Underpants On The Outside

I’m a big fan of 24. Sure, the story is good [Ed note: not last year!], but I’m mostly impressed by how much Jack Bauer manages to squeeze into a day. To illustrate, I compare each hour of Jack’s day to the corresponding hour in my own day.

Jack’s Day, 2-3 PM: As you’ll recall from the last episode, Jack finally got his first kill, and I think I speak for the wife when I say that we couldn’t be happier for him.

2:05 PM: Jack follows the truck with the Prime Minister. When it pulls into a building, he tells Chloe to get the security specs.  It takes her about twenty seconds.  I hope Janeane Garofalo is watching, because I like her; she just makes for a piss-poor Chloe.  It’s not just that she’s quite inferior from a technical standpoint; she got the character motivation wrong.  Janeane’s Chloe impression seems bratty, where real Chloe is snippy.  Garofalo’s character is frustrated because she’s overwhelmed and helpless; Chloe is frustrated because people (Bill) keep her from doing her job.  The difference is difficult to describe in text, but it’s apparent when you see the both of them.

By the way, you know how people are supposed to drive with their hands at ten and two?  Bill drives with his hands at 11:59 and 12:01.  Like my mom.  It needed to be said.

Later that minute, Jack tells the Redhead that he needs her help, but he doesn’t say for what.  Jack is actually facing away from the camera when he says this, and I get the feeling he has one eyebrow raised suggestively.

2:08 PM: Bill parks near a ladder where Jack can reach the roof.  Bullshit – the van is parked head-out. No way did Bill pull the van in backwards in less than ten minutes.  Meanwhile, the Redhead goes in the front entrance.

2:09 PM: The Redhead lets Jack, Tony and Bill in from the roof.  Jack sends Tony and Bill down to cover the office where the PM is being held, while he and the Redhead enter a crawlspace above.

The PM’s wife assures her husband that they’ll be alright: Jack Bauer will be here soon.  Clearly she hasn’t been watching lately.  Meanwhile, Jack gets a scope to check out the room.

2:23 PM:  Colonel Whatshisface sees security camera footage of Jack and Tony on the roof.  That means he has to call off the terrorist attack he was balls-deep in, even though he was just minutes away from blowing up Ohio.  Dude got clock-blocked!  (Yes, it’s awkward.  But I really wanted to make some kind of cock-block joke there for some reason.)

Jack orders a two-pronged attack: Tony and Bill going through the door and Jack entering through the ceiling vent in a relatively massive explosion.  I have to admit, it seems like a good attack strategy, but we’re still in the Hours of Futility.  There’s no way this can succeed.

What happens next is intense.  I’ll let my notes tell the story:

Tony gets a kill.  BILL gts a kill.

Jack gts thre kills.  Redhead gets a kill.bill and tony split one

Jack gts four

Five

Tony billjack

That’s a lot of killing.  I had to rewind it several times to make sure I got the count right.  I also kept hoping I was mistaken when I thought I saw Bill kill somebody.  The reason his name is in all-caps is that I was outraged he and Jack would ever be tied for kills.  Jack was clearly outraged too, as those first three guys found out.  (Also, I’m a better typist than that: the E key on my old Toshiba laptop is messed up.  I’ve ordered a new computer that’s arriving today.  YOU HEAR ME, YOU STUPID FUCKING COMPUTER!  YOU’RE DONE!  YOU’RE DEAD AND YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW IT!  But please keep my porn safe until tonight.)

During the action, Tony finds the CIP device/key to America’s chastity belt.  It’s been destroyed.  The Redhead finds the Prime Minister and his wife.  They have not been destroyed.  They lost Colonel Whatshisface, but otherwise, that was a successful five minutes.  I’m confused.  My notes say this is episode seven, but the terrorist threat has been neutralized.  How much could happen to Jack on his way to drop the PM off at the White House: flat tire (kill four people), fender bender (kill eight), stop a bank robbery (kill twenty-seven), remember to buy some milk (kill nine)… we’d still be thirteen episodes short.

2:32: – The Redhead loads the PM and wife into a van with Chloe. Nothing bad happens.

