When I first heard Monday’s episode of 24 was giong to be two hours, I wondered why.
Well, after watching, it became obvious.
There was no freakin’ way that they could keep those two hours apart.
With one episode ending with Red Hot climbing up on a rocky embankment (which my erstwhile colleagues over at Blogs4Bauer pointed out bear absolutely no resemblance whatsoever to the banks of the Potomac) and an attack on the White House imminent (by an underwater drill-in?), there was no way the legions of insane 24 fans could – possibly would – have waited another week to find out what happened.
So, to recap what happened in these two hours:
A general/military dictator from some backwater HAS MANAGED TO BREAK INTO THE WHITE HOUSE AND CAPTURE THE PRESIDENT. And, even more shockingly, JACK BAUER.
The same president had earlier prevented Jack from doing what he does best, in this case repeatedly Tasering a bad guy. At least she very nearly decided to Tase him herself. And Ethan, who I’ve been convinced is a mole, may indeed not be a mole and believed the President should abandon her principles and probably Tase the guy.
OK, so maybe Ethan’s not such a bad guy after all.
Besides this, Jack tied up Bill, Bill imprisoned Jack and Aaron Pierce almost saved the First Daughter from the General, but failed in the end. Mostly because she was all girly and scared. Look, Sprague Grayden used to play Heather on Jericho. She ain’t all girly girly. Heather never would have been caught by the bad guys. Just sayin’.
And, of course, Bill let Jack out the second it became apparent that the White House had been overrun and the only person who could save the day, obviously, was Jack.
Now, I’ve been totally into President Taylor and have thought she was pretty tough and badass.
Even her deciding not to torture the senator’s aide wasn’t so bad, because it was a matter of principle, and it’s not such a horrible thing to stand by your principles, even if they’re wrong in this case. I mean, have the courage of your convictions and all.
However, her decision to open the panic room (what IS it with the women on this show opening panic rooms? Doesn’t that completely negate the POINT of the panic room?) and allow herself and Jack to be taken into custody just because her daughter had been captured was incredibly selfish. I mean, she’s the President of the United States – POTUS. Leader of the free world and all that.
And we’ve seen over and over again on this show that the Vice President should never be President. At least, not in the world of 24. Veeps tend to be rather … weak, corrupt and/or ineffectual.
So now we have Aaron Pierce shot, the President (and her daughter) captured and Bill and Jack under the gun. Of course, we know that Jack will escape, though it’s entirely possible that Aaron (the only other character who’s been in every season of 24) and/or Bill will be killed off. I doubt they’ll kill off the president, because we’ve barely seen or heard from the Veep yet and Jack is NOT going to let the president die on his watch.
In all, an amazing two hours.
First photo, via Fox. Second, courtesy of Blogs.4Bauer.com