Whew ... Anyone who thinks 24 hasn't come back must be in a coma ... I'm flat out saying that if this isn't the best season of 24 so far, it's moving at lightning, pounding speed close to it. Hour 14 - after some incredible hours of the White House under attack - and we're still being dealt surprises like kicks to the solar plexus.
Tonight's was Senator Mayer, Jack's mealy-mouthed inquisitor in the Senate hearings. He was deriding Jack even as the White House was under siege, and both were held hostage. Jack arrives at the Senator's home tonight, to get some clue as to who is behind the White House attacks and who knows what else. Turns out it's a Blackwater-like organization (another rebuke to those who still think that 24 = George W. Bush). Jack and the Senator talk. A great scene in which Jack says the thing he most regrets is that the world requires people like him... Jack lays out what he knows of the still impending danger. And does the Senator believe enough of Jack to help? There's a knock on the door. It's the police ... Jack has to think quick. The Senator says let me help you.
And Jack believes the Senator ... amazing enough. The Senator opens the door - and is shot dead by the black-op, Voight operative who killed Ryan last week.
I didn't see that coming - a much appreciated rarity for me.
Other good stuff tonight: Did the President's daughter leak info to the press to hurt Ethan? She seems pretty convincing that she did not - I'm about 50/50. And Larry Moss, ace ass, has had Renee locked up, and pressures Morris O'Brian (if he wants to help Chloe) to help the FBI find Bauer.
Morris caves, as he did last year ... Morris, Morris ... well he loves his wife and child, so it's hard to be too angry at him ... But by telling the FBI where Jack was, which led to the FBI putting out an APB on Jack, which the Senator's assassin was able to hear, Morris was responsible for Senator's murder...
If you're in the market for adrenalin, you can't get any better than this story...
See also: Hours 1 and 2 ... Hours 3 and 4 ... Hour 5 ... Hour 6 ... Hour 7 ... Hour 8 ... Hour 9 ... Hour 10 ... Hours 11-12 ... Hour 13
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bill benzon
Poppi Iceland
PattyJane
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Comments
Maybe I'll save it for next Monday and see a double feature. One hour of Jack never seems to be quite enough.
Jack and Gibbs are about the only two show left that I really set my clock and calendar by.
Garafolo is indeed a sleeper possibility for being the mole or informant and I've been scrutinizing everything she does for any hint of ambivalence in her behavior or actions and I'll be damned if I can find it.
She seems to be doing everything she's been told to do, by the book, and not free-lancing at the computer.
It would be a shocker to me if she's involved.
The screenwriters are lazy and contemptuous. They want us to believe, post 9/11, that a thundering herd of commandos can invade the White house through a wall that's been badly sealed, troop around without surveillance, counter-measures or anything to protect the president before she has to get to the "lockdown"?
And then, the lockdown 1) has no defensive weapons, 2) no adequate communication with The Pentagon, 3) not even a device to disarm the door to keep someone from breaking in so stalwart Jack has to jerry rig something, 4) nothing to stop people from even approaching or touching the door?
It's beyond ridiculous. The White House has to be one of the most secure, well-defended sites in the country and Juma's men barely broke a sweat taking it over.
24 should just pack it up at season's end. It's not remotely what it used to be and Burn Notice beats it at every level for script, characters, plots, intelligence (in every sense of the word).
So I'll give it another try.
I absolutely don't trust the Pres' daughter. She just looked too smug when refuting Ethan's charges there at the end, and it was too pat. Although when she confronted Ethan about his failures last week, it was refreshing to see somebody other than Jack finally called to account for the fiasco that is national security in the 24 universe.
And what was it that Tony was trying to tell Jack at the end of the hour?