24 Recap: Where Ridiculous Accents and Back-Alley Deals Rule

There comes a point in every man’s life when he has to decide if the show he’s watching is really doing it for him anymore. I’m about at that point with 24. Like a faithful, old dog, I cannot yet bring myself to put it down, but it’s been sad to see it struggle. We’re not supposed to laugh that much when we watch 24, but I found myself doing that way too much this past episode. I don’t know if it’s bad acting, bad writing, or just unimaginative plot lines/dialog, but 24 has entered an area I never thought I’d see it: ridiculous. From the accents of the characters to the (literally) back-alley dealings to Really.Bad.Sideplot. which is now vying for Worst.Sideplot.Ever. status, this season is pushing fans loyalty to 24 just a bit too far. The good news, the plot has finally turned to the point that 24 has a chance to save things going forward--but 9 episodes in (37.5% done), my patience with the show is starting to wane.

If I was Jack Bauer, I would just walk around punching people. He’s lived a hard life, been wronged by too many people, and has a lot of frustration to take out. And I’m not just talking about punching bad guys, but I’m also talking about cops, office workers, construction workers, lawyers, men, women, children, dogs, old ladies, Guidos, Guidettes, Snooki, Dane Cook (please), athletes, tax collectors, politicians…basically anyone in his way. Why? Because there are no consequences anymore. He doesn’t even get a timeout or a slap on the wrists*. Beat the crap out of a guard (in an awesome move where he knocked the guy down, used his handprint to open the door, and then knocked him out again), threaten another guard (“Son, you better put that down, you’re going to get hurt”) and then grab a Justice Department lawyer by her neck and throw her up against the wall? You not only get to walk, but you’re put in charge of CTU Field Ops. Congrats!

*Side Note: This is nothing new. I know that. And really, Jack deserves his blanketed immunity and lifelong “Get Out Of Jail Free” card. But there is a limit to what one can do and get away with it. It’s one thing when you’re torturing people, but it’s quite another when you’re constantly beating up law enforcement. Here are my levels of fear if I worked for law enforcement in reverse order: 3. Criminal with a gun, 2. Terrorist, 1. Jack Bauer. There’s a problem when the guy who is supposed to protect the country is your biggest fear to beat the crap out of you.

Back to Jack, he said the worst possible thing he could ever say to Freckles: “you have me.” That means we’re about to see that neither of them have each other. Wonderful. Freckles, I would like to introduce you to the long list of women that Jack loved: they’re all dead/cooped up in a mental institution. And he said shit like “you have me” to them as well. And he probably meant it in some way. But in the end, they all ended up sad and alone. We’ve come to the point that Jack Bauer is worse to women than Tucker Max—at least the author of I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell satisfies some of his women and they all know what they’re getting into before they jump in. Jack teases girls with lines like “you have me”. I’m calling BS on you, Jack.

Speaking of BS, Jack and Bubba make one of the shadiest back-alley dealings of all time. One of the reasons it was so shady was because it was literally made in the back alley of CTU. If that’s not a shady dealing, I don’t know what is. Bubba is missing FP jr’s accent and he knows that Jack has a bevy of accents in his language drawer so he figures that if he keeps him on for the rest of the season, we won’t have to deal with the whole “Jack is leaving to join his daughter” plotline. If Jack wants Freckles, Bubba says that he needs to be “in with both feet”. Then comes the laugher of a line: “Deal?” asked Bubba. “Deal!” answered Jack. Wow…so powerful! You can’t write this shit, people. You just cannot write this. I’m sort of thinking that Bubba crossed his fingers behind his back (or at least his toes) because with that walk, I’m not sure I trust that he’s telling the truth. But at least it gave us a laugh*.

*Side Note: Oh…wait. I wasn’t supposed to laugh at that? Oops

The other thing that wasn’t supposed to make us laugh: “This is my fiancé, Arlo” – Cole. But this was how it was delivered phonetically: “This is ma fee-an-cay, AH-LO” –FP jr. Wonderful job, there Freddie Prince, Jr. You took a role that required no accent and not only change it from episode-to-episode, and not only from scene-to-scene, but mid-line! If Allison Taylor can take home an Emmy for her performance, you can’t be far behind!
The only accent worse than FP jr’s is Denny’s who has almost transformed fully from Dana back into Jenny. Except the audience doesn’t find this out for a long time because she doesn’t talk most of the episode. Why? Because she’s sitting in a car, with a gun, staring at her ex-bf, ex-con with some stripper bimbos and his weird-ass accomplice. Actually, she’s not even starting at them. She’s staring at a goddamn van down by the river.

