24: 10.00pm – 11.00pm
By fred | March 24, 2009
(S07E15) Okay, this season of 24 might be one of the best one, and I believe the reason for it is one Jack Bauer. Well, dah! I know, I know, of course it’s all about Jack and he’ll be the one making the difference in the end, but unlike what we might have seen in previous season, Jack Bauer isn’t a superhero (anymore). Things have changed, and there’s a more realistic tone to the show and its hero.
It used to be that we never feared for Jack, because even one against an army of 50, all overly armed and trained, while Jack had been shot twice, was bleeding, had no weapon, and just broke his leg jumping off a plane, he would still take them all down in the end. Eat that, you terrorists! You don’t mess with Jack Bauer. Chloe, I need location of the nearest hospital, now! I’m almost out of blood…
This season however, Jack isn’t that much of a superhero, and just him and Tony, two against ten (”Two against nine!“), they just can’t do it. They can’t win, and they don’t. It just makes sense, and it’s the kind of situation that has helped this season feel more real or realistic, and it makes for better episodes. That being said, don’t go on and praise too much, because Jack can also be pretty stupid.
I mean, he could clearly hear gas leaking out of the truck, he knew it was a deadly bio-weapon in there, so what he does he stick his while head in?? Really!? Come on Jack, you’re smarter than that? And no, hiding won’t help, that’s not how gas works, it doesn’t need to see you to infect you. One thing that remains though, is that we know Jack can’t die, so there’s no real suspense there, even if he really was infected.
There could be more tension regarding Tony’s future, except that I’ll say this : I’m pretty disappointed in why they brought him back from the dead. He showed up a couple minutes at the beginning of the season, then took a seat in his car and waited for the most part, and now in all logic he should be dead, because there really have no reason to keep him hostage, do they?
Must have been killing Jack, that he could do it and save a stranger, but that once it came to Tony’s life, he really had to walk away and take the lives of many other that of one man, even if that is of a good friend. But Jack is changing, not just because he doesn’t always win, but because Renee got to him. Tony’s speech was nothing new, it was the words straight out of Jack’s mouth, what he used to say, what he’s been saying all along.
Yet, he pulled the trigger and save the poor man’s life. Which was also good, because as soon as they introduced him as a married man whose wife is at home, pregnant, and expecting not one bur two babies at that, I was sure he was dead. Oldest cliché in the book, he was a dead man. And when Jack swore he had his back, we all knew it was a lie.
So that in the end Jack might be questioning his own method, and did save his life, was a good twist. What’s not one, is Moss. Jesus that guy is annoying, one minute he’s certain Jack, despite his past and all he’s done this very day, is a killer on the run, who just murdered a US Senator, and so he told the White House, and the next minute he’s fully supporting Jack and willing to help.
Of course, when that happens, when he’s fairly sure there’s still a major threat against the US, orchestrated from within and with a biological WMD right there ready to be used, you bet your sweet ass he doesn’t call the White House, I mean who would want to bother the President with such minor details of what’s going on in the country, right?
She’s busy enough talking to her husband, or not seeing the obvious going on right under her nose: Olivia was the source, she did leak the story to the press. We all knew that, and I only wished they didn’t spend 10 minutes on Ethan giving his resignation (which he hasn’t actually done yet, btw) or Olivia saying out loud “it was me” like the phone call in itself wasn’t obvious enough (her writers: we’re not morons!).
Ethan had to resign, because when there was a possible threat, when people thought Jack might be onto something, he deliberately hide all that from the President, and made himself look like a complete incompetent idiot instead, and now we’re in the mess we’re in. And I’m not sure what Olivia is up to, but she doesn’t seem to be well intended, or to realize that what she did can only end up hurting her mother and/or biting her in the ass eventually.
Other than that, a pretty cool episode, with assault scene, Jack taking control of a running truck as easy as that, and still in the end he ends up sick, potentially by a deadly virus, and had the WMD stolen from him. At least Moss is now on his side (but for how long??) and chances are despite the odds Tony is still alive… I just hope that despite it all, next episode they don’t let things slow down: get Chloe back on the line, let Renee go so her & Jack can go and solve this miss once and for all, damnit!
What did everybody else think?
