Hour Nineteen (2:00 A.M. - 3:00 A.M.) Review/Commentary
					Two "wow" episodes in a row.  I'll tell you, when they're good, they are very damn good.  I was getting kind of critical of the middle episodes of the show this season, but like any good long story, there are going to be some soft spots.  Like, oh, I don't know, Teri having amnesia last season, which is one of those television moments that has just been bashed mercilessly.  However, as I've said before, you have to think about how LONG 24 is.  I mean, how many really good constantly suspenseful movies have you seen?  And those are what, 2 hours?  This is 24 hours of suspense-writing.  Truly, it's a remarkable achievement.  I wish the writers got lauded more and showed up more in talk shows, interviews, etc.  But I realize that's how La La Land works.  You gotta be the producer, and then you get loads of credit. Let's see, what was good about this episode?  Well, for starters, no Kim storyline!  Holy moses!  Is it possible?  A second consecutive hour where Kim makes no stupid decisions?  Well, we didn't see her making decisions, and while I applaud 24 for focusing on the climaxing storyline (did you just get a mental imagine of a script having sex?) I do kind of wonder a little bit what the hell Kim has been doing in the middle of the night for the last hour.  Last we saw her, she was being told by Tony that dad was still alive.  Perhaps she's seeing a counselor now, or visiting Gary Matheson in his jail cell.  Who knows.  And, more to the point, who cares?  She wouldn't even be getting this much print from me if she weren't so damn fine.  Ah, but I digress…. Well, let's start with Jack doing something nutty again, all to get Yousaf and Kate away safely with the chip.  Speaking of which, how fortuitous that Yousaf knows how to separate the chip from its tracking device without damaging either!  Anyway, am I the only one who wanted Jack to plant a big wet one on Kate as he was leaving the clinic and she was clearly worried about him?  It looked to me like he wanted to as well, but decided against it.  Why though, Jack?  You break every other rule, why not this one?  You and Tony both seem to have some trouble keeping your hormones in check around people you either work for or should be protecting.  Anyway, so Jack leads the really, really bad guys away and it appears to be successful - that is, until Yousaf gets jumped by some southern hillbillys who are apparently vacationing in Los Angeles.  What's the deal with this?  And come on, Yousaf is able to take down commandos with his pistol (I could go on a diatribe about the accuracy of semiautomatic handguns sometime) but he's flummoxed by a hillrat with a brick?  Come on, now.  And of course, these mean, mean boys slap Kate around as well.  Not good, not good at all.  And I found myself being very upset at how Yousaf was being savagely beaten.  Not that anyone deserves to be beaten, but Yousaf has helped out our buddy Jack and become an incredibly likeable character - which is precisely why the writers of 24 will kill him off soon.  We like Yousaf, so it will be gripping television to dispatch of him.  It's certainly a unique characteristic of 24 that has major/integral characters dying all the time - on other shows, it's something they use once every 3 years and only during sweeps.  On 24, people are dying all over the place.  Who's going to go first?  Yousaf or Lynne?  Judging from the preview for Episode 20, it looks like Lynne is a sure goner.  Ah, yes, Lynne.  You silly, silly, nosy woman!  She poked around and then trusts Mike Novick with the information that she's found out the VP, Prescott, is allying against the Prez.  Then she agrees to meet Mike and this informant in a storage room on the fifth floor of division HQ.  Now, I suppose since she survived that odd meeting at that random house up in Oregon where Sherry stepped out of the shadows that she figured she was invincible.  However, here's Mike Novick turning out to be a turncoat. Or is he?  I mean, his justification is that the Prez is risking American lives by bailing out on the attack and that he cannot let that happen.  However, this is beginning to look like one of those TV/Movie situations where our military is so eager to crush someone that they will even ignore evidence to the contrary.  I don't like this touch all that much, but for the moment they are hanging on to one thread of reality - the evidence they have at the moment is enough to warrant an attack.  However, let's be realistic - wars don't happen instantly like that.  I mean, think about 9/11 and how long it took for us to respond?  Admittedly, not long, but it surely wasn't within hours.  And with the current Iraq conflict, we tried to months and months to secure peaceful solutions.  Of course, had Saddam been linked with a nuke deploying on our soil, I imagine our patience would have been a tad thinner.                                    Go On to Page Two of Review
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