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24 Reaction 10:00-11:00 - Let's Take It Slow
At a party the other day, I marveled at how I’m pleasantly surprised with this season of 24so far. The writers have generally avoided each episode getting bigger and more ridiculous. Instead they’ve taken a relatively simple story line and worked to give it some depth. The writers have chosen to explore characters and their motives rather than escalating and re-escalating threats. Look we’re not exactly watching The Wire or Lost here. I get that. But a little effort, every so often, on the part of the writers is nice. And what’s helping 24, at least for me, is that my expectation level was so morbidly low they could have put almost anything out there and I would have thought it was okay.
We left off last week with Jack channeling his outer Harry Potter. He’s posing as a German arms dealer. Unfortunately, he kept the glasses and forgot about the accent. He wants to pull Renee out of the undercover operation and with good reason. She has obviously lost her mind. In fact, Renee is so crazy she thinks it’s a good idea for her Russian friend to just get on his cell phone and start calling around about any nuclear fuel rods lying around Manhattan. Seems like as good a plan as any. She shouldn’t have stopped there. Why not just pick up the telephone book, start with Aaron, Adam and just ask everyone in New York if they’ve got any weapons grade stuff sitting around?
President Taylor is still trying to get the peace treaty going. In characteristic President Taylor poor decision making, she gives up the unsecured nuclear threat details (and really just about every other government secret of the day)to some random British diplomat. I’m sure spilling that info won’t come back to haunt her in any way. If there is one thing we’ve learned about President Taylor, it’s that she has no ability to make a good decision concerning national security. I’m almost wishing President Logan would come back.
My Stupidest Plotline of the Season award goes to CTU Analyst Dana Walsh still helping her ex-boyfriend and his equally moronic friend steal money because she is basically a huge wimp. I just can’t wrap my mind around this at all. The fact that they break into a government holding facility without masks or gloves or common sense is just mind-boggling. Of course they screw the whole thing up. Most likely it will work out with a scenario where everyone thinks Dana is some kind of spy. I suppose this is the alternative to actually having a spy in CTU, but I just think there are other ways to go about it.
Meanwhile, back with the Russians, Renee starts one of the crazier scenes I can remember in 24. She loses it on Demetri, stabs him to death and then takes the knife (accidentally) to Jack. But because he is Jack Bauer, he takes full advantage of the situation and removes the knife from his abdomen in time to throw chuck it 20 yards to a bull’s-eye target in the attacker’s neck. What can I say? He’s got a PhD in Baddashery. He even lets the Russians take him and now he’s where he does his best work: on his own.
Some other quick thoughts:
- Good-old President Hair Hassan is becoming a pretty paranoid fella. Can’t really blame him considering how his day has gone so far. He’s on a mission to treat everyone as hostile. You disagree with him, there’s a good chance you and your whole family are getting tortured. I like how this guy operates.
- The whole Russian father killing his son and empowering his other son is just totally flat. I am not getting it at all.
- Freddie Prinze Jr. just looks surprised at everything that’s happened so far. He might still be just acting surprised that he even got the part on this show and his character has managed to survive more than a quarter of the season.
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