24 Debrief: Day 7 | 9:00 pm-10:00 pm

This week featured a fan favorite making his farewell, the saddest sight imaginable and one character in quite the pickle. Let’s get started before I inhale some nerve toxins and go to sleepyland.

Debrief

• General Juma makes President Taylor read a confession of her crimes against Sangala on a live internet feed. She was interrupted when…

• Jack told Bill that there were explosives in the President’s safe room. Jack was planning on going in and drawing a stray bullet to the explosives, taking out all of the Sangalese henchmen. Bill then told Jack that he knows that Juma has someone working on the outside, who we all know is Jonas Hodges. Bill tells Jack he’s the only one who can find the mystery man helping Juma and runs into the safe room, killing himself in the process.

• Vice President Wussypants Hayworth, even after the explosion, refuses to take action. Larry and Renee lead the team into the White House against Hayworth’s orders. They, along with Jack and Aaron, kill most of the henchmen and Jack kills Gen. Juma.

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24 Debrief: Day 7 | 6:00 pm-8:00 pm

Debrief

Jack went into the White House to stop the attack under the radar. He captured Ryan Burnett and began to torture him to find out when the attack would occur and how. Before he could get information, President Taylor stopped him, arresting him.

Renee was at the hospital when she saw one of Juma’s henchmen kill Dubaku. She followed him back to Juma’s headquarters, where she saw them leave on a boat and found their plans of the attack on the White House. She jumped onto the boat and followed them before being attacked by Dubaku’s son. Larry showed up and saved Renee.

Meanwhile, over at the FBI HQ, Janis found out that Chloe was working with Jack on something covert and off the grid, so Chloe was arrested.

Jack and Tony’s plan was for Burnett to spill details on the attack in exchange for immunity. When he refused to do that, the attack went as planned. The Juma-led group ended up taking everyone remaining in the White House hostage, minus the President and Jack, who ended up in a panic room and Aaron and Olivia, who were hiding and trying to find a way out.

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Why LOST Lost Me…and Can’t Find Me Again

“But it’s so good now!

“Seriously, though, it’s so much better now!”

“Last season sucked. I’ll admit. But, you should start watching again, man.”

These are the things I hear when I tell people that, last season, I stopped watching “Lost.” But, it’s also what people told me after I stopped watching “Heroes” and “Grey’s Anatomy” and a countless number of fan favorites that I too once loved dearly but then fell off of my radar. These shows, with “Lost” being the premiere example, became a chore to watch for me, not a pleasure like TV should be.

My remote is dead right now. So, in getting ready for my favorite new show of the season, “Life on Mars,” I turned ABC on a little early. I saw the last few minutes of “Lost”. People were on a plane and then Kate was almost dead or something like that. I had no idea what was going on. And, then I realized…it was the same feeling I had when I was watching “Lost” every week; when I was following all of the viral websites and fan forums; when I was discussing it with all of my friends and trying to get people who were saying the same things I am now, to convert. I had absolutely no clue what was happening.

Now, before you freak out in the comments below, I know….Not watching the show for awhile is bound to get anyone…well…lost. But the feeling was the same. Total confusion. What I realized was that I was happy that I didn’t spend the hour to get to that point of confusion. And, then, as I watched “Life on Mars”, I truly realized what “Lost” was missing that keeps me watching similar shows.

I love a good mystery.

I would say that 80% of my weekly television shows are procedural crime dramas. We’re introduced to a case, the cops come in, they do their magic and the case is solved by the end of the hour. This isn’t to say I don’t love shows that are outside of the box. I mean, the two shows I write about for GMMR are “24” and “Dexter.” So, at the beginning, “Lost” was great. It was the ultimate mystery! You are dumped in the middle of the situation, along with all of the castaways, not knowing where you are, who you’re there with, or, most importantly to the show, why you’re there.

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24: Day 7 | 4:00 p.m.- 5:00 p.m.

