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24 Season Finale (Episode 6.23 & 6.24) - "4:00 AM - 6:00 AM"
Airdate: Monday, May 21st, 2007

So, hour one of the two-hour season finale of 24: Eh. I almost slept through it. Almost. To avoid this fate, I sat up straight and slapped myself silly, because I have a job to do, and if that job involves me half-dozing my way through one last hour of the terminally uninteresting Karen Hayes, Nadia’s unrequited love for Milo and the newly-blind Mike Doyle, and a few last bitchy bits from Chloe O’Brien, then half-dozing is what I will half-do.

Then Philip Bauer’s oil rig swept into view, and Chloe inexplicably passed out, and my ass was wokened up.

I guess there was no avoiding it; though it’s a two-hour finale, it’s actually a set of two one-hour episodes, and inevitably, that first episode would just be more of the same 24, instead of an extra hour of madcap finale whackadoo action. In fact, that first hour of the finale was really just the last piece-moving episode, where everyone was slipping into place for the final showdown, but minus the strong momentum such an episode should ideally have.

Thus we sit, and we wait, and we half-doze; and at long last, the real mothertruckin’ season finale kicks in. Finally.

I must say, I was pleased that this season of 24 died as it lived, so to speak--in an unconventional and unexpected way. You know me; I live for the 24 action. I anticipate absolutely tripped-out craziness going down every Monday night without fail. And we’ve seen plenty of it this season--Jack Bauer shooting his way thru a terrorist cell in an abandoned warehouse, Tom Lennox chained to a dirty pipe in the President’s secret bunker, James Cromwell’s long, beautiful, flowing locks of hair.

Yet as action-packed as this final hour of season six was, it’s that last ten minutes or so that sticks to my bones--Jack Bauer, angry and alone, breaking in to Secretary Heller’s house to take back the love of his life, Audrey Raines. Jack confronting Heller and spewing all the dark, bitter venom that’s resided in his heart for months and months. Jack saying goodbye to Audrey, realizing Heller is right, that he does destroy the things he loves--then Jack standing alone, gun in hand, on a cliff overlooking the ocean, as the sun comes up.

Fade out on Jack Bauer, clock ticking in silence, birds chirping and surf rolling in. End of show.

There’s something vaguely suicidal about that moment for Jack--the camera cuts away to show the drop down into the ocean, and you wonder if Jack isn’t contemplating making that drop himself. You can see it in Kiefer Sutherland’s face, too--a crushing realization of the reality of his life during wartime, setting in heavy on his shoulders. Brilliant stuff.

That’s not to say that I didn’t enjoy the big action sequence on the oil rig. Philip Bauer met a truly fitting fate, and the photography and production values on all those aerial acrobatics and the explosions was exceptionally well-done. It was big-screen filmmaking for the small screen, and it practically threatened to make my TV go boom.

The producers of 24 have commented across the media about how they plan to retool the series somewhat for next season. I was hoping this episode would reveal more about what their plans are, but I’m tantalized by just the little teases we see already--Chloe is likely leaving CTU to be a mommy, Jack is at a strange crossroads in his life, and Jack’s nephew is in the mix now as well, with the potential to be set up as a quasi-young Jack in some way, maybe through a time jump forward?

(My wife is convinced that next season should follow 24 hours in the CTU day care, with Chloe O’Brien’s baby being quite a handful for the baby care agents. I’d certainly watch that.)

But that’s all next season. This season, for me, was a great one--what others interpreted as weaknesses or flaws, I saw as merely attempts to spice up 24’s formula and tempo. There’s a mild electricity to every moment of this series. You know the writers are working essentially without a net, and so that encourages you to both accept the chaotic wonderment of their choices, and to cut them breaks when their leaps don’t quite make it across the chasm. It’s a kind of dazzling high-wire creative act.

And now it’s over, for another six months. I’ll see you soon, Jack and Chloe and Bill and Tom. Hopefully creepy Vice-President Daniels, too, as long as he’s not licking his aide anymore.

iTunes Links

24 - Series
24 - Season 6
This episode - "4:00 AM - 5:00 AM"
This Episode - "5:00 AM - 6:00 AM"

Vern Seward is a writer who currently lives in Orlando, FL. He’s been a Mac fan since Atari Computers folded, but has worked with computers of nearly every type for 20 years.