24 Blog 9.7: Bombs Away

24 9 7-2

Tonight’s episode of “24” made up for the last couple of weeks in terms of Bullz-Eye’s “24” drinking game, which revolves around three lines of dialogue: “Dammit,” “We’re running out of time,” and “Put down / Lower your weapon.” (Yes, there are other, more in-depth drinking games for this show out there on the web, but Jesus, it’s Monday night, people.) By our count, there were at least three “Dammits” and one “We’re running out of time,” the latter of which is making its season debut, if I’m not mistaken. Either way, the show gave me a bit of a workout, as it were, so what follows might be a bit more incoherent than in previous weeks.

I’ll pause while you come up with your own joke here.

As I not-so-boldly predicted last week, The Crow is indeed Navarro’s mysterious contact, though he admits that he is a middle man, and that someone else is pulling the strings. This move serves two purposes. The first is to establish that The Crow is about more than just exposing The Awful Truth (he, like everyone else, loves money), and this will no doubt put Chloe in a position where she has to choose between the government that betrayed her and the hackers that betrayed her. The second is to set up someone from “24’s” past or even present (Russians, Chinese, Mommie Dearest, a reanimated David Palmer) as the one pulling The Crow’s strings. When I joked about the show’s incestuous nature…yeah, I wasn’t really joking.

24 9 7-1

”So, you know how you led me into an ambush two hours ago? Well, this time it’s my turn. Try to pretend it’s a surprise, and please assume that it’s perfectly normal when I ask that this field mission that you’re not remotely prepared for be kept between us.”

In fairness to Jordan the techie, he is not privy to the information to which we are privy, and therefore could not have suspected that his boss was setting him up to die on a boat that’s, what, docked on the Thames? Wherever that boat is, it’s not what one would call a quiet, deserted place that would serve as the perfect place to murder a CIA employee. Also, whoever was assigned to kill Jordan has to be ashamed, because he knows that he only grazed Jordan’s shoulder, which is why he searched the conveniently murky water for a live body swimming for its life, even though that had to be extremely painful for the survivor, who was likely leaving a trail of blood.

Still, in terms of style points, I think Simone won the pain battle when Jack began using her still-newly-decapitated finger as a pressure point in getting her to turn against Mommie Dearest. You knew this was coming, and to Simone’s great credit (!), she didn’t cave. Because really, what kind of terrorist would she be if she did? Sure, she tried to secure the safety of her sister-in-law and her niece (and accomplished 50% of her goal), but they’re family. The rest of you can sod off.

And speaking of family, this brings us to Mommie Dearest herself, who instructs her son to launch the missiles that will kill his sister. He obviously disapproves of this, but doesn’t want to lose any of his fingers – even when Mommie wants to bomb a hospital – so he goes along with the plan. Sadly, there is a “Vantage Point” moment, where Mommie Dearest rephrases Dennis Quaid’s, “Stop! Rewind that,” and of course realizes that Jack and Kate have conned her. Note to future filmmakers: there is nothing good to be gained from taking a trick from “Vantage Point.”

Lastly, there is Hercules, who has painted himself into a corner with a Russian with a beard/stache combo that is in and of itself terrifying. The Russians know he forged Big Dick’s signature, which gives them Hand, as it were, and if that weren’t enough, we have Big Dick himself recognizing that he is unfit to lead the country, and effectively offering himself up as a sacrifice to Mommie Dearest, thinking that that would be more honorable than admitting to his constituents that he has Alzheimer’s Disease.

No, no, no.

No American president would ever consider this, ever. Big Dick himself just said that his actions in the previous hour were motivated by ego. How does he think that being the first president to submit completely to a terrorist’s demands would look in the history books? That is purely a move of ego, one that says, “I’d rather be dead than have to live to explain what’s about to come.”

I hope they find a way to make sense of all of this next week. In the meantime, I give you a song by the Police that’s so old that one of the cities they reference (Bombay) doesn’t even go by that name anymore. Really, look it up.

  

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