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, 5-6 PM: I can’t think of an intro.  Jack is in cuffs, and Evil is free to walk the land.

5:03 PM: The Scumbag talks to OH MY GOD ONE MORE CORRUPT FEDERAL AGENT.  At least this one’s finally a chick.  Last season was an endless stream of bad guys.  That was lame.  So this year it’s going to be an endless stream of bad guys PRETENDING to be good guys.  Muuuuuuch better.

5:05 PM: Jack and the Redhead are trying to talk their way out of arrest, and they are put into a squad car.  The Redhead deduces that the Colonel must know what’s going on, and the Waitress is going to get killed.  She reminds Jack that they shouldn’t have put her in danger.  Jack in turn reminds her that they didn’t have a choice. It was a week to us watching at home, but they had this conversation not ten minutes ago.  I just wish I could think of who the Redhead is starting to remind me of… it’s on the tip of my tongue… something about her shrill voice and her constant negativity regarding Jack’s plans…

The argument ends when the Redhead points out that the Waitress “is a human being.” Jack doesn’t respond.  She might as well have said it in Portuguese, that’s so far outside of Jack’s understanding.  I don’t think this relationship is going to work out.

5:06 PM:  The car with the Waitress pulls up to meet the Colonel.  The Colonel opens the door for her and grabs her on the tricep, giving the universal sign for “angry boyfriend.”  He smashes her phone and yells at her for a bit, but then he actually becomes quite tender. He still wants her to come with him, and she agrees.  I can’t convince my wife to even watch this show with me.

5:07 PM: The police release Jack and the Redhead.  In a split-screen we see the Redhead call Counterfeit and Chloe while Jack gets in a car and speeds off without her.  I wish Ex-roommates Kat and Mary were here, because that is FUCKING HILARIOUS!

5:08 PM: Damn it.  Jack was just pulling the car around.

With some weak-ass technical mumbo-jumbo, Chloe says that she’s got security camera footage from the alley where the Colonel met with his Waitress bride-to-be.  The Redhead asks if they saw the Waitress.  She’s like a broken record!  Counterfeit says that they saw the Waitress get into an SUV with the Colonel.  I’ve got the show paused right now, but I really hope that when I push play I’ll hear Jack mocking her in a high voice: “Oh, no, they’ll kill that poor girl! If only we had followed proper police procedure! The sky is falling, the sky is falling!” Dang.  No luck.

Chloe is tracking the Colonel through traffic cams, while Jack speeds towards what’s likely to be his second car crash of the afternoon.  I can’t even imagine what his insurance premiums are.

5:10 PM: Spying the SUV, Jack takes a shortcut… through a park.  I’m struck by the irony that while Jack is driving recklessly, President Palmer is somewhere in Heaven filming Allstate commercials.

Cue high-speed car chase!  Driving noises, speeding, honking… both cars pull a bad-ass 180, but Jack is cut off by a taxi and can’t avoid a minor collision.  Is Bill driving the taxi?  Someone check.

Seeing that they’re getting away, the Waitress dives forward, grabbing the steering wheel and hauling it to the side.  Ohh… she was lying when she said she’d go with him. I completely believed her, which shows how naïve I am when it comes to women.  Then again, the evil dictator got fooled too, so I don’t feel so bad.  The SUV hits a car and flips.

Jack and the Redhead break into a sprint to catch up.  Jack slides over the taxi like he’s Marty-friggin-McFly.  Now he’s got his gun out and he’s yelling at everyone while calling for an ambulance at the same time.  That’s some high-grade Bauer right there.  The driver gets out and groggily goes for his gun.  Jack kills him easily.  He hauls the Colonel (who is unconscious) out of the car and throws him by the side of the road, while the Redhead struggles futilely to pull the Waitress from the car.

5:11 PM:  He yells for the Redhead to get out of there because the car is on fire, but of course she doesn’t.  You can actually see the exasperation on Jack’s face when he goes to get her, but as soon as he tries to pull the Redhead away, she pulls out her gun, shrieking about how she promised to protect the Waitress, so he needs to just back away.  Jack takes a moment to decide, then goes in the other side to free the Waitress.   The barely get her free before the car blows up, knocking them to the ground.  I was sure the Colonel was going to wake up and get away while Jack’s attention was elsewhere, but he’s actually still lying there.  Concussions are weird that way.  The Redhead is performing CPR on the Waitress, but that doesn’t look like it’s going to work.  Dang it – this is totally going to push her over the edge of Buzzkillosity.  Does Jack have a legitimate complaint that he risked his ass – and more importantly, his arrest – to rescue a dead girl?  I think so.

