WRITERS: Manny Coto & Brannon Braga[SPOILERS] This was another hour that, like last week, allowed breathing room for Cherry Jones, Gregory Itzin and Bob Gunton to act, while also giving us added action and some fresh concerns. It's not often 24's in the midst of a storyline that doesn't feel like a hastily-written addendum by episode 19, which is a pleasant surprise for a season that found form in its second half...
DIRECTOR: Michael Klick
GUEST CAST: Gregory Itzin, Michael Madsen, D.B Sweeney, Bob Gunton, Graham McTavish, Nazneen Contractor, Necar Zadegan, Navid Negahban, Lesley Fera & Justin Alston
To briefly recap events: President Taylor (Jones) considered reversing her decision to continue with the peace treaty signing, but was persuaded to keep lying by Logan (Itzin) after he offered to have Dana Walsh (Katee Sackhoff) taken into private custody and tortured for the information she might use as leverage; and Jack (Kiefer Sutherland) escaped from CTU in a stolen helicopter, then landed in the city with the intention of getting to Dana with covert help from Chloe (Mary Lyn Rajskub), unaware that she's decided to follow the President's orders and lead him into a trap.It was an interesting angle to have Jack perceived as the bad guy, mirroring a similar situation in Day 5 when President Logan sent the might of the country's intelligence forces after Jack (possibly an intentional echo given Logan's welcome return this year.) Adding a further twist was seeing how loyal Chloe wasn't prepared to believe Jack's explanation for his actions (has the responsibility of leading CTU gone to her head?), and it was fun to see a few familiar actors make appearances -- D.B Sweeney as Bledsoe, a torturer hired to extract information from Dana, and Michael Madsen as the scarred Jim Ricker, an old "friend" of Jack's who helps him re-arm for an assault on a CTU safehouse.
Overall, things are progressing rather smartly as we approach the end of Day 8 and 24 as a whole. Jones has been given material worth her time recently, which has worked well because we know how by-the-book Taylor is as a character so her determination to get the peace treaty signed (whatever the terrible cost) feels plausible and understandable in light of how much her presidency has cost her personally. It'll be interesting to see how the season will end for her, but resignation seems likely once her deception is inevitably exposed. She's too honourable to pin it all on Logan, surely.The only puzzling thing about this episode was considering what Jack's initial plan was after he escaped from CTU: steal a chopper, land it miles away in the middle of NYC, then slowly make his way back to CTU to interrogate Dana there. How would he have hoped to achieve that? It just wouldn't have been possible. Jack was extremely fortunate that Taylor/Logan decided to have Dana moved out of CTU, as his plan was doomed until that lucky break! A simple case of the story having to be bent by the writers to make something work, really. Still, this was a strong episode and it was good to see Cole (Freddie Prinze Jr) join forces with Jack, his idol, in going rogue and getting to Dana before she's eliminated.
Asides
- Was Chloe's act-out line "let's get to work" a slightly paraphrased Reservoir Dogs quote, in honour of Michael Madsen's presence?
- I enjoyed the opening scenes of Jack being pursued by Apache helicopter gunships over NYC, even if the special effects weren't really that convincing. It's just appreciated when the show does something new like that.
- Come on, Chloe; given the number of times Jack crazy theories have been proven right, once in near-identical circumstances, why are you suddenly so reticent about believing him?
