Really, 24?

CTU has just been EMP’d and no one even thinks twice about some random parole agent who’s bumbling around, asking questions about some idiot thief?

And how freakin’ committed is this parole officer that he sees that the COUNTER-TERRORISM AGENCY of the United Freakin’ States of America IS IN THE MIDDLE OF A MASSIVE NATIONAL SECURITY CRISIS, but, you know, he needs to get back to Arkansas so this just can’t wait.

Sorry for yelling, but Monday night’s episode was so moronically stupid that I still am quite upset.

I’m not gonna say not to read if you didn’t watch, because, frankly, you’re better off not watching and just viewing the liveblog we did over at Blogs4Bauer. I’ve been told it’s quite amusing. And you’ll get all the main points.

So, first, I would just like to ask:

A MOLE? I mean, I know it’s become de rigeur and all by now, but imagine how things would have been by season’s end if there hadn’t been a mole. The fans would have been all, “Hey, this season sucked, but at least there wasn’t a mole, so that’s something anyway.”

Now, we don’t even have that to hold onto.

And I (and the rest of the world) was hoping that Dana/Jenny would meet her untimely death sooner rather than later, but now that she’s the mole, who knows when that will happen. I really think that whoever does hiring at CTU seriously needs to be locked in a Chinese prison for 14 months. At least 14 months. Or, locked in a room with Jack Bauer and no security cameras.

So Dana/Jenny is engaged to a hotshot CTU agent who can’t hold onto his NYC accent for more than about 10 seconds at a time and has now killed some stupid hayseed crooks for his fiance, who is working for the bad guys. Great.

And now she’s killed a probation officer (poor Milton, you were the most dedicated probation officer in the history of mankind) and hidden his body. Of course, because of the EMP blast, no cameras recorded that, so she has that going in her favor.

And who thought the NSA jerkoff was going to be the mole? Best line of the night, “I’m sure you’re a nice guy, when you’re not at work,” Chloe says as she’s holding a pistol to his face. Chloe rocks, even in the midst of all this idiocy. And Hastings has had the best CTU director redemption since Bill Buchanan. Possibly, even, George Mason.

Go get some shrimp, Bubba. You deserve it.

Once again, we see that everyone should just listen to Jack and Chloe. I don’t know why people don’t. Those two redshirts who got killed with Jack and Chico Jr. totally deserved it. The first one for breaking formation in the first place (though that formation looked like the guys from Animal House trying to hide from the dean or something) and the second for being stupid. I really wished Jack had told him the guy he died trying to save was dead when he went out for him, because he deserved to know what a moron he was before he died.

Sorry, do I sound a bit harsh? Well, I’m pissed off.

I’m pissed off that Jack isn’t killing people.

I’m pissed off about the whole Dana/Jenny storyline.

I’m pissed off that the president of 70sHairistan’s daughter is all, “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me everything, even though I know you deal with national security and I obviously brought a car to you that kind of blew everything up. But you owe me!”

If it weren’t for live-blogging, I would have wanted to bang my head against the wall throughout most of the episode. Hell, I probably wouldn’t have made it through to the end. But we have a great audience over at B4B, so that makes it easier to stomach eps like this.

When the word “Rods!” is used more in an episode than “Dammit,” there’s an issue.

Chloe needs to tase someone. Red Hot got the kills, which was awesome, but Jack needs to start taking out bad guys. He needs to shoot someone in the knee and yell at them.

We’re halfway through this, our last 24 hours. Please don’t wrap it all up neatly into some stupid storyline that makes me want to drown myself in the toilet. Please?

Bookmark It

Honestly, it’s hard to get too excited about an episode that was so obviously filler and in which so little happened.

I mean, what does it say when Kiefer Sutherland headbutting a fashion designer on the streets of Manhattan in defense (kinda sorta) of Brooke Shields is almost more interesting than the Monday episode (for the definitive story on this, see Point / Counterpoint)? Especially when there are only three hours left in this day and we still have no idea what the frak is going on.

I guess that’s why I never really got around to a separate blog post on it this week and decided to wait for the weekly blog carnival, which I am always happy to host.

Basically, this is what happened this week:

Tony and Red Not forced the Token Muslim guy to pretend he’s a jihadist so they could blame their bad behavior on “those people.” Thing is, this guy was basically the least enthusiastic jihadist EVAR. Seriously, folks, if anyone in the intelligence (or intelligent) community actually believed this video, that this man who had nothing on his record and just got a bunch of money wired to him minutes before the video was shot (ahem, Chloe had that figured out before Jack even got to the guy’s house, for goodness sakes!) and was SO unenthusiastic about his jihad against the bad Americans, they need a vacation. Now. He couldn’t even convince his brother.

