The Florida Marlins are selling tickets, at face value, from Roy Halladay’s perfect game. So for about $20 you can get a cheap seat ticket to a ballgame that already happened a long time ago in a ballpark far, far away. Yesterday I was online and was sooooooo close to buying one. My mouse hovered over the “add to cart” button for a few minutes before I eventually just closed the window. There have only been 20 perfect games ever thrown, so I still am sorta-kinda thinking about it, but since I resisted that initial impulse buy I think I’ll be able to pass. Especially since I’ve read that it’s not a nice looking ticket like you’d get at the gate if you went to the game in person, but just a generic Ticketmaster kind of ticket. (And, as I was writing this, another perfect game was almost thrown in Detroit, so they pretty much happen every day!)
I do have tickets or ticket stubs to Paul Molitor’s 3000th hit, Cecil Fielder’s first career stolen base, 1st game at Target Field. I attended Puckett’s 2000th hit (but lost that ticket stub), and awhile ago I sold on eBay my ticket stub from a game where AJ Pierzynski and Corey Koskie got their first ML hits. This year I also went to the game where Trevor Plouffe got his first ML hit. They’re just ticket stubs, but still kind of cool if you’re a big baseball nerd like I am.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Monday, May 24, 2010
24: It's Over!
Previously, on 24...
Before the show officially starts, we get a message from Kiefer Sutherland thanking the fans for our support and enthusiasm. Kiefer isn't torturing anyone as he says this, so I should've known tonight's finale was going to be a letdown.
The show opens with Cole tracking down Jack's buddy, who sees Cole coming and erases his computers. Since the journalist was arrested, the only evidence that exists against the Russians is the recording Jack got off of Logan. Logan heads off to the UN and his right-hand man Pillar still has the task of finding Bauer. Bauer gets to Pillar first, hiding in his car and forcing Pillar to sneak him past the peace treaty security. He also makes Pillar sew up his knife wound. Gross. Jack is about to execute Pillar but then decides to knock him out and throw him in a car instead. Jack then goes to set up shop across the street from the UN. He's got a sniper rifle.
Inside the UN, Mrs. Hassan gives President Taylor a present that Omar Hassan was saving for her. It's a pen with some "we love peace" crap engraved on it. I desperately hoped that Jack would end up using the pen to stab someone. Kayla Hassan then talks to Mrs. Hassan and says that the journalist was trying to reach them about Omar's real killers. Mrs. Hassan goes to talk to President Taylor, but Taylor ignores her. Mrs. Hassan says she'll refuse to sign the peace treaty if they don't find the journalist. Taylor confesses that the Russians are behind the murder. Mrs. Hassan says she's going to leave the peace treaty and report Taylor to the UN. Taylor says she'll deny it, show that the IRK tried to detonate a nuclear bomb earlier in New York, and the U.S. military will strike back at her country. This was the best scene involving President Taylor ever because she finally wasn't acting all wishy-washy for a change. She was just being evil!
Across the street Jack sets his sniper sights on President Logan, and gives him a call, telling him that he'll kill Logan if he doesn't call the Russian president into his office. I was yelling "KILL HIM! KILL HIM!" the whole time. Arlo finds out that Jack is across the street and Chloe goes to try and stop Jack. Agent Ortiz is in charge of security and says that if he doesn't hear back from Chloe in 20 minutes, he'll sound the alarm and take Jack down. Chloe finds Jack, but Jack takes her down with a sleeper hold. Yuri heads up to Logan's office.
Jack is getting ready to finally assassinate the man who ordered the hit on Renee, but then Chloe comes to and says that she can get the recording out to the media despite President Taylor's hold on the presses. She says that if he kills Yuri, the Russians will see it as an act of war, and Renee wouldn't want that. Me yelling: "KILLLLLL HIMMMM!!!!"
Ortiz dispatches his men with shoot to kill orders to take down Jack. Jack finally listens to Chloe (Booooo) and puts his gun down, but now they need to get Chloe out of the building with the data card. Jack knows that she can't just walk out, so he makes her promise to do what he says. He tells Chloe to shoot him so that the agents storming the building won't kill him, and so that she can walk away with the evidence against Logan, Taylor and the Russians. Jack was yelling at Chloe to shoot him, but she couldn't, and he yelled "WE'RE RUNNING OUT OF TIME!" but she still couldn't shoot him, so he drew a gun on her, but she STILL couldn't shoot him, so her held the gun to his head and was about to kill himself and then BOOM, Chloe shot him in the shoulder. This scene was awesome, but with Jack down it pretty much guaranteed that there'd be no more kills. Sigh. Everything went downhill from there.
Pillar is found in the car and he stops Chloe from leaving the building. He tries to get Chloe to give up anything that Jack gave her, and Chloe shrugs and says, "I just shot my friend, sooo..." Pillar lets her leave but then decides he wants her stopped and Jack, now being patched up on a gurney, gets Pillar's attention and BITES HIS EAR OFF! Ugh. Pillar catches Chloe and puts her and Ortiz in lockdown, and gets the datacard to Logan. Jack is also locked down by CTU.
Logan gives the datacard to Taylor for some reason, and tells her that the only thing left to do is kill Bauer so that he doesn't come after them. WHY DID LOGAN GIVE HER THE DATACARD? It makes no fricking sense. He's worried about covering up his tracks and eliminating the evidence, and he just gives it to the President?!?! Why not destroy it? Oh, 24, I will miss your non-sensical ways.
It's time for the peace treaty to finally be signed. Yuri signs, Mrs. Hassan signs, and President Taylor (while holding the special peace pen from Omar Hassan) decides NOT to sign the treaty. Earlier when Taylor was acting all evil, I actually enjoyed her character. Now I hate her again, and maintain my position that she is the worst 24 president ever. I HATE her back and forth bulls#!t character. In season 7, all she did EVERY 20 MINUTES was say "I don't know if I trust Jack," "I trust Jack completely," "I don't know if I trust Jack," "I trust Jack completely!" It drove me insane. Now this season she has to has to do the right thing, then can't bring herself to do that, then has to do the right thing, then wants to do the evil thing, then wants to do the right thing. Note my use caps: I HATE HER SO MUCH, ARRRGHGHFUCGHGUH!
While she was holding the friendship pen trying to decide if she should sign or not, I was rooting for her to sign it and just stay evil, because at that point, Jack had already lost Renee, lost the evidence he gave to the reporter, had NOT shot Logan, had NOT shot Yuri, and had lost the evidence he gave to Chloe. Just let the bad guys win at this point, and Jack can bust out of the CTU ambulance and get sweet revenge killing everyone. Instead, she changes her mind, and it's like, "Whoops! Sorry we screwed you, Jack! (and Omar Hassan) Haha, that's my bad!"
While Taylor giggles, "my bad", she suddenly remembers that they put a hit on Jack. She tries to call Logan to call it off, but he won't answer the phone. Pillar tries to answer the phone, so Logan kills him with a bottle of booze. Maybe the stupidest kill of the season - the last one we'll ever get on 24. Logan is so afraid of Bauer that he has to kill Pillar I guess. Logan then shoots himself. I thought this was a good thing, but it turns out he doesn't even die. WHAT THE HELL, 24? What is the point of keeping Logan alive? You don't let Bauer kill him, but at least let him commit suicide. Instead, the medics say he'll have brain damage. Great! So, if Jack ever wanted to get revenge on Logan, he'd be hunting down someone with brain damage, which isn't very sporting. I've said before how I want Jack Bauer to kill the writers, but I think they all have brain damage too.
Taylor releases Chloe and tells her to find Jack using the CTU drones. They find video of the ambulance attack, where agents were wounded (not killed - GRRRRR!), and track it to wherever they took Jack to execute him. Chloe uses technology to get President Taylor on the phone with the gunmen and she tells them to stand down and drive away. Taylor then tells Jack that she didn't sign the treaty and she'll be resigning and facing the consequences of her actions, but so must he (killing Novakovich, etc.). She suggest he flee the country, and says that the Russians and the U.S. will be looking for him. Jack then stays on the line to talk to Chloe. He tells her to protect his family and thanks her for having his back, then he runs off into the distance and season 8 comes to an end. If this sets up a movie where Jack kills Yuri, then I'm okay with it. If not, then the "no revenge for Jack" angle really sucks.
Today's kill count: Logan: 1 (Pillar). Yep. That's the explosive 2 hour finale. 1 awful kill.
SEASON KILL TOTALS:
Bad Guys (53)
Logan: 1
Logan's fake terrorists: 9
Fahrad Hassan, Terin, Johan and their gang: 18
Dana Walsh: 5
Vladimir: 1
Sergei, Joseph and his goons: 6
Davros and his goons: 9
Blackmailer guy: 1
Russian sniper assassin: 3
Good Guys (52)
Omar Hassan: 1
Random good guys/cops: 2
Renee Walker: 4
Cole Ortiz: 6
Jack Bauer: 39 (WINNER!)
Bad guys killed more people than good guys, but plenty of those kills were bad guys killing other bad guys. Grand total of 105 dead (4.375 deaths per hour). I'm exhausted, and now need to find a new TV show to yell at. To summarize what Jack basically said to end the series, "PEACE! I'm outta here!"
Before the show officially starts, we get a message from Kiefer Sutherland thanking the fans for our support and enthusiasm. Kiefer isn't torturing anyone as he says this, so I should've known tonight's finale was going to be a letdown.
The show opens with Cole tracking down Jack's buddy, who sees Cole coming and erases his computers. Since the journalist was arrested, the only evidence that exists against the Russians is the recording Jack got off of Logan. Logan heads off to the UN and his right-hand man Pillar still has the task of finding Bauer. Bauer gets to Pillar first, hiding in his car and forcing Pillar to sneak him past the peace treaty security. He also makes Pillar sew up his knife wound. Gross. Jack is about to execute Pillar but then decides to knock him out and throw him in a car instead. Jack then goes to set up shop across the street from the UN. He's got a sniper rifle.
Inside the UN, Mrs. Hassan gives President Taylor a present that Omar Hassan was saving for her. It's a pen with some "we love peace" crap engraved on it. I desperately hoped that Jack would end up using the pen to stab someone. Kayla Hassan then talks to Mrs. Hassan and says that the journalist was trying to reach them about Omar's real killers. Mrs. Hassan goes to talk to President Taylor, but Taylor ignores her. Mrs. Hassan says she'll refuse to sign the peace treaty if they don't find the journalist. Taylor confesses that the Russians are behind the murder. Mrs. Hassan says she's going to leave the peace treaty and report Taylor to the UN. Taylor says she'll deny it, show that the IRK tried to detonate a nuclear bomb earlier in New York, and the U.S. military will strike back at her country. This was the best scene involving President Taylor ever because she finally wasn't acting all wishy-washy for a change. She was just being evil!
Across the street Jack sets his sniper sights on President Logan, and gives him a call, telling him that he'll kill Logan if he doesn't call the Russian president into his office. I was yelling "KILL HIM! KILL HIM!" the whole time. Arlo finds out that Jack is across the street and Chloe goes to try and stop Jack. Agent Ortiz is in charge of security and says that if he doesn't hear back from Chloe in 20 minutes, he'll sound the alarm and take Jack down. Chloe finds Jack, but Jack takes her down with a sleeper hold. Yuri heads up to Logan's office.
Jack is getting ready to finally assassinate the man who ordered the hit on Renee, but then Chloe comes to and says that she can get the recording out to the media despite President Taylor's hold on the presses. She says that if he kills Yuri, the Russians will see it as an act of war, and Renee wouldn't want that. Me yelling: "KILLLLLL HIMMMM!!!!"
Ortiz dispatches his men with shoot to kill orders to take down Jack. Jack finally listens to Chloe (Booooo) and puts his gun down, but now they need to get Chloe out of the building with the data card. Jack knows that she can't just walk out, so he makes her promise to do what he says. He tells Chloe to shoot him so that the agents storming the building won't kill him, and so that she can walk away with the evidence against Logan, Taylor and the Russians. Jack was yelling at Chloe to shoot him, but she couldn't, and he yelled "WE'RE RUNNING OUT OF TIME!" but she still couldn't shoot him, so he drew a gun on her, but she STILL couldn't shoot him, so her held the gun to his head and was about to kill himself and then BOOM, Chloe shot him in the shoulder. This scene was awesome, but with Jack down it pretty much guaranteed that there'd be no more kills. Sigh. Everything went downhill from there.
Pillar is found in the car and he stops Chloe from leaving the building. He tries to get Chloe to give up anything that Jack gave her, and Chloe shrugs and says, "I just shot my friend, sooo..." Pillar lets her leave but then decides he wants her stopped and Jack, now being patched up on a gurney, gets Pillar's attention and BITES HIS EAR OFF! Ugh. Pillar catches Chloe and puts her and Ortiz in lockdown, and gets the datacard to Logan. Jack is also locked down by CTU.
Logan gives the datacard to Taylor for some reason, and tells her that the only thing left to do is kill Bauer so that he doesn't come after them. WHY DID LOGAN GIVE HER THE DATACARD? It makes no fricking sense. He's worried about covering up his tracks and eliminating the evidence, and he just gives it to the President?!?! Why not destroy it? Oh, 24, I will miss your non-sensical ways.
It's time for the peace treaty to finally be signed. Yuri signs, Mrs. Hassan signs, and President Taylor (while holding the special peace pen from Omar Hassan) decides NOT to sign the treaty. Earlier when Taylor was acting all evil, I actually enjoyed her character. Now I hate her again, and maintain my position that she is the worst 24 president ever. I HATE her back and forth bulls#!t character. In season 7, all she did EVERY 20 MINUTES was say "I don't know if I trust Jack," "I trust Jack completely," "I don't know if I trust Jack," "I trust Jack completely!" It drove me insane. Now this season she has to has to do the right thing, then can't bring herself to do that, then has to do the right thing, then wants to do the evil thing, then wants to do the right thing. Note my use caps: I HATE HER SO MUCH, ARRRGHGHFUCGHGUH!
While she was holding the friendship pen trying to decide if she should sign or not, I was rooting for her to sign it and just stay evil, because at that point, Jack had already lost Renee, lost the evidence he gave to the reporter, had NOT shot Logan, had NOT shot Yuri, and had lost the evidence he gave to Chloe. Just let the bad guys win at this point, and Jack can bust out of the CTU ambulance and get sweet revenge killing everyone. Instead, she changes her mind, and it's like, "Whoops! Sorry we screwed you, Jack! (and Omar Hassan) Haha, that's my bad!"
While Taylor giggles, "my bad", she suddenly remembers that they put a hit on Jack. She tries to call Logan to call it off, but he won't answer the phone. Pillar tries to answer the phone, so Logan kills him with a bottle of booze. Maybe the stupidest kill of the season - the last one we'll ever get on 24. Logan is so afraid of Bauer that he has to kill Pillar I guess. Logan then shoots himself. I thought this was a good thing, but it turns out he doesn't even die. WHAT THE HELL, 24? What is the point of keeping Logan alive? You don't let Bauer kill him, but at least let him commit suicide. Instead, the medics say he'll have brain damage. Great! So, if Jack ever wanted to get revenge on Logan, he'd be hunting down someone with brain damage, which isn't very sporting. I've said before how I want Jack Bauer to kill the writers, but I think they all have brain damage too.
Taylor releases Chloe and tells her to find Jack using the CTU drones. They find video of the ambulance attack, where agents were wounded (not killed - GRRRRR!), and track it to wherever they took Jack to execute him. Chloe uses technology to get President Taylor on the phone with the gunmen and she tells them to stand down and drive away. Taylor then tells Jack that she didn't sign the treaty and she'll be resigning and facing the consequences of her actions, but so must he (killing Novakovich, etc.). She suggest he flee the country, and says that the Russians and the U.S. will be looking for him. Jack then stays on the line to talk to Chloe. He tells her to protect his family and thanks her for having his back, then he runs off into the distance and season 8 comes to an end. If this sets up a movie where Jack kills Yuri, then I'm okay with it. If not, then the "no revenge for Jack" angle really sucks.
