07.28 | Episode twenty two, 5AM - 6AM
After 22 episodes, I'm tired. And in a literal interpretation of '24', I'm posting this at 5AM. Just what I'm playing at, I have no idea. My head is spinning worse than the valves in Jack Bauer's dodgy ticker.
The key part of this show was Palmer's phone call to Jack and Sherry. Notice how Palmer spoke to Jack first. It's the writers' way of showing the 'chain of command' here. Palmer has more trust in Jack than anyone - even his wife - but the ex-President still needs her, which is why he asks Jack to give the phone to her. It's also telling that Sherry honestly doesn't know that Palmer is no longer President - she has no idea who is really pulling the strings. As far as I can tell, it's just a bonus for Peter Kingsley's gang that Jim Prescott has invoked the whatever amendment and taken away Palmer's presidency.
Palmer's chat to Agent Pierce - the whole 'you have a son in the navy, he should serve a righteous cause' thing - was just a lame duck. Terrible, sloppy pandering to the masses. That scene would have been cut right out of the first series. For a start, no sexual tension, and the first series was all about that.
My favourite - though not particularly high brow - moment of the episode was when Alex Hewitt ran off down his handy escape tunnel. After all, we all have handy holes in our walls for easy access in and out of our apartments. It's like the bloody Shawshank Remdemption, or something.
Seeing Kate Warner in the bath was also a bonus. Probably the most unexpected scene of the whole hour.
Sherry Palmer 'reveals' to Jack that the war is a sham that's been engineered by Peter Kingsley. He's the head of an evil global megacorporation who's planning to start a war in the middle east because of his oil interests there. Well, real life events have made this plot line fall flat on it's face. All we've heard about is war and oil in the news for the past six months - frankly, I'm sick of it. I turn to '24' for entertainment, not for a watered down version of reality. But anyway. As long as Jack Bauer doesn't spend the next series tracking down Saddam Hussein and his sons, I'll be happy.
Thing is, this is the episode where everything gets broken.
The trust between Mike Novick and David Palmer is broken once more. Alex Hewitt's computer is broken - him and Jack spend the hour fixing it. Jack Bauer's heart gives him a twinge of pain... it's broken. The chain of command at CTU is broken when Ryan Chappelle relieves Tony Almeida of his command. Kim Bauer's civilian innocence is broken when he father tells her to kill Gary Matheson. Kate Warner's relaxation and recuperation is broken when Jack asks her to find Kim. Sherry Palmer is literally broken when Alex Hewitt stabs her in the final minute.
It's an obvious motif, but one I feel that needs pointing out. And if all this is broken, can the next two hours repair anything - just one piece - of it? There's one thing that we know for certain - the next two hours will be a rollercoaster ride.
I'm sorry that this hasn't been more entertaining to read, but I'm kind of too caught up in the series to care. It's sucked all the humour out of me. Feel free to complain if you like.
