After getting home from a very long night at work early Tuesday morning, I settled in to watch the final two hours of 24 before getting some sleep, and I've got a few thoughts. If you haven't seen it yet, you may want to skip the rest of this post, because it's highly likely there may be a spoiler or two...Unfortunately, I can't say that I was very impressed with the way it ended. Yeah, it was cool to see President Logan getting hauled away to meet his fate, but what I wanted to see was an extra half-hour epilogue wrap-up; you know, stuff like the First Lady and Agent Pierce hanging a 'Do Not Disturb' sign on the doorknob of some secluded hotel room, Miles pulling a Captain Hadley and crying like a little girl when they slapped the cuffs on him, Bill Buchanan and Karen Hayes having breakfast at the Hawthorne Grill and walking out just as Jules and Vincent are walking in, and maybe Chloe building a miniature Edgar shrine with candles and such on her workstation...
But I just *knew* that Jack was gonna get his ass shanghai'd by the Chinese dudes. They kept referring to them all throughout the past few episodes, and after that awkward and sappy 'I love you' scene with Audrey, you had to figure that the whole phone-call-from-the-daughter scenario was just a diversion to get Jack alone and away from the good guys. As soon as he walked into the abandoned building, I pulled an Admiral Akbar and yelled It's a trap! at my tv set. I will admit, however, for an instant I thought it was the wireless-headset wearing bad guys led by Dr. Ramano that got to him first, because of that whole they-can-touch-you-but-you-can't-touch-them speech that the Robocop guy (Henderson) gave Jack in an earlier episode (leading all of us to the obvious conclusion that President Logan's evil partners-in-crime were just a bunch of strippers).
Anyhow, I think the most enjoyable part of the final episode was the retaking of the submarine and the final showdown between Jack and all of the bad guys. Of course, breaking Bierko's neck with the WWF leg-lock was a bit silly, reminding me of one of my buddies in college who would remark in a dry Texas drawl, whenever he saw an attractive girl in a mini-skirt, Man, she could wrap those legs around your head an pop it like a zit...
And I liked the climactic scene with Henderson on the deck of the sub as he was trying to get away. Of course Jack gave him an empty gun--everybody on the planet knew the gun was empty as soon as Jack handed it to him. For being an ex-CTU guy and spending so much time around bad people with guns, any moron knows that as soon as someone hands you a .45 automatic (or any gun, for that matter), you rack it to check and see if it's loaded. Bad firearms discipline. And he could've gotten away... Of course if it was loaded, his two shots at Jack would've just winged him, and Jack would've capped his ass anyways, so I suppose it's a mute point.
But as soon as he pulled the trigger and we all heard the metallic click-click of the empty chamber, who among us wasn't waiting for Jack to bust out with his Bruce Willis impersonation-- Whoops! No bullets... What, do you think I'm farking stupid, Hans?
So now we'll have to wait until January to see what happens with our hero. Does the next episode begin on the ship where he goes full-on Jackie Chan on everyone and commandeers the thing, or do we skip forward another year where we see our hero enduring daily torture in a Chinese prison before being scheduled to get his organs harvested along with all the rest of his Falun Gong compadres in the cellblock?
Who knows... But my Tivo is ready.
Mikey
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