Truth v. The Machine
About that Religion of Peace…
Rubin Rosario, columnist for the Pioneer Press, had an article on page 1A yesterday regarding Muslims at the State Fair who will be informing the attendees that Islam is a religion of peace. Mr. Rosario accepts all their premises unquestioningly, and heaps scorn all who might not agree.
The day his article appeared happened to be the 15th day of Ramadan. To that point during the holy holiday the following can be noted:
Terrorism in the name of Islam: 94 attacks, 396 dead.
Terrorism in the name of all other religions: 0 attacks, 0 dead.
Muslims indeed should be talking about how Islam is a religion of peace. But they, and Mr. Rosario, are trying to convince the wrong people.
Lino Lakes Loonies?
It’s really difficult to grasp what passes for ‘Letter of the Day’ honors at the Star-Tribune. Today’s selection reads as follows:
Letter of the day: In English-only debate, recall our Minnesota ancestors
The folks who carried multi-language welcome signs in the Lino Lakes parade are simply heroic (”Lino Lakes parade attracts an act of ‘civil obedience,’” Aug. 22). I applaud them for proclaiming a message of inclusivity rather than the “English-only” propaganda. They are a group of astute Minnesotans who remember that their ancestors came over speaking German, Swedish or other languages. Clearly, many other Minnesotans have forgotten.
Where to begin? First of all, while our Minnesota ancestors arrived speaking other languages, they committed themselves to learning English. I’m willing to bet the above author’s ancestors were immigrants who did not speak English; ironic that she writes it so well. Second, the practice of ‘inclusivity’ was displayed in this country’s acts of accepting their immigration and assimilation. ‘Inclusive’ does not mean the place you moved to will change to suit your tastes. Third, ‘English only’ is not propaganda or racism, but common sense. It is unreasonable to multiply taxpayer burdens by providing services in all imaginable languages. Fourth, those who write such letters or march in such parades would do better to volunteer their services teaching ‘English as a Second Language’ courses.
The Fundamental Issue for America
The Drudge Report headline yesterday in red and all caps “SHOCK VIDEO: DEM CONGRESSMAN BRAGS: ‘FEDERAL GOVERNMENT CAN DO MOST ANYTHING IN THIS COUNTRY’…”
If you’re inclined to get your week off on the wrong foot, you had no choice but to watch – knowing it would infuriate you.
But what Drudge highlighted wasn’t what that clip was about.
Instead, it was the essence of the political debate over domestic policy in this nation for the past century and likely for the next century.
First, the latest characters in this great drama. On one side of the debate was Pete Stark the Democrat Congressman from California – casually dressed to match the appearance of his constituents which betrays his 37 years inside the Beltway.
Then we see an ordinary American woman – unpolished and reading off a prepared statement. Stammering her way through a question she was taught by our inadequate education system to write over and over, but not trained in the oratory to deliver the final product.
She clumsily quotes the 13th Amendment and uses a highly emotive word like “slavery” in lieu of the better analogy of involuntary servitude. She chooses a shocking word because it’s the best way to convey her anger. Anger that gave her the energy to google all of her research and write-out her question.
She has an intuition, a sense that there is something that doesn’t seem quite right about the new Health Care Reform bill that gives all Americans the right to health care.
What she senses intuitively is one side of the debate of maintaining the existing Bill of Rights that was ratified with the original Constitution rather than supplementing it with a Second Bill of Rights.
The Second Bill of Rights are a list of entitlements that all Americans are to be given such as health care, housing, employment compensated by a living wage, and an education. These are positive rights and are often regarded by Democrat politicians (like Rep. Stark) to be on the same level as negative rights since FDR introduced this litany in 1944.
Aside from your rights as a potentially accused criminal, the original Bill of Rights consists mainly of rights that you as an individual can perform as an action and the government cannot infringe on your right to perform that action yourself. The woman used the Founding Fathers description of “inalienable.” They are also called negative rights because each individual has these rights and it is a violation for another person to prevent these actions from happening.
The major issue that is being debated right now is not so much philosophical, but the realization – made worse by a bad economy – that in order to implement the Second Bill of Rights for all Americans, then there must be an infringement on the liberty and property of other citizens. Either by requiring those with the necessary skills to provide these services for Americans who could not otherwise have them or by enforcing on the most productive citizens a punitive tax burden needed to adequately fund the former.
In this particular clip, the woman discusses an overlooked aspect of the health care debate which gets to the heart of the real-world consequences of implementing the Second Bill of Rights.
In order to have the right to something like health care, then it must be delivered to us by professionals who will likely not be compensated appropriately for their services. So doctors and nurses will be forced to provide health care services to people they would otherwise not deliver care to.
The same thing would happen if other positive rights are given to us.
For a person to have the right to be employed at a living wage there must be an enforcement of employers to hire people and pay them a minimum amount predetermined by authorities. Likewise engineers and construction workers would have to designate property to build homes and apartment buildings for every American to live in so the land cannot be used for commercial interests. And teachers must educate everyone, even those who fail and drop out. A plight that sounds remarkably similar to doctors having to spend more time treating patients that have used their money to diminish their health with bad food and smoking without paying anything for health care over the past few years.
The framework of these debates pits FDR’s promise of a Second Bill of Rights against the original Bill of Rights. Everything in the Second Bill of Rights is based on you getting something from someone else and that infringes on someone else’s liberty and property.
Alright, We Got a Situation
Jersey Shore – Season Two Premiere at 10pm EST Thursday night on MTV. Season One marathon leading up to it begins at 1pm EST. I’ve had this date circled for a month.
I’m predicting a 5.5 rating or higher.
This season Vinny is going to vault himself to be as valuable as cast members Snooki, Situation, Pauly D and Jwoww. He’s the smartest member of the cast. He’ll find his groove with observational humor and one-liners in the midst of the drama.
In February, Philalawyer had a discussion asking his readers to define the exact makeup of the tools that cause us misery every day. Lots of harsh language here.
After reading many insightful comments in the attempt to find a definition of a tool, I created a flow chart of sorts that can be used to pinpoint this elusive, yet destructive creature. Four resounding “Yeses” and you’ve got yourself a tool.
There is no better way to define something than through examples and Jersey Shore was the perfect place to test out The Tool Mechanism. You might be surprised who it is.
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Before this thread, a tool had to be identified through a process of elimination similar to how ALS is diagnosed by ruling other diseases out. Now there’s been consensus with Red’s hypothesis that all tools are douchebags. So we need to analyze 2 douchebags and differentiate the tool according to this list of agreed-upon traits that are unique to tools. Let’s use Jersey Shore “stars” Mike “The Situation” and Ronnie in the following proposed framework.
1) Tools are being used – The product they’re hawking is usually crap: the internal campaign within the company about its “culture” or maybe they’re promoting the latest movies at the water cooler and on social networking sites as a way to show what they think you perceive as cool. What they are unknowingly promoting changes often because they don’t understand cool is a state of being not shifting with trends. We’ll get to their awareness of this next.
Situation – A total douchebag, but he sometimes is playing up to the cameras. He’s promoting himself to get his own show and his Gym, Tan, Laundry lifestyle. The latter is a bit toolish.
Ronnie – A complete tool. Fauxhawks, meatheads, glitter shirts, “My girlfriend is the hottest girl in the Shore”… the guy is a freaking shill for everything guido. He’s a shapeshifter – angry, fighting, sad, lonely, loving all in one segment of the show – with no personality. His girlfriend Sammi manipulates him by talking crap and getting into fights. He manipulates her by telling her not to trust other people in the house (his office for the summer).
2) Tools take the archetype to the extreme – Lack of self-awareness and a lack of authenticity leads to the tool’s adaptability. Which trait comes first is arguing the chicken and the egg. The manifestation of those symptoms comes from little feeling of self-worth. They work the most hours every day not because there’s work, but because that’s what they think successful people do. They post that they saw The Hangover for the third time because they think everyone says it’s the funniest movie ever.
The Situation – He’s a guido, but he doesn’t talk about how proud he is to belong. He has too big of an ego to talk about a group and the show would have been different without him.
Ronnie – He looks and acts the most like a guido even though Pauly D’s blowout and nickname should have won running away. JWow called Ronnie “the most down to earth” which fits whatever planet that acne-ridden, cum depository is from. To Les’ point, he narrows an already narrow world – guidoes in Seaside Heights was reduced to him and Sammi alone together. He could have been replaced by any meathead and the show wouldn’t have changed at all. His avatar in the show’s beginning credits was him laughing.
3) Arrogance about their shill skill – Possibly the most grating personality trait. If only it was self-promotion like other douchebags. Instead we deal with a condescending attitude toward others that only a true believer could conjure. This is where we get BL1Y’s “the myth of their own self.” The tool epitomizes the person who not only thinks he is the starring character in the movie about his life, but he is deluded to believe every other character in the drama should be more like him for a climactic ending of total peace and harmony in the world.
Situation – He is not nearly as self-deprecating as he should be. When he got too defensive he was being a tool, but he gave some props to people on the Reunion show when they busted on him as he grows into a more watchable douchebag.
Ronnie – He’s regressing. During the Reunion he tried to get into a rivalry with The Situation and couldn’t even articulate why he was better except how some random slut in the house liked him. Instead of a comeback line when he gets put down, it’s just “yeah whatever, bro” because a taste of his own haterade is petty to him.
4) The sheer hopelessness of their plight – It’s like they don’t know how the world works. This is why we feel sad for them when we are on break from being annoyed by them. They live in the world of office politics because their social lives fall of the cliff within two years of entering the workforce. That’s when their college friends stopped feeling the need to hang out with the tool because they no longer live together in a dorm. The same thing happened to the tool’s high school friends he lost touch with by the second semester.
There was one particular tool I know who c-blocked so many people unintentionally that we just called him The Shield. This tool had a Masters in Communications, but couldn’t figure out why he was always rejected for jobs and never promoted at his current one. He came up in conversation when my friend (who knew him longer) just said, “He has a Masters in Communications and he has no communication skills!” I’m not going to go into the MA in Comm part, but what do you do when someone gets worse at what they are studying to get better at?
