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, 1–2 AM: At the beginning of every episode, they do a “Previously, on 24” recap.  After this many episodes, the recaps take like twenty minutes, but I can do it in nineteen words.  Jack had a recording of the President committing treason, but lost it to Robocop after Robocop stabbed the Buzzkill.  There.  (Also, on the cable menu, the info blurb on this episode reads: “Jack Bauer displays his interrogation tactics.”  I am very, very excited.)

His girlfriend has been stabbed, and Jack has lost the recording and the man he worked so hard (read: shot so many people) to obtain.  I understand that he’s frustrated and not thinking clearly, but for some reason, Jack goes after Robocop with the Buzzkill riding shotgun.  She’s lost a lot of blood; it seems like she should be waiting for an ambulance, not fighting terrorism.  I can’t think of a good use for her.  Even if it were the time for road head, she’s in no condition to give it.  When Jack was with Wayne, each time they stopped for so much as gas, Jack was like, “Hey, Wayne, why don’t you stay here?” but he’ll take Audrey as a sidekick??? Wayne was like six feet tall, 250 lbs and a Marine, but since he never saw combat, Jack would rather have a chick who weighs a buck twenty five and has been stabbed in an artery.  Poor Wayne.

After a nifty bit of aggressive driving, Jack catches up with Robocop and rams him off the road, crashing through a nursery.  The Buzzkill has lost too much blood to tell Jack that he’s driving like a maniac and she hates when he drives angry and she just wants him to stop the car and let her out.  Once inside, Jack and Robocop exchange bullets until Robocop runs out of ammo and Jack corners him.  Jack tells Robocop to get on his knees and gets him in handcuffs.  I’m getting déjà vu, and I’m hoping Jack is too.  Maybe he’ll get confused and shoot Audrey in the leg.

Jack demands the recording, but Robocop tells him that there’s always a contingency plan, and Robocop has a team of men following Daddy Buzzkill’s car.  They’ll kill him unless Jack lets Robocop go.  Jack gets Daddy Buzzkill on the phone, tells him the situation, and Mr. Buzzkill drives off of a cliff rather than mess with Jack again.  He even apologizes for punching Jack in the throat.  It just goes to show you that when you punch Jack Bauer in the throat, it doesn’t matter how far away from Jack you get; you’ve signed your death warrant.   You’ll live to regret it… plus five seconds. 

Jack obviously feels sad about the death of Daddy Buzzkill, and he mourns the only way he knows how: violence.  He chokes Robocop for a while, then goes back to pointing a gun at him as the Buzzkill screams, “Do it Jack!  Do it!”  This is why I hate Audrey.  Not because she promotes Jack-based violence; that’s something she and I mutually enjoy.  It’s that when she yells, her voice gets this grinding, nasal sound that drives me crazy.  It’s like if your alarm clock knew your name.

Robocop tells Jack he doesn’t have the recording, Jack knocks him out, and when the show goes to commercial, the clock shoes 1:13.  This is going to be a phenomenal hour.

1:18: We leave Jack at the nursery, and go to the President.  For several episodes, the previous week’s terrorist would get on the phone and call the next week’s terrorist, working our way up the terrorism food chain until we hit the President and most of us assumed it couldn’t go any further.  Well, add on some more terrorists.  The president calls “Glen,” a man who sits with a Bluetooth headset on and seems to know so much I figure he’s seen next week’s episode.  In fact, there are three more guys with him, all wearing identical headsets.  Ordinarily, I’d be intrigued by a group that ranks higher than the President, but their headsets make them look silly.  My guess is that the show is going meta, and these guys are Fox executives.  You heard it here first; 24 is breaking the fourth wall.

Back to Jack.  Before Jack caught up with him, Robocop handed the recording off to someone else, who Chloe tracks back to Van Nuys airport.   C’mon guys; people from the Midwest are going to think there’re only five places in Los Angeles, and two of them are airports.  Jack calls Curtis to pick up Robocop and the Buzzkill while he heads back to the airport.  This is the third time Jack has caught and left Robocop, which kinda makes me want to go fishing with him.  It’d be funny, at first, the way Jack would keep catching the same fish over and over, cutting it or shooting it each time before he released it back into the water.  But I can admit that after a while it would seem cruel.

Side note: CTU has been taken over by Homeland Security, and in the process Chloe became a fugitive.  She is currently helping Jack using a laptop connected to CTU’s network.  One of the homeland security guys sees her computer activity and says, “I can track her physical location by looking at the binary.”  This is some serious techno-mumbo jumbo and would work with all of the reliability of a Ouija board.  For those of you who don’t know, binary looks like this:

0100101011010111001010110111

Not like this:

0100011403 Smith St, Inglewood, CA100010101

The only thing he could get from looking at the binary is a headache.

As exciting as the episode began, the next thirty minutes or so are a dud, with Jack doing nothing but recon outside of Van Nuys airport.  Think of how much time he could have saved if he had just stayed there!

The recording was taken onto a diplomatic flight that is due to leave… can you guess?  Within the hour, duh.  Being a diplomatic flight, security is high, but Jack needs to get on that plane.  Two luggage handlers briefly step away from the cargo hold, and if Jack’s going to make his move, he has to do it now.  If only he had some sort of disguise, or camouflage.  With an amazing air of confidence Jack flips up the hood of his sweatshirt, which I will now refer to as his CLOAK OF INVISIBILITY.  Jack practically saunters over to the cargo hold, but even though he’s invisible he picks up two pieces of luggage, I presume so that he’ll blend in.  Doesn’t he realize they will appear to be floating in mid-air? 

Somehow, the airport workers fail to notice Jack loading bags into the plane, despite his wild-eyes, hood, and other Unibomber-like aesthetics.   Jack jumps in, and at the end of the hour, the doors close, and Jack has a genuine look of fear to him.  How awesome would it be if Jack had a fear of flying?  Then again, gravity is the one thing that can kill Jack that he can’t kill first.

For the hour:

• Kills: 0
• Knockouts: 1
• Trips to the airport: 1 (but this is his third of the day, and trust me when I tell you that there is no worse errand to run in Los Angeles.)

Jack did not demonstrate a single interrogation tactic.  I would be pissed, but it looks like he’s going to hijack a plane next week, and that should give me plenty to write about.

My day, 1-2 AM:  Unless they start showing 24 on Saturday nights, I don’t expect you’ll hear too much more from me.  I’m going to have to think of something to do for the last few episodes. 

For the hour:

• Snores: 127 (estimated)