Countdown to the End...

Flying...

Put aside the reasons why Jack Bauer was airborne at the start of last night’s ‘24’ for a moment. Simply bring to mind the amazing cinematography that allowed the viewers to gain a surreal perspective from the point of view of Jack perched high up in the helicopter. Being able to peak over his shoulders, as he saw himself surrounded by military fighters ready to take him down was astounding. While below, the New York City skyline glistened in all of its majestic and humbling glory. Makes you wonder why they didn’t tape all previous seasons in the Big Apple. It gave us a breathtaking view, which we - who work right in the mix of the city - never get to see with such intimacy.

But when Jack landed the chopper and walked out of it with a kind of casual stride, you knew this hour was just about to get crazy. Right under the noses and pointed guns of the CTU team sent by Miz O’Brien, Jack decided to hide in plain sight. Right past the NYC police officers, Jack was striding by. What is a better place to hide out, while not actually hiding at all? New York City, of course! Here people are so unimpressed by you – whether you’re Jack Bauer or Elvis Presley. If you’re walking a NYC street during rush, we don’t care who you are. Just keep walking!!!

Logan’s Twisted Circus

“Morality is Relative” said the brilliant Charles Logan. “All peace agreements have blood on them.” He makes these statements as only he can, with a straight face that feels like ice is being dropped down your spine. This guy is some piece of work. And yet, he is so warped, that you can’t help but love the SOB. Charles Logan is a delusional mad man. He is still using his distorted leverage to manipulate Taylor. These include his clandestine relationship with the Russians, an exhausted President Taylor who can’t focus on the here and now, and a weakened Ethan Kanin. Logan seeks to reap some ill-gotten goodwill from the American people for his past crimes. Good luck with that, buddy! This guy can’t just leave well enough alone. He aches for the kind of power he so carelessly tossed away and he see Taylor as a vehicle to grab some of it back. And if that means bullying her into decisions she isn’t ready to commit to and pushing Ethan out with a smug grin, so be it. A means to an end seems to be all he is focused on.

Poor Little President Girl

Allison Taylor has slowly evolved into something we didn’t think she could be: as vile a politician as any other one out there. No longer is she the good egg we can look to with pride and trust. And it seems only Ethan can see her losing her way in the spinning, maddening wash cycle of this day. She is a woman so outwardly moral, but so inwardly flawed. Right now, she is a woman who is in deep denial about her quest to grab a brass ring of peace none of her predecessors have been able to accomplish.

In hindsight, a woman who sends away her own daughter to prison (however obnoxious and evil that child was) can be viewed in two ways: Taylor is either a ruthless villain able to hang her child for the sake of her presidency, or she is a beacon of morality who had to make an example of her daughter at a great cost emotionally, to show the American people that she does not give special treatment for crimes committed to anyone. Makes you wonder if she’s a…{{Insert Paula Abdul’s “Cold-hearted Snake” here}}

Onward…

Logan knows he’s weakened Taylor. He knows her moral compass is spinning un-remorsefully toward his ideology. But then Ethan gets a hold of her and pulls the steering wheel of her decisions toward the morally right and ethical thing to do – let the peace agreement die for the sake of the truth. Almost convinced, Taylor sends Ethan off to write a little speech for her effectively ending the peace talks. You know when you get the feeling someone’s being sent on a pointless errand just to get him out of the way? Yeah, that’s how it felt to me, too. Ethan was too in-her-face for Allison and she needed to keep him busy. “Go on, honey boy…Go write me a good speech…”

No sooner is Ethan off to write pretty words on paper, that Logan slithers back into her office and gets her alone. He suggests things only a swine bastard could suggest. He tells her about ways of controlling evidence, coercing a confession from Dana and getting her way in the end. He alludes to the danger of having renegade Jack Bauer on the loose and the importance of his capture at any cost. Finally appalled by his suggestions, Taylor utters the word torture in disbelief. But what is it she dis-believes? That he could suggest it or that she is considering it? But instead of having Logan hauled up out of there handcuffed and taken away with his twisted ideas, she again falls prey to his manipulative banter. She is nothing more than a marionette whose strings are being pulled by Logan and Kanin. At some point, though, strings tend to break.

I couldn’t decide if I was rooting for Chloe, or if I want to slap her around last night. I know her gut was telling her that Madame President was not on the up and up. Yet she couldn’t part with her sense of loyalty to her to help Jack out. Chloe seemed unsure of the path she should take in this newly created crisis because now her emotions are involved – or better said, Jack is involved. And we all know that, as odd a pairing as they are, Jack and Chloe are connected on a whole other level. So Jack being involved changes all the rules and makes it all the more difficult a situation to handle.

In what appeared to be a first moment of lucidity, Chloe again sticks her neck out for Jack. She plays the “newly appointed boss” card and convinces the man sent to take Dana to an undisclosed location, to hand over his cell. A second later she has stealthily stolen information using a USB connector. Don’t you love this girl’s willingness to get the job done at any cost? Haha! She is a riot and they’re all puddy in her hand. Silly Puddy!

But then, just as I am about to relax, a dark cloud of indecision crowds Chloe’s mind and she retracts her original devotion to one Mr. Bauer. She questions her loyalties to Jack or her loyalty to the president. Uncharacteristically, she sides with a president of questionable morals. Or was that characteristically? Jack knew, didn’t he?

