WhoAmIWorkingFor

The 24-verse seems to be a world where Jack and the USA are constantly dealing with "I can't get away wit' nuthin'!" while everyone else gets to do whatever they want. I think he's been playing a little too much [insert game of choice]. That or he's making up for years of pent-up sibling rivalry, because he also didn't react too negatively to the idea of blowing her up in the first place. The guy who tried to kill Simone at the hospital did answer one question that I had last week, about how many people Margot had available to her in addition to/as part of the people at the house. I'm a little annoyed by the development, though. I'd like a season where each side starts off with a known and fixed number of minions, instead of having people show up at the beckoning of phone calls.

Jack, you do care about my favorite random character this season: You bailed out Belcheck. Though you did mess with Simone's short finger. Old habits die hard. Also, you totally sucker-punched that guy in the street. Jordan: If he says "It's just a flesh wound" next week I will LOL. Presently he is both the luckiest and unluckiest guy on this show; as I said before, he's in the mid-level CTU (or CIA) (fe)male tech role that, upon further review, has resulted in a very high number of eventual casualties. Also, clearly Navarro is expecting whover these guys are to be able to kill Jordan, because otherwise sending him out on this little errand is like a giant neon sign saying "I wanted you to get killed." You could have just pushed him down the stairs or into one of those giant wall gears or something. It's basically impossible to evacuate a hospital in eight minutes (and usually people sit around wondering if it's a drill for at least five). So... they didn't finish evacuating the hospital. Showing Bloody Stump Woman was a little excessive maybe. Variable Damage, as predicted: Some of the near-misses should have at least broken the windows on the car, flipped the car over, or just plain blown up the car anyway, but that didn't happen. Also, wasn't the car a right-hand drive car when they were coming over and it became a left-hand drive car on the way out?

Definitely. Personal taste is going to be a massively-dominant factor in any consideration of this. Still, there are some commonalities, like the mentions of shows that were very much tied to the current events of their time, compared to more generalist fare. I think I recall columns from the late '90s saying that something like Murphy Brown was doomed for syndication value because it was too specifically-dated. And then this is where personal taste comes back into the game. Watching those two shows on MeTV (and myself only being dirt and air when they were first broadcast), I like their relative simplicity and directness, compared to some of the overwroughtness of procedurals and dramas these days. Adam-12 makes me think of a very clean version of COPS. Emergency! is a little too earnest at times, but does pretty well by sticking to the procedural side of things. On the other hand, Dragnet ends up feeling strangely out of place whenever Joe (and occasionally others) goes off on a huge monologue about the moral panic of the day, made doubly hilarious by the direction of social change in recent years and how those hippie boomer kids on the show are now a large portion of the older generation that are doing their own share of panicking now.

The Tower of London, which has the also-very-recognizable Tower Bridge near it, is about three miles from Parliament. The PM's residence at 10 Downing Street is only a short distance from Parliament. As far as the drones are concerned, all of this stuff is right next door to each other. I had one of my typically-long-winded speculative rants about this an episode ago. I still think that while it would have been less ripped-from-the-headlines topical to make it an orbital bombardment system, that a satellite system would have been both cooler and implausible at the same time.

Your typical terrorist with limited resources has to decide between symbolic targets with high recognition value, or soft targets that produce many casualties but ultimately don't mean much to a random guy on the other side of the world. Margot is in the rare position of having the ability to blow up just about whatever she wants to without even trying very hard, but I'd imagine that in the end she'll still focus her efforts on wherever President Heller happens to be. Conveniently for her, the Houses of Parliament are next to what might be the number one symbol of London, Big Ben. There's also the matter of the missiles' actual destructive power, which I'd imagine will do the usual TV show thing of being only as powerful as the plot demands. The dialogue initially mentioned something like "one missile destroying a city block" but it took some effort to blow up the decoy house, and a large portion of the CIA team survived being next to the blast with basically zero cover. I'd imagine that if there's a missile heading for our heroes it'll have the relative power of a cherry bomb in a trash can. I wasn't paying enough attention, though she could still somewhat explain away the big bandage as having sprained her hand or something. Don't explain it like this though: "What happened to your hand?" "I cut my finger... off."

They didn't trust Heller trusting Jack, so they put surveillance on the whole thing. Since they haven't seen all the wacky ways that Jack has done things in the past, they were understandably concerned with Jack dumping Kate's body in the boot, and decided to be more hands-on with the situation. On the practical side, this actually makes sense, because for several hours now US agencies have been doing all sorts of odd things on British soil without being very clear to their hosts about the details. Though here the plan would be "Make sure Rask pushes the button, Belchick snipes the two guys with Kate, and I kill almost all of the huge group of goons that are surrounding me. Trust me, it's all under control!" Plot convenience: Rask is in one of the few places in the UK which isn't covered in CCTV cameras that Chloe could have used to keep an eye on things and see the MI5 team coming in. (Edited: My grammar is horrible.)