Debrief

• Jack and Renee call paramedics for Henry Taylor. In searching the killed gunmen they find an address that Dubaku has called multiple times. When they arrive, they find out it’s Marika and Rose’s apartment.

• Marika is set to meet with Dubaku and leave the country. After finding out who he really is, she agrees to lead Jack and Renee to Dubaku.

• President Taylor arrives at the hospital where the doctors say Henry, who is entering surgery, doesn’t have much of a chance at full recovery. Taylor asks Bill to contact her daughter, whom she is not on speaking terms with, and get her to the hospital. Bill calls former Secret Service Agent and eternal BADASS Aaron Pierce.

• Bill sends Chloe to the FBI to help Jack and Renee from there. Janis believes that Chloe has been sent in to replace her and becomes paranoid.

• While tracking Dubaku, Jack and Renee get ambushed by police. A warrant had been issued to DC-Metro Police by Sean, who appears to be the mole in the FBI.

Agent Philboy’s Assessment

This episode felt like a good ol’ family reunion! Morris O’ Brien returns with a child who is apparently a sixth grader. And, then, the surprise of the night…Aaron Pierce, the man who has been on the show nearly since the beginning (or was it the beginning) returns to help out the good guys once again. I was so excited by this that I started screaming expletives at my TV and writing them in my notes.

It’s things like this that make “24” such a unique show. A character like Aaron would, on most other shows, just be forgotten about. But, the character is great and the actor is awesome so, the writers find BELIEVABLE ways for him to return. I don’t know about you guys, but I didn’t question the fact that Aaron would be available to work with Bill, Tony and Jack.

It was really an episode of surprises. Morris coming back. Aaron coming back to rock my face off with another season. And, Jack and Renee ambushing Marika and Rosa’s apartment. I didn’t see it coming that the location on the phone would be their place. It really changed the entire game in the search for Dubaku and makes perfect sense, since the search was going nowhere quickly.

On a Whedonesque note, did anyone else notice that the businessman Olivia Taylor was talking to was the News Reporter from “Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog?” Or was it just my obsessive mind?

Overall, this was a great episode…in it’s second half. It really did an awesome job setting up the next series of events, with Olivia Taylor heading to the hospital, Aaron in the fold, Jack and Renee arrested, Sean exposed as the mole, Janis looking over her shoulder and Marika on her way to Dubaku.

Everything I Need to Know in Life I Learned from Jack Bauer (and Others)…

• If you don’t want information disseminated, yell it really loudly in an unsecure location.

• If you want a girl to leave and run away with you, all you have to do is ambush her at work.

• When you get in a shootout, you can just leave any dead bodies wherever the end up. It’s fine.

• If you know someone who won’t believe things about their significant other, have a photo slideshow on your phone ready to go as evidence.

• If you want to keep something secret and not let anyone know you have it, make sure it glows.

Weekly Kill Count = 0 Total Kill Count = 304+

What do you guys think of Sean being the mole? Is he the last mole we’ll see at the FBI, or does it go deeper than him?

Philboy is GMMR’s resident Dexter and 24 analyst. He spends his days studying Communications at Purdue University and his nights failing at keeping up with all of the TV shows he loves. His can’t miss shows are “24”, “Chuck”, and “Life on Mars”. The thought running through his head for this week is, “Anyone know where I can get a job?”

24: Day 7 | 3:00 p.m.- 4:00 p.m.

Wow! And I thought last week felt like an old episode of “24”! This felt like a really really deep version of something from Season 1. Let’s get started before my brain melts with nostalgia.

Debrief

• Jack, Renee, Bill and Matobo met with President Taylor. They told her that Bill had found that there were people around her that were corrupt and were thwarting every chance she took to invade Sangala. Matobo left to consult with his people about the incoming invasion.

• Dubaku called President Taylor and told her that Henry is being held captive and that if troops were not pulled out of Sangala by 4:00 p.m. (the end of the episode, conveniently enough) that he would kill Henry. Taylor said she couldn’t pull the troops out because of her husband when hundreds died earlier in the day from the same decision. Jack pledged to do all he could to find Henry before 4:00.