Today's kill count: Logan: 1 (Pillar). Yep. That's the explosive 2 hour finale. 1 awful kill.
SEASON KILL TOTALS:
Bad Guys (53)
Logan: 1
Logan's fake terrorists: 9
Fahrad Hassan, Terin, Johan and their gang: 18
Dana Walsh: 5
Vladimir: 1
Sergei, Joseph and his goons: 6
Davros and his goons: 9
Blackmailer guy: 1
Russian sniper assassin: 3
Good Guys (52)
Omar Hassan: 1
Random good guys/cops: 2
Renee Walker: 4
Cole Ortiz: 6
Jack Bauer: 39 (WINNER!)
Bad guys killed more people than good guys, but plenty of those kills were bad guys killing other bad guys. Grand total of 105 dead (4.375 deaths per hour). I'm exhausted, and now need to find a new TV show to yell at. To summarize what Jack basically said to end the series, "PEACE! I'm outta here!"
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Please "like" this
I’ve had my Facebook account for about three years now, and for every party invitation received, every photo shared by a friend, and every chuckle I’ve had from a funny status update, I have received roughly the same amount of annoying requests to check out Zombie-Mafia-Vampire-Pirate-Ninja-Werewolf-Farmer applications. I “ignore”, I “block”, I “un-friend”, and Facebook life moves on.
So when I received an “America’s Anonymous Self Portrait” suggestion from my cousin Adam a few weeks ago, I clicked “ignore” and didn’t give it a second thought. Today I was looking at some of my cousin’s artwork on the Facebook and saw a link to that aforementioned suggestion, and this time I looked more closely at it. And I was impressed.
Adam has started a project of collecting anonymous self-portraits from anyone willing to contribute. Send in a self-portrait and Adam will post it and eventually maybe put together a website or publish a collection of the artwork. You don’t have to be a professional artist to partake; it’s more of a way to express who you are with a painting, drawing or doodle.
Adam admits that this isn’t an entirely new concept, but I still love this idea. It reminded me of the PostSecret idea (http://postsecret.blogspot.com/), which I also thought was a simple but wonderful idea. I just like that there are different ways of expressing one’s self, and that people are generally interested in what others are thinking, feeling and experiencing in this crazy world. There’s no reason why Adam’s project can’t be as successful as that one.
Well, okay, there might be one reason why it wouldn’t be as successful, and it’s exactly what I outlined above. “Ignore”. I got the page suggestion and I automatically clicked “ignore” because I don’t want be hassled into growing virtual corn on running virtual drug cartels. I’m sure that there are plenty of other folks out there that have been conditioned through Facebook to do the same thing. Which kind of sucks for Adam, because good ideas like this can get lost in all the crap out there.
On Facebook I am relatively unpopular with only 178 friends. Here on Blogspot I officially have 2 “followers”, and maybe a handful or two of loyal readers. But I feel like pointing this out in my blog might bring more actual interest to Adam’s project than if I send out 200 ignored page suggestions on Facebook. So check out the link below, where you can get more details on the project and see the first batch of submissions. If you like the concept, please “Like” the Facebook page. It’s still in the early stages, but hopefully it will gain more interest and take off.
http://www.facebook.com/#!/anonymous.selfportrait
So when I received an “America’s Anonymous Self Portrait” suggestion from my cousin Adam a few weeks ago, I clicked “ignore” and didn’t give it a second thought. Today I was looking at some of my cousin’s artwork on the Facebook and saw a link to that aforementioned suggestion, and this time I looked more closely at it. And I was impressed.
Adam has started a project of collecting anonymous self-portraits from anyone willing to contribute. Send in a self-portrait and Adam will post it and eventually maybe put together a website or publish a collection of the artwork. You don’t have to be a professional artist to partake; it’s more of a way to express who you are with a painting, drawing or doodle.
Adam admits that this isn’t an entirely new concept, but I still love this idea. It reminded me of the PostSecret idea (http://postsecret.blogspot.com/), which I also thought was a simple but wonderful idea. I just like that there are different ways of expressing one’s self, and that people are generally interested in what others are thinking, feeling and experiencing in this crazy world. There’s no reason why Adam’s project can’t be as successful as that one.
Well, okay, there might be one reason why it wouldn’t be as successful, and it’s exactly what I outlined above. “Ignore”. I got the page suggestion and I automatically clicked “ignore” because I don’t want be hassled into growing virtual corn on running virtual drug cartels. I’m sure that there are plenty of other folks out there that have been conditioned through Facebook to do the same thing. Which kind of sucks for Adam, because good ideas like this can get lost in all the crap out there.
On Facebook I am relatively unpopular with only 178 friends. Here on Blogspot I officially have 2 “followers”, and maybe a handful or two of loyal readers. But I feel like pointing this out in my blog might bring more actual interest to Adam’s project than if I send out 200 ignored page suggestions on Facebook. So check out the link below, where you can get more details on the project and see the first batch of submissions. If you like the concept, please “Like” the Facebook page. It’s still in the early stages, but hopefully it will gain more interest and take off.
http://www.facebook.com/#!/anonymous.selfportrait
Monday, May 17, 2010
24: I AM IRON MAN
Previously, on 24...
We see the aftermath of last week's torture scene: a big ol' pile of blood and guts! Jack tells the journalist to get the data to someone she can trust and expose the truth, then he goes after Logan. Logan is talking with President Taylor and shares the bad news that "Operation Capture Jack Bauer has failed! ... He escaped!" Yes, they actually called their secret operation "Operation: Capture Jack Bauer". And yes, after he said that Operation Capture Jack Bauer had failed, he needed to clarify that statement by saying that Jack Bauer escaped.
"OPERATION CAPTURE JACK BAUER HAS FAILED!"
(Confused look) "So... by 'failed' you mean...?"
"He escaped!"
(Comprehension!) "Ah! Now I get it! When you said Operation Capture Jack Bauer had failed, I wasn't sure. Thanks for clarifying! Hey, isn't it neat that we were both elected President?"
Logan convinces Taylor to stop the presses from running anything if they get condemning information. They send out CTU and the FBI and halt the newspapers and arrest the journalist lady, so right now it looks like the truth will not get out.
Logan drives off in his car, and Jack starts unpacking his bag o' guns that he had been toting around. Only it isn't just a bag o' guns, it's a bag o' guns and wicked body armor. Jack suits up and looks like War Machine from the new Iron Man movie, and while Logan's car is stuck in traffic under a bridge, Jack starts firing to cause a panic and trap Logan. Logan starts screaming, "IT'S JACK BAUER!" Jack shoots (but doesn't kill) Logan's secret service men, and then lauches tear gas into Logan's limo to smoke him out.
Jack drags Logan away and eventually starts threatening him for information, demanding to know who ordered the hit on Renee. Logan shakes and squirms and cries and pleads, and tells Jack that Novakovich (some Russian representative) was behind it all. Jack puts Logan in a sleeper hold and goes after Novakovich. He gets to Novakovich's hotel and kills three of his guards (I guess it's okay to kill secret service men from Russia), but Jack gets stabbed pretty bad while doing so, but moves on to face Novakovich.
Meanwhile, every CTU agent is chasing after Jack, and somehow this means that Chloe can get Agent Ortiz out of his holding cell for security detail or something. She wants Ortiz to find Jack's associate and help Jack, but Ortiz says that if Jack is crazy that he might have to kill him. Great.
Logan wakes up from his sleeper hold and tries to call Novakovich to warn him that Bauer is after him. The camera brings us back to the hotel and all we see are super-bloody dead bodies, including Novakovich, who was impaled through the stomach. Logan sighs, then makes another phone call to Yuri, the Russian President who is on his way to the peace treaty. Logan tells Yuri that Jack killed Novakovich, but that Jack doesn't know that Yuri ordered the hit on Renee. Then we see a closeup of Logan's collar and see a bug, and learn that Jack is listening to Logan's conversation. He bugged Logan while putting him in the sleeper hold! Jack's bleeding a ton and looks pretty bad, but now he can go after and kill the Russian President! Two-hour finale next week!
I was a bit disappointed that Jack didn't kill Logan this week, but he wracked up seven kills. It was fun to see the pile of guts from the torture scene, and Jack went bats#!t crazy killing Novakovich. Revenge is a dish best served within 24 hours, by a pissed off Jack Bauer! Kill count:
Jack: 7 kills (Russians shot, stabbed, impaled!)
39 kills for the season for Jack and 104 deaths for the season. With two hours left we have a projected death tally of 113. I don't know if he'll get 9 kills next week, but it's nice that we're ending the season with at least 100 kills. I'm hoping that Jack kills the Russian President for ordering the hit on Renee, and kills President Logan for lying to him this episode. Then, when the truth comes out about President Taylor's involvement, I hope one of Hassan's followers (or Mrs. Hassan, or Hassan's daughter) kills President Taylor. She'll probably just be impeached, but I think killing off three presidents would be a good ending to the series. And then Jack can get stiched up and take over as supreme ruler of the world. Or as I call it, "Operation: Jack Bauer takes over as supreme ruler of the world."
I - AM - IRON MAN! DADAH DADAH DADAH dahdah DAHDAH!
Monday, May 10, 2010
24: It Takes Guts
Previously, on 24…
The data Jack got from Dana reveals that the Russians were behind Hassan’s assassination and also gives Jack the identity of the Russian agent who shot Renee. Jack calls the journalist that Hassan was having an affair with hoping to give her the data so the truth will be exposed. CTU intercepts Jack’s phone call and dispatches the Russians to take him and the journalist out. Agent Ortiz is in lockdown at CTU, but won’t tell them where Jack is, even though he knows Jack executed Dana. Chloe and Arlo figure out that Jack is right and the government is trying to silence him, so they use some great technology from Sprint in order to sneak Chloe in to Ortiz’ cell and learn that Jack has someone supplying him guns. Chloe will try to find Jack’s buddy in order to help Jack somehow.
Jack goes to meet the journalist and the Russian operatives start closing in. Fortunately, Jack knew CTU would be trying to intercept his call and he used their trap against them to draw out the Russians. He kills four operatives and takes Renee’s killer hostage. He gives the data to the journalist, and prepares to torture the s#!* out of the Russian that killed Renee. The Russian swallows the SIM card from his phone while Jack isn’t looking.
Jack starts torturing, the Russian spits on Jack, Jack burns him with a blowtorch. All of this is cool, but none of this gives Jack the name of who ordered the hit on Renee. Jack starts to become frustrated until he sees the Russian’s phone and sees that the SIM card is missing. He knows the Russian swallowed it, calls him a dumbass, and uses pliers to kill the assassin and pull the SIM card out of his guts. Jack plugs the card into the phone and dials the last number, getting the voicemail of President Logan. He’s next!
Death Tally:
Jack: 5 (Shot 4 Russian operatives, Eviscerated Renee’s assassin)
This was the best episode since they killed off Renee. Yeah, I’d rather the writers were the ones that were tortured, but at least Renee’s assassin was taken out, and it’s been awhile since Jack has really tortured anyone. Plus I got to use the word “eviscerated” to describe a 24 episode. 97 deaths for the season, with Jack up to 32 kills. Projected death totals for the season: 111. Hopefully 2 of those deaths will be President Logan and President Taylor. Hooray for Revenge!
The data Jack got from Dana reveals that the Russians were behind Hassan’s assassination and also gives Jack the identity of the Russian agent who shot Renee. Jack calls the journalist that Hassan was having an affair with hoping to give her the data so the truth will be exposed. CTU intercepts Jack’s phone call and dispatches the Russians to take him and the journalist out. Agent Ortiz is in lockdown at CTU, but won’t tell them where Jack is, even though he knows Jack executed Dana. Chloe and Arlo figure out that Jack is right and the government is trying to silence him, so they use some great technology from Sprint in order to sneak Chloe in to Ortiz’ cell and learn that Jack has someone supplying him guns. Chloe will try to find Jack’s buddy in order to help Jack somehow.
Jack goes to meet the journalist and the Russian operatives start closing in. Fortunately, Jack knew CTU would be trying to intercept his call and he used their trap against them to draw out the Russians. He kills four operatives and takes Renee’s killer hostage. He gives the data to the journalist, and prepares to torture the s#!* out of the Russian that killed Renee. The Russian swallows the SIM card from his phone while Jack isn’t looking.
Jack starts torturing, the Russian spits on Jack, Jack burns him with a blowtorch. All of this is cool, but none of this gives Jack the name of who ordered the hit on Renee. Jack starts to become frustrated until he sees the Russian’s phone and sees that the SIM card is missing. He knows the Russian swallowed it, calls him a dumbass, and uses pliers to kill the assassin and pull the SIM card out of his guts. Jack plugs the card into the phone and dials the last number, getting the voicemail of President Logan. He’s next!
Death Tally:
Jack: 5 (Shot 4 Russian operatives, Eviscerated Renee’s assassin)
This was the best episode since they killed off Renee. Yeah, I’d rather the writers were the ones that were tortured, but at least Renee’s assassin was taken out, and it’s been awhile since Jack has really tortured anyone. Plus I got to use the word “eviscerated” to describe a 24 episode. 97 deaths for the season, with Jack up to 32 kills. Projected death totals for the season: 111. Hopefully 2 of those deaths will be President Logan and President Taylor. Hooray for Revenge!
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Polls show idiots should be tasered
Monday night some high school kid ran onto the field during a Phillies game and after being chased around a little ended up being tasered by a police officer. I guess he even called his dad before running on the field asking him for permission. Dad said he didn't think that was a good idea (GOOD PARENTING!) but the kid ran out there anyway. ESPN had the story, along with a poll asking if you thought the use of a taser was excessive in taking down the kid. I voted "No". What surprised me was that the majority of the world agreed with me. "Pro-taser" got 60% of the votes! (out of almost 180,000 votes when I checked.)
This restores my faith in 60% of the world. I hate it when people run on the field during ball games. It stops the momentum of the game itself, and most of the time the TV cameras turn away so you don't get to see the knuckleheads get tackled. There have been a few games I've watched where Bert and Dick have to announce "Well, now a White Sox fan is running onto the field" and all the viewer sees at home is the pitcher looking on impatiently. 1) They should always stun people that run onto the field. 2) The cameras should show it. Show the viewers at home that if you do something that stupid, you'll get punished.
I hope that most of those people that voted "pro-taser" actually agree with me for the same reason, i.e., punishing stupid acts vs. "huh-huh, tasers are cool!" Hmm. Now I'm beginning to suspect that some of those votes were just from people who liked "The Hangover".
Follow-up: I just read that another fan ran onto the field in Philly during the Tuesday game, but this time they didn't use the stun gun. If I'm ever in charge of ballpark security, I'm buying a catapult. My policemen will catch you, stun you, we'll load you up, and then we'll launch you over the right-field wall. Stay off the field, stupid people!
Monday, May 3, 2010
24: Die, Dana, Die!
Previously, on 24...
Dana is being tortured and Jack and Ortiz go get her. Jack kills four of the men that are guarding her before they escape. Jack threatens to kill Dana for the information he needs and she tells him that it's in a safety deposit box at the bank.
One of the CTU agents that tried to apprehend Jack last episode calls Chloe and says that Jack is loose. Logan finds out about this and convinces President Taylor to send one of his buddies over to CTU to take over Jack's capture. He upgrades Jack to a "level 8", so now he can be shot. The Russians are working with Logan now too, and will eventually send someone out to kill Jack Bauer.
Jack waits in the bank lobby while Ortiz and Dana get the safety deposit box. Ortiz opens the box and a flash bomb goes off, and Dana knocks him out. Dana grabs the data from the safety deposit box, shoots a bank employee (which was funny, because he happened to be a friend of Cole's) and then calls 911 to tell them that Jack is there. The police come to arrest Jack and Dana makes a run for it.
