I was watching this tonight with a friend, and we were both cracking up whenever they showed Juma’s soldiers coming down a hallway, all of them packing heavy weaponry, and there was little Poindexter Sengalan walking half hunched over his tablet PC. It was an amusing image.
I like the Evil Eye she was giving Janis.
Oh, and Senator Mayer saying, “What have you done?” to Jack at the end? Ermm… scuse me? If he’s referring to the opening of the door, that was the President’s call. And if he’s referring to the rest of it… well, those are some oversized cajones he’s whipping out, given that Jack almost had the info out of Ryan an hour earlier.
Me too. While I’m glad Bill is not dead, it seemed very contrived. “Don’t kill him yet; we might need a hostage.” NOW? You just gunned down 87 Secret Service guys!
I also liked how a janitor can flip a switch in a locker room and disable the White House security system. Or something like that; it wasn’t really clear how that guy did what he did. But the ADT system in my house probably would have been more effective.
They usually do have to cut some corners in plausibility to get to the point on this show. In this episode, they cut the corner, drove up on the curb, down the sidewalk and across the park. That said, once they got where they were going I thought it was a great, thrilling episode.
Does anybody else think the Prez’s daughter is going to die anyway?
(Missed the edit window, but I thought of another great scene.)
Agent Rowwr is on the boat, unrolling the papers the bad guys had been looking at.
“Hmmm, as an experienced FBI agent working in Washington D.C., these maps and diagrams mean nothing to me. Wait! What’s this? It’s a giant drawing of the WHITE HOUSE!!” Dun-dun-DUUUUN!!!
I love 24. Really. It’s just a stitch pointing stuff like this out.
I laughed out loud at that part. It’s even funnier that the terrorists never even saw the front of the White House. They had absolutely no reason to have that picture.
I don’t get the whole Juma-in-D.C. thing either. Did he just assume that their intricately-plotted plan to use the CIP device to force the President to call off the invasion would fail miserably? Because if it had worked, Juma wouldn’t even be in Sengala to take control. Or was he planning to invade the White House all along? If so, why bother with the CIP device in the first place?
And I guess there are no security cameras in the corridors of the White House, unlike, say, your local 7-11. (Well, except for the camera in the chandelier, but that one just feeds into the panic room, for whatever reason.) You’d think there’d be cameras everywhere, with Secret Service guys watching 24/7. But no, apparently a small army of dudes with machine guns can go skulking around in the White House without anyone realizing it until they come around the corner and start shooting.
I also would have slightly altered the dialogue at the end between Jack and the President:
PREZ: Could you stand by and watch your daughter get murdered before your eyes?
JACK: (Long pause)
PREZ: Well?
JACK: I’m thinking, I’m thinking!
When the clock was ticking at the hour change (7:00), they were still underwater! But by 7:12, they were in the WH corridors, fully armed and bone dry. It’s a good thing most of Juma’s men are bald, because otherwise the still-wet hair would’ve been mighty conspicuous
Boring conversation anyway.
But he was still holding back something (some business connection or something). Even Heller’s son the slacker was tortured for a while to no effect, and it appeared, after several episodes, that Jack finally found someone who actually didn’t know anything. WRONG! Turns out, slacker-son knew Mandy the hit hottie! Who knew? Why Jack of course! :rolleyes:
Well, this was the year when the writers said they were going to re-examine the torture debate, addressing the issue from a more “balanced” perspective and taking pains to view Jack’s past actions in a new light (see, he’s testifying before Congress! The rule of law wins out!).
Of course, this is FOX so we all know that that promise has turned out to be ass-covering horseshit. Jack still tortures with impunity and no apology, everyone else who confronts him are either too emotional (FBI chick), too out-of-touch (her FBI boss), too sanctimonious (Kurtwood Smith, whose own aide is a traitor), or far too eager to flip-flop when the going gets touch (Madame POTUS). Oh, and the alternative–let’s strike a deal!–collapses in utter failure in a matter of seconds. Jack knows best (he told us himself this episode when he knows people are holding back) so everything he does gets the show’s seal-of-approval.
What I found most despicable in this episode, though, was how he was trying to strong-arm Bill into becoming a torturer, too. Think of your country! But it’s the only way! We have no choice! Millions of people will die! It is to the show’s limited credit that Bill didn’t play ball, but in the prism of the show, that’s seen as much as a character flaw as a virtue.
I really really really want to see Jack murder an innocent person based on his god-given “certainty”. Or I want to see him tortured for information we definitely know he doesn’t have (and from which he doesn’t conveniently escape). Make it singularly unambiguous that sometimes*, when torture is employed, it’s wrong, misguided, counter-productive, and sadistic.
But I know that’s hoping for too much, especially from this show. I really was hoping for a slightly more honest discussion of both sides, but can’t say I’m all that surprised with the safer, more obvious choice.
From a purely physical perspective, Dubaku’s son was also the runt of that litter. How much you want to bet he got put on the team because of nepotism and not because he was good at, well, anything?
I laughed out loud at that, too, since the set-up was exactly like a Simpsons sight gag for Homer who’s too dim to get the easier clues and needs a big neon sign to get the point across. D’oh!
*note that “sometimes” is what I’m hoping would be a concession from the show’s POV. My personal attitude is “virtually always” in Real World scenarios
I’m finding this whole torture “debate” to be extremely forced and stilted anyway, especially in the context of the 24-verse.
Imagine living in a world in which a 9/11-like attack (or in some cases much, much worse – nuclear blast, anyone?) takes place like clockwork about once a year. The highest levels of government are routinely infiltrated with murderous traitors.
A conversation about the ethics of torture in that world really doesn’t pertain so much to our real one.
Anyway, as usual, I’m really enjoying the show aside from all the mind-boggling stupidity. It’s great, really – half the time I’m torn between laughter and suspense. When there was the big reveal of General Juma and his men across the river from the Lincoln Memorial, I actually burst out laughing. It was just too absurd, impossible, audacious, and yet somehow completely perfect.
Yeah, especially when she probably saw a map of the floor plan, with “Oval Office” marked on one room. “Wonder what building THAT is?”
BTW, when young Dubaku-ling spotted her, I thought she was going to hide outside the cabin door and ambush him in close hand-to-hand combat when he flew out to the deck. Rather than leaping overboard and trying to outswim machine gun bullets. I guess she’s a faster swimmer than I’d expected…
But was it really? I mean, Jack could have tied her to a chair and tasered her or something.
That was my immediate reaction, but after about 30 seconds of thought it made sense. During the invasion, they were trying for a swift, under the radar infiltration to get to the President. In that scenario, you quietly take out everyone in your path so there’s no one to sound an alert or prisoners to slow you down. But when they caught Bill, they recognized that the President and Secret Service were aware they were in the building. That meant they might not actually get the President. So he jumped to Phase 2 of the plan, take as many hostages as you can to use as leverage against the outside or the President.
He opened a socket and connected up the cut and paste feature. Okay, think that he’s had days or weeks to be working on the system. Thus, he had plenty of time over lunch breaks or stolen time from work shifts to wire up a kill switch to be ready just in the nick of time.
But they had to see what the building looked like from the front to know what the SS would be seeing during the standoff portion. Or something.
Welcome to 24, where it only takes 15 minutes* to fly from Sengala in Africa to Washington D.C.
Well, he was young. And he had an important job, guard the boat and chase Agent Rowrr, then get in a fight so he can die, too. Or something.
But Mythbusters proved it doesn’t take much water to stop bullets.
*The ubiquitous “15 minutes” that it takes anyone to get anywhere in any episode of 24. “I’ll be there in 15 minutes.”
