24 Season 8, Episode 22 1:00-2:00PM – review

It doesn’t get any better than this.  This is the best episode of 24 there has ever been, and it isn’t even the series finale yet.  24 really throws down the gauntlet this week, letting us know that this is truly going to be a real series finale, not a mere shoehorned season finale.  Everything is on the table, and a sense of black dread is hanging over everyone.  It is nice that the cancellation happened before the final episodes were shot, because you can tell that this is an epic final send-off by team of writers who care about the characters.  This episode of 24 delivers the best action sequence in the show’s history, and that is no small thing.

The episode starts off by reminding us of Bauer’s evil act of ruthless torture, showing the Russian assassin’s guts spilled on the floor.  Pillar is increasingly frantic, his petty bureaucratic efforts torn asunder by Jack’s boundless brutality.  Pillar is an asshole, so it is satisfying to see him lose control of everything.  It is also astonishing that Jack is confident and reckless enough to torture someone in a building next to where he murdered a Russian special ops team.  The rules of 24 dictate that there is a vacant industrial workspace connected to every location.  Jack does this again in short order, interrogating Charles Logan within walking distance from the initial assault.

The abduction of Charles Logan is masterful, 24 at its absolute best.  The set-up is absolutely ludicrous, as Jack puts on head-to-toe black body armor in a restaurant kitchen, after stealing a car from a banana vendor.  Still, this is one of the most evil choices of appearance imaginable, best described in terms of coal black skulls with glowing red eyes and dark horses galloping out of impenetrable mists.  There is a golden moment where Jack looks into the black hockey mask before he puts it on, thinking about the threshold he is about to cross.  Bauer tells his partner Jim Ricker that he isn’t planning on coming back from this.  Ricker’s character is fleshed out some, but  it is generic action background story.  What is really sad is how interchangeable these lines could have been with Tony.  I hate to keep harping on this issue, but the absence of Tony (and Aaron Pierce, the only other character to appear in every season besides Jack) is a missed opportunity.

Charles Logan, unbelievably, gets slimier every episode; President Taylor calls him poison, and rightfully so.  Logan has the wherewithal to point out the irony of a President who sent her daughter to jail for the rule of law and sacrificed Manhattan for a foreign dictator’s life having the hypocrisy to cover up these crimes.  Logan’s narcissism and selfishness are gigantic, doubling the greatest moments of season 5.  Logan also portrays absolute terror when faced with capture by Bauer–he was much tougher the last time.  Speaking of last times, by the end of the episode, we learn he has fallen for the same Bauer trick twice, providing a finale setting reveal.  The giddy look of fear and quibbling assurances that Logan spits out under Bauer’s gun is classic.

The takedown of Logan’s limousine has many memorable moments.  Jack shoots a hole in the bulletproof glass with an automatic shotgun, sticks in a smoke grenade, then puts his armored foot over the hole in a move that is pitch dark ominous.  Jack staring in at Logan with that black death mask for measured effect is more of a horror movie move than action, but like many horror icons, Jack has turned into an unstoppable force of nature.  When Jack is finished with the secret service, he kills the Russian foreign minister, though we don’t get to see the full attack in which he has skewered the foreign minister with a fire poker, receiving only a knife in the side as injury.  This injury is supposed to raise the stakes and put Jack in a more perilous position, perhaps even slowly dying, but he already got stabbed once today, and electrocuted, and shot three times in the chest with an assault rifle, so maybe he will be okay.  Bauer cocking a shotgun while he walks towards the camera closes the book on this episode, the best violence 24 has ever put on television, and it is amazing how much gore is showing on broadcast television, pools of blood and viscera leaking from heads and bodies.

There is throwaway set-up involving Chloe and Cole, pitting the two of them against Jack for the finale, and both characters shine, but it just doesn’t hold your attention next to what Jack is perpetrating.  Cole is set on taking Jack down, and Chloe is slowly realizing that her old friend has come completely unhinged, and the moral backing of exposing the conspiracy is just a facade for his blood-letting.  The subplot of Meredith Reed (based on Maureen Dowd, a striking resemblance)  pays off, too, surprisingly.  The FBI shutting down a newspaper by Executive Order, and a major reporter arrested in broad daylight is a lot closer to reality than anything else on this show.  Her affair with Hassan allows her to now share her knowledge with Hassan’s daughter, another impressive set-up for next week.  In the end, Russian President Suvarov stupidly admits to Charles Logan on a cell phone, in detail, how he was behind everything that happened:  Renee’s murder, Hassan’s murder, everything.  Jack hears it all on the wire he secretly placed on Logan’s lapel.  As he sets off on his last mission, he leaves behind a mark of blood on a stone wall, fitting symbolism as 24 embarks on its last chapter.

Spoilers follow.  The preview for next week’s finale offers few clues.  There is a major confrontation between Chloe and Jack, Cole Ortiz is on the hunt, Jack is crawling away from a dusty explosion.  Chloe asks Jack if this is worth starting a war, and the last image is Jack smirking behind the scope of a sniper rifle.  The logical conclusion is the assassination of Suvarov (who was a sympathetic and moral character in previous seasons), a very bold stance for the show to take.  It is unlikely that Jack’s endgame is assassination, rather he is orchestrating an elaborate revelation of conspiracy to the public.  Still, you have to wonder if talk of a 24 movie is an elaborate lie to cover up the fact that Jack will die in the end, because it is hard to see how he could ever be redeemed from these actions.