This show started taking a jump over the shark tank in the last episode with the ‘amnesia’ and the silly car chase and all the soap opera stuff. I was hoping that it was a one-show aberration, but man, it’s just getting worse.
The safe house is hit, everyone’s dead, Jack’s wife and daughter are gone, and the CTU guy decides to withold all the information from Jack, for no real purpose other than to add another element of suspense. I suppose I can buy that he wanted to wait for the 15 minutes while Jack was taking care of the terrorist incident, but I got the distinct impression that he isn’t going to tell him at all.
Then, Teri just happens to see a restaraunt she knows, where she just happened to go regularly with some guy we hadn’t heard of. If this guy is either a terrorist or someone she’s having an affair with, I’m going to throw a brick through my TV.
Then, this totally unbelievable plot twist with Palmer’s aide stabbing the terrorist, ON CAMERA. What, after 15 hours she’s so pissed at this guy for saying he loves her that she’s willing to kill him in on camera and go to jail? Please.
Then Kim is so scared because she doesn’t know who to trust… so she calls the guy who kidnapped her in the first place???
And the show ends with the terrorist’s phone conveniently ringing and having the guy say exactly the things necessary to keep the plot moving, without making Jack say anything that would give him away? Agh.
Man, I just loved every minute of this show right up until the last scene of the episode where Jack flew his family out of that compound. Since then, it’s been one unbelievable plot twist or cliche after another. And what’s worse, I’ve now invested so much time following the show that I’m forced to watch it until the end. I hope they get this train wreck back on track.
It wouldn’t surprise me if the doctor guy was someone she was dating while Jack and her were split up. After all, he went to Nina (and god, who wouldn’t? I think she is gorgeous).
The amnesia seems kind of cheesey, but I don’t know anything about amnesia at all, so I don’t know how huge of a stretch this is.
The daughter is going to the only person she knows she can trust, the guy who helped save her friggin life, and going to the only source of information she has, the guy who was kidnapped her for evil purposes. That they happen to be the same guy is just the plot. I didn’t find it ridiculous at all. And would you go trusting the CTU after what she’s been through?
I admit that the stabbing was pretty stupid since they weren’t together enough (according to her) to form a lasting bond or anything, but I can accept that she did it for Palmer and herself if her and Palmer are as close as he let on to Jack.
But, was it just me or was the mysterious caller at the end the same guy who met Teri as the doctor at the restaraunt? If this doctor guy is a baddie then I am with you: pure cheese.
Sharkorama. Couldn’t agree more Sam. A had a few questions over the last two episodes that were answered quickly:
“Why aren’t the agents guarding the safe-house checking in every 30 seconds? Oh, because then the terrorists couldn’t sneak in…”
“Why is Terry GETTING OUT OF THE DAMN CAR to ‘see if he’s (the guy who was tailing them) still there’? Oh, so the car can roll off the ledge without her in it…”
“Why is Kim going to hang out with more criminals instead of the police? Oh, so more trouble can ensue…”
On the other hand, the Elizabeth Nash story, however contrived it may have been, was pretty good. Her scene with Alexis in the room what pretty tense, although maybe a bit long. Also, I think Elizabeth probably would have assumed that a fiber-optic camera was, in fact, a hidden camera.
Anyway, yeah, I’m getting worried too. The first two thirds of the series rocked. I’m getting concerned now though.
I don’t think the guy who showed up to talk to Teri in the restaraunt is the same guy that phoned Jack at the end. That guy looked skinny and tall, and the other guy looked short. Plus, he’s with Teri, right? I suspect we’re going to find out that this guy is an old flame that she was seeing while her and Jack were separated, and he’ll try to re-kindle the relationship now that she’s forgotten about Jack. That would put this show right at the bottom of the soap opera bad plot food chain, though. The other possibility is that he’s yet another terrorist who was put into place to try and get her confidence to learn more about Jack or something, and he’ll be activated just as we start to think he’s a good guy.
If we’re going back to the last show, there are plenty more questions. Like, why did Teri drive back into the same backroad area that got her in trouble in the first place? Wouldn’t it have been a lot smarter to head into a populated area?
Why in hell did she stop? Once you’ve lost the guy, aren’t you going to put as many miles between you and him as you can, in case he realizes he lost them and backtracks (which he’d be sure to do)?
