24 Season 8 episode 10 review

UK readers please note: this  episode doesn’t screen for another couple of weeks on Sky1.

24 Season 8 – 1:00-2:00am

After a couple of relatively dull and uneventful episodes where, despite not much actually happening, we lost all the main villains and most of the sub plots, this week looks to gather some steam. Quite a lot happened this week, and although there’s still no clear or interesting main antagonist, things were definitely a little more absorbing.

With Jack back on point, Hastings is beginning to look a lot more like a real CTU boss, and after a bit of a chinwag, updating the President on current events, he flat out refuses Rob Weiss’ orders to detain Renee Walker. Good going, Brian!

Walker, now free, contacts Jack and the two swap niceties, both agreeing that they want to be together. This is surely a major case of tempting fate, though, and I won’t be surprised if Renee ends up biting the big one before the day is out. Either that, or the ultimate shock of seeing Jack’s tenure as the toughest man ever come to an end; we’ll have to wait and see.

The main thrust of the episode focused on Jack’s efforts to capture one of the terrorists threatening New York with nuclear holocaust, as, despite promptly racing to Farhad’s aid, he was left empty handed. Farhad was gunned down after breaking cover, and so Jack hatched a plan to use his body as dead bait to tempt the identikit terrorists into the open.

To help Jack, he’s got 15-year-old Agent Owen, who utters the words, “I’ll be fine, Mr Bauer.” Yep, if that’s not a sure fire sign that Owen’s a gonner, I don’t know what is. He may as well have said, “I’ll be useful for a couple of episodes and then I’ll be so much dead meat.” You know it’s true.

This main story twist then introduced us to creepy-looking Marcus, an American-born fanatic, and suicide bomber who, after warning his mum to vacate Manhattan, promptly dons a boom-vest and heads off to the hospital to make sure Farhad is dead. Thanks to some clever use of a WEP connection, Chloe manages to jam the vest’s wireless detonator, and Marcus, realising Farhad is already dead, retreats and, as you do, locks himself inside a sealed hyperbaric chamber, with Jack waiting outside. Stalemate, at least for now.

Elsewhere, both presidents had some more screen time, especially Hassan who is forced by President Taylor to disclose some confidential documents about the suspected terrorist cells in America by threatening to retaliate against his country in kind should the nuclear rods be detonated.

Hassan’s daughter also resurfaced, along with Tarin, who managed to escape his guards while in transit to the embassy. I may be way off here, but I reckon there’s going to be far more to Tarin than simple love for Hassan’s daughter, and he’s possibly involved in the main plot somehow. Either that or Hassan’s wife, who also returned. Sat on her plane, ready to leave sharpish, her mannerisms were more than a little suspect. Is she responsible for the current events somehow? Hmmmm.

Much to the dismay of many, I imagine, Dana’s story isn’t over yet, and whilst Kevin is resting at the bottom of a river, there’s clearly some gas left in her script, and as well as her relationship with Ortiz being strained, it’s a fair bet that she’ll find it hard to carry on at CTU as if nothing ever happened. Give it a couple more episodes and she’ll probably break, causing some form of trouble as she does.

With no real movement in the main nuclear thread once again, the season is certainly taking its merry old time, and although this episode was an improvement over last week, the lack of any major antagonist is going to really hurt the central plot, and Jack alone can’t hold up the series. Give us a good bad guy and some forward momentum and we’ll be a little happier.

Read our review of episode 9 here.