Situation – Along with Snooki, he’s going to command the most money at club appearances and may even be given his own show at some point.
Ronnie – He’s Sammi’s boyfriend. There is nothing else noteworthy about him except getting into a bunch of fights. He’s going to be a mope the next season.
And speaking of tools, let’s talk about this guy that watched every episode of Jersey Shore twice and posted about it on some lawyer’s website then re-posted it on a political blog telling everyone to watch the show.
Inception Review
There are a million people that offer their opinions on movies. The only time I would be tempted to do so is when there is a culturally relevant work and there’s an insight I’m compelled to share when no one else has said it.
For 2010, it looks like Inception is going to be that movie. It’s very good and a great idea for a movie, but that’s pretty much it. I’m sharing some thoughts below because people’s responses are predictably blown out of proportion to the quality of the film.
In the Internet Age, polarity and extreme views are the default position of content creators in order to get noticed. The movie is absurdly ranked #3 with a 9.2 out of 10 on IMDB’s Top 250 of All Time surrounded by both Godfathers. So let’s find a middle ground.
There are people out there absolutely gaga over this movie so feel free to read up on them here. I agree with a lot of the praise. At the same time I have something different to say than some of the critical panning on that link that borders on obnoxious like saying the movie was “full of second-rate aesthetics.”
There’s a lot that was good. Christopher Nolan’s idea for the movie was an 11 out of 10. It’s a movie that should be seen in theaters and is likely going to be one of the best of the year. Even though the 11 blasted through the 10 Scale already, I might even give the concept a 12 or 13 as bonus points for an idea that could be pulled off best as a movie.
Inception gives the audience a lot to talk about and those types of movies are rare so that’s another plus. The issue with the movie is that while the concept of the movie was great, the execution of the concept was simply good.
We should definitely give credit to the filmmakers for going in an intelligent direction with the story. Inception could have been a feast of visual effects limited only by Nolan’s imagination. But that would have been an obvious path for the film and the final product would have been hindered by comparisons to the effects of Avatar – which was fortunate to escape comparisons to video games (but that’s another story).
About 40 minutes into Inception, something started bothering me and it never stopped even though I was enjoying what was happening on screen. The movie demands your full attention. I pretty much understood the plot and it deserves a second viewing on DVD, but I doubt even that would resolve some of the issues the movie suffers from.
Characters and Casting
A quick general comment before getting into specifics: many artists after achieving critical acclaim will do a big budget project like Inception to cash in on their newfound glory. Conversely, many artists who have gotten a big payday will get involved with a “passion project” in theater or independent film that will likely pay very little.
This applies mainly to two actors: Marion Cotillard and Juno. Both were nominated for Best Actress in 2008 with Cotillard winning. Inception was one of the “payday” movies that each chose to do. They’re both good actors, but that doesn’t mean they were right for the roles. Cotillard was a fine choice to fill the award-winner’s payday quota for the picture. But…
Do you know what a girl playing a 16 year-old pregnant girl looks like 2 years after that role? An 18 year-old. Do you know how old that character should have been? 24 – minimum. This casting decision was the third-biggest problem of the film. If that character had to be a student, then she should have at least been a graduate student; we’ll get to that momentarily.
Juno was way too young to play this role. It doesn’t matter how old Ellen Page really is, she looks like a kid and is too close to a career-defining role as a teenager for her to be cast as anything without the audience thinking she’s one. That’s why I’m calling her that; because I had to fight the thought she was anyone else as it came to mind several times. These are the highest stakes possible: dangerous multi-layer dream expeditions with control of the world’s energy supply hanging in the balance and you have a kid as the architect of this complex world? Honest to blog, it was ridiculous enough when Julia Stiles was in The Bourne Identity, but she’s an Amazon-size woman that could’ve passed for late-20’s.
Leonardo DiCaprio – what the hell happened here? I have never been a DiCaprio hater; quite the opposite, it wasn’t the most popular thing for a guy to tell his friends that DiCaprio should have received a Best Actor nomination for Titanic. If they were giving the damn thing for every other award, you figure they would throw him at least a nomination for all of the girls that went 15 times just to see him.
Maybe he’s lacking in range or Nolan was complacent with subpar takes, but he went from this wide-eyed charming look in the first multi-billion dollar movie to having this angry constipated face in numerous scenes of Inception. The worst instance of this was when Juno confronts him about how his dead wife is being projected into other people’s dreams during missions. I think Leo wanted me to feel the sadness and frustration of a man in emotional pain over the loss of a loved one and how it was distracting his ability to work. But the whole time I was waiting for him to just suddenly grab Juno by the arm, hold a coat hanger in front of her face, and yell out “It’s this or a kick down the stairs!! Which way do you want it?!”
Two highlights in the casting were Tom Hardy and Joseph Gordon-Ledger. Hardy is a badass and I hope this new MMA movie he’s in absolutely crushes the box office with a quality story to match. That sport has yet to be done right on the big screen. Worse, the attempts so far – Redbelt, Never Back Down, and the well-thought-out title: Fighting – have been embarrassingly bad.
It’s clear that the kingmakers in Hollywood are giving Gordon-Levitt what would have been Heath Ledger’s career. The kid deserves it. The same thing happened to DiCaprio when he started getting the roles that probably would have gone to River Phoenix.
Gordon-Levitt had the best role in the movie and he was great. The problem: this shouldn’t have been the best role in the movie.
The Setup
The best role in the movie should have been Robert Fischer the target of the inception. In the second-biggest mistake the filmmakers made, there was a poor setup of the plot of the entire movie!
I didn’t care a whole lot about whether or not Fischer decided to split up the companies. This is not just a key plot point; this is the explanation of the entire plot and it is inexplicably glossed over. In a pedestrian manner, Ken Watanabe explains to DiCaprio (and the audience) the danger to the world of Robert Fischer having a company that controls nearly all of the world’s energy. A little cliché, but the stakes need to be high for this movie to work and that’s about as high as it gets.
It’s not that I didn’t understand what was at stake or what was going on; it was that I was not involved on a visceral level of whether or not the team would succeed in their mission. The stakes of the movie are high, but because it’s explained too quickly with words instead of us being shown Fischer in scenes long enough to get the audience emotionally invested in the plot as it unfolds and its ultimate outcome.
Did you ever get the sense that Robert Fischer was this evil son that was arrogant and determined to rule the world? Yes, it would likely corrupt someone to have as much power as he was about to be given, but there was no evidence that it would have been really, really bad if the team failed the mission. We don’t know much about Fischer except the background in two or three brief scenes before we’re inside the dreams.
This could have been great role that required a range of being a hated or at least disliked antagonist who the audience gradually empathized with, felt the suspense of whether or not he was going to receive the inception, and really felt for him in the Level 3 dream as he at last opens the safe and breaks down in front of his father. We care about him as a character but not his character’s emotional investment in his father except for one memory of childhood and we’re not invested enough in his investment in the company.
That last scene was played perfectly, but had there been a better setup the scene would have had much more of an emotional impact and led to a more satisfying conclusion to the film.
I think a scene that could have worked earlier in the film to set this up could have gone like this:
Tom Berenger: Now you listen to me! This is my last shot at a corporate chairmanship and for some of the projections it could be their only shot. I don’t know what happened to you. But if you ever, ever tank another subconscious dream defense like you did today, I’m gonna cut your nuts off and stuff ‘em down your fuckin throat!
Cillian Murphy: Well that’s if you catch me with those 50 extra pounds you’re been hauling that’ve made you unrecognizable. How ironic you haven’t exercised since you were in a movie called Training Day! [runs away like a pansy]
The Tone
Maybe the reason why the Fischer plot wasn’t given the emotional weight it should have been was so it didn’t overshadow the climax of DiCaprio confronting his wife – a plot given much less time, but managed to hit the right emotions.
This goes along with the setup because this is what bothered me from the outset of the film. I’m going to give the filmmakers props for not insulting the intelligence of the viewer by refusing to spoon-feed us the plot and the “rules” of this fantasy universe. But this led to the whole movie having a very non-chalant tone between all of the characters.
There’s only one fish out of water (Juno) and she wasn’t truly led into the world – which is really the audience being led into the world – as the story unfolds. Everything outside the rules of reality just wasn’t a big deal to anyone besides her and she quickly became as blasé as everyone else midway through the film.
Think of any movie that amazed you with a unique world. Wasn’t there a character on screen that shared in your amazement? Take The Matrix shooting script (essentially the final draft of a screenplay) which has Neo saying, “Shit!” when Morpheus jumps to the building across the street. But the Wachowskis were smart enough to use Keanu Reeves’ only asset as an actor – looking like an idiot. So they changed the line to his patented, “Whoa!”
The main reason I want to watch the movie again is to clarify how common or uncommon is dream manipulation in the reality that this movie takes place in. If I understand that better, then I’d understand why it seemed like the characters treated the situation like it was a typical Wednesday.
Take the scenes where DiCaprio comes to Michael Caine to recommend a new dream Architect for the Fischer project. He needs a new one because the previous Architect (Lukas Haas) is taken away. Maybe Leo was overcompensating because Haas is a real-life friend, but there was very little in terms of an emotional reaction from DiCaprio in the loss of his previous Architect. This was the first, “eh whatever” we get from this film.
Caine recommends they poach one of his students because of her brilliance. This scene takes place in an empty lecture hall with ascending seating for about 60 students. Ok so what this guy teaches applies to the architecture of dream worlds and is just something that goes on in typical undergraduate classes?
We’re introduced to Juno and DiCaprio asks her to draw a maze to test her abilities… and it takes her several attempts. Wait a second. This girl is supposed to be brilliant. Why did that take her so many tries? Then they put her into the dream world for the first time in her life.
This is why they needed an older doctoral or at least graduate student for this role. We are supposed to believe that this is the biggest project DiCaprio and Gordon-Levitt have ever taken on. So naturally they get a very young person who can’t draw simple mazes and who doesn’t even know controlled dreaming exists. “Eh whatever.”
