24 Season 7 Episodes 23-24 6:00AM-8:00AM

24 builds Season 7 to a sultry boil, then throws everything gained away on one of the most disappointing finales ever witnessed. It confounds the imagination how so much great material can be fettered away in such an arbitrary fashion. The stupidity is monumental, out of character behavior breathtaking, and wasted dramatic potential astonishing.

Madame President recaps the menace of a private military cabal preparing a takeover of the United States. 24 flips from right wing party lines (dark skinned foreigners are threatening our way of life, they hate our freedom) to left wing paranoia (the wolf at the door is actually the old white businessmen, Blackwater executives scheming on Cisco Systems teleconferencing equipment). 24 is busy pitching Cisco Systems this season, and the finale is no different.

The first set is underutilized, well known in the action genre. Not a single government vehicle goes up in flames, a disappointing opener. High value prisoner convoys are made for cataclysmic heists, air support for being shot down; none of that happens here.

Jack’s terrorist handler tells him to “not be a hero.” Who does she thinks she’s talking to? Still, she’s ice cold, a great, no-nonsense villain. I feel bad for the unfortunate S.W.A.T. guy that gets shot in the foot; Renee Walker gets a free pass, a main character and Jack’s romantic interest next season. Jack pulls out John Woo pistols (nice touch, 24 writers).

Jack solicits Renee to save his daughter on his way out the door, and forgets that Tony isn’t his partner in a nice little character scene. Kidnapped Jack is now a vector for the bioweapon, Tony masterminded the threat on Kim’s life. Almeida coldly discusses harvesting Jack’s organs for the bioweapon. Awesome.

The Whitehouse politicking is perfunctory, dry as sawdust. On the other hand, Bob Gunton’s Ethan Kanin is a great character, and why not? Bob Gunton has been playing the role for years in countless movies and shows; he’s well versed in solemnly advising the President on impending disasters. The setup of Olivia Taylor’s botched murder-for-hire scheme dominates the remainder of the tiresome Oval Office drama.

When the terrorists finally take Kim hostage, the airport shootout is great. This is expertly choreographed gunplay. Plates of glass fall in a hard collapse as crappy airport security guards line up to die. Kim goes from hunted to hunter chasing a wounded would-be assassin, but interest in this character died a long time ago.

Jack is being led by masked scientists, down a dark corridor, with his back-from-the-dead friend, to a white operating room. A message of moving toward the light, here’s a thoughtful scene about mortality for both characters. Unfortunately, the omen belies itself when Tony prematurely shows his hand. We realize he is only after the big boss, Will Patton’s Alan Wilson, the head of the PMC cabal. Tony is willing to sacrifice his best friend to see this through, a quality Bauer should appreciate.
How does it feel to be on the receiving end, huh, Jack? Don’t like having your life and the lives of your loved ones used as pawns in a ‘do whatever it takes’ gambit to take down a terrorist conspiracy?

In the meantime, Tony wistfully looks over Jack’s immobile body, having sterile conversations about cremation and virus viability after death with evil scientists. Tony’s terrorist lover warns that head honcho Alan Wilson is ‘cautious to a fault,’ but she convinces him, nonetheless, to meet Almeida in thirty minutes on the spot.

Jack looks grim as hell, dying on a gurney, planning his final move if he can just get to that scalpel. Absolute, indefatigable 24 action arrives at long last, as he slices through the evil hordes with ruthless ease. I guess that anesthetic wore off a little bit sooner than the scientists thought. Ultra high contrast hits the picture as Jack breaks out of the darkness and into the dawn, the first sign of hope in a long time.

Tony is ace with a forklift, guess that was his first job. Jack asks to die in peace as a last favor, and then Tony unnecessarily spills the beans. Wilson is revealed as the head of the conspiracy behind President Logan, Palmer’s assassination, and Michelle’s death. Alan Wilson, seemingly, should have remembered killing Tony’s wife a few years back. At the very least we can add a check next to the ‘unfinished business from several previous seasons’ column. This is good, the writers are adding weight to Wilson as an antagonist, and surely this will pay off soon!

