Monday, March 23, 2009

Yoga Pose of the Day: Pranayama

Technically, pranayama is not a yoga pose. It is the practice of manipulating your breath...it is a whole branch of yoga, which is actually more refined (and I think difficult) than asana, or the physical posture practice.

Jack needed all of his yogic powers to hold his breath and run into the semi and shut down the leaky valve on the bioweapon containment system.

(This is someone named Swami Ramdev, from the website www.4to40.com.)

Recap

Women Proven Evil = 1
Women Proven Stupid =0
Perimeter = 0
Bauer's Kill Count = 3?
Hair Gel Moments =0
Lipwear Challenges = I'll have to rewatch a couple of scenes on my Mac later in the week
Resurrections =0.5 (The First Man)
Dammit =3 or 4
Smoldery glances =1 (Mme. President and Ethan)
Renee/Moss arguments about Jack =1 (though it didn't have much brio)
Jack Being Tender =1
New Rogues =0

Well, it was the most classic 24 episode of the season, in my opinion. And as always, we have questions: who is Olivia's father? What year is it? Why did Moss start to actually look at the evidence? Where did Chloe and Morris go? Why did they let the Expendable Dude live?

Yawn, I'm closing the store. (Almost, I have a yoga pose to add.)

And also, we've made our 1000th post on this blog...

Another Dammit!

That was the most heartfelt Dammit yet. Airlifting the old bioweapon out with a helicopter.

Why would the Starkwood guys leave Jack alive? That makes no sense at all.

They couldn't possibly know that Jack had been exposed...

Jack Has The Bioweapon, At Least

Tony is held hostage? As if. What good is Tony to them alive?

(And where did tonight's music come from?)

Jack, don't open the bioweapon!!!!! WTH are you thinking?

Uh, Stupid Question

But should you be shooting around the bioweapon?

And is the lead bad guy, what is up with the bad Brooklyn accent? I thought he was gonna ask for some cawfee.

Oh, no, hand to hand. Tony! Dammit. I can't lose you again.

Buh-Bye Expendable Dude

We're so sorry. (Though why Jack is sorry about this guy and not Marika...maybe the slap across the face that Renee gave him made a difference.)

And another dammit, from Tony! And a well reasoned argument

And yet another dammit. And a not dead guy...and "A", wrong again! Expendable guy, not so expendable.

The Voice Of Reason

Oh, the evidence might not seem so convincing? Even Jack couldn't have gotten the gun the Senator was killed with.

Renee has to trust Jack. Larry is too stupid to be evil.

Who's the Actor Playing Doug?

If Dennis Hopper could be Victor Drazen (ah those were the days), couldn't Chris Cooper be Doug?

Ah, Carl, don't get in the car. The bad guy has taken the same Paul Ekman face reading course I took, he knows you're lying. Don't do it! And Tony, calling it like a champ. "He was dead the second he stepped outside that door, Jack." Let it go, man.

And now with Olivia and Ethan apologizing to one another -- and Ethan, giving some "fatherly" advice (wink wink).

And Olivia, that was a contemptuous smirk. (And I just missed something because "M" called to explain why she was delayed.) Something about Olivia calling the reporter, we knew that she was a nasty little piece of work! I can't tell if she's lipwear challenged this week, because I'm watching on my TV, not the laptop...

Now They Want to Call the FBI

Uh, didn't Tony have that idea 10 minutes ago? But then you'd have backup. (And someone to set a perimeter.)

Uh, Jack just made promise to Expendable Dude that he can't possibly keep.

Dammit!

Carl, you're going to have to call Chloe for me.

Ah

Now I get this -- Blackwater is down, so they are gonna show the US government how much we need them?

And here is one of my favorite freaking actors, Chris Cooper? Could that be?

They are Six Year Olds

and they have to eat their carrots?

WTH?

Dude, You're Expendable

I think that in the credits, this actor and father-to-be of twins will be shown as "expendable dude".

Is Evil Ethan Having A Heart Attack?

And where does Moss get off chastising Ethan?

Ah, to get Tony up to speed, Jack has to give one of those soap opera recaps. And Tony is advising him to call the Feebies!

The First Man! Has his finger been re-attached? And a split screen...there's nobody there in the hospital room with him, even as First Man. (I keep on telling my parents that if and when they go into the hospital here in the "First World", even Consumer Reports suggests that you get a private duty nurse. But I digress.)

(I thought that Ethan was going to invoke the 25th amendment...whew. Instead, he's just sniveling. And "M" thought he was sniveling last week. Check this.

