On last night's episode of 24, we find that the hidden nerve gas was outside the secure perimeter at the airport, thus "explaining" how no one noticed it. Not explained was how the hostage who was the terrorist fellow-traveler got through the "secure" perimeter, nor why nobody thought it was a big deal to see a SWAT van come from somewhere beyond the secure perimeter back around to a checkpoint.
Crazy First Lady Jean Smart showed more of her ample acting talents in the early part of the show, although that was about it, because later she ducked out of the bathroom window to avoid being taken on a shopping trip to Straitjacket and Barrel. Television show's director still not heeding my advice for fewer closeups of any area above the shoulder. CRLJS's attendant is hot. Secret Service is inept--if CFLJS could get OUT, couldn't someone get IN to kidnap her?
Some weasely little dude who slept with Chloe Sourface is really some kinda mole sent in by Nixon's chief of staff, who is a bad guy, and the little creepy dude wanders around all over the place playing with computers and acting creepy. What DID Chloe Zellweger see in him?! Dern, woman--look online sometime--they got all kinds of things that only require a couple of D-cells and aren't nearly so creepy. Anyway, she catches him touching the computers in a bad way, and bustes him to her boss, who is now not really the boss since Rudy is in the house, and her chubby needy goomba platonic friend gets all put out and hurt-feelinged because she's always angry and not dishy enough with him, and always looks like she smells someone talking to the herrings.
Anyway, the little creepy guy goes downstairs to let in a bad guy, who we later find out is a REALLY bad guy. Proving that all of that cool lighting and computers and concrete walls and bullet-proof glass and armed guards and security cameras and jarring music and hot babes walking around CTU are pretty useless when it comes to protecting anything. I think they could have spared everyone a lot of money if they'd have just set up in a camper in the Wal-mart parking lot.
Jack is finally brought in to CTU, and Good and Kind Samwise decides he's not the presidential assassin, which he SHOULD already know if he'd been keeping up with the show! I mean, sheesh, dude--how'd you get in charge!? But who could it be!? I vote for a bad guy of some sort, of which, given the general lack of oversight in the place, turns out to be about half the population.
Jack goes downstairs to the hospital to check on his old buddy, the Dark Haired Guy, and meets up with both the kid who looks like his daughter (except I doubt he will be in Maxim) and then goes on to run into his former lover, whom I don't know anything about because I lost track of the show last year (and yet, I STILL know Jack didn't kill the Allstate guy! Stupid Rudy!) but I do know that something must have gone on between Jack and this girl, and that she must be trying out for a sequel to the most popular movie amongst Golden Globe voters, and it will be called Brokenose Mountain. My goodness, that girl must have gotten her nose all out of joint about something--and it STAYED! She's still highly attractive though--as you know, I have a thing for girls with interesting noses. ANYway, they take some time out from a worldwide crisis to catch up and put away hurt feelings. Priorities, you know. ANYWAY, she gets an assignment to interrogate the Mom Woman Who Sheltered Jack, and they Discuss Jack, tenderly.
Jack goes on to see Dark Haired Guy in the hospital, which requires the Guy Playing the Dark Haired Guy to lie there with a bandage on his face, and as Jack's whispering tender nothings in DHG's ear, he sees the reflection of the bad BAD guy that the creep-weasel let in a'sneaking up behind him with a hogleg. Because, as a trained assassin, the bad BAD guy knows he shouldn't just kill Jack the moment he walks in, but wait until Jack can find something reflective, or otherwise the show would be over and it would have to be called 4:30.
ANYWAY, Jack sees him and wallops him with a tray full of hospital food and the guy starts randomly firing because Jack has his arm in an armlock and then they commence to slapping at each other, and I keep thinking Jack should, you know, like, kill him or something, and then they roll around on the floor and the bad BAD guy finds scissors and starts trying to stab Jack with them but Jack's too quick and so he slaps the bad BAD guy some more and grabs those scissors and jabs them in his neck, which is dangerous, because they were the pointy kind and not the blunt kind, and so the bad BAD guy kinda looks at Jack, and then Jack demonstrates again why the scissors are so dangerous by poking them all the way into the guy, who then finally goes to the bad BAD guy place.
FINALLY, the rest of CTU shows up to clean up the mess, and Jack starts ordering everyone around, then goes and plays with a computer and gets a photo of his handiwork and runs in and shows it to the creepweasel, who up until this point had been interrogated by Chloe, whose technique involved acting like a girly girl, and putting on her usual "Would you PLEASE use the air freshener after you're through" look, all of which was aided by the Gray Haired Boss being gruff. Obviously, this had no effect on the creepy weasel guy, until Jack got there, which is when I was really REALLY hoping for some proper interrogative techniques, maybe even some involving scissors. Sadly, the guy rolled over before Jack had a chance to deweaselfy him any.
