Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Killin' Time With 24
24: 5:00P.M.-6:00P.M.Season 7, Episode 10
Welcome to "Killin' Time With 24." A weekly morning-after 24 discussion hosted by your faithful That's A Wrap editors, Billy and Jim.Every Tuesday morning we get together to discuss the previous evening's episode of 24. What we liked, disliked and where we would like to see the series go while avoiding any real work. It's like a virtual coffee break.
Sit back and let us do the complaining for you.
10:27:24) Jim: 24: The Greatest Hits Continues
(10:53:32) Billy: Indeed.
(10:53:41) Jim: how great they just happen to find the tiny microchip
(10:53:54) Jim: how great chloe backs it up
(10:53:56) Billy: Seventh verse. Same as the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth and first.
(10:54:44) Billy: I couldn't believe Jack just let that thing go with a random cop to FBI headquarters
(10:55:05) Jim: i gotta say the guy from Entourage had just about the stupidest escape plan ever... a gut shot, that she could spend hours or days dying from, is his cover... seriously?
(10:55:14) Billy: it worked out in the end, but damn, seriously? The government is compromised and you just hand the thing away.
(10:55:28) Billy: Not only a gut shot
(10:55:39) Billy: but her fingerprints weren't even on the gun!
(10:55:51) Jim: well, i justify that if the government is compromised, it might make sense for some random cop to be trustworthy
(10:56:07) Jim: it would be pretty damn coincidental if one random cop was in on it
(10:56:50) Billy: Right
(10:56:53) Jim: nor did she actually fire a bullet. i mean come on you nail her center mass, and use her hand to pull the trigger to put one in your arm
(10:57:11) Billy: But just 60 minutes earlier Entourage guy made the cops pull Jack over
(10:57:16) Jim: and do a decent acting job when they come for you... he was painstakingly obvious
(10:57:23) Billy: if he could do that, then he could have gotten the chip from the cops
(10:57:54) Jim: I'm just thankful he didn't walk into chloe's workspace with a handheld magnet
(10:58:04) Billy: I thought for a good couple of minutes that Chloe was pulling a con on them
(10:58:13) Billy: and I sort of wish she was
(10:58:17) Jim: by the way, lucky that the chip isn't at all electrically damaged by ramming a guy with paddles
(10:58:50) Billy: It would certainly have been more plausible than, "Moss, I randomly fixed the thing that I said was un-fixable."
(10:59:15) Jim: and it coincidentally could only be downloaded once... i mean come on... yeah it should have been a chloe fake out
(10:59:35) Jim: would make more sense and give a well-liked character a cool and understandable thing to do
(10:59:58) Billy: Seriously, the chip is fried
(11:00:02) Billy: they lose the information
(11:00:11) Jim: as opposed to, "Shit! It's all over. We're done............................ Oh, nevermind, it's cool."
(11:00:28) Billy: Chloe realizes that Entourage guy is lying, even if Moss can't because they are buddies.
(11:00:49) Jim: a fakeout would let you milk all the same tension, but comes off as more plausible and scientifically accurate
(11:00:56) Billy: She lies, telling Moss that she fixed it, and has guards watch him make his break.
(11:01:28) Billy: Boom, they know he's lying. Plus Moss gets to understand Bauer a bit more.
(11:01:45) Jim: looks like no Jack-Renee action for you for awhile, my friend. For a second there I thought they'd have angry sex... but it was not to be
(11:01:47) Billy: Because now HE has to interrogate a friend who has betrayed him.
(11:02:16) Billy: That whole scene between Jack and Renee illustrates one of the reason's I don't like this season
(11:02:34) Billy: Jack is a good guy. WE know he has feelings.
(11:02:43) Billy: Why is he acting like a total ass.
(11:02:59) Jim: But he's towing the line of, THIS IS NECESSARY for the writers this year.
(11:03:13) Billy: That's all it would take is Jack to say, "It's never easy." THEN walk away.
(11:03:16) Jim: and the point is, the good thing about Jack is that he know's it's wrong.
