I’ve got to apologize, folks. Ruby was so devastated by the death of Renee Walker last week that she couldn’t bring herself to cover 24 any longer. She’s currently in NYC looking for Joel Surnow to throttle him, Kick Ass style. I just didn’t have the heart to tell her that the show films in LA. I, of course, kid, and Ruby will be back next week as Jack continues down the highway to Hell. Until then, though, let’s take a look at the goings on this week, shall we?
Jack has been through quite a pile of crap, hasn’t he? You can count me in the “Renee’s death sucks” camp, because I actually had hope there for a quick moment that our hero might be able to ride off into the sunset a happy man when this last day was over. Clearly, a happy ending is not in the cards. Sure, her death prompts incredible motivation for Jack to slide right over the line in these last hours, but I think it would have been worth it otherwise to let him have a positive day for once.
Has Jack ever seen this type of adversarial conversation with a sitting President not named Logan? However, it’s tough not to see Taylor’s point, the needs of the many and all. Doesn’t make it any easier on Jack, whose escape was all but inevitable. No matter how you game the rest of the day out for him, though, there’s no way it ends well. It is hard to cross a non-treasonous President like he’s about to do.
I thought that he went pretty easy on both Bazhaev and Walsh. In fact, I was surprised to see the Russian mob boss make another appearance. I shouldn’t have been, though, as the villains became Russians (again), the connection should have been apparent. Walsh being an agent of the Russian was a conclusion I should have come to sooner, but I guess I’ve just gotten bored with her. Her turn as a double agent grew on me after a couple of episodes, and I think her capture was a bit premature.
Logan giving up the Russian government was a bit of an odd play. He obviously needs the President to be successful for his role to come to light publicly, and then receive the credit he so desperately craves. It is an interesting move, because I think it will come to light that he had other cards to play. Taylor being so easily played by Logan, however, was disappointing. She’s proved to be much more savvy than she showed here.
Chloe gets promoted, and finally gets to be a President! At first, I was concerned that her promotion, temporary as it may turn out to be, was just a bit of a stunt. But her interaction with Taylor proves that she can play at this level. Even if it means she now has to hunt down a friend.
Notes & Quotes:
Clacked by Ivey West 
on Apr 20, 2010 @ 08:49 EST5EDT
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one of the best episodes in 24 history, simply because of the political and psychological intrigue. Visually it was also really beautiful, the cold blue light of morning on the President as she had a demon (Logan) and an angel (Ethan) giving her conflicting advice.
I picked up on that whole “angel/demon” thing too – thought it was a great blocking job of that scene.
The only interesting thing to me was all the CGI at the end. The rest was so extremely “meh”… I mean honestly again with the escaping. How hard would it be to just lock Mr. Bauer down at CTU? Why did the president even come to CTU after it has been proven unsafe a mere couple of hours ago… why is Chloe head of CTU other than the inability of the viewer to accept another actor in the role for the rest of the Season.
The whole show has become so extremely unsatisfying but I guess that’s simply because the it has gone to such extremes that things that we didn’t expect before are now commonplace. I think it’s like “The West Wing” where from a certain point on all the walking and talking became stale. I guess “24” is still as good as it was in the past the problem is that I can’t see that anymore since this has all been done before. I mean I wouldn’t have been happy with Renee surviving on the other hand as well because we all know that nobody is safe, not even Logan. I have to admit the only thing that interests me now is to see if he’ll be assassinated as a result of his blackmailing the Russians.
This show IS still interesting the problem is that the plots need to be condensed. There simply is too much time to fill in 24 episodes to keep it interesting. I think the show will work on the big screen and it would be a great successor to M:I if you ask me. I mean it’s not like this episode was going slow or anything it was just too much of too many things I’ve seen before that don’t entertain me anymore. Too much could be removed from the show that we, as fans or people who have seen movies before know, that could easily happen offscreen.
Still this episode is so much better than anything on Season 6 of the show. The writing is back to a great level, the actors are doing a fine job and overall it’s a great show. The format simply has gotten to predictable. It has to move on to the theaters.
The President came to CTU because she felt she owed Jack a face-to-face explanation. It was the same reason Renee’s death affected her so much, as Agent Walker was one of the few remaining members of Rogue CTU that had saved her life and Washington DC last season when her inner circle couldn’t even be trusted. It was why she knew who Chloe O’Brien was.
Chloe is interim CTU Director because she has the most experience by far of anyone in the bunker. She knows all the operational protocols very well, even if she’s still catching up on the technical ones, and she has years of experience running the CTU office for other Directors in previous national security crises. And we’ve seen thus far that Tim Woods made a very good choice in picking her over her own objections.
I understand but that doesn’t get rid of the main two problems:
– Chloe is socially awkward and if she had so much experience in the first place then why was she treated like a newbie for half of the season only to now become leader of it all? I’m sorry but that’s just ridiculous. She was a grunt when the season started and the only thing that happened is that she applied her computing skills to solve problems. That doesn’t make you a leader and honestly: she pulled a gun on a superior, she is married to a traitor and she has a kid so she’s subject to blackmail.
