According to Chloe, Tony’s recent heel turn “makes no sense.” I’m not the type that needs an immediate explanation for what I see, but I’m eager to find out what Tony’s up to and who he is working for before I utter the words, “you know what? She’s got a point.”
Like I’ve said in the past, I don’t think Tony’s betrayal was something they thought of on the fly, or something they did purely out of shock value. They’ve portrayed Tony as shifty and suspicious all season, so I found this pretty fitting. Nevertheless, the fact that the guy was risen with the dead, with a sound effect used as the justification, does make me a bit concerned about whether they’re going to provide an adequate explanation. It does appear that he’s not working with Starkwood, so I can accept that he attempted to stop them so that he could make his team more valuable, but for the life of me I can’t understand why he joined up with Bill and Chloe, and later Jack. Jack indicated that Tony used them. But how? And why? What Intel could they have provided him? Based on what we’ve seen this season, Tony has been providing CTU far more information from his contacts than vice versa. I mean, everybody thought Tony was dead. It was the ultimate cover. “Outing” himself and aligning himself with government agents, resulting in many of the people he was working with getting captured or killed, seems awfully complicated and unnecessary. So while I don’t often need immediate explanations – and due to the unique nature of 24’s storytelling, I don’t even think every little thing needs to be explained – but I do think the burden is on the writers to offer a logical explanation for this one.
I will say, though, that I thought Jack’s difficult discussion with Chloe was fantastic. It was great to finally see Jack react to Tony’s betrayal. It’s obvious he’s using anger as a coping mechanism, but nevertheless it’s refreshing to see him as an emotionally hurt human being instead of Captain America. And with everybody so gung-ho about protecting your country above everybody and everything else, it was also nice to see Chloe’s realistic, emotional reaction to hearing that one friend has died, another is dying, and a third is responsible for what happened to the other two. I’m not as huge a fan of Chloe as everybody else seems to be, but her presence really added to this week’s episode.
Another scene I particularly liked was Jack’s interrogation of Hodges. The fact of the matter is, Jack HAS done some awful things in order for what he perceived as the greater good. And I’m not talking about torturing presumed terrorists, or letting an innocent man die so that a known terrorist can be saved for the sake of retrieving information. Remember when Jack executed Chappelle? He shot an innocent, high ranked government official in the back of the head at the behest of a terrorist. Yet Jack is always able to justify his actions. Or he says that he’s prepared to face the consequences, despite the fact that (as a matter of law) he never has to. I don’t mean to belittle the sacrifices and difficult decisions Jack has been forced to make, but I do enjoy his reaction when these dastardly people call him out on them not being so different. And just think, when people question the morality of Jack’s methods, he simply argues that they get results. In Hodges’ mind, so does his.
Anyway, the President’s daughter continues to drive me crazy, and not necessarily in a good way. I find it interesting that she was let go of her previous position in the administration because she played dirty politics, yet she’s unable to comprehend why her mother would make a difficult deal for the sake of the country. Yeah, I know she’s emotionally attached to this situation, but still. I tend to dislike characters that are introduced solely to create conflict. Let’s add a little depth to her character, because she’s currently my least favorite part of the show.
Matt Basilo has been writing for Inside Pulse since April 2005, providing his insight into popular television shows such as Lost, Heroes, Prison Break, and Smallville. You can visit his blog at A Case of the Blog.