5:18 PM: Bill comes in to update the President.  Now he feels like they need to get her back to the White House, because at the hospital he “can’t effectively protect her.”  Bill swears he’s taken every precaution to protect her at the White House.  We’ll see if lightning can strike twice; if not… God help her.

5:19 PM: Someone actually says “We’ll have to pray Jack Bauer can get those names from [The Colonel.]” Your faith in Bauer will be rewarded, my son.

Meanwhile, Jack demands that the EMTs wake the Colonel up, even if it’s not safe.  They inject him with epinephrine to wake him up.  Jack leans down into his ear and demands that he gives up the names of every agent in his conspiracy, but if he did, Jack would be taking dictation for the next three episodes.

Demands didn’t work, so Jack tries a different tactic.  He says that they were both soldiers, so Jack knows the Colonel doesn’t care about his own life, but he’s got a family, doesn’t he?  Uh… no, Jack, he has a girlfriend, and she’s dead.  Haven’t you been paying attention? Oh, the Colonel has a son.  Jack says he knows where the son lives in Sangala, and he swears he will track him down and make him suffer.  Jack is running at 110% bad-ass capacity right now.

The Colonel says he has a disk with all of the names, but Jack’s bad-assness overwhelms him, and he goes into cardiac arrest. Jack yells at the EMTs to bring him back, but even though they’ve got the defibrillator turned up to 11, it’s not working… it’s weird… it’s like he has a metal plate in his chest- WHO’S UP FOR A GAME OF OPERATION?

Jack yells for the EMTs to “open him up.”  They’re on a city street, so naturally the EMTs have some concerns about sterilization, but Jack pulls a gun on one, and goes from pansy to sidewalk surgeon in no time flat.  They make an incision and Jack plunges his dirty nasty fingers in the wound, pulling out a thumb drive.  Not to be a stickler for physics, but wouldn’t that disk have been jacked up by all the defibrillation?  Meanwhile, the Colonel’s going to get the type of infection that hasn’t been seen since the Civil War.

The EMT explains that the Colonel will die unless they get him out of there, but Jack doesn’t care – his too busy staring at the disk like he’ll be able to read the data by squinting at it.

Jack calls Counterfeit.  He’s never seen this type of disk before.  Unfortunately, Evil Agent Scumbag is tapped into Counterfeit’s phone, and knows that Jack has data that could implicate all 11,426 of his co-conspirators.

Jack sees a police helicopter, runs over and introduces himself to the pilot. This time, the name of Jack Bauer gets the appropriate response: total obedience. He hands the disk – which is covered in blood, though the pilot doesn’t seem to mind – to the pilot and tells him to get it to Counterfeit.

Co-Conspirator: Scumbag and Co-Conspirator: Woman have a plan to reformat all of the servers – and the disk – as soon as Chloe gets it.  The plan involves a bunch of highly technical terms that have no business being in the same sentence.  If anyone from the 24 production staff is reading this, I am hereby offering myself for the position of Consultant to Help Us Sound Technically Literate.

5:30 PM:  Back at the hospital, a cop hands the personal effects of the Waitress to the Redhead, who sees Jack down the hall on the phone.  I think Jack’s about to have his umpteenth fight with this woman, who I’ve decided is way more trouble than she could be worth.  I’d say Jack should let Counterfeit have her, but that man should be allowed no victories whatsoever.  Therefore, the Redhead should be driven to a remote location, shoved out of the car, and left to fend for herself.

Jack tells the Redhead they should have some data in the next few minutes, and she pointedly asks, “That’s all that matters, isn’t it Jack?”  Jack is fed up, and rightfully so.  He tells her to live with it and walks away.

5:33 PM: Halfway through Chloe’s download, the server reformatting starts.  Co-Conspirator: Scumbag kills Co-Conspirator: Woman to cover his own involvement, then shoots himself in the arm to cover his tracks.  (If he’d ever seen so much as one episode of CSI he’d know that would never work.) At 5:36, Chloe informs Counterfeit that the files are all gone.  You better believe Jack is going to be yelling at some people.

5:40 PM:  Chloe calls Counterfeit, and says, “Don’t ask me how, but I’ve got [the Colonel's files.]“  Dang, I was about to ask her how.  Oh, thank God for Chloe.  Co-Conspirator: Scumbag says he’s going to go work on his statement, AKA attempt to escape from justice.  He seems to have forgot that in this case, justice is spelled J-A-C-K.

