Before I get to the action in the second part of the 24 premiere, let me do a little commenting on what my friend, Kevin, said in his review of the first two hours of the new season. It will be like point/counterpoint or something like that. So here is what he said with my comments as I see fit. Kevin’s thoughts are in bold. This should be fun…
– Meanwhile, the new president is Wayne Palmer. Yeah, the guy who had a perpetual look of fear on his face in “Day 3” is YOUR duly elected president. But hey, at least he was elected. The 24-verse hasn’t had one of those since DAVID Palmer. I haven’t seen season three as I said I haven’t seen a full season yet. So I wouldn’t know about this. But Wayne Palmer looks like a president to me and he didn’t annoy me in the first five minutes like Logan did last season. At least in the episodes I watched.
– To track down Assad, an informant named Fayed will give up his location for a list of demands, one of which is Jack Bauer. Why? Well, apparently his brother was killed by Jack, and he wants revenge… wasn’t this a subplot to Die Hard With a Vengeance? Yep, they took a page out of the Die Hard playbook. I knew it was coming from somewhere, but didn’t realize from where until Kevin mentioned this.
– Speaking of Kim, I was channel surfing recently and Popular Mechanics For Kids was on one either BBC Kids or BBC Canada – can’t remember which. All I can say is – don’t watch it. You’ll get the same uncomfortable feeling watching Elisha Cuthbert here that you get when you watch Alyssa Milano in Commando. Alyssa Milano should really be on this show. Enough said!
– Back to Jack, he doesn’t ask about Chloe, but since he’s her only friend left (that’s alive, anyway) she worries about him. I don’t think Jack particularly cares, but that’s sweet. No one gives a better worried face than Chloe.
– What’s up with Jack’s shirt? Buttoning it all the way up to the top looks more Forrest Gump than Jack Bauer. I couldn’t agree more. Again I knew I had seen that look from somewhere, but Kevin had to point it out to me. Jack did look retarded, no offense to Gump.
– Nadia’s pretty hot. Nadia IS smokin’. I thought I mentioned this in my review, but maybe I didn’t. It does need to be said, though. She’s like a cross between the chick from Las Vegas and hot chick from The L Word.
– I think the guy trying to beat the snot out of Kumar was in Major League II, which of course has connections with Dennis Haysbert, who played Pedro Cerrano. Yep, that guy WAS in Major League II. He was the dumb backup catcher, I believe. Bring on Charlie Sheen and Wesley Snipes!
– Just to reiterate, Jack Bauer bit someone to death. You can say that again. That was badass!
Now that is out of the way. I will say this. My reviews of this show will be more like recaps, because I don’t know all of the history behind every character. Therefore, I can’t give a lot of opinion. So that’s just the way they come out. But tonight I will be giving more opinion. So lets get to it. We pick right up with Jack and Assad tracking down the other bomber dude. I don’t know about you, but I like this combination. I like Jack working with a bad guy turned good guy that could really be a bad guy to trick the good guy into the other bad guy or really be a good bad guy after all. That works for me. They try and trick the bomber dude into taking them to Fayed. But he goes somewhere else to blow himself up. That’s always a good time. At least, they destroyed a lot of explosives in the process. Fayed has more orders. He wants the President to release all of the alleged terrorists that the U.S. has locked up. That continues with the Die Hard With a Vengeance storyline. Or was that Con Air? Heck, it was probably both of them. Fayed really wants to free a MAJOR terrorist who can help him with a nuclear bomb. Of course, they are able to sneak that guy out of police custody thanks to a crooken guard. Again, you have seen this storyline before. There is still this sideplot of Ahmed Amar and the family. He apparently takes the family hostage and forces the dad to do his dirty work for him, since he is injured. The dad, who also played some psycho terrorist guy on another FOX show recently called Standoff, ends up killing a guy along the way. That’s where we end the 8 a.m. hour. Actually, with the nuclear scientist terrorist guy getting freed, but you get the picture.
The 9 a.m. hour begins and everyone is mad at each other. Is it too early to point out that Chloe’s boyfriend, Morris, is probably a traitor? Of course, that could be a swerve to the real traitor which could be Milo. But Milo seems too dumb for that to be true. Nadia is still hott, though. Back to the family problems. Ahmed tells the wife to not call the police. He needs the father to deliver his package for him. The package, by the way, is the missing piece needed to blow up the nuclear bomb that Fayed has. Ahmed keeps the son, Scott, as hostage and threatens to shoot him. Of course, the mother DOES call the cops, which always leads to more problems later. Wait, they are having a love triangle on 24?! Chloe with two guys fighting over her? I’m not buying that. Nadia, maybe. Sure, Chloe is cute, but she never smiles. Anyways, that’s all well and good, but we have other problems to deal with first. Scott’s dad delivers the package to Fayed. His mother ends up calling Jack and Jack ends up saving the boy and they kill Ahmed in the process. Back to White Castle for him! The boy does give Jack the possible location of Fayed, though. So at least he got something out of that. Off to save the dad now. I will tell you this. I am not the least bit interested in the Sandra Palmer storyline. I’m sure it will play an important part in everything, but there is too much going on here. This one gets lost in the shuffle. I should mention here that the President is giving Assad a full pardon from any past crimes he may have done as a terrorist. That’s only if he helps the United States take down Fayed now. That guy Curtis doesn’t seem to like that as Curtis has some bad blood with Assad. We learn that Assad and his men tortured Curtis’ friends. Since Assad is now a free man, Curtis decides to take matters into his own hands. He is going to kill Assad himself. So we get an interesting standoff between Jack and Curtis and Jack has to kill another friend in the process. EVERYONE DIES! Jack kills his friend to save a former bad guy. Well that’s something right there. And that just messes Jack all up! Jack says “I can’t do this anymore!” Who can really blame Jack? Everyone he knows dies around him and the fact that he kills one himself is probably the last little thing to push him over the edge. Of course, that is probably all for not. If there is anything to wake Jack up and get him back into taking down the bad guys, it’s a freakin’ nuclear bomb! Yep, the terrorists were able to detonate the bomb before the police could stop them. That was shocking! And that’s where we will end things for this night. Needless to say, a pretty fantastic way to open up this season. Jack is sure having a VERY BAD day! And it should only get worse!
