Jack is Back!
This blog is about a week late, but just in time for Jack – Week 2.
Jack is back in 7 hours, 51 minutes and 19 seconds (right now).
If the title to this entry means nothing to you, then you shouldn’t bother reading the rest of this piece.
However, if the mere mention of Jack being back sends thrills through your bones, then welcome to the unhinged world of the ‘24’ fanatic. For those of you with zero knowledge of FOX TV’s electrifying series, who’ve decided to read on despite my warning above, allow me to use some good journalistic skills and elaborate a bit about this phenomenon of series television.
Twenty-four (‘24’) is a series in its long-awaited 7th season. For a while, following the painfully long writer’s strike, we thought Jack would never be back!! The series is unique in format simply because it takes place in real time. It is because of the unusual format that writers for the show didn’t know how they could swing a half season and so decided to forgo the whole thing and start again in 2009. The ‘24’ stands for the 24 hours in a day and each season of 24 episodes represents one day in the life of CTU (Counter Terrorist Unit) Agent Jack Bauer (Keifer Sutherland). The clock counts down at the start and end and between commercials. It all stays within real time for the added jolt of excitement we addicts thrive on. To jump start the rush, at the start of each episode you are told that the events in the episode happen between – let’s say --10:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m.
After you see that, hold on. To say it is a roller coaster ride of a show is to generalize it and to unfairly bunch it together with other action shows of far less quality than this one. This one is in a league all its own. To be honest, I am a bit biased about the show because I feel like my marriage has grown up with Jack Bauer. The show debut the same year Joe and I were married and so we have watched each season together religiously since then. I have been known to hang up on people who call during the show. I pick up, say “24 is on” and hang up before even asking who is on. Don’t you dare call us at home or on our cells during ‘24’ – you will be ignored!
From its inception, Jack was the magnetic draw that kept us coming back season after season. Far more than just an agent in a government-run unit, Jack represents the kind of American patriot and loyalist willing to go far above the call of duty, if he deems his actions are necessary to preserve the integrity and safety of these United States of America. He is the guy who will disregard the rules the rest of us abide by, but sometimes wish we didn’t have to. Jack crosses that line. Where that line is drawn depends on whom you ask. For Jack, all lines are blurred and he determines when and if he will change that. If you have information he needs, you can bet your sorry ass that he will get it out of you – if you happen to lose some teeth, an eye, a finger, or your life in the process – Oh well…you shouldn’t have messed with his American way of life! But what keeps Jack interesting is that he measures his rights and wrongs on a ruler that is unlike anyone else you will ever meet. But at the end of the day – in this case – end of season – Jack will triumph in many ways, but lose part of himself again in many other ways. We, his loyal and devoted audience will go through his pain and see the good in all he did.
If you mess with his family, which we learned early in season one was a major occupational hazard for him, you will pay and it will be ugly! His wife Terri was killed in the first season following a botched kidnapping rescue. And, after a series of bizarre incidents, Jack’s only child, a daughter named Kim (Elisha Cuthbert) cut all ties with her father seeking an über normal life outside of Jack’s abnormal existence. If you betray him, family or not, you will pay and, again, it will be ugly. Jack’s own father and brother became ill-fated foes when he discovered, in season 6, that daddy and brother were on the wrong side of the law. Jack is so not a terrorist sympathizer.
Daddy Dearest, Phillip Bauer (James Cromwell) and Jack’s brother Graem Bauer (Paul McCrane) became dangerous enemies. They knew too much – too much about Jack, his past, his strengths and weaknesses. In the end, though, Jack prevails. Jack put aside his feelings to deal with them as only Jack could – swiftly and without remorse. When he learned his brother had dealings with a known terrorist named Abu Fayed, he flung a clear plastic bag over Graem’s head and restricted his air, until he nearly killed him for a sliver of information. Hell, even if you’re his right hand man and you become, let’s say, dispensable, you’ll be gone in the blink of his eye. Do I hear anyone recalling poor Curtis Manning?
But do not mistake Jack’s devotion to country and flag for a lack of a heart. He is, at the very bottom of his hardened soul, a sweet man in a really tough line of business. He is the prototypical Good Guy. He will not hesitate to tear you a new one, if you deserve it, but he will also throw himself in the line of fire, if it means saving an innocent.
