'Dancing With The Stars' Season 14 Dream Casting
What To Watch On TV This Week
24: 10:00pm -- 11:00pm
(S06E17) *Warning, spoilers from the latest episode ahead.*
You see that giant question mark hanging above my head? (Humor me. Just nod and say, "Yes.") It represents the multitude of questions that abound following the latest episode of 24.
Not that the episode was bad, mind you. In fact, I think it was quite good. I was riveted throughout the whole thing. I didn't laugh or smirk. Well, I kind of did, when Milo Pressman started whining because he was jealous that Nadia Yassir showed compassion toward Mike "The Brawler" Doyle after Doyle was injured during a faux-scuffle. That bit was annoying.
But Milo aside, it was a strong, if not strangely ending episode that now leaves me questioning where we go from here and whether we've now entered the phase of 24 that sets up the next season, although it seems way too early for that, so I'm willing to entertain arguments that I'm wrong.
For one thing, I was thrilled to have Jack back. However the Jack that we saw this hour was not the soft talking guy who spoke patronizingly quietly with that Brady kid, or the Jack who, a few hours before that, spoke in hushed tones with his lustful sister-in-law. We saw a dark side of Jack, the Jack who seems to get his rocks off by looping a chain around "bad" terrorist Abu Fayed's neck after locating the suitcase nukes, and hanging Fayed, but not before giving him a snide send off about telling his dead brother, "Hello" for him.
When we left Jack and Doyle last week, they'd just apprehended Fayed. During this hour, they tried using conventional beatings to coax the location of the two suitcase nukes out of him, but that didn't pan out. So the two blond agents cooked up a plan to crash the van in which they were transporting Fayed and have him "rescued" by CTUers pretending to be members of some terrorist splinter organization. Needless to say, Fayed soon became wise to the shenanigans and took out the CTUers when the vehicle he was in entered a tunnel. (Damned tunnels! Nothing good happens in tunnels on 24.) Fayed then killed a sanitation worker and stole his truck. (Wait? A sanitation guy who's working at 10 at night? After a nuke went off?) Anyway . . . Jack clandestinely hitched a ride under the belly the truck, which Fayed conveniently drove directly to the location of the last two suitcase nukes.
Jack -- armed only with a single pistol while Fayed's team had pistols and automatic weapons -- shot at the assemblage as soon as he spotted the nukes. Our boy neutralized Fayed's security team until it was just Jack and Fayed. And they went mano-a-mano, which, as I mentioned, ended unceremoniously with Fayed dangling by his neck from a chain. After Fayed drew his last breath, Doyle & Co. converged on the location, securing the bombs.
But wait! It was only hour 17. We've got seven more hours to go. How could the nukes be secured already? And the dude who was behind the 11 weeks of attacks across the country is dead. How can this be?
The momentum and story completed shifted moments later, when Doyle handed a cell phone to Jack saying that a call had been routed to him via CTU's main phone line. And wouldn't you know it? It was Audrey Raines. Very much alive. Calling from China. From where she's being held hostage. Her hostage taker told Jack to call him from a secure line in 10 minutes or else Audrey, who Jack had been told was dead, would really be dead. I mean seriously dead. As in, not just a flesh wound.
The previews ( *WARNING PREVIEW-A-PHOBES: I'm going to mention something from the promo for next week* ) show the Chinese hostage taker telling Jack to get him "the component," followed by scenes of Jack drawing a weapon on Doyle just after telling the ailing President Palmer II that he "owes" Jack.
So the rest of the season will be about Jack going BACK to China? Or simply about trying to save Audrey who's in China? Not that I have a problem with 24 being about a mission to get Audrey released. I don't. It just seems odd to me because it takes the focus from a broad one (that of threats to the country via nuclear detonation and rampant terrorist attacks), to a much narrower one (saving Jack's main squeeze).
In other 24 developments during hour 17: Meanwhile, in the presidential bunker, President Palmer II was trying not to look as if he was about to die while faking people into thinking he was really insane enough to launch a nuke at the Country Whose Name We Shall Not Mention, even though they had nothing to do with the attacks on the United States. At the end of the previous episode, Palmer acted as though he was really authorizing a nuclear missile attack, the one he stopped power-mad Vice President Noah Daniels from commencing. But -- in a move that no doubt delighted frequent TV Squad /24 commenter CC -- the whole attack was a scam in order to coerce the Country Whose Name We Shall Not Mention's officials into coughing up more intel. Which they did. But it didn't really prove fruitful in the long run.
Palmer spent most of this episode trying to control his shaking left hand and sweating profusely. When he finally collapsed, his doctor told him he needed to go to the medical bay. But Palmer refused and demanded another shot of adrenaline, which the doctor said he wouldn't give the president because it could kill him. "No one can know," Palmer told Lennox as the president fell to the floor. Will Palmer make a miraculous recovery from the assassination attempt? Or will he be a flesh and blood leader who has to take command from a hospital bed?
Overall, I thought this was a much improved episode. Loved all the Jack-tion, the intrigue. I'm just puzzled about whether this is simply laying the groundwork for the remaining hours of this season, taking it in an entirely different direction, or if its aim is preparing us for the seventh day.
44 Comments