My favorite Jack moment was when he stood up behind the guy in the sporting goods store and and stuck the knife into the base of his skull. He looked like he was making a sandwich or something…very good testosterone moment. (grunt grunt)
I, too, was wondering why the MF mercenaries didn’t have grenades or something more than just their rifles. After all, they had the handy-dandy door bomd thingy (of course, Jack just use raw muscle to get thru the door).
This plot is really getting tangled. How many terrorist plans are there?
BTW, according to the paper, Marwan has been captured! 
From what I can tell from the previous seasons’ dvd sets, they likely didn’t write this episode until recently. I was surprised at how “on the fly” they were - at least with revealing plot secrets to the cast and crew. In the season 2 dvd set, it showed them revealing the final plot points to the main crew about one month before the episode aired - up to then, they had no idea how it was going to go.
My guess is that they have basic plot outlines that they flesh out as the season goes on - this leads me to believe that they added those characters somewhat late in the game.
Of course, remember that during the “morning”, there was an Arabic waitress who said to TerrorDad “Isn’t it terrible how they are giving our people a bad name like this?” I think they’re trying, just making sure not to beat us over the head with it all the time.
Yeah, I said “cool.” and Mrs. Plant covered her eyes and made little gurgling noises.
Sorry, Mann.
Antediegetic = something that takes place before the beginning of a narrative. (Yeah, I was being deliberately obscure and pretentious. What a wanker!)
By that time, I’m assuming it was just revenge. After all, he’s pretty much screwed at this point, with a number of bullets in the back (the only one the CTU team got to “take down”, and even then they were apparently not effective).
Sure, but the first time that they’ve even so much as spoken a throwaway line to explain it was this episode, when SecDef says, “Yes, I think he should stay in the air another hour, maybe more, just to be on the safe side.” (or words to that effect).
Then at the end of the episode, we have from Marwan, “The President of the U.S. is on a tight schedule.” – implying that they know where he’s going to be, and when.
Well, which is it? Flying in circles to stay out of terror’s reach? or on a tight schedule?
Me, too. It it weren’t for this CS thread, I’d have stopped watching a long time ago.
Nit-pick: The writers didn’t make it clear, but I assumed they were All-American Persian Brothers. LA has a very large Persian population-- you’re more likely to bump into a Persian-muslim in LA than an Arab-muslim. I also assume that our suburban Terror Family are Persian, since Behrooz is a pretty common name in Iran, and TerrorMom is, IRL, of Persian descent.
I believe my reaction was a chuckle. My wife looked up, saw it, and looked at me as if I had blood dripping from my chin.
cool.
Actually, they were very clear on the point of their ethnicity – one of the brothers told Jack that the looters had targeted their store first, “because we are Arabs.”
I was wondering if they were even nominally muslim, or if they were atheist/converted to something else.
I am totally confused about the MF guys motivation. CTU knew about Marwan. What else is there to hide? And how is killing a CTU agent going to help?
On the other hand, they have a very impressive combat team helicopter response time! They were able to make contact with the team leader immediately after all electronic devices had been destroyed by the EMP machine (using ESP maybe? smokesignals?), assemble a team of 20 heavily armed commandoes, complete with cool looking night vision things, load a helicopter, and travel at least 8 miles to the headquarters building, all in approximately 4 minutes. If only they practiced combat assault techniques as much as they worked on logistics, they might not have been, as Bob T so eloquently put it, “wiped out by one government agent, a wimpy financier, and two guys who run a sporting goods store.”
I think that McLennan-Forster’s 10-K for 2005 is not going to be a pretty sight.
I would really hate to write their annual report.
"McLennan-Forster has long been a dynamic leader in the defense industries. M-F developed and successfully detonated the world’s first successful electromagnetic pulse bomb. M-F also has trained and equipped its own set of commandos who can help out with your extragovernmental needs anywhere in the world or even in your own backyard. Literally, your own backyard!
Our late CEO, who unexpectedly died while under government torture, made a commitment to you, the stockholders, to make McLennan-Forster the first name you think of when it comes to selling weapons to terrorists and killing innocent people in heavily populated areas. McLennan-Forster is a name you can trust to get things done."
I’m pretty sure this has been the standard MO, although I did hear at the start of this season that they had written the first 14 episodes or so already in advance, so the first half of the season was already well fleshed-out in terms of the storylines. If that’s true, we’re almost done with “the plan” and will soon be in the “making it up as we go” territory again. 
I must’ve missed that part of the dialogue.
The first 14 episodes of this season were finished before Christmas, according to what Kiefer Sutherland told Charlie Rose in an interview at the start of the season.
So the Arab-American brothers couldn’t have been a response to any criticism – the criticism didn’t start coming in until the season started in January.
However, the writers are known to make things up on the fly, so it could have been something they added just before the episode started filming.
Ed
John Mace, I checked the tape to make sure I wasn’t misremembering. Just after Jack forces his way into the store and shows his badge, the younger brother says “Look, we were the first to be hit, because everyone knows that we’re Arabs. We’re good citizens–we didn’t have anything to do with what happened today.”
I totally agree. Very poorly handled. Anything would have been better than what she said. Whatever Driscoll promised while she was director should be binding. It’s not like Driscoll is dead; Michelle could have simply promised to contact Driscoll after the crisis is over, and verify the terms of the deal with her. Would have satisfied everyone. Sarah wasn’t haggling for more money, just confirming what she had been promised. Michelle’s a bitch on wheels. They completely hosed that poor girl. Think she’ll join up with the terrorists now?
It sure looked Re-Active to me!
But the boys were kinda cute!
Michelle has been head of CTU for less than one hour, there is an ongoing crisis, and Sarah demands instant gratification.
Sarah picked the wrong time and place. Michelle gave her an out, Sarah ignored it and pressed the attack. What did she think, that Michelle was going to drop everything else and start filing the paperwork then and there? Sarah hosed herself.
Sarah’s lucky the security guys didn’t throw her back in the room when she threatened Michelle.
I wasn’t doubting you-- it’s easy to miss some of the dialogue. I was more going from a penchant the writers seem to have for including Persians in the plot. Remember Reza and family from season 2? Now we have the Araz famaily.