2:34 – As Tony, Bill and Jack sweep the area for Colonel Whatshisface, we see him grab the Geek from episode one.  I forgot that guy was still around.  Has anyone even let him call his car insurance company yet?  (Apropos of almost nothing:  Does the 24 universe have Allstate insurance?  If so, do people in that universe find it distasteful that Allstate uses computer-generated graphics of the dead President Palmer to sell insurance?  This is what I think about at seven a.m.)

The Colonel has a very intimidating conversation with the Geek.  Shortly afterwards,  Jack busts in the room and he sees the Geek, who apologizes.  Jack sees a wire under the guy’s shirt, immediately assesses the situation, and tells everybody to get down before the Geek blows up. The Colonel escapes in the chaos.

2:53:  Jack and his people arrive back at New CTU, where Chloe is snappy at Bill due to his poor managerial skills.  I’m filled with warm nostalgia.  I wish ex-Roommates Kat and Mary were here.  I don’t know if they even watch the show anymore. I’m sad now.

Jack and his support staff know that there must be traitors within the government; their original plan was to use Colonel Whatshisface to find out who those people are.  Unfortunately he’s gone, and they have no leads. Of course, that does nothing to ameliorate Bill’s blind, stupid determination.  Jack tells Bill that they aren’t equipped to continue this part of the mission.  Bill asks Jack what h means. Jack says they need agencies.  Bill says “You mean like the government?” He says it like he’s about to cry.  Jack tells Bill to “make the call.”  Bill looks to Tony.  Tony nods. Psst!  Bill! You just looked to one of your subordinates for his opinion on whether you should obey a command from another of your subordinates; that’s not going to look good on this quarter’s performance review.  I bet Bill is the kind of guy who acts really shitty towards his gardener, his maid, and waiters.  In other words, anyone who has almost no choice but to do what he says.

Since they don’t know who they can trust, the plan is to use the PM to talk directly to the President, but I’m not fooled – this is just a flimsy excuse to get Jack and the Presidentess in the same room so that he can boss her around like he’s done with every President since Carter.  Though now that I think about it, maybe this time he’s going to have sex with the President… Well, either which way, he’s going to have to be in a room with her first.

As they leave, Tony says he isn’t going to go.  The cops will be after him, and he wants to “see this thing through” or some other cliché to that effect.  Jack asks for his word that he will turn himself in once this is over.  Tony gives it.  I think Tony’s days are numbered.  And that number is one.

The final clip of the episode is that we see the Colonel in his apartment. Then his girlfriend stops by. From their interaction, it’s obvious that the Colonel has been living undercover for months – she’s making lasagna and wants to know if he’s coming over.  I hope lasagna is code for “new CIP device,” but I doubt it. Obviously the girlfriend will come into play later, but that was the clunkiest introduction of an essential character that I’ve ever seen (and this is coming from the guy who wrote that shitty “clock-block” joke.) Moop moop, I guess.

For the hour:

• Kills: 6. Now we’re cooking with gas!
• Authority Figures Ignored: .5 (Bill is not worth an entire point.  I’m sorry, but he’s not.)
• Missions Accomplished: 2-for-3

I could have used some knock-outs, but I’m really just nit-picking now.  It was a good hour.

Zach’s Day, 2-3 PM: I have to go back to making an educated guess at whatever I was doing this day.  Fortunately, I can guess with over 90% certainty: I was useless. If there’s one problem with the Magic Kingdom cafeteria is that it’s like Thanksgiving every day of the week.  Don’t get me wrong – I love the cafeteria; when I say “problem,” I don’t mean that it’s a problem personally.  What I mean is that there’s a reason why people don’t work on Thanksgiving.

I’m good from 1-2, but 2-3 is always rough.  As much as I love taking a shit at work, I only like it when I have a choice in the matter.  Right about 2 PM, my stomach looks up at me and says, “Why do you make me hurt you?”  That’s ten to fifteen minutes right there.

Then comes the food coma.  But 2-3 PM is also when people love to schedule meetings, especially people on the west coast, so while my brain has checked out, my body has to show up somewhere.  Then I’m expected to take notes, though I’m already struggling to breathe with my mouth closed as it is.

At three I’ll grab a cup of coffee and be pretty good for the rest of the day, which also gives me time to copy someone’s notes from the 2-3 meeting I showed up ten minutes late for.

For the hour:

• Defecations: 1, though it requires the work of two or three.
• Meetings Attended: .75
• Purposes Served: 0

I’m a good employee.  I swear.