Written by Mitch Cyrus

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There was no best man at Jack Bauer’s wedding, Jack Bauer is always the best man.

I will readily admit that I have been exceptionally hard on “24” this season.  We’ve always known that it was a guilty pleasure with continued leaps of logic, boring subplot, dislikable characters, and oft-repeated components, but we still loved it due to the often inventive ways they’d pull things out, the unexpected twists, several likeable (or at least interesting) secondary characters, and of course, Jack Bauer himself.

This year?  Through ten hours, it was obvious to most that this was “24” weakest season.

But things might be looking up, as tonight’s episode might have been the best one of the year, and MIGHT bode well for saving the rest of the season.

It better.  I still have 13 hours to cover after this one’s in the bag.

Recap

In the 90 seconds of ‘real time’ that have elapsed between the end of the last show and this one, Marcos channels his inner Pablo Picasso and paints a cool cubist interpretation of the schematics of his bomb on the wall of the oxygen chamber.   Now all of this was painted AFTER Samir talked him through the instructions…which I think probably took at least 20 seconds.  Pretty impressive.

Jack finds out it will take 40 minutes to cut through the door…assuming they do it the slow way to “reduce giving off sparks”.  Hell, if they want to avoid giving off sparks, have Cole and Dana work on it, because I haven’t seen Spark One between that “happy couple”.  But since we now know we have 40 minutes at least before a resolution, we know this plot devices isn’t going anywhere for awhile.  Owen the Nervous tells Jack that Marcos Picasso already has one of the four lights lit up, and when he gets the last one lit up, it’s Showtime.  So who is going to get lit faster; Marcos, or me?  Given that the drink of the evening is wine, probably Marcos.  I reserve the right to switch to the hard stuff if I see too much of Dana, however.

Chloe gives Arlo the 411 on Marcos and boy, does the kid has some issues.  Seems that after daddy was arrested by Wayne Palmer’s people for being…you know…an Arabic Muslim, and then “unhirable” afterwards, he committed suicide.  Maybe Daddy just got a copy of the scripts for this year’s season.  In any case, Jack tells CTU to go pick up Momma.

Great…Cole and Dana come back to CTU.  As Cole is about to enter, he tells Dana, “all we have to do is act natural”.  Dude…you can’t act to save your life, so you are soooo screwed.  BubbaHastings gives them a really, really, really STERN talking to.  And he also temporarily demotes Dana to working for Chloe…rah!  With that level of “punishment” he’s handed down to them, he’ll fit well in his next job as the head of rules enforcement for NASCAR.  They better watch out, because Double Secret Probation is next.

So last week CTU could use a facial recognition system to almost instantaneously identify hundreds of employees, patients, and visitors of a hospital against an extensive database of Kamistralia spies.  This week?  They can’t even realize that their system was hacked, and some Samirskateers are right outside of the hospital not only watching them, but watching all of their feeds as well.  I’m surprised they aren’t immediately streaming it all to YouTube.

Chloe tries giving Dana a bit of a pep talk…and she’s about as good at that as Donald Trump is at giving a lesson in humility…but it was still pretty amusing.  I especially liked the part where Chloe told Dana that “it must be hard reporting to me, especially after being demoted”.

“That’s OK, Chloe.  I deserved it”.

“Yeah, you did”.

Which is why Chloe is my second favorite character on this show.

I was afraid that we were going to have to have 30 minutes of Jack just staring at Marcos playing Connect Four with himself while waiting for Cole to fetch Mama, when Owen the Nervous tells him that the intercom had been fixed.  Jack tries to convince Marcos that he’s in the wrong, but evidently even when using “The Voice”,  it’s not as easy to convince someone to not Blow Yourself Up Real Good™ as it is convincing someone to rack up another $5,000 in debt with their 24% interest Bank of America card…as the second light goes on Marcos’ version of the Sweater Vest (he doesn’t carry the look off anywhere near as good as Jim Tressel.  Maybe some Serious Looking Glasses would help?).

