So there Mook and I were – exiting the morning matinee of Brokeback Mountain when all of a sudden two… Oh! Ahmmm??? Well, that’s a story for another day.

No today – today is the day we tackle 24. Well, perhaps tackle is an inappropriate word – as nobody messes with the main man at the heart of the Jack Bauer Power Hour.

I won’t even dream of trying to bring everyone up to speed on what has transpired in Bauer’s life to this point. Instead, I plan on offering brief observations of 24 the day after each new ep airs. Look for similar commentaries on Lost, Alias (when it returns for its swan song) and in one combined weekly post: Scrubs, The Office and My Name is Earl.

Consider this your virtual-water cooler. Making me your virtual co-worker. Meaning once you step away, I’ll engage in discussion about you with another virtual co-worker behind your virtual back.

24 - Hour 7
I truly believe this season has been 24’s tightest. The first season – which saw Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) working to prevent the assassination of Presidential candidate David Palmer (Dennis Haysbert) – was arguably the former champ – but even that season flew off the rails in pursuit of some truly wacky tangents (Jack’s wife’s midday bout with temporary amnesia being a real showstopper.) And don’t get me started on Season 2 – whose ‘B’ Plot found daughter Kim Bauer ensnared in a cougar trap as a (cue sinister music – or Benny Hill soundtrack) mountain lion, licking its chops, entered Stage Right.

This season has started strong (with the assassination of now-former President Palmer) and has only grown in intensity – with the writers ratcheting up the suspense (see Jack Bauer’s blade-to-eyeball interrogation of White House mole Walt Cummings in Hour 6) while deftly unveiling a tightly wound plot.

Last year the writers offered up a preposterous gradual series of incremental evil (the terrorist bombing of a train is really a smokescreen for a cyber attack on thirty-three nuclear power plants which is really a blinder for their plot to attack Air Force One with a stealth fighter in order to divert attention away from the nuclear missile they have parked in a Nebraska cornfield which will divert our attention away from the fact that they are performing a highly suspect series of illegal wire tapping on U.S. citizens. (“Wha… wha… WHAT!!! That’s an outrage!!!”)

This year – each time a plot point presents itself and attempts to coax your eyeballs to roll skyward – the writers toss a curve ball. Thus the bad guy enmeshed in President Logan’s White House is revealed as a traitor within a couple episodes (where in years’ past he would have kept twirling that mustache through Hour 22 – at a bare minimum.) Also – for once – it appears that the seemingly unrelated events transpiring across Jack Bauer’s universe – are all intricately tied into the master scheme to pull him from hiding (he’s a fugitive from justice – having faked his death at the end of last year) – frame him for Palmer’s death – and launch a terrorist attack on Moscow aimed at disrupting a historic anti-terrorist treaty between the U.S. and Soviet Union (the latter task planned and orchestrated by Chechnyan rebels.) See, here’s a show that practically begs for run-on sentences.

Highlights in Hour 7
- The suicide of Walt Cummings in President Logan’s retreat. In addition to spooking an already unhinged Logan (we’re supposed to think it’s his wife who is crazy) this is bound to send ripple effects through later episodes. When the Chief of Staff suddenly hangs himself with a Brooks Brothers necktie 30 yards away from the Prez – the press tends to take notice.

- The whole sordid creepy affair with Bauer interrogating a terrorist sympathizer – who among other strangeness – has a teenage girl living in his posh-digs. In the closing minutes, we discover the girl was kidnapped in Kiev and is only 15 years old – a victim of a sex slavery ring. The look on Bauer’s face when he learns this news and hears the demand from the terrorist that in addition to a pardon he also gets to keep the girl, leads us to believe this guy isn’t long for this world. Before Bauer can bark for someone to bring him a hacksaw (as he so memorably requested in Season 2) – the girl pulls out a gun and caps the perv.

- Leading us to bad timing on her part – as the terrorist was awaiting a call from the rebels who were going to provide a location for a meet and greet – allowing Bauer to swoop into action. And in next week’s ep – it appears Jack infiltrates the terrorist group and goes on a ride-along to a shopping mall to release some of the deadly toxin.

Blemishes

- Seven hours in and the writer’s pull out the ‘crazed relative’ subplot. In seasons’ past – we’ve had everyone from Michelle Dressler’s alcoholic ex-husband to Kim Bauer acting as nanny to a murderous screenwriter to last season’s CTU Chief (can’t recall her name) and her suicidal daughter who picks that day of all days – to off herself in CTU headquarters. For some crazy reason – all of these people waltz into CTU like they were shopping in Target. Last night – we get Sean Astin’s Lynn McGill – current head of CTU – and a bizarro world subplot where he is called away from the office – during a national crisis – to deliver some cash to his junkie sister. He agrees to meet her in a dark alley – where he is subsequently jumped by her male acquaintance (who among other things – steals what appears to be a high level security key card.) I swear, if later episodes have the terrorists bidding for that thing on Ebay – in order to infiltrate the great sanctity of CTU (“where we never met a mole we didn’t like”) – well, I won’t jump ship – but I don’t have to like it.
- Not necessarily a complaint – but on the topic of Astin – I just wanted to let it be known that the actor whom I used to call ‘Rudy’ whenever I saw him in a flick (as in – “Rudy” was very good in The Goonies) has now been replaced as ‘The Hobbit (as in ‘The Hobbit’ was very good in Rudy.