24: Jonas' Bothers

With Jack’s health (and right hand) getting noticeably shakier, a new hero and a new villain stepped to up the plate in the latest episode of “24.”

If you’ve read this recap, you know I’m a big fan of Jon Voight’s performance as Big Bad Jonas Hodges. At first, I thought he was too much of an over-the-top cartoon character. While the character remains over the top (though I REALLY like that now), I don’t recall any cartoon characters beating their chairmen to death with a brandy decanter.

From the first scene outside the empty Starkwood warehouse where he ranted and raved at Special Agent in Charge of Getting Constantly Duped Larry Moss about the government’s persecution and ingratitude toward his company to his hammy demands (did he HAVE to point the phone at himself so Pres. Taylor could see him — of course he didn’t, but that’s why we love him!) when ordering that the president call off the air strike at the end of the hour, Jonas was an entertaining, scary delight.

The guy was more affected the specks of blood on his immaculate white shirt than with the dead body splayed across the world map on the floor below him. Of course, that doesn’t mean the character lost his sense of humor (when Seaton spotted the drops of blood, Jonas quipped “Too bad Mr. Knowles won’t be joining us.”) All of this is just a roundabout way of saying that Jonas Hodges is clearly a madman (even his pet Seaton looked at him a little weird after the Knowles comment) which makes Voight’s crazypants performance somewhat fitting. (The line for his Best Supporting Actor Emmy campaign starts here.)

Obviously, chairman Doug Knowles recognized that Jonas was losing his marbles, which is why he agreed to cooperate with the government. He was the Starkwood insider who’d been working with Sen. “Red” Mayer’s crusade and now Jack correctly pegged him as a REAL (un-Seatonlike) mole that could tell them where the bio weapon was located. After Moss created a distraction by punching a smug Seaton out, Tony grabbed some equipment from one of Moss’ men and set about hooking up with Knowles and finding the bio weapon.

It was good to see Tony get to do the action movie-y stuff solo with Jack on the sidelines. I’m not saying this should become a full-time thing, but the scene with the Starkwood men almost spotting Tony as he broke into the building with the bio weapon (thanks to some help from a slightly condescending Janis) and the elevator moment were both effectively tense. The scene where Tony easily incapacitated two Starkwood guys was awesome.

Tony eventually got underground and helped Jack visually confirm that what they were seeing were the bio weapons with a cool communications gadget. (I foolishly thought that, when the president insisted that Jack confirm the presence of the weapons, Jack would have to somehow do that in person — I’m not up to date with the new technologies.) President Taylor ordered an air strike on Starkwood, which she quickly had to abort (despite the totally bewildered look from that admiral) due to Hodges threatening to send a missile filled with the bio weapon to a major city. The showdown between Hodges and Taylor at the White House should be good.

We can only hope Jack will be around for it. (Especially after the president said she wasn't giving up on him.) His condition last night deteriorated at an alarming rate. When he finally collapsed on the floor in the middle of the FBI it looked like his face was melting or something. The friendly CDC doctor gave him an injection to help fight the symptoms and told him he’d probably need it every two hours. So it wasn’t very encouraging when we saw Jack bringing the needle out by the end of the episode (that would be less than half an hour later). Jack is tough, so you KNOW he was hurting bad for him to use the injection on himself so soon.

In a more potentially intriguing/infuriating turn of events, the doctor also said there may be an experimental treatment available. The treatment would involve stem cells from a genetically compatible donor. The candidates include Jack’s presumed dead father (I love James Cromwell, but the existence of Philip Bauer was a big factor in the stinkiness of the last season of “24”), and Jack’s nephew Josh (who may or may not be his son, but is a minor character and also brings up unpleasant memories of season 6).

Finally, there’s Kim Bauer who was directly referenced last night. I’m not as big a Kim-hater as other people, but the reason the character isn’t on the show anymore is because the show was kind of done with her (and her cougar). Last week, I worried that “Starkwood has an antidote” would be a dumb solution to Jack’s health crisis. This week, I’ll happily take that over “There may be some experimental treatment we completely forgot to mention last week which will also bring your annoying daughter back into the fold.”

The other bit of news in this episode involved first daughter Olivia Taylor having sex with an icky journalist to keep him from running a story that would ruin the surprise air strike on Starkwood. I hope you don’t mind me giving this storyline short-shrift, but the whole thing was kind of stupid.

I mean, let me get this straight: to prevent the reporter from running his story, you tape yourself having sex with him and threaten to release the sex tape so that everyone knows how he gets his stories (and to break up his marriage). How is that worse than revealing to the entire world that the first daughter/acting White House chief of staff uses sex to kill news stories? Whatever. My favorite part was Aaron’s knowing, disapproving look at his latest charge. You just know he knew what she did.

So what’d you think of this episode? Who do you have in the Hodges/Taylor face off? Any way Tony makes it out of Starkwood alive? Finally, are you actually looking forward to the return of Kim? (Renee is SO going to contact her, right?)