24: 6.00am – 7.00am / 7.00am – 8.00am [season finale]
By fred | May 19, 2009
(S07E23-E24) This season will have been, without a doubt, a much better one that the mess that was Day 6 in the life of Jack Bauer, but in a way, that wasn’t too hard to accomplish. With the way things were going down, there wasn’t too many different roads that they could go on, there were things you wanted to see happening, others you just knew would, and quite a few you were hoping they’d manage to stay away from.
Unfortunately they did not, and I have to say I didn’t like the season finale all that much. First of all, and I realize it was intended that way, the very end got quite slow, if not boring even, and while I’m not sure previous seasons ended differently, this one seem to really push things too far. It came to the point where, seeing there was still 10 minutes left, I just started to hope for everything to end already.
First things first, Tony wasn’t all bad. I don’t know how you feel about that, but I thought that was just wrong, kinda ruined the entire thing. I’m sure many will like it better that way, Tony having “only” pushed the Bauer way too far, but I think I would have liked it better if Tony started out that way, only to lose himself and, after a few years among bad guys, started to believe what he was saying.
That he started to just go for it, that the distinction between the lies and the reality blurred in his mind until he forgot what he was supposed to be doing, and ended up actually believing that what he was doing was for a greater good, to save his country, would have been good. But to have the guy fully aware that he was causing the deaths of hundreds, thousands, and probably a lot more of people, innocent American citizen, that he was ready and not bothered at all to use Jack, let him agonize and go into seizures on the floor like that or threatens (and possibly get killed) Jack’s own daughter, only for revenge, was just BS.
That somehow Tony thought it was okay to kill all those people, okay to risk Jack’s daughter’s life, only to revenge his unborn son, was a load of crap, it made him even worse than just being a bad guy, whether that would have started out with good intentions or not. This whole so-called twist just sucked, IMO, and I really wish they didn’t go down that road, not that way.
Now Jack was also a let down, I mean when Tony asked him to hand out his gun, I was sure Jack would refuse. I wanted Jack to point to gun at Tony and walk out of there the gun on Tony’s head, asking for proof that Kim was alive and well, and let go, or else he’d blew Tony’s brains out right here right now. But now, Jack gave everything up, let himself be taken as hostage, without the least confirmation that Kim was still alive at the time — and by the way, it’s only luck she was, as the guy most definitely was aiming at her at one point.
But if in the end Jack was reconsidering all he did, looking back at all his decisions and mistakes, maybe wishing he’d done things differently though while maybe not regretting his choices, you can be sure there are future Jack Bauer’s out there, mostly females. Of course seeing Kim stab her female captor with a pen, yell “damnit!” as her phone died only to run after the other guy, and eventually save the laptop before the car explodes, it was hard not to see some of her father in there.
And if Jack isn’t around next season, they could just make the show about Renee Walker, who’s clearly ready to do what Jack did, forget about the law and the rules, and do whatever it takes to get things done. I have to say for a moment there, I thought she would just shot Wilson, but I’m sure she did torture him. Don’t know if she got anything out of him, don’t know if he’s dead or not, but she most certainly made him scream.
Back at the White House, that’s where at least the ending was right. Forget how everyone was dumb, from not putting the “painting” back against the wall to be sure Olivia could see it, or how she just took the first digital card found, and assumed it was what she was looking for. And because there was nothing important on it, she didn’t even try to confirm it before destroying it.
As planned, Aaron brought her down in the end, and she deserved it. I mean, it’s not just that she had someone killed, but she – as Chief of Staff and from the White House – ordered someone to be killed. Seriously, when you’re that dumb you don’t even deserve that much thoughts before calling the authorities. I have to say, though, that this whole mess hold something that had me rolling on the floor for being so incredibly stupid.
Those 24 writers are clever and they know what they’re talking about : a digital card, holding MP3 files, and yet he had to rewind the recording (highlighted with the usual rewind noise from your old cassette player, if you’re old enough to have had one) !!! Seriously, who the fuck wrote that one?? Everything is numeric, digital, MP3 files, and they still put a fucking rewind button in there?? You gotta be kidding me!?! Anyways, thanks for the laughs, stupid writers.
As I said before, I really wanted Jack to die. I thought that because we all assumed he wasn’t going to die, this would be the biggest twist of all, I was really hoping for that last clock to be silent, and Jack to die as the episode/season ended. Alas, they didn’t dare do that, and that was just BS. I mean seriously, they had to induce coma just to keep him alive, he’s minutes away from dying, and then Kim decides to try that experimental stem cell therapy thing.
Of course no one knows if it even can work, given how this is all unknown territory and shit, but I’m sure somehow it will work, it wasn’t too late, and Jack will come back to life just like that. And to keep playing the usual card and make Jack even more the way he is, instead of trying something new, why not have next season open with Jack cured and Kim dead, because something went wrong during the procedure, just so he can blame himself even more and all of that.
In the end, while the season was much better than the last, and rather good overall, that season finale was quite a disappointment.
What did everybody else think?
