(1:00 P.M. - 2:00 P.M.)
Review/Commentary
Reviewer: J
Wait, hold on a minute. Let me check and make sure…. yes, yes, I think we have the first episode this season where Jack did not overtly disobey a direct order. Of course, that was mainly because he spent most of the hour being chauffeured around Los Angeles while holding hands with Audrey. But we’ll get to that.
Very often after a terrific episode of any television program, the next one is invariably a letdown. In fact, episodes like last week usually are reserved for sweeps time and/or season finales, etc. However, 24 always seems to be raising the bar on television and stuck an incredible episode in Hour Six, with a first twelve minutes that was absolutely riveting. Try finding that with a show like Lost, whose writers seem content with advancing its plotlines not at all and instead make everything think something’s going to happen each week and then just when it appears that it does….we fade to black and the episode it over. And then the following week, the previous week’s cliffhanger isn’t even addressed. Wait, what? Every time I watch that show I feel like I must have missed a few episodes. And the constant flashbacks, giving us everyone on the island’s “backstory”? Who the hell cares? I mean, if this isn’t an obvious device to milk out the season, then I don’t know what is. Imagine if 24’s writers just decided one episode to show us an hour of Jack’s life a few years ago, during which we get a few tidbits into why he is like he is and then, well, that’s it. You’d be pissed. I’d be pissed. Now imagine if they did things like this every week, only they were down to doing backstories and flashbacks about Driscoll’s kid or Sarah Gavin, the techie who doesn’t seem like she could order a root beer float without fucking it up. I’d be fire-bombing Fox’s building in Los Angeles. Anyway, this rant about Lost – this is what happens when you get spoiled by a show as good as 24. You realize just how badly nearly everything else sucks.
These lousy shows have helped me explain to people why I think 24 is so good. It’s not that 24 is perfect, or doesn’t have lame plot devices or meaningless storylines – it’s that, overall, you don’t feel cheated after watching an hour of it. Every week, something happens and that’s not easy to do, especially within the parameters of real-time. So what happened in this hour? Well, there was a lot of driving around in cars, some weird behavioral shifts and the emergence of one new character and one old favorite. I’ll go through all of these.
Jack and Audrey spend most of the episode on their way to the security place to look at footage of some event that Audrey went to a few months ago (fortuitously in L.A.) during which she believes she met the strange white man who is helping the terrorists. Naturally, she only needs about 30 seconds of reviewing security footage at super fast forward to recognize a guy from about 20 feet away on a grainy security camera. Okay, I’ll let it slide. And I’ll get back to Jack and Audrey in a little bit.
Also driving around is Dina Araz, on her way to help her son, who has flipped and is ready to turn state’s evidence. Uh-oh, thinks Mr. Araz, and he does his middle-eastern-mind-meld to convince his wife to go along with him to pick up Behrooz and, oh, you know, kill him. I did like her defiance when she told her husband that Behrooz had killed Tariq. Navi denied it was possible and Dina had a steely look in her eye as she said, “Why not? He’s stronger than you think.” Excellent acting – she looked as I think a mother would in this surreal situation; proud of her son’s strength and resilience, yet torn about what may still happen to him. But at least now she has hope. And hope is exactly what none of these Muslim extremists have. Having no hope is how you convince brainwashed followers to martyr themselves by strapping bombs to their chests or hijacking planes and then crashing them intentionally. Behrooz has seen the light (as well as Debbie’s sweet, supple, 17-year-old knockers) and realizes there’s a hell of a lot more to life than dear old dad has let on. Dina seems to know it, too.
Anyway, Mr. Araz gets into a car full of henchmen (or, “henchies,” as I like to call them) and instructs Dina to pick up Behrooz and then to drive to remote location so they can kill him. Does Mr. Araz understand that Dina gave birth to Behrooz? I don’t know about you, but every woman I know who has mothered a child would gladly give up their own life as well as their husband’s before they would allow harm to befall their offspring. No matter how much you love your spouse, think about it – would you choose them over your own child? I didn’t think so.
Naturally, Dina flips too and tries to help Behrooz escape. Her loving husband sails a few bullets over their way and clips her. While she moans like she’s having her toenails pulled out (you know how chicks can be), Behrooz drives the family Cadillac from the passenger side and deftly avoids a train that cuts off Pops and the henchies. Well, hell, they’re driving a Dodge Stratus. I’d take the Caddy in that race, although Will Ferrell would be proud.
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