24 Episode 6.15 - "8:00 PM - 9:00 PM"
Airdate: Monday, March 26th, 2007

I never thought 24 could pull off the truly unexpected.

Within its bailiwick (like that word? It's my new FAVORITE), 24 is able to surprise with plot twists and character pivots aplenty. It's a big, scary, hot machine with constantly moving parts. The roller coaster remains in motion; the hills and dips and upside-down swirls keep on coming.

It's when 24 suddenly reaches outside that adrenaline-drenched template that the show becomes unexpected. Moments of tenderness, of humor, of true character development--these are the beats that catch me off guard. Usually, they're confined to tiny pockets of the season, and usually, they're pretty deftly done.

This week, 24 does become truly unexpected, with a plot twist from left field that injects some totally new elements into the 24 matrix.

Ostensibly, this week's hour hits a plot mark that we've been waiting for weeks to occur--Gredenko is finally brought in by CTU. So it's a pretty big week, as Gredenko is one of the major villains of the season. There should be lots of shooting and fighting and Jack grumbling into cell phones, right?

There is some of that, to be sure. But mostly, it's a tiny character piece at its chewy caramel center.

Jack Bauer and Mike Doyle, who sound like the Friday night headlining act at an Irish bar on the south side of Chicago, are hot on the trail of Gredenko following last week's downing of the nuke-armed drone plane. Evidence is discovered that clears Nadia of any conspiracy with the enemy, and it leads CTU to the real source of the information leak--an autistic guy and his brother living in a shabby apartment.

Which, of course, sounds like a riff on Rain Man, and I suppose it is. Except that in Rain Man, Kiefer Sutherland didn't appear out of the clear blue darkness and shoot Tom Cruise in the shoulder before insisting that Dustin Hoffman help him stop the most wanted man in the world before he can blow up another American city with a suitcase nuke.

So there's this amazing thru-line of traditional 24 tension--finally, a solid Gredenko lead; they have a trap to lure him into; will he get tipped off before it can be sprung--but the writers add in Brady, the autistic man, who is the only person who can deliver the bait to Gredenko in the form of the latest security protocols for CTU.

Kiefer Sutherland and Scott Michael Campbell, the actor who portrays Brady, only have a handful of scenes together, but through sharp writing and skilled performances, they are able to sketch a tender, dimensional relationship between the two characters with limited screen time. We see Jack Bauer facing something he's never faced before--a chess piece in one of his global terror scenarios that will not respond to even the most vicious torture. Instead, he's forced to stop and slow down, to approach Brady with a softness that we rarely see from Jack.

Sure, the deed gets done, and there is plenty of good shooting involved, especially a very sweet quick cutaway shot when Gredenko himself is nailed by a tranquilizer dart. But the path to the goal, taking Gredenko alive, plays out in a way that's totally new for 24--real character drama, instead of Jack just pushing hard enough on the barriers in his way until they crumble to the ground, whether they're literal doors he kicks down or people whom he destroys with interrogation and torture.

Other stuff happens too--Milo and Nadia actually hook up in CTU, which seems unwise, and President Palmer is awakened from his coma just in time to stop the Vice-President from his monkey crazy nuclear strike on Iran, prompting him to utter the strangest tense cliffhanger words that have maybe ever been uttered on television: "Get me the Attorney General." You almost expect him to follow it with, "And I need the last six months of Presidential Law Journal. Stat!"

But the real story this week is Jack Bauer reaching out to this autistic man and building a real rapport with him to continue saving the world. It's played out in small moments that stitch together into one of 24's most compelling hours to date. Best of all, it was totally, absolutely unexpected, and it's nice to know a show that's got six seasons of hyperactive spy nonsense under its belt can still pull off the unexpected.

iTunes Links

24 - Series
24 - Season 6
"8:00 P.M. - 9:00 P.M."