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Review/Commentary
Season Finale Part 1
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Reviewer: J
Well, here we are. It’s all led to this. The final two hours of Season Four. Sure there will be loose ends but I was thinking about this and once again I will say that I think of all television shows, 24 is the one that is most acceptable to have loose ends. It’s simply because of the fact that you just can’t tie everything up when you’re dealing with real time. The day ends and our portal to the world 24 exists in closes. Sure, their lives continue and the new President will eventually come out of his bunker, etc., and presumably Behrooz’ body will be found somewhere. But what of Jack? And what of Tony and Michelle? We’re left to wonder and that’s okay because, as I said, our glimpse into their world came to an end on Monday night. At least until next year.
Anyway, on to Hour Twenty-Three. While it was surely an enjoyable hour, there was a lot of time spent at the apartment complex that Mandy was hiding out at. I want to say up front that I really enjoyed the fact that Logan played the part of the audience during his latest freak-out to Palmer, when he yelped about “how speculative that sounds” when Palmer mentioned how they’re trying to locate a suspect who could possibly lead them to Marwan. Absolutely it’s speculative. But you know what, Logan? We can still bring up the fact that your insistence on arresting Jack a few hours ago effed up the capture of Marwan BEFORE the miss-eye-ull was even launched. So there.
As the hour begins, we know that Michelle is wigging out because she’s just gotten a taste of the Tony-sauce and now that particular bottle of love potion might be emptied by our old friend Mandy. You’ll recall Mandy from the very first hour of 24 ever, back in November of 2001 as well as from the finale of Season Two, when she gave Palmer his rather, shall we say, textured hand (who knows, maybe the ladies love it). Those of us who follow this show loyally absolutely love the return of old characters, which is why they do it. I guess Mandy is this year’s version of Nina. I’m sure they would have brought back Nina if they could have figured out some way to do it.
Anyway, so Mandy does what just had to be done, in light of Tony’s situation last season. She calls Michelle and basically puts her in the same position Tony was in – either comply with her (Mandy) or Tony dies. And the complicity involved helping her escape the complex.
However, before she does this, she researches Tony’s background on a laptop, presumably with a wireless internet connection. It’s amazing how much information she can find in public records about a government agent and his treasonous activities. If you looked closely, you could see that he was referred to as “Anthony Almeida” in the caption in the paper, which I thought was a neat touch. My question, though, is how did Mandy know to kill Castle and not Tony? I mean, besides that Tony is a bigger star and veteran of 24? Did she already know he was more valuable as leverage? If she had already known this, this whole scenario would have made more sense, but if it was just random chance then she’s very lucky. And how did she know Michelle was now running CTU? That was just put into effect the previous evening. This Mandy knows a whole lot.
Meanwhile, Audrey is still working through her grief, literally working that is. She gets on the horn with Novick and Palmer and the news isn’t good. They can’t figure out where the hell the missile is or where it’s heading. Damn stealth technology. Wouldn’t you think for the billions we spend on missile defense (and offense) that one of our brilliant MIT engineers could build in a fail-safe on all of our nukes so that they cannot be used against us or won’t detonate on US soil? Don’t ask me how, I’m not an engineer. But seriously, with as “smart” as our smartbombs are, you’d think it would be possible.
Anyway, Palmer begins to realize the jig is up and they’ll have to start planning for the worst. Audrey protests that disaster scenarios for the possible targets include many large cities. Yeah, Audrey, including the one you’re in the middle of right now, so don’t fret too much about the workload. Marwan might be relieving you of your duties shortly.
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