Does 24 Suck This Year or WHAT?

[LVSoxFan]

Here's my copied blog on it from myspace:

 

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Please Jack Bauer, shoot me. Shoot me before the show completes its jump o'er the fin and goes down the drain forever. Last week was laughable; this week was LOL. But in a bad way. I couldn't tell if I was watching 24 or a terrorist chasing version of Days of Our Lives.

 

How preposterous was it? Oh, where to begin... let's just dive in.

 

Last we left it, Wayne Palmer was in a coma and his so-evil-you've-got-to-be-kidding-me VP was unilaterally ordering a nuke attack on that Unnamed Arab Country as payback, even though there was no evidence they were behind the attack. This would be dramatic if we didn't already have this in real life. You may recall that the VP came to power when Chad Lowe (um, yeah that Chad Lowe) and some other traitor detonated a bomb in the conference room. Like everything the last two seasons, we never find out what happened to Chad or his buddy because they just disappeared.

 

Nadia, the only Arab apparently in CTU (and also the only h-o-t-t-i-e) was tied to a chair and being roughed up by Rick Schroeder after being accused of aiding the enemy.

 

Buchanan was doing what he always does: answering the phone. Chloe was typing away furiously as always, when she wasn't checking Morris' breath because... ahhh, f*** it. If you don't know already I can't help you.

 

So what happened last night? We're down to two loose nukes if you're keeping score: one blew up, one was diffused, one was landed on a pier harmlessly. Or something.

 

The hilarity began early as the cartoonishly evil VP finally gets to order his nuke strike. Who can possibly stop him? Why, the president can--except that he's in a coma. We learn that only his sister can okay bringing him out of the coma, so there's the inevitable suspense-free confrontation where she reluctantly agrees to do so but if he dies damn you, White House people! We see the doc giving him an I.V. (is it really that easy?) and...OOPS... his vitals start to crash. Hope that doc has good insurance. Oh, this was AFTER the call from the VP telling the doctor he'd better not wake the prez or he'll slay him with his light saber. Or something to that effect.

 

Then we got to see Gredenko (no, not Miss Gredenko from Synchronicity, the Police album) in the desert basically saying "s***!" when his nuke drone thing got thwarted. Now what? Him and the terrorist guy have a meaningless fight but realize they need each other because there's still more evil to do. Gredenko decides to call one of his accomplices who apparently is a computer whiz to help him... except the accomplice isn't the computer whiz, his brother is, and his brother is... Rain Man.

 

Yup, you read that right. Cut to a domestic scene where Mr. Accomplice is feeding his retard/autistic brother, then gets the call. Where the hell they came up with this plot line is beyond me. So he asks Rain Man to get online and unlock some files for him. It's about this time that Chloe figures out the home where Gredenko called and sends Jack and his team to take down Mr. Accomplice and Rain Man.

 

BTW right now Jack is at the place where they shot the terrorists and took over control of the drone plane. As they're wheeling out one guy Jack says "I need him alive!" and the police guy nods and wheels him off. Not 10 seconds later he's back saying that the guy didn't make it. Well, YEAH: you SHOT THE GUY LIKE FOUR TIMES JACK. Maybe next time you might want to taser somebody instead if you need them later?

 

Jack and his team storm the home and Rain Man freaks out behind the desk while Jack shoots his brother twice. Hope you didn't need the brother Jack. WELL FUNNY THING... as a matter of fact he does, but miraculously the brother not only lives, but can talk and, with Jack, hatch a plot to ensnare Gredenko by luring him to... the parking lot across the street. But of course.

 

It's at this point that we learn that Mr. Accomplice was giving Gredenko secret info on security for... a nuke plant. Follow that? So apparently, the plan is to... nuke a nuclear plant. I'm no terrorist, but is that not a bit... redundant? What's the Arabic word for "overkill"? Isn't that like saying "I'm gonna burn down your... bonfire"?

 

Oh, but more hilarity ensues as "sensitive" (meaning: non-cutting-fingers-off) Jack enlists Rain Man to be the bait to lure Gredenko into their trap. He helps Rain Man by giving him and ear piece and making Rainy promise to not give away the fact that he can hear Jack in his ear. No, I am not making this up. Rainy agrees. Yer doin' a great job, Rainy!

