By Stu Robinson,

The first three episodes of CBS’ new Hawaii Five-O left me optimistic about the direction the show was going. Then Episode 4 aired Monday, delivering a lot of stuff that I never saw coming.

For a couple of weeks, now, I’ve urged Hawaii Five-O viewers “not to sweat the details. … Just sit back and enjoy the fast-paced stories, attractive visuals and snappy dialogue.” But it’s a slippery slope from there to total implausibility, and Episode 4 skied all the way down.

The show’s writers abandoned many of the developing plot lines to cast Steve McGarrett as Jack Bauer in their version of “Hawaii Two-4.” From the violent jailbreak in the opening sequence, the metaphorical clock is ticking as McGarrett and crew try to catch up with the escapee, who is adding to his body count by the minute.

What’s behind the rampage? There is no time for exposition, so don’t think you’re going to answer that question on your own. The villain just growls and shoots people, until Five-O puts the magic pieces together so that McGarrett/Bauer can put a few bullets into the bad guy, sending him (literally) down a slippery slope to death.

Hardly anything in Episode 4 was even remotely plausible:

• A hardened inmate (D.L. Hughley in the series’ first celebrity cameo) talks after McGarrett beats him one-on-one on a basketball court in the prison yard.
• A guard who abetted the escape in which several of his colleagues were killed talks after about 20 seconds of questioning.
• The escapee’s girlfriend rats him out at the mere threat of losing her lucrative job waitressing in a diner.
• And the coup de grace – after losing the suspect during a pursuit, McGarret whips out his cell phone, connects to a gorgeous female naval officer on an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf and persuades her to locate the bad guy using a military satellite.

Which brings us to the repartee du jour:

Chin Ho: “You got her to use a military recon satellite, and then you made a date?”

McGarrett: “I’m a multitasker.”

Chin Ho: “Impressive.”

The female officer, who looked to be in close quarters with McGarrett in the scenes from next week, wasn’t the only thing I didn’t see coming. With the Five-O team in hot pursuit the whole episode, the show’s ongoing daddy issues had to be shouldered by Steve’s sister, Mary Ann McGarrett.

Say what? Yes. Out of nowhere, McGarrett has a sister. Not quite nowhere, actually: the airport security office, where she ended up after messing with the restroom smoke detector on her flight to the islands. Sis appears to have issues that extend well beyond Papa McGarrett.

It will be interesting to see where this subplot is going. Could there be a romantic triangle involving Danno, who in earlier episodes seemed interested in Kono?

Some other notes that washed over my transom:

• On the product-placement front, McGarrett’s muscular Camaro was AWOL, replaced by a big Chevy truck.
• A Hawaiian Airlines ad has run in each episode so far.
• Hawaii Five-O‘s ratings are getting a boost from viewers using DVRs.
• The University of Maryland’s marching band won a CBS contest to perform the show’s boffo theme song with its performance at the Maryland-Navy football game Sept. 6.

To me, Episode 4 messed up the vibe the series was developing in the first three episodes. It was a shock to the system, leaving me to wonder where the writers will go next.

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Stu Robinson, a college friend of the TV Tyrant, is a writer, editor, media-relations specialist and social-media guy based in Phoenix.

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So, I wasn’t gonna write about 24 this week. Not because of anything with the show, but because I have been cranky, distracted and have got a to-do list a mile long before I move next week. But you what? 24 is almost over, and how many chances will I get to write about one of my favorite all time shows? So here we go with hour 10am – 11am.

I hate to nitpick the show, but those helicopters got in the air and caught up to Jack pretty fast, eh? I do love how Jack steals a heli just to fly over the river and land on a building in Manhattan. Shortest.hijack.ever.

I was worried that Chloe being in charge would put a wedge between her and Jack, and I am fairly desperate to see that friendship continue, seeing that Jack has almost no one to trust anymore. I was sure, for drama’s sake, they would have Jack be betrayed by her. Thank goodness they played it like they did, with Jack being wise to the trap, and not blaming her for doing her job.

Chloe is doing her job well, even though she still used a little of her tech-fu to get the location of the actual safehouse off of DB Sweeney’s phone so Cole had the info for later. (Hi DB!! I see playing an evil head of a private security firm on Jericho has stuck with you, even though on 24 you had a mustache instead of a goatee).

