Blonde Toady Sighting

Well, since 24's inauspicious season finale, I haven't been watching much TV either.

However, last week I had a pretty bad bug and wound up on my sofa in front of the TV for 3 days, mostly asleep. Other than catching up on General Hospital (which was much better back in the day of Rena Sofer!) I was also awake late at night when Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip came on.

I watched maybe one episode of The West Wing (also created by TV auteur Aaron Sorkin); that rapid repartee and feel-good White House staff just didn't hook me.

Studio 60 probably wouldn't hook me either. I was too sick to move off the sofa, and quite awake having slept probably 18 of the prior 24 hours.

I wasn't too sick to operate the remote. But I got sucked in when I spied the Blonde Toady, also playing an attorney -- and one with connections to a Blackwater like security firm that might swoop in and rescue the kidnapped brother of one of the show's TV stars.

Maybe she was given witness protection and transferred to another network?

Tom's Been Co-Opted

Or is he showing his true colors?

At least we have some info about W. He's going to make a full recovery. (Probably not during this season, though.)

Did you catch any smoldery glances between Ricky and Nadia? (And speaking of smoldery, where is Rena?)

This isn't as much fun without "M". Who goes to a jewelry party on a Monday night???

Sigh. Previously On 24.

What can I say? Last week was a real snooze. The most exciting thing was the 60 seconds of previews for tonight, which thankfully presaged the return of Jean Smart and Agent Burly Middle Aged Guy who managed to be so trusted that he was on the team for two presidents, even though one was good and one was eeevil. What was his name? Oh, yeah, Aaron. I like him! Hopefully he can help Jack to save America.

Jack. Jack, Jack, Jack. The definition of insanity is repeating the same behavior and expecting a different outcome.

Jack took an extra creepy and possibly religiously fanatical ex-President Logan to visit the Russian Consulate. He had Logan wait in the car when he made the last minute decision to run in and storm the consulate and attempt to beat the information about the suitcase nukes out of the Russian dude.

And there was an interesting interchange between Jack and Logan, when Jack tells Logan he's going back in, and Logan coaches him not to.

Once he's in, Jack calls Bill, who I think must have just finished practicing eka pada padangusthasana. (Shown above as practiced by the doll version of our actual President on the hilarious Bushyoga.com Or is action figure more politically correct than doll? But I digress.)

Bill was like, sorry Jack, but I can't do much for you. Later, though, Bill decided to send a tac team in. After all, the evil Veep has suspended civil rights. So the sovereignity of the Russian consulate has got to be in doubt, too. At least the way this administration seems to think.

Jack did find out that Gradenko has drones to dispatch the remaining 3 suitcase nukes. He tried to get another Russian dude to call Bill to pass that along, but that guy is now history.

(And one of the biggest news items of last week is that "M"'s DH made one blog entry. Welcome, Hubby! Of course, now you can't pretend you're not watching!!!)

Principal Wood, I mean the 28 year old President is in pretty bad shape. Neither "M" nor I even bothered to comment about putting one more black man of 24 onto the critical list. Predictable. (As far as we know, Walid is still in the hospital, too!)

Karen reveals herself to have been waiting at the airport for her plane: she's flying commercial back to LA to be blowed up with Bill.

Because after the suitcase nukes go off, air traffic continues as normal. (Along with LA traffic, cell phone signals, commerce at liquor stores. I think that Jack and Logan even stopped at a drive through Starbucks on their way to the Russian consulate. Logan: soy latte or mocha frappucino? Jack: plain roasted beans (whole, not ground) to gnaw on? Or a 15 shot Americano, with an extra shot of terrorist blood, no room for milk?)

Yeah, so instead of hopping military transport for LA, she's still sitting at National catching up on O magazine, Martha Stewart Living, and Yoga Journal. So it's gonna be at least another 3 hours before she gets to LA. But wait, she may head back to the bunker, as she hasn't tendered her official resignation letter, but merely abandoned her job.

Assad is dead. "M" and I are both sad about that. He reminded me of one of my Corp Fin professors, who thankfully is alive and well, and is such an amazing scholar and teacher that I won't put his name on a blog devoted to 24. (If you happen to know this man, please don't "out" him!)

Tom is rescued from assasination via duct tape, only to be interrogated by an agent who blames him for the bomb in the bunker. He doesn't really have plausible deniability here, he was totally acting on his own. But at least he did get rescued. But clearly, a medical interrogation is an option here.

