Quest for Fire?

OK, no comments about hair gel today. (Except for that one.)

Jack and Awwwdrey after their respective releases from Chinese prison...

(photos from USA Today and MSNBC.)

"M" thinks that she has the potential to look like Daryl Hannah in Clan of the Cave Bear

Recap: The Night That Women Came Out On Top?

Official Recap:

• Dammit = 2 (or was it 3...Kate?) (M counted only 2)
• Perimeter = 0 (Uh, Ricky, maybe you should have had Audrey set a perimeter! You'd still have Cheng.)
• Speaking of Cheng, upsetting ethnic stereotypes = 1
• Women whose careers were boosted by Bill's resignation = 2
• Speaking of Nadia, surprising reversals (for now) of ethnic stereotype = 1
• Resurrected characters = 1 (Bring back Nina! Bring back Nina!)
• Nucular detonations = 0
• Other explosions = 0
• Eeeeww = 1 ("M" Commented to the googol plex on the EEEW)
• Facial movements by Evil Veep = 0
• Tender Moments for Jack = 1
• Ruthless Moments for Jack = all, minus 1
• Improbable career actions = 3 (Karen, retained by Evil Veep; Karen, firing Bill; Bill annoiting Nadia acting head of CTU, showing her parents that a newly minted Semiotics degree from Brown is an asset)
• Successful shopping trips to Radio Shack for a circuit board = 0
• Successful suicide bombings by a US Federal Agent (rogue) = 0
• Hair gel commercials = 0 ("M" I think the rogaine should count as 1, it's a gel to GROW hair LOL)
• Women proven, definitively, to be either stupid or evil = 0

No sign of Walid or any Bauers. Gradenko, (don't forget about Kumar) and Logan are still MIA, presumed dead. Aaron and Martha are probably sipping Kiwi Cosmopolitans. Chad Lowe is back for a cameo, attempting to negotiate his way out of the death penalty by taking as many people down as he can. Tom, proving himself to be both wily and enigmatic, appears to be on the Evil Veep's side...or is he?

There's a new sheriff in town, the handsome but unfortunately named Peter Hock, who is no Friend Of Bill, and may be eeeeevil.

Favorite moments? Ricky, playing in traffic (too bad he wasn't taken out), only to carjack a ride to pursue Jack . Nadia, having taken on the CTU leadership mantle, shouting "Pursue and Engage." Jack, insisting that he tenderly remove the gag from poor Audrey's mouth.

Audrey appears to be catatonic or psychotic. (Or both -- whatever her trauma, she won't be setting a perimeter for a while...) William Devane is one dashing baby boomer, and I can only hope he'll return next week to admonish Jack for Audrey's condition. I'm truly hoping that Bill goes all rogue with Jack. (That would be ideal, they would make a great team!)

I'm reminded of one great thing about 24 this season...hasn't it run straight through, no breaks or reruns? I don't watch much TV, but this is refreshing.

"M" and LPK, missed you tonight. Enjoy via TIVO and on demand...signing off for now. (I missed blogging too!!!! See you all tomorrow! "M" Out)

Dammit

Did they shoot Jack and let Cheng escape?

Here's where Nadia gets to say "Pursue and engage!"

Shouldn't Cheng have tested the circuit board? Couldn't Jack have given him a fake one? You know, from Radio Shack?

Ricky screwed up big time, but we have him to thank for saving Jack's life...and my local Fox news says that 24 is about to heat up. We can only hope.

Cheng, Another Unique Individual

They've got him sounding like the owner of a laundry on a 1960s sitcom. I know many people of Chinese origin, and in fact am related to some of them. I live near Chinatown. I don't know anyone who has that accent.

Tender moment between Jack and Audrey, supposedly before Jack blows himself up.

And a split screen montage with a picture in picture effect!

Boom?

New to the 24 Advertising Lineup

"Men's Rogaine Foam. Use it or Lose it."

Folks, we can't make this stuff up!

And whew, thankfully "M" is gonna be able to watch on demand later. (And while it is far less fun without her and our 24 friends, it is actually easier to follow the so-called plot!)

"M", I Missed Something

Are you there yet?

Who was Jack announcing himself to?

