24 Recap: 12:00 noon – 1:00pm

Title: 12:00 noon – 1:00pm
Original Airdate: 2/5/07
GMMR Recapper: LaLa

Well then!  Now we know where Jack gets his complete one-pointed devotion and utter ruthlessness from!  I guess Daddy Bauer is definitely not the innocent victim that he kind of seemed to be in last week’s episode – and [SPOILERS for those who haven’t seen Cromwell’s films!] I’m definitely having flashbacks of James Cromwell in “L.A. Confidential” right now, like when he whispered “Hush, hush” just before smothering Danny DeVito [END SPOILERS], much the same way he “hushed” Graem as he died from the lethal injection Daddy gave him.  Wow, who would have thought that Jack Bauer, one of the biggest heroes ever on television, a man who repeatedly saves the WORLD every season, would turn out to be the spawn of pure evil?  How very “Greek Tragedy”…  How very “Shakespearean”… How very… “Star Wars”.  Boy, if Jack looked devastated when Graem confessed to ordering the assassinations of David Palmer, Tony Almeida, Michelle Dessler, and Jack, just imagine how he’ll look when he finds out that Daddy was the man pulling Graem’s strings all along.  I’m hoping for a “You’re not my father!” petulant Luke Skywalker-type outburst, followed by some good old fashioned torture – courtesy of the CTU “Interrogation Package”.

Ok, so hands up if you guessed that Morris was going to be Darren McCarthy’s nuclear expert who needed “persuading” to work for Fayed.  I totally called that one right away, especially when they got an encrypted picture of said person, who you just knew would turn out to be a character we already know as soon as they unscrambled it.  And then when Morris promptly left to see his supposedly injured brother before the picture finished unscrambling – come on now, 24, I saw that coming from a mile away.  But maybe it’s just that I’ve seen every episode of this show since Season 1, so I’m always looking out for the plot twists – which is a blessing and curse, I suppose.  Poor Morris.  Now that he’s been captured, I’m hoping that he’ll be smart enough to turn his cell on silent and call CTU so they can track him – just like Assad did only a few hours earlier.  Come on Morris, show us you’re clever enough to be Chloe’s man!  And speaking of Chloe: Girl, that was a baaaad move giving your man that information before he finished the picture – especially if you were going to browbeat him into staying after he received said news.  Seriously, why torture him with that info and then not let him grieve and leave?  Sometimes, ignorance really is bliss.  And speaking of ignorance, Milo never should have told Chloe in the first place since she would obviously want to tell Morris.  So really, as usual, this is all Milo’s fault.  Dude, you really suck at your job.

Speaking of job suckage, I’m glad that President Wayne finally stopped being so wishy-washy and easily persuadable, and finally took a stand for the right thing by blocking weasel Tom’s proposed Arab/Muslim internment camps – even resisting pressure from his grizzled, scary Vice President.  Plus, Wayne was almost even smart enough to figure out that Tom definitely had something to do with Karen’s sudden resignation.  Ah, but if he were his brother David, he would have followed up on that hunch immediately.  Plus, he wouldn’t have let Karen resign in the first place – but that is neither here nor there at this point, since suddenly weak Karen is already gone.  I suppose, then, it’s a good thing after all that Wayne still has his sister Sandra to nag him and basically keep him in check, like she did when she (calmly, for once) told him the truth about what happened to her poor boyfriend Walid.  Ok… so I guess Sandra is turning out to be more useful to the story than I thought.  Hopefully, 24 will continue to redeem her and [*gasp!*] actually give her something truly heroic to do, other than nagging.  And speaking of nagging, I’m now convinced that Graem’s wife is totally in on the evil deeds of her husband and father-in-law (and also, as clever readers pointed out last time, that Graem’s son is really Jack’s son).  Here’s hoping that she gets hers soon as well.

Final note: What’s up with the big, evil corporations that pull evil presidents’ strings being named “The Company” on current television shows?  First we get that on “Prison Break”, now we get it on “24”.  Are we supposed to believe that corporations that are supposedly so clever in getting away with their evil deeds are really that uninspired when it comes to a name?  Anyone else agree with me on that?  Anyone?  Bueller?

LaLa is a writer who currently resides in LaLa Land, aka Los Angeles.  LaLa also likes to sing.  LaLa also knows some lawyers in a law office.  LaLa is also prone to making bad jokes, like this one.  And of course, LaLa also loves her some quality television shows with quality actors on them, like House… and The Office… and 24… and, well, pretty much any smartly written show that doesn’t include a fat guy with a hot skinny wife or the words “two and a half men” in the title.