Chris Craft's Articles

CTU goes all soap-opera this hour, with unfortunate results for everyone who respects Nadia as much as I do.  At the office next door to CTU where the drone pilot was hanging out, Ricky’s friend from Division, Johnson, finds a chip that proves the Russians hacked into CTU without inside help, clearing Nadia.  Johnson is trying to set Ricky up for failure, thinking that he’ll bury it to save his ass after going all KKK and sort of strangling her.  Back at CTU, Johnson tells Milo about the chip, prompting Milo to try to kick Ricky’s ass with his arm in a sling (sure, ok), but it turns out Ricky isn’t a dick after all.  He gave the chip to Morris to check it out, and Nadia is cleared and released by Buchanan.  Nadia stays on the job, but tells Milo it ain’t happening, prompting Milo to slam her against the wall and roughly kiss her as only an extra-chromosome-having shoe-bomber-looking dago computer dork can.  I was hoping that the whole Milo-Nadia thing was going to fizzle out once he didn’t defend her from charges of treason, but here we are.  Welcome to hell, where Nadia will now spend every moment on screen getting groped by greasy Frankenstein.

Washington isn’t much better off.  Karen Hayes cons Sandra into ordering the doctor to bring Wayne out of his coma, probably killing him.  Powers Boothe, walking out on Lennox as he chirps out damage estimates for World War III, finds out about Palmer and threatens the doctor, who apparently didn’t see Sin City and tells him to go to hell. 

The big deal this show is the usual matchup, Jack vs. the incompetent Russians.  Gredenko’s under pressure to get his shit together, since Fayed is getting tired of nobody dying, so he calls up this guy who also lives about a block from CTU and appears to be making breakfast for his autistic brother.  The guy (Hauser?  Don’t sweat it, he’s gone after this hour) is a security guy for a nuclear power plant, so Gredenko coerces him into getting security codes.  Naturally, it’s the Rain Man brother that’s going to hack the system and get the codes, because all autistic people have super math powers (this is not true – some of them have awesome three point shot skills).  Chloe finds out about the call from Gredenko about three seconds after they hang up, and Jack is there after the commercial.  Jack and the CTU guys (Christ, how many tac teams do they have?  Didn’t they lose about a hundred dudes this morning?) bust in and shoot the guy.  The guy initially refuses to help Jack find Gredenko, but quickly caves and dupes Gredenko into swinging by the house to pick up the codes from his brother.  Unbelievably, Gredenko actually shows up, and CTU takes him down with a tranq dart to the jugular.  Even Jack must have been shocked that this plan worked.  Knowing who Jack is, Gredenko smartly offers to help him find Fayed, and also plays the ultimate 24-cliche: he wants amnesty and a promise that he won’t get shipped back to Russia, where it’s cold and there isn’t shit on TV.

So if you’re putting together a bracket of evil people that hate America, who’s your one-seed?  Russia is kind of like Duke: a perennial evil-empire one seed that is suddenly vulnerable and sloppy, you can’t put them higher than a 4.  The Arabs?  Nah, they’re dangerous, but so inconsistent.  9/11 was kind of like West Virginia almost getting into the Final Four in 2005, a huge deal that shocked everyone, but no terrorist attacks in the US since (in this analogy, Pittsnogle would be bin Laden: scary dude with a beard, you haven’t heard from him in a while, but you know he’s out there in the mountains somewhere).  So who’s the one?  That’s right, China, who shows up now and then to mess with Jack and then vanishes into the darkness.  They’re not a threat to take the whole thing, but they’re always right up there.  Like what, UNC I guess.  You haven’t heard the last of the Chinese this season, just you wait. 

Back at Washington, Powers Boothe gives the order to nuke a random Middle East nation, but Wayne miraculously awakens and tells the sub to stand down.  Powers’ response is to decide that there are still a few square inches of the Constitution he hasn’t wiped his ass with and demands to talk to the Attorney General about having Wayne declared incompetent to serve as President.  I swear, if Boothe was black, the establishment would have 25th amendmented his drunk ass out of there by now.  So not cool.

