(AUTHOR’S NOTE: This post was originally written before the season finale. While the main part is relatively spoiler free, I have updated it to include brief thoughts on said finale, which I will spoil the ever living crap out of. You’ve been warned….)
Truth be told, I don’t know if people are watching 24 or not. I suppose I just assume they’re not, because it’s just like society to ignore an awesome thing until it’s way too late.
Like the rest of the world, I was disappointed when I heard they were resurrecting 24, because it seemed like a step backward for star Kiefer Sutherland and, in my mind, could only serve to further dance on the grave of what was, at one time, the most exciting show on television. And frankly, seasons 6–8 had done that enough. I just naturally assumed that this was going to be embarrassing, nothing more than a sad attempt to resurrect something when its time had come and gone.
(Really, how are you gonna keep ’em down on the farm once they’ve seen Breaking Bad?)
I have precious little firsthand experience with it, but if this is what being wrong is like, I’ve got to admit it feels pretty damn good, because this has been the most consistently entertaining season since the highwater mark of season five more than eight years ago.
My esteemed colleague Jon took a look at the premiere and found it to be business as usual, which is certainly hard to argue.
But it’s extremely good business as usual.
For those of you who haven’t been watching, wanted fugitive/professional killer/elite status manpurse model Jack Bauer has decamped to London to prevent an attack on the President of the United States, something something drones, something something Edward Snowden stand-in, something something all roads lead to the postmodern Soviet menace. But, as any true 24 fan knows, the measure of the series is less about what happens and more about how awesome it is when Jack Bauer angrily and dutifully deals with it, usually through shooting dudes and yelling “Dammit!”
On this score, the show passes with flying colors.
Of course, Live Another Day has a bit of an advantage over previous seasons, what with its reduced episode count and all. Whereas full seasons would, by necessity, kill time with inordinately dull filler subplots and draw out inevitable outcomes at excruciating length, halving the season has led to a certain relentlessness and surety of purpose. This is the most streamlined the show has ever been, and by far the most propulsively entertaining.
Also, not for nothing: it hadn’t occurred to me until now how much I’d been missing a straight ahead, no frills action series. There’s a surplus of quality television these days, but nobody has picked up this particular torch. Obviously, the show has always been a bit of a political hot potato (though when the story involves a British Al-Qaeda terrorist stealing drones which eventually leads to an Edward Snowden wannabe accidentally helping Russia start a war between China and the United States, these days it would be slightly disingenuous to flag them for anything besides aggressive absurdity).
With its talk of drones, blowback, and intelligence leaks, the show certainly engages in the same sort of political glancing it’s always done, which is to say there is no current event that can’t be reduced to an easily digestible plot point. But at least the showrunners have the good sense to weave in a certain ambivalence about it all.
Far from the (painful) referendum on enhanced interrogation that season 7 became, there’s at least a mild amount of effort put into not making things black and white. To wit: while Michael Wincott’s Snowden analogue is a weasel (and let us take a moment to appreciate the perversity of setting your season in London and then hiring a Canadian to play a Brit, and then having Brit Colin Slamon play an American), he is granted the dignity of his convictions and allowed to be, if not right, then not entirely wrong.
But enough of this! Politics are boring, which is why no one pays attention to them, which in turn is why society is basically doomed. So its best we don’t dwell on that, and just focus in on how nice it is to have Jack Bauer back.
One of the all-time great protagonists in television history (due almost entirely to Kiefer Sutherland’s deeply committed performance), I’ve come to appreciate Jack in his absence for what he represents in the pantheon of small screen heroes: the morally righteous yet ethically problematic hero.
What with your Don Drapers, your Walter Whites, and your… uhh, whatshisdick from Sons Of Anarchy, there are a lot of morally bankrupt dudes doing shitty things. We’re asked to accept them as heroes, which we often do, generally on the merits of actors charisma.
(I mean, all evidence to the contrary, Charlie Hunnam HAS to be charismatic, right?)
But Jack Bauer, while he often does highly questionable things, he does them in the pursuit of justice, out of a selfless sense of duty. And in this age of “complex” anti-heroes, having a straight up hero (whatever his flaws) is downright revelatory.
All of this, mind you, is my way of saying it’s cool that Kiefer Sutherland is back and kicking ass. Because, really, that’s what it boils down to. Whatever it’s pretensions towards relevance, 24 is first and foremost an entertainment machine, using the framework of geopolitics to engage in old fashioned good guy versus bad guy shoot-em-up hijinks. And that’s where this season has excelled: it’s been nonstop fun.
The action has been top notch. The plot twists have been perfectly paced. The new characters have, for the most part been interesting (kudos to Michelle Fairley, Tate Donovan, and Yvonne Strahovski; boo for severely misusing Stephen Fry, Branco Tomovic, and John Boyega). And Chloe’s Lisabeth Salander turn is either a stroke of genius or madness. Either way, her eyeshadow was distracting as hell.
And while the London setting is almost completely useless (other than certain familiar landmarks, everywhere they went looked like the background for an early period Dizzee Rascal video), at least we got some sexy, sexy accents into the mix.
Tonight is the exciting conclusion, and for those of you who have yet to get into it… well, that’s probably not the place to start. But all fans, lapsed or otherwise, should watch this season.
Just so we’re clear: I wasn’t asking. That was me being courteous.
AUTHOR’S UPDATE ON FINALE: CLOSING THOUGHTS AND SPOILERS AHOY!!!
So of course things ended in the only way they could: with a pyrrhic victory for Jack. He saves the day, but he loses the girl. For it is an unassailable truth that no woman can know the love of Jack Bauer without also knowing the sweet embrace of death.
(Unless you’re Sara Wynter. Because apparently no one gives two shits about Sara Wynter…)
While this was the most predictable outcome, drama-wise (you can’t kill Chloe until the show is DEFINITELY coming to an end; they already shot their President Heller wad; and anybody else just wouldn’t be deserving of a silent clock), they managed to wring a fair amount of pathos from the death of a character that I never really warmed to. I never bought that Audrey was Jack’s OTL (though perhaps I’m simply in denial; between Audrey, Renee, and Teri, clearly Jack likes ’em brittle), but she had enough of a place in the mythology that the fallout was surprisingly effective. If nothing else, it gave William Devane a beautiful note to go out on; his closing monologue was heartrending, singlehandedly justifying the Alzheimer’s thread that came and went with almost no narrative purpose.
(And anyway, if Audrey had lived, the odds are that we wouldn’t have gotten our ‘Bring Me The Head Of Tzi Ma’ moment, so I steadfastly refuse to complain.)
While I could quibble (Really? You’re going to give Jack the bad news right as he’s trying to prevent World War III? I mean, granted, that’s how we get Beast Mode Jack, but still…), the good outweighed the bad here. The action was tight and suspenseful, the emotional beats all hit (I’ll say it; that last conversation between Jack and Chloe put a lump in my throat), and I’m intrigued to see what happens next.
Lord knows this can’t be the last I ever see of Agent Kate…