I admire Nolan for doing a Different World movie with non-chalant characters and forcing the audience to keep pace, but in some scenes it just didn’t work.
In one sense it was cool that there was a train in the middle of the road when they first kidnap Fischer in Level 1 and there was a shootout to give the protagonists something to confront. However, we’re 45 minutes into the movie and we don’t quite understand how this whole controlled dreaming thing works, but we’ve learned a lot so far. At this point they suddenly say Fischer has had his mind trained to attack intruders such as the team. Then the filmmakers commit a very dangerous violation of fantasy storytelling, they reverse a prior rule of the fantasy universe by telling us in the beginning of the film that dying in a dream will wake you and now they say, “Oh wait, under this level of sedation, dying makes you go to limbo.” I feel that these plot twists work and the movie wouldn’t be as effective without them. But you could argue that it seems like the film is making it up as it goes along.
Snowblind
My separate comment on the tone was an expansion on the second-biggest issue of the movie – the setup of the story. The main problem with Inception is the Level 3 dream in the mountains. From my Twitter:
Inception was fun. I’ll see it again on DVD. For you “4 star” reviewers, please explain how the ski scenes didn’t suck. #ReadMore
On Twitter you have to be really concise, something I have a problem with as you can see from this review. It would have been impossible to even hint at everything above in 140 characters or less. I’m keeping an open mind for the second viewing because it’s possible I missed some things and have nitpicked too much here.
But I doubt my opinion will change much about the mountain scenes. This was nothing more than a mindful movie showing mindless action. It was like they were under budget and thought to themselves, “We can either burn the money or spend it on unimaginative action sequences where the audience can’t tell what’s going on because everyone is wearing the same thing.”
I couldn’t tell the good guys from the bad guys, not in a “the characters are complex with an anti-hero protagonist and an antagonist with a relatable/heart-wrenching motivation” sense. I mean you literally cannot tell who is shooting at who. It was one fast cut after another and it was numbing. There can’t be much suspense amidst confusion.
I’m glad this wasn’t a special effects extravaganza, but we’re at the third level of dreaming within a dream and with the exception of Mal coming out of nowhere it seems like the rules of the real world weren’t violated much at all in this dream. It was just action.
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All of Christopher Nolan’s films demand a second viewing – even his first one Following. I appreciate the pressure he is under to consistently produce work of this quality; making any movie is extremely difficult and the ability to make one great one is reserved for less than 100 people around the world. Making several great movies like Nolan has done is reserved for about 100 people in the past century. However, Inception is not one of his great ones.
Senator Seven Car Pileup
The Minnesota state senator who pushed through last-minute legislation for Fish Lake that contributed to the governor’s veto of a major fish and game bill is the subject of a federal tax lien for $252,000 in past-due income taxes, the News Tribune has learned.
Sen. Satveer Chaudhary, DFL-Fridley, and his wife, Denise, failed to pay $100,000 in income taxes in 2007 and $151,000 in 2008, according to tax records.
That’s a lot of scratch and the IRS doesn’t tend to be especially forgiving when a person owes that much money. Now, there has to be a logical explanation for this sort of liability, right? Reporter Brandon Stahl of the Duluth News Tribune relays Chaudhary’s latest travails:
Chaudhary, who owns a home on Fish Lake that would have been affected by his legislation, told the News Tribune on Thursday that the delinquent taxes were due to his wife’s wrongful termination by Celgene, a biopharmaceutical company.
“It forced her to exercise or lose some of her stock options,” he said.
“In general, she had to use some of her stocks to purchase other stocks, and so that led to a huge tax liability.”
He said his wife has filed a wrongful termination suit against Celgene with the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission.
For the sake of argument, let’s stipulate that everything Chaudhary says here is true. That would be a tough hop and certainly would explain a huge tax liability for a given year. But it only explains the events of 2008. What about the $100,000 liability for the previous year, 2007?
[Chaudhary] said he didn’t know the reason for the 2007 tax delinquency and was checking with his accountant to learn more.
Now, I don’t know about you, but if a tax liability of $100,000 were at issue, I’d be quite clear about where it came from and what the disposition of the money was. One has to assume that Sen. Chaudhary signed his 2007 tax form and you’d like to think he reviewed his accountant’s work on it. I would also hope that he paid a little more attention to pending legislation than he apparently did with his own personal tax returns.
One other thing — while we’re always warned that correlation doesn’t equal causation, it’s reasonable to wonder whether a $252,000 IRS lien might have entered into Chaudhary’s thinking when he got involved in legislation that would have had the effect of raising the value of one of Chaudhary’s greatest assets, his home on Fish Lake.
I hope that Chaudhary’s accountant has a plausible explanation, because the Senator may have to account for himself in about a month’s time.
Take Up the Weigel’s Burden
As you’ve learned if you’ve been following the matter, and I don’t blame you if you haven’t, it didn’t work out so well. Weigel resigned or was sacked yesterday after disparaging comments he made about various conservatives were leaked to the Daily Caller website and subsequently published. Weigel made the comments on the Journolist, a e-mail circle (jerk) of prominent lefty journalists that was the province of Ezra Klein, another young journalist who has risen to prominence in the last decade. The Journolist is sort of a combination of the Dead Poets Society and the He Man Woman Hater’s Club, near as I can tell.
Does that seem pretty convoluted to you? Me too. The upshot was this — Weigel was saying things like this on the Journolist, in which he bemoans his fate covering the knuckle-draggers:
“Honestly, it’s been tough to find fresh angles sometimes–how many times can I report that these [tea party] activists are joyfully signing up with the agenda of discredited right-winger X and discredited right-wing group Y?” Weigel lamented in one February email.
Can’t say I blame him for that one — I’ve denounced “right-wing group Y” any number of times myself. They are scoundrels. Then there was this observation concerning Matt Drudge:
Of Matt Drudge, Weigel remarked, “It’s really a disgrace that an amoral shut-in like Drudge maintains the influence he does on the news cycle while gay-baiting, lying, and flubbing facts to this degree.”
Okay, that’s impolite, but it’s not 100% wrong by any means. Drudge doesn’t get out much and sometimes I’ve wondered about that, too. But then there’s this:
After Scott Brown won the Massachusetts Senate seat, threatening to kill the health care legislation by his presence, Weigel stressed how important it was for reporters to highlight what a terrible candidate his opponent Martha Coakley had been.
“I think pointing out Coakley’s awfulness is vital, because it’s 1) true and 2) unreasonable panic about it is doing more damage to the Democrats,” Weigel wrote.
From what I could tell, Scott Brown ran a better campaign than Martha Coakley. She may have been an awful candidate. But why on earth would Weigel care whether or not Coakley’s loss “is causing unreasonable panic” or that it “is doing more damage to Democrats?” When you hear conservatives complain about how MSM journalists create a narrative, this is how it’s done.
And this complaint of Weigel’s might be most meaningful one of all, but not for the reasons he imagines:
“There’s also the fact that neither the pundits, nor possibly the Republicans, will be punished for their crazy outbursts of racism. Newt Gingrich is an amoral blowhard who resigned in disgrace, and Pat Buchanan is an anti-Semite who was drummed out of the movement by William F. Buckley. Both are now polluting my inbox and TV with their bellowing and minority-bashing. They’re never going to go away or be deprived of their soapboxes,” Weigel wrote.
I don’t know that Newt Gingrich is a racist. Perhaps he is, although I recall his disgrace stemmed from a zipper problem rather than racial animus. But the point about Pat Buchanan is more interesting. Weigel is correct that William F. Buckley ran off Pat Buchanan 20 years ago when it became clear that Buchanan was pretty much straight up anti-Semitic. That move hardly hurt Pat Buchanan’s career at all — he managed to have nearly a decade-long run opposite Michael Kinsley on CNN’s Crossfire program and later ran for President against George W. Bush in 2000. Pat Buchanan hasn’t been part of the mainstream conservative movement for a very long time, but he’s always available to present the “conservative view” in the MSM. Why do you suppose that is?
The larger point is simple — the Washington Post may have claimed that they wanted to cover the conservative movement, but they never really wanted to explain it to their readership, for the same reason that someone like Pat Buchanan can have a long career as a conservative commenter in the MSM long after he is drummed out of polite conservative circles. The Post and most of the MSM prefers that conservatives are forever in caricature, not portrait.
If the Post had really wanted to give their readership a better understanding of conservatives, they could have hired someone like the veteran conservative reporter Byron York, who has had a long and successful career writing for a variety of conservative journals and now writes for the online Washington Examiner. Instead, they hired a young snarkmeister in Dave Weigel, who treated his job as a matter of cultural anthropology, and especially dismissive cultural anthropology, not as journalism. Weigel was giving his audience the Rudyard Kipling “take up the white man’s burden” approach to his reporting. Ed Morrissey used the term “conservatives in the mist” to describe Weigel’s reportage. That’s exactly right.
Take up the White Man’s burden–
Have done with childish days–
The lightly proferred laurel,
The easy, ungrudged praise.
Comes now, to search your manhood
Through all the thankless years
Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom,
The judgment of your peers!
From the Front Lines of the Health Care Mess
There is a provision within the recently passed Health Care Bill that mandates all employer-funded insurance plans allow dependents of employees to be offered coverage up to age 26.
I was recently on the phone with an account manager for a NY-based HMO. HMOs in New York are community-rated. This means they must take on any member that wants the coverage so there is no individual underwriting. Likewise there is no underwriting calculation to determine the premium for different employer groups that participate in the HMO. The premium of a community-rated HMO is determined by the claims cost and demographic make up of every member in that HMO at the time of the renewal.
In this case, all employer groups and individuals in this HMO totaled 800,000 members. The insurance company kept track of the claims and demographics in order to correctly price the HMO for all members.
The insurance carrier rep lets me know that with this new mandate, they plan to increase the rate of their HMO 4.5% based solely on the addition of dependents that are age 26 or younger.
Evil Con: Wait, why is it so high? Our actuaries internally here thought the rates should increase half a percent to 1.5%. Most of the other carriers are around that and the highest we’ve heard is a 2.5% increase.
Company Man: Well you have to understand we’re adding all of this unknown risk to the group.
