24: You Gotta Have Heart

Before we start this recap, let’s have a silent clock for “24”, which (it was announced this week) will end its eight-season run on May 24.

In a way, it’s fitting that the first original episode that aired after the cancelation announcement sort of encompasses the best and worst of “24” in 2010.

There was the good (a kickass firefight, a strong president and the return of fascinating political intrigue) and the less-good (uninspired repetition; specifically, having a character suffer a heart attack while another withholds pills the way Sherry Palmer did to Alan Milliken in season 3).

Then there’s you-know-who.

If you read this recap, you know that I basically called BS on the Dana Walsh-is-a-mole twist. Last night’s episode — which had Dana helping Tarin get into position to utilize the nuclear rods on Manhattan — did absolutely nothing to change my mind.

All this time, I’ve placed the lion’s share of the blame on the Dana Walsh debacle on the writers. However, I’m afraid I have to lay into Katee Sackhoff a bit after last night. I thought her ominous facial expressions and whispery bad-guy voice were WAY over the top. (When you’re a mole, isn’t the idea to actually try to blend in?) I’m even more disappointed that neither Chloe nor Arlo (who has stopped creepily hitting on Dana for some reason) didn’t really blink an eye when CTU’s satellite feed went out just as they were closing in on Samir and the rods. I mean, the fact that Dana has actually been sitting at her desk (for a change) and doing her work for the past hour should be a big tip off that she’s up to no good.

I really do hate to keep harping on this, but if Dana has really been a mole all this time, how come she’s only recently decided to start sabotaging CTU’s missions. I’ll tell you why — it’s because the writers decided she was the mole about 10 minutes ago! (Hopefully Jack will snap her neck or something when they end up in the same room next week.)

Anyway, on to the good stuff.

Welcome to season 8, President Taylor (pictured, left).

Yes, I realize Cherry Jones has actually appeared on screen this year, but last night was the first time the character was actually a factor.

Samir had successfully gotten the nuclear rods into the city, and Hastings could no longer guarantee the safety of Manhattan. Samir said he’d spare the city if U.S. officials simply handed over President Hassan.

This led to a spirited scene in which Chief of Staff Rob Weiss and suddenly-prominent Gen. Brucker argued in favor of turning over Hassan and averting disaster. President Taylor, not surprisingly, was vehemently against this by saying that even if America suffered some sort of terrorist attack, “We’ll deal with it — that’s what we do. Americans don’t stay down. We rise up together in times of crisis.” Jones’ forceful delivery almost made me stand up and start chanting “USA, USA!” despite the fact that I wasn’t born in this country. More importantly, I could finally see why the fictional people of this universe elected Allison Taylor as their president.

Unfortunately, Gen. Brucker (who is already a more interesting and hiss-worthy bad guy than bland Samir) had other ideas. He convinced Weiss to help him pull off an operation that would have military personnel kidnap Hassan and hand him over to Samir’s men. The terrorist attack would be averted, and President Taylor wouldn’t have to live with handing over Hassan to the bad guys.

Brucker needed Weiss to access Secretary of State Ethan Kanin’s computer to find out the route Jack was using to take Hassan to safety. (I’d left out the part where President Taylor had conveniently asked Jack to oversee the Hassan family’s transport.) Ethan walked in on the men and was about to blow the whistle until his heart gave out on him. (If you recall, the show established earlier this season that Ethan was dealing with a health issue, and you bet your ass the show wouldn’t have introduced that if it wasn’t going to crop up again!)

Despite the inherent horribleness in Brucker’s plan — instead of trying to find the rods and stop the nuclear threat, he thought it was a great idea to order a high-risk mission that would likely result in the death of a bunch of military personnel and Secret Service agents — we were treated to a pretty cool gunfight.

Predictably, Jack, Renee and President Hassan survived. (Anil Kapoor looks funny in street clothes.) The Secret Service agents were all wiped out pretty quickly, except for Agt. Molly O’Connor, who’d gotten a few lines of dialogue earlier and was rewarded with a noble death. (Even though we didn’t see it, I’m assuming she died.)

Jack was able to wound one of the military guys, who quickly revealed their dastardly mission. With 15 minutes left until another attack, Jack has to decide what to do. (It would’ve been nice if the previews for next week didn’t reveal that President Hassan takes matters into his own hands, but whatever.) Also, is it weird that my favorite part of the tunnel sequence was Jack saying, “The son of a bitch hung up on me” after talking to Weiss?

So what’d you think of this episode? Will Ethan survive? (I say no.) Does the show have the balls to depict a terrorist attack in New York City? (I say no.) Finally, I don’t know if you caught the previews, but LOGAN!!! (I say, YES!)