Don’t get me wrong: it’s nice to have her there but it’s just as freaking ridiculous as
– the president coming to a place that was infiltrated by a russian agent and
– the place a bomb was smuggled into easily a mere couple of hours ago
I know this isn’t supposed to be super-realistic but seriously again with the people who don’t do what they’re supposed to do, going rogue as if it was business as usual, again with the double agents in CTU again with a president blackmailing… I mean they even brought the same actor/role back to do what he did on season five. This all is a great twist when you do it the first time, it’s kind of weird when you do it a second time but if I count right this was the fourth double agent in CTU not counting those people who came in to be questioned who then took over the whole place.
Again, don’t get me wrong: this was extremely cool the first time it happened on season one when Jack’s wife died but they keep repeating themselves over and over and over and sometimes it seems that they just do what fits at that moment and use locations because they are already there. CTU is so front and center all the time because it’s one soundstage and that’s it.
And seriously: the president was affected so much she had to personally go to Jack to tell him he can go **** himself and then they don’t expect him to go rogue for the bazillionth time, all the while not counting that he finally went against the will of the president – the person who he always said his loyalty lies with.
I mean isn’t this bizarre that this is so commonplace on “24” that screwing with this “prime directive” isn’t that big of a problem? What was so special about Renee now that he just HAS to do what HE thinks is best for HIM and not work for the greater good anymore? Sorry but are we supposed to accept that what he does now ruining any chance to live in California with his daughter and granddaughter, the thing he PROMISED just a couple of hours ago is now all out the window because he meets this woman again he never had a real relationship with, boinked her one time and now that affects him more than his wife getting killed on Day 1?
But again: this might all work on the big screen when you want to be entertained within two hours. I think 24 will work there extremely well because you can simply get rid of all the clutter and just have a fast paced action movie like every Mission Impossible the little guy from Scientology did. Kiefer Sutherland has that in him. Fast paced action with a high production value, a good author, nice script and great locations. I’d love that.
I know I’m complaining a lot here and I guess the hero going after the big bad guy actually is kinda cool but Jack Bauer in this setup isn’t 007 with the license to kill. I complain because this is all supposed to be realistic and I simply question why suddenly it’s acceptable that Jack risks a possible piece in the ficticious middle-east just because his GF got killed. I mean you have to admit that there’s no way he’s getting out of that. He’s going to prison and he’s going there most likely as a guy who got there only because he felt the need for a personal vendetta. He’s burned now forever. I don’t see anybody trusting him ever again.
But hey, Logan’s back too so who knows what bogus reason we’re going to get for him to get back into action in the movie :-)
*POST AUTHOR*
You’ve completely missed the point. Granted, while his motivations include vengeance for Renee, his course of action also coincides with what he believes is the right thing to do, and if you can’t get behind that Jack will do what he thinks is the right thing every single time, consequences be damned.
Chloe was treated the way she did because Hastings treated her that way, and the perception rolled down hill. Tim Woods, who knows Chloe from before, you know today, pushed the promotion, which is completely logical. As far as her family goes, she’s no more a blackmail risk now than she was two hours ago.
Also your 007 reference is flawed, because there are several instances in Bond canon where he goes off of the reservation … I think each of the actors that played Bond all at one point participated in that storyline. It’s not even the first time Jack has gone off the reservation, and again, he’s not doing it because of Renee’s death.
And since when has anyone ever considered 24 to be realistic?
All good points phew. Nice.
Ok let’s tackle your objections one by one.
First of all I find it interesting that you point out that she’s now not more subject to blackmail than two hours before. That’s like saying “Two hours ago she had cancer, now she doesn’t have any more cancer”. Sure she doesn’t, but two hours ago she was highly monitored in what she did and put in her place several times. When she finally couldn’t take it anymore, she pulled out a gun. The reaction of the higher ups: give her more power so that hopefully she enough control to never run into obstacles again.
But you have a good point that I overlooked: Chloe was in the grunt position because her true talent got overlooked. She’s now rightfully the new head of CTU when I think about it because knowing everything she did in the past (compared to all the leaders on the show who most likely didn’t or better only got reports that were examples of people misunderstanding Chloe’s actions not as what they were but rather insubordination). I think what I truly miss here is more of a redemption subplot, maybe a couple of scenes where somebody else than the guy who just got releaved of his command due to colossal screwups tells her that she did a fine job. Unfortunately all of her former CTU bosses are dead and I think if they weren’t there could’ve been a real nice subplot with someone who knows her coming in, telling the guy in charge “You listen to me, she’s saved my butt so many times, you saw how good she is at her job – after seven total screwups isn’t it time for a different approach?” – and that would’ve worked for me. Not some guy at the whitehouse giving her a call. Kinda like the third coach for third base waving her in and everybody in the stands looking puzzled because who’s he to call the shots all of a sudden? :-)
Point for you – you’re right, I admit that. Hey not even adding a sentence here where I take it back or make it look like I meant something else ;-)
Now about the 007 thing. The way I meant it was that on “24” Jack as an agent usually does what the president wants him to do, no matter what it is. What I meant was that only in Bond movies the agent sometimes goes off the reservation and doesn’t do what he’s told because he has the greater good in mind. And usually the result he (Bond) gets justify his actions. Not so much in the recent re-inventions with Daniel Craig but that’s because they rebooted Bond there and showed him before he became the “real” 007 – including getting his licence to kill.