Jack has done it all. He became a drug-addicted member of some Latino drug lords so he could infiltrate their inner sanctum. He has murdered or maimed countless cast members in the name of country. He is a master escapist – and by escapist, I don’t mean of the Harry Houdini variety, but of the cat-with-nine-lives variety. He escapes death with the ease and grace of a stealth Cheetah.
Over the course of 24’s existence, we have lost several beloved cast members. It is how the show keeps you hooked. You may think someone is so popular with audiences that he, or she could never be killed off and then suddenly it’s the week’s cliffhanger and you’re watching Joe or Jane Popular lying in a pool of blood, or dying via biochemical spills, or blown to bits on Air Force One, or any other manner of faces of death you can conjure up. I assure you, they have already been there and done that!
Another thing about 24 is its brazen choices. I suspect at least one of their choices have just a bit to do with our nation’s reality right now. This show put the first black president in the White House – President David Palmer (Dennis Haybert). And now poof! – Our 44th president-elect happens to be our first African American president-to-be. (Only 6 days to the ObamaNation)! This season they put a Hillary-esque woman, President Allison Taylor (Cherry Jones) in the White House. Do I hear Hillary running again in 2012?
So, back to the brazenness of 24… no culture has been safe from the poisonous ink of the show’s writers. Middle Eastern, Muslim, Latino, Egyptian, Russian, and Chinese (some I am missing, I’m sure) – you name the culture with the stereotype and they’ve targeted in a 24-episode storyline. But the most entertaining foes are the homegrown kind. That’s when Jack will really let you have it because – well, how freaking dare you?
Sidebar: President Palmer was assassinated and then his brother became president in another season and he died in office too. Not a good day to be in politics on Jack’s watch! The ting about the brothers Palmer is that they loved Jack. They worked closely with him because they understood that his level of patriotism knew no boundaries, followed no rules and had no mercy.
After the Palmers left office, a couple of fools and evil foes have occupied the much-revered seat of the presidency. Not surprisingly, dire consequences followed. These were consequences that kept Jack and his colleagues quite busy. Things got so bad; that Jack’s beloved CTU was disbanded for this season. Jack now finds himself forced to work under the constraints of the FBI, even though he is not with the FBI, he is currently a just-returned fugitive of the United States. Go figure! Man saves nation – Man gets chased down like a dog! Corrupt ex-president gets away with federal crimes with a slap on the wrist.
One more thing. Aside from all the gruff and gore, '24' also throws in a bit of comic relief in the form of one Chloe O'Brien (Mary Lynn Rajskub). Chloe is a techie genius! She has yet to meet a computer, software or system she can't 
conquer. She is Jack's right-hand woman, when he needs something done that requires a computer, gadget or system surveillance. She's your 'man. What makes Chloe lovable and easily hated all at once is her complete lack of tact and filter. She will say whatever pops into her head in the most socially unacceptable way that she will either embarrass the recipient of her comment, irrate the hell out of the person, or inadvertently hurt someone's feelings. Her ascerbic manners have obviously helped keep the girl alive all these seasons because despite her lack of all social parameters, she is a perfect fit for Jack's hard-lined existence.
It is season 7 and it isn’t long (in fact it is in the first episode) before Jack realizes that corruption within the FBI and – he will soon discover – the new White House administration - runs far and wide. He is accepting that some things never change and that, regardless of its level of security or integrity, no department is safe from evil infiltration.
On a more positive note – the formerly dead Tony Almeida – friend and co-hero of Jack – is back from said dead for this season. Usually, people who die on ‘24’ stay dead. However, Tony is such a favorite, they probably felt that there was still 
more for him to do. Plus, he and Jack are so good together that they just had to bring him back! Tony came on this season assuming the position of a villain and traitor to the United States of America. It is so not a good fit for him and his buddy Jack was having a really hard time accepting this new Tony, even with apparently clear, factual elements placed before him. Thankfully, it takes just a few of Jack’s tricks to yank Tony close enough to learn that his friend is not the evildoer he thought he had become!
Collective sigh! Tony's a good guy!
So that is where we stand now. The superhero brothers in spirit are ready to take on one more hellish day at the “office” and we, the viewing audience, have just settled in for another season that will leave us feeling, at its end, like we just ran a marathon!
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