So Jack does what he does best, takes down a bunch of highly trained agents, and easily convinces Cole to go with him to expose the Russians and get Dana and whatever. Good. I wanted this whole season to be Jack and Cole together, a la Jack and Chase in the virus season. I will take them together for the last few hours.

The most unusual thing for me this episode, is my interest in what was going on with the Presidents Taylor and Logan. For me, the White House portion of the show has always been the weakest and/or most annoying bits. But put together Cherry Jones and Greg Itzin, and we get TV gold. Logan is one of the best characters ever on this show, and to have him back to his evilly goodness, and bending and warping a President who has such strong convictions is great fun to watch. Totally tragic to see it happen to her, and it is gonna get messy, and we may have lost our lovely and awesome Ethan in the process, but I can’t wait to see what they do with all of it. Cherry is totally earning that Emmy she won last year.

Michael Madsen showed up this week, perfectly cast too, as a shady, old friend of Jack. I am guessing he won’t be the last of the fun guest casting for the last few episodes.

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Listen, I hear all of you, I do, retread, recycled, done to death, here we go again… but you know what, I still like it. I just can’t help myself. Jack goes off all cocksure and angry, it just gets me every.single.time.

So, along with the expected move of Jack stealing the helicopter (from his biggest fan, no less!), we got one of my favorite pairings in the history of 24. Cherry Jones and Gregory Itzin ruled every moment of their scenes together, and mad props to Bob Gunton for holding his own as the’ Good’ shoulder angel. It was interesting to see a character as idealistic as President Taylor be vulnerable to the brilliant smarmy-ness of President Logan. It was delicious to watch.

I know this may make me a bad person, but watching Jack smack Dana around was satisfying, as I wanted to do that to her for most of the season. Also, not only was she a bad spy, but she sucks at holding immunity too. Everyone gets immunity on this show! Poor, dumb, Dana.

While I was excited that Chloe was given temporary rein of CTU, I did wonder if her and her personality disorder could handle it. I thought she jumped right in and did great. I just hope it doesn’t end in another one of Jack’s BFFs having to break up with him.

All in all, even with a rickety Russian conspiracy plot bolstering the story, I am excited for the last few episodes… ever!

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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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Yes, terrible, awful things happened tonight on 24. If you haven’t seen it yet, be advised that this post is FULL OF SPOILERS!! STOP NOW IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN IT YET!.

The Happily Ever After we all wanted...

Another heart-breaker people! I haven’t been that upset over someone’s death on 24 since Tony. But you know what? Thank god 24 has some balls once again. I was happy to have Tony back last season, for my own selfish hormonal reasons, but they just hacked at his character. The writers keep a beloved character around too long, and they degrade exponentially. The only exception being Jack and Chloe, in my opinion. Remember how awesome Nina Meyers was, until she wasn’t? Martha Logan was great, until she really, crazily wasn’t. I would rather Renee go out in a way that gives me the vengeful, driven Jack that I love.

Does Jack deserve that kind of heartache? No one does, really, but this show is based on despair. I spent season one hoping that Jack would prevail, only to be devastated by watching his wife, the mother of his child, die in his arms. Wouldn’t a happy ending be an affront to that premise? Besides, who says romantic love is the only happy ending? Jack finally has a good relationship with his daughter Kim, and an adorable grand daughter, Teri’s namesake, to bring him joy. Why isn’t that enough, at least for now?

I admit my gooey heart was rooting for a happy Jack and Renee ending, but I give the writers mad props for being brave again. Offing Hassan last week, and wrenching Jack’s heart this week, gives me some serious drama and revenge to look forward to, and that excites me.

Plus, the extra added bonus of Chloe finally, finally! getting to run CTU, as it should be.

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OK, look. One of the things that was great about 24, once upon a time, was its willingness to kill off important people. I can appreciate and respect that about a show.

OH, BY THE WAY, THERE ARE SPOILERS HERE, SO DON’T FRAKKIN’ READ IF YOU DON’T WANNA KNOW.