EC: Unknown risk? Look, I don’t want to get into a fight with you on a Friday afternoon, but you’re getting young people 22-26 to join the pool of 800,000. Yeah, you’re going to have a handful of big ticket items like a few pregnancies, some guy’s living in their mom’s basement that’s been sandbagging an MRI for a shoulder injury they got in a softball league or a pickup game, maybe testicular cancer, but 22-26 year-olds should mostly be physicals and a Z-pack once a year.
CM: Exactly. Our actuaries are assuming some of these people haven’t been covered for a few years…
EC: I get that, but you are getting pristine risk. My point is this isn’t good risk for your pool of 800,000; it is pristine risk. I’m actually surprised some carriers aren’t keeping the rates flat. Dare I say even decreasing the rates when you’re adding tens of thousands of young kids who barely receive medical care at all. It makes no sense that you can add 22-26 year-olds and the rate goes up 4.5%. It should lower the average age in the demographic make up, right?
CM: Well, we don’t think we’re going to get tens of thousands of young people to join the pool because of this legislation. It’s an age range of just a few years, so it shouldn’t be that many new members.
EC: Now you’re arguing against yourself. You’re saying not a lot of new risk is going to join the population, yet this is an excuse to bump the rates up 4.5% when the membership won’t even increase by that amount. And even as membership increases, the members you are getting are in a pristine risk category because they’re so young.
Here’s what you should do: go to your executive management – forget the underwriters and the actuaries, because we can talk about math all day long. Go to upper management and ask them, “Who do you want to insure for medical coverage?”
Who do you guys want to insure if you think adding 22-26 year-olds should increase the rates by four-and-a-half percent? If you’re not interested in insuring young people that probably average a few hundred dollars a year in medical claims, who are you interested in covering? Do you even want to be in this business? It doesn’t seem like it.
This is why this stupid-ass law passed that threatens the entire industry and all of our jobs over the next 5 years and this is why people hate health insurance companies, because carriers are looking for any excuse to increase the rates while accepting awesome risk that should lower rates. And then Wellpoint did the same thing. When the health care bill was on the ropes, the company stupidly decided to kick everyone in the balls with a plus 39%. It makes everyone think you guys don’t want to insure and help people; you just want to make all the money you can.
We had a much nicer chat after that, I swear.
24 Day 8 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM
And now, the end is here, and so we face the final viewer discretion warning. My friends, I’ll say it clear, I’ll state my case, though it may be corny. Regrets, I’ve had a few, but then again, way too many to mention. I did what I had to do and saw it through without exemption. Yes, there were times, I’m sure you knew when I bit off more than I could chew. But through it all, when there was doubt, I ate this show up and spit it out. I faced it all and I stood tall, and wrote it this way.
The end of an era. Fitting that this show should end its long run on the 24th day of the month. First airing in November 2001, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the show’s focus on terrorism quickly became a companion piece to real world events. For me, though, the show’s “ripped from the headlines” topicality wasn’t the draw. For me, it was the hang on to your chair, blast you through the back wall drama the show generated. The first half of Season 1 was some of the best television I’ve ever seen, and it was enough to get me hooked to the point I’m still blasting bits into the ether about it nearly a decade later.
The 24-hour approach gave the show a built-in immediacy. You knew the show wasn’t going to take an episode off mid-season to do a snoozer of an episode while a main character spent an hour in the hospital talking about flowers with a dying friend. You knew you weren’t going to be subjected to a clip show. The show forced itself to fly along. Granted, this approach also carried within it the seeds of its own demise. It’s a Herculean task to devise 24 hours of television where each episode ends in a cliffhanger, and maintaining a brisk narrative pace over a season without some silliness and plot holes the size of Rhode Island. And silliness has abounded at times.
I first started these recaps in Season 4, and I initially intended them to be a more or less straight look at the show. But, with so much mockable material teed up just asking to be thwacked, we, uh, went in another direction. Thanks, all of you, who have joined in the fun over the years.
So, one last time, for old times’ sake…
The recaps are very Meredith-heavy. Meredith is used by Jack to sound the alarm in every Middlesex village and farm. Meredith calls Dahlia to tell her the Russians did it. Logan wants Taylor to muzzle Meredith and steal her lunch money, and evidence. Meredith is seized by the FBI. Cole will talk to Jim while RoboJack shoots up a tunnel and grabs Logan. Novakovich falls on his sword, or a fireplace poker. Suvarov is the PuppetMaster, and Jack hears it.
As we begin, I’m not sure why Jack just doesn’t let the peace deal go through. If this deal, whatever it is, is so important to world peace, doesn’t Jack give any thought to the fact he’s sabotaging it, and what that could mean for world tension and conflict? No, I suppose he doesn’t. Granted, that Taylor’s argument for her actions, but now Jack is responsible for killing the deal.
Cole gets a phone call and he answers by saying “Arlo.” Doesn’t he know who he is? Shouldn’t he answer “Cole?” The real Arlo is worried about stopping a psychotic Jack, and is worried about Jim. Speaking of, Jim is just watching the news. At least until a monitor starts flashing “Security Alert!” Does it do that anytime someone comes anywhere near his door? He must get tired of that thing going off. Cole is skulking around outside the door with his Sneakoscope, and Jim is so flustered he immediately starts to “Initiate Global System Wipe.” Again, does he wipe his computers everytime somebody comes near the door? Jim could come to regret that if it’s just the mailman.
Cole, not being the mailman, blasts his way through the door, only to meet an armed, not all that slim Jim. Cole tries his Persuasion skill (+2 while holding a shotgun) and acknowledges Jack saved Jim’s life in Damascus, but says “If Jack dies today, it’s on you.” This hits Jim where it hurts, and Jim agrees to help find Jack.
Cut to an outside scene. The krazy kaptions say “garbled radio transmission” but we hear nothing. Keep that in mind, we’ll see these mysterious transmissions again, and each time we don’t really hear anything. Chloe is getting out of a car and thanks “Adam.” Keep that name in mind as well.
Agent Burke, a real go-getter Boy Scout, is there to meet Chloe. (There was an Agent Burke back in Season 5. Not sure if it is meant to be the same guy.) The krazy kaptions say “Burke clears throat.” Well, thanks for that, show.
Since Jim wiped the system, Chloe and Cole are worried any copy of the evidence Meredith had is gone. But, Cole says Jack has a copy on him. Chloe wants to buy time to get it, she suggests sequestering Suvarov at the UN. Cole is off again, using the rear-view video camera on his car to reverse quickly. Is that easier than just turning and looking behind him?
Logan calls Taylor, thinking it’s time she knew the whole truth. Logan tells Taylor that Jack doesn’t know what’s really go on, but Taylor now does. That Suvarov is the PuppetMaster, that is. This distresses Taylor. Taylor then wants Suvarov to know that she knows. Pillar schleps Logan off to a waiting car, and the krazy kaptions say “slaps car twice.” This is a car, not a horse, show.
Pillar checks in with Eden, who says Jack was wounded. Pillar suggests they keep an eye out for a wounded Jack. But, Pillar is in luck. He won’t have to look far. Jack is in his back seat! Jack threatens Pillar with the Pavel treatment. Pillar feels the cold hand of fear squeezing his intestines, as he imagines Jack’s hand squeezing his intestines.
At the first break, the 24 clock is at :13 and the wall clock is at :13. Coming back, the clocks are at :17 to :16. Time can only watch helplessly, as this is the End of Days.
Dahlia has a gift for Taylor. It’s an engraving of a quote from Rumi (famous 13th centiry Persian poet) and a pen. Taylor is emotional again. Then Kayla has a moment with Dahlia and they talk about what Meredith said.
Outside now, to a Mobile Command Unit. Once again, the krazy kaptions say “indistinct radio transmissions.” Is someone trying to contact us? Hmmm. Chloe has an idea. She wants to use CTU servers (the ones that survived the EMP, I’m guessing) to give the evidence on the Russians to every media outlet and every government employee.
Pillar’s Tahoe is let through the perimeter. A guard takes a not very careful look in the vehicle, and so fails to see Jack lying in the back seat. He’s bleeding, and the krazy kaptions say “grunting quietly, panting.” Then, out of the car and Jack leans up against a pillar, small p, and asks Pillar, capital P, to suture him up. While Jack has a gun to his head. Pillar asks Jack “Who made you judge and jury?” Jack replies “Taylor, when she became a part of the coverup.” I’m no ethics and legal expert, but I don’t quite think that justifies Jack’s rage-filled murder spree.
Then, Jack gives off vibes of wanting to add Pillar to his list of victims, but Pillar pleads for his life, saying he has a little girl. Perhaps that makes Jack think of Kim and his granddaughter, because he merely clobbers Pillar into oblivion.
At the break, clocks are at :26 to :25. Coming back, clocks are at :30 to :29.
Dahlia’s suspicions are growing, and she wants to talk to Meredith about her accusations. So, Dahlia will go to Taylor and tell Taylor what Dahlia thinks she doesn’t know yet. Dahlia arrives to see Taylor, and Taylor’s thought bubble says “This can’t be good.” Dahlia says she suspects the Russians are behind the day’s mayhem, and Taylor appears shocked. “Where did you hear this?!” She then says “We heard that rumor, but we had nothing to back it up.” Dahlia is miffed she wasn’t looped in, and now she really wants to talk to Meredith. Taylor tries to fob her off by saying we’ll do the best we can, but then Dahlia plays her strongest card. She says she won’t sign the peace deal until she knows more.
In an instant, Taylor drops the brush off act, and blurts out the truth. Dahlia is horrified as she realizes what has been happening. Taylor sniffles “I’m so sorry.” Dahlia, now enraged, bellows “You betrayed me!” There is such strong acting from these two women in the finale here. Wow. Dahlia is all but spitting fire now. “I will not make peace with the Russians, or you.” She will file a formal complaint with the UN. Oh, that’ll scare the US. But, as Dahlia turns to leave, Taylor shows us how far she has fallen. With venom in her voice, she threatens to release evidence of IRK involvement with the attempted nuking of Manhattan, and says she’ll use that as a pretext to bomb the IRK back to the, well, Industrial Age at least. Taylor has become Anakin Skywalker, killing the younglings in the Jedi temple.
