Random episode thoughts...I just don’t have the energy to do a long-assed recap.  Think of this as a commentary track.

- *sigh* Wayne Palmer is about a 1/4 of the President his brother was.

- Yeah yeah yeah, Republicans are evil, I get it, writers.  I get it.  So very subtle, your White House policy scenes.

- I think Brotherman is still lying to Jack.  Plastic bag torture probably only got him half the truth.  He should have put a knife to his eyeball.

- Guess how super-techies track you when you’re a terrorist trying to escape fallout?  With special satellites that can sense when you have radiation sensors in your vehicle

- Oh, hey, they aren’t far from 90210...must be why I’m getting all this Dad/Jack/Graem bullshit.

- The guy that was probably supposed to be Eddie Izzard’s part and his Czech Republic-looking girl are boring me too.  MORE JACK BEATING ON PEOPLE PLEASE.

- Why the government hatin’ on the super-hot Arabic woman?  Are they TRYING to ruin our chances to impress and import more extremely attractive Middle Eastern women who don’t wanna dress in sacks?  In all seriousness, that is pretty stupid.  If they think she’s a possible threat, what the frig is she doing at this job in the first place?

- Dear Milo, You are not qualified to hold Skeet Ulrich’s jock, you wannabe motherfucker.  Shave that shit on your face too, bitch.

- I want to punch the President’s sister almost as much as I wanted to beat Sherry Palmer with a shovel.  I actually want to see violence done to her...it;s the tone in her voice, it’s like she’s never considered for a moment that she doesn’t have to be a raging bitch every moment of every day in order to ask questions or make a point.

- *sigh* More retarded blackmail that wouldn’t mean shit will force the only voice of reason in the White House to back down, thereby allowing the evil Cheney wannabe to get his way.

Let’s break this down.  Karen is the only person capable of getting Wayne Palmer to listen to reason - she absolutely has to stop Assholeboy (The Biscuit is EVIL!) from essentially usurping the President and declaring it “Hunt Brown People Day.”

So, because The Biscuit has the fact that once, over a year ago, CTU had Fayed in custody along with 20 or so other guys, and nothing for which to hold them...and Bill Buchanan let them go - and Karen is married to Bill - She’s going to leave the fucking President’s side rather than let Bill go down?  Bill wouldn’t go down for this in the first fuck place, but let’s say that he would.  SO WHAT?!?!  What’s more important, the person running CTU Los Angeles, or preventing this guy who would wipe his ass with the COnstitution from getting Wayne Palmer’s ear?  Wayne’s a puppet...why let The Biscuit be the puppetmaster just to save Bill’s job?

It’s fucking stupid.  The threat itself is stupid.  Karen should be laughing in Tom’s face right now and walking away.

By the way, the guy playing Tom Lennox, the evil White House guy, played John Cage in Ally McBeal, and his nickname was ‘The Biscuit.” hence my calling him that...which may stick now that I think about it.

- And of course the stupid bitch does it.  Utterly ridiculous.  More ridiculous than Jack staring at a nuclear explosion.  And the Biscuit for the win!

- Dear Producers, We watch this show to see Jack Bauer kicking the shit out of people.  Either give us some of that or go home.  I can watch a soap opera for interpersonal bullshit.  More Jack Bauer please.

- SHUT THE PRESIDENT’S SISTER UP I SWEAR TO GOD SHUT HER UP BEFORE MY EARS EXPLODE SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP.

- OH MY GOD 24 JUST PULLED A ”The Net” ON TV.  Holy shit.  The floating death head thing gets her into some secret webpage on a dude’s cell phone.  Wow.

- SHUT THE PRESIDENT’S SISTER UP I SWEAR TO GOD SHUT HER UP BEFORE MY EARS EXPLODE SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP.

- Turns out none of the dudes in the detention camp are terrorists.  Then of course conveniently, as the prisoners start to riot over Whalid and beat him mostly to death for ganking that phone, no guards are in sight.  Every other time they have showed this detention camp, guards are like, 1.37 milliseconds from any given prisoner.  That was some pro wrestling level bullshit writing right there.  They do that shit all the time in wrestling: two guys beat the shit out of each other and security is nowhere to be found, and then when they want you to buy a PPV and need to generate interest in a fight...miraculously on the free TV show, security is there to break up every fight almost before it starts.  Is 24 getting so weak they are resorting to pro wrestling writers for ideas? 