• Jack and Renee met with Larry. He agreed to help them, but had reservations about working with Jack.

• They identified that Agent Vossler was brought in to help kidnap and kill Henry Taylor. Jack found him and got Henry’s location before he had to kill Vossler in self-defense. Renee has been extremely affected by the psychological torture that she had to perform on Vossler’s family.

• Bill and Ethan put together a body double for Matobo to buy Jack and Renee more time. Think of the last fifteen minutes of “Hairspray” but replace the giant hairspray can with a limo. Dubaku kills the body double and orders Henry to be killed.

• Dubaku’s girlfriend, Marika’s sister, Rosa knows that Dubaku is living a lie and has threatened to expose him to the authorities if he doesn’t break up with her immediately.

• Jack and Renee invaded the location where Henry was being held and killed all of Dubaku’s henchmen, but not before Henry was shot in the abdomen.

Agent Philboy’s Assessment

Sorry for the long debrief section, but I feel like a lot went on tonight. But, that’s not the reason this was my favorite episode of the season.

This was the deepest episode of “24” I think we’ve ever seen. When I was younger, and the show had just started, I think I would have been bored by a lot of this episode. But, now, as a senior in college, and in a year where I devoured the book “24 and Philosophy,” the discussions that took place between characters in this episode were as exhilarating as the car chases and shootouts.

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24: Day 7 | 2:00 p.m.- 3:00 p.m.

This felt, to me, like an old school episode of “24.” There were multiple people working on a major crisis and the secondary storylines got moved along perfectly. Plus, there were a couple moments at the end of the episode that launched us into part two of the season.

Debrief

• Dubaku began to attack the Boyd Chemical Plant in Kitron, Ohio by emitting methylisocyanate into the air. Janis figured out that Kitron was the target and warned the plant’s foreman, who sacrificed his own life to buy everyone more time. Upon learning that Jack and the crew had infiltrated his location, Dubaku disengaged the CIP device and decided to relocate and regroup. Jack and crew rescued Matobo and his wife. Latham, the scientist Tony kidnapped at the very beginning of the series was forced to blow himself up, destroying the CIP device, as well as the plot device for the first quarter of the show.

• Matobo contacted President Taylor. Matobo, Jack and Bill are on their way to The White House to covertly (as possible) meet with Taylor. Tony is staying behind to avoid prosecution for his previous crimes. Jack made Tony promise that, after all is said and done, he would surrender and deal with his punishment.

• Henry Taylor woke up after taking out his corrupt Secret Service detail. He didn’t get out in time, though, to avoid Brian’s partner, another Secret Service agent (whose name is escaping me right now, sadly) who is taking Henry to Dubaku’s new location.

• Dubaku arrived at his apartment and was greeted by a waitress named Marika, who appears to be his “girlfriend.”

Agent Philboy’s Assessment

I thought this episode was great. The FBI side of things took center stage for a while, as Janis took the role I thought she would, saving the little hamlet of Kitron, Ohio from losing half of their population. Sean seems fixated on Moss’ relationship with Renee for some reason and keeps bringing it up in awkward, inopportune ways. I’m starting to think that Chloe was copied and then split in two for the new FBI team. Janis got the badass computer technician stuff and Sean got the whiny, socially awkward stuff. Together, you might as well call them O’Brian and marry them off to someone named Morris.

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24: Day 7 | 1:00 p.m.- 2:00 p.m.

It’s going to be a short review this week. I’ve got three pages to write about old newspapers (long story) and, plus, there were only a few big moments this episode.

Debrief

• Fear not, true believers. As many of you mentioned in the comments from last week, Jack dispatched Chloe and Bill to go save Renee. The three of them joined up with Jack and Tony, who had taken over the kidnapping operation. Jack convinced Matobo and his wife to be kidnapped by Dubaku in an attempt to stop him.