At the break, clocks are at :37 to :35. Coming back, clocks are at :41 to :39. Jack wanders through empty halls. The krazy kaptions say “panting.” Again. Jack plants some devices to monitor the outside of the door for him as he ducks into a storage room. One with a straight shot at the UN plaze where the grand ceremony will be. Who thought that wide open space wasn’t a security risk?
Dahla vents to Jahmot, and sees no way out. She’ll take the case to the Hague! Bah. They’re even more toothless than the UN.
CTU realizes Jack is inside the perimeter. How? Facial recognition software has picked him up. Though, it looks like his back. And also, why was some surveillance video looking at the 22nd floor of a building? A sign in the snapshot of Jack says “Cold Can D.” Huh?
Chloe tells Cole she’s going after Jack, and can’t use a comm. She wants 20 minutes, then Cole can send in the cavalry. Cole gives Chloe a pistol for good luck.
In his lair, Jack begins to record a message to… somebody. Kim, I’m assuming. Meanwhile, down below, Suvarov arrives, as Dahlia is an Ice Queen next to Taylor. She avoids eye contact with everybody.
At the break, clocks are at :49 to :47. Coming back, clocks are at :54 to :51.
Again, the krazy kaptions say “garbled radio transmission.” Hello? Hello? Who is this?
The Secretary General of the UN blathers on about a new era of transparency, honesty and trust. Ok, show, we get the irony. You lay it on any thicker and you could build a brick wall out this scene.
Back to the lair. The krazy kaptions say “panting.” Did a pack of dogs get loose in this show? Chloe creeps around, but as she goes through the door to the lair, Jack nabs her. And puts the sleeper hold on her. He helpfully suggests “don’t fight it.” (Besides Chloe, the scoreboard now shows that Jack has used the sleeper hold on Renee, Tony, Curtis, an FBI agent, and a pilot. And that’s just the ones I could find. And I vaguely recall that Jack also said “don’t fight it” to one of those listed, probably Renee, but I don’t recall for sure.)
Jack then sets up his sniper rifle, aimed at the plaza. It’s the Day of the Jack-al!
Logan gets a call, thinking it’s Pillar, but it’s Jack. There’s a big giant crosshair on Logan’s skull. Suddenly Logan looks around all shifty-eyed. Jack says he knows about Suvarov, and Logan pretends to be clueless. But, Jack plays some of the tape for him. Logan knows he is had by the short hairs. A hint of a grin tugs at the corner of Jack’s mouth.
The episode ticks down to :00 and :57.
One hour to go, friends and neighborrs. And no recaps, just straight into it.
Suvarov is speaking, and praises Hassan. Dahlia is about to hurl and bolts at the first opportunity. Suvarov knows that she knows, yet wonders how Taylor “convinced” her to remain part of the deal. Suvarov, the old commie, knows how he would’ve done it, and appears surprised that Taylor would’ve stooped to that level.
Logan calls Suvarov, as Jack told him to, in order to lure him to Logan’s office. Chloe comes around at this point, and says to Jack there is another way, and that the cavalry will be arriving soon. Chloe tries talking some sense into Jack but he only snarls “Shut up, Chloe!” Chloe doesn’t want Jack to start a war in Renee’s name, and this appears to resonate with Jack.
Now, again, the krazy kaptions say “indistinct radio chatter.” Hey! Whoever this is, get off this channel!
Suvarov has arrived at Logan’s office. Logan’s is silent, apparently waiting for Suvarov’s melon to explode. But, Jack merely watches while the krazy kaptions say “panting.” Sigh. Unbeknownst to Logan, Jack has decided to follow Chloe’s plan, and Logan merely babbles that he was mistaken about a leak in the Suvarov camp. Suvarov gives a fabulous look of disgust and leaves. Logan then wants Pillar found.
In the storage room, a very tense scene as Jack has decided that Chloe must shoot him. Chloe refuses, and as Jack puts the gun to his head. Chloe fires. Jack is down. Chloe must have become an expert marksman when we weren’t looking, because the bullet goes clean through Jack. A “shake it off in ten minutes” sort of a wound.
At the break, clocks are at :09 to :09. Coming back, clocks are at :15 to :13.
The krazy kaptions say “garbled radio chatter.” Gaaah! Look, this is a proprietary rant! Leave this channel OPEN!!!
Chloe has the card with Jack’s evidence, but as she is leaving, Burke is insistent that Chloe stay, as Pillar has been found and his on his way. When Pillar arrives, with only a light touch to his head to indicate his skull was hammered, he finds out the card has not been found, but Burke found Pillar’s phone on Jack. And wonders not at all how Jack got it.
Pillar questions Chloe, and then pats her down, looking for the card. He stays away from, er, vital areas where I thought she might have hid it. But no, nothing. Chloe gives him a snippy “Hope you enjoyed it.” When out, we see she hid the card in her phone.
Jack motions for Pillar to come closer, and when he does, Jack channels Mike Tyson (which actually would explain a lot) and bites Pillars ear off. Goodness. Jack is just completely nuts, isn’t he.
Pillar then realizes he’s been duped, and orders Chloe detained. Chloe is trying to get the data uploaded, but Burke stops the upload before it can complete. Chloe tries to enlist Burke in her plot, but Burke merely calls Pillar.
At the break, clocks are at :23 to :21. Coming back, clocks are at :29 to :25.
Logan has the card already, and drops it in Taylor’s lap, thinking they are all safe now. Logan even says he already listened to it, though it’s only been a few minutes since Burke grabbed it. Logan knows though they won’t truly be safe as long as Jack is alive. “He will rise out of the deepest hole in the ground.” So, Logan say he put a plan in motion. Taylor knows what that means, but she is too far gone to stop. Logan says “I’ll take your silence as tacit approval.” Taylor then watches the video. Jack lectures Kim on why this peace is fraudulent, and how politics should work.
Pillar and Logan share a drink, thinking they are in the clear.
Taylor arrives at the signing ceremony to great applause. After some blathering by the SecGen, Suvarov signs first. Dahlia hesitates, but she signs. Then, the twist. Taylor cannot sign. Already over the brink and holding on by her fingernails, Taylor tries to undo what she has done. She says grave crimes have been committed, and she has helped cover them up. Everybody has a “what the…?” expression?
As she storms out, pieces of her sanity flying, she hollers at Tim that Jack is about to be ambushed. Alas, they are too late. The medical transport has been hit, and Jack has been taken. The krazy kaptions say Taylor “groans loudly.”
Pillar is talking to Logan, and is uncomfortable with this. He doesn’t want to add murder to their crimes. (He was plenty comforable with making Dana disappear.) Logan appears to agree, and as Pillar pours another drink, Logan brains him with a thick heavy glass carafe, much like how Hodges killed Doug last season.
Logan, too, has fully gone to the dark side, and he puts a pillow up to Pillar’s head and shoots him. Then, as Taylor is banging on the door, Logan puts the gun under his chin, sighs to the heavens, and pulls the trigger.
At the break, clocks are at :45 to :40. Coming back, clocks are at :51 to :44.
By the miracle of not wanting to kill off a fabulous character, Logan is not actually dead. He may survive, but with brain damage. (How will we tell?) Let that be a lesson for those wishing to shoot themselves in the head. Don’t shoot yourself in the chin.
Tim has had Cole and Chloe released at CTU, and Eden is nabbed, squawking all the way. In one last bit of technomagic, Arlo’s drones have managed to capture the abduction of Jack. In that huge city, a drone just happened to be looking at that exact spot? Riiiigghhhttt.
Anyway, even though the drone lost the van under a bridge, they pick it up again live somehow. The van pulls into a rubbled area. Jack is put on his knees. It is to be an execution.
A graffiti painting on the wall behind Jack says “Abel.” Now, remember earlier Chloe thanked an “Adam.” And Eden was just arrested. What is with the strange, Lostian Genesis references? Is Renee Eve? Is Jack Satan, the one who poisoned Paradise?
The executioner gets too close to Jack, and learns a lesson so many others before him have. Secure Jack’s legs! Jack makes an attempt at escape, but is subdued.
Taylor calls the hitters, and they realize they are on DroneCam. One that is armed with two Hellfire missiles. Taylor threatens to use them. But, wouldn’t that also incinerate Jack?
The hitters pull back, and Taylor talks to Jack. She says she will resign and face the consequences, and so must Jack. However, in one last bit of silliness, she will allow Jack an attempt to flee the country. She says “the Russians will come after you, and so will we.”
Are we supposed to root for Jack, here? He’s gone on a psychotic murder spree, and nearly started a war with Russia by killing their sovereign leader on US soil. (Never mind their Foreign Minister.) I don’t want him to escape, I want him in jail.
Our final scene is a touching one with Chloe. She is weeping as she says her good-byes to Jack. I bet Mary Lynn was crying for real, knowing it was their last scene. Jack wants Chloe to watch out for Kim, and thanks her. Chloe said good luck, and Jack hobbles away, ending his day in typical Jack fashion. Bloodied, battereed, shot, stabbed twice, tortured, and so on…
The operation is over. The day is over. The show is over. The last words? Chloe says “Shut it down.” And so we do.
In a fitting conclusion, instead of ticking up to 4pm, the clock ticks down to zero, because we are out of time. The end of eight very long days.
And that’s the way it is. Good night and have a pleasant tomorrow. Take care of yourself, and each other. Glad we could get together. Good night and good news. Good day. That’s the news, and I am outta here. Good day and may the good news be yours. See you on the radio. Good night and watch out. And so it goes. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Good night and good luck. Stay classy, San Diego. Good night, Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are. Good night, Chet, Good night, David. Bye-bye.
Twenty-five years later…
INT: A HOTEL BALLROOM AT THE 24 HOURS OF CTU FAN CONVENTION
MC: Ok, the 24 storytelling contest will be held in the CHLOE ROOM, starting at 10pm.
