Good & Bad: '24: Live Another Day' (6/23/14)

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24: Live Another Day Hour 9

Plot: Uuuuuggghhh.

                Perhaps more of an explanation is in order: Uuuuuuggggggggggggghhhhhhhaaaahhhh.

                So last week, President Heller stood in the center of Wembley Stadium and took a full-on Mama Stark drone-strike right to the chest, effectively sacrificing himself to save hundreds of thousands of innocent lives all across England. One old man dies, hundreds of thousands of men and women and questionings of assorted ages get to live.

                In exchange for the right to explode the President, Mama Stark promised to destroy all of the drones she’d hijacked, which she immediately began doing once Heller was confirmed to have been blowed up.

                Only … Heller didn’t exactly keep to his side of the bargain. Thanks to some video trickery by Chloe, he’s alive and well.

                Mama Stark realizes she’s been duped and manages to save one last drone, which she plans to do nasty, nasty things with.

                Since Chloe has totally hacked Stark Terrorism, Inc., she’s able to pretty easily figure out where they’re holed up. Soon Jack lands a helicopter on the roof of the building and begins his assault from up top, while Kate and her team storm the building from below.

                Jack gets there first, throws Mama Stark’s son out of the window, shoots her in the leg, stops the drone from blowing up a subway station and then throws Mama Stark out the window too, because … he felt like it?

                Meanwhile, the mystery of Johnny Depp-bearded tech’s death – he’s dead, by the way – gets unraveled and all fingers point to Benjamin Bratt.

                Bratt makes a deal with Michael Wincott, who’s apparently become a straight-up bad guy at this point: If Wincott helps him get out of London alive, he can have Mama Stark’s drone-control device. Turns out, said device is actually good for controlling all sorts of military devices, which could prove problematic for America and the world.

                The episode ends with Chloe rejoining Wincott (because she doesn’t know he’s evil), who’s on his way to meet up with Bratt and get a hold of the device while Jack is in pursuit of the whole gang.

Bad: Guess who’s back? Back again? Heller’s back. He’s not dead. Look, I’m not a man who wants to see old men blown up by drones. I just like TV shows where bad things can sometimes happen to good people. Like in the real-ish world. “24” used to be that kind of show. It made things slightly less predictable on a show that even when it was on top could be sort of formulaic.    

Bad: Also, anyone else kind of weirded out by the fact that the terrorists were the ones keeping their word in this episode while the good guys were busy double-crossing everyone and throwing prisoners out of windows? That seems incorrect.

Good: Heller announces he’s the President and gives Jack’s helper an order. Jack’s helper is all like I’m not an American citizen and this isn’t even America so shut up brah. Cheating death isn’t without its drawbacks Mr. Prez.

Good: Raid on the Stark compound. Explosions, gunfire, people dying in unexpected ways. Everything you want from a “24” action sequence. Little on the short side for my liking, but still fun.

Good: “I need a grenade!” yells Kate. I think we’ve all had those days at work? Amirite? 

Bad: By the way, what the hell happened to Kate? She had her episode there where she was killing dudes left and right with her thighs and now all of a sudden it’s back to the background.

Bad: The Day the Mama died. And to think, she never got the chance to shoot her son’s wife in front of him or threaten her grandkids with drone strikes if they don’t brush their teeth and go to bed. So much life left to live. Cut down in her prime. With three episodes left to boot.

Good: RIP Johnny Depp-bearded tech. More interesting and vital to the plot in death than in life. You will not be missed.

Good: Clock’s ticking for Bratt now. It’s nice to see a character who was basically just a speed bump for all the other characters finally get involved. It’ll be even nicer to see Jack kicking him in the balls over and over again. Bonus points to the CIA for building their London outpost on top of some bad ass catacombs. That’s thinking ahead for chase purposes.

Good: Evil Michael Wincott. It just feels right.

Bad: Resetting the clock. The best seasons of “24” almost always involved Jack working his way up a ladder towards a big bad, only to find out that guy wasn’t the top of the ladder at all and there was actually a bigger, badder character on the horizon. That’s not what’s going on here. This feels like a complete reset. The Mama Stark angle is done, but we’ve still got three episodes left, so let’s tack on another plot, introduce a new or different bad guy, provide little to no build up and then have it all resolved quickly and easily. This is what all of the worst seasons of “Dexter” did. Your fault, Strahovski.                                    

Bad: Audrey, ruiner of things, destroyer of worlds. Calls up Jack to be all like “OMG, you’re my hero.” As he’s talking to her, Bratt makes off with the Stark device that can end the world. “But gee, thanks for saving my dad before!”

Bad: Chloe and Wincott. I wonder how this is going to play out? Will she choose Jack or the apparently now super evil guy? I. Wonder.