• President Taylor refuses to pull troops out of Sangala. In response to this, Dubaku crashed two planes into one another, right outside the windows of the Oval Office. Still, with the possibility of Matobo being found, she isn’t willing to pull back. In the wake of her decision, her Secretary of State resigned.

• Brian killed Samantha and was in the middle of staging Henry Taylor’s suicide when Henry found the strength to take him out.

Agent Philboy’s Assessment

First off, I was completely uninspired by Agent Moss’ speech to the FBI team. Seriously, this was a chance to challenge Coach Boone in “Remember the Titans” and the best he could come up with is, “We’re the only ones she’s got.” Seriously?! Lame. This guy keeps going up and down on my radar. First, he’s kind of stalkerish. Then, he defends Janis to the ends of the Earth. Then, he loses an amazing oratorical opportunity.

Last week, I was so caught up in the moment of Renee “dying” that I forgot that Chloe and Bill were all over it and listening in on everything. One quick shot and our favorite new FBI agent was back with us, only slightly confused.

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24 Debrief: Day 7 | 10:00 am-12:00 pm

Wow, did the writers pull out some of the stops tonight. It’s nothing like previous seasons, but a lot went on tonight that changes the entire complexion of this season, so let’s get started.

Debrief

• So, it seems, as I suspected (see below) Tony is not, in fact, evil. He is working off the grid and deep undercover with Chloe and Bill Buchanan (YAY!). They are all working to stop the CIP Device from getting into the hands of General Juma AND stopping all of the corruption inside the FBI.

• Jack is now undercover with Tony as part of Emerson’s crew. They were in the middle of kidnapping the former Prime Minister of Sangala, who is in the middle of trying to broker an intervention by the US, when they ran up against the unfortunate matter of his panic room.

• President Taylor received a threat from Juma’s second-in-command that they will use the CIP device if troops are not pulled from their positions near Sangala by 1 p.m. (i.e., the end of the next episode).

• Henry Taylor met up again with his son’s ex-girlfriend, Samantha. She told him that Roger was investigating his firm’s finances and found out that they were making several dealings with Sangala. Therefore, she confirmed his suspicions that his death was not a suicide and all part of the cover-up.

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24 Debrief: Day 7 | 8am-10am

Finally, a new season of 24.  I hope it lived up to everyone’s expectations.  It’s been a long time coming.  Missed the episode?  Want to break it down with other 24 fans?  Well you’ve come to the right place.  Agent Philboy will be providing a weekly debriefing of the activities of Jack Bauer and his associates, his assessment on the events that transpired and other pertinent information you’ll need to stay on top of the actions.

Check out Agent Philboy’s first weekly 24 report.

Debriefing…
Chronicling the latest activities of the good guys and the bad ones too.

• Our favorite former CTU agent Jack Bauer is on trial for war crimes. He is close to being indicted.

• Tony Almeida is still alive and is leading a group of domestic terrorists who are stealing in technology that gives them the capability to control airliners, as well as the power and water supplies for the entire country. Whatever group Tony is a part of is selling the module that does this to Gen. Juma, the genocidal dictator of Sangala.

• President Allison Taylor is well on her way to invading Sangala.

• The First Gentleman, Henry Taylor, isn’t accepting the idea that his son killed himself. Plus, he might be a little bit crazy, at least his seemingly pre-pubescent Secret Service Agent seems to think so.

• Jack has been enlisted to help find Tony by FBI Agent Renee Walker, who has immediately become his subordinate, as soon as Jack figured out that there is a leak within the FBI.

Agent Philboy’s Assessment…
What an awesome way to open a new season of “24.” It didn’t have a lot of the flash that previous seasons have started out with. No jugular veins were bitten. No nuclear bombs went off. But maybe that’s just what the show needed to get back on track. Perhaps, in year’s past, they kind of went too far and too big too soon, leaving the rest of the season just as time for disappointment.

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