24 season 7 episode 17 review
Steven pores over the conveniently-compressed action in this week's slice of 24...
Now I’m gonna be nice this week. So Larry, Tony and his FBI grunts have been cornered by the onsite military on Jonas Hodge’s base. Hodges arrives to have a go at Larry and order them off site. Larry has a dialogue back with him. It’s refreshing to see two others have a good bicker and not have one of the two parties be Jack. This is what we need; the world not revolving around Jack. They didn’t even show him on camera in this scene and it was ultimately satisfying to watch other flex a bit of character muscle.
Enter Jack’s new hot tip for this week, Douglas Knowles (Whom they at least had to courtesy of setting up briefly in a previous episode). If they can get this guy involved then perhaps they can make something of the situation they are currently stuck in. Hehe.
Larry Moss keeps jumping between pencil-necked suit, to a man ready to break his own mould and come into his own. Thankfully it’s the latter this week. He creates a nice diversion for Tony by decking the guy who betrayed them last week. Nice punch Larry, keep it up! So while Jack gets to contort in pain back at FBI headquarters (I’m sure he’ll be fully able to leap tall buildings soon enough), Tony takes the action centre stage which is nice. Cause Tony can be hurt or even killed. In fact he already has been! In season 5!
Cherry Jones is a fine actress, but she is becoming a President like many we’ve seen before on TV. Someone who leans over a phone and asks pointless questions when being told something they don’t like. And the direction they give is usually the quality of results they want, as opposed to actual orders.
Elsewhere, Olivia Taylor’s news contact puts the squeeze on her, so with a glint in her eye she grabs Aaron and heads out to meet him to shut him up. This of course being the sleazy world of corruption and politics it requires her to shag him and then blackmail him when he goes back on his word. We don’t really come away with any sympathy for her; just the added knowledge that she is ready to plan one step ahead of others.
Despite the WMD’s being made for the bad guys and shipped to the states, they of course need to unpack it all and do some tinkering of their own. “How long will they be?” asks Jonas Hodges. About half an hour we’re told (Hmm. That ought to be about when this episode finishes! Just in time for a dramatic cliff-hanger). But why are they tinkering at all? Surely they are ready to be used the moment they picked them up. It isn’t like the African terrorists made them a “WMD build it your self kit” and posted it to them. Just looking for the guy in the background with the paint by numbers chart now!
So more poor writing and devices just to elongate things. The easy solution is just to have them not give us this suspicious info! If they hadn’t of said it then I would have suspect poor scripting.
Then Jack passes out and we really start to worry. The clock ticks, but then he’s suddenly being shown alive and well, getting a magic injection from the doctor that will help charge” Ye Olde Batteries”. Oh crap! Then his Daughter is mentioned and the fear sinks in that Elisha Cuthbert might be in danger of making a cameo appearance in the show!
The reason… She could provide a donation to the Jack Bauer Stem Cell Foundation. Aww. Nothing sweeter than watching blood bond, over blood. Heehee. Of course Jack decides NO! Renee disapproves, so maybe she’ll make a sneaky call behind his back.
What is interesting is the one on one Hodges has with his underling Knowles later in the show. It’s pretty assured the guys gonna get it, but the manner in which Hodges does it is the biggest surprise. He actually gets very physical and then even flings the guy over a rail. Nice. Not bad for what was once a villain who sat behind the desk for hours on end. The writers of this show are nuts! Absolutely nuts. Anything does indeed go!
We end with the old “turn your fighters away now or I’ll launch a weapon” threat as the President was all but ready to bomb the site. Tune in next week to see how they manage to resolve this one. But I wouldn’t worry too much.
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