Written by Mitch Cyrus

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So the sun may be rising by the end of this episode, which is quite ironic since the sun is setting upon this series, as Fox announced last week that this season will be the last for “24”.

Way to go out on a high note, guys.

Johnny Unitas in a Chargers uniform and Joe Namath as a Ram were more dignified ways to bow out than the Dana Season.

Recap

Jack getting shot three times has resulted in “Grade 3 Level Bruising”, whatever the hell that is, and Jack’s snarl almost breaks the EMT’s ribs when he asks Jack if he wants any pain killers.  Jack Bauer IS a pain killer.  Or is that “a man who kills painfully?”  Whichever works.  Since Jack’s stab wound has already completely healed in seven hours, I’m not too worried about a couple of bruises, and he won’t even be wincing within 30 seconds.

At the now-back-on-line CTU, they’ve already been able to find Samir and Tarin, so Dana does her first Official “Aid the Terrorists Act” by letting Samir know that they are onto him, and she commences to tip off Samir on how to avoid them, and also cuts off the satellite feed, so of course, they make a clean getaway.

That wasn’t suspicious at all now, was it?  I’m sure Dana is being just as clever as she has been this entire season.

The first interesting thing to EVER come out of Dana’s mouth was that her “instructions were to help you, not blow my cover”.  Could this be the long lost appearance of the Blue Man Conspiracy Group?  You know…the group even Bigger than last year’s Jon Voight Conspiracy Group…bigger than Philip Bauer’s Not Father of the Year Conspiracy Group…and possibly the shadow group that has been pulling all of the strings ever since that nasty little minx Mandy banged some poor schmuck in the lavatory of an airliner just to steal his credentials and then blow up the plane?

We couldn’t be so lucky.

BubbaHastings gives the bad news to the President, the re-discovered Ethan, and RobWeasel, who is blowing his stack and looking for another scapegoat.

President Taylor tells Bubba that he should “consider the entire resources of the government at your disposal”.  Nice of her to do that.  After all, I’m sure there are so many other things those resources could now be doing.  Quite a ballsy move for her to change priorities of all of them to something as insignificant as a radiological attack on New York.

She asks Ethan to set up a Situation Room and assemble the National Security Team.  Oh, yeah!  More scenes of blowhard politicians yelling loudly and trying to sound important.  In other words: C-Span.

Alison then calls Jack, telling him that she wants to pull him off investigating the rods so that he can go wipe Omar Hassan’s runny nose.  Jack’s not happy about this…but I bet he’d be OK if it turns out that something major was about to happen to Hassan…but what are the odds of that?  Jack tells Renee that he needs to “do this alone”.  So Renee tells him no.  “End of discussion”.  Jack gives the same look I give whenever I have been Told Something by my wife.  He may be the baddest mofo on the planet, but he’s helpless in this case…Renee is coming along.

After Tarin and Samir pull into the first Bombs-R-Us store that they see, they ask the proprietor when things will be ready.  “Once we load in a few rods”, is the response.

“A few rods”?  Hmmm.  So now we know how to spend these last 10 excruciating hours.  They’ll find and disarm THIS bomb, but then have to worry about more at another location later.

My enthusiasm at this point makes Ben Stein look like Robin Williams in comparison.  I think it’s a one beat per minute away from Flatline.

Jack and Renee show up at the UN, and are briefed by the Secret Service agent regarding how many Dead People Walking will be accompanying the President…at least until they are all killed, leaving just Jack, Renee, and Hassan (Once again written before I saw how the episode ended.  Once again, this was as difficult as predicting Dick Vitale to yell a lot during an upcoming basketball broadcast).  Renee asks how long until they are ready to leave.

“10 minutes”.

Oh, no, you didn’t.  Seriously?  Don’t you freaking idiot writers have ANY other time frame you can use at least 25% of the time?

So while President Muffley and a General Turgidson wannabee are discussing which innocent civilians they’d like to bomb, Wild Tim breaks in and tells the President that one of the terrorists is holding on Line 2.  Samir plays Let’s Make A Despot Deal, demanding President Hassan, and wanting an answer within an hour…which of course means that we won’t have a complete resolution on Bomb #1 until next week…after which it’ll be on to Bomb #2.  RobWeasel naturally wants to save his own ass, and quickly advocates turning Omar over…something Wild Tim agrees with, along with Gen. Turdisdumb.

All of this leads to a severe case of Righteous Indignation from President Taylor, who delivers a stirring speech, accompanied by a stirring background of dramatic violins that got louder as she got louder.  How inspiring!  I am inspired to stir myself another drink.

Personally, I prefer Otter’s speech at the Faber College Disciplinary Hearing.

Afterwards, General Turdisdumb tells RobWeasel that they should stage their own little insurrection, and have the military, “disguised as terrorists”, kidnap Hassan (of course killing whatever Americans are guarding him), and deliver him up to Samir.  Rob…being the slimy Weasel that he is; agrees (but he at least had to anguish over them for about 30 seconds).

