So there will be no official debrief video until tomorrow. Kat ditched me tonight. She had good reasons, and she was out of town over the weekend and overloaded with commitments, but nonetheless, I am flying solo tonight. I briefly considered posting an esoteric solo video, but decided against it. We need the back and forth to make it work. So, dear readers, you are stuck with another lonely esoteric post by yours truly.
One of the big concerns so far this season, for critics anyway, has been the pace. This episode stepped things up in a big way. The sequence where DEEPSKY breaks into Dubaku’s base was probably the most pivotal of the first act, because now the dice have been rolled again and everyone is scattering following new threads that will form the second act of the season. The best thing about this episode was the fact that all the story threads were all related to each other and when you cut from one scene to another, you were still following the same thread. Every set of characters had huge stakes on the line, and there was not a boring moment in any of the threads.
Anyway, the DEEPSKY break in was absolute, classic, vintage 24 in every way. The scene on the rooftop in the afternoon sun, set against a too blue to be true sky, as Jack, Tony and Bill run toward the door took my breath away, it was such an hommage to the isolation and trust in DEEPSKY, and all the fantastic split screening with Chloe and Renee and the DEEPSKY boys was just awesome. The Plan B assault, where Jack, Bill and Tony blow everyone away was awesome and bombastic and everything we love about 24′s poetically choreographed violence. Thought the use of colour in this episode by the directors and set designers was fantastic. It’s not too often we get those bright bright greens and reds. I liked how the set in Dubaku’s base mirrored the screens at the FBI to monitor the breach. Nichols taking one in the back from Renee was awesome. Every scene with Janeane Garofalo was pure gold. I love her character. Janis Gold all the way! Also loved the dad from My So-Called Life in his one episode character role. Great one ep character and great casting.
Loved the moment where the team is debating whether or not they should let Motobo contact the President, and Bill looks at Tony for his blessing, and Tony gives the nod of approval. You could see how painful it was for him to consider trusting the government. I thought the respect and compassion Bill showed to Tony there was something we haven’t seen before. Their relationship is kind of a strange entity in the show. It started off very antagonistic, though I think by the end of Day 4 there was a grudging respect. In Day 5, they somewhat bonded over Michelle’s death. Bill cared about Michelle, and her death definitely put them on the same side. But we know nothing of how Bill and Tony’s relationship progressed or what Bill’s initial reaction was to finding out Tony was alive. It is clear they now have deep trust and respect, developed over a very short period of time.
The scene where Tony tells Jack he’s not going to the White House, and then Jack asking for Tony’s word he will turn himself in, and then Tony giving it, and then the handshake … SUCH a tribute to the S2 Premiere when Jack first arrives back at CTU. The shot itself was an exact mirror. The faces … pan down to the handshake … pan up to the faces. I feel as though this could almost be viewed as two bookends. Jack’s relationship with Tony was irrevocably changed by Day 2, which completely cemented their friendship, and it has reached a turning point again. While I still maintain that the Brotherhood must and will remain intact at the end of the Season, whatever happens from this moment on is a new chapter in their relationship. And I can honestly say that I don’t know what Almeida will do. Will he, at the moment of truth, be able to face up to what he’s done and accept the consequences? It seemed there was some doubt in his eyes after Jack turned to leave. However, I must have faith that Tony’s word is true. If Tony breaks the bond of the Brotherhood Handshake … I might just lose my mind. Though it was most righteous and noble of Jack to tell Tony he would stand behind him, Jack himself is persona non grata with the Federal Court System right now, so I can’t imagine a plea from him would do much for Almeida’s case. Also loved how Bill told Jack that Tony was the reason they got this far.
I still wanna know what this mysterious history between Larry and Renee is.
I still don’t trust Ethan Kanin. When the President hung up with Motobo and immediately called Ethan, I was like “OH NO WHAT ARE YOU DOING????” I am hoping this is a total red herring and they are setting him up to look guilty to twist it onto someone else, because right now I am definitely expecting him to be dirty. I thought it was good they tied the conspiracy thread directly to Dubaku this soon. I am also highly interested in this other source of intel Tony has and what may stem off from that.
I dunno, I just loved this episode from start to finish. During the break-in scene my heart was pounding and my body was tingling. I was IN IT!!!!! Every scene was exciting. I am also loving Callery’s whole new vaguely techno ravey thing combined with his signature boombastic bass. The music in the final split screen before the preclock was amazing.
In closing, I would just like to say that Kat got her wish. The Device is now irrelevant. Oh yeah, and RIP Michael Latham, you poor bastard.
