24: Boom, Boom, WOW

Things are starting to get really good aren’t they?

There were enough twists and turns in last night’s 24 to make your head spin. (Tarin is bad…but not totally…oh wait he’s dead…but now he’s not, so that means he’s bad…but now he looks like he feels bad…)

With the momentum for this season quickly picking up, I’m going to get the crap out of the way early on. And in case you’re not familiar with these recaps, crap = the Dana Walsh saga.

I feel bad banging this drum every week because Katee Sackhoff is working really hard and Stephen Root is clearly having fun (perhaps a little TOO much fun) playing obsessive parole officer Bill Prady, but this thing is just unbearable.

Assuming Prady is really who he says he is, not only is he the most connected parole officer I’ve ever heard of (maybe he should replace Dana and half the staff at CTU given his vast amount of intel), but his priorities are wildly out of whack. I know Prady has stated that he’d grown fond of the not-so-dearly departed Kevin, but the man can see that CTU is clearly in crisis yet continues to creepily hover and pull Dana out of her station. I mean, can this really not wait?!

Then there’s Dana, who we’re supposed to believe is smart enough to concoct a new identity and pass herself off as an important part of a counter terrorism agency, but the best lie she can come up with is “I hooked up with Kevin a few nights ago at a bar.” LAME.

Fortunately, the air of tension the writers built up around the rest of the episode carried over to this sad storyline – at least for me. When Prady finally cornered Dana, and she tearfully told Cole that “it’s over”, I thought she might kill herself before the end of the hour. That’s the sort of “anything goes” atmosphere this hour established.

The hour had gotten off to a promising start with T.J. Ramini (pictured, right) temporarily assuming the action-star mantle from Kiefer Sutherland.

Kayla couldn’t stall Tarin long enough at the hotel room, and Tarin shot his way to freedom during a nifty sequence. Of course, Tarin had a big-time assist from the overly-zealous Sgt. Amis of the NYPD, who refused to wait for Jack. Methinks that guy had seen one two many movies where the federal government shows up and takes jurisdiction from the local police and wanted to do something about it. Oops.

After predictably evading Jack and Cole (Jack Cole sounds like he’d be a badass character), Tarin took Kayla to an abandoned bank and her captors called President Hassan. They wanted him to hand over File 33.

I thought we might have to wait an episode or two to find out what File 33 was, but this is the new and improved season 8! File 33 contained 20 years of intelligence gathered by Hassan and his countrymen that detailed the United States’ nuclear defense weaknesses.

Obviously, Jack and Hastings (Jack Hastings doesn’t sound so badass) weren’t eager to hand that info over to terrorists, but even I thought Jack basically telling the Hassans that they’d brought this on themselves was a touch too harsh.

Jack and Cole set out to find Kayla before the deadline. At the same time, an ambivalent-looking Tarin had a change of heart and decided he wanted to escape with Kayla. The two almost made it, except that Tarin got cut down – but not before he’d given Kayla the number for CTU. (That should’ve been a clue.)

Kayla called CTU and Hastings was ready to welcome her with open arms until one of Arlo’s drones picked up on the fact that Tarin was still alive and the whole thing was a ruse to get an electromagnetic pulse bomb close enough to CTU to completely disable their operation. (Obviously, Jack was the first person to put all this together, but even he was confused for a second.)

Was there probably an easier way to get an EMP bomb close enough to CTU than staging a fake kidnapping/fake escape? Well, yes because we know white trash can routinely drive up to CTU with no questions asked.

Still, it was more fun this way.

So what’d you think of this episode? Should the NYPD be offended after being portrayed as a bunch of incompetent, impatient nincompoops? How embarrassing would it have been if one of the terrorists’ gunshots had actually hit Kayla as she sped away? (Would’ve kinda killed their plan.) Finally, are you missing President Taylor and/or Renee yet? (Yeah, I’m really not.)