Olivia turned from hard-nosed Bitch to whiny little beyotch after nothing more than a car bomb. And, by the way, the car bomb was a little obvious, guys. Adam from The Jack Sack publicly called it before it happened and on 24, whenever someone is left alone in a car for “just a minute” while the other person goes about 200 yards away to “sign him out,”  you can pretty well bet the car’s going to blow up. And Olivia, SHUT UP! Stop whining girl, you got what you wanted. And it’s a pretty good bet you’ll be caught, even if this was independent of your shenanigans, so I hope you enjoy sullying your mother’s good name. (Kudos to Sprague Grayden, by the way, who is obviously a good actress, being able to play such an unlikeable character after being such a likeable character on Jericho!)

The first husband came home to the White House, the best villain in quite some time bit the dust, Jack apologized to Chloe for not telling her he had mad cow (frankly, Mary Lynn and Kiefer both did an excellent job on that scene) and at the liveblog we said “Mooooo” a lot.

And before Jonas went “boom,” he was renamed Robert Tippet and learned he would have to live next door to Steve Martin doing a mobster impression for the rest of his life. That’s when he put out the contract on his own life.

The main question left, besides WTF is wrong with Tony?, is who the last mole is. The fanbase is rooting for Janis Gold. Don’t disappoint us, Howard.

OK, so to the carnival:

Steve gives us his usually detailed recap, Season 7 – 24 – 4 am to 5 am, posted at Magic Lamp. It’s full of Web 2.0 jokes and made me giggle more than once.

Colin Timberlake gave us Underappreciated Actors: Michael Massee, posted at colintimberlake.com. Anyone who could plot to kidnap Jack’s wife, even at the bidding of Victor Drazen, has a titanium-coated pair.

King Tom wrote Of Patsies, Overachieving Hitmen and a Wasted Supervillain, posted at King Tom’s Kingdom, bemoaning the lack of action this season and the loss of a great Jonas-in-witness protection spinoff, which would have been 24‘s first spinoff in seven seasons.

And Adam gave us multiple posts to peruse at The Jack Sack, including his 4 a.m. to  a.m. Quick Review and his Star Trek Movie Review – love the art on that. You also have to check out his co-produced (with the folks at AlmeidaisGod[dot]com) – “Almeida” music video.

That concludes this edition of the Carnival of Bauer!!!. Submit your blog article to the next edition of Carnival of Bauer!!! using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Want to host a future edition of the carnival? Say so in the comments and mention your favorite Jack Bauer kill.
Link to B4B’s Point/Counter

Bookmark It

The big debate Monday night on Blogs4Bauer’s liveblog of Hour 14 was the status of moles.

Right now, it seems as if there are so many moles in the White House, the Rose Garden should collapse in on itself.

Let’s look at the candidates, shall we?

Olivia Taylor

Pro: The first daughter looks awfully good in the Mole Olympics. She’s sneaky, duplicitous and not afraid to wallow in the mud. She played dirty tricks during mommy’s campaign for the presidency, which is what caused them to have a falling out. Now, she’s totally on the dark side, being back in her mom’s good graces. Nearly getting killed by a crazy African dictator will do that for a relationship. She’s totally trying to get Ethan fired and there’s no doubt that she lined up that TV guy to lie for her about his sources to cover her ass. Did you see that smirk when Ethan came up to her after being confronted about that guy being killed in the hospital? She’s the best manipulative beyotch this show has had since Sherri Palmer.

Con: Whatever Sherri Palmer did, she never knowingly betrayed the nation to a crazed dictator. The more you compare Olivia Taylor to Sherri Palmer, the less likely it seems she’s the mole. Plus, she’s SO obvious. They’ve practically bashed us over the head with clues that she’s the mole, so she probably isn’t.

Ethan Kanin

Pro: The money was on him from Hour 1 (I almost said Day 1, but on 24, that doesn’t really work). He always has these sneaky looks on his face. He advocated letting Jack torture. He let Jack go in to the hospital room (did he know that someone was going in there to kill the witness and Jack would get framed for it? Hmm?). The camera’s always lingering on him, too. He is totally all shifty-eyed.

Con: He’s perhaps the only one more obvious to be the mole than Olivia Taylor. And he advocated letting Jack torture someone!

