Underpants On The Outside

I’m a big fan of 24. Sure, the story is good, but 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, 10 - 11 AM:  When the morning gets started we’re not even looking at Jack.  We’re watching as President Limp-Dick goes down to the White House bunker, or “coward hole”, whichever term you’d prefer.  I’m just saying that wherever Jack is, he’s probably sprinting towards the nuclear bomb blast because it’s the only thing that can give him a tan. 

10:06: Chloe asks, “Why do people I know keep dying?”  Answer: because your best friend is more dangerous than the entire Hepatitis alphabet. 

10:07: Current King Bad (Two of Twelve) calls a the man who sold the bombs to him.  Aaaaaaaaaand new bad guy.  (Four of Twelve, and I’m starting to realize I estimated way low.)

10:08:  Finally, some Jacktion!  (I just made that up, and I think it’s genius, but I’m pretty sure that’s been around before.)  He’s just killed his best friend, quit his job, and he can’t go to Magic Mountain any more.  By any measure, that’s one bad day, and no one would blame Jack if he needed a little me-time.  But some guy comes up to him saying people need help, and Jack just can’t help himself.  I take a sip of Coke and by the time I’m done, Jack’s climbing on the roof of a house where a helicopter crashed, the pilot is trapped, and the thing is on fire. Roommate Mary: “Ten bucks says Jack can fly that thing right now.”  No way I take that bet.  Jack rips the TV antenna off the roof, and holds it menacingly.  I think he’s going to kill the pilot.  Mary agrees, because it’s probably one of only three items he hasn’t killed someone with.  If he gets the other two, CTU gives him a free T-shirt.  Instead, Jack stabs the helicopter, pulls the pilot out, and then the helicopter falls and blows up.  To be clear, I’m saying Jack just killed a helicopter.

10:11  Jack calls into CTU.  He needs someone to pick him up. Just when he thought he was out…they pull him back in.  And by “they,” I mean “nuclear fallout.”

Back at CTU, Jack II mentions that the nukes might have come from some old Russian general.  Chloe pulls a list of names of people the general contacted over the last year (don’t even ask me how), and one of them is a man named Phillip.  Phillip Bauer.  Jack’s father.  I’m calling it now: Jack is shooting his father in the near future.  Jack hasn’t spoken to his Dad in nine years, but he’s going to now.  In the universal language of violence.

Jack calls his dad, but some other old guy in a sweater answers the phone.  Jack asks, “Sam, is that you?”  I really think that’s his dad’s life partner.  Or man servant.  Either way, really not something I would have expected to find in the Bauer household.  Well, Geeves lets Jack know that he hasn’t seen Dad for a while, but Jack might want to call Grey, Jack’s brother.  Now I’m thinking people will be talking about the Bauer family massacre of ’07 for a long, long time.   Sam also tells Jack that his father always regretted how things ended between them.  I bet it’s because his dad spent two months in traction after it, which tends to make people realize they’ve made a few mistakes.

OH MY GOD.  Jack’s brother is the head of the Bluetooth Consortium!  For those of you who weren’t with me last season, the Bluetooth Consortium was this bizarre, behind-the-scenes Illuminati of three or four guys who at one point were ordering the President (different one than Wayne) to kill himself.  The weird thing is that they were always wearing Bluetooth headsets.  It made no sense at the time, but I guess that’s because they were waiting to drop this particular bomb on us.  Now I realize that last season’s President was being ordered around by not one, but two Bauers.  That’s one powerful family.  Still, the Bluetooth Consortium was clearly evil.  That means Grey is evil.  That means Jack’s dad is probably evil, and that means we’re already at six bad guys for the season.  I’m telling you, they’re trying to set a record. 

Jack calls Grey.  Grey is shifty as a mofo.  His brother gets out of Chinese prison, calls him after years of not speaking, and Grey responds, “Hey, great to hear from you!”  He also goes to the high, nasally voice I use when I lie.  He’s also bald.  (and his name is Graham, apparently)

Graham goes home and lets his wife know that Jack is alive.  She looks like she wants to go upstairs immediately to interrogate her own “little prisoner”.  Graham even confronts her on it.  He points out that she wasn’t over Jack when they got married.  Now, I imagine it would be tough being Jack Bauer’s brother.  I sympathize.  Graham is everything his brother isn’t: conniving, deceiving…bald.  Still, to marry your brother’s runoff when she’s still pining for him…he’s making all of us little brothers out there look bad. 

I’m also not sure why Jack broke up with her.  She’s hot and she has yet to shriek, so she’s already two-up on Audrey.  I think Jack is going to realize the error of his ways, and if there’s a bizarre fifteen minute stretch where we don’t hear from Jack at all, I have a hunch about what’s going on.  Still, she’s gonna be wearing a Scarlet Letter.

10:50: Jack shows up at Graham’s house.  Graham hugs him.  Jack doesn’t hug him back, and I don’t think that’s just because of Jack’s objections to physical intimacy.  Jack gives an awkward hello to Hester Prynne, and he seems a little stunned.   Maybe she got some work done or used to be fat.  That would explain a lot.  Graham also introduces him to Josh, Graham’s “son”.  Yeah, he’s totally Jack’s son.  Josh, Jack…it doesn’t take a genius.  Besides, I’m thinking Graham doesn’t exactly have the strongest of swimmers, while Jack impregnates women by saying hello.

Jack follows Graham into his office, punches his brother, pulls a lamp cord out of the wall and binds Graham to a chair.  “Raise your voice and I will rip your tongue out - are we clear?”  If I had a nickel for every time my older brother told me that…

10:56:  I think this is Jack’s best bad-ass exchange of the hour: 

Jack: (Strangling his brother)  “Are you going to tell me what I want to know before I have to start hurting you?” 
Graham: “You’re hurting me now.”
Jack: “Trust me, I’m not.”  

Yeesh.  Your wife wants him, your son was fathered by him, and NOW he’s going to start hurting you?   

10:58:  I was wrong.  Jack’s badassery goes to eleven: 
Jack: “One more thing comes out of your mouth that I don’t want to hear and I’m going to have to start hurting you.” 

Now, a real younger brother would have been a smart ass and pointed out that Jack already threatened to start hurting him, and is repeating himself, at which point he would have been given a Charlie Horse.  Instead, Graham swears on his family’s life.

Jack: “Not good enough…You brought this on yourself.”  Then he wraps a plastic bag around his brother’s face.  Wow.

For the hour: 

• Kills: 1 helicopter
• KO’s: .25 (Graham was out for like five minutes)
• Illegitimate Children: 1
• Coveting his neighbor’s (brother’s) ass (wife): 1
• Neighbor’s ass coveting him: Plenty

I’m not really happy with Jack’s new kid.  Sure, Kim sucked, but at least she was hot.  This guy looks like just as much of a wet noodle, and on top of that he’s a dude.  If he’s anything like his sister, he’s going to be in peril in five hours.

My Day, 10-11 AM:  I worked.  And worked.  And worked some more. Because that’s all I do now.

• TPS reports: done on goldenrod.