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The Hours: 24 Season 7 ' Then he says the word pajamas.
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The Hours: 24 Season 7 ' Then he says the word pajamas.
9-10 p.m.
Yes, that just happened. I hate anyone who doesn't like this show.
Featuring: Finally, Jack Bauer teams up with the only fictional character as badass as he is: Killdozer!
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We open this week with Jack on the run from the law, who now mistakenly thinks that he, and not 24: Redemption assassin Quinn, killed evil terror-toadie Ryan Burnett. Jack steals a car. He does this more than you might think.
Morris O'Brian arrives at FBI headquarters to check in on Chloe, who was taken into custody for helping Jack save America. He meets Janeane Garofalo and rolls his eyes at her sub-Chloeisms. I'm with you, Morris.
Larry Moss calls into the office to update the Feds on what went down at the hospital. Garofalo tells Agent Walker that Burnett is dead, and they stare at each other to indicate the new rift between them. A sensibly-dressed female extra is introduced and gets a line, so we have to assume she's evil for now by 24 rules.
Jack seems to have been lucky enough to have stolen a car with a sweet high tech laptop in it, and does some crazy computer stuff to get a photo of Quinn's face. I have no idea where he's getting this footage from, so either I missed a plot point where he stole some hospital surveillance data, or he's bit-torrenting last week's episode. Maybe Tony has a Slingbox hooked up somewhere? Jack calls Walker to tell her that he didn't kill Quinn, and she believes him. Because she loooooves him. I'm with you, Walker.
Quinn is driving around town and looking vaguely like a young Rene Auberjonois. He breaks the news to Jon Voight that Jack escaped the FBI. Voight wants to know how, and Quinn admits that 'Bauer is an extremely impressive operative!' Voight responds 'You don't have to tell me that!' Jon Voight: Mega Jack Bauer fanboy. The phone conversation ends when Voight's aide Greg ' played by Rory Cochrane, whom you may remember from the 1990s ' hangs up the phone for him. That's right, Jon Voight, too important to hang up the phone himself. Greg expresses some doubts about their chances for success, so Voight leaps up and goes CRAZY BUG EYES, telling Greg that while he abhors the loss of life, some people gotta die for whatever crazy weapons-based plot he's got going on. Then he says the word pajamas. Whatever they're paying Jon Voight this season, they aren't paying him nearly enough because he's bringing it.
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| Bringing it. |
Back at the ranch, Walker exposits to Jack that Quinn is a former black ops guy now working as a merc for Starkwood, an evil Blackwater-ish defense consulting company. It turns out that Senator Mayer has been investigating Starkwood, same as he was investigating Jack, and may have enough evidence to close the place down. So now Jack has to go find Mayer. This ensures either a crazy Jack Bauer/Clarence Boddicker team-up, or Jack tortures him for an episode. Possibly both at the same time.
Moss talks to Walker, who plays dumb about Jack. Moss leaves and then uses his sexual sixth sense to determine that Walker is secretly in loooove with and helping Jack again, so he sets in motion a plan to use Walker to find Jack, itself a classic Jack strategy. This is probably the coolest moment Larry Moss has ever had in his life.
At the White House, the President and First Daughter have a pillowface-to-face, and First Daughter presses her mother-in-chief to turn being kidnapped by Juma into a victory. You know, the USA never backs down, all that. The Chief of Staff arrives to fill in Pillowface about what went down with Burnett and Jack. He cops to his part in letting Jack fake-torture Ethan. First Daughter takes this as another chance to put the screws to the Chief, and then glowers at him. Advantage, First Daughter.
At FBI headquarters, Janeane Garofalo is the worst spy ever, as Walker literally reads her weirdly sweaty lips from across the room as she gives Moss intricate details of Walker's every move. Renee tries to walk away, but Moss and some random guards catch her. I like Walker a lot, but Jack would have judo chopped at least one of those guys, if only to prove a point. She'll get the hang of it, I believe in her. Moss demands that Walker reveal where Jack is, but she lies to him like he's Montel Williams. Moss tells her that they know what she's been up to, and when she still refuses to give up Jack, Moss lets fly with an impressive 'DAMN IT!' that I'd give at least a four out of five on the Bauer scale.
Elsewhere, Vin Diesel drives Senator Mayer home. Mayer's alarm goes off inside even though we know Jack is already in the house, which means they only had that alarm go off to remind us that Jack is a ninja.
Jack invisibly stalks Mayer for a few minutes like a movie bad guy, in tribute to having killed Candyman last week. When Jack confronts him, Mayer tries to act tough but Jack easily backs him down. Jack questions Mayer about Starkwood, and Mayer confirms that Starkwood is bad news, but doesn't know of any connection to Juma. Throughout the whole standoff, Jack still calls him sir.
President Pillowface is given a standing ovation by the White House press corps. Everyone in that room will be on The Daily Show this week for a dressing down from Jon Stewart. President Taylor launches into a rallying, Bill Pullman-esque speech, but we cut away to get some shady, whispery business between the Chief of Staff and a reporter who seems to know what went down with Jack and Burnett. Chief blames First Daughter for leaking this, but she denies it. They have a mildly tense moment where they accuse each other of being back-stabbing jerks.
Moss launches BauerWatch 2K9, his in-depth plan to find Jack, which involves' random traffic stops. Garofalo is unable to crack Walker's laptop and says only someone as totally supersmart as Chloe could do it. Moss brainstorms. We cut to Morris, on the phone telling someone to make sure they give his and Chloe's kid his 'baboo.' This is awesome, and probably the best Morris moment on 24 since he took a power drill in the shoulder.