And parking on a soft shoulder that happens to be firm enough not to worry her, then suddenly collapse? How often does that happen?
And please, not another car that rolls a lousy 30 feet and then explodes in a ball of flame while the hero is magically thrown clear without a scratch.
And about that safe house… Four trained agents are killed, but the two untrained girls are smarter and get away? After violating a direct command to stay in the room? Just what did they know? How would they know to run? Why wouldn’t they stay in a house that they were told is safe and is (as far as they know) guarded by plenty of armed men? Doesn’t this house have an alarm system? Aren’t the doors locked? Don’t these trained agents set up lines of sight that allow them to watch each other?
Aw hell. I grew up with soap operas. So I’m fine with this (up to a point).
The “amnesia” thing bothered me, so I hope they dispense with it SOON. I can buy it for an “hour” or two. After all, she’s been through a great deal of stress, is pregnant, and she just thought she saw her daughter die in a car crash. So she passes out, so maybe after that she’s a little fuzzy for a HOUR or two. That I can kinda buy. But they’d better not push it.
The doctor guy she meets at the restaurant - yeah, of COURSE he’s got to be someone significant! How do you think they move these plots along?
I don’t have a problem with Kim going to the boy who kidnapped her. He obviously tried to do the right thing in the end. (Risked his own life, even.) Besides, he’s cute, she’s young (and a bit romantic and gullible), and who the hell else can she trust?
My first gut reaction was that he was the doctor. I could be wrong. I could be very wrong. But, please note that I am notorious among all my friends for my scary, “Mutant ability” to be able to recognize actors in almost unrecognizable shots, wearing heavy disguises, decades older, younger, etc. I sometimes scare myself when I am able to recognize actors like this! I am about 50% sure that this is the same guy. The fact that someone else thinks it’s him too makes me wonder. But I am far from being sure. We’ll all find out next week.
I DID think it was the same guy at first, because they made such a point of showing his face with the beard. That seemed like an intentional tip-off. But that last shot of the guy in silhouette made him look like a young, thin kinda guy. And he sure wasn’t in a restaraunt. It looked like his was in some kind of lobby or industrial building or something.
I’m worried that the writers are just running out of ideas. They wrote the first half of the series up to the big climax (which they had to have in case it was cancelled mid-season), and then started writing the second half on the fly, under time pressure.
I’m in 100% agreement with Sam on this. I cringed when they went after the safe house. I’ve been cringing a lot since then.
The amnesia thing was totally friggin ridiculous. This is a strong woman who endured the last twelve or whatever hours just fine. Then (and I won’t even get into the stupid “Gee, I’ll get out of the car to check the road to make sure we’ve given him the slip” thing) she sees the wrecked car and, instead of rushing down the hill to look for her daughter or her daughter’s remains, she faints? I mean isn’t that something that only happens in old cheesy black and white movies? Then to top it off she gets amnesia.
What I can’t get over is that all the scriptwriters, director, and producer must have said at some point, “Yeah, she gets amnesia! Great idea!” Needless to say, I don’t think I’m gonna watch it next week.
Yeah, as soon as Terri got amnesia I said, “There goes the shark!”. That was soooo contrived.
And the car exploding after just rolling down a hill. Please.
I knew Kim would go to Rick. She’s been calling him. I’m sure someone will check the phone records from the safe house, find his phone number and figure out where she is. Is that girl with Rick a girlfriend, or will she turn out to be someone like his sister? Or Dan’s sister? How much longer before sepsis sets in from his untreated gunshot wound?
The doctor Terri is meeting HAS to be someone she was seeing while separated from Jack. She didn’t want to know about Jack and Nina, (before she knew it was Nina) so she had to be seeing someone, too. I wonder if she has continued to see him. Could he possibly be the father of her baby? I don’t think he’s the guy who called Alexey’s cell phone about the money.
How much longer will they keep the news from Jack that the safe house has been breached? It looks like in the next episode he goes to meet the guy in red hat, so I wonder how long they’ll keep him in the dark?
Kim only called Rick on a cell phone, so that would be hard to track down if they weren’t looking for it.
However, I can’t believe the CTU guys couldn’t figure out which payphone she used. You would think that all calls in to that building are caller IDed in one way or another.