 

Up shows Gredenko to get the files and he ominously tells his goons to shoot Rain Man once the download is complete, but in Russian. Jack hears this and--who knew?--speaks Russian, so he warns Rainy to hit the deck when he says. Non-suspense ensues, and Gredenko is brought down by... oh, believe it!... a tranquilizer dart, like the kind they shoot lions with. Right in the neck! Rainy survives and we last see him being loaded into an SUV, presumably off to watch Judge Wapner.

 

Gredenko miraculously comes to with in minutes and is about the get Bad Jack interrogated. He stumps everybody though when he agrees to tell all but on one condition.

 

STOP. At this point I was literally saying please, please don't have him say only if he gets immunity. PLEASE?

 

Gredenko than says he'll tell all if they give him... full immunity. Nice! Too bad this has happened like FIVE TIMES over the life of this show. They're just that out of ideas. This is going to be like the Rocky Horror Show soon, where we can scream out the next line without ever having seen the episode.

 

When you're done laughing about that you can laugh about the double-double-cross that occurs when one of the field agents locates a device at the plane-flying hideout that shows--shocker!--Nadia wasn't willingly helping the terrorists! Somebody was hacking into her workstation (she must use Windows 2003 or Vista)! Boy, doesn't Ricky Schroeder feel like a douchebag now! The guy though says "Now we're even, you got my back in Denver" and hands the device to Ricky, who seems to pocket it. He's gonna let her burn! The bastard!

 

Back at CTU, though, this same guy goes to Milo (will you not kill this guy PLEASE) and tells him that Ricky did what I just told you. Double cross! It was a setup. Milo takes off his sling (um...) and stomps over to Ricky who's just walked in with Buchanan, who I'm assuming was answering the phone. Milo confronts him. But WAIT: turns out, Ricky just gave the device to Buchanan, exonerating Nadia, but just hadn't told Milo yet! BOO YA! So Ricky just f***ed the guy who tried to f*** him. Apparently there's some back story there, which will disappear like they all do, never to be explained.

 

So now Buchanan has to go let Nadia out of interrogation and says, basically "OOPS! SORRY!" She decides to stay on the job regardless of the shabby treatment and walks out onto the floor at CTU where Milo has "set up her workstation." Huh? What, he took it down within the hour she was locked up? I think he just turned it off. Because as everybody knows, loading Windows back on would take at least a day and a half.

 

And here's where 24 went over the cliff last night. Milo tells Nadia sorry, he never thought she did it, but she storms off. He follows her into the sorta-concealed hall and they... start making out. In full view of Chloe and probably half the damn office. Turns out that Milo loves Nadia and there's something going on. Which, of course, means one or both of them will be killed shortly.

 

I wonder if she told him then, in Arabic, "You complete me." Pffft. Here we are watching them make out on... 24!... and nothing is blowing up, nobody's getting shot. What is this, Dallas?

 

Finally we come back to the White House bunker at the end, where the VP finds out that his order to launch the missle attack has been... canceled. Like he called Domino's and somebody lost his order.

 

How could this happen? Well, we find out soon enough when... cue music... Wayne Palmer explains from his hospital bed that he is bad, he's back, he's mad, he's black and the VP's days of playing Cheney Games are over!

 

Sigh. Phew! With just seconds to spare, no mushroom cloud over Unnamed Arab Country. So what does the VP do? He hangs up, looking disappointed, then says to all in the room he wants the president declared constiutionally incapable of doing his duty, so he can take power.

 

Sound familiar? It SHOULD. They already DID this in like, season four.

 

Speaking of presidents, the ex one, Logan, who got stabbed with the fruit knife by his lunatic ex-wife? Presumed dead, but nothing on that to report like so many other loose ends on 24 that are just abandoned.

 

BTW Jack's ex, Audrey, allegedly killed in China looking for him? Do you REALLY think she's dead? Do you REALLY think she won't appear near season's end, miraculously alive? It will be the scene when she steps out of the shower and Jack realizes that all that's happened this season was... just a dream.

 

Sound familiar? Everything does nowadays, on this show.

[retro1983hat]

If you see the offical 24 thread, you'll see the show has been getting ragged on pretty good by the posters.

[watchtower41]

Thanks for sharing, some of that was actually pretty funny.

[vandy125]

I gave up on it a few weeks ago even though I was obsessed with it for the first 5 seasons. It just was getting to be too implausible and ridiculous. I didn't care about it any more.

[LVSoxFan]

I thought it started sliding into parody last year and after an okay opening this year I can barely watch it. Oh well. At least we got some good years in.

[Controlled Chaos]

You have to have a write up for this week.