Filed under: 24: The Show, 7x07, Bill Buchanan, Characters, Critical Analysis, Current Characters, Episode Post-Mortems, Ethan Kanin, Features, Jack Bauer, Janis Gold, Past Characters, Season 7, Tony Almeida
You are on the money, Kasia. Last night’s episode was vintage-24- with the pulsing music, the appropriate use of split-screens, the fantastic gunplay and the TEAMWORK among our beloved heroes (hello, producers- this is what was missing last season with everyone being so cranky to one another). And Renee blended in with these guys perfectly, which was really enjoyable.
I’m at the point now where I believe Season 7 has surpassed Season 6. Yeah, it’s too early to be certain, but I’m already of the mind that the characters here are more enjoyable. I don’t think I’ll ever forgive the showrunners for the way they disposed of Curtis Manning or the way they shoe-horned Wayne Palmer into the Presidency. This year things are much more well-though out.
Speaking of vintage 24, they even opened up a socket!
On Tony turning himself in, there are only three possibilities.
1) Tony gets locked away and next season (assuming Tony will be in the next season) he will be either released to deal with some threat or broken out by Jack.
2) Tony (and Jack) will be pardoned by Taylor at the end of this season.
3) Tony will die to redeem himself, at which point I will stop watching 24 because killing Tony twice is just not cool.
I thought this episode was fantastic, too. Your debrief hit all the high points! How the threads are all coming together, whether or not Tony will follow through at the end of the season, and the AMAZING score during the four-way screen at the end.
And when Janis told Sean to open up a new socket I laughed out loud.
Love this site; keep up the great work!
yeah everything you said I pretty much agree with about Episode 7 yep….
EXCEPT for the fact that I hate Janis Gold and I hope her character dies soon….
she is the Chloe wannabe and a character that tries to hard to be like Chloe and tries too hard to be funny but there is nothing good about her. she is a boring FBI agent that does not have Chloe’s humor…. that is a SUPER NERD loser… and is a character that doesn’t have the depth of Chloe… she doesn’t have ANY of the skills that are as good as Chloe she is pretty much a loser like Larry Moss and Sean Hillinger all ridiculous new characters that I could care less about. Renee Walker is growing on me… in the beginning of the season I hated her… now she has improved to not annoying and all right for me yep.
anyways,
so yeah obviously I loved the AMAZING DEEPSKY TEAM + RENEE with TONY JACK BILL CHLOE + RENEE I said last week in anticipation of this week that when TONY JACK AND BILL all have guns and enter a building everyone might as well just drop dead because they will all get killed anyways and my prediction was exactly right. TONY JACK AND BILL totally OWNED every single henchman/bad guy in the building. amazing teamwork thanks to the amazing Chloe running point and coordinating the whole thing.
anyways…..
what I most anticipate from this site EVERY week is the “OFFICIAL EPISODE SUMMARY AND REVIEWS” yep.
BECAUSE I also have my official grades for each episode.
and some of them I must say I agree with you and some of them I strongly disagree.
take it for what it is worth….
my OFFICIAL GRADES for every single episode of Season 7 so far:
Episode 1: 7.8/10 C+
Episode 2: 7.8/10 C+
Episode 3: 10/10 A+
Episode 4: 10/10 A+
Episode 5: 8.3/10 B
Episode 6: 10/10 A+
Episode 7: 10/10 A+
so far this seaon I think it has been AMAZING with 4 AMAZING Episodes (Episodes 3, 4, 6, 7) and 3 bad Episodes (1, 2, 5). I have extreme confidence that this season might turn out to be my ALL-TIME Favorite season, possibly even topping what I previously thought to be impossible: the GODLIKE SEASON 3.
Putting eps 1 and 2 in the same group with ep 5 is kinda harsh, don’t you think? They were much better than that. But it’s your opinion and I’m not gonna judge.
By the way, is Deepsky supposed to be an acronym for something? I don’t get why everyone capitalizes the whole word.
It’s not an acronym, but it corresponds to a phone number. Kind of like the way you would write 1-800-GOT-JUNK. That’s why I’m doing it.
3337759? Is that like Bill’s phone number or something? I guess I missed that.