Oh, and, episodes will be continually screened on the the 3D projection grids in the MOUNTAINS OF IOWA ROOM. That’s on the basement level, just past the “Presidents of 24″ display.
The panel discussion on “The Geopolitics of 24″ has been cancelled for lack of interest.
“The Dieting Secrets of Louis Lombardi” has generated so much interest it has been moved to a larger room. The EDGAR ROOM is at the far end of the hall to my right. Louis will sign as many books as he can afterwards.
We’ve had reports from other guests in the hotel of being bothered by fans yelling “MOVE! MOVE!” trying to get by in the hallways. Remember, we’re not the only ones here. Please be polite to other guests.
As you know, we were hoping Kiefer Sutherland could join us this year, but unfortunately, his parole did not go through again. Cross fingers for next year!
CUT TO: BALLROOM, some hours later…
A tired soul pushes a broom through heaps of streamers, balloons, plastic cups and crumpled napkins. Half-eaten cake sits on plates amid the wreckage on the tables. A third of the chairs are tipped over. Blinking bleary-eyed fans stumble out into the wan morning light.
A kid around age 16 sees a gray-haired man making his way out of the BALLROOM and approaches.
Kid: Hey, aren’t you that guy who did all those rants during the show’s original run?
Old man: No, kid, not me. You have me confused with someone else.
Kid: Oh, sorry then. Huh. I thought you were the guy who did a reading from those rants at a con a few years back. My dad and I were the only ones there, so I thought you’d remember me. Those were great.
Old man: Well, I’m glad youngsters these days still like the show. It was a good one, wasn’t it?
FADE OUT…
Number of times someone says a variation of “Now!”, “No!”, “Move!” or “Go!”: 180
Number of times a “protocol” or “grid” is mentioned: 27
Number of times a “perimeter” is mentioned: 17
Number of times Jack/someone says “Drop the weapon!”: 16
Number of torture scenes : 8
Number of moles: 5
Final Approximate Body Count: 91, plus one helicopter, plus one thumb, plus one earpiece, plus Farhad (twice), plus Tarin (rescinded), plus Tarin again (this time for real), plus one IRK President, plus a disturbed redhead, plus Taylor’s soul, plus one jacket, plus several mannequins, plus yet another Middle East peace plan
24 Day 8 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM
Viewer discretion is advised because this episode illustrates the dangers when you fail to observe proper fireplace safety.
In the Recaps, Meredith and Jack are one man and one woman alone against the Russians. Pillar and Logan plot. (That’s a verb, not a noun, btw) Chloe and Cole groupthink. The gunfight at the mall. Pavel is hamburger (while the krazy kaptions say “grunts, crunching”… crunching? Did Jack hit corn flakes while fishing around for the SIM card?) And, Jack discovers Logan is hip deep in the conspiracy.
As we begin, an establishing shot of the UN. A White House mouthpiece is saying Kanin is out for health reasons, and then the big announcement that Charles Logan has been a good little helper today. Listening, and basking, is Charles himself. I see he’s decided on a tie.
Suvarov will be arriving soon, as the signing will be going ahead. One thing about all this. If this really is a treaty that Taylor has hammered out, the Senate will still have to ratify it, right?
Logan’s basking is short-lived, though, as Pillar calls with the latest installment of Happy News. They tracked Bauer (how?) to that building across the street, but Jack slipped through the cordon. They found Pavel eviscerated. And we are given a lovely picture of a pile of guts. Thanks, show. Pillar thinks this just might hint in the most nebulous way possible that Jack may be out for blood. Logan essentially replies “Ya think?”
Bauer and Meredith are skulking through an alley. In the background a sign says “scoteca -something-”. Meredith, with great intrepidation, asks Jack “You killed that man, didn’t you?” See, I’m wondering how they got out of that building without passing that pile of hamburger and guts, both of which would be rather clear signs that yes, Jack did in fact kill Pavel.
Jack checks in with Jim on finding Logan. Jim needs to route a backtrace. Meredith asks Jack what he plans to do and Jack says “It doesn’t concern you.” Now, it rather does, doesn’t it, given the baddies are trying to silence and or kill her, too? In fact, Jack asks for Meredith’s phone and then trashes it, and says she can’t go home or to the office. Again, clues that this whole affair very much does concern Meredith.
Logan meets Dahlia, and then asks for some time with Taylor. Since the last few times Logan has talked to Taylor like this, it’s to pass on bad news, Taylor must be groaning inwardly. And soon she is groaning outwardly because, yes, Logan has bad news. A new twist this time, though, just to keep things interesting. A journalist is involved! Logan’s idea is to muzzle the press! Sic the FBI attacks on Meredith and her colleagues and squelch the evidence.
Ya know, Logan has always been a stand-in for Nixon, and here, he’s suggesting one of Nixon’s sins, which was to use the FBI to stonewall the Watergate-related investigations. You’d think Taylor would know better than to get involved with this. But, she goes along. She cries about “new lies for old one” but Logan merely snits “the time for handwringing is past.” Taylor fires back “You’re a poison.” Logan tries to justify himself by saying to Taylor “I may have made arrangements but the decision was yours.” Sounds like a major case of avoidance of responsiblity. This happy scene comes to a close with Logan saying he has to meet Suvarov. Why is he the one meeting the Russian President? Surely there are protocols for this sort of thing, and a visiting foreign leader would not be met by someone who isn’t even officially in the government.
Back at Chloe’s Terrorist Unit, Arlo has tapped into live video feed from Pillar’s team. Umm, how? In any case, they too see the pile of hamburger and guts, and Arlo, sizing up the situation, asks Chloe “You think you can still talk Jack down?” Clearly the handiwork of someone who’s gone way wayyy around the bend.
Arlo and Chloe have also found Jim. He’s an ex-Green Beret, naturally. They always are. And, he’s also dead. Well, at least according to some database. Although, Tony was dead and that didn’t stop him from walking the earth.
Jim has found Logan, and is wary about sending the info to Jack, because it’s a point of no return. But, Jack’s pda gets a message saying “receiving datafile VS764, secret service grid map, vehichle SGb5 route”. Jack knows where Logan will be, and so efforts to be there at the same time. He, I think, carjacks an SUV with bananas in the back. Is he going to stop the motorcade by having them slip on banana peels?
At the first break, the 24 clock is at :13 and the wall clock is at :13. Coming back, the clocks are at :17 to :15. Time is suddenly thrown into a land where dinosaurs roam.
Taylor is popping pills hand over fist. They Call Me Tim is sent in to receive his marching orders from his increasingly unhinged boss. He is to execute Operation Muzzle The Press. He doesn’t understand, and has his head bitten off for daring to question the wisdom of this move.
Jack is in some alley again, a sign that says “Ernst” is visible in the background. He is near a dumpster that has “KIA” written all over it. Appropriate for Jack. He enters some building after talking to what looks like wait staff. I thought maybe Jack was planning to ambush Logan in a hotel or something. I don’t know why Jack wanted this building. He finds some space where there’s a chain link fence. Why is there a fence inside a building? Anyway, he pulls out a mask. Jack will become Darth Vader and Hannibal Lecter and Jason and Louis XIV’s brother all rolled into one.
Novakovich is talking with Logan while Logan is being chauffered around, and Novakovich is quite unhappy that Bauer is still loose, because surely he is somewhere on Jack’s list of targets. Logan says not too worry. However, at this moment Jack, looking like a refugee from a Mad Max movie, starts shooting up the line of vehicles making their way through a tunnel. Logan is a delicious piece of work in this scene, instantly becoming a mewling baby. “That’s Jack Bauer!” “Kill him!”
Jack manages to get a smoke canister into Logan’s vehicle, as the security accompanying Logan is utterly ineffective. Jack even shoots a few of the agents. They manage to hit Jack with a few rounds, but he seems to have the kind of armored vest off of which bullets merely bounce without transferring that tremendous force to Jack. Logan escapes the car to get some air, and Jack nabs him. They escape as Jack guns down an innocent door lock.
At the break, clocks are at :25 to :23. Coming back, clocks are at :29 to :27.
Chloe has found an address for Jim. Pillar is at the tunnel, and no one saw anything. Huh. You’d think someone would’ve seen a masked monster shooting up a motorcade on a city street.
Bauer has Logan in a deserted location, naturally. A city of millions of people and Jack keeps finding the few buildings in the heart of the city that are deserted. The krazy kaptions say “whimpering.” Logan is a basket case by this point, and he talks a mile a minute. He doesn’t exactly hold out as long as Pavel did. He gives Jack as much as he can, what does he get for his helpfulness? The sleeper hold. Also, that wasn’t the first time Logan was on knees as Jack threatened him.
At the end of Season 5, Jack threatened Logan to get him to talk. Jack eventually gave himself up, but only in order to plant a listening device on Logan. Sound familiar? Can we please at least make up a new plot?
Chloe wants to send somebody to talk to Jim. Arlo says “There’s nobody to send.” Chloe says “There’s one.” Hmm, whoever could it be.
At the break, clocks are at :35 to :33. Coming back, clocks are at :39 to :36.
Meredith is talking with her editor again, and the FBI is crawling all over the place. Meredith needs to go to ground.
Eden is a bit witchy with Chloe over releasing Cole, but Chloe says she still has a little power left as acting head of CTU. Cole paces in his cell like a panther, as Chloe comes to let him out. They talk in the Hallway of Subterfuge about what Cole needs to do.
Jack has somehow managed to locate where Novakovich is, and ambushes Ivan down in the car park. Ivan is not a soldier like Pavel, and Ivan divulges their security set up immediately. As a reward for his helpfulness, Ivan is clobbered into unconsiousness. Jack has a funny way of thanking people.
Jack proceeds and immediately guns down the first two people he sees, no questions asked. One of them rises from the dead and manages to stab Jack in the same place where Renee got him. A nice bit of symmetry. But, Jack shakes this off as quickly as he did the first one.
At the break, clocks are at :45 to :42. Coming back, clocks are at :50 to :46.
Cole is packing his arsenal into his car in the little tunnel outside of CTU. There’s is absolutely no sign of the EMP that devastated CTU mere hours ago. Even the floor of this tunnel is shiny and polished again.