Madame President is getting verklempt. And again, another improbable one-on-one with the president. Hasn't her security detail learned anything, what with the 30 minute siege?

Let him go, Madame President. (And is there a hint of the real relationship between Ethan and the pres? Sigh. Maybe Ethan is Oily Olivia's real dad.)

Previously on 24: 9pm - 10pm

It's a lot easier to remember what went on when a whole week hasn't gone by since I last watched!

OK, the President has hired her probably evil definitely nasty none-too-resourceful and lipwear challenged daughter as a "special advisor". The First Daughter convinces Madame Mom to go on TV and take credit for victory in Sangala. (WTH?) Possibly Evil Ethan takes responsibility for Bauer's potential involvement in the death of the ex-Goldman banker. Madame President looks about as mad as your 6th grade teacher did when you did something stupid but not all that terribly nasty.

Jack has re-rogued, having failed to consider merely proving that he didn't slit the ex-Goldman banker's throat by virtue of being garbed in a pristine white shirt. (I love a man in a white shirt, especially if he's Clive Owen, but I digress.)

After stealing a gorgeous classic car (and defacing it by breaking a window with his elbow, for which he should be spanked) Jack drives off while simultaneously uploading stuff to his Mac and dialing Renee.

Renee has been suspended, but her phone and computer access have not, so she's able to identify the bad guy who slithered away through the ceiling (because Jack somehow got a disc with hospital surveillance footage on it? I missed that) and get that info to Jack -- he's a Black Ops guy who has (of course) gone rogue and has done work for the Blackwater-like group that does everything bad in the world. Renee reminds Jack that Senator 70s Show has been investigating this group, and would have confidential files on his home PC. Then, she's taken into custody.

(I hope they let her take a comb. This is the first chance she's had to remove the little rocks that were inevitably stuck in her hair when Jack and Tony buried her alive. How she got so clean -- even in HD -- is just another of many continuity questions that plague the Women of The 24 Blog this season.)

Jon Voight is getting a shipment of WMDs. He's not so interesting, so I can't remember how they all figured out where Jack was off to with the disc. But he sends Quinn after him.

Jack heads to the Senator's private residence. My prediction was that the Senator would find Jack in his study. 2 POINTS! Why do people always go to the study for these late night break-in tete-a-tetes? Wouldn't Jack want to get a nice snack out of the Senator's fridge? He's from Wisconsin, I'll bet there would have been some awesome cheese in there.

At any rate, the Senator starts plumbing the depths of Jack's pain, and is about to believe and get on board with Jack...and Jack has finally found someone he is willing to trust...when throat slitting Quinn pretends like he's DCPD ("candygram") and shoots the Senator ("landshark").

A chase ensues with an awesome fight scene that reminded "A" of the old days when Buffy and Faith used to fight. Jack traps the guy in a construction trailer, and then bulldozes it. Quinn crawls up and out of the trailer and Jack has to stab him in the chest with a sharp pointy object that he later uses to start a stolen truck and move on, presumably towards the destination of the "shipment" of WMDs, which the dying Quinn had told him had already arrived. (I guess going back for the Goat was out of the question.)

There's also a side story going on with Chloe in custody, Morris coming in to pick her up, and being blackmailed into decrypting Jack's destination from Renee's files. Moss and his toadies suit up for a group hug before they go off to the Senator's.

Another side story involves "someone" at the White House leaking information to the press about Bauer's involvement in the ex-Goldman banker's death. But Oily Olivia somehow proves to her 25th Amendment-worthy mom that it was not her doing.

Jack also gets hold of Tony (uh, because Quinn had Tony's number programmed into his phone, which is I believe the phone that Jack is now using?) and Tony's going to stop at Target for some weapons and surveillance equipment and meet him at the shipyard or wherever the heck the text on Quinn's phone implied they would be.

...Moss and his team arrive at Red's place to find the Senator dead. The jealous Agent Moss jumps to the conclusion that Jack has really decompensated based on I'm not sure what evidence. Maybe its the smell of Jack's Axe Body Spray hanging in the air? Moss, finally sick of due process himself, puts out a "shoot to kill" order on Jack.

I think we've figured out that there are another 10 hours to go this season and things have picked up slightly...

(...and I am ready to give "M" and the Hubby some of the extremely rare parenting advice I feel qualified to give: keep "J" away from the Axe body spray website until he's at least 35.)

Bloop, bloop.