Morris may or may not be drinking again. He is at least putting liquor into his mouth and spitting it out, and hiding in the bathroom with a bottle. If nothing else, these are "dry drunk" behaviors. He also lied about to Chloe talking with his sponsor, we think.

Chloe had a little pouty action this episode, and did follow Morris into the men's room to yell at him. (Or was this the previous week?) She is still too glamorous and too gullible to be the Chloe we know and love.

I can't speak for "M", but I will personally lose it if Chloe turns out to be either stupid or evil.

Rena and Bauer Spawn are safely ensconced at CTU. There were smoldery glances between Rena and Jack, but I can't remember the whole drama along those lines. Jack's dad is nowhere to be found.

"M", that's all I can remember. Anything else?

Where Did Jack Get the Tricked Out SUV?

Remember, he just got released from Chinese custody a few hours ago. He's got the smooth rack of guns that slides out in the "way back". (Um, I wonder how the cup holders are in that baby?)

And what is the deal that Rena supposedly made with Graem?

And didn't Dad and Mrs. Bauer know how to spell? "Graem"?

Previously on 24

"M" and I got kicked off of Blogger last week, no doubt due more to Mercury retrograde than to my habit of creating pithy and witty one-sentence posts.

Mea culpa.

Exactly what Jack is thinking, since his Dad has caused him to think that he has killed Grae. The ladies at CTU are telling Bill that Jack pushed the medical interrogation protocols. And in fact, by the end of the 2 hours, Jack is telling Bill...do your worst, I don't want this covered up.

Since CTU left Grae unsupervised after Jack pushed the protocols, I can't trust that they will discover Jack's dad's fingerprints on the syringe.

Rena is mad, but not too mad. She and Jack go on a field trip to find a house she supposedly stalked Grae to when she was gathering evidence on him. She makes the mistake of telling Jack's dad, and Jack's dad kidnaps Bauer Spawn, and then blackmails Rena into taking Jack to a house that blows up.

Ok, this is one story arc.

The evil hookery chick and the guy with the Wisconsin accent have Morris, and are taking him to Fayed for a supposed $7 million payment. Morris manipulates her, and she shoots Wisconsin boy in the head and pushes him out of the truck. But Morris isn't that good. Instead of taking Morris back to CTU, she figures on negotiating with Fayed. He ultimately offs her. (Evil hookery chick, for those of you keeping score: evil and stupid.)

Jack rescues Morris, who has given the terrorists some device that arms all of the other suitcase nukes. Jack and Chloe disarm one of the suitcases with seconds to spare, Chloe reading the manual back at CTU. (This is how one of the help desk people tried to help me with a Lotus Notes problem I had a while back, too. Thank goodness there was no suitcase nuke at my office! On so many levels.)

Mr. Chloe is feeling sorry for himself for not building a self-destruct program into the nukes. (Hello, can you say "back door"?) Chloe tells him to buck up and get his ass back to work.

Karen's still on the plane to LA to get blowed up with Bill. (And what is up with Bill this season? He has no backbone, no integrity or leadership skills. Did Karen have him fixed over this past 2 years?)

"M" says that Milo and Rena's life are in the balance, but I don't remember why.

Honestly, isn't 2 hours of 24 a bit much for anyone to take? (Although a colleague who travels to work up in the NY area from his home in Atlanta doesn't go home every weekend. He spent one weekend watching an entire season of 24. I thought this was risky; maybe he'd snap someone's neck for sport when he arrived at the office on Monday...but no problem there. That I know of.)

Oh yeah, Chad Lowe is the Evil Veep's toady, and they are manipulating Tom/Numbers guy into participating in some kind of "removal" of Principal Wood, I mean the 28 year old President.

Or are they? Is Tom pretending to be a really bad guy (instead of just a cultural and fiscal "conservative"...I mean fascist) in order to uncover the plot behind the prospective "removal" of the President?

Still no sign of Jack's mom. She's probably going to turn out to have a chainsaw for a hand, like Lena Olin in Romeo is Bleeding...or maybe Lena will turn out to be his mom! (Although she's a bit young. My money is still on Karen.)

OK, "M", take it away.

Rena's Roots

This was before Marilyn and Jack got together...or thinking again, doing the math on Jack's nephew/son's age, maybe at just about the same time!

(From About.com's soap opera pages...apparently, this was one of the most memorable weddings in soap opera history! I don't know, I'd like to see some shots from Marilyn and Grae's unholy alliance, I mean wedding.)

Previously on 24: Hour 7

Ok, let's see what I remember from last week. (It was a busy week at work, I didn't have much time to think about 24.)