Aaaagh. Bill is resigning. Is Nadia going to be in charge? WTF? No wonder she's going to be shouting "pursue and engage".

And first dammit, from Nadia, the acting director of CTU. (She and Milo had better stay out of the server room until the guy from Division arrives.)

And now, time for Bill to pick up his vmail, go to the Hotel Coronado and either sacrifice himself to save Jack (Oh, Bill, don't die...you're preternaturally calm, but we like you!) or go rogue with Jack.

"M" Comment... they have no technology in Florida until we got near Ft. Lauderdale. It was horrible not being able to watch On Demand!

Bill

He does have a pair! He's not letting Karen fire him.

If someone who calls you honey tries to terminate your employment, time to call your lawyer!

Ruminations On Morris

He can be such a princess. Leave Bill out of your HR dramas while he's trying to save the world (and his career).

One good thing about Morris: he's in the minority of men on 24, in that he couldn't ever possibly need hair gel.

Karen, You Know Your Career Trumps Bill's

Karen, let Bill be his own man! Be a man yourself, and protect yourself. Bill doesn't need you to carry him.

If "M" were here, she'd say, "Bill can grow a pair!"

Ah, and now I'm figuring this...Bill is going to go rogue with Jack. Jack is saying that he'll sacrifice himself to save Awwwdrey and the country, but he's not going to incinerate himself with the circuit board.

No way. We couldn't endure the next few hours with Ricky and Milo jockeying to be the new Jack.

Jack on the phone to Bill's voicemail

I checked another blog - Dave Barry's blog - and he mentioned his surprise at Jack getting his voice mail. Even though he can get a call through to CTU under a garbage truck being driven by a terrorist!. (I fudged the date on this one too - it's hard to blog on TIVO)

THE MANPURSE IS BACK!!!

He has his man purse back (i predated this post so it would show up) Now where did he get that back. I wonder if it has the medi-interrogation accessory in it

Ricky Schroeder, You're No Jack Bauer

I've got so little interest in Ricky's character that I'm even resistant to blogging about him. The last interesting thing he said or did was confessing to having read the Upanishads.

That was hours ago. Ever since then, zzzzzz.

And now he and Nadia are in cahoots to find Jack. Nadia, Nadia, Nadia. I'm still waiting for you to shout out "Pursue and Engage", which might have something to do with backing up a server, based on what I've seen of the world of IT.

(and 'splain this to me...Ricky saw Jack pick up a terrorist's phone at the crime scene...and now somehow CTU -- and I'm not talking Chloe -- can trace his calls? Hmmm. In 2012, is there a terrorist yellow pages? Maybe one of the provisions of the amended Patriot Act is that terrorists can't have unlisted phone numbers.)

Peter Hock?

Another handsome black man to put in the 24 writers' crosshairs. (What kind of name is Hock? Did I misunderstand?)

And Chad Lowe is back and facing the death penalty! and trying to roll on Bill and Karen. Singing like a canary, and no duct tape marks or other evidence of torture.

Karen, now standing by her man...someone is going to have to go down, it's gonna be her or Bill? And Peter is apparently eeevil! (We won't be too upset when the 24 writers knock him off.)

(And what did ever happened to Walid?)

And I repeat -- Karen Hughes: stupid or evil?

Word from "M" is that she's checking into the hotel as we speak. She caught sight of the split screen montage through a window as they drove up, and blackberried me:

"Sashghh"

Eeeew!

Evil Veep and Blonde Toady, upping the ante on their nefarious relationship...and she's going home to get a change of clothes? How very 1950s.

Hopefully this move will protect us from any more stony-faced smoochies, at least for this episode.

Tom, Playing Both Sides of the Fence

Supporting the Evil Veep...or is he? But he's also keeping Karen in the game. Hmmm.

We still don't know where Chad Lowe is, do we?

(Or where "M" is, for that matter!)

Straight from the 24 Writer's Handbook

"People, listen up. Jack Bauer's gone rogue."

"Jack would die before he would give that circuit board to the Chinese." "The question is, would Jack give up Awwwdrey's life?" (Pouty look from Chloe.) "Exactly."

Thinking about this whole thing, we're operating at about a 6th grade reading level, aren't we?

