As ticked off as I was last week that Renee “Red Hot” Walker was killed off, an interview that Annie Wersching gave to TV Guide gave me hope for the rest of this season.

SPOILER ALERT, don’t read if you don’t wanna know anything at all – though this spoilerism is more of a general nature and I don’t think will come as a tremendous surprise to anyone.

This was the key: They knew before the season started that she was going to be killed off, and shared the info with her.

One thing the producers knew was that Jack and Renee were eventually going to get together, then he was going to lose her, and that would be the impetus for him to go all kinds of crazy to the point where he’s just covered in blood.

As a long-time fan of 24 and a not-so-big fan of the last few seasons, this makes me happy.

I’ve said before that I’m not really a violent person. I’m kind of a pacifist, even. But when it comes to my action shows and movies, the more blood and gore and guts the better. Maybe that’s how I express that side of my human-ness: Virtually.

Anyhow, knowing that Jack’s gonna go crazy and kill a whole bunch of people will even make me start putting wagers in the weekly 24 Kill Counter at Blogs4Bauer.

Speaking of, we’ll be live-blogging there tonight, as usual. Stop by!

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The last two hours of 24 – 11 p.m. to 12 a.m. and 12 a.m. to 1 a.m. – have been both exhiliarating and a crapfest.

Don’t get me wrong, there were some fantastic moments in last night’s episode – Jack’s defense of Renee, his Jack Sack adjustment, his being freed even though he’d just attacked an official of the Justice Department – but it was so overwhelmed by the stupid Dana/Jenny plot as to be infuriating.

There have been many stupid side plots on 24, with Season 2′s “Misadventures of Kim Bauer” — which included her being framed for murder, being trapped by a mountain lion (cougar), being held hostage by Johnny Drama for about an hour and being a hostage in a convenience store robbery (really? the Kwik-E-Mart? Truth be told, that was even stupider than the cougar) — being the gold standard up until now.

Why is 24 wasting Katee Sackhoff on such a putrid storyline?

Let’s review:

Dana Walsh isn’t Dana Walsh. She’s Jenny Whitetrash, but covers up that southern accent really well. Her boyfriend, Dumb Hick, and his prison “buddy,” Dumber Cracker, have been blackmailing Dana/Jenny into helping them commit grand theft (I’m not sure of the exact technical crime, but that’s the one that makes sense to me).

Seems when she was an impressionable, underaged teen, she helped Dumb commit some crime. Because she was a minor, she got out quickly and her record was expunged. Because he wasn’t, he served serious time.

DanaJenny turned her life around and got a job working for the federal government in the most mole-ridden agency ever in the history of mankind. So, naturally, after being recreated, CTU didn’t improve its background check procedure and didn’t manage to find out that its top analyst wasn’t really who she said she was.

What’s the fun in that?

So now DanaJenny is completely susceptible to blackmail and she helps the StupidTwins rob a police evidence locker place, where they fling stuff around like monkeys tossing feces and nearly kill a cop. Good work.

Then they go to a strip joint and pick up some hookers. Who actually go with the boys in their rapist van to some deserted park and then leave, walking home. Right. Was that Hempstead Lake State Park? (Inside joke. Some of you will understand.)

So now Jenny’s sitting in some car, pistol with a silencer on it, ready to kill Dumb and Dumber.

But Chico Jr. arrives and won’t let her do it. He threatens the meth addict pair and tells them to get outta dodge. Dumb is OK with that. They got a six-figure payday and some hookers, so it’s all good. Dumber isn’t OK w/it, so he shoots Dumb, who still loves JENNNAH! and warns her just in the nick of time. Chico kills Dumber with his own shotgun.

So part of this storyline would seem to be resolved now.

But now the best CTU agent since Curtis is tied up in a moronic murder of someone who should have been a candidate for the Darwin awards years ago.

And to top it off, his fiance isn’t who he thought she was.

Blecch.

This is 24?

