I apologize in advance to those who will not understand this post, but I cannot truly have a blog without discussing the intoxicatingly addictive show, 24.
Season 5 just started up a few weeks ago and I can’t believe how stinking good it’s been. It’s just like the show Survivor. Every year you ask, how can they make this show better than the year before? Yet somehow, they always do. (Well, I think the program would be perfect if they got someone other than Jeff Probst to host. How about putting Simon Cowell out there? Now THAT would be a great Survivor). But I digress…back to 24.
Anyway, I hope at least some of you watch this popular Monday-night drama on Fox (35 million people watched the two-night premiere Jan. 15-16), otherwise I fear this blog will be passed over. To avoid this, allow me to give you what I hope will be a brief background on the show:
Okay, there’s this guy Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland, an actor I never really liked until this show, mostly because he always seemed to play a racist, rapist, bad guy in movies. But now, he’s great!!). Jack is the central character in the show (now in its fifth season) and to put it simply, he’s an absolute bad-ass. I mean, the guy is a one-man wrecking crew. As smart as McGyver was, but way tougher!! Anyway, long story short, he’s the world’s best government agent, working for the Counter Terrorist Unit (CTU) based in LA. Throughout the last four seasons, we’ve seen his wife and daughter kidnapped, then get rescued, only to watch his wife killed by Nina (a former co-worker who was working with terrorists from inside CTU. He also slept with her while briefly separated from his wife)!! She’s been the central evil character in the show until Jack finally gunned her down in Season 3 (or so we thought. More on this later).
He’s been kicked out of CTU for failing to follow protocol about a hundred different times, but always seems to find his way back, because let’s face it, he’s the man. He’s successfully led in the efforts of thwarting terrorist threats like the assassination attempt of a presidential candidate (Palmer in Season 1), a nuclear bomb (Season 2), a deadly virus (Season 3), something else in Season 4 (can’t remember), and now — in Season 5 — is facing the potential release of a nerve gas in the US. He’s worked with a trio of presidents in four seasons, the first being David Palmer (first three seasons), the second being some guy I can’t even remember because he was killed on Air Force One in Season 4, and President Logan, the former VP who took command towards the end of last season and was so inexperienced, he needed Palmer to assist him in an "unofficial" capacity.
Each season represents a day in the life of CTU and some sort of terrorist threat, usually occurring one-to-three years after the previous season. Each episode represents an hour in that day. There are 24 hours in a day, hence 24 episodes in a season. You following me?
So Season 5 started out with a bang. Four hours on two nights. In the first 10 minutes, we see former President Palmer assassinated, Jack’s co-worker Michelle killed via a car bomb, and Tony, Michelle’s husband and Jack’s former sidekick at CTU, seriously injured in the blast. He’s been in a comma since that occurred.
Upon hearing the news of Palmer’s death, Jack comes out of hiding and returns to the LA area to seek and kill the men responsible. (At the end of last season, Michelle and Tony helped Jack fake his own death to avoid being sent to China to face charges in the killing of a Chinese diplomat. Only Michelle, Tony, and this annoying tech Chloe knew he was alive, or so we thought). Turns out, the same guy (Logan’s chief of staff, Walt Cummings) who arranged to have Jack killed at the end of last season—and thought he did so successfully—discovered he was still alive and tried to frame him for Palmer’s assassination.
Didn’t work. Jack found out Walt was dirty and assaulted him in front of the president in last night’s episode. When Walt refused to tell where the containers of nerve gas were being held, Jack put a knife to his eye and threatened to cut each one out until he talked. (Such a bad ass!!). Of course, Walt fessed up. In what we’ve come to expect as viewers of the show, the gas containers were missing from the location Walt disclosed and the man he had working inside was found dead inside the storage facility. End of episode!!
Next week’s previews looked just as good as it appears one of the show’s villains will return. The clip only showed a pair of what looked like female hands rising up from behind a chair when called out by Jack at gunpoint. I have two guesses as to who it might be:
1) Nikki (I think that’s her name). This lady is La Femme Nikita x10. She blew up a plane in Season 1, applied a potentially deadly toxin onto Palmer’s hand while shaking it during a rally at the end of Season 2, and kidnapped Tony in Season 4. I think she was awarded some kind of reprieve from Logan because she disclosed information pertaining to the terrorist threat. That would mean she could be roaming about this season, aiding another threat.
2) Nina. I know it sounds crazy, but to this very minute, I can’t recall what happened to Nina after Jack shot and "killed" her. Nina’s been a sly one since her evilness was revealed late in Season 1. She had a hand in aiding terrorist threats in the first three seasons, but was nowhere to be found last year as we all assumed she was dead. I don’t know, though. She’s capable of anything.
God, I love this show!!
PLE (Peace, love, equality). I’m no longer going to spell it out, so get with it readers!!
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