Monday February 5, 2007
6AFF07
Jack's family loyalties are put to the test as Graem reveals his full involvement in the terrorist activities.
Wayne convenes a meeting of his cabinet to discuss Lennox's drastic policies, while Sandra tends to an injured Walid.
Morris receives some bad news about a relative, and McCarthy sets a trap designed to capture the man who can help Fayed build a new trigger for the nukes.
So... and we thought we got it... hide show
So, this started with the a great play - Jack brother tries to kill Jack and their father but they manage to get off and get Graem.. so it is from there to find out what he hides - and what he hides is a big secret - he reviles that he ordered the assassination of Palmer, Almeida and Dessler... and how Jack reacts.. that was stunning - we have seen him being angry but not like that.. He is ready to kill his brother..
But I think even more surprising is the end when it comes out that Jack father is behind it too - and it has all been an act..
Under interrogation Graem admits to the family's involvment in the murder of David Palmer. Darren McCarthy puts in motion his plan to secure an engineer capeable of arming the ramaining nukes. Wayne faces pressure from his cabinet to take drastic action hide show
There is a lot to like in this episode. Despite the fact that we have seen it numerous times in this series, it's always good to see Jack doing his job and getting info from suspects. That is one part of the show that is consistently exciting and very entertaining. I had a bit of trouble with the coincidence involving Morris' capture. Just as he finds out he has been set up McCarthy shows up and captures him. Talk about perfect timing! Peter MacNicol over acts a little but overall this is a very good hour of "24." Watch it.
The Graem arc comes to a close. Though I'd barely consider it an arc; pretty much all he ever did was sit around on the phone with Logan or get pushed around by his smarter, tougher, prettier brother. So how 'bout just…Graem comes to a close?
Jack escapes his predicament and heads back for a little brother-to-brother confrontation. More pharmaceutical torture courtesy of CTU? Why not?! As usual, it doesn't prove all that useful, at least not for anything regarding S6. But hey, Jack now knows how wrong Henderson was about the whole "touch them/touch you" thing.
So the Sandra plotline turns out to have been less significant than originally thought. But as much as I despised it to begin with, I cannot discredit it completely. One phone conversation with Wayne sparks a plot development that'll take the DC storyline quite a ways through the following hours.
And McCarthy finds a second engineer, whose identity CTU tries to decrypt. In the meantime, Morris gets a suspicious alert about his brother being exposed to radiation. I wonder where this is going…?
An alright episode apart from the excellent Jack plot. A big loose end from last season is finally tied up here, even if Jack doesn't make any progress in stopping Fayed. After multiple seasons without any mention, not only are Jack's other relatives introduced, but some of them are Bigbad material. If the big S5 scheme to make Jack the assassination patsy reeked of cockamamity to you (no, that's not a real word), then take great satisfaction in this, the most rational explanation that Joel Surnow could come up with!
Hourly Highlight:
Graem's confession/Jack's conniption.
Jack's family's involvement takes a strange new twist. President Palmer wobbles slightly but holds his ground. No real good news in sight. Just hope they don't let the "Jack's family mess" angle get tiring... hide show
Okay, so Graem's the bad guy, right? Right. But does it stop there? Apparently not. Though this episode did have some good plot twists, especially regarding Jack's father and brother, the entire plotline still doesn't appeal that much to me. I like 24, I think it's brilliant, but there's just something about this episode I don't like. The entire family thing is a little weird and seems a bit off-beat to me. Anyways, the Morris thing I kind guessed. I love when I'm right, but at the same time... You'd think Morris - or ANYONE else at CTU for that matter - would have pointed out that he had the qualifications and should not be allowed out of the building. I mean, terrorist is looking for someone to arm bombs, you are able to arm them, you get a weird call saying your brother is in the hospital bc he was somewhere where he wasn't supposed to be... You can't verify the information... Overall, it was a good episode, and the particular twists involving Morris and Jack's dad were nicely done.
Could have been better. hide show
I don't know... on one hand the episode had some great moments. On the other it had some really lousy moments as well.
One of the great ones was that Sandra Palmer (aka Kate Warner squared) finally did something good and didn't annoy me at all. Her speech to Wayne on the phone was great; finally I saw some Palmer in her. Which leads me directly into the second thing I really liked about this episode, namely Wayne Palmer's statement to the cabinett. I really hope they won't do a reprise of late season two with the vice president here, but aside from that, everything about this scene was awesome. 24 has often been criticised for being anti-muslim, so it was great to see them take a stand and prove that they're not.
Interestingly enough, this episode also provided the only torture scene I've ever seen which moved me. It was Jack's reactions throughout the scene and how he held Graem which I found really moving. It was good to see that in Jack - that he still hasn't lost his humanity and that he hates having to do these kind of things. This was the first scene where I really got the feeling that he cared for his brother.
On the downside, the big revelation towards the end was a downer. It felt kind of cheap, and especially what Daddy Bauer did towards the end of the scene. For some reason I can't picture that man having raised Jack. I wonder what Mommy Bauer was like... I was actually suspecting that maybe the wife had something to do with it all, but alas, they went for the more obvious one with the dad.
I was also quite annoyed by the whole "who is the mystery computer guy?" storyline. They barely even bothered to try and make it a surprise that it was Morris. Actually he pretty much had a sign on his forehead saying "It's me". I had expected a whole lot more. And as a side note... It really annoyed me to surf on to this site today and see huge headlines screaming out that a certain someone is still alive. I didn't even know that certain someone was supposed to be dead! I mean, I get that on this site there are spoilers for those of us who don't live in the US, but is it necessary to have it on the starting page so that it's the first thing you see when you surf by? I stay cleer of most forums to avoid spoilers, since I live in Sweden and we're usually half a season (at the least) after America. But I can't very well stay away from the main page. Ugh...
teknodave
Editor
FlameMoth
Retired
dj_mrt
Retired
BlueDuck24
Retired
BlueDuck24
Retired
BlueDuck24
Retired
WhiteKnightonTV
Riff_Rafferty
favre128
