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, 5-6 am:  As we draw near to the close, we find Jack at a Los Angeles port, where terrorists have taken over a Russian submarine.   That really takes me back.  I grew up in L.A., and I used to love it when my dad would take me down to the beach, throw a Frisbee around, and show me the latest in Russian submarine technology.  Good times.

Two hours from the end of the season, we’ve finally worked out who the head terrorist is.  He now has control of the submarine’s weapon systems, and he goes on the intercom to tell his men that they are “close to finishing what they started.”    Last time I checked, these terrorists “started” by trying to nerve gas a shopping mall.  Unless there’s a Hot Dog on a Stick in that sub, I’d say they were pretty freakin far from where they started.

The Navy has scrambled two F-18’s to sink the sub, and CTU has dispatched a SWAT team, but neither will get there before the sub can launch it’s missles.  Even though I know it won’t happen, I kinda hope this thing works out like those baseball bloopers where two guys are going for the same ball and collide.  Except with ordinance.

Only Jack can stop the terrorists now.  We’re now up to 614 different reasons that Jack is better than two F-18’s and a SWAT team combined, and only two of those reasons involve pleasuring women. 

Luckily, Jack has some help, in the form of Robocop and a nameless CTU agent Jack must have been carrying around in his shoulder bag.  A million dollars says this guy dies, and soon.  Robocop notices the sub releasing a radio beacon and deduces that there is one non-terrorist survivor aboard.  Robocop also talks Jack into giving him a gun.  I tell you, this guy is running the show.

Chloe gets Jack on the radio with the survivor, Petty Officer Rooney.  Rooney is a young, fresh faced kid who looks like he just got out of ROTC, working in engineering.  I got another million bucks saying he’s gonna die too.  The terrorists have sealed all the entrance points to the sub, and Jack needs ROTC to open one up.  But… there’s a terrorist guarding it.  Jack asks ROTC if he has a weapon. 

“I have a utility tool with a knife on it.”

“That’ll do.  You need to kill him without alerting the others.”  Jack then goes through a really graphic and detailed description of slitting a man’s throat.  I really haven’t been using my Leatherman to its full potential.

ROTC: “I don’t know if I can do this”

“You don’t have a choice, son.”  Jack has called this guy son maybe eighteen times.  Is there something we don’t know about?   “Cut him deep; cut him fast.”  Despite Jack’s bad-ass advice, Rooney cuts him neither deep nor fast, instead resorting to several stabs to the terrorist’s chest.  I still think Jack would be proud.

Jack shoots the one terrorist standing guard on top of the sub, notching the first of what I imagine will be many, many kills this hour.  Rooney opens a hatch from the inside, and Jack tells him, “You lead, I’ll follow.”  Rooney is now guaranteed to die…except he doesn’t, even when Jack tells him to go create a diversion and he has three terrorists going after him, leaving only one terrorist technician for Jack, Robocop, and the nameless agent. 

Whoops.  Sorry.  The agent’s name is McCullough.  I don’t think a name is going to be enough to get this guy through the episode.  Jack takes the terrorist tech by surprise with a very gory throat stabbing.   My roommate Mary:  “That was so badass I’m kinda speechless.”  I know exactly what she means.

Jack and what’s-his-face leave Robocop to disarm the missles before the sub gets sunk by the F-18.  I didn’t keep a stat on it before, but this is now the second time Jack has been the target of an F-18, and I think he’s getting out of this one too. 

And… there goes what’s-his-face.  Nice knowing you, guy.  Jack avenges his death with another shooting kill, grabs another terrorist’s arm and uses his gun to shoot the lead terrorist in the arm.  Then Jack uses the guy’s gun to shoot a steam pipe and sticks the guy’s face in it.  The blood is actually draining from Mary’s face.

The lead terrorist hits Jack with a wrench, but Jack jumps up, grabs a pipe, and gets him in a scissor hold.  With a brutal twist, he snaps the terrorist’s neck.  It’s like he’s going through his entire killing repertoire.  Mary’s not looking so good.

Robocop disarmed the missiles but escaped before Jack returned.  Jack exits the submarine, but Robocop has him at gun point.  “You were never going to let me go, were you?”  Hell no, he wasn’t.   But when Robocop pulls the trigger, there’s nothing but a soft click, which means he fell for the oldest trick in the book.  I never should have doubted that Jack was in control.  Even Robocop concedes, “Good for you, Jack.”

Jack and Robocop face each other in a wild west-type standoff, but there’s not as much tension when we know that only one of the guys has a loaded gun.  They exchange a few words, then…  BLAMMO BLAMMO!  Robocop is dead.  Jack walks away in silence, and ROTC saw the whole thing.    I just realized why this guy didn’t die.  Essentially, this was forty-five minutes of advertisement for the Army Reserve.  Sticking to the formula, it featured a young minority male receiving essential job training in the field of engineering.  But where a thirty second spot can only focus on one or two talking points, in forty-five minutes they can add that the Reserve also offers you the chance to kill terrorists and save lives alongside Jack Bauer.  It could happen.  Sign up today.   

But if you think Jack’s day is done, clearly you can’t count to 24.  We’ve still got a little over an hour to go, which means Jack is going after the traitorous President Logan.   And yes, by “going after”, I mean “going to torture.”

The problem is that the President is due to leave California, which according to our calculations (detailed in a previous post here) would reduce his probability of Jack-related pain and/or death negligible.   To give Jack more time, the First Lady, who knows her husband is a traitor, has sex with him.  It’s a little bit of a stretch, but I still feel comfortable saying that Jack Bauer just pimped out the First Lady of the United States. 

For one hell of an hour:

• Kills: 6 (Three shootings, one neck stabbing, one neck breaking and one face scalding.)
• KO’s: 0 (With all that killing, who’s got the time to knock people out?)
• Ho’s pimped: 1 (THE FIRST LADY)
• F-18’s averted: 2 (Total for the day: 3)

This might be Jack’s finest hour yet.  Not only were Jack’s kills impressive on their own merit, but…y’know how in pinball there are several small targets placed in a row?  None of the targets are worth much on their own, but if you knock them all down, the bonus is HUGE.  Well, look at that kill line; Jack got him some bonus.

My day, 5 – 6 AM:  Didn’t sleep so good.  I’m kinda serious when I say Jack seemed awfully scary.