Jack manages to take down the cops and chases after Dana. She randomly shoots a pedestrian and runs into a building. Jack corners her and she hands over the data. Jack points a gun at her and she pleads, "Jack, what can I do?" Jack says, "Nothing!" and shoots her dead. 3 1/2 months ago I was begging for her to die. This was way back when all she was was a CTU computer analyst. I didn't know that she was a small-time criminal, and I didn't know that she'd evolve into a mole for Johan, and I didn't know that she'd further evolve into the big criminal mastermind for the Russians. I just hated her from the very beginning, and I wanted her dead.
And now she is, so hooray. I would've been happier right now if the show hadn't been completely ruined when they killed Renee. So now Jack needs to go public with the information without being killed by the police, CTU, or the Russians, and he'll kill a bunch of people that are somehow responsible for Renee's death. I halfway expect Tony Almeida to show up and either help Jack, or show up because he's the main bad guy. It probably won't happen, but it wouldn't surprise me or thrill me either way. Jack's not getting a happy ending. I don't think he'll even go to California to live with Kim. He'll probably save the day and then get shot.
But chin up, everyone! There's actually a kill count today. Death tally:
Jack: 5 kills (4 men torturing Dana, then Dana)
Bad guys: 2 kills (Dana killed bank employee and random civilian)
92 deaths for the season. Jack has 27 kills, so he'll for sure average 1 kill/hour this season. Bad guys are up to 52 kills with Dana's contribution today. The projected totals for the season goes back up to 110. 4 more hours to go.
Monday, April 26, 2010
24: Donut, anyone? Wait... that sounds familiar. Aw, crap.
Previously, on 24...
With the air force after him, Jack lands the helicopter and evades CTU and the cops to find a buddy and get a bag of guns. Ethan, back at work from his heart attack 4 hours ago, tells President Taylor that she could be impeached for covering up the evidence about President Hassan's assassination and going forward with the peace treaty. Logan tells Taylor that she will be fine if they get rid of the evidence (a.k.a. Dana Walsh). President Taylor calls CTU and tells them that they're going to pick up Dana for security reasons, but really they're going to torture her for information and then maybe kill her.
Jack calls Chloe and says he wants justice or something. Chloe tells him that President Taylor is taking Dana away, and Jack wants Chloe to help him get to Dana. Chloe says that she'll help Jack, but really she's leading him into a trap to take him back into custody. Chloe tells Jack where to go to find Dana, but really that's where she has agent Ortiz and his team set up to capture Jack. Jack takes his bag of guns and walks into the trap, but manages to grab a CTU agent and gets everyone to drop their guns and ties them up.
Then Jack talks to Ortiz privately. He says he needs Ortiz's help (for justice!) and that he knows him well enough to know that Ortiz will do the right thing. Jack knows him well enough because he met him 18 hours ago. Ortiz says, "What if you're wrong?" And Jack says, "I'M NOT WRONG!" This argument convinces Ortiz to help Jack. President Taylor and Mrs. Hassan and the Russians begin the peace treaty speech.
Once again, no deaths. Jack has a bag of guns, so hopefully he uses those for justice. And by "justice" I mean "killing lots of people." Projected season totals fall to 107.
Monday, April 19, 2010
24: Donut, anyone?
Previously, on 24...
President Logan goes to talk to the Russians to tell them that he knows that they are behind President Hassan's assassination, and he'll tell President Taylor if they don't sign the peace treaty. Jack calls Chloe to find out anything he can about Red Square. Chloe says that Sergei is having his trial right now, so Jack goes to the courthouse to get information. Jack says he'll kill Sergei's wife, daughter and granddaughter if he doesn't give him the name of Renee's killers. Sergei says that Red Square doesn't exist and that the Russian government is behind everything. Jack wants a name, and Sergei says Dana Walsh is the best they've got! ... er, I mean, he says Dana Walsh is working with the Russian government.
Jack goes to interrogate Dana and he punches her a few times (to the delight of Ortiz) but Dana wants immunity before she'll tell Jack what she knows. President Logan finds out about Jack's intentions and says, "That will ruin everything!" Logan tells President Taylor that the Russians were involved, but she needs to stop Jack or the news will become public and the peace treaty won't get signed. President Taylor goes to CTU and tells Jack to drop his interrogation. Jack is pissed because now the peace treaty will be signed but there will be no justice for Renee's death and Mrs. Hassan will be signing a peace agreement with the people behind her husband's murder. Dana is going to be taken from regular lockdown to super-duper lockdown and Jack is going to be escorted away to a military base to be debriefed. As Jack is being escorted toward a helicopter he grabs a soldier's gun and hijacks the helicopter. Chloe tries to talk him down but Jack doesn't respond, so she calls in the air force to take him down.
And that's it. You want a death tally? How about a big goose egg instead? ZERO KILLS (unless you're counting the part of me that died while watching the way this series is ending). Projected totals fall to 113.
How will this series end? I have no idea. They'll probably reveal the truth to Mrs. Hassan but she'll sign the peace treaty anyway to honor her husband/stick it to the Russians, and Dana will be killed eventually by someone somehow. What SHOULD happen is Jack should land the helicopter at the U.N. meeting and kill President Taylor and the Russians and declare himself President. I'm pretty sure that's how promotions work in the 24 universe.
To make me feel better, I found a picture that depicts Jack rockin' out as the new President. He's also indicating how many kills he still has (22).
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Grand Day Out
If I were to make a short list of "Things I Love", it would look like this:
1. Family and Friends
2. Ultimate Frisbee
3. Twins baseball
And with that said I can now tell you, without exaggeration, that Monday was one of the greatest days ever. Opening Day.
I had been to Target Field before. I went to the stadium in March for an "Open House", and froze my butt off checking out my seats and walking around the concourse for about an hour. I went to the stadium for the first exhibition game against the Cardinals, when it was a little chilly and windy and cloudy. But Monday blew both of those experiences out of the water.
It was gorgeous, and surreal. Before the game I walked around the plaza and admired the Puckett and Killebrew statues. I entered the gate and received my commemorative homer hanky and official certificate. It says "Be It Known To Baseball Fans Everywhere That On The Afternoon Of The Twelfth Of April, Two Thousand And Ten At 3:10PM, Ben Hesse Witnessed The First Regular-Season Game Ever Played At The Target Field, Between The Minnesota Twins And The Boston Red Sox In The City Of Minneapolis, In The State Of Minnesota." (It doesn't really have my name on it right now, but there's a space for it.)
I wandered around the concourse, and checked out the view from a few different spots around the stadium; the right field bleachers, the third-base line, the Legend's Club. It was fun to just be able to walk around. Once inside the stadium, I didn't see any ushers demanding to see tickets. They were there to help you find your way if you were lost, but they didn't play the role of bouncer if you wanted to do some pre-game exploring. I think the fact that every seat would eventually be filled allows for this. People with general admission tickets won't try to sneak their way into better seats like at the Dome, simply because there won't be any empty seats to sneak into!
As it got closer to game time, I went and found my seat in the third deck on the first-base side. These were the "cheap seats", but the view was perfect. Above left field, the Twins raised the flags which commemorated the Division, American League, and World Series Championships. Familiar faces like Brad Radke, Corey Koskie, Bert Blyleven, Al Newman, and Jack Morris helped raise each of the flags. O my God, there is wind blowing the Championship flags!
It was starting to dawn on me that this was actually happening. Outdoor baseball, "for realsies".
My cell phone buzzed. Text from Tom (who didn't have tickets): "Standing outside gate 34. Woo hoo!"
Oliva, Carew, Killebrew, Kirby Puckett Jr., and Kent Hrbek brought out the baseballs for the first pitch. It was a little weird having five guys bring out three baseballs for the "first" pitch, but the Twins have done a great job incorporating all the memories and history by bringing in the legends.
Text from Tom: "Larry Fitzgerald just ran past me outside :)" Wow. That's pretty cool.
The Red Sox and Twins marched out on to the field for Opening Day introductions. Scott Ullger was booed when he was introduced, which I was a little surprised by. (Sunday Ullger had waived JJ Hardy home on a Thome double, and Hardy was out by about 40 feet. I blame the Twins for not having Hardy steal second before the Thome double, since Pierzynski has such a noodle arm, but o well. I forgive you, Ullger!) I did boo Kubel, just for old-time's sake. My buddy Jeff gave me a look. "Hey, you gotta boo the hell outta Kubel in order to get him to play well!" This is a strange but true fact. I booed Kubel for years and it finally paid off last season.
A ginormous flag was unfurled on the field for the Star Spangled Banner (it covered the entire outfield!), and fireworks erupted as four F-16s flew over the stadium. I've seen flybys on TV before, but this was an experience that Dome-goers never got, and it's pretty impressive to see it for real. Much better than a video screen in the Dome just showing eagles and fireworks.
Text from Tom: "Best day ever, and I'm not even inside!"
I'm going to fast-forward to quickly cover some of the in-game notes. The first pitch of the game was a ball. Chorus of boos. The leadoff batter for the Red Sox got the first official hit in Target Field, and was promptly picked off. Chorus of cheers. Pavano pitched a great game. Denard Span tracked down a number of long flies. Off of the bat there were several balls that I thought would be home runs, but the wind kept them in the park. There is wind that is keeping home run balls in the park! (Thank goodness too, otherwise former Twin David Ortiz would've had the first home run, and that kind of would've sucked.)
Every Twins player reached base at least once. Nick Punto stole second and broke his belt while sliding. He jogged back towards the dugout while taking it off, and the ballboy ran out to him with a new belt. I was surprised they had a backup belt ready that fast. Does this happen a lot? The Yankees and Red Sox have been criticized for their slow pace of play, and the Twins have backup belts ready.
Justin Morneau looked like he was swinging for the fences with every at bat, but it ended up being Jason Kubel that hit the first official Target Field home run. I told you the booing him would pay off! And, ultimately, the Twins won the game after Jon Rauch locked down the save. I was wondering what his entrance music would be. It was "Wherever I May Roam" by Metallica. Definitely not as awesome as Nathan's music, "STAND UP AND SHOUT!"
But for me, the best moment was after the F-16 flyby, and before the game even got under way. There was just a small pause. The anthem was finished, the giant flag was being folded up and carried away, and the players were crouched on the top steps of the dugout. The sun was shining on the 38,000-plus who were on their feet, and vast majority of us were holding our breath in anticipation of cheering the team on for their first-inning sprint onto the field. It was during that pause where I thought, and I'd like to think everyone else in the stadium thought, "It's happening! It's finally happening! Real professional outdoor baseball in Minnesota!"
Pause.
"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, YOUR MINNESOTA TWINS!"
Joy.
Monday, April 12, 2010
24: AAAARGH 24 I HATE YOU, I HATE YOU, I HATE HATE HATE YOU! ARAGHR*&%$@#!
Previously, on 24...
With President Hassan dead, the peace treaty is in a bad place. Jack tells President Taylor that if the treaty isn't signed then the terrorists win, so President Taylor gets Mrs. Hassan to take Omar Hassan's place and will sign the treaty. The Russians are mad about this because they secretly set up Omar Hassan's assassination and want to destroy the peace treaty. President Taylor enlists the help of former 24 President, Charles Logan (season 4-5 President). He says he's pals with the Russians and will smooth things over. Great.
Director Hastings is removed from CTU for his failure to save Hassan, and Chloe is put in charge of CTU because she's been working there for about 16 hours now and has the most seniority or something.
Jack and his team managed to kill all the terrorists except Johan, who was wounded and will be brought back to CTU for questioning. A man disguised as a medic injects him with something to finish him off and as he leaves the scene Renee spots him, but doesn't think much of it.
Turns out that medic guy was a Russian mobster in the Red Square, and he recognizes Renee from when she was undercover. He decides to follow Jack and Renee as they head back to Jack's apartment. He breaks in to the building across the street and kills a random tenant, and then sets up his sniper and scope and watches Jack and Renee have sex for about 40 minutes. Jack gets out of bed and is covered in scars and bullet holes and stab wounds from years of saving America.
Chloe calls and tells Renee that Johan was killed, and Renee remembers that she saw the medic. Renee is about to tell Jack when - PTEW, PTEW - she's shot by the sniper. He tries to shoot Jack but Jack grabs Renee and runs outside to get a cab to bring her to the hospital. The cabbie is an impressive driver, and they get Renee to the hospital quickly. She gets wheeled into another room and Jack gets called from Chloe and learns about the Russian mobster. He got away. The hospital crew comes out and informs Jack that Renee is dead. Aaaannnnnd, here comes the rant:
I HATE YOU 24! I HATE YOU! This is the final season, AND YOU KILL CRAZY RENEE! What kind of crap is that? Jack saves America over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, and you kill his first wife and now you kill Crazy Renee? Thanks for saving America, Jack! Did you want a happy ending? TOO BAD! I honestly would've taken 7 hours of peace negotiations over this. And is Jack going to go all "rampage-y" and kill a bunch of people? NO! Because almost all the bad guys are dead anyway! Sure, they'll kill the Russian mobster and arrest the Russian politicians behind Omar Hassan's assassination, and Dana will be killed for treason, but that's no consolation. YOU HEAR ME 24! KILLING DANA IS NO CONSOLATION! I HATE YOU!
Sigh. Even the death tally isn't going to make me feel better about this episode.
Bad guys: 3 (Mobster poisoned Johan, stabbed Jack's neighbor, killed Crazy Renee).
50 kills now for the bad guys. Everyone else stands pat. Season projections are at 120 deaths. One of which will probably be Jack hanging himself to end the series. You suck, 24. End rant.
Monday, April 5, 2010
24: So... now what?
Previously, on 24…
2-hour night of 24 tonight, so this could be a long post. Are they giving us a 2-hour episode to fit in more killing? I sure hope so!
President Hassan continues to be the best new character when he clonks Jack Bauer on the head and turns himself in to the fake terrorists. He just took a page out of the “Jack Bauer: How to be a Hero” handbook, making the decision to sacrifice himself to prevent the bomb from going off. The lone remaining fake terrorist takes Hassan to Tarin, and the bomb is stopped with 0007 seconds left. Nice job stealing a scene out of the James Bond movie Goldfinger!
Just to update everyone, going into tonight, there were 10 hours left of the final season of 24. In the first half hour of this episode, the bomb was recovered. So the next 9.5 hours are going to be about recovering Hassan.
Bauer eventually is able to follow so he steals a car to go after Hassan. He calls President Taylor and lets her know about the traitors, General Beckman and Secretary of State Weiss. Taylor has Beckman and Weiss arrested, giving Weiss a bitch slap in the process. Ethan is still alive from the heart attack and is taken to the hospital. President Taylor says, “Get back to work soon, that’s an order!” She is the WORST 24 president.
Jack also calls CTU and they are able to track Tarin and Hassan. Agent Ortiz is on the phone with Jack, helping set up an ambush with snipers and machine guns. Dana sneaks away and calls Tarin to help him avoid the ambush. Tarin drives into a parking garage and drops Hassan off with some other bad guys. How did they get there so fast if Tarin only learned about the ambush two seconds ago? This doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.
Jack chases Tarin and he drives his car off of the parking garage roof. Tarin’s dead. Jack calls Renee and tells her that there’s got to be a mole at CTU. They figure out that it’s Dana and she makes a break for it, shooting and killing two security guards. Where did Dana get a gun? Do all computer analysts at CTU get guns? This is all very confusing. Agent Ortiz ends up being the one chasing Dana down, shooting out her tires before she can escape. He throws her out of the car and slams her up against a wall and demands to know who the hell she is. Dana replies, “I want to talk to Jack Bauer.”
Jack shows up and asks why she wanted to speak to him. “Because you’re the only one without your head up your ass.” Wow, what an accurate statement. Dana wants immunity and money. Jack says if Hassan isn’t saved, she’ll get nothing. Meanwhile, Hassan is delivered to Johan. They plan to have him confess to his crimes before they kill him on the Internet. Hassan does not agree, and Johan’s men begin the torture. 24 may be ending, but Hassan is prime for a new action-packed spinoff.
