Monday, January 12, 2009

24- Season 7: 8 & 9 am - Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Moss

Finally, the wait is over. 24 is back, Jack is back and another old friend is back from the dead…. And he doesn’t seem to be too friendly anymore.

Tonight was the first of the two-night, four hour premiere. That’s a lot to cover, so let’s get started. The action has shifted to Washington DC. CTU has been dismantled and Jack Bauer is standing trial for some “questionable” tactics he used to coerce a prisoner a while back. Red, the dad from That Seventies Show leads the proceedings and before he proceeds to grill Jack, he asks about the whereabouts of Jack’s lawyer, but Jack Bauer don’t need no stinking lawyer. You see, Jack does what needs to be done, even if it means he has to get his hands dirty. I think that Mike Rowe should follow Jack around for a day for a very special and bloody episode of Dirty Jobs, shot in real time of course.

The trial is interrupted by Agent Renee Walker, who looks a little like Lindsay Lohan before she skanked out. Agent Lohan, I mean Walker, has a subpoena and whisks Jack away to help with a developing crisis that involves someone he knows.

It turns out that some computer guy named Michael Lathan has been kidnapped by a bunch of thugs in ski masks in order to construct a magical device that can breach something called the CIP Firewall, which seems to block access to everything that is vital to national security. The lead thug’s ski mask can’t hide a familiar soul patch on his chin. When Jack is briefed at FBI headquarters, it is revealed that the man behind the mask is none other than Tony Almeida. Jack can’t believe it for a couple of reasons. First, he saw Tony die a couple of seasons ago at CTU, and second, bringing back dead characters like this is something The Young and The Restless might do, but surely not 24. That would be too hokey, even for 24.

Well Jack, you’d best take your left foot out, shake it all about and do the hokey pokey, because Tony is in fact alive and involved in this terrorist plot. Agent Walker explains that Jack only saw Tony’s body for a minute before it was carted off and he does not know what happened after that… and neither do we. How did they bring him back? Voodoo, zombie virus or maybe a miracle? I mean CTU was pretty inept. They’ve had countless security breaches; it was blown up, flooded with poison gas and even breached by criminals who came in through the sewer. Not to mention the number of moles that infiltrated their ranks. After all that, am I supposed to believe they were skilled enough to revive Tony after a lethal dosage of a powerful chemical? Yeah right, and next you’ll tell me there is a woman in the White House.

Oh wait, there is a woman in the White House. President Taylor, who was sworn in during 24: Redemption, is still busy dealing with the crisis in Africa with General Jamba Juice when she learns about the new, domestic threat. Not only that, but also her son Roger is dead, apparently by suicide. Henry Taylor, the First Man, refuses to believe it and thinks his son was murdered. He even confronts his son’s girlfriend, who had received a deposit of $400,000 in her bank account just days after Roger’s death.

Tony’s hostage assembles the magic CIP device and Tony demonstrates his leverage by directing two planes to narrowly miss each other on a runway at JFK. They call it a warning shot across the bow; I call it a warning shot across the Bauer. However, we eventually learn that one of Tony’s colleagues is secretly in league with General Jamba Juice's people, linking both plots.

Back at the FBI, (the new CTU) we meet Agent Walker’s boss, Larry Moss. Let’s call him Boss Moss. Boss Moss is very leery of Jack Bauer and lets him know that the FBI is nothing like CTU, and they don’t resort to those cavalier and illegal tactics. We also meet the new Chloe, Janis Gold (freaking Janeane Garofalo), and Sean Hillinger (Rhys Coiro) who you might remember as Billy Walsh, the crazy independent filmmaker from Entourage.

Jack uses his intimate knowledge of Tony to pinpoint a contact that Tony used in his plot, but when Jack and Agent Walker confront him, he refuses to talk. Agent Walker, who had JUST warned Jack against brutal tactics, immediately authorizes Jack to do whatever it takes to get the info. That’s kind of like a personal trainer telling you to eat more vegetables and then hands you a box of donuts. Jack is about to flick a Bic into the suspects eye when sniper fire erupts and the suspect is killed.

The FBI surrounds the adjacent building but the sniper escapes thanks to a mole in the organization. And you’re telling me the FBI is nothing like CTU? Anyhoo, Jack spots the sniper, who is disguised as an FBI agent. Jack Bauer may be a bad ass, but he also knows a thing or two about fashion and notices that the guy’s shoes did not match the rest of the FBI agents.

Agent Walker is convinced by Jack to not alert the FBI because of the mole, so they follow the suspect on their own. They track him to a marina where Tony’s hideout boat is docked. After roughing up the sniper, they storm the boat and a shootout ensues. Jack ends up chasing Tony and holds a gun on him, but he hesitates and Tony runs. Jack leaps off some crates and tackles Tony, but before he can make another move, Boss Moss sweeps in on a helicopter and crashes the party. He was suspicious of Walker’s story about following up a lead and had them tracked.

Okay, that’s enough for now. These two-hour recaps can be torture to write, and I wouldn’t want to upset Boss Moss. He hates torture.

See you tomorrow.

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