You are of course free to dislike whatever characters you dislike, but it seems to me that your reasoning here is incredibly obtuse. Janis doesn’t even know Chloe, so how can she be trying too hard to be like her? As johanley astutely pointed out in a previous discussion, Janis is not intended as a replacement for or copy of Chloe. She is a foil for Chloe. She’s not trying to be anything. The character is the character, that’s who she is. I disagree that she doesn’t have depth. Already she has demonstrated a great deal of humanity and compassion, internal conflict over her loyalty to her colleagues and her own principles, and a beautiful awkward quirkiness that exists in the same sphere but on a different plane than Chloe, and a strong personality that doesn’t beat around the bush. I personally find her hilarious. The delivery is effortless for Garofalo, who has a great deal of background and experience in the art of verbal comedy. I also love the bickering sibling vibe between she and Sean. They annoy the crap out of each other, but you can tell deep down there is a tight friendship there. How is a character who had been on the show for seven episodes supposed to have the same level of depth as one who has been on the show for four years? Chloe was no deeper or more impressive by her seventh episode than Janis is now. Hating on her, and all the new characters, is taking the easy road. It’s silly to hate new characters just for not being legacy characters. It took time for Chloe and Bill to grow on us and for us to care about their stories, and it will take time for Larry, Janis and Sean to do the same. Try to open your mind and your heart to the new characters a little more, and you will probably get more enjoyment out of the season for it. 24 works best when it’s not just focused on one person or group of people, but on the cast as an ensemble, working on conjunction on the same crisis. As for being a SUPER NERD LOSER, sorry to break it to you, but that description also fits pretty much everyone involved with this website dude. Janis is our compatriot.
Also, your rating system for the episodes makes no sense to me. 7.8/10 is clearly above average. C+ is average, and would be more like 5.5/10.
Ivanhoe,
Uh yeah!!! That’s why Tony gave Jack the word … the letters correspond to a phone number, an old CTU emergency phone code. As soon as Jack left the room, he dialed it, not knowing who would pick up. It was Bill.
I was annoyed with how they disposed of Curtis, but not the fact that Curtis was disposed of. I never had any use for that character. He served a function in the story, but the character was never strong enough to make me actually care about him. He could have been any character played by any actor and achieved the same purpose. I was annoyed with the fact that they took the original plan for Tony’s death in Season 5 and basically condensed it and recycled it for Curtis, which was lazy. Although it worked out in the end, I guess, since I’m much happier with Tony back from the dead.
I don’t have any problem at all with the CONCEPT of Wayne Palmer being President. It is perfectly believable to me within the context of the 24 Universe that Wayne would have been elected to the office. In the aftermath of David Palmer’s assassination and Charles Logan leaving his office in disgrace amidst serious criminal charges, the country would have been primed to associate Wayne’s bid for President with the strength, integrity, commitment and vision of his late brother. Obviously they were drawing from the story of the Kennedys. David Palmer was a JFK figure for sure, who had an idealism and belief in the goodness of America, and that it could be a force for good in the world. Wayne inherited that legacy the way Bobby did, and it isn’t the least bit unrealistic that the country would look to him for leadership. Couple that with disillusionment over a corrupt Republican administration under Logan, and Wayne as Pres totally makes sense to me. The only thing somewhat unrealistic about it is that Wayne did not hold any public office before, but I am willing to overlook that for the beautiful dramatic poetry of it all. I think the writers also believed it was important to have a familiar face, someone the audience had already developed a relationship with, sitting in that chair in Day 6. They killed off a LOT of important characters in Day 5, and wiping the slate completely clean on every front would have been very alienating. The choice makes complete sense, unfortunately it was executed poorly. Not by DB Woodside, who turned in an admirable performance in light of what he had to work with, but by lazy storytelling and a lack of depth to the character in the scripts. I’m tired of everyone blaming Wayne for the failure of Season 6. Bottom line, Season 6 failed first and foremost in the writer’s room.
Oh Dear Almeida… What an ep! I agree with you on all points, kasia, and I couldn’t have said it better… I’ll just add that I have seen the Brotherhood crumbling since ep 2 – and I maintain it will continue to crumble. I also maintain that there are two possibilities for it to end – either with Tony and Jack on the two extreme ends of the spectrum or with them reunited – although the road to tony’s Redemption in jack’s eyes will be very very long. for that to happen, tony WILL have to turn himself in – or jack will do it for him.
I want to believe that Almeida will remain true to his word because it would break my heart if he didn’t. But will he – a pardoned traitor – really choose to turn himself in to the government that betrayed him in the first place? I really don’t know.
That being said, Jack’s comment did piss me off.
“Tony take it from me – you need to deal with the consequences.”