Dana gets the immunity from President Taylor and gives up the building where Johan is hiding, but she doesn’t know what apartment they’re in. Ortiz hears about the immunity and is furious. I hope he kills Dana. Johan soon decides that he can’t break Hassan with torture and decides to start up the Internet feed to talk about Hassan’s crimes himself. CTU and President Taylor watch the feed, and Chloe noticed that the shadows on the wall indicate that they are on the East side, 4th floor. Jack and his team are ready to storm in and save Hassan.
Ortiz snipes one of the lookouts on the roof, and a random agent snipes the other rooftop lookout. Jack enters the building and takes out a hostile on the fourth floor. One agent uses an Internet detector to determine what apartment they’re in. It looks like an expensive piece of CTU gear, but really it accomplishes the same thing as this: http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts-apparel/hats-ties/bd12/
They find the right apartment and Renee shoots one terrorist while Jack shoots three more. You can hear Johan’s speech the whole time in the background. All hostiles are down and Jack turns to find Hassan. His throat has been slashed. The Internet feed had been pre-recorded, and Jack was too late. I guess there won’t be a spinoff for Hassan after all.
On one hand, I had predicted that 24 would keep Hassan alive and that the series would end with him signing the peace agreement. Kudos to them for not doing something completely predictable. On the other hand, F*** you, 24! Hassan was the only good new character, and now we’ll have 8 hours of President Taylor worrying about politics. Jack will track down Johan eventually, but who cares? The bomb is secured and Hassan is dead. Any agent could track him down and arrest him or kill him. It doesn’t matter. The bad guys won. What motivation is there for Jack to stay on the case? Give Dana the death penalty and Jack can take Crazy Renee to California and concentrate on babysitting his granddaughter. There really isn’t anything else to do. What will they do, have another terrorist shows up out of nowhere with another random bomb for Jack to stop? Ugh. I think the 24 writers have their heads up their asses.
Death Tally:
Bad guys: 4 (Dana shot 2 guards, Tarin killed himself, Johan killed Hassan)
Jack: 4 terrorists
Renee, Ortiz, random agent: 1 terrorist each
Jack is now up to 22 kills, Ortiz up to 6, and Renee up to 4. Bad guys are up to 47. 82 deaths on the season and our projected death total goes up to 123. It will go down over the next 8 hours, and I will likely be grumpy until Dana is finally killed.
2-hour night of 24 tonight, so this could be a long post. Are they giving us a 2-hour episode to fit in more killing? I sure hope so!
President Hassan continues to be the best new character when he clonks Jack Bauer on the head and turns himself in to the fake terrorists. He just took a page out of the “Jack Bauer: How to be a Hero” handbook, making the decision to sacrifice himself to prevent the bomb from going off. The lone remaining fake terrorist takes Hassan to Tarin, and the bomb is stopped with 0007 seconds left. Nice job stealing a scene out of the James Bond movie Goldfinger!
Just to update everyone, going into tonight, there were 10 hours left of the final season of 24. In the first half hour of this episode, the bomb was recovered. So the next 9.5 hours are going to be about recovering Hassan.
Bauer eventually is able to follow so he steals a car to go after Hassan. He calls President Taylor and lets her know about the traitors, General Beckman and Secretary of State Weiss. Taylor has Beckman and Weiss arrested, giving Weiss a bitch slap in the process. Ethan is still alive from the heart attack and is taken to the hospital. President Taylor says, “Get back to work soon, that’s an order!” She is the WORST 24 president.
Jack also calls CTU and they are able to track Tarin and Hassan. Agent Ortiz is on the phone with Jack, helping set up an ambush with snipers and machine guns. Dana sneaks away and calls Tarin to help him avoid the ambush. Tarin drives into a parking garage and drops Hassan off with some other bad guys. How did they get there so fast if Tarin only learned about the ambush two seconds ago? This doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.
Jack chases Tarin and he drives his car off of the parking garage roof. Tarin’s dead. Jack calls Renee and tells her that there’s got to be a mole at CTU. They figure out that it’s Dana and she makes a break for it, shooting and killing two security guards. Where did Dana get a gun? Do all computer analysts at CTU get guns? This is all very confusing. Agent Ortiz ends up being the one chasing Dana down, shooting out her tires before she can escape. He throws her out of the car and slams her up against a wall and demands to know who the hell she is. Dana replies, “I want to talk to Jack Bauer.”
Jack shows up and asks why she wanted to speak to him. “Because you’re the only one without your head up your ass.” Wow, what an accurate statement. Dana wants immunity and money. Jack says if Hassan isn’t saved, she’ll get nothing. Meanwhile, Hassan is delivered to Johan. They plan to have him confess to his crimes before they kill him on the Internet. Hassan does not agree, and Johan’s men begin the torture. 24 may be ending, but Hassan is prime for a new action-packed spinoff.
Dana gets the immunity from President Taylor and gives up the building where Johan is hiding, but she doesn’t know what apartment they’re in. Ortiz hears about the immunity and is furious. I hope he kills Dana. Johan soon decides that he can’t break Hassan with torture and decides to start up the Internet feed to talk about Hassan’s crimes himself. CTU and President Taylor watch the feed, and Chloe noticed that the shadows on the wall indicate that they are on the East side, 4th floor. Jack and his team are ready to storm in and save Hassan.
Ortiz snipes one of the lookouts on the roof, and a random agent snipes the other rooftop lookout. Jack enters the building and takes out a hostile on the fourth floor. One agent uses an Internet detector to determine what apartment they’re in. It looks like an expensive piece of CTU gear, but really it accomplishes the same thing as this: http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts-apparel/hats-ties/bd12/
They find the right apartment and Renee shoots one terrorist while Jack shoots three more. You can hear Johan’s speech the whole time in the background. All hostiles are down and Jack turns to find Hassan. His throat has been slashed. The Internet feed had been pre-recorded, and Jack was too late. I guess there won’t be a spinoff for Hassan after all.
On one hand, I had predicted that 24 would keep Hassan alive and that the series would end with him signing the peace agreement. Kudos to them for not doing something completely predictable. On the other hand, F*** you, 24! Hassan was the only good new character, and now we’ll have 8 hours of President Taylor worrying about politics. Jack will track down Johan eventually, but who cares? The bomb is secured and Hassan is dead. Any agent could track him down and arrest him or kill him. It doesn’t matter. The bad guys won. What motivation is there for Jack to stay on the case? Give Dana the death penalty and Jack can take Crazy Renee to California and concentrate on babysitting his granddaughter. There really isn’t anything else to do. What will they do, have another terrorist shows up out of nowhere with another random bomb for Jack to stop? Ugh. I think the 24 writers have their heads up their asses.
Death Tally:
Bad guys: 4 (Dana shot 2 guards, Tarin killed himself, Johan killed Hassan)
Jack: 4 terrorists
Renee, Ortiz, random agent: 1 terrorist each
Jack is now up to 22 kills, Ortiz up to 6, and Renee up to 4. Bad guys are up to 47. 82 deaths on the season and our projected death total goes up to 123. It will go down over the next 8 hours, and I will likely be grumpy until Dana is finally killed.
Monday, March 29, 2010
24: You my boy, Hassan!
Previously, on 24...
Johan and Tarin get off the boat and get the rods to the bomb maker. They call President Taylor, demanding that she turn over President Hassan or they'll blow up New York. Dana checks in with Johan and Tarin uses her CTU intel to avoid police checkpoints and he sits ready to turn on the bomb.
President Taylor doesn't plan on handing Hassan in, and calls Jack to escort Hassan to safety. Some military guys think that they should hand Hassan over so that New York isn't blown up, so they decide to help the terrorists. Secretary Ethan finds out about this and tries to call Jack, but then he has a heart attack (I'm not sure if he's dead yet. I'll add it to the death tally when he's officially dead).
Jack got the call from Ethan while escorting Hassan but when Jack can't connect back with Ethan then Jack knows they're in trouble. He decides to bring Hassan back to the UN building but the military posing as terrorists goes after them. Hassan's security team fights back, but they go down big. Fake terrorists kill 6 on screen, and it's implied that they kill off the rest of the security too (3 more implied deaths). Hassan, one of the coolest 24 characters ever, tells Jack to give him a gun, and Jack does.
Jack takes down 6 of the fake terrorists (he may have only fired 6 bullets). Copy and paste from last week: A bad guy lines up his sight and is about to take out Jack for good when BLAM! Crazy Renee shows up and gets a kill. Except this time replace Crazy Renee with President Hassan. YES! Even President Hassan is killing people now! This is great! I knew he and Jack would get along great. President Hassan, give us a good lookin' death tally, please!
Bad guys: 9 (The fake terrorists shoot and kill 6 security folk on screen, and 3 more kills are implied).
Random security person: 1 fake terrorist shot.
Jack: 6 fake terrorists shot.
President Omar Hassan: I'd vote for you. 1 fake terrorist shot.
The military people count as bad guys even though they are Americans trying to save New York. But if Jack killed them, they must be bad guys. Jack is up to 18 kills, Hassan gets on the board, and bad guys are up to 43. Projected season totals skyrocket to 122 kills. There's no way we'll actually get to that number, but it's the highest projection we've had all season, and it's nice to have picked up a ridiculous 29 kills over the last 2 episodes. Hooray for bullets!
The episode ends with Johan telling Tarin to set the bomb so that in 15 minutes, New York will blow up! Next week is supposed to be a two-hour episode, so I'm guessing it doesn't go off.
Monday, March 22, 2010
24: KILLING FRENZY!
Previously, on 24...
This episode was fantastic. First, let's amend the death tally. A CTU guy confirmed that 3 people were killed by the EMP blast (I had only counted the guy in the car. +2 deaths). Second, I've decided to make a new rule about bulletproof vests. If you're wearing a bulletproof vest and are shot, and you're NOT Jack Bauer, you are dead until proven otherwise. Five cops were shot last week, and we counted that as four kills. Screw it, I'm counting that as five now (+1).
Jack figures out where the bad guys are going and drives his crew over to the docks, but they get pinned down by gunfire. CTU is crippled and NSA comes in to try and get them back online. Chloe is worried about Jack so she tells Hastings to send out some men to find Jack. Hastings says Jack could be anywhere in New York, and they don't have the man power. Chloe calls Crazy Renee and tells her to try find Jack instead.
Chloe then comes up with a faster way to get CTU up and running. The NSA guys don't want to listen to Chloe, so she pulls a gun on them. Director Hastings asks Dana what they should do (because she's the best they've got!) and Dana says that Chloe is crazy and he shouldn't listen to her, but Hastings lets Chloe do her thing, and she gets the power back.
Meanwhile, Jack and his boys Owen, Ortiz, and random agent guy are all pinned down by the terrorists. They see Johan and Tarin get on a boat with the rods, but they can't do anything to stop them and can't contact CTU. They put together a giant shield to try and get to a phone to call for help. The shield is working until the random agent freaks out. He gets shot and Owen gets shot, and Jack kills a bad guy, and Ortiz kills a bad guy. They still need to get to the phone, so Jack says he'll draw the fire and Ortiz can break for it. Jack kills two more and then gets shot in his bulletproof vest. A bad guy lines up his sight and is about to take out Jack for good when BLAM! Crazy Renee shows up and gets a kill. Then she kills another bad guy and runs to help Jack. Ortiz meanwhile has gotten on the phone to get a chopper which shows up to chase after the boat. Whew!
Back at CTU, Stephen Root is still trying to get the truth from Dana, but the video evidence was wiped out from the EMP. Dana tells him to bug off, but he won't go. Dana says he's got nothing on her, but Stephen Root says he'll bring her down. Dana kills Stephen Root.
Wait, what?!
Yes, Dana chokes him to death, pops open a panel in the wall and drags the body inside. She then calls Johan to tell him CTU is up and running again and she won't be able to keep her cover too much longer. This is probably the best news ever. Why? Because she's a bad guy now, and that means DANA IS GOING TO DIE! WOO HOO! Ortiz will probably kill her. I can't wait!
Since today was a killing frenzy, I think it's Super Updated Death Tally Time!
Jack: I had him killing 3 guys tonight. 12 total.
Ortiz: 1 kill tonight. 5 total.
Renee: 2 kills tonight. 3 total.
Bad Guys: I added 6 to their total (+2 EMP deaths and +1 cop from the previous episode. Owen, random agent, and Stephen Root killed off this episode). 34 kills for team bad guys.
Lots of running around, lots of shooting, lots of kills, Crazy Renee is back, and Dana will eventually die. This was a huge night. 54 kills for the season. Rounding up to the nearest number, our projected total kill count hits an even 100. I think I'll celebrate with some ice cream!
This episode was fantastic. First, let's amend the death tally. A CTU guy confirmed that 3 people were killed by the EMP blast (I had only counted the guy in the car. +2 deaths). Second, I've decided to make a new rule about bulletproof vests. If you're wearing a bulletproof vest and are shot, and you're NOT Jack Bauer, you are dead until proven otherwise. Five cops were shot last week, and we counted that as four kills. Screw it, I'm counting that as five now (+1).
Jack figures out where the bad guys are going and drives his crew over to the docks, but they get pinned down by gunfire. CTU is crippled and NSA comes in to try and get them back online. Chloe is worried about Jack so she tells Hastings to send out some men to find Jack. Hastings says Jack could be anywhere in New York, and they don't have the man power. Chloe calls Crazy Renee and tells her to try find Jack instead.
Chloe then comes up with a faster way to get CTU up and running. The NSA guys don't want to listen to Chloe, so she pulls a gun on them. Director Hastings asks Dana what they should do (because she's the best they've got!) and Dana says that Chloe is crazy and he shouldn't listen to her, but Hastings lets Chloe do her thing, and she gets the power back.
Meanwhile, Jack and his boys Owen, Ortiz, and random agent guy are all pinned down by the terrorists. They see Johan and Tarin get on a boat with the rods, but they can't do anything to stop them and can't contact CTU. They put together a giant shield to try and get to a phone to call for help. The shield is working until the random agent freaks out. He gets shot and Owen gets shot, and Jack kills a bad guy, and Ortiz kills a bad guy. They still need to get to the phone, so Jack says he'll draw the fire and Ortiz can break for it. Jack kills two more and then gets shot in his bulletproof vest. A bad guy lines up his sight and is about to take out Jack for good when BLAM! Crazy Renee shows up and gets a kill. Then she kills another bad guy and runs to help Jack. Ortiz meanwhile has gotten on the phone to get a chopper which shows up to chase after the boat. Whew!
Back at CTU, Stephen Root is still trying to get the truth from Dana, but the video evidence was wiped out from the EMP. Dana tells him to bug off, but he won't go. Dana says he's got nothing on her, but Stephen Root says he'll bring her down. Dana kills Stephen Root.
Wait, what?!
Yes, Dana chokes him to death, pops open a panel in the wall and drags the body inside. She then calls Johan to tell him CTU is up and running again and she won't be able to keep her cover too much longer. This is probably the best news ever. Why? Because she's a bad guy now, and that means DANA IS GOING TO DIE! WOO HOO! Ortiz will probably kill her. I can't wait!
Since today was a killing frenzy, I think it's Super Updated Death Tally Time!
Jack: I had him killing 3 guys tonight. 12 total.
Ortiz: 1 kill tonight. 5 total.
Renee: 2 kills tonight. 3 total.
Bad Guys: I added 6 to their total (+2 EMP deaths and +1 cop from the previous episode. Owen, random agent, and Stephen Root killed off this episode). 34 kills for team bad guys.
Lots of running around, lots of shooting, lots of kills, Crazy Renee is back, and Dana will eventually die. This was a huge night. 54 kills for the season. Rounding up to the nearest number, our projected total kill count hits an even 100. I think I'll celebrate with some ice cream!
