24 Episode 6.16 - "9:00 PM - 10:00 PM"
Airdate: Monday, April 2nd, 2007

Nutty.

Just freakin' nutty.

That's my overall reaction to this episode. Which is funny, because for the first half or so, my overall reaction was more like, "Yawn. Can I get away with reading this comic book AND following 24 at the same time?" (Answer: Not really.)

I felt all yawny (is that a word? Oh, it is NOW, you best believe!) because I felt a midseason malaise settling in on the 24 action, which is typically a problem with this series every season. How else do you explain an episode where the most exciting thing to happen is a tie vote, broken by a technicality? I'm all for boardroom intrigue, but compared to Jack Bauer popping a cap in a bunch of terrorists, it's a little tame.

The vote in question related to this week's main storyline--the attempted removal of President Palmer from the duties of President, based on the 25th Amendment. It either says something about my lack of American historical knowledge or the obscure world in which 24 operates that it took me several scenes before I knew exactly what the 25th Amendment had to do with anything. I'm sitting there like, "They're trying to reinstate prohibition? Take the vote away from women? Allow a law regarding the compensation of representatives to take effect before an election of representatives has intervened???"

Then again, maybe this was when I was trying the whole comic-reading whilst 24-watching experiment.

Anyway, we get a bunch of scenes where lots of old white guys are sitting around and debating the minutiae of constitutional law, and President Palmer gets himself jacked up on adrenaline, and Tom Lennox uses strange eavesdropping technology completely without context to frame the Vice-President into dropping his 25th Amendment push before the Supreme Court can get their wrinkly asses back to the bench to issue a ruling.

It seriously sounds more exciting than it was, because I was severely disappointed. This midseason malaise is a direct result of 24's ambitious goals--delivering a day's worth of pulse-pounding, non-stop action over 24 episodes without any coherent plan.

That's right--the writers basically make it up as they go along. So they know where they start, and they have a vague idea of where they'll go next, but the nuts and bolts are conjured from the ether over the course of the season. (I know this because I interviewed several writers as the editor of the Official 24 Fan Club newsletter. No kidding.)

So if they've got a thrilling finale already in mind, but only four episodes' worth of story for that finale, they've got a few episodes to basically vamp. Kill time. Fill dead air.

Hence, Monday night. An attempted presidential coup is thwarted handily in forty minutes, Doyle tells Nadia that Milo's responsible for the security breach at CTU before erasing the evidence for no good reason, and Jack runs around what looks like the Santa Monica pier with Gredenko.

It's when Gredenko finally connects with Fayed--about forty-five minutes into the episode--that the nutty takes over. Gredenko cuts off his own arm to thwart CTU's tracking technology (BAD ASS), then leads Fayed into a bar full of angry Americans (ALSO BAD ASS). The last we see of Gredenko, he's stumbling along the beach beneath the pier, then slumps to the ground, ostensibly to bleed to death (NOT QUITE AS BAD ASS).

Fortunately, Jack gets to capture Fayed while Gredenko crumples into oblivion, which is a nice trade-off, but again doesn't advance the plot substantially since he's basically swapped one terrorist ringleader for another.

Meanwhile, back in the bunker, President Palmer gets another shot of adrenaline, which amps up his blood pressure, and apparently makes him nuts, because Palmer then GOES ON TO ORDER THE SAME NUCLEAR ATTACK AGAINST IRAN THAT HE WAS TRYING TO PREVENT THE VICE-PRESIDENT FROM ORDERING. Except this time, the nukes actually LAUNCH.

That is the true nutty, right there. 24 always requires a healthy dose of suspended disbelief to enjoy. Anyone wanting to apply such silly concepts as "logic" and "sanity" to the storylines and characters on this show should probably just inhale some helium and save themselves the trouble.

Yet there has always been a kind of unspoken internal "reality" that the show obeys. I can't articulate that reality, except to say that I know when it's been violated, and President Palmer launching nukes at Iran in violation of his entire character arc just because he's jacked up on adrenaline is a CLEAR violation.

It's disappointing, really, because it takes the political dynamics at the heart of this season and tosses them out the window for the sake of a cheap momentary payoff. On the other hand, I am excited to see the consequences of a nuclear war in the world of 24, so that could be cool, in the sense that widescale fictional death and destruction can ever truly be "cool."

24 has sprung back from some truly crazy stuff over the years, so I'm hoping they can recover from Palmer going all Hulk on Iran. If not, it'll be a pretty major slip-up for so late in the season, one that could very well redefine the term "nutty."

iTunes Links

24 - Series
24 - Season 6
"9:00 P.M. - 10:00 P.M."