(1:00 A.M. - 2:00 A.M.)
Review/Commentary
Reviewer: J
So only four more Mondays of 24 before the conclusion of Season Four. As with all seasons, I don’t think we’ll see all of the storylines cleaned up. Among them will be:
What ever happened to Heller’s son?
What ever happened to Heller?
What ever happened to Behrooz?
Has anyone recovered Marianne’s body from that high rise?
There are many more questions that could be asked but that’s part of what makes 24 so good. That is, in my opinion, those are positives, not negatives. Too many shows or movies wrap everything up with a neat little bow at the end and 24 has never done that. There’s often something dramatically bad happening to a main character at the end or a storyline or storylines that just trailed off to no where. This is what makes it so close to reality – in one day, there would be absolutely no way to follow up on all leads and see all issues to their conclusion. Once again, I think it’s so cool that we only see a glimpse into the lives of these characters. I definitely wouldn’t be against a spin-off someday wherein we see more of Tony, Michelle, characters at Division (where I wonder if there’s a “Ryan Chappelle Memorial Cafeteria”) and so on. I’d also really love to see 24 take place in another part of the country, say, New York. With the way that other shows, such as CSI, have branched out to other cities, why wouldn’t Fox consider this with its one big hit? Besides, if you’re going to turn over 95% of the staff every season at CTU, why not just say you’re in a different city so it’s more acceptable to long-term fans?
Anyway, on to Hour Nineteen, which spooled up the excitement level on several fronts. I’ll just rattle onto each issue/character and let you know what I thought about them.
The hour starts with Prado having gone from knocked unconscious and with broken fingers at 12:59:59 to being in the CTU clinic awake and with most of his fingers back into their proper positions at 1:00:00. That was impressive. Maybe the taser Jack used on the Federal Marshall outside also had vaporizing/materializing capabilities, too. Speaking of that US Marshall, where is he? Does he not get treatment? Is he still lying in the parking lot? Has anyone towed away Marianne’s blown up BMW from earlier in the day?
Anyway, there is some very cool background music as we see Prado looking a bit miffed and Audrey strolling through. Audrey then gets her few lines of the episode early on as she goes to Buchanan and asks him what the hell is up. Buchanan tries to be diplomatic and fend off her questions as to who did this to Prado, but he eventually allows that it was Jack. She wigs out, predictably, and goes to Jack to rip a strip off of him. Jack is more patient with her than I would be. Basically, to handle Audrey, I would remind her every time she mouthed off of two things: 1) I was willing to nail you even though you were married, and 2) I saved your life more than once today. So shut it. I don’t care if it was twelve hours ago – she’s at least indebted to him for the remainder of today. And you know what else, Audrey? If Jack always followed orders your loved ones would be attending a service for you where your remains could be delivered via a sponge – let’s not forget they were going to blow up the terrorist hideout that Jack ran into with no backup. Yeah, so there.
As to Buchanan, I really am starting to like this guy. He’s basically this season’s Chappelle, the guy sent over from Division to make sure things are running smoothly. He also has a crush on Michelle, so there’s another reason he’s there. But anyway, unlike Chappelle, Buchanan wants to be helpful and maybe bend the rules a little to let Jack do what he does best. Which is wreak havoc. But I really got to like Bill Buchanan in this hour since he shut down Audrey and backed up Jack. Who from Division has done that on any sort of regular basis? When Audrey comes back to him after Jack tells her to buzz off, she again gets in his face about torturing Prado. What’s her dish, man? I mean, it’s done, it got results. Stop being a nuisance. It’s not your career that’s on the line here, it’s Buchanan’s and Jack’s. I especially liked Buchanan’s response when she gets pissy with him: “With all due respect, Audrey, this is not Washington, D.C.” Her look was that of amazement that he would be snotty to her, but he continued and pointed out that sometimes extreme tactics – or in this case, Jacktics – are needed. He said what most of the audience was thinking – if this gets us to a terrorist, we’ll deal with the consequences. It’s pretty simple really: don’t hang around with known terrorists and your fingers will be fine. Prado broke that rule and now his piano-playing days are being put on hold.
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