Saturday, March 20, 2010
The (crushed-in) face of wrestling is changing
I read on the interwebs that, in an effort to prevent wrestlers from getting concussions, the WWE is no longer going to allow chair shots to the head. I found more info on this looking at the wellness policy on WWE's corporate website (which mostly talks about steroids). It doesn't say anything about outlawing hitting someone in the head with fists, boots, trashcans, microphones, bamboo canes, ring bells, ladders, tables, sledgehammers, brass knuckles, or championship belts, but it does now specifically ban hitting someone in the head with a metal folding chair. Also, looks like you can still hit someone with a chair in the knees or the back, just not the head.
I guess doing something to prevent concussions is a good move, but... BOOOOOO! Chair shots are fun! I saw Eddie Guerrero give JBL a chair shot when I went to a WWE event in Japan, and it was the best part of their match. (Caught a pic of it below. The ref is out! BAM!) It saddens me that future generations of wrestling fans will no longer get to experience the wonderful sight and sound of chair meeting skull. "Back in MY day, they used to smack each other in the head with steal chairs. Now THAT was wrestling!" Sigh. WWE sure better keep chair shots in their wrestling video games. Otherwise I don't know how well 5'7", 140lb high-flying luchador create-a-superstar "Ben" will fare against the rest of the competition.
I guess doing something to prevent concussions is a good move, but... BOOOOOO! Chair shots are fun! I saw Eddie Guerrero give JBL a chair shot when I went to a WWE event in Japan, and it was the best part of their match. (Caught a pic of it below. The ref is out! BAM!) It saddens me that future generations of wrestling fans will no longer get to experience the wonderful sight and sound of chair meeting skull. "Back in MY day, they used to smack each other in the head with steal chairs. Now THAT was wrestling!" Sigh. WWE sure better keep chair shots in their wrestling video games. Otherwise I don't know how well 5'7", 140lb high-flying luchador create-a-superstar "Ben" will fare against the rest of the competition.
Monday, March 15, 2010
24: Another one (or 2? 4? 6?) bites the dust.
Previously, on 24...
Jack tracks the security boyfriend Tarin to a hotel but he escapes with President Hassan's daughter, Kayla, and he kills an undefined amount of cops on his way out (more on that later). The bad guys want to use Kayla to try and get "File 33" from Hassan, which has confidential secrets about U.S. defense strategies. If the terrorists got their hands on those, then they could blow us up like that *(snaps fingers).
But when Hassan doesn't hand over File 33, the terrorists are supposed to kill Kayla, but Tarin decides to save her, and they escape again! He pushes her into a car, but Johan is right behind them and he shoots and kills Tarin, and Kayla drives off to find CTU!
Then we find out Tarin isn't dead, he was working with Johan, and they wanted Kayla to escape so that she would drive to CTU, and inside her car is an EMP bomb, and a security guy tries to drive the car away in time, but THEY'RE RUNNING OUT OF TIME and it blows up and the EMP takes out all of CTU's communications systems!
Meanwhile, Stephen Root knows that Dana is guilty and is going to bust her, but the evidence is probably erased in the EMP blast. She'll end up getting away scott free, but at least Ortiz will dump her by the end of the season. Jack doesn't do much this week. He just rides around in the car with his boyz, Cole and Owen. They'll party next week, Bauer style, fo' sho'.
Now onto this week's death tally. Being an official scorer is a tricky thing. I had to call some other 24 fans looking for consensus on tonight's kill count. Initially I had Tarin shooting three cops to escape the hotel, but I wasn't going to count those as kills because they were all wearing vests (presumably of the bulletproof variety). Then he gets out of the hotel and his getaway driver shoots two cops in the alley. These two I was going to count as kills.
Called home, Mom answered. "Mom, I need to ask Dad an important question about 24." "Oh, yes, he said it was a good one and he was excited earlier because he said they killed four cops!" Dad gets on the line and we count them all up, and he says 4 cops killed. "But what about their vests?" "NO! We need the kill count!" Thanks Dad!
Called Dave. "Dave, how many cops did Terin kill?" "Well, he shot four or five. I'll say... yeah, four or five. 4 and a half" (pause) "But they were wearing vests..." (Jessica, wife of Dave, can be heard in the background, "He killed six cops!") Then we recount them all again. She thinks 4 in the hotel and 2 in the alley. Dave still thinks 4 or 5.
So I'm going to average it out and going with 4 cops killed (Ben's lowball guess of 2, Dad and Dave's guesses of 4, Jessica's guess of 6). Just know that the final tally will be plus or minus 2 kills for the bad guys. If later in the show someone says "I can't believe Terin shot and killed exactly___ amount of cops!" then I can update later.
Death Tally!
Bad guys: 5 (4 cops, 1 security guy killed by EMP).
Phew. Bad guys are up to 28 kills, give or take, and we're on pace for 84 this season. Another hour ticks by without a kill for Jack.
Jack tracks the security boyfriend Tarin to a hotel but he escapes with President Hassan's daughter, Kayla, and he kills an undefined amount of cops on his way out (more on that later). The bad guys want to use Kayla to try and get "File 33" from Hassan, which has confidential secrets about U.S. defense strategies. If the terrorists got their hands on those, then they could blow us up like that *(snaps fingers).
But when Hassan doesn't hand over File 33, the terrorists are supposed to kill Kayla, but Tarin decides to save her, and they escape again! He pushes her into a car, but Johan is right behind them and he shoots and kills Tarin, and Kayla drives off to find CTU!
Then we find out Tarin isn't dead, he was working with Johan, and they wanted Kayla to escape so that she would drive to CTU, and inside her car is an EMP bomb, and a security guy tries to drive the car away in time, but THEY'RE RUNNING OUT OF TIME and it blows up and the EMP takes out all of CTU's communications systems!
Meanwhile, Stephen Root knows that Dana is guilty and is going to bust her, but the evidence is probably erased in the EMP blast. She'll end up getting away scott free, but at least Ortiz will dump her by the end of the season. Jack doesn't do much this week. He just rides around in the car with his boyz, Cole and Owen. They'll party next week, Bauer style, fo' sho'.
Now onto this week's death tally. Being an official scorer is a tricky thing. I had to call some other 24 fans looking for consensus on tonight's kill count. Initially I had Tarin shooting three cops to escape the hotel, but I wasn't going to count those as kills because they were all wearing vests (presumably of the bulletproof variety). Then he gets out of the hotel and his getaway driver shoots two cops in the alley. These two I was going to count as kills.
Called home, Mom answered. "Mom, I need to ask Dad an important question about 24." "Oh, yes, he said it was a good one and he was excited earlier because he said they killed four cops!" Dad gets on the line and we count them all up, and he says 4 cops killed. "But what about their vests?" "NO! We need the kill count!" Thanks Dad!
Called Dave. "Dave, how many cops did Terin kill?" "Well, he shot four or five. I'll say... yeah, four or five. 4 and a half" (pause) "But they were wearing vests..." (Jessica, wife of Dave, can be heard in the background, "He killed six cops!") Then we recount them all again. She thinks 4 in the hotel and 2 in the alley. Dave still thinks 4 or 5.
So I'm going to average it out and going with 4 cops killed (Ben's lowball guess of 2, Dad and Dave's guesses of 4, Jessica's guess of 6). Just know that the final tally will be plus or minus 2 kills for the bad guys. If later in the show someone says "I can't believe Terin shot and killed exactly___ amount of cops!" then I can update later.
Death Tally!
Bad guys: 5 (4 cops, 1 security guy killed by EMP).
Phew. Bad guys are up to 28 kills, give or take, and we're on pace for 84 this season. Another hour ticks by without a kill for Jack.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
30 Rock wird... GRUN!
I watched "Where the Wild Things Are" this evening, and I'm not sure I can bring myself to blog too much about it. Saddest, most depressing movie I think I've ever seen. If I did post specifically about the movie, it might just end up a long list of all the reasons why it's so depressing, and I think I've had enough of crying so hard I throw up for one night. It made me hate this world so much, and it'll probably be a long time before I can even read the book version again, which is a real shame.
Fortunately, 30 Rock was also on tonight, and I thought it was a pretty good episode too. During some of the commercials there were advertisements for Matt Damon's new movie "Green Zone". Did any other 30 Rock fans out there immediately think of "Greenzo"? I put in a search for Greenzo on YouTube to post here in case anyone didn't remember, and the very first hit is a German 30 Rock ad. Awesome. I feel a little better now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IxhyI-FaZ4
Fortunately, 30 Rock was also on tonight, and I thought it was a pretty good episode too. During some of the commercials there were advertisements for Matt Damon's new movie "Green Zone". Did any other 30 Rock fans out there immediately think of "Greenzo"? I put in a search for Greenzo on YouTube to post here in case anyone didn't remember, and the very first hit is a German 30 Rock ad. Awesome. I feel a little better now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IxhyI-FaZ4
Monday, March 8, 2010
24: I'm telling Mom!
Previously, on 24...
Dana and Cole return to CTU, and Director Hastings says, "If you two weren't the best I've got, I'd fire you!" THEY'RE the best CTU's got? Wow. Dana gets demoted and Chloe is in charge now... because Chloe was just hired by CTU, and she herself was threatened with termination for incompetence not 8 hours ago, so clearly she's the next highest rung on the ladder. Although I am sick of the Dana/Cole storyline, it did bring in the excellent Stephen Root (Milton from Office Space) as the dead-criminal's parole officer. Unfortunately I still think that storyline will just drag on. I also still hope that Dana dies.
President Hassan's daughter is hooking up with the head of security, and we confirm in this episode that he's a bad guy. It was pretty funny that Hassan's wife was giving him shit, saying "How could you arrest him! He's so trustworthy!" and then they find out he's a bad guy, and Hassan totally flashes his wife a "told ya so" look. Hassan is awesome.
Jack spent the whole episode talking to the suicide bomber. Jack says, "I'm gonna tell your mom!" and he does. This is how Jack fights terror this year. No killing or torture, just tattling. They bring in the bomber's mom to try and talk him out of exploding himself, but it doesn't work so Jack makes some great threats. He says if the bomber commits suicide then Jack is going to kill his mom. "You wouldn't!" "I WILL! AND IF THAT BOMB GOES OFF, I'M GOING TO BRING YOUR MOTHER IN HERE TO SWEEP UP THE PIECES!" Best line of the season.
Some of Johan's terrorists trigger a fail-safe, so the suicide bomber does explode, but he tells Jack about Hassan's security guy first. Jack is off to find him, but tells everyone they need to take him alive. First they need to get to Fahrad, and take him alive, but he dies. Then they need to get to the suicide bomber, but take him alive, but he dies. Now they need to get this guy, and take him alive. I bet he dies. Coincidentally, we're on a horrendous 1-kill-per-episode streak.
Bad guys: 1 (suicide bomber go kaboom)
23 kills now for the bad guys. Jack hasn't killed anyone in over three hours. We're on pace for 81 kills for the season. Owen needs to kill 13 people next week to get our projections back to 100.
Dana and Cole return to CTU, and Director Hastings says, "If you two weren't the best I've got, I'd fire you!" THEY'RE the best CTU's got? Wow. Dana gets demoted and Chloe is in charge now... because Chloe was just hired by CTU, and she herself was threatened with termination for incompetence not 8 hours ago, so clearly she's the next highest rung on the ladder. Although I am sick of the Dana/Cole storyline, it did bring in the excellent Stephen Root (Milton from Office Space) as the dead-criminal's parole officer. Unfortunately I still think that storyline will just drag on. I also still hope that Dana dies.
President Hassan's daughter is hooking up with the head of security, and we confirm in this episode that he's a bad guy. It was pretty funny that Hassan's wife was giving him shit, saying "How could you arrest him! He's so trustworthy!" and then they find out he's a bad guy, and Hassan totally flashes his wife a "told ya so" look. Hassan is awesome.
Jack spent the whole episode talking to the suicide bomber. Jack says, "I'm gonna tell your mom!" and he does. This is how Jack fights terror this year. No killing or torture, just tattling. They bring in the bomber's mom to try and talk him out of exploding himself, but it doesn't work so Jack makes some great threats. He says if the bomber commits suicide then Jack is going to kill his mom. "You wouldn't!" "I WILL! AND IF THAT BOMB GOES OFF, I'M GOING TO BRING YOUR MOTHER IN HERE TO SWEEP UP THE PIECES!" Best line of the season.
Some of Johan's terrorists trigger a fail-safe, so the suicide bomber does explode, but he tells Jack about Hassan's security guy first. Jack is off to find him, but tells everyone they need to take him alive. First they need to get to Fahrad, and take him alive, but he dies. Then they need to get to the suicide bomber, but take him alive, but he dies. Now they need to get this guy, and take him alive. I bet he dies. Coincidentally, we're on a horrendous 1-kill-per-episode streak.
Bad guys: 1 (suicide bomber go kaboom)
23 kills now for the bad guys. Jack hasn't killed anyone in over three hours. We're on pace for 81 kills for the season. Owen needs to kill 13 people next week to get our projections back to 100.
Monday, March 1, 2010
24: Weekend at Bernie's
Previously, on 24...
Dana and agent Ortiz bury the dead criminals in the swamp. I really like that they aren't spending any time on that story any more. President Hassan's daughter runs off with her boyfriend. The U.N. building is evacuated because of the potential bomb, but President Hassan says he won't leave the building until his daughter is found. President Hassan knows that his daughter is somewhere out there in the city with her boyfriend, so I don't understand what difference it makes where he is if they do find her. It makes perfect sense to madam President though.
Director Hastings actually mans up and let Renee go free. Jack calls Renee and says "Hey, baby, wait at my apartment, I'll bring home a pizza when this day is finally over." That's sweet. I'd rather have crazy Renee in the field killing people but I guess she's just going to wait at Jack's place. Maybe she'll take a shower.
Meanwhile, Jack and CTU storm the compound! Guns and bullets and explosions and death and... actually, no one is there. All the bad guys are hanging out at a Denny's. No cheap kills at all. The bad guys shot Fahrad Hassan before taking off, and then CTU showed up. Jack decides to trick the bad guys by releasing a statement on the news that Fahrad is still alive and being transferred to a hospital, hoping this will draw the terrorists out. They put sunscreen on his nose and a beer can in his hand and he looks totally alive! Owen, the 14-year-old CTU agent, looks nervous about this plan. Jack says, "Don't worry kid, I guarantee you'll live through this!" I thought Owen was toast.
A suicide bomber shows up to kill the already dead Fahrad, but Chloe remotely shuts off the detonator. Owen lives. The suicide bomber jumps out of the hospital window and Jack chases him. Originally they said Fahrad was on the third floor, but I guess they park their ambulances on the 2nd floor of this hospital, and the first floor is actually the basement, because Jack jumped a couple feet down to the roof of the ambulance and then jumped off of that to the ground to chase the suicide bomber. The bomber locks himself in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber and tries to manually set off his bomb. You know where you should go when you want to set off a bomb that's strapped to your vest? A chamber filled with oxygen! Will there be a big explosion next week? I don't know!
Does anyone else think that the bad guy who currently is in charge of the uranium rods looks exactly like Johan Santana? Why are you trying to bomb New York, JoJo? Do you hate the Mets that much? Think of the Niños!!
Johan may give this episode a big thumbs up, but I disagree amigo. No cheap kills at the compound. Fahrad dies, then Jack props him up and uses his ventriloquist skills to say "Hey, terrorists, I'm doing great!" Then the terrorists shoot Fahrad's corpse some more. I don't care how many times you kill him, it still only counts as one lousy kill.
Bad guys: 1 (Fahrad. Twice.)
Bad guys are up to 22 kills now. Projected totals for the season fall to 86. I'm sure Owen's gonna get a good dozen or so baddies next week to get us back on track. And I'm ready for baseball season.
Dana and agent Ortiz bury the dead criminals in the swamp. I really like that they aren't spending any time on that story any more. President Hassan's daughter runs off with her boyfriend. The U.N. building is evacuated because of the potential bomb, but President Hassan says he won't leave the building until his daughter is found. President Hassan knows that his daughter is somewhere out there in the city with her boyfriend, so I don't understand what difference it makes where he is if they do find her. It makes perfect sense to madam President though.