Also, please note that last week, I had far fewer complaints about this stuff.  Why?  THERE WAS MORE JACK BAUER LAST WEEK.  More Jack = easier to suspend disbelief.  Jack is a superhero at this point - unless you keep him front and center, the cracks in the facade start to show.

- In regards to Jack and Brotherman going to this building together?  Hey Jack!

He’s Bluetooth Guy, Jack.  He wanted you dead.

- “Are you beating on my son?  That’ll do, boys.  That’ll do.” Get it?  See, Jack’s dad was the dude that played the farmer in Babe...oh never mind.  It was weak, I’ll admit it.

- Graem is such a spoiled little whiny fucking shit.  Of course he turned on Pops and Jack.  Who didn’t see that coming in like, 1983?  I mean Good Lord, people, he’s Bluetooth Guy!

More Jack next week or I will...I will...Oh fuck you, Fox, you know I’ll be watching.  Eat my ass, you jerks.

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TiVoblogging rocks.

When last we saw Jack, he was sitting in a puddle of his own sick - crying - and staring at a mushroom cloud, laughing at any thoughts of heat, radiation, brightness or even wind.  He’s Jack Bauer.  Screw the laws of physics!  Real men can throw up, cry and look directly at a nuclear explosion dammit.  By the way, the lighting on Jack’s face implied he was staring directly at the explosion when it went off, for those who were doubting that fact all week.

12,000 dead in the initial blast, but they’re residents of Valencia, so, that’s like Canadian money.  They’re worth about 3/4 of say, a New Yorker.  It’s not as bad as it seems.

“Chloe: “Why do people I know keep dying?” Sweety, you work in counter-terrorism.  Or, it’s that nasty puss you walk around with every day.  try smiling.  Not today, i mean, I know it’s like, busy.  And you have Right Said Fred being a dick in one ear while the poor man’s Skeet Ulrich is a dick in the other.

Seriously, Skeet Ulrich is the poor man’s Johnny Depp, and Eric Balfour is the poor man’s Skeet Ulrich.

Tac teams are dead, the area is a madhouse, chaos reigns, Fayed is on the loose and a guy snaps Jack back into action.  Go SuperJack!  Save the chopper guy!  Which of course he does, just as the tail snaps off and chopper go boom!  Jack of course is south of the blast, so he’s safe, and of course he’s back in the game.  JACK.  FUCKING.  BAUER DOESN’T.  QUIT.  For more than like, five minutes anyway.  Just pretend he never said he was done.  Or that the shock wave took out a chopper but there’s little peripheral damage and windows all over are still intact.

*cough* Oh hell it’s 24, don’t expect too much reality.  Jack still hasn’t recharged his cell.

Random thought - who are they sending to pick Jack up, a CTU page?  Didn’t they say all the tactical teams are dead?

So, we’re moving along.  Uhh...I think that they are about to make Jack’s father a terrorist.  Is Jack gonna have to put a bullet in his father’s head?  What’s next, Jack has to shoot Kim in the vagina with a speargun and hang her over a bear pit?

Dad and Brother Bauer are involved.  The Presidential suckup is advocating that we suspend everything that makes us America, and Fayed is seeking a new way to activate the other four nukes.  In Los Angeles, I assume.  Like most of America would mind if Los Angeles was blown off the face of the earth?  Just make sure no one kills Jack.  we need him to save us from next year’s threat.  Anyway, stuff happens.  You don’t need me to tell you.  Dudes got wired, people were questioned, and Jack growled a lot.

Then there was the moment.  When Jack saw his One and True Love.  The woman he let get away.  Am I watching The OC?  Of course it was all redeemed when Jack knocked his asshole brother the fuck out.  So nice.  He’s going to torture his own brother.  Of course I’ve “known” the guy for like 8 minutes and I want to torture him, so…

Random observation - Wayne Palmer is still not half the man his brother was.  His delivery of that speech was awful.

