Written by Mitch Cyrus

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Back from a week off due to my attempt to pull an Evel Knieval with my motorcycle.

No truth to the rumors that I was actually trying to put myself out of commission in order to avoid having to endure the last five hours of this crap.

OTOH, who the hell knows what my subconscious was up to…it may have had some other ideas, thinking that a body cast may actually be considered self preservation compared to what this show was doing in terms of killing my brain cells (and the booze I was drinking to make watching this show tolerable killing my liver). 

If so, my cat-like reflexes outsmarted it, and things are just fine and dandy today.

And my wife just spit chardonnay out of her nose by hearing me mentioning “my cat like reflexes”.

No respect.  No respect, I tell ya’

11 AM – Noon Summary

Lady McBathist starts the hour off by talking about President Taylor not-so-Swift’s “integrity” and “moral courage”.  I’m wondering how many pain pills I can take to dull the pain in my foot, wrist, and a quickly developing migraine.

D. B. Cheney’s hard at work waterboarding Dana, and we can draw some metaphors about his career going down the drain as well.

Cole and Jack find the “super secret off-site detention facility” in less than 10 minutes.  Not really a surprise…it’s not like New York is a big city or anything.  Once there, the stupid roof guard investigates the diversion Cole creates by making a phony wildebeest call without first clicking his radio to let the other bad guys know something was fishy.  How Convenient!

Jack and Cole find Dana’s location, and D.B. quickly tries to use her as a hostage. 

“I don’t want to kill you, but…ah who the hell am I kidding?” Jack says as he blows D.B. Cheney away.  Nice knowing you, D.B.  Hope this paycheck at least covers your rent while you’re waiting to start filming “The Cutting Edge 4: Depends On Ice”.

That’s the great thing about “contractors”.  Just like those nameless and near faceless people you see in those temp positions at your own office, no one gives a rat’s ass if they live or die.  And since we’re talking about Jack; they mostly all die.

During the first commercial break I get to see a slow motion shot of a motorcycle crashing.  “Thanks a lot, Allstate”, says my throbbing right toe.

Logan next convinces Taylor not-so-Swift to put Logan’s chief lackey in charge of CTU over Chloe.  Next he’ll talk her into shaving her hair like Sinead O’Connor and then going back to the press conference to rip in half a picture of Billy Graham.

Several episodes ago, I mentioned that the plots had already gotten to Ludicrous Speed.  At this point, they’ve shot right past going to Plaid, and are now at Paisley, as not only does the Prez go along with it, Logan also gets Douchebagovich and FakeEMTovich to get the Russian spies operating freely in NYC to go after Jack.

Meanwhile, Jack and Cole have taken Dana to a bank where she supposedly hid the evidence.

“You’re hurting me” – Dana

“You’ll live” – Cole.  (not for long).

Once again, Cole proves that he’s not the brightest bulb in the chandelier.  Especially when he falls for the Old Flash Bang Explosive Device in the Safety Deposit Box Trick.

Dana is on the run, but she can’t outrun Jack.  Who then goes Staff Sgt Dignam level off the reservation and kills her in cold blood (after getting the evidence).

And so we say goodbye to the most annoying character ever seen in eight seasons of “24”.  I know some of you out there still think that title should go to Kim Bauer…but at least Kim semi-redeemed herself last season.  Besides, it was still Elisha Cuthbert in a low cut t-shirt…so there was always that going for us…which was nice.

12 – 1 PM

So now it looks as if the writers are going to steal from another movie that is way outside the class of this show, “Road to Perdition”, and have Jack be the calculating killer bent on revenge against anyone that had anything to do with the killing of Renee.

Comparing any of the writers of this show to Sam Mendes (the screenwriter of “Road to Perdition”) is like comparing my golf game to Phil Mickelson’s.

Just noticed that Katee Sackhoff got a credit in this episode for playing a corpse.  It was the best acting she’s done the entire season.

Chloe’s taken all of about…10 minutes…to figure out that Jason BeadyEyes is working on The Big Coverup.

Not having Chloe available, Jack must turn once again to Mr. Blonde, and doing so will pretty much sign his death warrant, especially after Jack admits to him that he’s all about revenge right now.

Welcome back from the Milk Carton the not-at-all missed slutreporter Meredith Reed…because we’re running out of dumb blondes to kill (not counting Mr. Blonde, as he isn’t dumb).  Jack wants to meet her in 20 minutes to give her the evidence.  Been nice knowing you.  Especially when BeadyEyes’ equally nasty blonde bimbette (here we go again…something like the 30^th time they’ve went with this stereotype) intercepts Jack’s call.

For our next ‘borrowed’ plot device, Chloe and Arlo will make a video loop of Cole looking whupped in his holding cell, and play it continually so that the bad guys won’t see that Chloe has broken in and questioned him about Jack.  I’m suddenly wishing the entire “creative team” behind this year’s debacle was on that bus Sandra Bullock was driving like a bat out of hell…but instead with someone driving it like an old lady coming back from Sunday church so that Dennis Hopper’s bomb would go off.  Cole doesn’t have much to provide Chloe, but I’m sure it was enough to get her to lock onto Mr. Blonde in less than 15 minutes.

By the way, I especially like how Chloe and Arlo have now bonded and are heading up their very own super private Geek Club (sponsored by Sprint) working behind the scenes to assist Jack.  You knew it wouldn’t take Chloe long to figure the whole thing out.