That said, there were moments of pure Jack genius in the past two hours:
• Jack, while tied and hanging from the ceiling and having been tortured by electricity being pumped into his gaping abdominal wound, manages to knock out his torturer, get down from the ceiling, untie himself and kill his captor. Mostly with his legs.
• He has a shootout with the bad guy from Judge Dredd and wins. He’s just been tortured. And he was stabbed in the abdomen just about an hour earlier.
• The rods (RODS!) are in Flushing.
• Jack busted into a room where Red Hot was being questioned about her massive stabbing of Vlad the impaled and put the hurt on the Justice Department chick who tried to stop him.
• Jack was tased. Did I mention he was just recently stabbed in the abdomen, tortured and involved in a firefight and he’s still standing? Bad idea. (C’mon, you know you laughed when the CTU security guard backed up when Jack gently advised him to.)
• Jack was ready to go on the lam with Red Hot. W00t! I’d watch that spinoff.
• Jack accepted Hasting’s offer of going back on the job for real and an all-you-can-eat shrimp buffet. He even adjusted his Jack Sack strap from “casual” on one shoulder to “ready to kick ass” with an over the head, across the chest move. It also allows him to put the bag behind him and not fall off while he’s at the shrimp buffet. True story.

All in all, the last two eps were fabulous. I just am really tired of the DanaJenny storyline and wish all people involved, except for Chico Jr., would just leave, already. Unfortunately, Chico Jr. is too tied up in it now, which means we’ll be the ones who’ll be tortured for the rest of the season.

Hopefully, Jack will be at least one more time. We need some more kickass scenes.

(Thanks again to Adam at The Jack Sack for the Bauertar image. I can’t get enough of it.)

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It’s funny how one scene can really turn an episode on its ear and turn it from meh to must-watch.

It’s a shame I had to wait through the entire episode to get there with this week’s 24, but the mano-a-mano between Renee and Vlad, as she’s on her knees next to the river and Vlad has a gun pointed at her face, demanding the truth was riveting.

My TV signal on Monday kept cutting out, so I only caught little snatches of the episode, mostly involving the crappiest sideplot since what may or may not have happened in Denver in Season 6.

I finally got to catch up on Hulu tonight and couldn’t believe how much Annie Wersching sold that final scene. You saw how tortured she was inside and she was actually telling Vlad the truth – if he didn’t go for the deal, she really didn’t have anything left.

The background of being undercover with the Russian mob and Vlad’s abuse of her makes her relatively fast acceptance of Jack last season make a little more sense. And it gives a different tone to the scene where she berates Jack for his methods, asking if he doesn’t care about anybody.

With the death of Mr. FBI Goody Two-Shoes boss last season, the last person she cared about, other than Jack, was gone. Two of her colleagues turned out to be moles, she went all Jack Bauer on a bunch of guys and Jack almost died.

I think the most amazing thing about Wersching’s understated performance was the over-the-top theatrics of the Dana Walsh/Jenny-oh-I-just-don’t-CARE-what-her-name-is storyline. The only good thing to come out of that insane scene was that we know why, supposedly, CTU didn’t know about her background – she was a minor when she went to prison.

Of course, given that it was for attempted murder and her employer is, oh, CTU, you’d think that the agency would have the resources to uncover such a past. Particularly given how many moles they’ve employed in the past. Someone so susceptible to blackmail? This is like Lynne back in, what, Season 5?

Was I the only one who was watching, thinking, “Come ON, Starbuck, you can totally take this guy. Why are you whimpering like a little girl?”

Sigh.

And president Hassan’s wife leaving him in the midst of a huge international crisis? I mean, I know the guy cheated on you and all, but your timing really sucks, lady.

Anyway, as I said, the end of the episode totally redeemed it and I am completely in love with Annie Wersching, even though she only cut off that guy’s thumb and not his whole hand, as I’d originally thought.

Oh, and having Leoben from BSG and Sark from Alias on board? w00t! I’m a happy girl.

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