24 – Jack and Cole try to protect their ladies; a new threat is revealed

Tonight’s episode of 24 was one of those transition episodes, moving the focus of the show from one villain to the next more ruthless villain and from one terrorist threat to the next more urgent threat. Renee’s and Dana’s stories served to fill up the hour during the transition, as Jack and Cole became more entrenched in trying to protect their ladies. Not the most exciting episode, but at least it’s setting us up for the next stretch of Day 8 (which begs the question – do you like where the season is going?).

Let’s talk about the bad guy transition before getting to the filler. I felt more than a little bummed when Farhad’s sniper took out Josef at the beginning of the hour. Poor Josef just wanted daddy’s attention (*sniff sniff*). But he was too soft to be a true villain. I expect we may see Sergei again, since he’s at CTU, waiting for his interrogation. Are you disappointed that the Bazhaev family’s time in the spotlight is over?

The new baddie, Samir, doesn’t stand out from any of the other generic Muslim terrorists we’ve seen on the show before. Not yet. I do enjoy Farhad though. He’s a complete wuss but a wily one. When Samir’s men surround him and reveal their plan to use the uranium against New York, you can read Farhad’s face: “These guys are going to kill me!” I loved it when he attacked Ali and then ran away to call CTU to rescue him from his own people. Oh, Farhad, you total wimp — you make me laugh. He’s smart enough to stay alive, and he’s smart enough to not get involved in a terrorist attack against New York. I’ll give him that.

So Renee, meanwhile, has become the scapegoat of CTU, thanks to Rob Weiss, President Taylor’s Chief of Staff. (Weiss always seemed too smooth to be a good guy.) Hastings, who has shown himself to be a weak director thus far, goes along with the plan. They bring in Kristin Smith, a bitchy DOJ investigator, to browbeat Renee into admitting that she committed premeditated murder when she killed Vladimir. Fortunately, Jack arrives in time to give Ms. Smith a good scare and to make Hastings feel guilty and insecure enough to let Jack take over the operation to secure the uranium rods. I know he did it for Renee, but do you ever get the feeling that Jack wants to stay at CTU just because, well, it’s his thing?

Dana’s story is finally (mostly) over … I hope. Judging from the lethal look in her eyes, Dana was ready to put Kevin and Nick down, but Cole’s arrival interrupted her. As I expected, when she finally tells her story to Cole, the idealistic hero decides to stand up for his woman and marches over to the white van to deliver the immortal cliché, “If I ever see you in this town again, I’ll kill you.” Cue cowboy music. The whole thing felt like a scene straight from a Western, even Cole spinning around to put a bullet in Nick. All he needed was a Stetson.

Like I said, this wasn’t my favorite episode of the season, but I’m glad that it accomplished a few things: 1) Kevin and Nick are dead; 2) Cole knows Dana’s secret; 3) Jack is taking over the show at CTU. So far, I’m not that excited about the new threat from Samir — but we’ll see if it heats up next week.

So how about you? What did you think of the episode and where Day 8 is going? Leave a comment, and share your thoughts.

Clacked by Ruby T.
on Feb 23, 2010 @ 11:00 EST5EDT