(11:03:45) Jim: that emotional guilt is one of his defining characteristice... I mean he ran away to India and Africa to escape what he had done
(11:03:59) Billy: I know eventually Jack is going to break down to Renee, I can just feel it. But until that happens, he's kind of an asshat.
(11:04:16) Jim: yeah, kind of hard to root for the guy this year
(11:04:57) Jim: I mean it was only going to be so long before Jack always doing his own thing because he is always right would grow old. eventually, he should be wrong once in awhile.
(11:05:20) Billy: As a bleeding heart liberal
(11:05:30) Billy: I am appalled by the torture on this show.
(11:05:40) Billy: but it's escapist entertainment
(11:05:48) Jim: i mean in seven years, none of his actions, often based on the slimest of lead or clues has EVER failed to pan out perfectly
(11:05:53) Billy: and I begrudge it that much.
(11:05:54) Jim: that's too much
(11:06:38) Billy: But Jack at some point has to show that he has remorse for this shit.
(11:06:44) Jim: agreed
(11:07:01) Billy: Crying at the end of season 3 is not enough
(11:07:52) Jim: the idea since season two that he was a good man that realized he sometimes had to do bad things. they haven't stayed on course with that defining characteristic. Turning him from an inhumane human to the equivalent of a robot
(11:08:16) Jim: they've made it too easy and convenient for him to head down darker paths
(11:08:39) Billy: Season five handled it well, with Audrey and Paul seeing first hand what Jack had to do to get the job done.
(11:09:23) Billy: But since then, it's been bull headed Jack, know s exactly the right thing to do: the wrong thing.
(11:09:52) Billy: And I feel it now, the Senator is going to let Jack go.
(11:11:09) Billy: Because of the non-twist twist ending, of Senator Red Foreman's chief of staff being aligned with L.A. police chief---er I mean, worfs brother---er, candyman---no, wait General Juma!
(11:11:23) Jim: It keeps the show going, but in the wrong direction... I've said it about Heroes a bunch, but it's true here as well. Actions need to have consequences. Jack can't keep going back to the "I know I'm doing wrong and will accept whatever consequences there are after the job is done.", if the consequences never come
(11:11:57) Billy: In a show like 24 it's hard to show consequences before the end of the season
(11:12:02) Jim: Except by the Chinese, he has broken tons of American and international laws and NEVER called to task for it
(11:12:10) Billy: Jack did do a two year turn in a Chinese prison.
(11:12:40) Billy: He is on trial for his crimes by the U.S. govt now.
(11:13:02) Jim: But that was out of revenge for a death he did not directly cause. It has never been acknowledged that Jack is doing bad things and there is a cost.
(11:13:24) Billy: The problem is, if you show realistic consequences then Jack Bauer should be in police custody for 12 hours of the season.
(11:13:54) Billy: It doesn't exactly make for an exciting show.
(11:15:01) Jim: I know there have been consequences... but all of them have been for actions where we see Jack in the right, the Chinese abduct an American citizen and smuggle him out of the country, the President orders his execution forcing him to go on the run. It just all reinforces that the bad things are the result of other people's actions and Jack is ALWAY IN THE RIGHT.
(11:15:03) Billy: I do think that the "cost" is going to be Jack's life in the final episode of the series. Be it by a terrorist. Or friend/family. Or by his own hand.
(11:15:39) Jim: as much as I like the guy, you can see how that would be fitting
(11:15:59) Billy: How flippin' wonderful would it be if Kim Bauer eventually kills her old man.
(11:16:24) Jim: they would NEVER do that
(11:16:27) Billy: I mean, with proper build up, of course
(11:16:44) Billy: She's been so messed up by her father, hooked on smack
(11:16:57) Jim: i mean come on, you might as well say he gets exiled to Candytop Mountain
(11:16:59) Billy: the only way to be free is for Jack to die.
(11:17:06) Billy: Ha ha
(11:17:21) Billy: It's my dream of how to handle Kim's return.
(11:17:25) Billy: I know that it
(11:17:31) Billy: will not be as cool as that.
(11:19:54) Billy: Kim will not be hooked on smack. She'll just act like a smug little bitch, and I will wish that someone will just outright smack her. Nothing will change, because for a show all about time, 24 has a pretty awful recollection of the past.
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