But it’s been some years since 24 was that fearless. And last season’s return of Zombie Tony, only to make him bad, good, bad, good and then just psycho again, that really ticked me off. Better to have given him a silent clock originally and kept him dead.

But tonight’s death of Renee really pissed me off. No two ways about it.

This is, as we know, the last season. Jack deserves a wee bit of happiness, and Renee and Chloe were the only two others worth anything on the show this season. Hastings had redeemed himself, but still, he was a shrimper.

I’m so ticked off right now, I know I’m not expressing it well. In some ways, tonight’s episode was awesome. It showed a fearlessness rarely seen in network television. But Renee was NOT the person to kill off.

Renee was the finest character to join 24 in years.

RIP, Renee Walker. Jack’s gonna make sure your death wasn’t in vain, and that’s the only good thing that could come of this. Jack’s gotta rack up a body count, and that’s never a bad thing. You know, for those of us safe on our sofas, watching.

I only wish that the silent clock were subterfuge this time around.

(P.S.: Chloe in charge of CTU? Frak yeah!)

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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?

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OK, let me start by saying that the entirety of Monday night’s episode was about as far from Awesometastic as you can get.

In fact, I almost fell asleep a couple of times. Or would have, anyway, if I hadn’t been liveblogging.

But that 30 seconds or so — you know what I’m talking about — were among the best 30 seconds in the history of this storied show.

Let’s recap, shall we?

Renee stabs the crap out of Leoben Vlad, ’till he’s dead and bloody on the floor. Jack comes in, Renee stabs him in the gut.

Oops.

Jack slumps to the ground.

Suddenly, a bad guy bursts in! Without missing a beat, Jack slides the knife out of his gut and flings it across the room as only Jack Bauer can, stabbing the bad guy in the throat. I think he got pinned against the wall, even.

But wait, there’s more.

Jack and Renee leave the room, whereupon Jack shoots two more bad guys — to death! By the way, he’s bleeding a lot.

They hear other bad guys coming (these happen to be a totally different set of bad guys who were coming to kill the first set of bad guys), so Renee hides in a closet or really huge vent of some sort next to the shower, while Jack gives himself up so he can go undercover and get the nuclear rods.

Did I mention that Jack has a huge blood stain on his shirt that’s still growing when he does this?

I mean, come ON. If that short stretch didn’t energize you and make you fist pump and shout, “YEAH!” then you’re not really a fan of 24.

A few other notes:
• Renee is awesome, but her head is totally where Jack’s was in Season 2. Remember how he was going to fly the live nuke over the desert until George Mason, dying from radiation poisoning, insisted on sacrificing himself instead, seeing as he was gonna die anyway? Yep, just that messed up. There’s hope for the girl, though. I mean, look at Jack now … oh, nevermind.
• Dana Walsh is an idiot.
• Her boyfriend is a bigger idiot.
• Her boyfriend’s friend is the biggest idiot. I mean, REALLY. And who didn’t see it coming that he was going to beat the crap out of the cop with that baseball bat?
• Really, Dumber and Dumbest? You couldn’t just steal money without trashing the evidence cage like you were a pair of monkeys?
• Oh, Dana, maybe if you weren’t so consumed with the grand theft you’re helping to orchestrate (by the way, that was a rather fast turnaround, too bad the morons couldn’t even read a simple four-digit number), someone would have noticed people going in through sewer pipes and stuff, and maybe would know where Jack is. Chloe’s pissed. You don’t want to piss her off. Really. Remember Season 5 when she Tased that guy in the bar just because he was annoying? Twice?
• Arlo, could you be a little less obvious that you have the hots for Dana? I mean, you’re right to be suspicious and all, but that will be little consolation when you’re sent to HR. CTU does not condone sexual harassment. Moles and spies, sure. But sexual harassment? Step off.
• President Cankles – don’t gossip like a schoolgirl about major national security issues. It would be one thing if it were your right-hand-man who was spilling state secrets to the ambassador, while telling him it’s for the Prime Minister’s ears only. But YOU ARE THE PRESIDENT. Mmmkay?
• President Hairbib – please, for the love of all that’s holy, get a haircut. It’s very distracting.

Yeah, that’s it. Please, next week be more of the last little bit of this week and pretty much none of the first 56 minutes? kthanxbai.

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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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