Back from commercial to a post coital scene with Kayla and Tarin, and she is sweating like Mark Magwire in a Congressional Hearing.  Tarin has talked to someone at the State Department, who has promised to allow the two lovers to file for political asylum.  Tarin also tells her that since he won’t be able to work for awhile, he won’t be able to keep her in the lifestyle she’s been accustomed to.  She says she doesn’t mind…and I call B.S. on that one.  Sorry, but she looks like a high maintenance little princess, and I just can’t see her slinging burritos at Taco Bell.  She’s about to answer one of the 20 phone calls she’s gotten from her mother…the ones to warn her to get the hell out of NYC…but Tarin stops her.

So you think that if she didn’t want to talk to her mother, she’d perhaps just listen to a phone message…especially given the fact that earlier in the day an attempt was made to assassinate her father.  But no…she must have gotten her brains from the Fredo side of the Hassan family.

Meanwhile, Mamma Hassan has come back to the UN Building, and she is giving Omar a Royal Ass Chewing…and I’m flinching here a bit, as the tone and facial expressions of all involved remind me just a little too much of what Clarissa did to me when she found out I spent $375 on a new driver.  For some totally unknown reason, my telling her that “hey, I got in on sale!” didn’t help things at all.  I’ll never understand women.

Normally, the next little scene with a contrite Dana and a still pissed Bubba wouldn’t make this write-up, except for when she told him that Cole had just picked up MommyMarcos.

“When is his ETA”.

“Less than 10 minutes”.

Everyone DRINK!

At the end of this painful apology scene, Dana’s personal cell phone goes off again, and it’s KevinBob’s redneck probation officer named Prady…who wants to meet with Dana.  Why such a big rush?  I’m assuming that KevinBob ran off with Prady’s Red Swingline Stapler, and he’s really, really anxious to get it back.

Again…who in the hell ALWAYS carries their personal cell phone around with them at work, and then ALWAYS insists on answering it, no matter what else is going on?  Hello?  It’s called Voice Mail!  You might want to think about utilizing that strange and wonderful feature at some point in the future.  Assuming you’re not in jail or in a coffin, in which case it really wouldn’t matter.

Marcos’ third light goes green, and if he’s just watched that last scene, I’m sure he’s wanting to hurry up and kill himself.  Owen the Nervous tells Jack that the third light was the hardest, and now it was just a matter of time before he gets the arming mechanism ready.

“What’s the time frame?”

We all know the answer.

“Ten minutes” DRINK! (In fairness…he did say “ten minutes, maybe less”.  No matter).

Luckily, Cole arrives with Mamma.  Jack fills her in on her duty to try to talk her son out of it.  She threatens to take away his Playstation and Mt. Dew if he doesn’t listen to her.

While this little Hallmark Moment is going on, Chloe’s finally answered the Clue Phone and realized that they’ve been tapped into.  But despite the best efforts of Jack and Mamma it looks like Marcos is determined to Achmed himself.  Jack gets Mamma out of the room, and then tells Marcos that he is a Bad Assed MoFo, and that if he blows himself up, Jack will make sure that his mother is in Manhattan to die a very painful death from the radiation bomb.  That is, he’ll do that AFTER he makes her come in and clean up all the little pieces of Marcos scattered all over the chamber. 

Gotta admit, that was the baddest Jack we’ve seen in quite some time, and was quite awesome to watch (“LOOK at my eyes.  Do you THINK I’m bluffing!!!!!”)  But hey, whatever works.  And this does work, as Marcos folds up like Derek Anderson under a pass rush.

Unfortunately, the Samirskateers had a fail-safe code to punch in, and we get to see our first Red Digital Countdown of the year…60 seconds to disarm or else Jack’s a goner as well.  While Jack is disarming it, he demands a name of someone connect to the plot, and Marcos obliges.

Tarin.

And we finally have our first “oh, shit!” moment of the season.

Jack can’t disarm it in time, so Jack says “screw this, you ain’t worth it” and shoves Marcos back into the chamber at the last minute, blowing Marcos up, but saving Jack, and leaving a wonderful impressionist work of art on the door of the chamber…so we have that going for us, which is nice. And it’s not often that we have an artist like Marcos who is equally adept at the styles of both Pablo Picasso and Jackson Pollock.