CONTEST!  I’m running out of insulting names for Milo, despite the fact that this whole hooking up with Nadia thing has prompted me to hate him more than ever.  Whoever comes up with the best insult for Milo, I’ll buy some random “24" crap on eBay and ship it to you.  Dead serious.  Submit your best stuff below or at craftinvegas@gmail.com!

The after-dinner hour starts with a heapin’ helping of panicky-terrorist time in the Mojave, as Gredenko freaks out about CTU finding out where he is, and Fayed promptly calls him a pussy and a fuckup as only Fayed can.  The one nuke they managed to load onto a drone and arm gets launched, and they unload the other two back into suitcases and bolt.  Gredenko’s stooge occupies himself with guiding the drone by remote and calling Gredenko every couple minutes to kiss his ass and make him feel better about the whole Fayed thing.

The big deal is back at CTU, where Marylin hits on Jack and informs him that Audrey Raines was in China trying to spring him, but she “died” in a “car wreck”.  Nobody told Jack, so he puts on a white halter-top and reads her death-file, complete with a charred passport and a picture of a hand. No, I don’t think she’s dead.  Somehow, Audrey is coming back.

Audrey

Marylin

Government employee

Heiress to the Bauer fortune

Can relate to fighting terrorism thing

Mostly rich housewife bullshit

No kids.

One kid, might be Jack's.

Dead, Jack pretty much responsible.

Dead, Jack pretty much responsible.

So down with "24".

Might prefer "Heroes".

Not as hot as Marylin.

Hotter than Audrey.

So, based on the above factors, Marylin’s the right choice, because she’s hotter. 

Meanwhile, Sandra Palmer has teleported to the badunkadunker and spends the whole hour staring at Wayne, who is comatose with a mildly swollen brain.  Powers Boothe is pretty intent on nuking something, which means we get to watch Karen Fucking Hayes and Lennox boringly argue reason to him for about half the show.  I saw Tombstone, man, it’s not going to work. 

Back at CTU, Chloe finds out that someone is leaking info to the Russians so they can steer the drone around the satellite coverage and not get shot down.  The investigation is quick: about one second for Ricky Hitler to accuse Nadia of being a mole, and another three seconds for Chloe to find out he’s right.  Of course, it will eventually turn out that it’s not Nadia (her only crime is wearing pants instead of a skirt this episode), teaching us all a lesson about racial profiling, but for now Nadia is tied to a chair and generally manhandled by Ricky, who apparently has some Denver-related sadism in his past.

Anyway, CTU lucks out. Morris traces the leak from Nadia’s station to Gredenko’s associate’s location: an apparently unlocked and unguarded office next door to CTU.  This is like getting drunk and parking your car on the sidewalk in front of a police station.  Jack, in full-on wanting to kill somebody mode, joins Ricky and the team to walk over and take down the joint, which proves pretty easy.  Jack shoots three dudes in about five seconds and starts steering the drone away from its intended target, San Francisco.  The drone doesn’t get close enough for the nuke to go off (they had a GPS on it, it’s complicated), and Jack lands it on a dock, causing the bomb to bust open and irradiate the area.  Local firefighters show up, smart enough to get out of the truck with a Geiger counter, but not smart enough to wear something which might protect them from radiation, so they’re probably dead.   Karen and Lennox tell Powers that this is not so bad, but Powers decides to nuke Fayed’s home country anyway, predicting a death toll of 2000 people or so.  Dear God please tell me the nuclear button has a drunk-driver breathalizer thing hooked up to it.   Anyway, a nuclear sub will be ready to launch and start WWIII right about when next hour ends.

Next week, Karen looks like she convinces Sandra to give permission to Wayne’s doctor to wake him up so he can fire Powers or something, probably killing Wayne in the process.

Lamest spat of the week:  Karen and Lennox face off in the bunker, it's intense:
Karen:  "What happened to you, did you fall down a flight of stairs?"
Lennox:  "I tripped over your ineptitude."
What the hell is that supposed to mean?  Whatever, you both suck.

