I think he was playing it so that he could claim to have been actually helping the “winner”, regardless of who won that confrontation.
If somehow the bad guy escapes, Henderson warned him in time, even though he came with CTU (and they were coming to get him anyways, no matter what).
If CTU gets him, Henderson claims he was getting the guy to offload the secure data to a flash drive, or whatever (the claim he made).
If he was actually more interested in that latter scenario, he should have told Jack the ploy he would use, so that CTU would not jump the gun (like they did). Not that it mattered. Chloe still had the data decoded in something like 45 seconds anyways…
Personally, Season 2 (at least, the first part of it – episodes 1 - 15) is still probably my favorite.
While the Kim stuff was the least plausible part of it, I thought that the nuclear bomb plot was more plausible than some of the later seasons’ threats. Minus the usual travel time issues, of course.
In that season, the entire stretch of episodes 1 - 15 was devoted to finding and neutralizing the nuclear bomb. It wasn’t like season 4, where there was a new attack to stop every couple of hours, or this season, which I think has been a little tighter than Season 4, but still following a lot of that pattern. (Yet another attack to stop every couple hours).
In Act 1 of season 2, it was more about following lead to lead to lead – to locate the bomb. The timeline felt more plausible – for instance, it actually took all day to find the damn thing, not just 1 hour of Chloe looking at satellite footage.
The Kim stuff was just eye candy when we needed a break from the intensity of Jack. Run Kim Run!
I agree about Season 2. If you ignore the Kim stuff, which was mostly irrelevant to the real plot anyway, it was pretty good. I especially liked all the business with George Mason and how well they handled that character’s arc. I think maybe the decision not to pay off the cliffhanger at the end of Season 2 was the kickoff for the “don’t bother paying attention to the plot, because we don’t plan to” philosophy that the writers seem to have now.
They’ve squandered all the goodwill I had toward the show, so after next Monday’s finale I won’t watch anymore.
They started this season that way, but I guess the producers figure they needed more viewer payoffs. They could’ve run with tracing down the gas canisters, with the terrorists 1/2 a step ahead, releasing the gas. They keep trying to one-up the ante, and they keep writing themselves into a corner. They need to learn to build more suspense with less swerves, and after 5 seasons, less moles. Bill Murray was more effective at finding and removing moles!
I agree immensely. Except for the Russian sub, I thought that this was the best season of 24 ever. However, I still want to know how they exposed Jack as still being alive and how they knew that the others knew he was still alive. Also, what of Rocket Romero and his cadre. They haven’t been explained yet.
As someone who has only ever seen two episodes of ER (One involving a helicopter blade and an arm, the other involving a crashing helicopter and a one-armed man), I think Jack killing him with a helicopter in some way would be the most hilarious thing ever.
So, what should they do, change the name to “48” for 48 hours, or “7” for a week for the story to occur in? I’d not have a problem with a change in format.
This season would have been much better if they’d stopped at 20 or 21.
Buncha lameass stupidhead buffoons. The producers should know better than to have the ‘chased by a mountain lion’ team of writers handling the main plotline…
You know, it occured to me last night that what bothers me so much about this season is not the improbability of events (getting to/from the Valley in 5 minutes, hand guns blowing up tankers, etc.), but the improbable thought processes of normally intelligent characters (basically, this includes everyone’s handling of the recording this season).
Am I forgetting other memorable mental gaffes from seasons past?
That’s my main problem with this season’s plot, too – the inability of anybody to even consider the possibility of thinking of the notion of remotely having an idea that involves making a copy.
Jack should have brought the dead bank manager’s tied-up wife come along to the bank with them. I bet she would have said, “Hey, why don’t you make a copy?” But when you think about not leaving tied-up the people that you left tied-up so that their husbands could get shot and they would still be stuck tied-up in a chair not knowing what the hell is going on, it’s just too late. Hindsight being 20-20 and all that…
So what do you think the 24-verse LA Times would go with for their headline that morning?
“Former President David Palmer Assassinated”
“Logan, Russian President Sign Historic Peace Treaty”
“Nerve Gas Attack Kills Nine at Mall”
“Russian President’s Motorcade Attacked by Terrorists”
“Martial Law Declared in Los Angeles after Terrorist Threats”
“Natural Gas Plant Explodes, Thousands Forced to Take Cold Showers”
“Russian Submarine Hijacked”
“Unstable First Lady Guns Down President, Members of White House Staff” (this is conjecture on my part, but she’s one secret service agent into a well-deserved killing spree)