Usually all this entailed was that he got his orders from people within the agency (MI6) who he sometimes didn’t deem to be able to grasp the “bigger picture”. Also, in later Bond movies, his going untercover included going rogue. When you think of cop shows where people go undercover usually they aren’t allowed to commit crimes – and getting into the inner circles of gangs or the mafia usually includes a fellony no cop would be allowed to commit.
Now what I meant with Jack is that _usually_ when he got orders from the president he only acted against the will of the president when he thought it was implicit that the president couldn’t give certain orders, that logic and the rules of society prevent the president from openly asking Jack to do something – but Jack did it anyway because he thought that was what the president actually wanted. With going rogue here he basically did what the army guy and the president’s right hand did when they ordered Hassan’s kidnapping from Jack’s custody. Those guys will be trialed for treason and Jack IMHO now has to too. In the past that was already the case once and that was also what I complained here now. This time even towards me, the viewer, it’s not justified. It’s his own personal vendetta and of course I know that he can get out of all this and re-instated like Bond did when he was on his first mission (you know, Casino Royale, getting the licence to kill, losing the love of his life etc. etc.). But with “realistic” meant “not a novel character like Bond”. I didn’t mean it in the “24 is like real life” way but rather that “24” always was trying to be close to what happened in real life and “Bond” always was about spies (and especially a spy who could kill anybody he wanted to without getting questioned all the while ending up with the girl and her not getting killed in the process – IN SPACE!)
But again you have a point here – or better I now thought about the current situation – Jack didn’t commit treason to be fair. He’s about to. I’m getting ahead of myself. At the moment he just “escaped” but even with that I’m wrong because he simply was escorted to get to a debriefing. All he did was steal a helicopter at gunpoint. That’s only 5 go 15 in maximum scurity, not the chair. So maybe I should calm down and wait what happens now instead of getting ahead of myself like this :-)
Chloe was treated like a newbie for half of the season because she was still coming back to work after spending several years at home with her child and all the computer systems had changed in the meantime. As I said above, she’s still not totally up to speed on their technical protocols, plus Dana was a very passive-aggressively unforgiving supervisor. As Director, she can rely on her techs and analysts to run the systems and concentrate on making the decisions, and she’s had years of experience in knowing what was the right thing to do.
Tim Woods runs the Department of Homeland Security at the Cabinet level (though it’s unclear if he’s the Secretary himself, or one of the Assistant or Under Secretaries), reports directly to the President, and all of CTU is under his purview. So rather than the third base coach, it’s more like the team owner calling in from his private jet to put her in charge.
Good point Ryan. It seems the process was high-level indeed. The problem I have with it simply is that you don’t really get the impression that Woods is such a big deal at the Whitehouse while watching the show. The actor who played him lacks gravitas.
The problem I have with the whole thing still exists though. I mean if Chloe was really THAT good why was it necessary to install her in a position she had to struggle in? It didn’t seem that Hastings was working with computers that much anyway – but I have to admit for the show as a whole it was a good storyline to bring her in as a techie and then have her promoted. But still… you know they called in a guy when the EMP hit and that guy had a certain way to do things, he was in his organisation for years and this woman who was on leave for quite a while tells him how to do things.
I think the whole story is “weird” to say the least. I don’t see being the head of CTU as a pure technical position but Chloe always was the techie. Now she has to deal with everything – the technical aspects, interrogation and the planning of “missions”.
But I think you two are right, she has so much experiences and when I think of it she really had a couple of scenes where she made good, educated guesses about the events – she did more than just adjust cameras anymore.
So I have to agree with you both that in the end it was a good decision to make her head of CTU. I simply missed some sort of general approval by someone who was on the show before who witnessed more of her development in the past while working with her. Hastings did that on the show but he was so new for me that it felt off to me. Because of all his bad decisions his kudos to Chloe seemed a bit like “Yeah what do you know anyway?” but what can you do? All the other previous employees of CTU are either dead or in prison so it was kinda hard to see a former leader like Bill Buchanan step down to make room for Chloe.
Anyway, nice discussion guys :-)
I thought this was an amazing episode which is saying alot. I almost forgot about the times when 24 could be compelling without constant explosions and torture. This episode kicked start my memory.
Thanks for covering for me, Ivey. I finally saw the episode, and it was awesome! I have to admit that Logan is growing on me. Last week, I was not keen on him returning, but this week changed my mind.
*POST AUTHOR*
Sebastian: I think you’re missing the point (you know, again). Chloe’s promotion, keeping in mind again that it is a TEMPORARY one, is supposed to come from out of left field. It isn’t supposed to make sense. Your continued expectation for realism from this show boggles me.
Saying that the character of Tim Woods has no gravitas is one thing (and something I couldn’t argue with, though I don’t think he’s running Homeland), but to say the actor does is completely different. I’d take his performance SGT “Wild” Bill Guarnere over any work done by anyone on this show not named Sutherland or Rajskub any day.