This Brought the LOLs…

As Dana Walsh was being dragged out of the CTU holding room, she begged Chloe for her life. She sounded pathetic, as if she and Chloe were old buddies and why wouldn’t she want to her. I had to laugh…loudly. Where does she get off asking for mercy? Have we all forgotten your actions of the day? You’re a terrorist and a traitor to your country. You get mercy from no one! Beotch!

So…

The plan of capture Chloe put into play with Cole Ortiz at the helm was, at best, a good try. But she should know that Jack has been a step ahead of pretty much every one of the enemies he has crossed over eight seasons. That’s how he stays alive while everyone else is killed, girl! Wake up and smell the Bauer! I was betting that, in a small way, Cole Ortiz was feeling like a mighty giant about to take down the great Jack Bauer, but that wasn’t even going to happen.

Jack knows too much and he knows too many people. He knows people who know people who can get things he needs on short notice and whom he’s helped in the past. That’s his leverage and he isn’t shy about using it. “You owe me!” is a big deal in his line of work. And he is calling in favors. I love the Tony Soprano-type guy that Jack pounced on for help with some supplies. And I do mean pounced! You either help him or get the hell out of the way! Jack showing up to the home of some crazy permanently scarred guy who is living behind locked doors and amid cages with equipment that would scare the scar off Scarface – honey, please! This is Jack’s world. We just live in it.

By the time he shows up to the decoy location Chloe thinks she is tricking him with, he is armed and dangerous and ready for anything. The promise of Dana Walsh on the inside notwithstanding, he is going in knowing he’s not going to get Dana, but he may get Cole’s help. Jack can read people and he knows Cole’s moral core will do the right thing. Before he admits to Chloe that he is on to her, he makes sure she thinks she is in control. Cole is torn between playing good cop or bad cop. He wants to side with Jack. He seems to believe his story about the president, plus, he is too straight-laced to go along with what the president is proposing, even at the cost of his job. Now that is a good guy. Stupid Dana! That could have been your husband, but no, you wanted to play terrorists with the Russians.

Back at the UN

Allison Taylor must be feeling like quite the ping pong ball, what with Ethan and Charles tossing her back and forth like a rag doll. But nothing compared to Ethan looking her straight in the eye, telling her he has a conscience to follow (unlike her apparently) and then tendering his resignation. If there was going to be another season of 24, Ethan Kanin would have to be elected president. Sure his health is questionable, but hey, so was Vice President Dick Cheney’s and he stayed in office until the welcome end of that administration. It did Allison Taylor no good to pathetically beg Ethan not to leave her. Ugh! Groveling! How very un-presidential of her!

Jack on the Loose

Having spoken to Chloe, Jack tossed a cell into a trash bin after one use. This guy’s cool makes Fonzie look like a 5-year-old girl. So even though Jack can’t say nuclear, but says “nu-Q-ler” a la G.W. Bush, he is still cooler than Fonzie, James Dean, non-fat Marlon Brando and young Elvis.

At the “undisclosed location” where Dana Walsh is NOT being held, Jack’s sixth sense kicks in. No sooner had he arrived, when he’d already downed one operative and was on the prowl for the rest. In true Jack Bauer style, he sent the rest of Cole’s officers a message: the limp body of the young officer, in something resembling a papoose for a baby, hanging on a moving conveyor to show them who is boss.

Cole knows what he is up against. He isn’t stupid. Do what Jack says, or else!!! And as soon as Cole kicked his weapons toward Jack, he knew his moment of glory had evaporated like a cloud of mist on a windy day! Once Jack’s got his own capture under control, he turns around and tricks Chloe, so he can buy himself some time. Jack’s not stupid either. He knows this is not a one-man job! He takes Cole to a back area and convinces him to help him out. He tells him the truth about the White House and Boy Scout Cole agrees to help him. It’s easy to convince people when you’re waving a gun at them, though. Take that Charles Logan!

The only emotionally kind moment of the night was when Kayla Hasan decided to stand by her mother Dalia and support her decision to move ahead with the peace agreement. Dalia’s fear and vulnerability, coupled with her desire to follow through on her husband’s vision, was heartfelt. She is going into this with a clean heart and conscience thinking her counterpart Allison Taylor is going into it with a similar background. Kayla and Dalia’s talk was genuine, sweet and quite telling. Not genuine? That would be our illustrious leader, Allison Taylor.

As the minutes closed on another hour, Ethan told Charles Logan off the way Madame President should have done at the start of all of this “ugly mess”. Logan, the condescending jerk, seems to beam with pride at what Ethan accuses him of. It was great fun to watch Dana Walsh squirm when the black hood is pulled off her head and she sees the equipment. Speaking of the equipment…seeing a set-up of torture up in some dark room in NYC was kind of scary. Where is this place exactly, between what and what avenues?

To end they did the split screen. One was showing the morally corrupt Taylor addressing the UN and bs-ing her way through a peace built on lies. The other side showed Dana being prepped to “talk” by questionable means. I hope she has a high threshold for pain. That main guy in charge looks like he enjoys his job too much!

The tick-tock of that clock is getting louder. The end is gaining speed. Our days with Jack are numbered. And I, for one, am miserable about it!