I find it very telling that 24 ended just like season 4 (Jack on the Run), which is where I like to pretend 24 ended.
Seasons 5-8 don’t exist! Tony and Michelle are happy and retired! Palmer was never shot! Jack never took a slow boat to China! Charles Logan was never President!
Was this the season that Jack got the most injured? Is there anywhere online that lists Jack’s injuries by hour? This season he was stabbed twice, tasered twice, tortured, and shot, with one stabbing and the shooting occurring in the final 3 hours (that is all I remember off of the top of my head), yet he was still able to slowly jog away at the end. Wherever he runs to, Eveready should be calling for a spokesman deal.
By the way, what is CTU doing with armed drones over US cities. But I digress…
Dahlia and Pres. Taylor should both get supporting actress Golden Globe nominations for that scene alone.
“Suture me up.” Beautiful.
I both liked and hated that Jack got all soft on Pillar when Pillar was whining that Jack shouldn’t shoot him because he has a little girl at home.
Jack’s smirk behind the sniper rifle was classic.
I was glad to see Taylor reclaim her moral compass, but I was wondering just how many presidents have gone down in scandal during the Jack years.
Jack: Thanks for the head start, Mme. President, but you do realize I have 2 knife wounds and a not insignificant but not life-threatening gunshot wound, fairly severe blood loss, no money, no ID and no transport, right? That whole getting out of the country thing might be a bigger challenge than you seem to think. You could have issued a pardon as your last official act, you know. Maybe one of those legendary immunity deals you pass around like roofies at a frat formal?
I was glad Logan’s gunshot wound wasn’t immediately fatal and that he may live with permanent brain damage, since when he put the pistol under his chin and cocked his head back, my comment to my wife was, “At that angle you’re not going to do much worse than blow your nose and the base of your forehead off.”
On the whole, this was the best season of 24 in a very long time, I thought. It feels like a cop out to have Jack survive, since that wasn’t the writers’ intent until the movie deal got capped, but on the whole I thought this one, and the finale, were quite well done.
Ricker could probably give him a bit of a head start. Besides, you know Jack wouldn’t have it any other way.
The writers had no intent going into this season, they freely admit they were making it up as they went along.
Probably the most intense scene of the evening was also the most annoying. When President Taylor is threatening Dalia Hassan with war if she doesn’t sign the peace treaty. I’m thinking “Fine, so * now * is when you finally grow a pair?”. Seriously, they spent a couple of seasons protraying Taylor as a President of integrity and then Logan whispers in her ear and she sheds morality like a snake skin?
Was this the first season where Jack completely fails in his mission? At the start of the day, he was pretty much given one goal – make the peace treaty happen. At the end of the day, no peace treaty, lots of dead people including Hassan and Renee Walker, the President of the United States is about to resign in disgrace and, one would assume, diplomatic relations with Russia are at their lowest point since the Cold War ended. Not to mention that Dalia Hassan is flying home and hot-rodding her country’s nuclear program. Probably a good thing that Jack isn’t actually an employee of CTU anymore or he wouldn’t be getting that Christmas bonus.
Taylor pretty much left Jack hanging in the wind at the end. If she’s going to resign in disgrace anyway, what’s a Presidential pardon thrown in the mix? Presidents on 24 have routinely granted immunity to the worst kind of scum and murderers. But Jack gets bupkiss?
Kind of an interesting survival problem for Jack, though. No resources, agents of two different governments after his hide, and three or four holes leaking bodily fluids. Not really clear how he’s planning on making it more than a couple of blocks.
She gave him a whole speech about how they both need to answer for they did. He agreed with her. Letting him escape was pushing it, but pardoning him would have contradicted her words entirely.
I hadn’t watched the season up to this point - I was in and out over the last couple of seasons - but I did want to see the last episode. It wasn’t bad, but it felt like a little bit of a cheat that Jack lived. They’d even done the non-lethal shooting by a fellow CTU agent thing before.
The same producer(s?) did Nikita, where the forced-to-be-counter-terrorist agents kept money and passports so they could bolt if they got the chance.
Jack probably has a stash.
Members of The Unit also had a secret “fund” that they kept in case one of the members had to hide (from their own government, or an enemy’s).
That was my favorite part of the entire episode. Scratch that – the entire season. It was perfect, quintessential Jack Bauer. Sadly, the finale went downhill pretty quickly after that.
I thought they wanted to give this show a kick-in-the-pants ending? Instead, the plot falls back on President Taylor doing “the right thing” to save the day. You know, that would have been a great ending if the entire “presidential moral crisis” plot line had had a single shred of believability or sense. I don’t think there was a single decision she made that made a lick of sense, even if you grant that she’s willing to do dastardly things to get results. The whole premise of Taylor persisting (earnestly, we are meant to believe) in brokering a “peace” deal that any idiot could see was going to collapse nearly instantaneously was so idiotic that I figured it was just one of those background things that you have to take for granted and largely ignore in order to enjoy the show. You know, like protocols and perimeters and corrupting the internet.
But to make that the underpinning of the series climax? It just doesn’t work. Especially when it shoves aside and makes irrelevant all the efforts of Chloe and Cole, who, unlike Taylor, actually earned a pivotal (and believable) role in the denouement.
A few of the most obvious ways they could have made it good:
Jack should have killed Suvarov. Preferably, on live TV. The perfect moment would have been right as Logan picked up the phone. You want to end the series with a bang, do something bold and dark and interesting? Have Jack off the President of Russia. I can’t believe the writers of 24 didn’t even have the balls to do that in the series finale.