Jack's brother (and some random henchmen) try to kill Jack and his dad. You can watch video of Jack and Dad's suspend-your-disbelief escape at vanlandw's Jack Bauer 24 Kill Count website. (Watch Dad's hair...hello, have you heard of gel? Hair products are not just for women any more.)

After Jack's 3rd kill of the season, he and Dad take Grae back to Grae's McMansion for a medical interrogation.

(Un-freaking believeable. Interesting article in today's NY Times magazine about the fact that many executions by lethal injection are botched because of inadequate medical knowledge of the executioners, and a refusal by most medical professionals to participate in executions. It does give me hope that CTU's "medical interrogation" is a Fox Network fiction. But I digress.)

First, dreamy Rena Sofer and Jack's nephew/son have to be taken back to CTU. (Partly so that Rena can get back to work over at Heroes.)

Rena gives Jack/Grae's dad an ultimatum to protect the spawn of Bauer. Leading us to wonder, what does the kid (whose name I can't remember) know? (And again, Marilyn Bauer: stupid, or evil? I vote evil.) And Dad's hair flaps in the breeze here, too -- I guess that he doesn't know that the bad guys of 24 are sexy because they are bald! Let it go, Dad!

Then, Jack threatens to cause Grae more pain that he could ever imagine. Ha. Had Jack forgotten about the trick with the bag from the Jewel?

He gets some kind of info from Grae. Oh, yeah, Grae confesses that he had Tony, Michele and President Palmer (the adult one) killed last season. (Did he confess that he and Dad sent Jack to China? I can't remember.)

Jack is truly upset. He takes off. (I can't remember where he went! Maybe off to shower or go to the bathroom.) Wherever he goes, he is certifiably in a World Of Pain (aka WOP).

There is a whole thing where CTU intercepts a phone call that took place 5 minutes ago between Fayed (still looking hot in the balding terrorist 24 way) and the guy from Wisconsin who is inconsistently affecting an Australian accent. They need to get the triggers to the other 4 suitcase nukes set, and only one guy will know how to do it...but he won't be readily cooperative.

The hooker-y looking evil chick is there with Wisconsin-boy in some fancy hotel, suitably outside the fallout zone, I guess. Or maybe by 2012, in addition to the most comfortable mattresses known to man and the cushy white bathrobes, the Four Seasons will have special anti-terrorist features that protect the guests from fallout.

While we wonder whether the uncooperative techie will turn out to be Jack's son (I always wish for a teenaged boy around the house when it comes time to program my VCR, set up i-Tunes, and other techie tasks), we head back to CTU.

Chloe's ex gets a call that his brother has been rushed to the hospital with nucular-ly induced health issue. Morris is unable to summon the equanimity shown by Eggar last season when his mom was stricken by some terrorist based malady (what was that, was it the canisters?) and he takes off.

We go back to Grae's pad, where Jack's dad promptly kills him off. Now that Jack's back, who needs Grae? Then he starts to cry and accuses CTU of killing Grae. (But he wasn't wearing gloves when he injected the drug into the IV line, so how about that?)

Poor Jack, he may not find out until next season that Dad offed Grae. He'll take it on himself. (More WOP!)

Then Morris gets grabbed by the bad guys. Jack's son wasn't the reluctant techie, Morris was! (And so what for Milo, treating Morris like some kind of lackey. I bet that Milo doesn't know how to arm, or disarm, a suitcase nuke! It remains to be seen whether he has yet disarmed Chloe -- literally or figuratively.)

Oh, yeah, Sandra Palmer breaks Walid out of the detention center and into a private room in a hospital. "M" and I wonder whether Sandra and Walid are special friends or not. And it looks like he has a good HMO: "M", I think your instinct is right -- who does he really work for?

President Palmer goes against the Numbers guy's idea to initiate military rule. (Or whatever.) And we're introduced to the apparently evil Vice President.

"W", better start counting your remaining moments...you shouldn't have let Karen go. How much damage could the press have done in the next 18 hours, given their consumption with the nucular attack? Buddy, you just lost your last friend in the White House. (Unless you have a dog.)

And watch out for Chad Lowe. Whether or not he and the guy from Numbers are special friends, he is not on your side.

Karen's out of commission for the next 3 episodes because she's flying to LA to be blowed up with Bill. I agree with "M". Karen Hayes: stupid, not evil.

That's all I can remember. It wasn't the greatest episode. Hopefully it will turn out to advance the plot.

