Monday, March 12, 2007

24 Season 6: Episodes 12 & 13 Recap
(Hours 5:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m.)

WARNING: The following post may, and probably will, contain spoilers.

Well, I'm sorry about the delay in my recaps. In my time off, I've been reading everywhere that episode 12 was "the best episode of the season so far." The only thing I can say to that is, when the season has been pretty lackluster thus far, to call this one the best isn't saying much. However, when comparing the length of notes for episode 12 to previous episodes', I will say that I did a lot more watching than I did typing. Something about the episode WAS good. Sadly, I think it regressed in episode 13 and I don't anticipate it recapturing that temporary magic.

Grizzly Logan, Two Sides of the Coin
Grizzly's character this time around is much better than last season's. He's to the point, he's "enlightened," and he's got that beard. Unfortunately, he got tucked into a very unfortunate story-line. Apparently, like many other plot points in 24, "he's the only shot America has at locating the nukes."

In an odd turn of events, Grizzly was taken to CTU for questioning and NOT back to his 10,000 sq. foot house. Clearly, he's as confused as we are and asks Chloe why he's all alone in this room. She says that its standard procedure for those in house arrest -- or anyone that they bring into CTU for questioning. He then tells Bill that "Ms. Crazy (his ex-wife) is the only person who can talk the Russian President into doing something," and Bill buys it.

Uh-oh, she won't talk to him on the phone, so he has to take 24's newest teleportation device of choice, the helicopter, to her residence. That's when we see the gallant return of Aaron Pierce, who has a horrible sarcasm radar and has his pants pulled up WAY too far. Sadly, Ms. Crazy is a freakin' mess (she, and Morris, are both on the wagon), gets upset and shanks him. Now Grizzly's about to die, and no one cares. Thank God that plot line lasted only two hours.

More White House Wackiness
It's about time Evil Veep is brought in to run the show -- NO ONE saw that coming about 11 episodes ago. The weird thing is that he, and everyone else in the bunker (that happens to have a fully-staffed medical wing) thinks that Assad somehow smuggled in a bomb "high velocity explosive device" to kill Brother Palmer.

Meanwhile, in the super secret High Voltage room, Poor Man's Rob Lowe (PMRL) is explaining that they can't kill Fish because, "they're not murderers," and, "what we did was necessary for the sake of National Security." Um, didn't they just try to KILL THE PRESIDENT? Last time I checked, if you kill someone, you're a murderer.

Then, to show how a White House is truly ran, Evil Veep tells Invasion Chick that he wants to enact Fish's security plan. Too bad Fish has lost all his nerve and doesn't want to anymore. That doesn't dissuade Evil Veep, though, no, he blackmails Fish and then threatens to blow up the entire Middle East. Right on.

I will hand it to Evil Veep, though, he's had the best quote of the season so far. When talking to Bill about Grizzly's plan to have Ms. Crazy call the Russian President's wife (yes, that's the plot line), Evil Veep responds with, "that's about as likely as a terrorist knocking on my door and surrendering." Please tell me the writers were acknowledging how silly this all is.

Uh, Torture DOES Work
After Grizzly's conversation with Markov didn't work, Jack calls Chloe to have her turn off the power (CTU protocol break) and decides that he'll just walk in the back door of the Russian Consulate -- YES, as Grizzly points out, Jack is about to do the SAME THING he did 20 months ago and was taken to a Chinese prison for (in case we all forgot). And can we forget all the flack 24 has garnered recently for their excessive use of torture, because this time the torturing worked! All it took was cutting off a finger and Markov sang like a bird.

Then Jack became suddenly stupid and thinks he'll just walk out the doors that he knew Russian guards were standing outside of. Thanks to the use of their handy dandy Dell pda (product placement), the guards knew exactly when Jack was at the door and blew it up!

I know what you're thinking, if CTU knew Jack was going to the Russian Consulate on suspicion that Markov knew where Gredenko was, why aren't they monitoring phone calls? It turns out they are. It's just that diplomatic traffic is encrypted with an algorithm that CTU has never been able to crack. Morris is on the job, though, and he's found a way around that. ONE of the computers at the consulate isn't properly shielded and he's picked up a digital shadow of the messages before they're encrypted. D'oh! THAT'S how CTU knew that Jack was captured.

After being captured, Jack somehow convinces Turncoat Guard to call 24's favorite phone number, 310-597-3781. Yes, the same phone number that three different people have had this season. Turncoat Guard gets killed and no one wants to remember that someone from inside the Consulate tried to contact Bill. That's fine, because Jack somehow removes Turncoat's belt -- the wrong way, dodges bullets and switchblades and finds a room where two Russian Americans are about to do it despite all of the lock-down noise.

Jack scares them with his gun and asks how people make phone calls during a lock-down situation. Which begs the question how often do lock-downs occur. Actually, I'd like to ask a different question... why does it take a special phone from upstairs? Doesn't everyone have cell phones? Jack does and he's been in prison for 20 months, granted, he stole it.

Ricky Looks Old
We've been teased with it for several months now and it finally came to fruition -- Ricky Schroeder is finally on 24 as Silver Spoon (Mike Doyle), head of field ops. It took him all of two seconds to assert his assholedness, choke Morris and bring up hold history with Milo (because that's what we need, more strife inside the office). Lame.