Major character deathwatch:  Gotta be the President, and not just because of the brain thing.  Looks like a dangerous show to be on in general if you're black.  If they don't knock this off soon, they won't be able to get anyone black to be on the show next season, just like they can't find any Arabs this year.  Then again, they might not care, especially if the entirety of Day 7 is Jack killing Chinese people in bloody kickass revenge.

The shit is going down, and down hard, at the Russian consulate.  None too pleased at Jack giving him non-elective Ronnie Lott surgery, Markov gets his pinky taped and orders Jack to be killed.  However, he’s employed an idiot to do it, Vasily something, who decides to ask permission before pulling the trigger, just enough of a delay for Jack to Indy-style whip his belt around the guy’s wrist and shoot him dead.   So, Jack’s on the loose, taking suckas hostage and demanding to use the phone. 

The other main storyline is Logan visiting Martha to get her to call the Russian president’s wife.  Martha is in an asylum and apparently hooked up with Agent Pierce, who has lost fifty pounds, is hooked up with some off-Saks gear, but still looks like shit.  After about thirty seconds of awkwardness and crazy-style chopping up of kiwis, Martha drops the awkward bomb and stabs Logan in the collarbone.  Unless Logan’s plan was to bleed to death on a couch covered in healthful snacks, I think it’s fair to say he failed, bad.  Another few minutes go by before Martha calls the Russian president’s wife, and this, combined with Markov’s grimacing defiance,  convinces the Russian president to agree to allow CTU to kill everyone at the consulate.               

Basically, the Russians are a joke at this point.  What happened to these guys?  Remember when the Soviets were scary as hell?  Sure, there was a period between World War II and the wall coming down that their main job apparently was to get James Bond laid, but there was a time when fucking with the Kremlin meant your brother’s head was getting shipped to your house with a nasty note stapled to it.  Watching this debacle, however, what with Boris the Blade drinking all day in an airplane graveyard in the desert (homeless dudes have more on their plate) and the consulate staff being unable to contain an unconscious guy, not to mention the Russian premier or whatever handing the consulate over to Silver Spoons on a tip from the institutionalized ex-wife of a guy who’s main job was to almost cause nerve gas to be dumped on Moscow, it’s just pathetic.  Russia is no more a playa than the NHL is a major sport: both are slow, boring, involve ice, and you don’t even know what channel they’re on.

Back at CTU, Ricky Schroder is in from Fort Bragg to kick ass and/or take names.  Bragg’s an army base, which narrows Ricky’s job down to either being a stoned cook that vandalized my car or a Delta-force psychopath.  Given his haircut and his propensity for choking Morris for back-talk, I’m going with the latter.  Anyway, Ricky figures out how to take down the consulate, again, not too tough a task when you can basically roll thirty dudes up to the back wall of the joint undetected.  As Logan flatlines, Ricky busts in and many Russians eat cold death sucka.

At the bunker, Powers Boothe bullies Lennox into framing Assad in order to assist him in his plot to nuke the Middle East.  Whatever. 

Big problems for next week as Boris has met with Fayed, and the first drone is launched.  What’s the target?  Probably not anywhere near the Russian consulate, since everyone in on the plot is pretty comfy there and not making excuses to skip out early or anything.  Come to think of it, it’s probably a good place to wait this thing out. 

Straight from the headlines:   Actors Chad “Hilary Swank Dumped Me” Lowe and Fisher “Michelle Pfeiffer Was Clearly Out Of My League” Stevens, along with Rob “I Still Have a Career” Morrow, drifted off-course during a charity ski event over the weekend and had to be rescued by a ski patrol, and it made the fucking news.  I cannot imagine a lamer ski trip crew.  

Proposed Kimeo: Assuming the worst after the destruction of Valencia, Kim

could have escaped to the hills with Patrick Swayze to form a band of guerrilla high-school kids like in “Red Dawn”, complete with Swayze wasting C. Thomas Howell and Kim wearing an utterly impractical camouflage outfit that leaves little to the imagination.

