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, 7-8 PM:  Jack starts the hour in a room surrounded by nerve gas, trapped with a bunch of women who haven’t gotten off his back since eight am and the guy who’s railing his daughter.  On top of that, he just had to watch a good friend of his die.   I keep hoping someone will turn to Jack and say “At least you have your health,” but no dice. 

Jack spends about a second in silence, and that’s it for the grieving process.  Now he needs to check on Robocop, but to do that, he needs to get a “building grid”, and for that he’ll need Chloe.  Jack tries to talk Chloe into getting back on the computer, but she just keeps staring at Edgar’s body.  Edgar’s body wasn’t much to look at when he was walking around; it’s not getting any better now that foam’s coming out of his mouth.  He looks positively… beached.  On top of that, Chloe’s sad face looks like the one my 3-month old nephew makes before he farts.  The lighting in CTU has always been dim, and I’m starting to see why.

Goatee offers to help, which consists of him talking to Chloe like some namby pamby psychologist.   In the meantime, Jack calls down to medical to check up on Robocop.  Robocop is still alive, but still resisting CTU’s injectible torture, and to complicate things, there’s another guy down in medical who wants to put something in Robocop.  (Eww.)  No, I mean a bullet.

See, when two of Jack’s friends got blown up in the 7 am hour, one of them was Tony Almeida, who I’ve been told was like Curtis, in that they were both a poor man’s Jack Bauer.  I don’t know much about him, but my roommates clapped and cheered when they found out Tony survived the explosion. Unfortunately, his wife didn’t, and he’s understandably upset, so much so that he knocks out the doctor who’s been caring for him all day.  It seems excessive, possibly mean-spirited, but Tony learned the art of the KO from Jack, and Jack’s knockouts always make sense in the end.   (Even if they don’t, nobody is going to say anything, which is probably prudent.)

Despite being blown up a mere twelve hours earlier, Tony has only superficial burns on his face and is spry enough to steal a gun.  He’s about to kill Robocop, but Jack gets on the intercom and talks Tony down.  Now that’s psychology.  At the very least, you’d think it was Jack’s minor in college, but you’d be wrong.  Jack didn’t even graduate high school; he was too busy killing terrorists.  He learned psychology on the street, and his textbook was a gun.  (Even if Jack hadn’t stopped him, it would have been messed up for Tony to kill Robocop.  Jack brought the guy in.  Never rub another man’s rhubarb, Tone.)

One life-or-death situation handled; 8 more to go within a 100 foot radius. 

With Robocop still resisting the Jagermeister in his veins, Jack needs Chloe to work on the files they took from Robocop’s computer, but she’s still pouting.  Jack tells her that “We do not quit until it’s over”, but Goatee says that he’s only making it worse.  Speaking of making things worse, Goatee accuses Jack of never being there when people need him.  Jack just grabbed Goatee by the throat, but if he had had both hands free he would have pulled out his business card, which reads: “Jack Bauer – there when you need me!”

When Jack tells Goatee that they don’t have time for his methods, Chloe realizes she is seconds away from being shot in the leg, and wisely gets on the computer.

Audrey: “We have a problem.”  If you want her to stop saying it, stop pulling the string on her back.

The problem is that the nerve gas has a corrosive agent that is eating through the seals of their containment room.  Chloe would vent the gas using the air conditioning, but a program running on another computer is interfering with her, and of course that computer is in a contaminated room.  No one ever explains why the program is running on the one computer on Earth Chloe can’t hack.

Since a man’s work is never finished, Jack figures out how to make an improvised airlock, find the computer and disable the program all while holding his breath.  Everything is going to plan, but when Jack removes a wall panel that should lead to the computer, there are iron bars in his way.  Jack’s look of “are you fucking kidding me???” is priceless.  Lover, fighter, psychologist… now a mime!  There is NOTHING this man can’t do.  Dejected, he heads back to the computer room, pulling himself along on an invisible rope.

The only person who can get to the computer is the Hobbit, who was sealed in a different area.  The problem is once he opens the door, he’ll have no safe place to come back to, which means no matter what, he’s going to die, and not just him; there’s a security guard in the room with him.  Jack assures them he will personally tell their families of their heroics.  I understand it will be hard for the families to hear, but if they unwisely decide to try and “kill the messenger”, they better have a big gun.

The Hobbit shuts down the bad computer and dies, as everyone watches on the security feeds.  Jack wants Kim to hang around after everything is taken care of, but she says no, because whenever she’s around him, people die.  Jack neglects to tell her that her presence really has nothing to do with that, and that after the first hundred deaths, you really stop noticing.

Back in medical, Robocop has gone into a coma.  Since he’s no longer useful to CTU, Tony knocks out yet another member of the medical staff and prepares a syringe that will presumably kill Robocop.  Regrettably, Tony hesitates and Robocop wakes up, grabs the syringe, stabs Tony in the chest with it, grabs a gun, and takes off.  That’s why Tony was a poor man’s Jack: Jack never hesitates.  Speak of the devil; Jack arrives just in time for Tony to die in his arms. 

7:58:  Jack cries, and Edgar’s ghost accepts that for all those years, he was nothing more than several hundred pounds of chopped liver.

For the hour:

• Kills: 0
• Knockouts: 0
• Nerve Gassings Survived: 1
• Deaths by Association: 3

In the eight o’clock hour, I expect Jack to send a mass email to all of his friends saying that in the last five minutes of every hour, they should just stop what they’re doing, find a desk, and hide under it.  For their own sakes.

My day, 7-8 PM:  Went out with a friend to my new favorite Japanese restaurant.  At the end of your meal, they have a do-it-yourself cotton candy machine.  I may not have survived nerve gas yet, but if Jack has any hope of making cotton candy there is going to have to be a drastic change of venue.  I think I’ve got the edge in that particular showdown.

For the hour:

• Ate: one order of edamame, three donut holes with a piece of squid in the middle, and cotton candy I MADE MYSELF!!!!
• Drank: Dollar-fifty pints of Sapporo.   Any correlation between that and my excitement at making cotton candy is purely coincidental.