Hour Twelve (7:00 P.M. - 8:00 P.M.) Review/Commentary
					As much as I thought the plot kind of slowed down in the previous hour, I think it recovered fairly well in this hour.  There were some realizations, such as Kate and Bob learning about the kind of traitor Marie is and where the bomb actually is located.  These are big developments.  Just to be different, I’ll start with little Kim and get her out of the way.  Am I the only one who thinks that it looks like the writers are unsure of what to do with her?  It would be kind of too familiar to make her a target to get at Jack, although with Jack messing with Ali’s family I suppose it’s not out of the question.  I hope not, though, because that would get old since we watched an entire season of that already.  I will admit I’m a little curious what will happen to Gary, Miguel, Megan, etc, etc.  Not overly curious, but they did leave those character’s storylines up in the air.  As I’ve said before, that’s okay because this is just one day that we get a glimpse of, and most things in our lives aren’t wrapped up within a day.  Anyway, so Kim has herself trapped in a cougar-infested area not far from the highway.  Well, I assumed it wasn’t far, but then the mysterious stranger who showed up said it was “a couple miles” that way.  Well, a couple miles through rough and hilly terrain is quite a ways.  How the hell did she get so far off the path?  And of course, she’s being her difficult self and refusing to go to the ranger’s station – the very station that Tony is calling to be on the lookout for Kim.  Sheesh.  I’m giving up on hoping Kim makes a decision that makes her life (or anyone else’s) even marginally less complicated.  Interestingly, the guy who has found her offers to let her shack up at his place for the night.  Naturally, Kim is considering it.  It wouldn’t be Kim if she didn’t think about doing something risky.  I immediately thought about how if she takes him up on his offer, she can essentially be written out (or written to a smaller role) for the rest of the season, since “for the night” would basically wrap up this season (which ends at 8 AM).  We’ll see where this goes. One more comment about the season itself and the timing… is it possible that we could see a cliffhanger 24?  A lot of series don’t wrap up their issues at the end of the season – they leave you hanging so you can digest it for 4 months and tune in again in the fall.  Can you imagine if 24 did this?  Like a whole new threat crops up overnight and it begins to get hairy right as 8 AM rolls around?  I think that would be a twist no one would expect since we all expect Jack to save the world and take a nap at 8 tomorrow morning.  It would also probably piss off a lot of people unless it was done just right (see Joe Millionaire).  Random Comment #1– I love the way that during the commercials, we come back to the ticking clock and the four-way split screen for a few seconds showing us what’s going on in 24-world while we’re watching commercials.  It gives us (or me, anyway) the feeling that even while we get a quick break from the stress that they’re dealing with, it doesn’t stop for these characters.  They used to say something like “Don’t miss a second, 24 will be right back” or something to that effect.  Lately, I’ve noticed they don’t say anything.  Very very cool, and yet one more original feature of 24. Random Comment #2 – Is it me, or does Simmons, the Secret Service agent torturing Stanton, look like RFK?  Random Comment #3 – No more Nina?  Not credited or anything.  That can’t be all for her.  More Nina is a good thing.   More Nina, less Sherry.  The new motto. So there were two big developments in this one.  I’ll start with Marie, who has become robotic-looking.  I suppose Mason is right – this is what happens when you’re reprogrammed.  These people are blindly following a twisted belief.  They do actually say things like “People have to die for change to happen.”  What kind of change?  A new West Coast landscape?  I never have understood this.  However, there’s nothing that terrorists (especially Islamic terrorists) do or say that we SHOULD understand.  Their minds are in a different place.  I heard it explained once in a way I really could grasp: These terrorists often come from horrible countries and horrible lives.  When there is zero hope in your life, it’s really not that hard to begin to believe that things are better on the other side (death).  It’s also not hard to want to hate someone or something, since your life is such complete crap.  You have no hope, no promise of a bright future, and someone eventually says something or someone or some country is to blame.  Capitalism, the United States, Christianity, Judaism, etc… something to hate.  They adopt a “cause” under the pretense that God (or “Allah”) wants it that way.  And away they go, into never-never land.  It reminds me a lot of The Crusades in the 13th and 14th centuries.  I took an entire course on the Crusades in college, and in summary, it came down to this: “I talked to God the other day, and while he doesn’t advocate killing in general, it’s okay to kill those Muslims over there.  I swear.  God told me it was okay.  So go walk 2000 miles, have a battle, and then walk home.”                                  Go on to Page Two of Review
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