Rick got to live while his partner died because he fulfilled the Hollywood requirement of being better looking than the other guy.
However, I still don’t get why Palmer’s aide tried to kill the assassin. She went from being extremely nervous to getting extraordinarily pissed off. I just didn’t buy it.
Unless of course, it turns out she is on it and she will be the one who will kill Palmer.
Actually, didn’t Kim call him to get his address from the pay phone?
If they don’t find Kim within about 10 minutes next week I’ll be pissed off. It shouldn’t take that long to find her call on the LUDs, find his Rick’s number right after that, and head over to the house.
But she left because Terri was copping an attitude with her. At least, that was my impression.
I still want to believe that Nina is a good guy. Tony’s a good guy, and so is Milo. The new guy in charge at CTU (I forget his name)…I’m not so sure about him.
And I DO NOT trust Mrs. Palmer.
The cell phone Kim was using was most likely left at the safe house in the rush to get out. They should be able to get the records easily. They’re CTU, after all! Nina doesn’t have her purse or wallet with her, does she?
And when Kim called CTU and spoke with Tony, they should have been able to trace that call and found where she made that call from right away.
Seems like every call into CTU would be traced, especially in a crisis mode like this day.
The doctor will try to cure Terry himself, without contacting the authorities or taking her to a hospital, even though something has obviously happened to her.
I, too, feel utterly betrayed somehow by just how stupid this show has become. I haven’t missed a single moment (every second counts, and all) but now I’m a little bitter about the time investment.
The CTU is the most incompetant organization I’ve ever seen.
“Sure, we’ve got five armed agents watching the house, but rather than have them actually, oh, I don’t know, guard the people they’re supposed to be protecting, what we’ll do here is have them play dress up and pretend to mow the lawn! It’s fun! Besides, this house is sooo safe! Nobody knows about it! There’s no way anybody could… ACK!!! glurg… aaaaahhh”
That bit with Palmer’s aide was incomprehensibly dumb. Is there any quicker ticket to life in prison than attempted murder while you know that governement agents are seeing and hearing and probably recording your every move? Oh, she’s just some psychopath loser who’s daddy didn’t tell her that he loved her often enough, or something, to be sure.
I withholding my bitterness until the show is finally over.
One of the big problems now is that we need a bad guy. Every episode has had a visible identifiable bad guy. There isn’t one at the moment.
The 4-5 pm episode did play fast and loose with time.
When Kim called Rick from some canyon area, she said she would call a cab.
This is L.A., so there are no taxis cruising the streets. I also wonder when Kim has ever used a taxi before. I don’t know if I’ve ever taken one out here. It would take a while for one to show up if you called.
Then Rick lives in Echo Park, which is just east of downtown.
That whole trip should have taken anywhere from 45-70 minutes especially during rush hour (which is well under way at that time).
Miraculously, she shows up at Rick’s door in about 10 minutes.
Nevertheless, I put with that because I still want to find out how the ultimate bad guy will try to kill Palmer. But the bungled covert spy plan angle has made me less enamored of the show.
What a sad episode. It’s never a good sign when the plot hinges on everybody doing the stupidest possible thing in any given situation. In the past, people may have done the wrong thing, but it was usually a fairly sensible thing to do, given the information they had (and didn’t have) at the time. But, argh!
Kim must run off to the hunky bad boy she’s got a widdle teenage crush on and avoid anyone who could actually help her at all costs!
Teri must not seek medical attention that would put her in a relatively protected environoment where CTU might have a prayer of finding her (think they might check hospitals in the viscinity of the safe house, maybe?).
Palmer’s little aidlette must risk her life in a situation she is obviously not emotionally prepared to deal with, and when she miraculously pulls it off anyway, she must sign Palmer’s death warrant by cutting off CTU’s only source of information on the conspirators.
The CTU powers that be must withhold information from Jack about his family, because when they finally do have to tell him that the situation is fouled up beyond all recognition, he’s gonna be cool with that, sure.
Jack must dash off to pretend to be an Eastern European hitman, because, like, that makes sense.
All this is, of course, just ridiculous icing on the implausible crapcake the writers served up when the car tumbled into the ravine and exploded. Sweet Jesus and Baby Jesus. That was stupid and unnecessary.