When has Jack EVER had to deal with the consequences of his actions? All he’s ever got was a slap on the wrist, whereas Tony has always been put before judge and jury – even literally – for saving his wife’s life, he got a charge of treason and jailtime! What did Jack ever get except being fired from CTU – and that was for heroin abuse, not for any off-book behavior!! And when the government asked Jack to face the music what did he do? he ran away. He was running from the federal subpoena for a year! and he thinks he has the right to tell tony to deal with the consequences? Really, as strong as that scene was (and it was good!) I did kinda feel like I wanted to slap Jack then and there. Life just isn’t fair for Almeida. *sniff*.
My hope is that when this is all over, the good Tony will (hopefully) have done – the finding the CIP device and hopefully helping bring down the actual bad guys inside the government will prevent him from being prosecuted… Maybe the president will have a change of heart or whatever… Because right now, a woman who’s will sacrifice hundreds of thousands of american civilians in order not to negotiate with terrorists just doesn’t obviously strike me as the type to pardon an already pardoned traitor, even if he helped prevent worse attacks… i don’t know. Right now, I’m just torn and aching – and in all that pain, the ep has kept me on the edge of my seat at all times, and I’ve loved every minute of it.
I’m afraid for tony, but I am enjoying all the other storylines, too. and I agree Ethan and Sean are still visibly suspicious, so visibly that if they indeed turn out to be dirty it will be so obvious that they SHOULD in fact be red herrings. but we’ll see. my reaction to the Prez’s calling Ethan the moment Motobo called was pretty much the same yell as yours, kasia… DON’T DO THAT! lol.
bottom line: 24 is back. at its best. it hasn’t gripped me like this in years.
Janis, Larry, and Sean being new characters obviously is a big factor in the reason why it is not that easy to like them simply because being new will not have much depth to the character but that’s not the main point. the main point is the character themselves working in a boring FBI office that can not compare to CTU. the CTU ringtone is gone…and now you have 3 characters I consider VERY boring since they are the typical office personnel and don’t seems to have much skill at all. What has the FBI accomplished so far? NOTHING. It took them 2 HOURS to locate the truck that Jack and Tony obducted Matobo in. CTU would’ve done that in 1 second. the FBI is a useless agency and a boring one especially with Janis, Larry, and Sean. It is clear that Janis Gold is trying to be funny but I haven’t laughed once at any of her dialogue so far simply because she isn’t funny. Her character doesn’t have the personality of Chloe, the looks of certain characters that were appealing (Michelle Dessler, Kim Bauer etc…) since janis is SUPER UGLY like RIDICULOUSLY UGLY… she doesn’t have the great emotions of characters (Audrey Raines, Michelle Dessler, Chase). SHe doesn’t have any aspect which makes a character great she has nothing. There is nothing that I find likable about Janis Gold. From her looks to her not funny and pathetic attempt at humor to her terrible emotions that I don’t care about yep.
to the ratings stuff…
Episodes 1, 2 and 5 were all bad it was just that I thought Episode 5 was slightly better than 1 and 2 not by much. All 3 were lacking the “24 feeling” but Episode 1 lacked it SEVERELY. Episodes 1, 2, and 5 were ALL VERY SLOW-PACED and a huge disappointment but the other 4 Episodes (3, 4, 6, 7) were all AMAZING though and I have high hopes for the rest of the season. the FBI was EXTREMELY BORING in Episodes 1 and 2 that’s why I thought Episodes 1 and 2 were worse than 5 even though 5 was terrible/pretty bad also.
J_A, I agree that Jack is being pretty hypocritical. I thought the same thing to myself that you mentioned. He ran away from facing up to the things he’s done for over a year, and the only reason he did come back to face them in the end was because the only way to save the Sengalese kids was to give himself up. So of course Jack did what he had to do to help the kids, but if that situation hadn’t happened, Jack would have told Trammel exactly where he could stick that subpoena. I think since then, Jack has decided that if he is ever going to be free of his internal pain over everything that’s happened in his life, he needs to come clean and air all the dirty laundry so the citizens of America can decide how far they are willing to let the government go in the interests of preventing terrorism. But the air of moral superiority he had toward Tony in that scene wasn’t warranted, especially since he doesn’t even know exactly what it is that Tony has done.
Yes, he said that to the FBI agent in the car, yet I am still not all too convinced that he has changed all that much – after all, he is still willing to do whatever it takes – he WILL still torture people if necessary. the thing is, I think that by now, Tony will, too. Anyway, it really wasn’t his place to say it, but it was not unlike Jack to do so.
Didn’t say he’s changed. He still believes he has to do whatever is necessary to protect innocent people, including torture. But I also think he now believes it is too large a burden to bear alone in secret any longer.