Chloe notices Belcheck's tattoos in the second episode and mentions something about a Serbian gang, with the marks showing how many people he's killed. Jack has a lot more tattoo work now also, so yes, those intervening years of Jack as a rogue superhero walking the earth would be a thing to see. The Serbian angle is ironic in light of the whole Drazen situation from Season 1 and before that... but you could also claim that Victor Drazen wasn't Serbian, Victor Drazen was Dennis Hopper. As mentioned upthread, though, with Jack and Chloe up and running and some sort of Kate and Jordan and computer files adventure coming along, Belcheck will probably just drop off screen after being captured by MI5. Looking at the episode recap, I am reminded that Rask had a hilarious "WTF!" face when Jack yelled out that he was working for the President of the United States. The show is perversely willing to show the Perils of SImone... they showed the finger flying off, and they showed her body bouncing off the front of the bus. Gory Discretion Shot? Nah. Getting back to something that Darkpool mentioned on the last page, it's very plot-convenient that Margot sends Simone out to deal with Naveed's sister, though it makes sense since Simone would be able to approach the sister in a non-hostile way. However, she's also trusting Simone to be able to deal with the situation. It seems that most of the previous times hasn't been a problem, but on this one very important day Simone's already had a couple of slip-ups, had her finger chiseled off, and watched her mother shoot her husband. The perceptive Evil Overlord would probably send another hired goon just to make sure the job gets done, but it seems that Margot is used to getting What Margot Wants, so she's assuming that Simone will be just fine... and of course things go quite pear-shaped. Speaking of hired goons, there's maybe... two more people in the house that we've seen so far? Maybe Margot can't send anyone else along because there isn't anyone to spare for the job. Whenever the CIA/MI5/Jack Bauer Is Out Of Bubblegum operation might get down to finding their location, the fight should be fairly short, but I will be highly amused if the al-Harazis start gaining a ton of extra goons. So far Basher and Rask have both had a decent excess of henchmen at their respective headquarters, all of whom have just served as places to hang squibs when Jack rolls on in.

I'm still hoping they do some more with Stephen Fry. Considering his comic talents, this role seems to consist of being blandly British. Evil terrorist mastermind Stephen Fry would be amusing.

Behrooz!

As I was writing my most recent post on Season 9, I really started to think about how much more I enjoy this series's shorter sections that work in the real-time format and are plausibly self-contained. That generally appears in the first few hours of seasons, individual events later in seasons, and 24:Redemption. It's the strange writing glue that is used to bind together those chunks into whole seasons that sometimes makes the mind go.

Was Margot's initial message worldwide or only to the various intelligence agencies (and picked up by Open Cell along the way)? I thought that someone had said that it was the latter, but I could be wrong and can't check. If the broadcast really is going all over the place, it would be a little strange for Sister-in-law to be so casual. I mean, there was London during the Blitz, and then there's "We heard about some lunatics that want to blow up London with drones, you might want to grab your kids and go home and not be wandering around." If it only went to the governments, probably the British government is keeping the information close to itself for the usual "don't want to create a panic" reasons that exist on this show. I just tried to figure out why MI5 hasn't sent someone to Sister-in-law to ask what she knows, but then I figured out some reasons why that might not happen, mostly that Simone has likely been living under an alias while she's been married to Naveed, and while her face has triggered a specific match now, that the global face-recognition stuff that NSA, NYPD, MI5, the Metropolitan Police, etc. have all wanted to have sucking down data from every CCTV camera is not actually doing that. So it might actually take CIA and MI5 a plausible amount of time to find any contacts that Simone has had in the UK now that she's resurfaced. Otherwise, someone probably would have already sent someone to talk to Sister-in-law, since it's a very short series of hops from her to Naveed to Simone to Margot. Back to the Navarro mole angle... what's the connection? Is there a connection? Is it just a set-up for the second half of the day? Margot wanted to get the drone controller from the other guy at the beginning, it looked like the deal would have gone off just fine before Jack showed up. Then she would have gone and blown up Heller later in the day anyway. On the other hand, the guy could have screwed up/been making it up all along just to screw her over, and she'd have been left sitting around while the US and UK got their deal done. I can't figure in that how discrediting Kate's husband some time ago, then getting Kate fired, plays into those events of this day... Kate wasn't even actually leaving until later in the week, but that got pushed up when she stumbled into the Jack bust. She doesn't seem to know very much about the al-Harazis and their associates—less than Jack, who's been running around as Batman all ths time. So the way this show works, there's a Bigger Bad out there with some other plan that the al-Harazi scheme plays into. Argh, I didn't want to see that old plot hook resurface either.