So she finally gets the courage to do what she’s needed to do all season and just kill off this abusive MoFo, she puts the silencer on her gun, and is about to leave her car to do the deed when her fiancé pulls up in his CTsUv (the standard CTU/SUV). How did he find her? AH-LO tracked her there. Of course, this was important to do with nuclear rods on United States soil and with the inability to track the terrorists on the ground. But we’ll get to that later because it’s so unimportant to Really.Bad.Sideplot.* Why? Because they have so many more important things to do here like have Jenny come clean about her past in her worst whitetrash accent possible. We need to have FP jr. go to the car and threaten the men to leave his fiancé alone. And then we have to have the greedy accomplice stab the Ex, only to have him warn Jenny, FP jr kill the accomplice and Jenny to run to the side of her stabbed Ex. Of course, since he didn’t inflict enough harm on her and she wasn’t about to kill him anyways. Now we’re going to have to hear about their potential marriage potentially being over and all that BS. UGH. I was sort of hoping that when they were sitting in the car and Denny was telling him about her life and he was holding her gun that they’d opt for the murder-suicide route. But no, they decided to drag the plot out longer. Who knows if the Ex is even dead? Maybe he’ll live on in an excruciating way like Audrey Raines’ ex-husband Paul. You couldn’t have given us a clean break with a murder-suicide with the mis-accented couple? I thought that would have been brilliant, 24!

*Side Note: I’m not sure if this is the Worst.Sideplot.Ever. quite yet. We have a lot of candidates for that (Chase’s baby and the CTU head, Erin, with the mentally-unstable daughter comes to mind) but I’m not sure we’ve reached the level yet that it can be the Worst. Put your thoughts in the comments below and let me know which ones are your votes for Worst.Sideplot.Ever. and we’ll talk about them next week in this space.

There was something else going on this week that I can’t quite put my finger one because it was so unimportant to the plot. Hmmm. Oh right…terrorism! First we have a very touching moment between the Baron and The Good Son Turned Bad. A touching moment like that only means one thing: someone is going to get whacked. The Good Son Turned Bad gets snipered right in front of his really nice European Van (H/T Sarah for pointing out that it probably wouldn’t be hard to find this bad boy in the United States) and Farhad and his band of not-so-merry men take over the nuclear rods. So why didn’t CTU trace the call or watch via satellite/drone? Because they are incredibly inept unless they’re tracking their own people. Arlo The Horndog can find Denny in about 3.4 seconds but they can’t find a long phone call with The Good Son Turned Bad? And they need to call him to trace it? Didn’t they see “The Fast and the Furious”? You just need the phone to be on to trace the call! I cannot believe that a movie starring Vin Diesel, Paul Walker and Michelle Rodriguez can figure this out but one of the most revolutionary shows in the history of television is clueless. CLUELESS.

They’re equally as clueless at CTU where they’ve lost the nuclear rods again. Lovely. The President is not happy which means her Greek/Jewish Chief of Staff is not happy which means that heads are going to roll. Of course they’re going to bring Law & Order in and frame Freckles for it. Yawn. So the nuclear rods are in Flushing Meadow Park or Forrest Hills or one of the other name-dropped places from this episode. Bubba wants to know if Arlo The Horndog has seen Denny. ATH wants to know if Bubba needs her for something. Then Bubba finally says it: “Yes, Arlo, I need her to do her job.” Her and every other sorry ass around this office!

In the terrorist world, Farhad's people are turning against him, deciding it's "too risky to bring the nuclear rods out of the country"* and that they should use them against the United States. But Farhad doesn't seem too excited with that plot and tries to escape to call CTU. Because, of course, bringing the rods to Iran Fake Islamic Republic to threaten the United States is OK, but actually attacking the United States is a no-no! So what we ended the episode with is Farhad hunkered down, CTU tracking him, Jack in pursuit with his Field Ops team, and an actual plot for 24 to cultivate.

*Side Note: Two questions: 1. How did Farhad not realize it would be virtually impossible to just show up at docks/an airfield and get the rods out of the country? Didn't he realize that was one of the real concerns of doing this stupid exchange in the United States instead of someplace between Russia and Fake Islamic Republic. 2. Farhad's second-in-command says they will be using nuclear scanners at the ports and airports--so why the heck isn't CTU using them in the area Queens they know the nuclear rods should be in? Are we serious here? Come on, people.

That last part is important. At some point, you figured that the plot was going to come to this: the people with the nuclear rods were going to use it on the United States. This is exactly what happened in Season 5. I wish that we had Jack and Freckles going into the field together, but I'll settle for just Jack being there for now. But finally we have a real plot to go to that should hopefully keep us away from boring sideplots with really bad accents. It's like a warm day during a cold, snowy winter: at least there's some hope. And, right now, hope is what I have to cling to with a show that is dangerously close to jumping the shark.

Season grade so far: C+. It's gotten bad and this may be generous. Maybe I just have my expectations set too high, but I have to put the season grade here right now.
 
Best line of the week: (so many to choose from) “This is ma fee-an-cay, AH-LO” –FP jr. I picked that one just because it encompasses so much that is wrong with the show. Instead of playing the characters straight which would have been ridiculous enough, they have to add these really ridiculous accents. Why?

Best moment of the week: Jack knocking down the guard, using his hand to get in the room, then knocking him out again. Classic Jack. I wanted to go with the Bubba line about needed Denny because she actually is supposed to be working during this crisis, but I've had enough of them for now.

Ari's body count: 34 total. I'm not sure if the Ex is really dead yet so I'll leave him for next week but right now we have the accomplice and The Good Son Turned Bad. A pretty light week in 24 kills.

Thoughts? Comments? Feel differently about this season? Thoughts for Worst.Sideplot.Ever.?

Picture from E! Online