All of the cards are on the table now. Jack is turned unwilling suicide bomber (unintentional irony?), the only way to get close enough to eviscerate Wilson. The setup is good, palpable tension, electric chemistry between opposing forces. Tony boils, Wilson has off the chain bad guy charisma. Sadly, the FBI shows up, and the explosive barrels immediately start going off. Renee shows off her generic action moves and knowledge of C4 detonators.

Tony wastes no time killing his terrorist lover and confront Wilson. In a scene weighed down with grand idiocy, Tony actually starts monologueing before killing the bad guy! He takes his sweet time telling Wilson about his ‘patience’ and ‘dead wife’ and ‘unborn son.’ That’s right; Michelle was pregnant when she got blown up, and it’s the only plot device with any emotional impact at all.

The writers take all of this emotional energy and spend it on an incredible final scene, right? No, they just waste it. Tony spent so much time yammering about the years spent climbing the terrorist food chain to get Wilson that he misses his chance. Almeida is an idiot. Crawling for his gun, Jack shoots him through the arm instead of easily kicking the weapon away. Thanks Jack.

Is the last act about breaking a clammed up Wilson? Is it about Renee getting advice from Jack about torture, about how saving innocent lives is like saving himself? Jack gives us a little speech about how following the law is the way to go, even if innocent lives are at stake, but that just isn’t his style. “Renee, do as I say, not as I do, and don’t say anything at all as a tear drops from your eye and I’m wheeled away.”

With 30 minutes left to go, has the finale already blown everything it has? The First Family is necessary to this story, but boring as clay. Why waste final act time on this kind of tepid material? Henry Taylor actually talks some sense, family over morality. Colm Feore is pretty good at this sanctimonious lecturing, and gives a spousal guilt trip for the books. Madame President has a sad and tearful look, the kind moms everywhere use to make us feel horrible.

Chloe shows up, but it’s only a reminder that she was hardly a character at all this season, a fan favorite wasted.

It seems that instead of saving the most epic material for last, the writers have decided to offer material that is, all at the same time, stupid to a fault, unbelievable, and cringe inducing. The islamic cleric shows up at Jack’s request. Here is a twist beyond twists, Jack calling in an imam for his last rites? I thought about that. Jack Bauer looking to islam for absolution, what utter politically correct nonsense, and a cheap shot to boot. The writers show Bauer shoot countless muslims to death each season, every single one a cheap terrorist caricature, then have him confer at his deathbed with an imam that he’s known for all of half an hour? What are they trying to prove? Is this demonstrative of America’s shift from Rumsfeld’s Abu Ghraib policies to Obama’s lighter conciliatory touch in the Middle East? This is garbage, feel good public relations niceties substituting for truth in character and efficient plot.

Madame President lamely gives up her daughter for prosecution in a move as unbelievable as the previous scene. No parent would give up their last child for prosecution, certainly after allowed one to be murdered already. Don’t feel bad though, you still have Ethan Kanin to hang with, even though you sent your daughter up the river and probably shattered your marriage. This finale is spending all its valuable time on worthless, nonsensical drivel.

Tony is back in the character card stack, to be played in the next (possibly final) season, wisely placed in New York, maybe even in the 24 film. I’ll bet that they let Tony out of jail because only he can do this one last job, and Jack has to keep him on a short leash as head of the newly reconstituted CTU. Elisha Cuthbert, her dreams of a real movie career dashed, is understandably coming back to the 24 well for a steady paycheck, but her character is awful, and not a welcome addition, her removal making the show much stronger for many seasons. Renee Walker will be Jack’s last lover of the series. Finally, someone he can talk to about torture and handgun ammunition. She was a fine character, but mostly ignored, in the background. At least curmudgeonly old Larry Moss won’t be coming back.

In the end, Kim, annoying and whiny as ever, predictably wants to try out the stem cell treatment, a weak plot device to save Jack’s life. It would have been so much better if Tony had passed along the antidote, we certainly don’t need this obvious and anticlimactic non-cliffhanger ending. It saddens me that a good season ends so badly. Tony should have been sacrificed on the altar of good endings, fighting Jack to the death on top of the Capitol Building, a nuclear bomb counting down to zero.