Failing that, Chloe should have killed Jack. The non-fatal shot was a stupid cop-out. The rest of the episode could have been about Chloe, Cole, and Arlo making the break with the evidence.
Even if they had to let Jack live, ending the series with Jack “dropping off the grid” again was just stupid. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt. They should have done something, anything, other than this.
If anybody in the peace talks was going to break things wide open, it should have been Dalia Hassan, not President Taylor. She has both the moral standing and the acting talent (kudos to Necar Zadegan!) to pull it off believably.
</rant>
Seriously, I have to say I enjoyed it, I guess. But it was disappointing at the same time. It could have been much better, and I’m a bit annoyed that this was really the best thing the writers could come up with.
Of course this means that 24 got to maintain its somewhat bizarre policy of never, ever definitively killing off a President of the United States–except for David Palmer, who was the only one of them who was truly worth a damn. I swear, the 24verse USA must have half a dozen ex-Presidents hanging around in limbo on life support. (Granted, in real life there is Ariel Sharon.)
It felt more like a season finale and didn’t have the satisfying closure and wrap up a series finale should have.
I wish Chloe could have her own spin off.
Aaron (secret service agent) never showed up this year. 
Oh man! I completely forgot about him.
Let’s not forgot that jack wasn’t shot just once, he was shot multiple times during a shootout when he was originally teamed up with Cole. He was wearing a vest, but I bet that still hurt like hell!
My problem with it is the problem I have always had with the series.
It is the ends justifies the means aspect combined with President Taylor falling on her sword.
It’s all so…pat and easy.
Jack does the “right” thing and it is right no matter what he does in pursuit of that goal.
Taylor (and others in the past) falling on their own sword at a climatic moment? Well, nice and all but that shit never happens in real life. Granted a TV show is not real life but I find Logan’s choices to be far closer to the mark and believable.
Just hate that it wasn’t Jack/Chloe (I love her) solving things but an improbable event in the President choosing to ruin her career when not needed in a fit of principles. I’ll grant at least Taylor was setup previously as a pretty moral lady (sent her daughter to jail). Still…runs against the grain of all we know of politicians these days hence unbelievable.
Well, I agree that 24 hasn’t always been consistently great, it’s still managed to be consistently entertaining for a lot longer than one might have expected. Even when it was at its worst, there have rarely been episodes without some redeeming moment, mainly due to the way the writers were able to strike a tone where they obviously aren’t taking it all that seriously, yet Jack and the ass-kicking moments he inflicts are still gritty and violent and just a bit crazy. It’s a weird mix where I’m totally happy to suspend my disbelief for travel time and crazy technobabble, yet I still say “Damn, Jack” after he does something.
And I’m going to miss it. At 8 seasons it’s far and away the longest-running show that I never missed a single episode of when it aired (modulo tape delay/tivo delay).
I’m right there with you, MaxTheVool, and may I add that we all owe Monstre a round of applause and a standing O for the way he has been there every week to accumulate our responses to this show. I’ll miss these threads as much as the show. Some great fun!
Hip Hip…
Yep – I think seasons 4 and 6, in specific, had a big hand in decimating the population of these threads. Ah well.
I liked the ending of this season, though. Especially the last few episodes leading up to the finale, and then Jack making Logan his bitch, more than once. Nice.
I was kind of cheering for Jack to bump Suvarov – but Chloe talking him down did make sense. I mean assassinating the president of a nuclear power… she had a point. Even if he was an asshole.
I’ll also chime in and agree that once they’d set up Taylor going the cover-up route (as off as that seemed for her previously established character), I’d have preferred for the justice-served to have come from Chloe and Cole somehow faking Pillar out and finding a way to succeed in their plan to get the evidence out there to the media outlets. Then perhaps giving us a little hint of the first backlash from it.
I’m also a little disappointed that the “Dana evidence” never got anywhere – falling back on the notion that the FBI confiscated the only copy. Jack uploaded a copy to his buddy (Michael Madsen), and certainly they would have made an extra copy or two from there, just in case. Sure, there’s the matter of getting it to the right people in time.
Thanks
Wish we had the participation like back in season 2 (and thanks to KneadToKnow for starting up the general format for these threads, even though he stays away every season so as to do his 24 marathons) – but glad some people have stuck it out to the bitter end. It’s been fun.
Nobody should want to be President in the 24-verse. The office is cursed.
David Palmer - Shot to death after his presidency.
John Keeler - Either dead or incapacitated after Air Force One crash.
Charles Logan - Resigned in disgrace, later attempts suicide. Probable drooling vegetable.
Wayne Palmer - Critically injured in bomb attack. Status unknown.
Noah Daniels - Not much is known about the Daniels administration, but he was such a scumbag VP, there’s no reason to suspect he wasn’t also a scumbag president.
Allison Taylor - Abandons her scruples for a peace treaty. About to resign in disgrace.
Not a list I’d want to add my name to!
As for the finale, I kind of liked that the last hour was pretty much all about Jack being saved by other people. That seemed like sort of a payback for all he’s done over the years. Even though he didn’t exactly get a happy ending, at least he’s alive.
I’d heard some movie rumors, but tried not to listen; I still thought there might be a chance he wouldn’t survive the final day. But I’m glad he did. Going out as a crazed vigilante would not have been a fitting death. If Jack Bauer is gonna die, it’s gonna be to save the entire universe from destruction, dammit!
I also liked his speech to Chloe at the end: “When you first started at CTU, I had no idea you’d be the one to have my back all these years.” Nice.