Question of the week:  What the hell is Ricky Schroder doing here?  Is he going to kick ass or be a typical government douche?   Is he qualifed to say DAMMIT CHLOE, or should he go back to breakin' with Alfonso?  Submit your awesome predictions here or at craftinvegas@gmail.com!

What 24 frickin’ needs is to get the focus back on Jack.  Too much of this season has been burned up on Morris drinking, McCarthy talking on the phone with Fayed, and the President getting betrayed by a bunch of white dorks I can’t believe he ever hired in the first place.  Even Jack’s time has been watered down with all his family drama and post-traumatic stress disorder from having his hand fried and lightly gingered by the Chinese for the last couple years.  If you’re playing a drinking game involving Jack kicking ass or saying “Dammit!”, you probably walked into this episode alarmingly sober. 

So, does 24 get back on the kickass track this week?  Oh, yes, I would say so, my friend.  Logan takes Jack to the Russian consulate and talks tough-ish to Markov, the same guy that was ready to hand Gondor over to the forces of evil in Lord of the Rings.  Markov tells Logan he doesn’t know where Gredenko is, Logan doesn’t buy it, and Jack decides to bust in the joint and slap a bitch.  Luckily, the consulate has roughly the same security as my back yard, so Jack is able to get in (armed only with a very, very weak Russian accent . . . oh, and a gun) and cut Markov’s finger off with a cigar-snipper thing, causing everyone watching to immediately kill their drinks.  Markov confesses and gives up Gredenko’s location as well as the fact that Gredenko is delivering the nukes for Fayed via remote control model airplanes, but Jack gets captured by the Russians before he can do anything else. 

Back at democracy’s most pimped-out basement, President Palmer is knocked out, probably done for the day with shrapnel in his neck.  Powers “I Got Shot By Wyatt Earp In Tombstone” Boothe, the VP, takes over and gets everyone back on the fascist track.  About a quarter of the episode is people asking Chad God Damn Lowe where Lennox is, including the warden from Shawshank.  The best part of the show, except of course for Jack disfingering Denethor, is Lennox playing it cool with Chad Lowe and the other white guy, convincing them that he’s game with the assassination, then turning sides almost immediately and having them arrested by the secret service.  I guess late balls is better than no balls at all.  Hopefully we’re done with Chad.  Later on, Lennox is disbelieved by the SS and bullied by Boothe, who might as well have a fifth of Ketel on a chain around his neck at this point.  Boothe fixes Hardigan’s bum ticker and announces to the country that the Constitution is fixing to be smoked by two-year-olds on the Today show and that American Muslims are about to get a whole lot of recta searched.  The only lesson here is to not involve Chad Lowe in a conspiracy, even if the conspiracy is to drink beer, watch television, draw oxygen, broadcast a television show, whatever. 

Karen Hayes is returning to Washington for some reason.  Everyone who cares kills their drinks and flips over to “Murder She Wrote” on WGN.

At the consulate, Markov stupidly decides to have Jack guarded by a guy who knows Markov is involved with Gredenko.  Jack tells the guard what’s up, and surprisingly the guard’s about to call CTU to give up Markov and Gredenko, but he fucks up and gets shot dead by another Russian guy.  CTU apparently is ready to drop the hammer on the Russians, and Powers Boothe is probably down with it.  He’s an asshole, sure, but he sure as shit isn’t taking any crap from the Russians.  This consulate (is this like an embassy?) is going down.

Proposed Kimeo: At the 5:15 break, the screen splits into three shots, one of Jack, one of a gratuitously grimacing Markov, and a big one of Air Force One.  Why not split it into four shots, including one of Kim, drunk in sunglasses and a bikini top, noisily snarfing oysters at the Bellagio?  No reason this shouldn’t be in there. 

This week’s pressing question: Would you still watch 24 if instead of Jack, it was Marisol Nichols cruising around in a little outfit stabbing suckas in the kneecap and shit to find out who they’re working for?  Just curious.  I’d watch the hell out of that.  Any proposed outfits or torture methods to be worn/used by Nadia are welcome at craftinvegas@gmail.com!