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.

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!

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.

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.

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

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.

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.