24

to make me yawn. These episodes getting us no where near to what is happening really out there.
They are releasing Behrooz. do not know why? Jack and Dina joint operation resulted in nothing. Last two episodes are bunch of time fillers. thats it.

Holy hell, has there been a less productive hour of "24"? Marwan distracts CTU from Anderson's antics by offering to trade Jack for Behrooz. And that's what everybody's bickering about for the whole hour.

Meanwhile, Anderson's subplot is also total filler, as he learns that the stealth fighter Phoenix has been grounded and must find a way to get off the ground within the hour. I'll just hit the snooze right here.

As little as I care about Behrooz, it's just dumb how the writers built a whole plot around him for the first big chunk of S4, then dropped him like a dead fly, never to mention him again. And you can't bring up those two contradictory and non-canonical deleted scenes. A sad, sad end to the once-awesome Araz Family storyline.

There's practically no point to any of this; Jack's life is predictably saved from a sniper, a new Division guy named Bill Buchanan comes into CTU to supervise things, and CTU pins Marwan's location. Fine, that last one kinda has a point, but spending an hour on just that seems harebrained. Especially when we've now spent four episodes building up to this second operation to capture Marwan and he ends up…oh, why ruin it? It's already ruined itself.



Hourly Highlight:

Maybe the little conversation Jack and Marwan have at the hideout, but I don't really know. I just want to get this episode out of my face.

How this is possible? You have 40 minutes with Jack being made hostage and CTU trying to figure out what to do, until they made another mistake.



Behrooz probably is dead, like is mother, it wasn´t necessary to do that, however the writers use him to gain some time. The same with the unnecessary interrogation done to him.



This is why this episode is slow. Jack situation is nothing new, and it is not impossible for Jack to escape if the writers wanted that way, but since they wanted this way, Jack was unable to escape, for the exchange to happen, allowing the writers to have some time to fill the episode.



This season, seem that the writers are having difficulties to be able to build very good episodes, it is like they do not know what to do next, so they bring whatever is in their mind.

Ok.. we have had some slower motion for some episodes and it was never bugging me until this episode as when I look back, there just did not happened much - it was all about getting Jack back and to be honest, it was weird they even did it - distraction or not but if you have Jack Bauer, you would not let him just get away.



And Behrooz.. they just could figure it out or they really just wasted the whole episode to show us that CTU too makes mistake and critical information is not found. I am really annoyed that they let Behrooz go even if they did not know why...

Jack is captured, but he manages to escape from Marwans watch via Behrooz all within one hour of him being taken by Marwan. I thought that Mithc Andersons objective has taken far too long and I didnt really like the fact that it took three hours for him to get ready to fly the plane. Rather then give us a couple fo random scenes before the plane is inspected for take off, why not just introduce the character a little bit later and then make it seem like the terrorists plan worked out perfectly instead of having all of these small bumps that we have no interest in watching. CTU drama was a little weak and predictable, with Audrey going a million directions just as we all had expetced. Overall, it looks like this episode was nothing but a filler to get ready for the last parts of the season.

Jack Bauer's plan to get close to Marwan doesn't work as well as he planned it. Marwan makes a hostage swap with CTU in order to cover up his real plans. This episode is full of action, Arnold Vosloo is convincingly evil and twisted. Things go in ways we wouldn't normally think of. This episode is so awesome, the action is just stunning. The hapless Behrooz gets in a lot of trouble with Marwan and as well as CTU. Things go really fast, but things go with a bang. The action scenes are well directed. The plot is very riveting.

Yet another average episode. If they don't start picking up the pace this season is going to be incredibly boring.



An episode is really not the best of the season when they need to throw in a CD that Edgar may or may not remember to look at and may or may not replace. Come on, it's not that exciting. They've already fired or taken out everybody but Edgar and Curtis; if Edgar is going to get canned for misplacing information then they've just repeated themselves one too many times this season.



Speaking of repeating themselves, the trade between Jack and Behrooz was just too similar to the trade between Michelle and Jane last season. Come on, do something new here!



Jack's situation does put Audrey in a different position though (on the subject of new). Earlier on Jack was bound to be the loser in the game of love, for if Paul was to die Audrey would probably be too upset to be with Jack, and if Paul lived she would be by his side to support him. Now Jack has been in real danger too so she can go back to not knowing who she wants. Yay...



I must say I'm glad there was no torture scene. The Mummy seems to have better things to do with his time than torture CTU agents and for that we are thankful. I sort of like him as a villain; he's got a mind about him which seems almost nice sometimes. Almost. Sometimes. But he's a nice break from the previous villains of 24.



Poor Behrooz though. He's going to be a Dr. Phil Special all on his own by the time this is over. I have a feeling he will be kept alive so that he can do something heroic before the season is over. I kinda' like him; I hope he's not going to be bullied too much in the future.



I really liked the interaction between Audrey and Tony when he informs her about the situation with Jack. I have been a sucker for the Jack/Tony friendship ever since I figured out for sure that Tony is a good guy. Hopefully Tony will be kept around as long as Jack is, we need this one trusted friend. The audience always knows where Tony is coming from, even when he's doing something bad like he did in Day 3. And it's good that there is finally some recognition of the bond that has formed between Tony and Jack.



