24: 5.00pm – 6.00pm
By fred | February 24, 2009
(S07E10) There is something that’s very enjoyable this season with 24. I’m not sure I could actually pinpoint what it is exactly or how it is they do it, but this season is just pretty darn good. I mean, take this episode for example : in all fairness, there wasn’t much that took place. We all knew that things were about to change, and since we’re getting dangerously close to the mid-season mark it was unavoidable : a new plot with bigger things at skates would be uncovered soon, as we’ll go higher and look at the boss of our current bad guy.
It’s a classic construction for a season of 24, and all signs pointed in that direction. And again, not a lot happened during this hour, and yet it was another really strong hour, time flew by and you just can’t wait to find out what will happen next, again. So far, they successfully managed to make us forget about the disaster of last season, and delivered some strong episodes pretty much every week.
So this time, we found out as we all expected that Erika was in on it with Sean, who only used her to put all the blame on her before getting ride of her. Classic, predictable move, and it didn’t really work out well for him. I have to say though, his plan was pretty bad to begin with — given the circumstances, there would have been an investigation, and I don’t think it would have been in accordance with his statement.
Things like the fact that only his prints were on the gun, that only he had residue hinting that she never fired herself, or that his wound was cause by a shot at point blank range, all things that don’t fit. But we don’t really care about that, and for anyone who actually knows a little about computers, I think that Erika’s little tech talk was pretty funny.
Of course though, we all knew Chloe would find a way to get back the data. The only surprising move in this, was what happened next. I mean, I was shocked first by the fact that everyone seemed to agree this was the complete list of corrupt people, that there couldn’t have been anyone else involved, like people of higher ranks who might have been using Dubaku and/or other staff, people whom Dubaku might have never even heard of. Secondly, I loved how it seemed not to mean much — I expected Chloe to send the list of names within minutes, and that everyone got arrested about as fast.
Apparently though, they’ll take a few hours instead, making sure to leave them a head start so they can hear about Dubaku’s arrest and list, and get the Hell out of here before they actually get caught. I’m not sure why they are so nice with terrorists who betrayed their country, but who am I to judge, right?
Other than that, nothing much happened, except for Tony to finally show up again, and recruit Jack for the two of them to go take care of some business. Because, of course, this day is not over yet. And of course the government can’t do nothing about it, they’re either corrupt or slow, so they’ll have to do things on their own — though I’m sure that at least includes Chloe and probably Bill as well.
But because this episode was nicely done, opening with one Hell of a car chase ending up with an explosion, of course, and because Renee finally exploded as she couldn’t take Jack’s way of doing things, it worked. Well, to be fair Renee’s reaction seemed a bit overdone, I’m sure she’s seen (innocent) people die in her years of service before, but adding up with all that she’s been through today – torturing terrorists, threatening a mother and her baby, and on her free time being buried alive and whatnot – it’s understandable she would break and slap Jack on the face.
Just like, when like Jack you’ve been over this crap many many times, including some time tortured in a Chinese prison because you saved your country yet again, you’ve obviously reached a point of acceptance where you don’t let yourself feel and be affected that way no more. At this point, if Jack allowed himself to go there, he probably wouldn’t be able to function, not after all he’s done, all he’s been through, and all he’s lost.
And now, now we know something’s up and it’s going to be bad, big and brutal. We know Jack & Tony are on their way to stop it, we know it’s all planned for 7.00pm — which just happens to be right in the middle of next week’s back-to-back episodes. In other words, I can’t wait!
What did everybody else think ?
