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'24: Live Another Day' Hours 12-24
Plot: Last night, Audrey got herself stuck on a bench for
very nearly the entire episode under the watchful eye of a sniper. Not that
watchful though, since she was totally able to keep having speaker phone
conversations with Kate in plain sight. Anyway, the deal was, she stays there
until Cheng says it’s cool to leave, meanwhile Cheng would be fleeing the
country.
Cheng
tells Jack to leave him alone or else Audrey gets it. Jack don’t play like
that.
He
finds some way to track Cheng in the Russian mustache aficionado’s house and
goes after him. Kate has to go rescue Audrey.
On the
way to Cheng, Jack stops by the wilderness and picks up Chloe, who is conscious
again and wants to make up for the whole “accidentally working with the guy who
was selling gadgets to the guy who wants to end the world” thing.
The
pair gets to Cheng’s boat and then out of NOWHERE Jack’s helpy helperton guy
shows up, making this a triple threat. Chloe sets up shop to provide techy
stuff and the two dude start machine gunning their way through the ship.
Elsewhere,
Audrey sits on a bench. Eventually, Kate shows up and watches.
Cheng’s men realize something foul
is afoot, they boot Chloe out of their system and get ready to counterstrike.
In a panic, Jack tells Kate to save Audrey before Cheng orders the sniper to
take her out.
Then
out of NOWHERE Kate’s own back up team shows up and they all take out the
sniper, rescuing Audrey, making the world once again safe for people who try to
help but don’t. Backs are slapped, a lot of “Atta boys” are thrown around.
Everyone’s happy. Then a car pulls up, one of Cheng’s men gets out and kills Audrey.
Kate calls Jack to say “her bad” and Jack immediately hulks out and starts killing everyone with
everything. He John Cenas his way through the remaining guards, has a brief
kick fight with Cheng, before capturing the season’s final big bad. Jack grabs
an ill-placed katana (ill-placed for Cheng anyway) coerces Cheng to say who he
is on tape so the Chinese know he’s not dead and stop that whole WWIII thing
they were on about.
Once
that’s over with, Jack chops off Cheng’s head presumably because there were no
windows nearby for him to unceremoniously toss Cheng out of as has become
tradition this season. At some point during all this, Chloe goes missing.
Everyone
is sad that Audrey is dead. The full weight of what awaits him thanks to his Alzheimer’s
finally hits home for Heller, the full weight of being a traitor finally hits
home for Mark, the full weight of not being able to save Audrey or her own
husband falls on Kate and the full weight of being dead really hits home for
Cheng.
In a
move absolutely everyone could see coming, Jack trades himself to the Russians –
who’d captured Chloe – so they’ll let her go and then he hitches a ride back to
Moscow with them where lots of torture likely awaits.
Good: When Jack said “The following takes place between 10
pm and 11 am,” I lost my GD mind. You know, sometimes it’s the little things in
life, like one episode of “24” taking place over the course of half a day.
Bad: Audrey tried to help last week and got that girl shot.
This week, when she realizes the girl isn’t quite dead, Audrey tries to help
her again and gets the girl shot AGAIN. Audrey. Stop. Helping.
Bad: Where does all this back-up keep coming from?
Seriously, Kate was standing around watching Audrey sit on the bench for a huge
chunk of the episode and then the second stuff starts to go down this back-up
just appears. And how does the helpy helperton guy always know exactly where to
be? And why isn’t he allowed to be an actual character that has real thoughts?
Bad/Worst: No, “24.” Audrey does NOT deserve the sad quiet
count post death.
Bad: Action scenes. The boat shootout, the Audrey rescue attempt.
None of it felt all that exciting. Just stuff.
Bad: Bad guys doing helpful things. A few weeks ago,
Benjamin Bratt acted totally against his own best interests to help Jack and
Kate track the all-powerful device. This week, Cheng says his name, helping to convince
the Chinese government they don’t have the full picture of what happened and
should maybe stop WWIII for now. Cheng does this FOR NO GOOD REASON. Your face
is all bruised and bloody, why not just muster your best American accent and
say your name is Steve and some maniac just broke onto your boat and started
kicking you in the face? Why make Jack’s life easier? I mean, other than the
fact that you wasted eight episodes this season on a plot that essentially
meant nothing and so now you have to wrap up the actual main plot very quickly.
Good: Everybody’s sad. This is deserved. I was pretty PO’d
by the end of this season, so the last thing I wanted was to see a bunch of
happy characters. Misery enjoys the company of company.
Good: Jack and Chloe. Forget everything else, these two are
the heart of this show. Jack telling Chloe that she’s his best friend was amazing.
If you’re going to do another season, more of this please.
Good: Stephen Fry sighting. Hey, remember earlier this
season when Stephen Fry was a character and the show took place in Britain? Yeah,
that was fun.
Good: Heller’s little speech to Fry. Of course, as sad and
poetic as it was, it just provides all the more reason it made so much more
sense for Heller to die heroically in Wembley instead of … I’m going to let it
go, I swear.
Bad: This season of “24.” It started out with so much
promise, but then it mushroom-clouded due to horrible decisions about story
structure, bad guys who make ridiculous choices and a hokey fake-out death.
This whole mess bummed me out so much, I don’t think I’ll be watching if it
comes back next year.
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