Director Hastings actually mans up and let Renee go free. Jack calls Renee and says "Hey, baby, wait at my apartment, I'll bring home a pizza when this day is finally over." That's sweet. I'd rather have crazy Renee in the field killing people but I guess she's just going to wait at Jack's place. Maybe she'll take a shower.
Meanwhile, Jack and CTU storm the compound! Guns and bullets and explosions and death and... actually, no one is there. All the bad guys are hanging out at a Denny's. No cheap kills at all. The bad guys shot Fahrad Hassan before taking off, and then CTU showed up. Jack decides to trick the bad guys by releasing a statement on the news that Fahrad is still alive and being transferred to a hospital, hoping this will draw the terrorists out. They put sunscreen on his nose and a beer can in his hand and he looks totally alive! Owen, the 14-year-old CTU agent, looks nervous about this plan. Jack says, "Don't worry kid, I guarantee you'll live through this!" I thought Owen was toast.
A suicide bomber shows up to kill the already dead Fahrad, but Chloe remotely shuts off the detonator. Owen lives. The suicide bomber jumps out of the hospital window and Jack chases him. Originally they said Fahrad was on the third floor, but I guess they park their ambulances on the 2nd floor of this hospital, and the first floor is actually the basement, because Jack jumped a couple feet down to the roof of the ambulance and then jumped off of that to the ground to chase the suicide bomber. The bomber locks himself in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber and tries to manually set off his bomb. You know where you should go when you want to set off a bomb that's strapped to your vest? A chamber filled with oxygen! Will there be a big explosion next week? I don't know!
Does anyone else think that the bad guy who currently is in charge of the uranium rods looks exactly like Johan Santana? Why are you trying to bomb New York, JoJo? Do you hate the Mets that much? Think of the Niños!!Johan may give this episode a big thumbs up, but I disagree amigo. No cheap kills at the compound. Fahrad dies, then Jack props him up and uses his ventriloquist skills to say "Hey, terrorists, I'm doing great!" Then the terrorists shoot Fahrad's corpse some more. I don't care how many times you kill him, it still only counts as one lousy kill.
Bad guys: 1 (Fahrad. Twice.)
Bad guys are up to 22 kills now. Projected totals for the season fall to 86. I'm sure Owen's gonna get a good dozen or so baddies next week to get us back on track. And I'm ready for baseball season.
Monday, February 22, 2010
24: Dana sits in the car and some bad guy has the uranium rods
Previously, on 24...
Remember how psyched I was that David Anders was moving into position to be a pretty awesome villain? Yeah, in the first 5 minutes of the show this week he decided to wuss out and take immunity, and then he got shot by a sniper. I'm not happy about that. Technically CTU hasn't found his body yet, but looks like he's out of the picture. I counting him as dead until proven otherwise.
Fahrad gets the uranium rods and his buddies take him to a warehouse and peer pressure him into using the rods to make a bomb to detonate in New York. Fahrad gets nervous and runs away and calls CTU for help.
Back at CTU, Director Hastings is trying to blame Renee for the missing rods because she got all stabby. Jack doesn't like that and tries to break her out of CTU, but he gets tazered by a guard and goes down. Riiiiiight. Jack was just electrocuted a whole bunch of times by the Russians and was still perfectly capable of breaking someone's neck with his monkey feet, but gets zapped once here and he's dropped like a sack of potatoes.
Hastings wants to send out agent Ortiz to get Fahrad, but Ortiz is off looking for Dana, who's been sitting in her car with a gun watching her criminal ex-boyfriend for the last 40 minutes . Ortiz' backup is some 14-yr-old kid. CTU's hiring skills again on display! Jack says he'll take over the mission and bring back Fahrad if Hastings agrees to stop bugging crazy Renee.
Dana Walsh finally decides to get out of the car and is stopped just in time by Ortiz. Good thing she sat there doing nothing for 40 minutes! Dana tells Ortiz about her secret past and Ortiz confronts the criminals, telling them to get outta town. Ortiz and Dana walk away, one criminal stabs the other one and then goes after Ortiz, and Ortiz shoots him with a shotgun. This entire time I was praying for Dana to somehow die, but it didn't happen. 24 kills off Joseph, but keeps Dana around. Grrrr.
I know it's a little backwards saving the Dana/Ortiz stuff for last, but really nothing else happened. That should say something about how terrible this episode was. Too bad too; they had been on a little bit of a roll. Hopefully Dana's stupid side-story is winding down now that those thieving blackmailers are dead. Just put her in jail and be done with her. Next week Jack should get some cheap anonymous henchmen kills. And I'm not even happy about that. You know why? Because I don't give a crap! So far Director Hasting has been more of a bad guy than most of the supposed villains. In nine hours we've had Davros, Vladimir, Sergei, Fahrad Hassan, and Joseph as the possible head evil-doer. Davros, Vladimir, and Joseph are dead, Sergei is in custody, and Fahrad is trying to give up. Now some guy named Sahim is taking over, but who knows how long that will last? There's no criminal mastermind, they're just playing hot-potato with the uranium rods and it sucks. And yes, that's my second potato reference in this post.
Death tally:
Ortiz: 1 (shotgunned one of the blackmailers)
Bad guys: 2 (Sniper kills Joseph, Dana's ex stabbed by the other blackmailer)
Ortiz has 4 kills now, bad guys are up to 21, projected totals for the season dips to 93 kills.
Remember how psyched I was that David Anders was moving into position to be a pretty awesome villain? Yeah, in the first 5 minutes of the show this week he decided to wuss out and take immunity, and then he got shot by a sniper. I'm not happy about that. Technically CTU hasn't found his body yet, but looks like he's out of the picture. I counting him as dead until proven otherwise.
Fahrad gets the uranium rods and his buddies take him to a warehouse and peer pressure him into using the rods to make a bomb to detonate in New York. Fahrad gets nervous and runs away and calls CTU for help.
Back at CTU, Director Hastings is trying to blame Renee for the missing rods because she got all stabby. Jack doesn't like that and tries to break her out of CTU, but he gets tazered by a guard and goes down. Riiiiiight. Jack was just electrocuted a whole bunch of times by the Russians and was still perfectly capable of breaking someone's neck with his monkey feet, but gets zapped once here and he's dropped like a sack of potatoes.
Hastings wants to send out agent Ortiz to get Fahrad, but Ortiz is off looking for Dana, who's been sitting in her car with a gun watching her criminal ex-boyfriend for the last 40 minutes . Ortiz' backup is some 14-yr-old kid. CTU's hiring skills again on display! Jack says he'll take over the mission and bring back Fahrad if Hastings agrees to stop bugging crazy Renee.
Dana Walsh finally decides to get out of the car and is stopped just in time by Ortiz. Good thing she sat there doing nothing for 40 minutes! Dana tells Ortiz about her secret past and Ortiz confronts the criminals, telling them to get outta town. Ortiz and Dana walk away, one criminal stabs the other one and then goes after Ortiz, and Ortiz shoots him with a shotgun. This entire time I was praying for Dana to somehow die, but it didn't happen. 24 kills off Joseph, but keeps Dana around. Grrrr.
I know it's a little backwards saving the Dana/Ortiz stuff for last, but really nothing else happened. That should say something about how terrible this episode was. Too bad too; they had been on a little bit of a roll. Hopefully Dana's stupid side-story is winding down now that those thieving blackmailers are dead. Just put her in jail and be done with her. Next week Jack should get some cheap anonymous henchmen kills. And I'm not even happy about that. You know why? Because I don't give a crap! So far Director Hasting has been more of a bad guy than most of the supposed villains. In nine hours we've had Davros, Vladimir, Sergei, Fahrad Hassan, and Joseph as the possible head evil-doer. Davros, Vladimir, and Joseph are dead, Sergei is in custody, and Fahrad is trying to give up. Now some guy named Sahim is taking over, but who knows how long that will last? There's no criminal mastermind, they're just playing hot-potato with the uranium rods and it sucks. And yes, that's my second potato reference in this post.
Death tally:
Ortiz: 1 (shotgunned one of the blackmailers)
Bad guys: 2 (Sniper kills Joseph, Dana's ex stabbed by the other blackmailer)
Ortiz has 4 kills now, bad guys are up to 21, projected totals for the season dips to 93 kills.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
More like "Surro-GREAT!"
It's been awhile since I've a done a movie review. I hit up the RedBox today looking for Zombieland, but had to settle for Surrogates. I guess all the copies of Zombieland were checked out for Valentine's Day. So, crappy action movie time! Hooray. I'm excited. Spoilers ahead, in case you need the warning.
During the opening credits we get brief clips from 14/11/7 years ago about robotic advancements for the physically disabled and how that evolved into people buying these surrogate robots just for funzies. Basically they plug into a chair like The Matrix, and they can walk around as beautiful robots. A newscaster informs us that since everyone started using surrogates in the real world, crime and health problems and racism are nearly non-existant. There are a few surrogate-free zones of people who are against other people plugging into machines, and Ving Rhames is their leader.
The credits end and we're brought to "today". A kid is riding around in a limo and goes to a club where everyone is super hot and he starts making out with a girl. A motorcyclist attacks them with a gun that shoots lightning bolts and melts their eyeballs and memory chips. Surrogate Bruce Willis is a cop and shows up to investigate. Surrogate Bruce Willis looks the same as regular Bruce Willis, except he has a silly hairpiece on (I'm going to call him SBW now).
SBW goes to check out the girl's "user" and finds a dead body (with exploded eyeballs). The cops are all freaked because in theory if your surrogate dies, the user is NOT supposed to die because of some failsafe mechanisms. (In this way, it is the opposite of The Matrix.... so it's original). SBW returns home and plugs into his charging station, and real-life Bruce Willis unplugs himself from his chair. Bruce walks around and wishes his "real" wife would talk to him, but she only walks around as her surrogate self.
The next day they find the guy user who was with the girl and he's dead with melted eyeballs too. Turns out he was the son of Canter, the guy who first invented surrogates. The motorcyclist was actually trying to kill Canter, but killed his son by mistake. SBW goes to talk to real Canter, but only talks to surrogate Canter. Canter says he has lots of surrogates.
SBW goes to Virtual Self Inc. to figure out how an operator could die when the surrogate dies. They say that can't happen, and show some surrogates that the army uses. I'm confused why we need army surrogates since the newslady at the beginning told me there was peace because everyone was using surrogates, but whatever.
SBW talks to a police friend who monitors the whole world with his computers by using some surrogates and computers to track all the surrogates. It's kinda like what Batman had Lucius set up for him with the cellphones in The Dark Knight. He demonstrates how he can disconnect/shut down a surrogate remotely to stop any crimes. They use this system to find the motorcyclist who has the lightning eye-melty gun.
SBW chases him and a bunch of cops get shot with the melty gun and die. The motorcyclist shoots the helicopter SBW is in, but Bruce unplugs from his surrogate just in time so he doesn't die. The helicopter crashes, and real Bruce Willis plugs back in, and SBW is all beat up from the crash. He only has one arm now, so it looks like Terminator 2. He chases the murderer, but some of the anti-robot people shoot SBW, so now Bruce Willis has to go through the rest of the movie as the "real" Bruce Willis (no more bad hair piece!) He's a little disoriented because he's not used to walking around as a real person since he mostly lives everyday through his surrogate. Ving Rhames then takes the lightning gun and kills the motorcyclist.
Then Canter tells Bruce to go after the lightning gun. Bruce goes back home and his wife is having a party where surrogates are shocking themselves with a bong that shoots lightning. Bruce yells at his wife, "How long have you been jacking?!" which is a ripoff of a Futurama episode where Bender jacks into all sorts of things. Then Bruce punches off the robot face of one of the surrogates. This was funny, and had nothing to do with anything.
Bruce looks over some files and sees that the army ended its contract with Canter, who was not only the surrogate creator, but also the creator of the lightning gun. Apparently the gun was designed to stop surrogates but it had a bug that gets by the failsafes and kills the users, and all of the lightning guns were supposed to be destroyed, but they weren't. Then Bruce Willis' partner is murdered (in real life... her surrogate is still okay) by some new bad guy. The bad guy then takes Bruce Willis' partner's surrogate.
Bruce goes to his wife's beauty shop, where she peels off a surrogate's face to remold or something. She says, "I'm going to take your face off!" in almost the exact same way that Nic Cage said it in the movie Face Off. The army goes after Ving Rhames, the leader of the anti-surrogate people, and they shoot him and find out that HE'S a surrogate! then we find out that he's one of Canter's surrogates!!
Then Bruce Willis talks to the chief of police and accuses him of originally having the lightning gun and attempting to murder Canter. I have no idea why the police chief is all of a sudden the bad guy, but he is. Bruce Willis stabs the police cheif in the back of the head to steal some files and then runs away. Bruce Willis' partner then turns on him (because she's really dead and is being driven by a bad guy), and she tries to steal those files that Bruce Willis just stole. There is actually a pretty cool action scene here, where they give the surrogate lady all sorts of crazy jumping moves while Bruce repeatedly tries to hit her with his car. He runs over a whole bunch of innocent surrogates, and she jumps over a bunch of cars while in her high heels. It's excellent.
She gets away and goes to the bat computer with the intention of killing everyone who is plugged into a surrogate (which is basically everyone on the planet). The surrogate police chief shows up, and she fries him with the lightning gun. Bruce Willis goes to see Canter and finds out that he's the one driving his partner's surrogate, so now he's really the bad guy. Canter uses Bruce's partner's surrogate to start the countdown on the computer, then he kills himself. Bruce then jumps into his partner's surrogate and hits CTRL + ALT + Delete which fixes the computer so that no one will die when the surrogates shut down. He then has to make the decision to save everyone's surrogates, or let them all malfunction. He decides to let them all malfunction, essentially carrying out Canter's evil plan for him, except without killing everyone on the planet.
Because they all malfunction, all the surrogate people stop working and fall down. The last few minutes of the movie is literally just watching beautiful people fall down stairs. BWAHAHAHAHA! This was great. I watched this scene about eight or nine times and just laughed my ass off. Totally worth the $1 rental! Real people unplug themselves and go outside and squint at the sun, and Bruce goes home and sees his real wife, and a news reporter announces that the systems are down, and we're all on our own. I think the moral of the story was "Don't help the disabled." THE END!
During the opening credits we get brief clips from 14/11/7 years ago about robotic advancements for the physically disabled and how that evolved into people buying these surrogate robots just for funzies. Basically they plug into a chair like The Matrix, and they can walk around as beautiful robots. A newscaster informs us that since everyone started using surrogates in the real world, crime and health problems and racism are nearly non-existant. There are a few surrogate-free zones of people who are against other people plugging into machines, and Ving Rhames is their leader.
The credits end and we're brought to "today". A kid is riding around in a limo and goes to a club where everyone is super hot and he starts making out with a girl. A motorcyclist attacks them with a gun that shoots lightning bolts and melts their eyeballs and memory chips. Surrogate Bruce Willis is a cop and shows up to investigate. Surrogate Bruce Willis looks the same as regular Bruce Willis, except he has a silly hairpiece on (I'm going to call him SBW now).
SBW goes to check out the girl's "user" and finds a dead body (with exploded eyeballs). The cops are all freaked because in theory if your surrogate dies, the user is NOT supposed to die because of some failsafe mechanisms. (In this way, it is the opposite of The Matrix.... so it's original). SBW returns home and plugs into his charging station, and real-life Bruce Willis unplugs himself from his chair. Bruce walks around and wishes his "real" wife would talk to him, but she only walks around as her surrogate self.
The next day they find the guy user who was with the girl and he's dead with melted eyeballs too. Turns out he was the son of Canter, the guy who first invented surrogates. The motorcyclist was actually trying to kill Canter, but killed his son by mistake. SBW goes to talk to real Canter, but only talks to surrogate Canter. Canter says he has lots of surrogates.
SBW goes to Virtual Self Inc. to figure out how an operator could die when the surrogate dies. They say that can't happen, and show some surrogates that the army uses. I'm confused why we need army surrogates since the newslady at the beginning told me there was peace because everyone was using surrogates, but whatever.
