Underpants On The Outside

Last season, I got into 24 quite a bit. Most people I know say it’s the best show on television, and I have to admit, I see their point. I’m mostly impressed by how much Jack Bauer manages to squeeze into a day. To illustrate, I’m going to compare each hour of Jack’s day to the corresponding hour in my own day.

Jack’s day, 3-4 PM:  First off, let me say that I watched this episode at one in the morning after trivia night with the roommates where beer was involved.  My notes are largely illegible and I’m pretty sure I fell asleep at one point.  So if I stray from the actual plot line a little, forgive me.

All of us mess up on the job sooner or later.  For most of us our bosses are kind and understanding, but none of us stop terrorists.  Jack, on the other hand, is SOL.  Because Jack prevented a mall-full of school-ditching kids from being nerve-gassed, the Hobbit wants him in jail.  (In my notes, there’s a line that says “Hobbit is very jowly.  PO-TAY-TOES!”)  But if the Hobbit is at CTU and Jack is at the terrorist hideout, well, who’s going to put Jack under arrest?

 Rudy comes out into the CTU lobby and asks “who wants to arrest Jack?” only to see fifty people all touching their noses.  Then he yells “Goddamnit!… Ah, I’ll just have Curtis do it.”   (Now that I think about it, this scene probably didn’t happen.  Nevertheless…sorry, Curtis.)

When Curtis gets the call to arrest Jack, there’s definitely some disbelief… “Uh…arrest… Jack?  Jack Bauer?  ME???”  You can tell from his face that he’s playing it out hypothetically in his head.  “Let’s see, if I refuse to arrest Jack, then I go to jail.  But then who’s going to do it?  Audrey?  No… Buchanon?  Maybe twenty years ago…  Chloe?  No, can’t arrest him with sarcasm… Edgar? No, can’t arrest him with bacon…The President?  The First Lady?  Oh, fuck it.  What’s the worst that could happen?”  Give it a minute, Curtis; I think we’re going to find out. 

3:10: Curtis makes the fatal error of asking Jack to relinquish his gun.   Then we hear Curtis’ internal monologue: “I can’t believe I’m holding Jack’s gun…I’m going to name it Lucille… Is Jack going to kill me?  He’s going to kill me.  Stay cool, Curtis, stay cool.  You know Jack; if he’s going to make a move, he’s going to do it in the next five seconds…4…3…2…1…I MADE IT!  I CAN’T BELIEVE I ARRESTED JACK!”  (This also might not have happened.  My notes trail off at this point.)

So far, Jack’s going along with the arrest bit, but I think he thinks Curtis is joking, and that they’re really going to a surprise party.  Then Jack gets a call.  It’s Chloe, and she’s got one of the previous terrorists (who I will call “Mr. Big”) on the line.  (More on the terrorists later.)  Mr. Big tells Jack he doesn’t want the gas used on America, so he’s willing to help Jack, but only if Jack comes alone to meet him.

Jack gets in the car.  Despite being under arrest, he’s not in handcuffs, and he’s riding shotgun.  Maybe over at CTU they kill so many bad guys they’ve forgotten how to just arrest them.  Or maybe after taking Jack’s gun, Curtis didn’t want to push his luck. 

3:13: Curtis discovers the consequences of his actions.  Jack whacks Curtis and puts him in a sleeper hold as Curtis drifts off, damning his hubris.  I’m very interested to see their next meeting.  Is Jack going to apologize?  If he doesn’t, is Curtis going to say anything?  Once, I knocked my buddy Eug out and didn’t apologize… we pretended like everything was the same, but ever since then we’ve both known he was my man-bitch.  I can’t help but feel a little bad every time I make him go buy me a soda.  (This also might not have happened… can’t read my notes.)

Anywho, Jack heads over to meet up with Mr. Big on the roof of a warehouse.  I prefer to meet people at Starbucks, but that’s just me.  Unfortunately, the new terrorists (I’ll explain in a sec) are hunting Mr. Big too, and when Jack gets there, Mr. Big is being chased to the roof.  At this point, you see Jack’s eyes glaze over the same way mine do when I’m tying my shoes.  Boom boom boom, he gets his two kills and everything is going to be okay… until the helicopter shows up.  See, this is why you don’t meet on rooftops.  You never know when a helicopter is going to show up with a guy and a rifle in it.  As an added bonus, Starbucks have Wi-Fi.  Jack shoots down the helicopter (I think the terrorists survived) but not before they shoot Mr. Big.

Jack is trying to get some information out of Mr. Big before he dies.  His instincts say “Torture him!” but his mind is saying “He’s already shot, he’s going to die…maybe a little torture… no, that’d be wrong.”   Instead, Jack kind of begs.  It’s a little weird.  Thank god no one else is around.

Mr. Big tells Jack to look in his pocket, where there is a microchip.  Jack plugs the microchip into his phone, calls Chloe, and tells her to “datamine” it.  She says “okay”, like she knows what he’s talking about.  Thank heavens Mr. Big was considerate enough to carry around a microchip that is apparently USB.

That ends Jack’s involvement in this hour.  This episode mainly took place off-Jack, and I want to say something about the show’s development.  So far, this season has had like two dozen bad guys.  Every couple episodes, a new batch of terrorists show up, the old ones die, and the new ones make some new threat.  First there were the guys who took over Ontario Airport.  They died, which was worthwhile since they were so stupid as to hold up Ontario Airport.  Then there was the guy who took the gas.   He was in contact with the Chief of Staff and Mr. Big.  The Chief of Staff hung himself, and then in this episode another batch of terrorists showed up, and they killed Mr. Big and the guy who originally took the gas.  That’s three generations of terrorists in a 24 hour period.  That’s ridiculous.  I’m not even sure we’re done yet.

For the hour:

• Kills: 2 human, 1 helicopter
• Arrests: 1
• Arrests escaped: 1
• Friends incapacitated: 1
   

My day, 3-4 PM:  Monday was President’s Day, and I spent it building a robot with a bunch of high school girls.  In answer to your question, yes, that does sound like a story that should begin “I never thought these letters were real before…” and I’ll be posting on that more thoroughly in the next few days.  First I have to find a new webhost whose name has never been yodeled and I need to figure out how to post AVI files.  But stay tuned, it’ll be good.