Television:TV Review: 24 - SEASON SEVEN - '3:00 a.m. to 4:00 a.m.'
We learn a truckload about the organization behind the whole day's events
Grade: AStars: Kiefer Sutherland, James Morrison, Cherry Jones, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Jeffrey Nordling, Carlos Bernard, Annie Wersching
By EMERSON PARKER, Contributing Writer
Published 4/28/2009
“The Tony you knew, he doesn’t exist anymore.” Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) in 24 “3:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.”
Nothing sums up the past few episodes like that line from Jack to Chloe inside the “CTU Lite” toward the end of “3:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.”
I’m not ready to call Season Seven better than Season Five at this point, but we are getting there.
Sure, Charles Logan was a great villain and perfect in his role as a corrupt president of the United States. But the last three episodes of 24 have been spectacular. Mostly, thanks to the freaking sweet performance from Carlos Bernard as Tony Almeida – the now über bad guy of the season working for the syndicate of home grown terrorist cells against the U.S. government whose ultimate goal is still unknown.
What is ultimately so appealing about Tony as the bad guy is that we know him. We’ve seen him on five seasons (now six) of the show. We’ve seen him go through trials, tribulations and tragedy. To see him flip the switch to this cold blooded, cold hearted, dark soul Tony – once again kicking ass and killing anyone in his way – is in a word: cool.
That’s why I think he’s gotta be one of the top bad guys to ever be on the show, even if he’s only been a “true” bad guy for a handful of episodes – everything that led up to that point was a ruse and deception to get to this point, which also factors into his badness scale (if a thing doesn’t exist, it should).
We learned more about this syndicate in “3:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.” and it is far larger than we ever suspected. Much the same way that Jonas Hodges (Jon Voight) said. He was indeed just a small fish among a larger school – with 12 heads of the organization – all looking to do the country harm in some way and extremely technically savvy and probably rich.
But we learned even more from Hodges himself – who ironically equated himself to Jack Bauer himself – that the organization is a body of like-minded people that are after one thing: save the country at all costs. Something that Jack Bauer should know firsthand because he does what it takes every day. Something that Jack really takes offense at as he would never kill the country’s own population.
The goal was to take the toxin developed from Africa launch attacks across the country six months from now. They would cover their tracks by framing and giving arms to their enemies and when the public out cried for change, the syndicate organization would step in and assume control. But Hodges jumped the gun, he gave the Africans keys to the White House and the country in order to show how much we are vulnerable and cause people and the organization to act. He did it without the organization’s approval and thus risked exposing them – and why they gave him the red pill of death that didn’t work.
But seeing that the country’s down, Tony says why not kick it. And he has the liaison to the syndicate call a meeting of the 12 and get them to approve another attack this time with the bioweapon in order to force the public to decree that outcry of change. They agree and once again Tony is sent on a mission, to kill more Americans.
Luckily for America, Jack Bauer isn’t dead yet. Sure, he’s suffering from the effects of the bioweapon that he was exposed to but you can’t keep a dying Jack down. And he sniffs out Tony and the syndicate’s plan right away believing they will use the weapon right away for the same reason they are trying to use it. So the president gives Jack and FBI full control over the recovery of the bioweapon canister setting up a “CTU Lite.”
Will the toxin affect Jack before Tony and crew can unleash the canister? There’s only four episodes left to find out and things keep getting better.
Link: iFMagazine.com
No comments:
Post a Comment