I love the fact that we end with Jack slapping a bag over his brother’s head.

OK, this show is so fucking implausible as to be ridiculous.  It’s gone well, well past any notion of being anything resembling reality.  So why do we all keep watching?

Kiefer.  His performance of Jack is so goddamned compelling that we all have no choice but to keep watching.  It’s not like most of the other people on the show are great actors - and if they are they aren’t given the chance to act on this show.  It’s just Kiefer and a select few that get a chance to shine, and obviously Kiefer gets to do everything from deliver witty one-liners to sob to scream “TELL ME WHERE THE BOMB IS WE DON’T HAVE ANY MORE TIME CHLOE SEND IT TO MY PDA THIS IS JACK GIVE ME BILL BUCHANAN.” I believe that is an exact quote from the show, by the way.

What’s your favorite Kiefer Sutherland acting technique?  Mine is the one where Jack has to choke down something tremendously emotional and basically not verbalize any reaction, so Kiefer always does this kind of blink-look-to-the-right-and-down thing while he blinks one more time for just a moment too long, sets his face in a thin-lipped flat expression, then he look back at the person with eyes ever-so-slightly wide, pauses an extra beat, and sometimes he shakes his head and clears his face.  Then gets all business like and says something like “I’m here to escort you back to CTU, so let’s go, NOW!” or “I’m sorry Mr. President, but I had to shoot your dog.”

If you read this blog, you know I love me some Heroes.  I love me some Hiro.  I want to put things in Ali Larter’s butt.  No doubt about my love for that show.  Thing is, Kiefer alone can draw more than that entire cast.  NBC is making a big mistake going head-to-head with 24.

And that’s enough serial TV for me for the night.  I’m putting Heroes off until tomorrow night, watching ‘How I met Your Mother” and going to bed.

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Of course you know how my day started...a long plane ride from China, a quick shave, steadying myself for execution, then a quick snack on some guy’s neck and it was off to chase terrorists again.  My new partner, Dr. Julian Bashir, is a genetically enhanced genius from the future with a strange penchant for jumpsuits and women with spots.  He’s a little bit country, and I’m a little bit rock & roll.  We’re a counter-terrorism odd couple.

Wacky hijinks!

Anyway, after those first two hours I thought “Well this has certainly been a busy morning.” Little did I know that I would save a kid, protect a terrorist and shoot my good friend and fellow CSU agent in the throat, all before 10 AM!  Man...I wonder if there’s a McDonalds here, I could still make breakfast if I hurry.

What the/// holy crap that’s a mushroom cloud.  Chloe, this is Jack.  Tell me that nuke did not just blow up the only McDonalds for ten miles!  CHLOE I NEED A SAUSAGE MCMUFFIN!  JUST GET ME A ROUTE TO A SAUSAGE MCMUFFIN!

So that was my morning...running, playing referee between Assad and Curtis, getting reinstated as a CTU agent, puking after I was forced to gun Curtis down to protect a murdering piece of terrorist garbage - yeah, I know he’s all Peace Dude now, but just you wait, three drinks and he’ll be all “HALALALALALA!  FOR GREAT JUSTICE I STRIKE AT THEE!” and trying to cut off my head with a letter opener while he streams the whole thing to his MySpace.

Anyway, my morning just culminated in a realization - I’m Jack Fucking Bauer, and those goddamned fanatics just tried to blow up Los Angeles.  I’m’a fuck somebody up over this shit.  Any minute now Bill is gonna call me and tell me there are four more suitcase nukes, and I will be GOD-damned straight to hell if I let them blow up an In-And-Out Burger.  If I miss breakfast, I’m getting a fucking double double animal style and no frigging jerkoff named Ahmed or Mahmoud or Hassan is going to stop me.

Unless he’s working the drive through and has a really bad accent.  Then I’ll be forced to smash through the building, shoot him in the face and make my own damned double double.  I can fry an onion like nobody’s business.  I’m Jack Fucking Bauer.

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