On the topic of accents, I don't know why, but it surprised me that the arms dealer guy didn't really have an accent.

Re: Waiting to drill: I thought that too, when the guy was just messing around with it through the entire commercial break and then the next few minutes afterward. I was imagining some weird pre-torture digression where he was comparing different drill bit sizes or talking about other dental work he'd done. Re: Kate-as-early-Jack: He probably finds it interesting to have dragooned a partner who is that willing to go along with his off-the-wall and almost-certainly-fatal plans after only having about 15 minutes of actual face-to-face interaction total. Belchick is probably out of the picture now that MI5 has managed to barge in and screw things up in the way that people always barge in and screw up Jack's typical zany schemes (and with Jack and Kate likely working together the rest of the time) but I did find him interesting while he was around, not least of which because there was definitely some interesting off-screen adventuring during the intervening time, which as this show typically does, will not get any more explanation. Though Jack mentioning that he was being a rogue superhero in the meantime was amusing. Rather unlike the period between Season 4 and 5, when he just wanted to hide quietly and had almost settled down.

I'd have to pop the DVDs in to get the exact quote, but there's a scene in Season 5 when Miles is trying to figure out what Chloe has been up to and finds her exiting a bathroom, proceeding roughly in the line of: "What were you doing in there?" "Are you kidding? I'll send you a report."

Y'know, mole plot, only a couple of posts ago I was saying that I wouldn't mind not seeing you around again. It probably would have helped if not everyone had already been acting all moleish from the first episode. Though we don't know who Steve is working for yet, so there's that. Mark: When you've dug yourself a hole, don't keep on digging. Other 24 trope that we got this week: Thigh choke! Though not thigh neck snap, but the between-the-legs backstab was quite stylish in its own right. Simone and sister-in-law: That probably would have worked better if Simone had not just suddenly changed her entire demeanor and said "You have to get out now." That only works for Jack. I think we all expected either of them to get Traffic Accidented as soon as the chase went into the street. Margot's parenting style is not quite Darth Vader at this point, but she's close. The rate this is going her son will probably flip too, possibly just in self-defense. I LOLed when Naveed's phone rang and the two henchmen WTFed. The crap you put up with in these jobs...

Kill la Kill (try it out on Crunchyroll here) is sort of a caffeinated blend of throwbacks to shounen from the late '70s to early '80s, a ridiculously inspired premise, shout-outs to everything the creators ever did (and they used to work for Gainax), and general over-the-top craziness. Given the staff's history, it had prerelease hype as "The Show That Will Save Anime," which... it isn't. Still, while it has a couple of stretches of messy pacing, I thought it was worthwhile fun to watch, because at the very least the spectacle of it all keeps the attention.

Of the things that might not appear because of a shortened season, such as side romantic plots and random terrorist digressions, it would pleasantly surprise me if the mole plot also disappeared this season. More specifically, having the mole working for the Big Bad, since so far Margot's little organization seems (plausibly?) small and independent. I'd also be pleased if there was only one Big Bad instead of a revolving door of them. It might work if the first half of the season is about stopping the drones and the second half is about capturing the al-Harazis after they run, but I don't see the drones being hand-flown around the UK for a split 24 hours. IMO the escalating Big Bad thing was getting tired anyway; having it be personal keeps it focused. Another possibility would just be a straight break and having the second half be about Jack making another escape attempt, but I think Season 8's revenge spree can't really be topped by anything this time around.

I remember Season 5's initial old-character bloodbath turning off a lot of people. Looking back at it now, though, it's still one of my favorite seasons for having a wide range of interesting characters. (Even though the mid-season character bloodbath hurt too.)

Currently watching Gochuumon wa Usagi Desu ka? on Crunchyroll. It seems that over the years I've become tolerant of moe slice of life (though not all of it). There are a few other things I wanted to look at this season, but they're currently building up a binge-watch backlog.