Why the F&#K not?  We’ve retread nearly every other stupid assed plot from the bottom of the scriptwriters waste-can…so let’s just dig up the ever phresh “seditious government official”.   And what self respecting Pinochet Lite General would be complete without a crack unit following him around, ready to be deployed INSTANTLY at 5:40 AM, perfectly ready, willing, and able to kill U.S. citizens?

Can we just call off the rest of this season NOW and get right to the movie?  And when they make it, they can start with Jack in a shower, just like Bobby Ewing, and we can all pretend that this semi-season was just a bad dream.

Tarin navigates to the Upper West Side, which means that at least if the bomb goes off, we’ll be spared another season of The Apprentice as well as thousands of future bad commercials and interviews with Donald Trump.  I’m also hoping that Paris Hilton is home this week, along with Yoko Ono.

Shift focus back to the White House staff for several minutes of traitorous activity, including Gen. Turdisdumb snorting about how Jack Bauer doesn’t stand a chance against his elite team, and pooh-pooing about the upcoming loss of life.  Ethan comes in and is immediately suspicious, and tries to call, but he is stopped.  With nothing else to do, he helps them out by having a heart-attack…and the bad general won’t let the increasingly anxious Rob call for medical assistance.

So we have the gun battle between US forces and US law enforcement agents.  And right now is when I am about done with this show.  Given that this country is at war, with brave soldiers, airmen, marines, and sailors dying daily in defense of this country, it is beyond disrespectful to them to imply that anyone from the U.S. Military would obey orders from one man to attack and kill U.S. citizens, especially law enforcement agents.  It is disgusting.  It is pissing on the graves of those who have died in defense of this country, and it has now ruined this show for me.

Everyone involved with approving this script should be ashamed of themselves.

Any writer part of making this script should seek another line of employment, because you suck at it.

End of rant. 

Everyone is dead for the good guys except Jack, Renee, and the Hassans, so Jack and Renee send the Royal Family on ahead, and commence with killing traitors.  Six to be exact, but when Jack is jumped while reloading, and about to be shot…Omar does The Honors and blows another bad-good guy away just in the nick of time.  Jack just wings the last one, so he finds out it was a U.S. Military operation, and they try to get back to CTU.

Samir finds out that there is no intention of turning over Omar, so The Countdown Starts.  And the timer is set to….

15 Minutes.

Which saved me from throwing a beer bottle through the TV set.

 

Final Thoughts

Bottom line…

At one point, I was composing in my mind the email I was going to send to Swerb, and the article I was going to write today entitled “The Last 24 Column”.  It has angered me that much.

Yes, there have been traitors aplenty in “24”, but never something so blatant as this, an implication that American soldiers would be stupid enough to willingly follow these types of orders.

2 hours next week. 

We know from the scenes that Dana is finally caught, that Hassan cracks Jack on the head and gives himself up…and that nutso President Logan finally makes an appearance.

We’ll see how I (and the readers) feel then.

Bauer Body Count

18.  No other comments coming.

Expiration Dates / Chances of Survival

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

Tarin – Dead by 6:15 AM. So he’s not as important as Samir, and has been told to stay with the bomb until it blows.  Most likely he’ll be killed trying to stop Jack from disarming the bomb.  Chances of survival: 0%

Ethan – Dead by 6:30 AM.  Medical help arrives too late.  Chance of survival: 50%

General Turdisdumb – Dead by 7 AM.  Hoping the ghost of John Basilone is ready to escort him straight to the 7^th level of Hell.  Chance of survival: 75%

Dana Starbuck – Dead by 8 AM.  We already know she gets captured.  Let’s hope Jack treats her like he treated Nina.  Chances of survival: 25%

BubbaHastings – Dead by 8 AM.  Dana might just bump someone off before she dies.  It could be Bubba.  Chances of survival: 60%

Arlo – Dead by 8 AM.  Better yet would be for Dana to bump off Arlo.  Chances of survival: 80%

Samir – Dead by 11 AM.  I’m done caring about the “when”…probably the most boring terrorist ever.  Chances of survival: 0%

Kayla – Dead by 12 AM.  “24” loves putting daughters in danger.  Chance of survival: 75%

Omar Hassan – Dead by 1 PM.  I just don’t think this will happen.  Now that he’s going to become a hostage, that just gives Jack someone to rescue..  Chance of survival: 67%

Chief of Staff RobWeasel – Dead by 2 PM.  I know Tom Lennox (Peter MacNicol).  Tom Lennox is a friend of mine.  You, sir, are no Tom Lennox. Chances of survival: 50%

Cole Ortiz – Dead by 3 PM.  Scared to death by the ghost of Marlon Brando haunting him for sucking so bad as an actor.  Chances of survival: 30%

Renee Walker – Dead by 4 PM.  They’ve brought back in every other stupid plot device…so them pulling a Teri Bauer will surprise no one.  Chance of survival: 80%