SBW talks to a police friend who monitors the whole world with his computers by using some surrogates and computers to track all the surrogates. It's kinda like what Batman had Lucius set up for him with the cellphones in The Dark Knight. He demonstrates how he can disconnect/shut down a surrogate remotely to stop any crimes. They use this system to find the motorcyclist who has the lightning eye-melty gun.
SBW chases him and a bunch of cops get shot with the melty gun and die. The motorcyclist shoots the helicopter SBW is in, but Bruce unplugs from his surrogate just in time so he doesn't die. The helicopter crashes, and real Bruce Willis plugs back in, and SBW is all beat up from the crash. He only has one arm now, so it looks like Terminator 2. He chases the murderer, but some of the anti-robot people shoot SBW, so now Bruce Willis has to go through the rest of the movie as the "real" Bruce Willis (no more bad hair piece!) He's a little disoriented because he's not used to walking around as a real person since he mostly lives everyday through his surrogate. Ving Rhames then takes the lightning gun and kills the motorcyclist.
Then Canter tells Bruce to go after the lightning gun. Bruce goes back home and his wife is having a party where surrogates are shocking themselves with a bong that shoots lightning. Bruce yells at his wife, "How long have you been jacking?!" which is a ripoff of a Futurama episode where Bender jacks into all sorts of things. Then Bruce punches off the robot face of one of the surrogates. This was funny, and had nothing to do with anything.
Bruce looks over some files and sees that the army ended its contract with Canter, who was not only the surrogate creator, but also the creator of the lightning gun. Apparently the gun was designed to stop surrogates but it had a bug that gets by the failsafes and kills the users, and all of the lightning guns were supposed to be destroyed, but they weren't. Then Bruce Willis' partner is murdered (in real life... her surrogate is still okay) by some new bad guy. The bad guy then takes Bruce Willis' partner's surrogate.
Bruce goes to his wife's beauty shop, where she peels off a surrogate's face to remold or something. She says, "I'm going to take your face off!" in almost the exact same way that Nic Cage said it in the movie Face Off. The army goes after Ving Rhames, the leader of the anti-surrogate people, and they shoot him and find out that HE'S a surrogate! then we find out that he's one of Canter's surrogates!!
Then Bruce Willis talks to the chief of police and accuses him of originally having the lightning gun and attempting to murder Canter. I have no idea why the police chief is all of a sudden the bad guy, but he is. Bruce Willis stabs the police cheif in the back of the head to steal some files and then runs away. Bruce Willis' partner then turns on him (because she's really dead and is being driven by a bad guy), and she tries to steal those files that Bruce Willis just stole. There is actually a pretty cool action scene here, where they give the surrogate lady all sorts of crazy jumping moves while Bruce repeatedly tries to hit her with his car. He runs over a whole bunch of innocent surrogates, and she jumps over a bunch of cars while in her high heels. It's excellent.She gets away and goes to the bat computer with the intention of killing everyone who is plugged into a surrogate (which is basically everyone on the planet). The surrogate police chief shows up, and she fries him with the lightning gun. Bruce Willis goes to see Canter and finds out that he's the one driving his partner's surrogate, so now he's really the bad guy. Canter uses Bruce's partner's surrogate to start the countdown on the computer, then he kills himself. Bruce then jumps into his partner's surrogate and hits CTRL + ALT + Delete which fixes the computer so that no one will die when the surrogates shut down. He then has to make the decision to save everyone's surrogates, or let them all malfunction. He decides to let them all malfunction, essentially carrying out Canter's evil plan for him, except without killing everyone on the planet.
Because they all malfunction, all the surrogate people stop working and fall down. The last few minutes of the movie is literally just watching beautiful people fall down stairs. BWAHAHAHAHA! This was great. I watched this scene about eight or nine times and just laughed my ass off. Totally worth the $1 rental! Real people unplug themselves and go outside and squint at the sun, and Bruce goes home and sees his real wife, and a news reporter announces that the systems are down, and we're all on our own. I think the moral of the story was "Don't help the disabled." THE END!
Monday, February 15, 2010
24: Jack turns the tables
(Note: I was reviewing last week's notes and I realized that I miscalculated on the projected death tolls. I recalculated and updated accordingly. My apologies.)
Previously, on 24...
I think I'll just keep up my routine of recapping all the side story nonsense before moving on to the Jack stuff. Hassan's daughter is upset that he arrested her boyfriend. She tells her father that she loves him, and Hassan basically says, "Well then he must be guilty!" I like Hassan. I think if the peace treaty talks got pretty intense then Jack and Hassan could just have a beer together and everything would be okay.
Dana's convict friends are celebrating the big score at a strip club. They call Dana and she says, "So, we're all good now, right?" and they say, "Nah, we think we want you to keep helping us with crime." Then a CTU computer guy tells Dana that he knows she's sneaking around and she should tell agent Ortiz or he'll tell on her. Dana tells Ortiz that she has a secret past, and he says he'll love her no matter what, but then their conversation gets interrupted. Dana, empowered by her fiancee's love, sneaks out to maybe go kill the convict guys. I hope she dies.
Joseph finishes burying his brother, and Joseph keeps his brothers necklace.
CTU picks Renee up and is planning to give her a psychiatric evaluation. I like crazy Renee.
Jack is back at Sergei's place, dangling from the ceiling and being tortured. A henchman is electrocuting Jack and poking his bread knife wound. Jack pretends to pass out after being shocked and the henchman goes to get some smelling salts to wake him up. Jack uses his feet to grab the henchman and the cables and electrocute the bad guy into unconsciousness. It takes a few minutes for Jack to shake free from the ceiling, but just as he drops to the ground the bad guy wakes up and they wrassle. Jack snaps the bad guy's neck with his legs and grabs his cell phone, which doesn't work.
Jack cuts the power and the bad guys go to find him. Jack grabs and stabs one bad guy, takes his cellphone to call Chloe and tell her to send backup, and grabs his pistol and uses that to shoot two more henchmen. Sergei fires a blast from his shotgun and dives out of the way, then Jack picks up an uzi and hides under a table. Sergei shoots a few tables with his shotgun, and Jack jumps up and knocks Sergei out by flipping a table over.
Sergei is now in custody and agrees to give up the uranium rods if Jack can give him and Joseph full immunity. Jack calls the president and gets Sergei's immunity. It only took a few seconds, thank goodness. Last season it felt like Jack was on the phone with the stupid lady president for 15 of the 24 hours. Sergei gives CTU the info, and they go to check out the truck that was carrying the uranium. They find two dead bodies in the truck, and the uranium is gone. Hanging from the truck is a gold necklace, and the episode ends with Joseph driving around with the uranium and on the phone with Hassan's brother. The uranium will be delivered soon.
I had previously mentioned that I was afraid Joesph would become all sad and whiny, but now that doesn't appear to be the case. I'm thrilled that Joseph betrayed his father and will hopefully be pretty awesome as the main villain. Not as good an episode as last week, but I like the way things are shaping up with a clear bad guy, and with Jack killing people. Death tally!
Jack: 4 (broke one neck, stabbed one, shot two)
Bad guys: 2 (Joseph shot two in the truck)
4 kills for Jack! He had only 5 kills total before tonight. They weren't exceptional, but a kill is still a kill. A third of the way through the season and Jack has 9 total. Joseph's +2 for the bad guys brings their total to 19. Ortiz is still at 3, Renee is still at 1. I triple checked my work this time, and we're on pace for 96 kills.
Previously, on 24...
I think I'll just keep up my routine of recapping all the side story nonsense before moving on to the Jack stuff. Hassan's daughter is upset that he arrested her boyfriend. She tells her father that she loves him, and Hassan basically says, "Well then he must be guilty!" I like Hassan. I think if the peace treaty talks got pretty intense then Jack and Hassan could just have a beer together and everything would be okay.
Dana's convict friends are celebrating the big score at a strip club. They call Dana and she says, "So, we're all good now, right?" and they say, "Nah, we think we want you to keep helping us with crime." Then a CTU computer guy tells Dana that he knows she's sneaking around and she should tell agent Ortiz or he'll tell on her. Dana tells Ortiz that she has a secret past, and he says he'll love her no matter what, but then their conversation gets interrupted. Dana, empowered by her fiancee's love, sneaks out to maybe go kill the convict guys. I hope she dies.
Joseph finishes burying his brother, and Joseph keeps his brothers necklace.
CTU picks Renee up and is planning to give her a psychiatric evaluation. I like crazy Renee.
Jack is back at Sergei's place, dangling from the ceiling and being tortured. A henchman is electrocuting Jack and poking his bread knife wound. Jack pretends to pass out after being shocked and the henchman goes to get some smelling salts to wake him up. Jack uses his feet to grab the henchman and the cables and electrocute the bad guy into unconsciousness. It takes a few minutes for Jack to shake free from the ceiling, but just as he drops to the ground the bad guy wakes up and they wrassle. Jack snaps the bad guy's neck with his legs and grabs his cell phone, which doesn't work.
Jack cuts the power and the bad guys go to find him. Jack grabs and stabs one bad guy, takes his cellphone to call Chloe and tell her to send backup, and grabs his pistol and uses that to shoot two more henchmen. Sergei fires a blast from his shotgun and dives out of the way, then Jack picks up an uzi and hides under a table. Sergei shoots a few tables with his shotgun, and Jack jumps up and knocks Sergei out by flipping a table over.
Sergei is now in custody and agrees to give up the uranium rods if Jack can give him and Joseph full immunity. Jack calls the president and gets Sergei's immunity. It only took a few seconds, thank goodness. Last season it felt like Jack was on the phone with the stupid lady president for 15 of the 24 hours. Sergei gives CTU the info, and they go to check out the truck that was carrying the uranium. They find two dead bodies in the truck, and the uranium is gone. Hanging from the truck is a gold necklace, and the episode ends with Joseph driving around with the uranium and on the phone with Hassan's brother. The uranium will be delivered soon.
I had previously mentioned that I was afraid Joesph would become all sad and whiny, but now that doesn't appear to be the case. I'm thrilled that Joseph betrayed his father and will hopefully be pretty awesome as the main villain. Not as good an episode as last week, but I like the way things are shaping up with a clear bad guy, and with Jack killing people. Death tally!
Jack: 4 (broke one neck, stabbed one, shot two)
Bad guys: 2 (Joseph shot two in the truck)
4 kills for Jack! He had only 5 kills total before tonight. They weren't exceptional, but a kill is still a kill. A third of the way through the season and Jack has 9 total. Joseph's +2 for the bad guys brings their total to 19. Ortiz is still at 3, Renee is still at 1. I triple checked my work this time, and we're on pace for 96 kills.
Monday, February 8, 2010
24: Jack kills someone
Previously, on 24...
The Super Bowl is over, and 24 is the only thing I have to fill the void until baseball season starts. I could be in trouble. And yes, it's sad that the headline "Jack kills someone" constitutes as news this season. At least this week I get to put a few things in caps because some cool stuff happened.
First, the stupid side stories. Hassan is still taking a page out of the old Jack Bauer handbook by arresting people and threatening them with their family's lives. He even just arrested his daughter's boyfriend, who was one of Hassan's security guys. Good for him. Dana Walsh helps the criminals into a police locker warehouse and they beat up a guard and get away with some money. Good for them. They drink and drive because they're evil. Joseph is sad about his dead brother. A priest will bury him. Great. Now to the main story:
Vladimir drinks vodka and cackles because he's Russian and evil. He calls people asking about the uranium and actually reaches Sergei, the Russian who has the uranium, but Sergei says, "I don't have no uranium!" Vladimir wants to give up on the uranium hunt, but Renee desperately tries to get him to make more calls to his fave 5, and Vlad throws a few punches at Renee. Renee doesn't like this SO SHE STABS HIM REPEATEDLY IN THE FACE WITH A BREAD KNIFE! I like psycho Renee. She's probably not going to kill too many more people, but she's had the top two shocking moments of the season.
Jack hears her screaming as she kills Vlad and runs in, and Renee turns around and stabs Jack right in the guts. A Russian bad guy runs in and Jack PULLS THE KNIFE OUT OF HIS GUTS AND THROWS IT INTO THE BAD GUY'S NECK! Then Jack shoots another bad guy through the wall, and takes a look at his bloody guts. It's okay, though, because he has the commercial break to patch himself up.
Back from the commercial, Renee is sad. She probably needs a shower. Jack tells her everything will be okay. She says she's a wreck and has nothing, and Jack says, "You have me!" Awww. Then some more Russians show up and Jack puts Renee in a closet and purposely gets captured by the bad guys because he thinks CTU will track them and they'll find the uranium. The Russians leave and CTU shows up and Renee says, "Are you following Jack?" And CTU says, "What, we didn't see anyone enter or exit the building!" And do you know why?
Do you want to know WHY they didn't see any of the bad guys enter or exit? Because Ben inadvertently made a great call last week.
The terrorists...
are in...
the sewer.
YES! Good thing Renee flushed her waterproof earpiece! Now they'll be able to track Jack and save the day! I cheered when Renee stabbed Vladimir. I cheered when Jack pulled the knife from his guts and flung it across the room into a bad guy's trachea. I jumped off the frickin' couch and shouted in joy at the TV when CTU was trying to figure out what happened. THE TERRORISTS! ARE IN! THE SEWERRRRR!!!!!
And on that happy note, here's the death tally.
Renee: 1 (Vlad. Knife in the face!)
Jack: 2 (2 Russians. Shot one, knife in the neck for the other)
Atta boy, Jack! He's up to five kills now, and hopefully this is the snowball that starts the killing avalanche. Jack will probably get all tortured and stuff, and then it's killing time! Renee gets her first kill, and agent Ortiz and the bad guys stay put with 3 and 17 kills, respectively. We're still only on pace for an 89-kill season too, but I imagine that will pick up soon. Today was a good day.
The Super Bowl is over, and 24 is the only thing I have to fill the void until baseball season starts. I could be in trouble. And yes, it's sad that the headline "Jack kills someone" constitutes as news this season. At least this week I get to put a few things in caps because some cool stuff happened.
First, the stupid side stories. Hassan is still taking a page out of the old Jack Bauer handbook by arresting people and threatening them with their family's lives. He even just arrested his daughter's boyfriend, who was one of Hassan's security guys. Good for him. Dana Walsh helps the criminals into a police locker warehouse and they beat up a guard and get away with some money. Good for them. They drink and drive because they're evil. Joseph is sad about his dead brother. A priest will bury him. Great. Now to the main story:
Vladimir drinks vodka and cackles because he's Russian and evil. He calls people asking about the uranium and actually reaches Sergei, the Russian who has the uranium, but Sergei says, "I don't have no uranium!" Vladimir wants to give up on the uranium hunt, but Renee desperately tries to get him to make more calls to his fave 5, and Vlad throws a few punches at Renee. Renee doesn't like this SO SHE STABS HIM REPEATEDLY IN THE FACE WITH A BREAD KNIFE! I like psycho Renee. She's probably not going to kill too many more people, but she's had the top two shocking moments of the season.
Jack hears her screaming as she kills Vlad and runs in, and Renee turns around and stabs Jack right in the guts. A Russian bad guy runs in and Jack PULLS THE KNIFE OUT OF HIS GUTS AND THROWS IT INTO THE BAD GUY'S NECK! Then Jack shoots another bad guy through the wall, and takes a look at his bloody guts. It's okay, though, because he has the commercial break to patch himself up.
Back from the commercial, Renee is sad. She probably needs a shower. Jack tells her everything will be okay. She says she's a wreck and has nothing, and Jack says, "You have me!" Awww. Then some more Russians show up and Jack puts Renee in a closet and purposely gets captured by the bad guys because he thinks CTU will track them and they'll find the uranium. The Russians leave and CTU shows up and Renee says, "Are you following Jack?" And CTU says, "What, we didn't see anyone enter or exit the building!" And do you know why?
Do you want to know WHY they didn't see any of the bad guys enter or exit? Because Ben inadvertently made a great call last week.