While Tarin is in the shower, Kayla finally answers the cell phone, who initially doesn’t want to believe her mother’s accusations about Tarin…but she does give up the hotel name and room number.  So guess who is about to become the latest hostage?  Especially after Tarin tells her they must leave right now, even turning down another round of sex…which totally proves that he’s just not wired right.  Kayla goes into another room to get dressed, locking the door behind her…as it looks like she’s going to make an attempt to run for it.

Final Thoughts

I have been so hard on this show this year…deservedly so…but I must say that this was a pretty good episode (Dana aside).  At least by this year’s standards.  Which is like saying “my, you are less skanky than Paris Hilton”.

If you watched the previews, then you know they’ve already spoiled quite a bit, while promising the Big Plot Shock next week.  We shall see.

And in a final note…I actually learned something this week.  I admit that I have bought into the Urban Legend about the phrase “Jumping the Shark”, thinking it was from an episode where Fonzie jumped a shark tank with his motorcycle.  As reader Steve Greenwald pointed out, it wasn’t with his motorcycle, it was Fonzie on water skis (and still wearing his leather jacket) jumping over a circular netted area of the water containing a shark.  And now that I’ve watched that particular bit on YouTube, I can say two things.  1. Man, that really did suck.  2. Damn you, Steve, for making me watch that.

Bauer Body Count

10.  I don’t care…I’m giving him credit for Marcos, as it’s my contention that Jack could have disarmed the bomb in the last three seconds, but seeing that he already had all the information he needed, he chose not to…just because Jack Bauer hates terrorists.  (hey…it’s MY game, so it’s MY rules).

Expiration Dates / Chances of Survival

Escorted Feet First Off the Island

Marcos – Made it to almost 3 AM.  Didn’t really go feet first.  I think his eyes went first.  They were blue.  One blew left, the other blew right.  Thank you, I’ll be here all week.  Try the veal.

Anticipated Time of Remaining Life for Key 24 Characters, and the odds that they will survive the “day”.

Kayla – Dead by 4 AM.  How many times have Jihadists had people paraded up in front of the camera, and then didn’t get a chance to kill them? (Sec. of State Heller comes to mind).  I’m thinking this might be a case where they go for a shocker and do it.  Chance of survival: 50%

Owen the Nervous – Dead by 5 AM.  Shakes himself so hard that he breaks his own back.  Chance of survival: 30%

Samir – Dead by 6 AM.  Now that Terin has emerged as The Mole, Samir is no longer significant, so he can be bumped off at any time by Jack.  Chances of survival: 0%

Milton Pardy – Dead by 7 AM.  Yes, I know his character’s first name is Bill, but even when Stephen Root was in “TrueBlood” that first season, I still could only see him as Milton Waddams from ‘Office Space’.  And I think Milton gets bumped off by an every increasingly stupid Dana.  Chance of survival: 10%

Tarin – Dead by 10 AM. We know how it worked out for Romeo and Juliet.  Chances of survival: 40%

Dana Starbuck – Dead by 11 AM.  I’m just hoping and hoping and hoping that this happens sooner.  Chances of survival: 50%

Omar Hassan – Dead by 1 PM. Done calling him Achmed the Dead President now that he’s stopped running around going “I’LL KEEEEL YOU!!” to everyone.  Chance of survival: 67%.

Cole Ortiz – Dead by 3 PM.  I think they’ll have one last plot twist with a currently unknown terrorist towards the end, and Cole buys it at his hands in the next to last episode.  Chances of survival: 30%

BubbaHastings – Dead by 3 PM.  Bubba has gotten better now over the last four or five episodes, as I first mentioned last week.  So his chances of survival keep dropping because of that.  Chances of survival: 60%

Renee Walker – Dead by 4 PM.  Where was she this week?  The only bad part of this episode was not seeing her (OK, the only bad part other than Dana).  Chance of survival: 80%

Chief of Staff RobWeasel – Dead by 4 PM.  Didn’t see him this week either…another good sign.  I’m still thinking he is a traitor.  Chances of survival: 50%