Open questions: where is Audrey, and when will she be back to set up a perimeter? (I read on some other site that Jack would find out that she's in China! But that was supposed to happen last week.) How about Kim? Suburban Mom and Brent -- are they just gone? Will Milo get in trouble for giving his password and ID to Nadia, and will we find out any time soon whether she is stupid or evil?

And who is Jack's mom gonna turn out to be? Will we have to wait until next season to see her, I don't know, maybe execute Jack's dad for euthanizing the weak Grae? (Or, maybe Karen will turn out to be Jack's mom!)

And aargh, 2 hours tomorrow. "M", anything else?

Previously on 24

Where to start. Maybe with the fact that I fell asleep on my sofa with the TV on last night, and woke up at about 3 am to a Season 3 episode which featured Jack having to shoot a weaselly CTU agent on the orders of the President, who was negotiating with terrorists.

And "M"'s DH thinks that we didn't jump the shark until last week?

At any rate, the bomb went off, and the country stayed calm. During the hour after the detonation, cell phones worked, traffic was loud but constant, all utilities appeared to continue to operate seamlessly. (Those of us who live in Lower Manhattan can tell you that this ain't how it works. Although we didn't have Arnold as our fearless leader.)

Jack recovered quickly from having to kill Curtis, galvanized by the bombing, he re-ups with CTU. He showed how spry he is at 40, scrambling up onto the roof of a suburban home to rescue the pilot of a helicopter hanging off said hacienda, having been knocked out of the sky by shock waves from the blast.

Jack calls Bill, and Bill is all like, "I thought you quit?" (Jealous, anyone? like Jack would want your desk monkey job, Bill!)

After repairing to a bunker (which appears to be in the basement of the White House, probably near the bowling alley) The President goes on TV, after he tenderly confides his fear to the guy from Ally McBeal. "W" is allowed a little fear -- he's just 28, and he's one of only two living black man on 24.

Bill tells Jack something about Jack's dad. "M" and I are so shocked that I can't even remember what it was! But Jack starts trying to call his dad. Instead, he gets someone named Sam, who we assume is Jack's dad's partner. (And there is not anything wrong with that! But a surprising departure...knowing Fox, the guy will have to be an interior designer.)

Then, we find out that Jack has a brother! He was the Flat Faced Mastermind from Season 5 who had something to do with the canisters, Bierko, and Robocop last season. I seem to remember him escaping into a helicopter.

It turned out that he must have had to get home to Rena Sofer (widely believed in the blogosphere to be the kiss of death to any TV show, I still remember her from General Hospital about 20 years ago) and his son.

Or maybe not. Jack's bro may be raising the spawn of Jack, based on the meaningful smoldering glances that ensued after Jack forced his way into his brother's house. (The house is pretty nice, so the whole canister thing must have worked out well for him.)

His brother, whose name is either Graem, Graham, or Gray, seems to have unresolved issues about their childhood, and also seems to be in denial about Dad's sexual orientation. He refuses to tell Jack Dad's whereabouts, positing that Dad's probably with one of his "hot" girlfriends.

Gray actually brings up some childhood WOP, which cracks "M" and I up as embarrassingly plausible for 40-something siblings.

Somewhere in here, W's sister's client, detained by the Man in a domestic Gitmo type of center for the suspected, has managed to parlay an overheard word in an unnamed middle-Eastern language into an opportunity to wear a wire and go deep under with some of the other suspected terrorists in the detention center.

I don't really get that. As comparatively together as the 24-verse government appears to be, what with being able to pull up any bit of data and send it to any PDA, regardless of whether you're underground or in the outlying blast area of a suitcase nuke...would they really trust the guy they've detained?

Oh yeah, this guy is black, too. Dude, hope they told you when you signed up for this series: your days are numbered. (Now that Curtis is finally gone, all bets are off.)

And the guy from Ally McBeal/Numbers threatens W's sister, prompting "M" to predict that the administration will ultimately "deal" with her.

I've lost sight of the drama within CTU, but there is tension between Chloe, Milo, and Miles. I'll have to pay better attention to that this week. "M" and I were too busy yakking about Jack's brother, Dad, son/nephew and trying to remember anything that happened last season at all.

(Other than losing Eggar. Sob.)

Jack goes all medieval on his brother's ass, tying him up and preparing to interrogate him to find out where dad is. "M" and I are assuming that Gray has killed Dad, but then all of a sudden it is time for previews, and we see that Dad is being played by the second husband from Six Feet Under.

"M"? Anything I left out?