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...

We immediately find out that Renee didn't saw off the guy's entire hand, just his thumb (The Fonz says, "Ayyyy"). Jack says, "You so crazy Renee" and Renee says, "nuh uh!" Then we get a whole bunch of super boring crap. The peace treaty is going sour, Hassan is having marital issues, CTU lady turns out to be an ex-con and her old boyfriend wants her to steal pin numbers. BORRRRINGGG! Remember when 24 used to be about Jack Bauer? Those were better times.

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!