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, 9-10 PM: So far, Jack’s enthusiasm for torture and interrogation makes it seem like a fetish.  So when CTU higher-ups have Audrey “prepped for interrogation”, there’s no way Jack is going to miss out on this action. 

Of course, management says it’s a conflict of interest for Audrey’s ex to interrogate her, but I think they don’t want the furniture stained with Jack’s “interrogation fluid”.  They want Audrey hooked up to the pain machine, run by a guy named Burke.  (I think Burke is going to be the next Tony, but I’m really basing this on the fact that they both wear tight t-shirts.)  They call what Burke does an “invasive interrogation,” but there’s no way it’s less invasive than what Jack wants to do.  Still, Jack manages to talk his way into his eighteenth interrogation of the day.  It’s like he’s trying to make a quota.

Before he goes in, Chloe tells Jack that Audrey spent a night with the traitorous Chief of Staff.  This was when Jack was supposedly dead, but he still gets pissed, and it looks like Chloe is one wrong move away from an invasive interrogation herself.

Nothing to do with Jack, but a hot female programmer replaces Edgar as me and John Law exchange delighted IM messages.  I’ll take that trade any day of the week.  The previous hot hacker was the Unicorn, so this one shall be known as the Mermaid.

Jack’s interrogation starts off strong as he reminds Audrey that the terrorists will deploy the nerve gas “within the hour”.  Count how many times an episode of 24 uses a variation of the phrase, “within the hour.”  If it was necessary to fight terrorism, Jack Bauer could make a souffle in 25 minutes.

The interrogation goes like a scene out of a soap opera.  Audrey is caught lying about humping the Chief of Staff.  Then again, she only slept with him because Jack was supposedly dead.  When Jack asks her why she broke it off, she says, “Because he wasn’t you.”   Bad dialogue, characters returning from the dead…next we’ll find out the terrorist is Jack’s long-lost twin brother.

I know he needs to finish this within the hour, but Jack grabs his ex-girlfriend, shoves her up against a wall and starts choking her, taking this from soap opera to Lifetime movie-of-the-week.  I hate Audrey as much as the next guy, but when Jack threatens that things are going to get “unpleasant”, even I start shifting uncomfortably in my chair. 

Audrey maintains that she’s done nothing wrong, starts crying, and Jack stops interrogating her.  Clearly, anyone who cries while being choked by a man twice their size is telling the truth.  Jack’s bipolar is apparently acting up, so management calls in Burke, who shows up with two security guards as Jack tries to leave with Audrey.  (After all, it is time for makeup sex.)  Frustrated by Burke’s cockblocking, Jack incapacitates the two guards, but Burke hits him in the neck with a stun gun.  This is his second stunning of the day, and both happened rather near his brain.   If I were Jack’s mother, I’d be concerned.

Burke takes Audrey back to his pain machine, while Jack shakes off the effects of having his brain electrocuted and asks Chloe to help him clear Audrey.  Jack proceeds to type furiously at the coffee machine until someone moves him to a computer.

Meanwhile, the terrorists are about to release the nerve gas into the pipelines of a gas company.  When they ask an engineer how long it will take, he says “about an hour.”  Unfortunately, the magic words are, “WITHIN the hour,” so they shoot one of his friends and tell him he has fifteen minutes.  Coincidentally, there are twenty minutes left in the episode.

Jack realizes the Unicorn lied to him, so he needs to re-interrogate her.  (Three interrogations in an hour???  Every time I interrogate my girlfriend, I need a nap and a snack before I’m ready again.  Jack is incredible!)  Unfortunately, she has immunity and a guard who won’t let Jack do anything until the President says so.  What he doesn’t know is that Jack’s fist carries all of the authority of the Oval Office, and Jack delivers a Presidential uppercut to the guard’s glass jaw. 

Jack takes a gun and tells the Unicorn, “You do not want to try me.”  She, of course, tries him.  Jack puts the gun in her face and says, “Now, I’m upset.  You have three seconds to tell me the truth or I’ll kill you.”  It’s worth noting he’s gentler with her than he was with his ex-girlfriend. 

The Unicorn tells him about the gas company and that she framed Audrey.  Jack finds Burke working Audrey on the pain machine, and orders him to stop.  I don’t know why Burke doesn’t stun gun him again.  Then Jack and Audrey go back into soap opera mode, caressing each other and making out.  Do what you gotta do, Jack, but you’ve only got twelve minutes if you want to be finished within the hour.

9:53: Jack and Curtis fly to the gas company in a helicopter and repel down to the ground.  Two minutes later, they each kill a terrorist with one shot, at a range of about 20-30 yards.  (I’m giving Jack an Amazing Feat of Marksmanship for this one.  He has to still be feeling that stun gun.)  The kills are not only bad-ass, but touching.  Right before, Jack and Curtis shared a look right out of a buddy movie.  When all this is over I want Jack to sigh, “I’m getting too old for this shit.”

One minute later, Jack and Curtis infiltrate the control room.  In the ensuing gun battle, Jack notches two kills and another Amazing Feat of Marksmanship when he kills one guy while sliding on his back.  Unfortunately, the main terrorist escapes.  Even worse, the terrorists released the gas, and Jack’s only hope is to blow it up before it leaves the plant.   Jack barely escapes as the pipes explode one by one.  In several shots, Jack was running, pipes were blowing up behind him, and he looked just like the Millenium Falcon at the end of Return of the Jedi.  Somewhere, Billy Dee Williams was shouting, “Yahoooo!” next to a kid in a rubber fish mask.

With the nerve gas neutralized, most people would relax.  Most people.  Jack, however, knows that the main terrorist is their only lead back to Robocop.   The plant is still blowing up, but Jack goes back in to chase him down.  They have a brief fist fight, Jack naturally wins, and as the rest of the plant explodes, Jack pulls the terrorist inside a car, where they will somehow avoid being roasted like game hens.

That was one hell of an hour.  Check it out:

• Kills: 3
• Knockouts: 3 CTU security guards, 1 terrorist
• Interrogations: 2
• Amazing Feats of Marksmanship: 2
• Arrests: 1
• Stun gunnings: 1
• Gas companies blown up: 1
• Explosions survived: 2

And he still managed to go repelling and make out with Audrey, and finish WITHIN… you get the idea.

I forgot something.  Remember the Mermaid?  Remember how I said that there are no good women in 24?  At one point, we learn that the Mermaid accused a former supervisor of sexual harassment.  We pity her until the CTU boss barely touches her shoulder and she starts flipping out.  What did we learn? From relationship issues to terrorism to sexual harassment, it’s probably the woman’s fault. 

My day, 9-10 PM:  I watch the exact same hour of Jack’s day.  Somehow, the universe does not implode.  At 9:58, I see a commercial for Basic Instinct 2.  I see things I will never forget, and not in a good way.

I also had one hell of an hour.  Check it out:

• Hot dogs eaten: 2

Count ‘em.