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, 12-1 AM: It’s nice to see those times when Jack seems less than superhuman; when he’s no better than the rest of us.  Even when it seems like Jack’s awful relationship is about to end, he can’t seem to let go, and he makes a late-night decision to stay with her that he will end up regretting.

12:05 Jack meets up with Bill Buchanan, his boss back when he was with CTU, and dumps Wayne off “for his own protection”.  He talks about Wayne like he’s not standing right there, and Wayne looks like he’s going to cry…again.  It’s ridiculous how much Wayne is getting beat on this season.  The man notched a couple kills; give him a break. 

Audrey meets her father, the Secretary of Defense, on the runway of Van Nuys airport.  She won’t tell him what’s going on, and out of the blue, Jack speeds out onto the runway in his stolen cop car.  I’ve said it before, but the man knows the value of a good entrance.   He tells Daddy Buzzkill that he’s being set up, and that he has crucial evidence of the President’s misconduct.  Jack and the two Buzzkills go into an empty hangar next to the runway to talk.  It suddenly occurs to us that there are no airport personnel around, the hangar isn’t even locked, and Jack just drove a car out onto the runway with no difficulty whatsoever.   This seems very unusual, until we remember that this is Van Nuys airport. That kind of security is only necessary at major transportation hubs like LAX or Ontario (California) Airport.

Jack hands Daddy Buzzkill the recording of the President and the terrorists and tells him, “You’re the only one I can trust.”  Daddy Buzzkill doesn’t seem to realize how huge of a compliment this is.  Jack doesn’t even trust the tides.

The Buzzkill’s dad leaves, and Audrey tells Jack that “Everything is going to be okay.”   There is no better indicator that things are about to go horribly, horribly wrong than Audrey saying that they’re going to be okay.  Someone give her a merit badge in Jinxing.  Just to make sure that nothing will be okay within thirty seconds, Audrey kisses Jack.  The only reason Jack doesn’t cower in fear is because he’s a braver or less observant man than I.

Daddy Buzzkill comes back in the hangar with his Secret Service guys, looking like he misplaced something.  “Jack, just one thing….”  AND HE PUNCHES JACK IN THE THROAT!  Read that sentence again.  His rationale is that it would damage the country to publicly attack the President, and instead they should blackmail him into resigning.  Okay, but that still doesn’t really explain why he had to punch Jack in the throat.  Jack will never trust another man again, and I can’t wait until he shoots the Secretary’s wife in the leg in retaliation.

Daddy Buzzkill has both Jack and Audrey tied to a pole. I forgot that Jack was railing the guy’s daughter; that tends to get a lot of guys pissed.  But even though I understand the guy’s motivation a little more, it doesn’t excuse punching Jack Bauer in the throat.  If Jack Bauer humps your daughter it’s for the good of the country, and instead of punching him you should be asking if he needs any condoms or lube.  With Jack on his knees and breathing like a fat man out of his crushed trachea, I suspect we’re not going to see much of him.  No complaints out of me, I’d love to get one of these posts done before 3 pm.

12:30  Unrelated to Jack, Chloe just made a really nice pick pocketing “pull”, a term I learned from Ocean’s Eleven and Twelve.  Actually, considering that it’s Chloe, I’m going to say that she hacked the guy’s pocket. 

12: 45  Jack scales the post he’s tied to and puts his hands to a hot pipe running along the ceiling, burning through his restraints and several layers of skin.  This is so bad ass it’s not even funny, and for an encore, he knocks out a secret service agent with a karate chop.  If Audrey weren’t the buzzkill I’m always saying she is, the first words out of her mouth would have been, “I’m so wet right now.”  Hell, it made me wet. 

12:52  We see another secret service agent on the runway who is minutes away from being knocked out or killed.  Jack gets him at gunpoint and retrieves the recording, or as he calls it, “Precious.”  (Sorry.  It’s been a while since I made a Lord of the Rings reference.)

A helicopter filled with Robocop’s men drops out of the sky and they open fire with rifles.  Jack kills two of them, earning (very) Amazing Feats of Marksmanship, because those kills were from long range, with a handgun, firing at guys in a helicopter.  Then he gets another kill after they exit the helicopter, and during the battle the other Secret Service agent is killed.  I bet if I took the time to work out the numbers, I would find that an object’s likelihood of pain and/or death is inversely proportional to R-squared, where R is the distance from that object to Jack.  Possibly R-cubed.

12:55  Three more bad guys take cover behind a large metal storage tank, as Robocop runs into the hangar where Jack left the Buzzkill.  I’ve said before that Jack’s life is very much like a videogame.  Before I was referring to his PDA, but now I’m referencing the golden rule of first-person shooters: shooting any metal tank or drum will cause it to blow up, regardless of its contents.  Sure enough, the resulting explosion kills all three bad guys who clearly haven’t played videogames since the Super Nintendo.

Jack runs into the hangar.  Robocop has a gun to the Buzzkill’s head, and he wants the recording.  Don’t do it Jack.  Plenty of fish in the sea. 

Jack tries to deal, but Robocop isn’t hearing it, and if we’re going to get this done…y’know…within the hour, he’s going to have to do something.  He stabs Audrey in her left brachial artery and unless Jack gives him the recording, she’ll die in three minutes.  Terrorism aside, I like this guy.

Jack is a moron because he gives up the recording in exchange for the worst girlfriend ever.  Don’t forget what he’s gone through to get that thing, and lest we forget, 45 minutes ago her father punched him in the neck.

For the hour:

• Kills: 6
• Amazing Feats of Marksmanship: 2
• KO’s: 1 (secret service agent) – 1 (punched in throat) = 0
• Second Degree Burns: 1
• Girlfriend’s lives saved: -1.  It’s not a good thing in this case.

My day, 12-1 AM:  It was late and I was tired.  I called Wonder Woman to say goodnight and got a little snippy.  And that’s what I do with a good girlfriend.  I wouldn’t last a week and a half with Audrey, let alone save her life.

For the hour:

• Things done: not much

But hey, check out this Foxtrot comic.