16 April 2007

24 Would Be Better If I Cared About Any of the Characters Except Jack

To start off tonight's show, Jack gets shot up with some magic painkiller. Good, now we can write off the injuries he sustained last week. Jack calls the Chinaman back. He wants a circuitboard off the Russian suitcase nukes - they have something that will allow the Chinese access to Russian defense technology. WTF? The circuitboard of a nuke has defense codes? I'm not getting this but I'll just accept it as fact.

Bill Buchanan is briefing CTU about their accomplishments, and they're figuring out where to have Happy Hour. Jack calls Chloe with the dagger that Audrey is still alive and being held by the Chinese. Of course Chloe drops everything without much question and breaks into Morris's computer to download the nuke schematics for Jack. Morris catches her, so she brings him into the loop, but he doesn't buy her "Jack gave me his word" reasoning. He forces her to tell Bill.

Jack's stunt double is busy climbing all over the warehouse ceiling, literally climbing down pipes, and generally taking the long way to get to the nukes, when he probably could have just strongarmed his way through the front door. He yells his way past the guards and removes the circuitboard from one of the nukes. Ricky catches Jack and orders him to stand down. He has a guard knock Jack the F out and put him under arrest.

Jack whines to Bill that they should save Audrey, and asks to speak to Wayne. Jack gives his word that the circuitboard won't make it into Chinese hands, saying he'll blow it up with C-4 if necessary. But blowing it up will mean that Saint Jack will also die. Wayne has to authorize a suicide mission! It's all too Wow-that-Jack-is-so-selfless for my tastes. But Jack isn't totally selfless - he also wants to take the Chinaman out for revenge, once Audrey is clear. He's taking Ricky along for the ride. They imbed the circuitboard with a tracking device, and Jack brings along a Messenger Bag of Doom for good measure.

In other presidential news.... Tom told Wayne he has the tape of the Vice President conspiring to commit perjury. Wayne called for everyone to move out of the bunker and back to the White House. We got more shots of the real President (David) Palmer's picture, just to remind us of how awesome the President used to be on this show. Wayne met with VP Daniels and gave him a breakup speech, asking him to resign. Daniels refused; Wayne threw the recording in his face, and told him to resign within a week. Daniels looked like he wanted to choke Wayne with his bare hands. The VP told his Ice Princess assistant about his resignation and the recording and they totally are together - because they were holding hands and he said, "At least we'll have more time to spend together." Eeewww. Is that really a good thing for her?

While flop-sweating his way through a congratulatory press conference, Wayne starts losing his mind, not answering questions correctly and stuttering and calling people by the wrong names (generally behaving like Bush at a press conference). He strokes out, collapses, and the VP tucks his resignation letter back into his pocket. This scene was terribly predictable and poorly acted. I think I stroked out a little myself during it.

Wayne's unconscious, on his way to Bethesda, and therefore out of presidential commission. The United States is about to get its 5th President in 5 years. Almost-Acting-President Daniels doesn't agree with the Jack Bauer mission and orders CTU to call it off. Bill calls Ricky and orders him to secretly divert their car to CTU and disarm Jack. Jack instantly knows something is up. He holds a gun on Ricky and threatens to treat him like Curtis - nobody stands in Saint Jack's way!!! Ricky tries to tell Jack he can't go against the White House. Can't he? Jack dumps Ricky out of the car and drives off.

You know, I would be so much more into this story if Jack were going to rescue Tony and not Audrey.

Next week: Imagine this, if you can: "Jack Bauer has gone rogue."

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