Curtis Lives...Elsewhere in the Blogosphere

I just found this tonight, and will have to catch up with it this weekend, but here is the 24 fan fiction of a young (I presume) woman, posted at I remember it well, the first time I saw your head round the door...

Curtis is alive, Heller is back...and something steamy is going on between Jack and Chloe!

(and this site has awakened me to a whole world of ways to live my virtual life as a 24 groupie via Live Journal forums...don't let me, don't make me, don't medically interrogate me...I can't do it! I must limit myself to a couple of hours a week of 24...)

I can only hope she's bringing back Nina. I can't wait to read it.

Hair Gel, Revisited

I'm so thankful I'm not famous. I'd hate to think of any photos taken of me in the 1980s winding up on someone's blog.

Especially if someone was making a hair gel connection.

It's not fair! Was hair gel even invented in the 1980s?

Previously On 24: Jack, Looking For Love in All The Wrong Places

Relying on a previously successful gambit, the Chinese have reached out and touched Jack at possibly his most vulnerable. After all, he has showed a disappointing lack of imagination by killing Fayed in a hackneyed imitation of a Tarantino whacking; he has also saved the world from the remaining 3 suitcase nukes. And now the Chinese are now making their nefarious demands.

They tell Jack that they'll exchange AWWWdrey for a circuit board from one of the suitcase nukes. There was some techy explanation for why they couldn't just build their own, something about the old technology used in these Russian nukes not requiring encryption. Or something along those lines.

Implication: Russian technology is old, and inferior. Chinese technical expertise is inferior, so they're reduced to hiring makeup artists who haven't worked since Quest For Fire and blackmailing the guy who has killed CTU bosses (Chapelle) and his own good friend Curtis -- not to mention having " interrogated" his own brother, and the aforementioned Awwwdrey.

Ok, so the Russian technology is old and inferior. Chinese expertise is inferior. But they can shop, can't they? Instead of walking into any Radio Shack and helping themselves to a circuit board, the Chinese must rely on getting Jack to value Awwwdrey's life over the safety of the American public.

And by extension of the same implication: the US of A rocks the house on technology. (But don't tell that to people who suffered a world of faux hurt when they had to unexpectedly detox from Blackberry addictions last week. But I digress.)

Much to the distress of any True Believer in Jack: the next scene has Jack whining on the phone to TEYOP that he needs this circuit board, and that TEYOP owes him. Big time.

See the rest of the blogosphere for reaction to what the 24 writers have done to Jack. We're just here to report what happened.

TEYOP tells him that he can have the circuit board, and then has a stroke on national TV. The Evil Veep is now in power, Blonde Toady is back (and EEEEW there was some additional evidence that only Condoleeza Rice is woman enough to have a public service job without having the requisite government-issue boyfriend.) Veep doesn't want Jack to have the circuit board.

Jack has an improbable interaction with the Marines guarding the nukes and it is funny, I can't even remember if he got the circuit board or not. And The Hubby points out, Navy or Air Force would be guarding nukes, not Marines! And sorry, but in Jack's apparently weakened state, even a Girl Scout troop would have kicked his @$$.

(Leading The 24 Blog to wonder, is Jack the Whiner a ruse? We can hope.)

But who cares. Jack has gone rogue (yawn) and everyone from Doyle to his own daughter Kim is gonna be gunning for him.

Except for maybe Chloe, who showed some encouraging signs of life, when (finally) she gets a call from Jack asking for covert assistance. Frankly, I think he should have sent her to Radio Shack to buy the darned thing. Don't worry: even in the aftermath of the Valencia blasts, they're open!

And Jack, next time the phone rings after you've saved the world? Let it go to voice mail, babe.

Bill Maher on Jack

The Hubby found this: Bill Maher on Sacrifice.

It's an interesting bit. I laughed. Here is part of what made me laugh. I guess now he is up to making me laugh 3x in the past two days.

"...And yet no one asks the tough questions, like "Is torture necessary?", "Who will watch the watchers?" and "When does Jack Bauer go to the bathroom?" (Laughter.) I mean, it's been five years–is he wearing one of those astronaut diapers?..."

See the comments on We're Not The Only Ones Who Think Jack's Very Bad Day is a Very, Very Bad Day! for what else made me laugh tonight!