5:43 PM:  Co-Conspirator: Scumbag gets caught by security.  Counterfeit throws him up against a wall and demands to know what’s going on, but Scumbag says that he wants to speak with his attorney. Counterfeit’s all out of ideas now.  Stupid Constitution!

5:44 PM: The Waitress’s sister shows up to the hospital, and the Redhead informs her of the Waitress’s death.  The sister starts to lay on some serious guilt-tripping.  She even says that the Redhead killed the Waitress.  From the look on the Redhead’s face, I wonder if something like this once happened to Audrey.

Jack calls to the Redhead from down the hall.  I have to say, that was kinda shitty for Jack to let her do all the dirty work.  Jack tells the Redhead that they have the files and it’s all over. Uh… no it’s not.  We’ve still got 14 episodes left.  Jack and the Redhead have the second debate of this episode about the morality of their actions.  Booooooooooring.

The Redhead tells Jack that he doesn’t even sound human.  Thin ice there, lady. Tread carefully.  Now she asks him if he felt anything when his wife dies.  ABORT!  ABORT!  TURN BACK WHILE YOU STILL CAN!  Jack is getting riled.  She wants to know if he feels pain. I can tell her the answer is no, no he does not.

Oh my god she just slapped him.  In the face.  Twice.  But you better believe Jack’s not letting her do it a third time.  I can’t watch. Someone tell me when it’s over.  But now she’s hugging him and sobbing?  Huh?  Oh, I get it – slapping-as-foreplay.  Well played, Redhead.

Jack puts his foot in his mouth by saying she’ll learn to live with it.  She shoves him away.  What if she doesn’t want to learn to live with it?  “Then quit.”  Jack turns to walk away.  Lady, you’ve just been on the receiving end of a Jack Bauer Smackdown!

Then Jack turns back and gives the best Bauerism I’ve ever heard: “Oh, and that stunt you pulled by the car?  You ever pull your weapon on me again, you’d better be prepared to use it.”  This show is not only back, it’s better than ever.  I’m fully erect right now in a totally heterosexual way.  Wonder Woman’s asleep. You know what happens next.  The show goes to commercial to give me some alone time.

5:54 PM: Bill tells the President that they’ve recovered the names of over a hundred co-conspirators. The President thanks Bill, and Bill says that there’re many people who need thanks, including Jack Bauer.  At no point does Bill mention that all he’s done all day is drive people around.  Fuckin’ Bill.

5:56 PM:  Jack sits on the steps overlooking the reflecting pool.  He thinks his work is over.  I have to admit, it certainly does appear that way, but something tells me the next four minutes aren’t going to be good ones.

Yep.  Tony sits down next to Jack.  Here we go again…

Tony says that The Colonel’s boss (The General) is planning another attack on the U.S.  He implies that he had to interrogate someone very serious to find this out.  And he gives Jack a lead, pointing to an employee under the Senator who is leading the charge against Jack (Robocop Villain.)  Tony’s already tracking him, and he asks for Jack’s help with this.

For the hour:

• Kills: -.5. Jack’s gotta take a penalty point for losing the waitress, plus half a point for killing a concussed guy.
• Knockouts: 0
• Street Corner Surgeries: 1
• Bad-ass Lines: 10. I don’t know how many he had, but he made up the difference when he shut down the Redhead. I wish there was someone I could high-five about that.

This show is so awesome, it almost makes me forget that its overall message is “The Bill of Rights is for pussies.”

Zach’s Day, 5-6 PM: From a physical standpoint it wouldn’t seem like I did a lot yesterday between the hours of 5 and 6 pm.  I’m trying to figure out how to spin this:

Spin #1: I met with people face to face.  I don’t feel the need schedule every single thing I do.  I miss the days when a man could conduct business with a smile and a handshake – that’s the American way, if you ask me.

Spin #2: You want to know why you can’t find any trace of my activities yesterday?  BECAUSE I DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW WHAT I WAS UP TO.  I’m the man behind the curtain.  I don’t leave a paper trail.  When you see me, it’s already too late.

For the hour:

• Kills: 0 (THAT YOU KNOW OF!)
• Emails: 2
• Business conducted: wouldn’t you like to know?

I made shit happen.  I swear.  It only looked like I was ambling around, chatting with people along the way.  Whatever – I didn’t get arrested, and I haven’t crashed any cars, let alone two.  (I did stain my shirt earlier at lunch.)