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24 Episode 6.19 - "12:00 AM - 1:00 AM"
Airdate: Monday, April 24th, 2007

The worm turns slowly, but it turns.

That seems to be the theme emerging in this unexpected "coda" to the main storyline of 24's sixth season. Up until a few weeks ago, we all thought we'd be chasing Fayed and the crazy Russian right up until the end of May, when some shocking and explosive finale would result in the country saved (yet again) and probably Jack Bauer unhappy (yet again.)

Instead, the country has already been saved, at least from the most immediate threat to its residents. Jack Bauer's lady love, Audrey Raines, is a captive of the Chinese government, who will trade Audrey for a bit of circuit board that contains vital Russian military secrets. Jack's gung-ho to make the trade, and he's even got Presidential support, until Wayne Palmer hits the mat during a press conference and puts Vice-President Daniels back in power. Daniels orders the op to be halted, Buchanan calls Doyle to deliver the news, and two seconds later, a gun is at Doyle's temple, and Jack is asking him to pull the car over.

That's where we open this episode, and events unravel pretty quickly from there. While Jack is successful in rescuing Audrey, he is unable to blow up his location and incinerate the Chinese and their stolen tech, thanks to an unexpected and unwanted last-minute assist from Doyle and some CTU operatives. Audrey appears to be some kind of brainwashed zombie, skittish and only able to say the words, "Help me, Jack," or a variant thereof.

Meanwhile, in the White House, Karen Hayes has to make a tough decision regarding her husband and her future--the Department of Justice is hip to the fact that she "buried" information about Bill Buchanan signing off on releasing Fayed two years ago, when he was picked up in a routine sweep. Ultimately, she decides to shitcan her own husband, which is pretty brutal stuff. Buchanan leaves Nadia in charge of CTU, and even Morris and Chloe can't escape the grumpies, suddenly deciding after hours upon hours of working closely together that they can't tolerate it anymore, and prompting a transfer request from Morris.

In the Oval Office, Acting President Daniels has his creepy claws all over his blonde assistant, providing one of the series' most icky images ever--Powers Boothe's leathery, aged lips running over the woman's cheek. It's like watching a corpse make out with a living person. Henry Kissinger must have been right--power is the ultimate aphrodisiac, cause there ain't no way any lady could tolerate a kissyface session with Powers Boothe without tossing up her lunch.

So everything is falling apart. This is not an atypical scenario for a dramatic series, especially one like 24, where the ebb and flow of the good guys versus bad guys equation is central to the show's season-long arc.

Yet it's not really so much that the bad guys are winning, as it is that the good guys are losing--take a closer look and every crumbling relationship and disintegrating strategy has at its heart a failure of character. Karen Hayes, long the lone voice of reason standing up against Tom Lennox and Vice-President Daniels, is now forced into an ugly corner by her own attempt to protect her husband's job. President Palmer had to be the hero, could not accept that his body would only take so much adrenaline pumped into it to keep it going, and thanks to his hubris, the evil Vice-President is in charge of the country.

And Jack Bauer, the hero who has done so many dark, diabolical things to save his country time and again, finds his own past actions coming home to haunt him. He escaped a Chinese prison, only to have the Chinese return to attempt to make his life a living hell yet again; he allowed himself to fall in love with Audrey Raines, only to have her used against him for nefarious means. Out of all the characters on the show, he's the only one who probably does not deserve to be put through this test, yet there he is, battling it out again with little thought to the consequences for himself.

Now he's desperate, and losing, as is pretty much every other major character on this show. Right now, that's what is making 24 compelling television. I had my doubts about this unexpected conclusion to season six, but more than anything, I'm just fascinated by these characters, and the nasty little realities they've constructed for themselves.

iTunes Links

24 - Series
24 - Season 6
"12:00 AM - 1:00 AM"