Janis Gold

Pro: Honestly, she hadn’t even occurred to me until Monday as we were watching. She’s so suspicious of everyone, though, and is so quick to rat everyone else out. She totally HAS to know everything that’s going on and can’t stand to be on the outside. She’s the go-to girl when it comes to ‘puters in the office. And she ratted out Chloe! Plus, the guys who absolutely hate her because she’s played by a known liberal will forever love Howard Gordon & Co. if she turns out to be the mole.

Con: She ratted out Chloe, thereby chancing that she’d be exposed. And she’s such an easy target, as a good portion of the show’s fanbase hates her simply b/c she’s played by Janene Garafolo; would they go the easy route?

Tony Almeida

Pro: Where was Tony the last couple hours? And making him the bad guy would totally give viewers whiplash.

Con: Um, he’s TONY. They just brought him back from the dead. They wouldn’t, couldn’t, shouldn’t do that to Adam’s and Rickey’s fragile emotions.

President Allison Taylor

Pro: OK, I know I’m reaching here, but what would 24 be without wholly preposterous plots? After all, Season 5 ended with the total gut-check that the President was in on it all from the beginning! They’ve done it before and they can do it again.

Con: Really? Her? Don’t think so.

There is no other mole

Pro: Haven’t we had enough already this season?

Con: Come on, get real.

Bookmark It

It’s posted, over at Blogs4Bauer. Check it out.

I promise you’ll be glad you did, because it includes a great motivational poster by Adam of The Jack Sack. Not this one:

Tell Adam you want more motivational posters – he said he’ll make more if you ask. And you don’t even have to ask nicely.

Bookmark It

As I live-blogged tonight on Blogs4Bauer with my crazy boy friends, I anxiously awaited the “slap scene,” as we called it. We even got one false alarm, then, WHAMMO!

Do I even need to say there are spoilers ahead?

So, since the episode made us wait for the slap scene, I’ll make you wait for my discussion of it.

First off, there’s been discussion on B4B and on Twitter as to whether this was the best ep so far this season or just the best ep ever.

I think the latter may be hyperbole, but if so, not by much. Seeing as Season 7 is shaping up to be awesome on the level of Seasons 2 & 5 (my two faves), seeing as this is the best ep so far makes it definitely up there in the pantheon of awesomeness.

So let me ask this: Does Marika’s death count in Jack’s killcount, seeing as he’s basically responsible for her death? I vote yes.

I honestly believe that Red Hot would have pulled the trigger on Jack if she’d had to, not that it would have actually killed him. Badder folks have tried to kill Jack and failed, after all.

This is what happened tonight:

• Chewbacca is on his deathbed, but Jack cut the chip out of his abdomen before he meets his maker.

• Marika, whom Chewbacca appears to have actually loved, died and Red Hot totally blames him for that.

• No one can maneuver a Ford through D.C. traffic like Jack Bauer.

• The President and her daughter have a very troubled relationship. And the president’s gonna regret going back to the White House.

• Tony knows more than he’s letting on.

• Red Hot’s the first person to slap Jack in the face in eons and live. If she does it again, I’m thinking … maybe not so lucky.

• Queens Boulevard is a much slimier guy than I ever gave him credit for. His blonde girlfriend is both smarter (who would have guessed that she was capable of crashing the entire FBI mainframe?) and dumber (c’mon, woman, the guy says he loves you and suddenly you’re all gooey?) than I’d given her credit/blamed her for.

• Chloe is THE BOMB. Seriously, no one else on this planet could have held onto that data. I love her. Even though she looked constipated. She was extremely pregnant when these episodes were filmed, though, so that probably affected her mood somewhat.

• Larry is still a lame-o. This is 24, folks. Someone invokes his constitutional rights and that’s the end of the conversation? Queens Boulevard asks to speak to his attorney, you tell him this, “I’ve got your attorney here. His name is Jack Bauer.”

And the slap.

First, verbal: Red Hot invokes Teri Bauer. You could see Jack flinch. That hurt more than the physical slaps, which barely affected Jack. He even felt badly for Red Hot. She’s not used to collateral damage.

The whole point of 24 is that Jack absolutely feels every death. He feels every death he’s ever caused. But he feels them later. He can’t react to them when they happen; he doesn’t have the luxury. He needs to do what he needs to do, to keep this country safe.

Now the President is going to argue on his behalf, with the Senator who doesn’t care that Jack had reasons to do what he needed to do.

And that Senator’s assistant is gonna try not to die, hmmmm?

Next week’s a TWO HOUR EPIC. I am quite excited. I’ll be live blogging with the boys over at Blogs4Bauer, naturally.