Moss plays the Chloe-is-going-to-jail card on Morris to pressure him into cracking Walker's laptop. We get one of those annoying but necessary scenes where everybody stands around staring at computer and Morris babbles about encryption, which is TV writer shorthand for 'Look, you don't know how computers work, I don't know how computers work, but here are numbers scrolling on a screen like The Matrix, so somebody must be doing something, right?' Thankfully, Morris is a total dick to Larry while this is going on. Larry asks if he knows when this will be done, and Morris answers 'Yes,' then takes an extremely long pause so Moss looks like an idiot before saying 'Now.' Ah, so this is how Morris won Chloe's goofy, anti-social heart in the first place.
Moss rounds up the FBI posse to go get Jack at Mayer's place. He notes that 'it is impossible to overestimate Jack Bauer' ' finally somebody gets it! ' and then tacks on that Jack has 'more training than anybody in this room, and that includes myself' and everybody does a good job at not cracking up at Larry comparing himself to Jack. Morris fills Chloe in on what he did, and Chloe reminds Morris that Jack is the greatest human being who has ever lived. Morris responds by scratching his beard for a solid five seconds. That was weird.
While Jack goes through Mayer's computer files, he fills Mayer in on what happened in the first six seasons of the show, namedropping Teri, Kim and David Palmer. Jack admits his regrets, but says he regrets most that the world needs men like him. Men who can kill people using only their teeth. Men who can die from heart attacks, then get up and kill a stadium full of terrorists.
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They share a moment before Jack finds evidence that Quinn killed Mayer's whistleblower at Starkwood. Jack connects the dots and finds out that Starkwood was in bed with Juma, providing all those gadgets Juma's people used in the White House assault. Starkwood, apparently, used Sangala to road test all of their crazy superweapons.
Mayer is now convinced that Jack was right all along, and when the police bang on the door, he reaches out to Jack, offering to help bring him in from the cold. This pretty much guarantees that he's going to die. Lo and behold, when Mayer opens the door, it's Quinn and he kills Mayer. He tries to get Jack, too, but Jack runs through a glass door ' face first ' and escapes into the night.
Madame Pillowface and Chief of Staff confront First Daughter about leaking info to the press, but First Daughter drops some science on the Chief of Staff, revealing that she discovered that the leak actually came from the Federal Marshall's office. Then she gives Chief an 'oh shit, son!' look and he has to do a walk of shame out of the Oval Office. How did Juma not trash the Oval Office, anyway? I would have been all over that.
Quinn follows the blood trail left from Jack's trip through the glass door to a construction site. Could it be a trap? Of course it is. Jack Bauer is The Goddamn Batman. Quinn sneaks into an office trailer and unloads his entire clip into a room where he's sure Jack is hiding, but then Jack drives up in a giant front loader and tips over the entire trailer. Yes, that just happened. I hate anyone who doesn't like this show.
But there's more. Jack gets out of the cab and decides to take on Quinn in some close quarters combat on top of the overturned trailer. Yes! Play by play time. Jack dives off the loader's bucket to disarm Quinn. He gets some solid rights in before Quinn gets him in a bodyscissors, but Jack kicks Quinn in the face, sending him headfirst off the side of the trailer onto a truck below. Jack then does a flying clothesline off the top of the trailer, just like he did at the docks a few hours earlier and close to the double axe-handle he used in Africa in the Redemption movie. He must have been working on this since the end of Season 6.
On the ground, Quinn and Jack get to their feet and break out a series of kicks and blocks, and for a brief moment, they appear to be doing the Kid 'n Play Dance. This does not detract from the greatness of this fight, it only increases it. Both men try to choke each other, but Quinn Irish whips Jack into a truck, then tries to take him out with a tire iron but breaks the truck's window instead, shades of They Live. Jack headbutts Quinn to the ground, but Quinn monkeyflips Jack and moves in for the kill. Huge mistake, as Jack grabs a screwdriver and tosses it at Quinn so hard that it gets buried in Quinn's flack jacket. You may be saying that this is impossible, but to you I say only: JACK BAUER. Jack gets up, grabs a two by four and smashes it into Quinn ' driving the screwdriver in for a fatal blow ' causing Quinn to do a full backflip and right now I am freaking out.
Quinn is fading fast so Jack asks him, hardened killer-to-hardened killer, when the weapons are arriving. Quinn says the weapons are already here and promptly dies. Jack rolls his corpse and takes his cell phone, which contains a rendezvous address.
Larry now thinks Jack killed Mayer. What a dope. He gives a shoot-on-sight order for Jack. Jack calls up Tony, who's just chillin' at some outdoor caf'. What the fuck, Tony? He tells Tony to meet him so they can intercept the superweapon shipment. As a bookend to the car he stole at the top of the hour, Jack breaks into a truck and hotwires it' using the very screwdriver he just killed Quinn with a minute ago. I give this episode one thousand stars.
Death Count:
- The Relatively Mighty Quinn
- Senator Blaine Mayer (as played by Kurtwood 'Clarence Boddicker' Smith, the fourth member of the cast of Robocop to appear on 24, and the third to die)
bob
you do a great job my man. i was laughing my butt off at work. please keep it up.
fouad
I love your comments, as I'm french, I don't understand all the puns, but it's hilarious anyway
I appreciate the comments! Next time I am up in the 24 rotation, I vow to include no fewer than two Francophonic references. And at least a dozen mentions of laptops, to capitalize on the curious 24/retail laptop blogging crossover audience.
For reader Fouad from California, I can only hope that my lifelong commitment to promoting proper eye care will suffice.
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