Finally, they all find out Nixon's right-hand man--who last week got to feel around in the First Lady's blouse for state secrets--is possibly--and we're just speculationg, here--maybe, potentially, theoretically, allegedly, a tiny bit of a bad guy. Good grief, LOOK AT HIM! Of COURSE he's a bad guy! But they all seem to think--despite all the shenanigans with the Allstate guy President--that such a possibility is just CRAZY TALK!
Next week--Jack will get arrested again, and yell, and Chloe will look poochy-jowled and sour, and that woman Jack rented from will ask about getting the final month's rent check from him, and the kid will decide to be just like Jack and GET A FRIGGIN' HAIRCUT so he's not a slacker hippy, yet he will still manage to get Jack in trouble, and Rudy will get to score a touchdown, and Hot Brokenose Blonde Girl will look mournfully at things, and the Russki who's running this whole shebang from his Secret Bad Guy Lair will look at computers and talk on the telephone a lot.
Posted by Terry Oglesby at January 24, 2006 11:25 AMThanks for the update, since I COMPLETELY FORGOT IT WAS ON LAST NIGHT, and am mad that I missed it. My question is, when are they gonna bring back Kim Bauer? Hurry it up!
Posted by: skillzy at January 24, 2006 12:07 PMNot soon enough, obviously. I just hope that if they DO get her a job at CTU again, that it has nothing to do with keeping people out of trouble, and is more along the lines of Special Agent of Swimwear.
Posted by: Terry Oglesby at January 24, 2006 12:19 PMI'm glad you're doing a rundown. (Fine, fine job by the way.) Me, I'm just asking annoying questions about science and plot holes. If you're bored ...
Posted by: Kenny at January 24, 2006 12:59 PMNot bored at all! And you make some good observations--the cellphone/detonator thing being one of the real dandies. I mean, if Chloe can tear herself away from sucking on lemons for fives seconds to manage to track down the type of detonators they were, why not give him some kind of code where he could have 'sploded them all? I mean, they probably got a batch of them all at once from the same Detonators 'R' Us store. Silly CTU persons!
Posted by: Terry Oglesby at January 24, 2006 01:12 PMI think part of that reason was because someone had made mention of how they were all on variant frequencies. And something about how the ringleader had all of them in case someone got cold feet. Plus, if you plan on esploding them all, you start worrying about collateral damage.
But that's hours ago. Hours man! I missed your security concerns of the First Lady. Should have picked up on it. I'm just glad ol Gdub can rest easy this week knowing the Kiefer couldn't get to Andy Card because the Secret Service fouled up.
I agree with you, though. You know, I love the head of CTU -- though I still think of James Morrison as the CAG in Space: Above and Beyond -- but maybe he should move over for Rudy to do something about that porous security. Make he could bring Charles Dutton in. He's a big guy. He could make some changes.
Posted by: Kenny at January 24, 2006 01:39 PMVariant frequencies!? Please--Geordi could have rigged up something using the matter-antimatter drive and a couple of hunks of dilithium crystals that would have done the job.
As for Rudy, I don't know--I think he's worried too much about Frodo to be thinking clearly. Or, possibly about where they're going to order lunch from.
Posted by: Terry Oglesby at January 24, 2006 01:47 PMPoor Samwise, I bet he hasn't yet thought to wonder if Jack knows about second breakfasts and elevensies and tea.
Posted by: Kenny at January 24, 2006 03:01 PMProbably not. And I bet you anything that since he's the new boss at CTU, everyone is afraid to ask him why he has such big hairy feet and refuses to wear shoes.
Posted by: Terry Oglesby at January 24, 2006 03:46 PMHeh, your episode summaries are way more fun to read than the ones they had on the site. I used to watch the show, but Jack got too "I'm going to have a heart attack or rip off your arm and beat you with it" scary for me, and then there was that whole "let's pick the absolute LAST person you'd ever think of to be the bad guy who cares if it doesn't make sense?" syndrome. Definitely good mocking material. Which is why this was so fun to read. :)
Posted by: Lita at January 25, 2006 06:49 PMGlad you liked it--I think I lost interest for the same reason as you, but this year seems different for some reason. But still, as you note, ripe for all sorts of mischief.
Posted by: Terry Oglesby at January 26, 2006 08:31 AM