The terrorists...
are in...
the sewer.
YES! Good thing Renee flushed her waterproof earpiece! Now they'll be able to track Jack and save the day! I cheered when Renee stabbed Vladimir. I cheered when Jack pulled the knife from his guts and flung it across the room into a bad guy's trachea. I jumped off the frickin' couch and shouted in joy at the TV when CTU was trying to figure out what happened. THE TERRORISTS! ARE IN! THE SEWERRRRR!!!!!
And on that happy note, here's the death tally.
Renee: 1 (Vlad. Knife in the face!)
Jack: 2 (2 Russians. Shot one, knife in the neck for the other)
Atta boy, Jack! He's up to five kills now, and hopefully this is the snowball that starts the killing avalanche. Jack will probably get all tortured and stuff, and then it's killing time! Renee gets her first kill, and agent Ortiz and the bad guys stay put with 3 and 17 kills, respectively. We're still only on pace for an 89-kill season too, but I imagine that will pick up soon. Today was a good day.
Milwaukee to erect world's ugliest statue
From ESPN: http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=4897641
The Twins visit Miller Park in June this year, and the statue isn't scheduled to go up until August, which means Twins fans probably won't T.P. it until 2011. If I do find my way to Milwaukee in August, I'm gonna boo the hell outta that statue.
I know "hate" is a strong word, and I tend to exaggerate sometimes when I write, but in this case there is no exaggeration, and no better word. I HATE Bud Selig. I have often said that if I could get one free swing at anyone in the world, Bud Selig would be at the top of my list (and not just because he looks like one of the Gringotts goblins from Harry Potter).
The Twins visit Miller Park in June this year, and the statue isn't scheduled to go up until August, which means Twins fans probably won't T.P. it until 2011. If I do find my way to Milwaukee in August, I'm gonna boo the hell outta that statue.
Monday, February 1, 2010
24: Renee takes a shower
Previously, on 24...
If you've read the title, you pretty much got everything important you need to know about this week's episode.
The show opens and Jack says, "You know, instead of having a suicidal Renee go undercover, maybe I should try my methods to get the info from the Russians!" And then Director Hastings says no. There's just not going to be any interrogations by Jack this year. Meanwhile, President Hassan is rounding up people he suspects of conspiring with his brother, and is probably interrogating and torturing them, just to rub it in our faces.
Dana Walsh is making key cards for her convict buddies, and if she has any brains she'll anonymously set the cops on them when they get to the warehouse full of drug money... but she and her entire storyline are stupid, so she won't.
Renee takes a shower at Vlad's place. She gets out of the shower and Vlad acts like a creep. Renee will end up killing him sometime during this season. Jack hears all of this because Renee had her earpiece in while she was in the shower. I think Jack spent the last 10 minutes listening to her in the shower, and I was pretty impressed that the earpiece didn't malfunction under the running water. Vlad leaves and Renee tells Jack, "I'm going dark!" and takes out the earpiece and puts it in the sink, turns on the faucet, and washes it down the drain. But since water clearly doesn't affect the earpiece, Jack can still listen in on the sewer system. Hopefully there are terrorists down there.
Joseph tries to save his brother from uranium poisoning but his dad sends some goons to pick them up. They kill three hospital workers. Maybe this won't be how the good guys end up tracking and stopping the bad guys, as I predicted last week. I guess it depends on how well they clean up the bodies. Joseph's dad then kills Joseph's brother. It'd be nice if Joseph would become a cool villain, but he'll probably be all preachy and turn against his dad.
Jack meets with Vladimir's men and he wears Harry Potter glasses as a disguise. Jack's fake name is "Mir", or at least that's what it sounded like. The henchmen try to double cross Jack, but agent Ortiz is hiding and snipes three of them. In two seconds he just caught up to Jack's kill count. Jack talks to Vlad on the phone, and heads over to their hideout. Next week will be the adventures of "Vlad 'n Mir".
Some pretty insignificant deaths, but at least there were more than last week's debacle.
Bad guys: 4 (3 hospital workers, Russian dad killed uranium boy)
Ortiz: 3 (Sniped Russian henchmen)
Jack again stays put with 3 kills. Bad guys get some cheap kills in to bring their total to 17. Our projected death toll for the season rebounds a little to 92, but it's hardly anything to celebrate as Freddy frickin' Prinze kills 3 and is likely going to end up with more kills than Jack Bauer.
If you've read the title, you pretty much got everything important you need to know about this week's episode.
The show opens and Jack says, "You know, instead of having a suicidal Renee go undercover, maybe I should try my methods to get the info from the Russians!" And then Director Hastings says no. There's just not going to be any interrogations by Jack this year. Meanwhile, President Hassan is rounding up people he suspects of conspiring with his brother, and is probably interrogating and torturing them, just to rub it in our faces.
Dana Walsh is making key cards for her convict buddies, and if she has any brains she'll anonymously set the cops on them when they get to the warehouse full of drug money... but she and her entire storyline are stupid, so she won't.
Renee takes a shower at Vlad's place. She gets out of the shower and Vlad acts like a creep. Renee will end up killing him sometime during this season. Jack hears all of this because Renee had her earpiece in while she was in the shower. I think Jack spent the last 10 minutes listening to her in the shower, and I was pretty impressed that the earpiece didn't malfunction under the running water. Vlad leaves and Renee tells Jack, "I'm going dark!" and takes out the earpiece and puts it in the sink, turns on the faucet, and washes it down the drain. But since water clearly doesn't affect the earpiece, Jack can still listen in on the sewer system. Hopefully there are terrorists down there.Joseph tries to save his brother from uranium poisoning but his dad sends some goons to pick them up. They kill three hospital workers. Maybe this won't be how the good guys end up tracking and stopping the bad guys, as I predicted last week. I guess it depends on how well they clean up the bodies. Joseph's dad then kills Joseph's brother. It'd be nice if Joseph would become a cool villain, but he'll probably be all preachy and turn against his dad.
Jack meets with Vladimir's men and he wears Harry Potter glasses as a disguise. Jack's fake name is "Mir", or at least that's what it sounded like. The henchmen try to double cross Jack, but agent Ortiz is hiding and snipes three of them. In two seconds he just caught up to Jack's kill count. Jack talks to Vlad on the phone, and heads over to their hideout. Next week will be the adventures of "Vlad 'n Mir".
Some pretty insignificant deaths, but at least there were more than last week's debacle.
Bad guys: 4 (3 hospital workers, Russian dad killed uranium boy)
Ortiz: 3 (Sniped Russian henchmen)
Jack again stays put with 3 kills. Bad guys get some cheap kills in to bring their total to 17. Our projected death toll for the season rebounds a little to 92, but it's hardly anything to celebrate as Freddy frickin' Prinze kills 3 and is likely going to end up with more kills than Jack Bauer.
Monday, January 25, 2010
24: Thumbs Down!
Pre-show rant: Man, I need 24 to be good tonight. Sunday's Vikings game was soooo disappointing. I'm hoping for at least one interrogation for every Favre interception (2), and one kill for Jack for every Vikings fumble (6). I don't know what Jack can do to make me feel better for that 12 men on the field penalty. Maybe if one of the terrorists looks like coach Brad Childress and Jack shoots him 11 times (Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam!) then says, "THAT'S ELEVEN!", then shoots him again (Blam!) and says, "THAT'S TWELVE!" Okay, now that I've got that off my chest,
Previously, on 24...
Hassan's brother is trying to buy uranium from the Russians, and agrees to pay them. "When can you deliver the uranium?" "Five hours." In 7-plus seasons of watching 24, I never stop cracking up whenever anyone gives a time estimate. "Chloe, I need the schematics, when will you have them?" "In 5 minutes and 7 seconds, Jack!" Wow, that's ... that's really specific. Why didn't you just say "In 5 minutes"? Anyway, the uranium will be delivered in 5 hours (aka, March).
I've already talked about how I loathe the CTU fiancee story, but at least now I can point out more of why it's so stupid. She's an ex-con, accessory to murder, who's served her time and now does data processing for CTU. CTU doesn't know about her past. BUT, Renee was beat up by Vladimir and the FBI tried to cover up her back story, and Chloe found that hidden FBI info pretty darn quickly. Does CTU do any background checks on their internal employees? Good lord, every other season SOMEONE in CTU is a spy/mole/bad guy. You really think they don't know about her past? Job interview: "So, Dana, tell me about yourself." "Dana, who's Dana? I'm Jenn.. I mean, YEAH, I'm Dana. Riiight. Um... yeah, I was a really good data person." "There's nothing on your resume here. Where were you the last 5 years?" "Uh... not in prison?" "Great, you're hired!"
Disappointment continued with Joseph (David Anders), the Russian bad guy's son. He's all concerned about his brother who got radiation sickness, and instead of keeping him hidden like daddy wants, he's going to take his brother to a hospital. (Obvious prediction: This will ultimately be how Jack and Renee find and stop the bad guys). It also means that David Anders really won't be that bad of a bad guy. He'll threaten a doctor to save his brother, but he won't be a major evil henchman like I had hoped.
At this point you're probably thinking, Ben, why aren't you telling us about Jack and Renee? This is what I was asking FOX pretty much the whole show too. Renee patches up Seeya's thumb and wants him to take her to Vladimir. No interrogation. Boo. Incidentally, if you're a whiny Russian henchman, and your name is "See-ya", what are the odds that you're going to live for much longer? Who out there thinks Seeya is going to live? Anyone? Anyone? No? Didn't think so.
Seeya takes Renee to Vlad, Vlad kills Seeya, Jack says "DAMMIT", Vlad threatens to kill Renee, Jack asks Chloe for ground support, Chloe says they'll be there in "2 minutes and 10 seconds" (YES! Why does that make me laugh so much?), Jack says "DAMMIT" and the Vlad decides to believe Renee and now she's undercover again. And that's it. That's all we got. Sigh.
Tonight's kill count:
Bad guys: 1 (SEE YA!)
What. The. Fuck.
Yeah, I thought I used up all my swears during the Vikings game, but turns out I still had at least one more in me. One kill? ONE? Jack stays put with 3 kills. Bad guys go +1 and now have 13. Our projected death toll is plummeting, and is now at an optimistic 77 kills. Ugh. Seeya!
Friday, January 22, 2010
Won't you fly high free bird? Yeah.
Dear Internet,Just finished watching Conan's last Tonight Show, and was happy to see Beck on stage for "Free Bird". Tonight Beck was a little overshadowed by Will Ferrell's cowbell, but I remember ages ago (2002!) when Beck had an appearance on the Late Show and he had Ted Danson join the band for "Lost Cause". They wrapped Ted Danson in a blanket and he played the triangle.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7l3pj_beck-lost-cause-with-the-flaming-li_music
Incidentally, if you Google "Ted Danson, Beck", you get like a million hits for the show "Becker". And Sea Change is my favorite album ever.
Monday, January 18, 2010
24: Adventures in Babysitting
Previously, on 24...
Premiere week continues and the killing spree has slowed to a crawl. Hopefully these first four hours have given us all the setup we need, and Jack can get his groove back. Tonight Hassan was close to being assassinated, but was saved by agent Ortiz. I feel pretty good about my prediction of Hassan surviving the season now. I knew they'd either kill him right away and get into the bigger plot point, or save him right away and get into the bigger plot point. In this case, assassination averted, and Jack must now save the world from nuclear war. Again.
Renee Walker is back from last season, and she's supposedly gone a bit crazy since we've last seen her. Good. As soon as she got of the helicopter I was hopeful for some good torture scenes. She was queasy about Jack's methods last year, and that was annoying, but if she's gone crazy since then maybe she and Jack can double the interrogation fun. Good cop, bad cop routine? I don't think so. I can't wait.
I think the main story with Jack and Renee will be pretty good. We learn that she was an undercover spy looking for the evil Russians known as "Red Square". Ooooh, I hate them already. She's upset with Jack right now for tagging along on her mission, and even calls him her babysitter. Hmmm, I'm noticing a disturbing theme here. Freddy Prinze Jr. saves Hassan, but they've sidelined him back at CTU for the time being. What I dislike greatly is the side story with the engaged CTU lady's secret past. I have no hope for that becoming interesting in any way, and I want her to be killed off pronto.
I like the addition of David Anders as a Russian baddie. He was only in there today for a minute, but I remembered him from Heroes as Takezo Kensei/Adam Monroe. I thought he was pretty good in that, even though I stopped watching Heroes shortly after season 2. I just remember Hiro's line back then we he said, "The hero of Japan is... Gaijin?!" and Kensei was basically just saving Japan to pick up chicks. I'm guessing he'll drop quite a few people in his role as a Russian henchman.
Highlight of the night was Renee chopping off a Russian guy's hand with a grinder. FAN-TASTIC! Looks like Renee's not squeemish anymore! This is more of what I wanted from Renee, but I admit I didn't expect her to just march in and saw off her comrade's hand. That's where the episode concluded, and the Russian guy wasn't dead yet, so looks like we're in for some good ol' interrogation to kick off next week.
Tonight's kill count was pretty low.
Bad guys: 5 (2 in the carbomb, 1 cop knifed by Hassan's bro, cop and wife killed by Davros)
Jack: 1 (Davros)
So that's 3 kills total for Jack, 12 total for the bad guys. Only 3 kills in 4 hours for Jack? 15 kills total to lower our projection to 90 kills for the entire season? TWO BABYSITTING JOBS?? WHAT IS GOING ON HERE???
Premiere week continues and the killing spree has slowed to a crawl. Hopefully these first four hours have given us all the setup we need, and Jack can get his groove back. Tonight Hassan was close to being assassinated, but was saved by agent Ortiz. I feel pretty good about my prediction of Hassan surviving the season now. I knew they'd either kill him right away and get into the bigger plot point, or save him right away and get into the bigger plot point. In this case, assassination averted, and Jack must now save the world from nuclear war. Again.
Renee Walker is back from last season, and she's supposedly gone a bit crazy since we've last seen her. Good. As soon as she got of the helicopter I was hopeful for some good torture scenes. She was queasy about Jack's methods last year, and that was annoying, but if she's gone crazy since then maybe she and Jack can double the interrogation fun. Good cop, bad cop routine? I don't think so. I can't wait.
I think the main story with Jack and Renee will be pretty good. We learn that she was an undercover spy looking for the evil Russians known as "Red Square". Ooooh, I hate them already. She's upset with Jack right now for tagging along on her mission, and even calls him her babysitter. Hmmm, I'm noticing a disturbing theme here. Freddy Prinze Jr. saves Hassan, but they've sidelined him back at CTU for the time being. What I dislike greatly is the side story with the engaged CTU lady's secret past. I have no hope for that becoming interesting in any way, and I want her to be killed off pronto.
I like the addition of David Anders as a Russian baddie. He was only in there today for a minute, but I remembered him from Heroes as Takezo Kensei/Adam Monroe. I thought he was pretty good in that, even though I stopped watching Heroes shortly after season 2. I just remember Hiro's line back then we he said, "The hero of Japan is... Gaijin?!" and Kensei was basically just saving Japan to pick up chicks. I'm guessing he'll drop quite a few people in his role as a Russian henchman.
Highlight of the night was Renee chopping off a Russian guy's hand with a grinder. FAN-TASTIC! Looks like Renee's not squeemish anymore! This is more of what I wanted from Renee, but I admit I didn't expect her to just march in and saw off her comrade's hand. That's where the episode concluded, and the Russian guy wasn't dead yet, so looks like we're in for some good ol' interrogation to kick off next week.
Tonight's kill count was pretty low.
Bad guys: 5 (2 in the carbomb, 1 cop knifed by Hassan's bro, cop and wife killed by Davros)
Jack: 1 (Davros)
So that's 3 kills total for Jack, 12 total for the bad guys. Only 3 kills in 4 hours for Jack? 15 kills total to lower our projection to 90 kills for the entire season? TWO BABYSITTING JOBS?? WHAT IS GOING ON HERE???
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