Kayla takes a call, and it is Meredith, asking to speak to Dahlia. Kayla is a bit miffed that this blonde hussy would be calling, but Meredith blurts out the Russkie were behind her father’s death. This manages to get the precious princess’s attention. Meredith wants to be called back on that pay phone, at 212-555-0121. If you google that number, it looks like it was used in a CSI NY script. Alas, the FBI has found her. Somehow. We have no idea how, because we’re not told.
Taylor stands at the window, we see both her and her reflection. The two-faced Taylor.
Then, to another bloody crime scene. It’s Novakovich and what’s left of his entourage. Bodies everywhere. Blood everywhere. Novakovich himself has been shiskabobed with a fireplace poker! Gracious. One dedicated servant hears a phone ringing and drags himself to answer it. He takes the phone off of his dead boss. Message for you, sir! He even says “hello?” instead of “heeeellpppppp!” Logan is calling. He asks if Novakovich said anything to Bauer, and the flunky said “I need an ambulance.” Really, Novakovick said that to Bauer? Oh, the flunky is saying that.
Then, for the dramatic conclusion, Logan calls Suvarov. We discover that Suvarov is behind it all. Renee was killed on his orders. Jack is listening in, though, on the previously planted neck bug.
Suvarov’s own journey has been an interesting one. In Season 5 he was more or less a benign fellow, a hapless victim of Logan’s machinations. Then, in Season 6 he was a nutcase, threatening war with the US simply because he was worried about the Chinese having access to some of their secrets. (I didn’t understand it then, either.) Now, he’s the puppetmaster behind a plot to murder Hassan, and possibly detonate a radiological bomb in NY.
It’s getting really hard to care about Jack anymore. He’s become a monster. The assault on Novakovich is pure murder. Especially in killing those around Novakovich. That’s not legal justice. And, shooting up the motorcade in the tunnel is terrorism of the kind Jack used to try and stop. Shooting US agents is inexcusable. What has Jack become? Certainly not a hero, not someone we want to see succeed. How is this any way to end the series, after Jack has several times almost single-handedly saved civilization? Now we only want to see him pay for his savage acts. And how does this generate interest in a much talked about 24 movie? How can Jack possibly be a hero of that movie?
Everyone we ever could’ve possibly cared about is either dead, or has become a moral hazard. Farewell, 24. We’ll remember the glory years, and not this deformed husk you’ve become.
The episode stokes the dying embers as the clocks tick towards :00 and :55.
Number of times someone says a variation of “Now!”, “No!”, “Move!” or “Go!”: 175
Number of times a “protocol” or “grid” is mentioned: 24
Number of times a “perimeter” is mentioned: 15
Number of times Jack/someone says “Drop the weapon!”: 16
Number of torture scenes : 8
Number of moles: 5
Approximate Body Count: 89, plus one helicopter, plus one thumb, plus one earpiece, plus Farhad (twice), plus Tarin (rescinded), plus Tarin again (this time for real), plus one IRK President, plus a disturbed redhead, plus Taylor’s soul, plus one jacket, plus several mannequins
Crony Socialism – It’s Greek to Me
So you’re done with all these surgeries right?
Well, I might want to get my boobs done again. I want them to be bigger. I want them to be H – for Heidi.
- This Girl on The Hills
Reductio ad absurdum (Latin: “reduction to the absurd”) is a form of argument in which a proposition is disproven by following its implications to a logical but absurd consequence.
– Wikipedia
The financial crisis in Greece is the absurd conclusion that a government welfare state can ultimately decline to as a nation moves and invariably accelerates in the direction of collectivism.
From the New York Times on March 12th of this year
…it is still difficult to explain to outsiders why the Greek government has identified at least 580 job categories deemed to be hazardous enough to merit retiring early — at age 50 for women and 55 for men.
Greece’s patchwork system of early retirement has contributed to the out-of-control state spending that has led to Europe’s sovereign debt crisis.
As a consequence of decades of bargains struck between strong unions and weak governments, Greece has promised early retirement to about 700,000 employees, or 14 percent of its work force, giving it an average retirement age of 61, one of the lowest in Europe.
The law includes dangerous jobs like coal mining and bomb disposal. But it also covers radio and television presenters, who are thought to be at risk from the bacteria on their microphones, and musicians playing wind instruments, who must contend with gastric reflux as they puff and blow.
The situation in the United States is different but also painful. The government will face its own fiscal reckoning, analysts say, as 78 million baby boomers begin drawing on Social Security and Medicare programs to support them in retirement. Without some combination of higher taxes, benefit reductions or an increase in the retirement age, both programs will run short of money to make their promised payments within the next few decades. And many American states are woefully behind on funding their pension obligations for public employees.
Those are some pretty sobering thoughts as it relates to governments’ financial obligations for certain groups of citizens. Let’s look at few of the groups mentioned.
Why are hairdressers in this category? Is it because those chemicals are actually dangerous? Or because the work is so physically demanding that someone in their 50’s can’t do it? Not at all.
The government put hairdressers in a protected class because a typical person in that profession probably doesn’t make a lot of money and many of these typical hairdressers are together a natural constituency to vote and continue to vote for collectivism.
This is how collectivism accelerates and penetrates a nation’s social structure. The government is made up of politicians whose incentive is to create and maintain voter constituencies to get them and keep them in power.
The same question can be asked of the radio and television presenters in danger of the bacteria on their microphones. Or is the danger that people that visible might criticize certain policies to become well-known commentators and contrarian thinkers similar to the conservative talk radio hosts in America?
So politicians put them in a protected class in the hope that the presenters would recognize their cushy jobs that will allow them to retire young with a hefty pension. It’s then likely that these highly visible and influential people their position of influence to spout the virtues of the politicians and political party that provides such a generous lifestyle to them. They’ll not only be loyal to the politicians and political party that provides such a generous lifestyle to them.
There has been much deserved criticism over the crony capitalism of the government bailing out these big banks. But this is crony socialism. It’s taking the typical person within a group that can be targeted as a likely constituent and aiming to please those typical people with “generous gifts from the public treasury.”
The government is cozying up to certain groups of people by promising to take care of them and then their children and then their children’s children.
Many of these people are trapped. They are employed by the government – or the private sector heavily regulated by the government – with higher pay and better benefits than if they worked in the modestly regulated private sector. After years or even decades of the complacency of working hard in that one position, they suddenly have no other marketable skills. Their financial destiny is in the hands of the collective.
Our government is trending in a direction that is not much different. Older voters are the most reliable to show up for every election. To answer Lloyd’s comment in a previous post that the so-called free market party was busy fighting the War on Terror, the Republicans signed into law an absurd expansion of Medicare to more comprehensively cover prescription drugs. A more sensible bill to allow health insurance carriers to sell across state lines to help all Americans was not even discussed.
Medicare Part D was nothing more than a band-aid on a finger while costs for working Americans spiraled out of control and left the door open for the Democrats to take a huge step toward shaping America in the image of the European welfare states that are in serious financial trouble.
____________________________________________________________________________________
One related note, it’s so frustrating to watch elections like 2008 when a recession is looming and populism is on the rise. Democrats can make a simple pitch to the voters and promise them the world by saying the government will do all of these things for everyone, while Republicans have to pitch “You gotta do things yourself. The past 10 years you had it pretty good bitching about war and how you lost your triple digit returns when the Nasdaq crashed. Now you have to tighten your belts and we promise to tighten the government’s” to masses of high-speed internet and satellite TV subscribers making less than $50,000 per year.
That’s why Republicans resort to scaring voters with a narrative that James Carville aptly described as “I’m going to protect you from the terrorists in Tehran and the homos in Hollywood.” That’s the Republicans’ emotional pitch – one of safety and comfort with a certain way of life. It works with a majority of voters… when times are good.
The Democrats’ emotional pitch is one of comfort in all facets of your economic life and scaring you that Republicans will take away all of these now ingrained socialist welfare items like Social Security and Medicare that have liabilities in the trillions (see chart on left of NYT article).
In that same interview, Carville suggested the Democrats’ problem in the 2004 Election was “We say, ‘We’re for clean air, better schools, more health care.’ And so there’s a Republican narrative, a story, and there’s a Democratic litany.” Well with an imminent recession and a collapse of the financial system a mere 6 weeks before the voting, that Democratic litany becomes a pretty powerful narrative as the audience projects all of their fears of loss that are happening outside of their control and they side with an entity that is promising to maintain the standard of living the voters can no longer afford.
Strongly recommended reading:
Robert Samuelson (Mandatory every week) and Paul Krugman (yes, Paul Krugman).
Of course, I side with Samuelson as he emphasizes the enormous debt of welfare nations and diminishes the currency exchange ability of Greece prior to the euro, but the takeaway from Krugman’s piece is the importance of a nation to maintain sovereignty over the value of its currency – a very conservative idea.
24 Day 8 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM
Viewer discretion is advised because unspeakable things are done to the human form. Well, ok, they’re mannequins, but mannequins have rights, too.
In the recaps, Jack and Renee kiss and tell and die. Did Renee tell Jack about his unborn baby? Dana talks, balks, then walks. Logan conspires and sics the Russians on Jack. The bank heist runs into some problems. Dana runs in heels. Jack catches up with her, and blammo. Starbuck better hope there’s a Resurrection Ship nearby.
As we begin, Cole is in NYPD custody. Dana’s eyes are closed now. (They were open in her big death scene.) Cole IDs Dana. Cole is to be taken to CTU. Hmm. Cole was part of an op where two cops were assaulted, and one was shot. You’d think NYPD would want to hang on to this guy, rather than risk letting CTU let one of their own go.
Jack views Dana’s evidence on Hulu. Dana must be using the PurseCam, which Lisa used in Season 6 to gather evidence on a Russian agent. You’d think the Russkies would learn to be wary of big handbags sitting on a table pointed at a suspicious angle. Dana and Pavel discuss their evil plot. Hmm, Pavel mentions Dana should focus on the EMP. Wha-huh? She had nothing to do with getting that EMP into CTU. It’s a miracle they got it there at all, with the elaborate plot to get Kayla to drive it there, and arrive just seconds before it exploded.
