24 – Episode 8-8 Review

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Remember last week when I said that these two guys extorting Dana have basically just become a bad cliché? You know, drinking and driving, acting rowdy and listening to loud music? Well, you can now add going to a strip club to that list. Next week, expect to see black hats, spitting, and possibly littering as well.

That is all I will say about this particular story arc. It’s for the best, trust me.

This was an improvement over last week’s episode, as they shifted the focus back to Jack. And while it was a bit silly that Jack (who was just stabbed in the gut) managed to survive repeated shocks against his bare, perspired skin, while a single shock – with his feet, no less – managed to knock out his fully clothed torturer, overall I think the scenes worked. Truth be told, at this point in the series, we really needed to see Jack in his element.

Come to think of it, have we even seen Jack in bad ass mode yet this season? And when he attacked that guy and took his cell phone so that his location could be tracked….where in the blue hell did he come flying from? What, is Jack Spider-Man now?

So this is going to sound incredibly sexist, and for that I apologize, but there’s just something about the way President Taylor asks Jack to handle something…. it almost sounds like he’s saving her ass. Or that he’s doing something that she’s incapable of doing. It’s not even that she’s a woman – on the contrary, I think the show has done a fine job of portraying her as a strong, intelligent, competent individual. It’s just her tone and manner of speaking, when she says stuff like, “make the deal Jack” or whatever it is she said, it almost sounds helpless. I just can’t imagine David Palmer delivering that line in the same way.

One thing that has struck me about this season, more than any other in recent memory, is the liberties that they’re taking with the “real time” aspect of their storytelling method. Sure, certain liberties must obviously be taken. I mean, waiting 45 minutes so that the characters can get across town is hardly thrilling television, but thus far they’ve taken a lot of liberties this season. For example, Jack was put in that truck from the sewer in the final seconds of last week’s episode. This episode essentially kicks off with him being taken to the restaurant with a hood over his face. Sorry, but unless the restaurant was about three blocks down from Vlad’s garage, I find that timeline a bit hard to swallow, even if I suspend my disbelief.

I have to say, this season is becoming eerily similar to season six, and that’s never a good thing. That being said, I do hope that the series doesn’t end with this season. Sure, it’s still a bit early to judge and there’s still plenty of time to pick things up, but I’d hate to see such an impactful, thrilling and successful series go out on such a sour note.

Matt Basilo has been writing for Inside Pulse since April 2005, providing his insight into popular television shows such as Lost, 24, Heroes, and Smallville. Be sure to visit his blog at [a case of the blog] and follow him on Twitter.

Matt Basilo has been writing for Inside Pulse since April 2005, providing his insight into various popular television shows. Be sure to visit his blog at [a case of the blog] and follow him on Twitter.