24 Season Finale: Day 7 | 6:00am – 8:00am

You think Jack Bauer can do it all?  How about our very own Agent Philboy who kept up with the whole season of 24 while finishing his Senior of college?! Take that, Mr. Bauer.  All kidding aside, I would like to thank Philboy for taking on reviewing 24 this season for GMMR.  It’s not an easy show to cover and he did it while being informative and fun. And thanks to all of you who pulled the all nighter the Jack and GMMR this season. We hope to see you back when the clock starts ticking again.

As for Philboy, I’m happy to announce that he will be on vampire duty this summer. He’ll be back with weekly reviews of HBO’s TRUE BLOOD.

Thanks,

Kath

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My feelings about “24” are mixed. The season, as a whole, was a classic return to form. For a show that has had some excellent finales in its time, tonight’s episode left me a little disappointed.

Debrief

Instead of trying to debrief you all on two hours of action, I’m going to try my best to tie up all of the storylines.

Jack, Kim, Tony and Renee

Jack was forced to break Tony out of FBI custody to save Kim. Tony then takes Jack hostage, saying he plans on using Jack to rebuild the pathogen and launch the bioweapon. After finding this information, Renee finds Kim and tells her someone is after her. After seeing that the cops are coming, the couple engage the cops in a shootout, with the woman dying and the man getting away.

While Jack is losing some weight via his spinal fluid, Tony stars complaining that he wants a promotion within The Group. Cara calls her boss, Alan Wilson, who says that he will meet with Tony. Jack escapes, but is recaught by Tony. Tony tells Jack that he never planned on harvesting his organs, but was using Jack to lure and kill Wilson. It turns out that Wilson is responsible for Palmer and Michelle’s death’s, as well as everything that occurred during the day.

Jack follows the guy and eventually calls Renee. He ends up crashing a car in the airport’s parking garage. Kim takes the laptop…and gets set on fire in the process. The information on the laptop led the FBI to the warehouse wherein…

…there’s a giant shootout and everyone escapes, but the bomb is defused. In the warehouse, Tony kills Cara and starts monologuing before he supposedly kills Wilson. Jack and Renee put an end to this and arrest both of them.

Renee wants information from Wilson, who doesn’t budge. Before he heads to the hospital to die, Renee asks Jack for advice. Jack tells her that he has no regrets; that he knows that what he did, by some sort of marker, is wrong, but he was OK with what he had done; and that Renee needed to be able to see in her heart what the right thing to do was.

Jack is ready to die. While in a coma, Kim shows up to do the stem cell transplant.

The White House

Ethan arrives at the White House so that Aaron can access the digital voice recordings. While they get the recordings, Olivia returns. Eventually, Ethan listens to the recording, finds the evidence they need and he and Aaron confront Olivia, letting the President take the next step. Risking her familial relationships, President Taylor decides to have Olivia arrested. Ethan takes his place back in the Oval Office…and in the President’s heart.

Chloe

Janis thanked Chloe for everything. Chloe wasn’t a complete witch in return. It is viewed as a victory for both.

Agent Philboy’s Analysis

This episode didn’t really have much going on, when I type it all out, did it? There was a lot of ramping up, and there were a lot of moments that were exciting and/or surprising. The FBI showing up at the warehouse was pretty awesome, as was the final scene where Renee handcuffs Janis and goes into Wilson’s interview room and shuts the door. But, I think that leaving Tony alive was a copout. How long can we have him being the man in the shadows who is always one step ahead of everyone? We already had that with Nina and we were all tired of her, weren’t we?

I think Renee putting two in Tony’s skull would have been the fitting end, with The Group being our holy grail of villains next season. Plus, I would have liked to have seen Jack try to stop Kim and Kim be a badass about it. He was in a coma! It’s not an act of noble defiance if the person you’re defying is hopped up on dopamine. Kudos, though, to the writers for not only utilizing the ill-fated seasons in which Kim was a CTU analyst (the season before that, she was a nanny), but also raising her IQ and intuition about 2000 points. She was actually smart while being captured for once in the span of the series. It kind of makes me want her on board next season. Kind of.

Overall, though, I would give this season an overwhelming A. It never really got boring (until the end, slightly) and it did more to develop characters than any season has done previously. And, even though there have been more exciting finales this season (“Chuck” and “Grey’s Anatomy” come to mind) it did its job: It got me VERY excited for next season!

What I Learned…

• If you shoot your partner, it’s OK to ignore it and move on.

• Always make sure your cell phone is charged.

• Anything you say can be amplified with unnecessary moving Power Point presentations.

• Questioning someone is much scarier in a room filled with old paintings.

• Even criminals whose sole jobs are to keep track of you and act like your friends aren’t interested in your baby pictures.

• Always have a digital recording card reader in your car.

• Monologuing NEVER ENDS WELL! JUST KILL THE GUY!

One of the most entertaining features for me this season has been the Kill Count. This week, we had a whopping 18, bring the grand total for the season to 382+ I think it’s probably safe to round it to over 400, though. That’s about 16 people per episode.

Thanks to everyone who followed “24” this season, as well as Kath for letting me review it. Look out for my reviews of “True Blood” when it starts up June 14, as well as some random writing until then!

Philboy is GMMR’s resident Dexter, 24, and True Blood analyst. He spends his days studying Communications at Purdue University and his nights failing at keeping up with all of the TV shows he loves. His can’t miss shows are “24”, “Chuck” and “How I Met Your Mother.” The thoughts running through his head for this week are, “Well, that was kind of disappointing!”