Jack calls his buddy Jim, as Jack needs Jim’s technowizardry to ID the Russian Dana is talking to in the video.
Pillar whips CTU into shape, giving a tongue lashing to anyone who dares focus on anything other than burying Bauer. Chloe tries to think like Dana. First she has a hankering for white trash psychos, but then wonders why Dana wanted to go to the bank. Pillar is singularly uninterested. Chloe is interested in why Pillar is so uninterested. Pillar refers to Chloe’s “fantasy about a Russian conspiracy.”
Jack has arrived at the JimLair. Jack lays out what is going on, but then Jim refuses to do anything more until Jack tells him “exactly what’s going on.” Which, um, Jack just did. But, Jack then goes on to reveal his whole motivation in this is seeking revenge for Renee’s death. Which always leaves someone clear-headed and thinking rationally. Jim apparently has a death wish, as he signs up for Jack’s little Charles Bronson movie.
Jack enlists someone else to help in his effort to expose the guilty. He calls… Meredith! Haven’t seen her since the first few episodes, when her loins burned for Hassan. The krazy kaptions helpfully say “sets mug down” as Jack takes precedence over coffee. And speaking of coffee, Jack wants to meet at a coffee stand on the 3rd floor of a department store.
Pillar is waiting for Cole in CTU’s Game Show Isolation Booth of Death. Pillar makes a feeble attempt to get Cole to play ball, but Cole knows Pillar is in on the cover-up. So, Pillar plays the “we’re both soldiers” card, saying they just follow orders. He then makes the sort of big swinging unit remark that rarely sounds as tough as it is meant to. He says “You really don’t want to be playing with me.” He then orders Cole to be taken to Holding. Oh, I wonder if he will finally discover the moldering Prady behind the wall.
Wow, CTU already has the call Jack made to Meredith. NSA’s Echelon caught it. Pillar wants Eden to handle investigating the call. Arlo doesn’t think that is necessary, but Pillar shoots him down in flames.
At the first break, the 24 clock is at :13 and the wall clock is at :13. Coming back, the clocks are at :18 to :16. Time stubs its toe on a rock in subspace and falls behind.
Logan and the Russian FM are listening to Jack’s call! He only made the call minutes ago! Anyway. They hear the part about meeting at the mall, and Logan knows what must be done. NYPD will be deployed away from the site. Ya know, back in Season 5, Logan acquiesced to letting Russian terrorists release nerve gas in a shopping mall. It’s a bad bad idea to mix Logan, Russians and shopping malls. As we’ll see, this doesn’t turn out well either.
In CTU, Pillar worries about throwing stones in glass houses, and wants a little privacy. The walls of his office immediately fog up. That’s a neat trick. Chloe has a snoot full of conspiracy, though, and hatches a plot to uncover the cover-up. She enlists Arlo, thereby breaking what you know is my First Rule of Conspiracies. And that is, Pick Your Co-conspirators Well. They will make a mobile hot spot so Arlo can loop the feed in Cole’s cell so Chloe can talk to him. They accomplish this in seconds, probably because Sprint is helping them with product placement.
Chloe approaches Holding, and sends a uniformed guard off to fetch some time cards. He must love being ordered around by a computer geek. Chloe darts in and tells Cole what she’s trying to do. Cole says “there are no good guys here.” That’s pretty astute of you, Cole. He also says, “everyone wants me on their side.” Poor Cole, caught in the middle of large forces he can’t control, forces that are grinding him into exceedingly fine paste.
On Faux News, we hear President Suvarov is coming to New York. Is he still President?
Pavel is at the mall, and Logan, like supervisors everywhere, calls up and wants an update. How about you let the man work, Charles? Logan refers to Jack as a “terrorist,” and says he can do away with Meredith, who is aiding him. He says that like he thinks Pavel will think a “terrorist” is a bad thing.
At the break, clocks are at :26 to :24. Coming back, clocks are at :30 to :28.
Taylor is haggling with Dahlia over nuclear inspections, and forgot primary schools are off the list. If Hezbollah is any guide, I’d want to inspect those schools as well.
Logan interrupts and drags Taylor away to announce the op is underway to reacquire the evidence Taylor didn’t know had been unacquired. Also, Logan wants his role in the day’s events made public knowledge. This being the key part of Operation Rehabilitate Logan’s Reputation. Taylor will have an announcement made by 1pm.
Eden has already tapped into the department store’s video feed. Naturally. There follows several minutes of seeing Meredith, trying to find Jack who is skulking around, staying out of sight of the cameras, then ducking away, etc… Pillar is a pillar of calm, yelling “take him out!” at every turn, as if opening fire in a public retail place won’t attract some attention. We all know stacks of bodies in a mall is the key to covert success.
Jack has a card up his sleeve, though, and it is Jim, who gets a gun pointed at Pavel’s head, neutralizing that threat. The rest of the Russians (how they managed to get that team there before Jack, in the mere minutes they had to prepare, who knows) are ordered to gun down Jack. And so, this covert op becomes distinctly overt as a gunfight erupts. Several mannequins are gunned down in cold, um, styrofoam in the process, along with the Russians. Jack, Jim and Meredith slip away with Pavel dragged along as a prize.
At the break, clocks are at :36 to :34. Coming back, clocks are at :40 to :38.
Logan is sizing up ties, much like he did in this Season 6 episode. Though, no Bible is in sight this time. Logan could probably use a little spiritual comfort, as Pillar calls with the happy news that Bauer escaped with Pavel and the evidence, and there are dead Russians all over the floor of the mall.
Pillar thinks this is the time for Logan to “distance himself” from the mess, but Logan wonders how. “Do I just slink away?” It’s kinda hard to distance yourself from something you created. Logan then says “We have worked too hard” to walk away now. He stresses that “we,” I think a subtle hint to Pillar that his neck is on the chopping block too, so go clean it up.
Pillar thinks Pavel won’t talk, but that he’ll go the mall himself and “remove all traces of the Russians.” It’s that easy? People are gunned down in a mall, and he’ll just make it go poof? The press won’t be all over it?
Arlo has gotten wind of the disaster at the mall. He says he’ll check video feed from 5 minutes before and 5 minutes after the incident, and they’ll run the footage through facial recognition, trying to find who is helping Jack. (The krazy kaptions say they’ll use footage 15 minutes before and after.)
Jack and the gang dart across the street and happen to find some abandoned place. Convenient. He opens Pavel’s bag and finds the sniper rifle. He knows it’s the rifle that killed Renee, though I’m not sure how he knows. Meredith is still trying to pull herself together, with varying degrees of success. She’s done the math, and realized that Jack deliberately called her knowing ears would be listening, and that he put her life in danger. Jack doesn’t really give a flying fig, though. Meredith is just another sack of meat to be used and discarded.
At the break, clocks are at :47 to :45. Coming back, clocks are at :51 to :49. We are given another viewer discretion warning. Combined with the previews from last week, and the fact they felt the need to put another reminder here, I’m sure that the interrogation of Pavel that is about to happen won’t be pretty.
And it isn’t. While Meredith is taken away to view the evidence, Jack approaches Pavel with some pliers. And plies out a piece of Pavel. The krazy kaptions say “yelling in pain.” Then, “Jack yells, blows striking.” Then, as Meredith freaks out, “blows landing in distance.”
At the mall, Pillar orders NYPD to get the heck out of there. CTU is taking over. They go pretty quietly. I don’t know who has jurisdiction, but there are dead people in a NY store. NYPD cops don’t strikes me as soft and timid. You’d think there’d be an unholy argument about NYPD just leaving it all to CTU.
Back at the torture house, Jack starts carving Pavel up with a knife. Then, he squirts something on Pavel. Not sure what it is. Kerosene? Rabbit urine? Pumpkin squeezings? Whatever it is, it causes great pain. So does the blowtorch.
Jack is growing increasingly frustrated, and says “this isn’t working.” He then notices Pavel’s phone, and that the SIM card is missing. He remembers Pavel dropped something on the floor, and realizes Pavel must have swallowed it. Well, Jack is going to get it out, and he isn’t going to wait for nature to do the job for him. He gets the knife and retrieves it, skillfully avoiding this. And, discovers the phone points an accusing finger at Logan. (Is that a normal part of quality assurance for SIM card manufacturers, testing whether the product will survive stomach acid?)
Throughout, I’m amazed Pavel stays standing. With this kind of torture, you’d think he would’ve collapsed long ago.
Let’s stop for a moment, and think about this scene. 24 has always done torture, but it’s usually been in the context of necessity. Lives are on the line, and time is of the essence. Here, no lives are at stake. This is simply a matter of revenge for Jack. The level of violence, too, is almost pornographic. It is so over the top. Why? Is it to show us how far Jack has fallen? Are we supposed to be rooting for him at this point? Because I’m not. Jack has long ago crossed the line, and he continues to race away from it at light speed. There’s no hope of redemption for Jack at this point.
Cole said it well. There are no good guys here. Only Chloe maintains some semblance of nobility. Otherwise, everyone else involved with this mess has dirty hands. It’s an odd way for the show to go out. Rather than celebrating our heroes, and allowing us to feel gratitude one last time for their efforts in thwarting the forces of darkness, we’re horrified by what those who are sworn to serve and protect have become. And if the front line troops are no better than those who threaten us, what hope is there for us?
The episode has blood on its hands as the clocks tick towards :00 and :56.
Number of times someone says a variation of “Now!”, “No!”, “Move!” or “Go!”: 166
Number of times a “protocol” or “grid” is mentioned: 21
Number of times a “perimeter” is mentioned: 14
Number of times Jack/someone says “Drop the weapon!”: 16
Number of torture scenes : 8
Number of moles: 5
Approximate Body Count: 82, plus one helicopter, plus one thumb, plus one earpiece, plus Farhad (twice), plus Tarin (rescinded), plus Tarin again (this time for real), plus one IRK President, plus a disturbed redhead, plus Taylor’s soul, plus one jacket, plus several mannequins
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