Bookmark It

Just one this week, but it’s the really important one:

Blogs4Bauer, home of the Carnival of Bauer!!!, hosts this week. Lots of good stuff, including several lessons to be learned from 24 (such as, “Don’t bring a knife to a Jack fight”).

Here it is. If you want to participate in the next carnival, submit your article here.

Visions of Winchesters: The Supernatural Variety (A Blog Carnival) is on a break, because Supernatural is on a break, unfortunately. Last week’s episode (with the siren) is the last until March 5, according to BuddyTV.

UPDATE: The CW has now pushed the return date for Supernatural (and Smallville) back to March 12, apparently to avoid competing with American Idol’s semi-final round (probably not a bad idea), according to BuddyTV. Thanks to my buddy, Erika, for the tip.

Bookmark It

Hour 7 totally rocked the house, with 5 Jack kills, Red Hot getting at least one kill, Tony claiming some lives, Phlox blowing up and general mayhem – along with the First Dude talking his way out of getting his brains splattered all over the wall.

Sure, we had a total WTF moment when Chewbacca got home and his waitress girlfriend came by to ask if they were still on for dinner, and Jack didn’t drop any Dammits, but it was an excellent hour of television, by any standard.

So it’s no surprise we have some excellent entries this week for the Carnival of Bauer!!!, and I’m thrilled to say Adam from The Jack Sack™ made a carny screencap for me (actually, gave me two choices, and as a bonus I’ll put the runner up at the bottom of this post):

To start things off with the appropriate humor, let’s head on over to the aforementioned Jack Sack™ and check out the latest set of e-cards. No. 3 makes me sad.

Steve over at the Magic Lamp, whose minute-by-minute recaps of 24 are so frakkin’ funny that Dave Barry posts them on his blog, does it again Warning: He does these so detailed it might take you an hour to read it. But it’s pretty funny, so it won’t be a wasted hour. Like this: “2:54 – At the White House, the news shows the Kidron plant is in a state of disarray, with some people wearing chemical outfits. Others are just going into neighboring towns which must have some kind of anti-insecticide shielding (but really HUGE bugs).”

Kasia over at Almeida is God waxes poetic over the episode. She truly, madly, deeply loves 24 and, of course, Tony. One thing I missed, though, was the symmetry of Jack and Tony’s handshake mirroring the opening scene of Season 2 (my personal favorite, btw), but that’s not lost on her.

Jackster at the covert diaries of jackster maps out all the potential moles in Season 7 so far, detailing the pros and the cons on why each would or wouldn’t fit the role. I really hadn’t considered Janis Gold as a mole, but he had some interesting theories. Fact is, it’ll be another 15 hours before we find out all of them for sure.

TonyJunkie from Tony Almeida Junkie Blog found a great little article about the good folks of Kidron, Ohio, who were quite surprised to find their town was the focal point of a 24 terrorist near-attack.

Jeff Kouba of Truth vs. the Machine recaps the hour with a Copy That drinking game, in which, just as it sounds, you have to drink every time someone utters “Copy that.” Needless to say, he’s a bit tipsy by episode’s end.

King Tom from King Tom’s Kingdom points out something I hadn’t noticed before (and neither had he) that our big bad guy (so far) is named “Ike.” Yes, Like Eisenhower. Really?

Finally, we have Blogs4Bauer‘s weekly Tivo Blogging update by our very own VtheK, complete with all the “official” (to B4B, at least) nicknames of the season to date.

Want to  join in the fun next week? Submit your blog article to the next edition of carnival of bauer!!! using our carnival submission form. Past and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Again, thanks to Adam for the fabulous screencaps! You should see what he can do with some paint, children’s furniture and too much knowledge of Star Wars!

Bookmark It

Yours truly, the only female member of Blogs4Bauer, has the extreme honor of hosting the first Carnival of Bauer!!! of Season 7.

It’s been a very long time since the last carnival — heck, we were still on Blogspot then —  but it’s very welcome. It posts tomorrow (Thursday) sometime… Basically, once I have a chance to get through all the posts and write it up.

I’m the luckiest girl in the world!

Bookmark It

Head on over to Blogs4Bauer for tonight’s liveblog. I’m there now. I’ll recap the first four hours all together after that.

Bookmark It

OK, so the liveblog over at B4B was a bit wacky, shockingly, but I have this to say:

Jack is back.

He’s totally shocked at Tony’s betrayal of the people who have no subpoenaed him and are trying him for crimes against humanity.

Wait, what?

OK. Lemme ponder all this and get back to you tomorrow. I’ll be liveblogging again at B4B tomorrow night for the second two hours of the season premiere.

Bookmark It