Last but not least... Weren't there a ton of continuity errors in this episode? For one thing there were two lines in the opening summary which we never got to hear last episode. That alone is really clumbsy since all they need to do is lift the footage right from last episode and rerun it. Then there was the deal with the pilot's family claimed to be missing for the past two hours when the pilot was introduced only one hour ago. Of course, the family might have been "taken" long before that and somebody tried to contact them, so I guess that one is acceptable. Though how could they have found Dina Araz' body dumped somewhere with not a terrorist in sight only four minutes after she was executed? Now isn't that just a wee bit optimistic?



I sincerely hope that next episode will be better. If not, this season might prove to be just a waste of time.

When I saw this episode, I thought it was one of the weakest installments. I didn't hate this episode as much on second viewing, but it is still highly flawed. They're in the slump started a few weeks ago, but it looks like next week will be improved, especially with the announcement that they will replay next week's episode twice after the initial airing.



It's unlikely even 24's lapses in time that they would be able to find the van with Dina's body within minutes of it happening considering the terrorists had three minutes to abandon it.

Audrey has little to do this week, which isn't different from her role in the last few hours. Now she can react to Jack's kidnapping. I hope that Paul gets out of surgery soon so she can have more to do or else maybe she should not appear in an episode as Heller did this week.



Jack's speech is appropriately corny, but not exaggerated. Luckily they spared us the theatrics and patriotic music during this scene. It also shows the difference between Jack and President Keeler. Keeler doubts the public resolve if another attack happens since he's contemplating declaring martial law. Marwan believes people will remember seeing Heller captured on American soil, but Jack believes they'll remember that they stopped 130 of the plants from melting down. Marwan also forgets that Jack almost single handedly rescued Heller before his execution, even if the web cast kidnapping allowed the override to work.



CTU hypothesizes two reasons for why Marwan would want to exchange Jack for Behrooz; because he has a personal connection or Behrooz has valuable information. What they don't consider is that this trade is a distraction. They are in the middle of a crisis and they devote an hour to this deal. Meanwhile Anderson can, unimpeded, murder and impersonate a mechanic, convince the boss the plane is OK and be cleared for take off, with a half hour wait to fly.



Behrooz was characterized as a decent kid caught in unfortunate circumstances. When Curtis tortured him, we can't sympathize with CTU because we know he isn't cold blooded as his parents were. In addition, since Behrooz is a distraction, it doesn't help us identify with CTU's brutality this time. Most of 24's torture scenes can be defended by saying that to show how vital the threat is, the agents have to go far to prevent it. Since this isn't going to yield useful information, it's unnecessary.



One major problem at CTU is the personal politics. Edgar was likable until Chloe returned. Now he has gotten clingy with his tasks if bringing her back was meant to be a personal remark on his work. The terrorists are far more efficient than CTU is. There's no pettiness. CTU needs to stop worrying about power plays and focus on the threat. Luckily, Jack is far more concerned with getting the job done than how he is paid or whether he remains in the power for the sake of having it.



Bill Buchanan, the new CTU division head, is a wasted character. They could've used the opportunity to solve some of the personal problems. Through the years, prior division/district heads have served some purpose, but since most of them are dead (Walsh, Mason and Chappelle), they should've done a better job establishing who he is, unless he was meant to be a background character.



This episode fails with the contrived CD story. CTU's never distributed information between co-workers through discs. They may analyze confiscated hard drives or pursue renegade chips, but it's more convenient and space efficient to send the data through the company system. The CD exists to keep CTU from the missing family report long enough for Anderson to get airborne. Had they acted on Meg's tip, they could've been ready a half hour before Anderson left. During the episode, Edgar almost takes it out when Tony interrupts him as if this was the disruption before two characters kiss on countless TV shows and movies.



When Tony and Audrey are talking about Jack, he reveals a lot about their personal relationship. Jack is the last friend Tony has following the ordeal last season. They always have been the closest thing to a best friend to each other. Few people can understand and live with the sacrifices and schedule of a government agent. This works alongside Michelle talking to Tony earlier in the episode about saving Jack and Audrey, even though this probably would've fit better in "Day 4: 7-8 PM".



Jack and Behrooz's swap reminds us of Jane Saunders and Michelle's from season three, only without as many pyrotechnics. Something was going to stop the sniper from killing Jack since he wasn't as expendable as the previews indicated. Why is it that no one aside from Jack thought it would be a good idea to be more aggressive in pursuing Marwan other than giving them Behrooz with only two tracers on him that were found quickly? Had Jack not done some electrical work, they would be lost.



I hope that they explore Behrooz's feelings following learning of his mother's death. Through this, he could bring down part of Marwan's operation out of revenge. While Dina was evil and believed in murdering Americans for her cause, she was his mother, and she was willing to put her cause aside if that meant sparing her son.



Unfortunately, we have another episode where little happens. Jack spends most of the episode lying in a van or chained, but he did take a moment to prove he could still kick ass with his hands tied. Anderson's in the air and by short circuiting some of the phone lines, Jack tipped off CTU to where Marwan is. That is enough indication to believe next week will be the start of something stellar. I hope CTU can compose themselves for it.