "Oh God, Jack, NOT AGAIN . . . this CAN'T be good."

That's all from me for now.

Again, great review, J. I especially laughed at your comments about Morris' drinking habits!

5:06 PM  

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