This double episode of 24 is one of the best of the series; maybe the show felt the cancellation coming and threw things into high gear in farewell. Fox is now advertising these latter installments as “The Final Episodes,” and they do not disappoint. It is amazing that this season has been languishing for over half of its running time, and has suddenly started producing great TV again, almost the opposite of what happened last season with a strong start that withered away. 24 has real, competent action sequences; actual suspense with real stakes; and (gasp) Jack Bauer portrayed as dangerous and violent (Sutherland has played Bauer in a self-referential way so far). A lot happens, and it was a shame that the preview of this episode gave away Dana Walsh’s capture, but there is a real question about how things are going to turn out, and when the hammer falls in the final act, the reveal is brutal.
Speaking of Dana Walsh, it seems best to get her out of the way. Katee Sackhoff finally feels comfortable in this role as a murderous and craven traitor looking for the right moment to strike–this suits her much better than being subjugated trailer trash. The first of the two episodes spends plenty of time teasing us with Walsh’s possible capture and possible murder of Arlo Glass with a USB cable (irony). A mole in CTU is a classic 24 staple, and the writers handle this scene with experience and skill. Walsh looks surprisingly bad-ass when she coolly pulls out a gun and blasts some hapless security schmucks with smug indifference. The dumpy middle-aged security guards have a surprisingly fast-paced shoot-out with her in the parking garage, moving nimbly from cover to cover, more competent than the usual CTU morons. Freddie Prinze Jr. (continuing his remarkable ability to be taken seriously in this role) looks surprisingly serious with a gun in Dana’s face. She has the nerve to say “tick tock Mr. Bauer,” and Jack only gives her a paltry choke-and-slam-against-the-wall routine before she gets the obligatory full presidential pardon. Also, the interrogation room looks awesome high-tech, and Jack does an honest superhero pose as the wall lifts.
Omar Hassan does an idiot move, knocking out Jack and taking the wounded mercenary Bishop with him, so he can give himself up to the terrorists and stop the dirty bomb. Notice how the 24 writers allow Jack to keep his moral conviction of following the President’s orders without suffering the consequences of his ideology. Jack had no problem disobeying President Logan’s orders when they didn’t suit him, but President Taylor’s words are sacrosanct. The idea of a Mid-East dictator giving himself up to save American lives makes the rest of 24 look realistic. Bishop and Omar make good, though, and the bomb is stopped at the last second. Traitor bodyguard Tarin Faroush does the best acting of his short 24 life, chastising President Omar for his many sins, especially sleeping with the “American whore reporter” (was she meant to symbolize America?). Tarin has real conviction in his eyes, and follows through, killing himself in a spectacular crash off the top of a parking garage. This sequence had a real sense of gravity that most car chases miss, the way the SUV goes splat on the concrete in short order. This was also a shameless ad for Hyundai, Jack’s new sports car of choice (lame, but they have to pay the bills, I guess).
The President takes care of the traitors in her Administration, General Brucker and Chief of Staff Weiss under arrest, and Ethan Kanin surviving. Brucker and Weiss did save a lot of lives, however, and the show smooths over this moral quandary, giving the President the easy high ground. Now that Omar is in terrorist hands, it’s a tense race by Bauer and Renee to save him from a (surprise) generic Muslim apartment complex filled with generic Muslims. Pigeonholing all Muslims as terrorists is another 24 staple done out of a certain nationalistic nostalgia, but the stakes are now this peace deal, which all players imply is certain to work. It is hard to see how a tenuous peace deal could really worry people enough to sacrifice Manhattan, but the show is perhaps trying to take some moral high ground of its own before it goes off the air. The assault on the complex is top-notch 24 infiltration action, and Renee has fully transitioned into Jack’s trusted side kick. She really does a good job in the stern action role, and reminds us that even if a child is in the room, the Muslim mother is always a terrorist (we’ve seen this in many movies before, notably Rules of Engagement, where the children themselves were terrorists, and thus the little girl deserved to have her leg shot off, Tommy Lee Jones accidentally calling her “terrorist” in her native tongue). Still, rant aside, Jack has a great gruff growl speaking Farsi, and makes short work of the terrorist goons in the building. Head bad guy Samir has put on a ski mask to make Omar’s execution video, and is still inexplicably wearing it when Jack bursts in and shoots everyone after the fact.
Omar is dead, the video prerecorded, and Jack closes his eyes and apologizes to the dead body (what fealty does he owe to this man, anyhow?). Dead Omar is a powerful image, but it makes you wish the show had gone even further and shown his decapitated head lying on the floor, Jack picking it up and apologizing to it. Omar’s death seems like it really upsets everyone, though it is a stretch to believe the US places any great stock in the lives of foreign leaders, especially Kamistan/Iran. If Ahmadinejad were beheaded during a live internet broadcast, I imagine many glasses would be clinking in Washington. Anyhow, the bomb is out of play, and the Kamistan intelligence officers/terrorists are dead, and so is Omar, and presumably the vaunted peace deal. Omar and Samir had a discussion about their past, and Omar pretends a real heroic and principled part, but it is all pretty ludicrous by real world leader standards. A real Middle Eastern leader wouldn’t bat an eyelash at saying anything, doing anything, or causing the deaths of thousands to get more power, let alone save their own life. No matter, this was an awesome set of stories, and the execution (haw haw haw) was great. The first threat of the season is over and done, and now the second greater threat must inevitably appear and be resolved in the final eight episodes.