There you have it, two more hours of 24. Finally we're on the back side of the season, but we still have 11 hours to go. Ugh. Next week could be extra swell as we try to explode a drone, launch nukes towards the Middle East and try to expose a mole inside of CTU (that's never been done before). Good thing Bill made the order to move all available satellites to Shadow Valley, since it'll take more than 15 minutes to reposition them.

11 comments:

Jonk said...

Nice write-up, Seth. It is nice to have you back this week.

Would a Russian first lady be making speeches in the middle of the night? I didn't catch exactly where they were, but it would be 4:30 AM the next day in Moscow if it's 6:30 PM in Los Angeles.

Also, Martha was able to tell her all of the details and she was able to relay those to her husband, who was able to call Markov -- all within about 15 seconds -- but the Russian guy took 30 minutes to get a satcom phone for Jack from upstairs.

It seems the helicopter that Charles took to Martha's might have gotten him to the hospital a little faster? You have to wonder if the writers simply forget about these things, or if they don't think viewers will notice.

I am glad we saw Aaron Pierce again. It's nice to have a little character continuity besides Jack -- Aaron has now been in all six seasons! I'm surprised he wasn't killed off years ago.

But unfortunately his Secret Service comrades (can I say comrades if we're about to go to war with the Russians?) are even more incompetent than CTU. CTU prevents terrorists attacks on occasion, but now every single president we've seen in this series has had an attempt on his life, and the Secret Service has stopped none of these. David last year, Keeler in Day 4, and Wayne and now Logan today.

Say, that reminds me...how is Wayne doing? The sitting President is nearly blown up, like, an hour ago, and there's virtually no mention about his whereabouts or status.

Seth Gunderson said...

Word Jonk, I thought the same thing with the timing of the two countries. The most logical explanation, and the one the writers want us to think about, is that the Russians aren't actually in Russia. They're in, uh, Hawaii.

In addition, I thought that day 6 is in the summer -- seeing how early the sun rose. But that wouldn't explain why when it's still daylight at 5:00 in LA that it would be the extreme dark of night at 8:00 in DC. It must be before Daylight Savings.

HA! I didn't even think of the helicopter/ambulance scenario! See, if he were in a helicopter, we wouldn't have been able to hear him say "Martha." My gripe about the ambulance was that it arrived to Ms. Crazy's residence in three minutes, yet took at least five to get back to the hospital.

24 really needs to hire a continuity editor. Better yet, a bs regulator.

Chris Fullam said...

earlier this year, I was critical of this site and its critique, but after watching this season unfold, I'm all for ripping it apart.

This has been by-far the worst season of the show. I thought it started off decent, but it's been just absurd since then. About the only plot-line I enjoyed was Morris being a drunk and absolutely POUNDING the whiskey. It made one of the characters seem like a real person for a minute.

Everything else has been just junk. I still find myself having to watch it, just because, but I'm not excited about it anymore.

Can't wait til Heroes comes back on it April

Anonymous said...

Why bother if it sucks?
Aren't there any books you haven't read, household chores you have to do or walks that you could take?

Anonymous said...

Creativity isn't riding on the backs of something else it's actually creating something interesting that doesn't inyo...suck.

You seem to write really well. Why don't you have a blog about what you like, or doesn't that get as much traffic..?

Is it the destiny of our generation to be so attached to the television that not only do we watch the shows we like but we watch the shows we don't or at least in your case don't like anymore...Do you have that much time free?

Anonymous said...

My favorite part(sarcastic) in the past 2 weeks was when Jack convinces that guard to call CTU and gives him the 10 digit number. First the guy had a cell phone so he should have just called in the room and let Jack talk. So anyways he looks all nervous and goes to an empty room and dials at most 5 digits on the phone.

That was impressive in the matter of 15 seconds the President is like sure attack and kill the Russians. Very impressive.

Anonymous said...

Sure. The Russian President giving CTU the okay to attack was very, very far fetched, but it was still a great episode.

The season started out on the boring, predictable side, but last four hours were great! Hope it continues!! :o)

Chris Fullam said...

the last 4 episodes have been great? are you kidding? The incorporation of the Logans has been one of the most forced plot lines ever. I enjoy character continuity, but only if it fits in with the plot. This was totally forced. Also - can't previous seasons characters just not be on the show anymore instead of being killed off?

I recently watched Season 1 on DVD again, and even after having seen it multiple times, it's still more enjoyable than this NEW season.

Anonymous said...

Timing, shmiming. It's because we Russians don't sleep. Never ever. Especially when Russia is exposed.

Jonk said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anusha Leewarakun said...

I though this show was going to excite me but after watching first 2 season, i was aware all the time that i was watching a TV series, not into it at all. I stop now and then and said to myself what a waste of time. First, all actors have no special quality to remember by. No clear personality. I swear that every character can just switch their scripts to each other and it wouldn't matter.

Second, all the plots are very predictable. Last, hardly any actions in it at all. In totally 8 DVDs i see Jack B. carried his gun about not more than 5 times and every time just for self defense or something like that. C'mon man! What an action TV show ha? I hope other seasons are better.