24 Review:
"2:00 a.m. - 3:00 a.m." (Episode 8.11)

There's a moment toward the end of last night's tense hour of 24 where a holed up, suicidal terrorist is presented an ultimatum by Mr. Jack Bauer: Open the door, or your innocent mother dies a slow horrible death. We, along with the bomb-laden man, are forced to look into Jack's cold eyes through an even colder video screen and wonder not if he's capable of such an act, but if he would go through the trouble of exposing a helpless woman to the radiation blast resulting from her dead son's non-cooperation.

On the one hand, it's a satisfying slice of classic Bauer that's been sorely missing this season. As I said, it's not that we don't believe he is capable of such an act. He's very convincing. Even to a newcomer like our suicide bomber, Jack comes off as every bit adept as he claims. But then you think about it some. The mother just left the room trying in vain to reverse her son's decision to obliterate himself. Sure, Jack can take his chances with thousands of lives on the line and tell this young punk that he will harm his mom, or... he can bring her back into the room and show he has no qualms about sacrificing one innocent life to save countless others. Rough her up a little amidst screams and pathetic cries for help. This is something we've come to expect from this character: When it's all or nothing and it's so close to tipping to the latter, actions speak louder than words. Does he still believe that? We don't know.

I also found it curious we observed Jack's threat through a video feed closeup. Interesting choice, because although it's effective and presents a frightening portrayal, I can't help but think this is essentially how we've been viewing Jack this season. He's being filtered, and we're kind of detached from his real thoughts to this point.

Of course, the terrorist ultimately surrenders and opens the door. Yes, partially because of Jack, but if you've been watching closely, there's another reason. As of right now, there has been little-to-no mention of the Islamic faith or any religious motivations for the planned terrorist attack. Then what's the issue? The U.S. and the rest of the world does not want to allow the Islamic Republic of Kamistan to acquire nukes. Although it feels like it should (homegrown terrorists, suicide bombing, etc.), religious extremism doesn't appear to be a driving force behind these Middle Easterners' actions. So then what would be the "appeal" of blowing up oneself? It's a wishy-washy layout. This show used to be a lightening rod for controversy, but after eight seasons, it backs away from saying what everyone's thinking. Hey, violent religious fanatics--Muslim, Christian, whatever--do exist.

But after this episode, I at least feel we are close to the ideas that made the show so good in the past. A definite improvement over the past few hours. Tarin Faroush, President Hassan's former head of security, is as predicted last week, a bad dude, and now Hassan's daughter is caught in the middle of it. Not a whole lot of development on this because we find out late, but next week's hour, the halfway point through the season, looks quite engaging. Except I wonder if the reason they tell us in the preview they're going big next week is to simply bring in viewers or if there are other surprises in waiting. Nearly the whole episode was described in a 15-second tease that went so far as to single out times events would take place. (I smell the perfect candidate for yet another real-time review.)  

Overall good setup episode with Jack showing signs of life. Although... the white trash storyline is still in there, and now we have Kevin's supposed parole officer--yes, get this, a parole officer!--pressuring Dana Walsh, a CTU data analyst in the middle of a crisis, into meeting with him. Again, it doesn't pass the smell test. Why, oh why Dana simply can't act as important as her job suggests is beyond me. Very frustrating. Oh well. At least Dana's troubles are not monopolizing valuable screen time like they were the past few hours. And I almost forgot--Chloe is now Dana's boss after all this commotion. So, it's not all bad.