So we have about 50 Russian Spies all looking for a good sale at Penney’s, including FakeEMTovich, who is just itching to blow away both Jack and Meredith.  But Jack has a little surprise waiting for them, in the form of Mr. Blonde putting a gun to the chief assassin’s head.  In other words, the entire phone call to Meredith was to set up the Russians, as Jack KNEW they wouldn’t be sending the police after him (despite the fact that they DID send the police after him in the bank…but that’s a different story altogether.  And if you’re expecting logic from one episode to bleed over to the next, I’d advise you tune into “Lost”, as that show is 100 times more logical than “24” at this point).

Mr. Blonde may have FakeEMTovich, but what about the rest of them?  In what I’m sure is a perfectly thought out way to effect a successful cover-up by BeadyEyes, multiple people with Russian accents brandish weapons amongst shoppers in New York City.  I’m certain no one will think twice about that.  But it does give Jack an opportunity to up the Body Count by four.

There was a nice scene, I will say, between Logan and BeadyEyes after all this goes down.  Logan’s too drunk with power and anticipation of his acceptance back into the ranks of respectability, so he refuses to “distance himself” from President Taylor-not-so-Swift, positive that FakeEMTovich “won’t break”…which lets us know that we’re about to see how a REAL pro at torturing performs his work.  We also saw Jason’s eyes move 10 millimeters closer together.  A few more setbacks like this, and we’ll call him Cyclops.  Which means Jack will only need one bullet to shoot his eyes out, as Logan orders him down to the scene to see what other messes he can make.

One good thing: since Jason BeadyEyes is now technically the “head” of CTU, we can easily bump him off and maintain the mortality rate we expect from CTU heads without endangering Chloe.

Isn’t it just wonderful that Mr. Blonde’s mommy’s basement is RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET FROM THE STORE?  They don’t even care anymore, so why should I?

Jack sees FakeEMTovich’s gun, and knows that he’s found the right guy.  Jack gives the evidence to Meredith, and has Mr. Blonde escort her out while he prepares to do a little surgery on a certain Russian.  And his tool of choice to start out with is a pair of pliers, as we can now see up close and personal what Marsellus Wallace vowed to do when he said he was about to get medieval on a certain redneck rapist. 

Next comes head butts, groin kicks, and elbows to the face.  In other words, Jack is getting ready for a try out for a roster spot on the Boston Celtics.

Still no luck, so he goes for a little lighter fluid on the wounds.  Always a nice touch.  But still no dice, so Jack goes for the…

You’ve got to be kidding me.

A blowtorch.

Let’s go to IMDB, and pull up the exact quote from “Pulp Fiction” that I was alluding to earlier.

“What now? Let me tell you what now. I'ma call a coupla hard, pipe-hittin' *****, who'll go to work on the homes here with a pair of pliers and a blow torch. You hear me talkin', hillbilly boy? I ain't through with you by a damn sight. I'ma get medieval on your ass.”

Seriously?  You had to actually go with both pliers AND a blowtorch?

Sadly, Jack’s not having much luck.  Until he realizes that FakeEMTovich has a secure phone that he must have been using to contact his handlers.  Jack can’t find the SIM card, however…then he realizes that FakeEMTovich swallowed it.

Bad luck for him, as Jack concludes today’s round of surgery with a simcardectomy.  Man, this puts a whole new spin on the phrase “spilling your guts”, doesn’t it?

Thus ends the most disturbing killing we might have ever had on this show…at least in terms of pain inflicted.

Jack cleans off the card, inserts it into the phone, and then gives a ring.

Hello…You’ve reached the voicemail of Charles Logan.

And Jack’s just hit 11.11 on the Pissed-Off-O’Meter.

Final Thoughts

OK.  In total fairness, this show really is not a sucky bore right now.  The plots themselves are totally ridiculous, but I will say that it is at least entertaining dreck at the moment.

Seeing Jack going totally off the Deep End is pretty fascinating television.

One great thing over the past two weeks?  Not much screen time for the likes of the BubbaHastings, KevinBobs, Kaylas, Lady McBathists, and (especially) weak willed, idiotic presidents…and that’s because it’s been more about Jack.  Which is what it should be.  If they remember that little nugget, we might be in for a semi-decent final three hours.

You know…If you took every single wild-assed Internet Rumor that ever popped up about the eight years of Bill Clinton, the eight years of George W. Bush, and the less than two years of Barack Obama as TRUE…the shenanigans still wouldn’t amount to a quarter of the corruption we’ve seen from the various Presidents and their staffs in the eight seasons of 24.

Then again…maybe Slick Willie was having Nancy Reagan come over with her Ouija Board to have Tricky Dick advise him on cigars and the definition of “is”.

From next week’s preview:  Jack Bauer becomes Iron Man.

Just because that’s another source for these lazy assed writers to rip off.

Bauer Body Count

31…with two of these in particular (Dana and FakeEMTovich) being especially enjoyable to watch.

Escorted Feet First From the Island

The population of a small Russian village.  And their White Trash maid.

Expiration Dates / Chances of Survival (Bitter Writer Edition)

Mitch’s television set – I made sure I removed all hard, throwable objects from my reach before watching the last two episodes…but that wasn’t really necessary.  I still must be careful, as the Revenge of the Sithwriters may still be awaiting me.  Chance of survival – 50%