These drones are being used in a way that resembles what the Strategic Air Command used to do during the very unrelaxed 1960s, constantly having armed aircraft in the air positioned to strike as soon as the orders are sent. The movie example of how that might go wrong would be Dr. Strangelove. More recently, the Air Force did keep drones and various manned aircraft aloft over Afghanistan to provide prompt support to ground units in case they needed it, so there's precedent in that. The weird part about the situation in 24 is that these armed drones that are carrying really, really powerful conventional weapons are flying around over Europe. If I recall the map correctly, the drones were operating in a range from Poland to the Balkans, Italy, Germany/France/ the Low Countries, and toward Ireland. Unless things have gotten very Cold War again in Europe and the Russkies might go cruising across the East German border at any moment with 5000 T-72s, I can't imagine too many situations where that much firepower would need to be up in the air, or that if the European powers knew about it they would be very happy. These (so far) fictional drones have enough ordnance on them to obliterate several large buildings at a time (which then happened in the last minute of the episode). The real-life drone program right now is used to kill people (I could say "eliminate targets," but I don't need to be pretty about talking about it) that we can't easily or quickly reach through conventional means. That seems much less plausible a use in Europe, where it is at least possible to call up a reasonably-capable local counterterrorist unit (GIGN, GSG-9, GIS, and the as-yet-unseen British CTC or SAS, to name the popular few) and have them go pick the people up within even 24's overly-accelerated time frame, rather than using a stealth bomber to blow up the entire block that they might be in, along with a few hundred other people. Actually, given how bizarre things could have gotten in the 24-verse, maybe they are planning for a giant conventional war in Europe, or they wanted to fly the drones over the Chinese PLAN battlegroup in the Med just to say "Hi," like we would do with the Soviet Navy in the old days. But shoehorning a current issue into the story needs to be either a bit more plausible to avoid nitpicks like I just went off on (it would still be plausibly politically-crippling if they gave these rogue drones a bombload like a few Hellfires or the SDB FLM instead of going for citybusting levels), or they might as well just skip plausible and give the US something suitably fanciful like a Project Thor analog... because blowing things up from orbit is just that much cooler.

Between the lack of domestic security (MI5) and the Prime Minister's remarkable level of barely shrugging noncommittaly about events (seriously, the show got Stephen Fry and is hardly making use of him), the UK is not being represented very well here. Aside from the location shooting, they could have set this season back in Fakeistan for the amount of local relevance that the setting is given. ...which is ironic, since this is a season that explicitly name-dropped al-Qaeda, Iraq, and Afghanistan. (And the lease agreements that anchor the plot include mention of Diego Garcia, which has had a major US presence on it for a very long time in reality, so... maybe they should have stuck to Fakeistan, because mangling reality too much gets annoying after a while.)

Ah, Naveed. At least you didn't have to swim too many laps in the Death Pool, because unfortunately for you, you did a bunch of things that just cause you to sink faster. Though the new wrinkle might be whatever clues he left under the floorboards. Jack and Audrey: That had the right mix of two people who haven't seen each other in a long time not knowing what to do when they run into each other again. Though judging by Audrey's reaction Mark is still going to go bananas later. ...assuming he doesn't go bananas sooner. Mark doesn't seem to be coping very well with rapid changes of circumstance. (Even if he did apologize.) Driving across London: It's like driving across LA, only faster. Actually, I think the drive to the fake estate was topped by Kate and Erik's incredibly casual stroll out of the Embassy basement, through the near-riot outside, and to their car, which took about one minute. Drone control nitpick: The drones aren't totally autonomous, and the control signals are typically relayed to them by satellite. Blocking access to the drones would simply mean turning off the relay system, which should be an entirely different thing that Margot does not have control over. And yes, I know that I need to suspend disbelief here (as I have on numerous previous occasions) but it still seemed like a worthwhile poke. Having not checked how many episodes certain characters have been contracted for on IMDB, I don't know who is going to make it out of the trap, but this does remove my "Erik/Kate rivalry" speculation about how Erik might end up in the Death Pool. If he makes it out, he'll probably be totally on her side. Navarro basically made himself expendable as soon as he insisted on going. Next week's preview: A new entry in Crazy Schemes That You May Have Seen Before On This Show That Usually Go Very Pear-Shaped.

It would be a good come-back moment for Heller if Mark claims that Heller forgot signing the paper and Heller turns it around and says that while he (Heller) might not all be there, that he's not stupid. Unfortunately, the way this plot element appears to be set up, it seems likely that any such confrontation over it would take place after the fact of the Russians showing up all over Jack.

IPv6 addresses are so loooooooong. If they kept their gear on, they would be louder than Jamie. "The proper response to that sound is to just riddle your duct with bullets." The robot idea is clever, but they would still have to time that precisely with getting the main door open, because of the chance that Jack would recover in time to shoot the hostages. She's probably thinking that Mother still wouldn't really want to hurt her own daughter, despite all of the DO WHAT I WANT OR I WILL CRUSH YOU LIKE A BUG signals that Margot gives off. Though Margot doesn't seem like the type to have avoided all domestic violence during her terror-cell-building career, so Simone appears to be (genre-)blind there.

I'm pretty sure that the plan that started Season 3 still takes the prize for the most eggs broken on the way to making an omelette. Then there's the end of that season...