Chris Craft's Articles

It’s 4:00 am in post-quasiapocalyptic Los Angeles, meaning nobody’s up except for people with shitty jobs, stoners looking for Del Taco, and the cast of 24.  The situation is grim: Cheng’s getting his component fixed, the Russians are pissed, Josh is about to get shipped to China and probably get molested by Papa Bauer, and I have no idea what’s happened on Heroes since January.  Only three things give me hope: Milo is still dead, Nadia’s sticking with the tight black sweater, and Jack Bauer is on the motherfucking case. 

Jack starts the episode in CTU custody, but it’s the kind of custody where they let you call the White House and anyone else you want, so he calls everyone to explain that the plan to give up Josh to Dad Bauer for the component is fucked up.  Karen agrees and with some surprising finesse, gets CTU access and calls Buchanan for his help.  Buchanan is busy watching the FBI pack up his house, so he’s down with whatever.  Buchanan springs Jack, and they’re off to fuck up the exchange.  Doyle, who apparently is not interested in Morris’ opinion on the situation, is hanging out with Josh at the beach.  When he’s informed that he’ll have to face Jack and Buchanan alone, his response is a hilariously unconvincing, “I’ll be fine.”  Do we drink when Doyle says, “Dammit!”?  Yes, yes we do.

At CTU, Marylin is freaking out, Nadia is somehow getting hotter as the day goes on, Chloe falls down a flight of stairs and finds out she’s pregnant, and Milo’s brother Stuart comes by to pick up his body.  I guess he didn’t want all of it, since he didn’t have a mop.

On the beach, Dad’s goons show up by boat, and hand Doyle what is supposed to be the component – and the thing blows up in his face!  Why didn’t they just shoot Doyle?  Who knows.  Jack and Buchanan arrive, but can’t shoot without risking Josh, and he’s spirited away.  Doyle is blind in one or both eyes, leaving the possibility in Day 7 of Doyle rocking an eye patch, which could either look very cool or totally ridiculous. 

Anyway, Josh gets taken to an offshore oil platform, which as we learned in Diamonds are Forever, is a great place for a final shootout.  Knowing that they’re low on time since Powers has promised the Russians he’ll blow the rig up with an airstrike (an odd choice which will leave him with no way of proving that the chip has been recovered), Buchanan and Jack take over with style, commandeering a chopper and heading out to the rig where Dad, Cheng, and their remaining henchmen are hanging out waiting for a Chinese sub.  The Chinese are smart enough to try to use cover as the chopper approaches, but are stupid enough to hide behind barrels that explode (what, they forgot to pirate Doom?), so a few shots from Jack are enough to blow most of these fuckers to hell and roast the left half of Cheng’s face.  Jack goes below to find Josh and kill everyone else.  He’s a little late – Josh, who does not like movies about gladiators, is about to get thrown onto the raft thing again to meet the sub, but he takes a wrench and cracks Dad’s head open and takes his gun.  Dad is incorrect in his theory that Josh will not shoot him, and he is continually reminded of how wrong he was by the gaping hole in his chest for the rest of the show.  Jack talks Josh down, verbally abuses Dad, and with a Matrixy jump onto the chopper’s rope ladder, escapes the exploding rig with Buchanan, Josh, and New Crispy-style Cheng.  War is averted, Powers drops all charges against Karen and Buchanan, etc.

In a quality denouement, Jack jumps off the ladder before shore and runs off into the hills.  Cut to the Heller residence, where Jack sneaks up on Heller, whose body appears to be swelling at the same rate his old Yoda-head is shrinking.  Jack asks a tough but fair question about why the fuck Heller didn’t get him out of China, and I don’t think he ever got an adequate answer.  Jack’s idea is to take Audrey away and start over, and there isn’t much Heller can do except convince Jack that he can’t really give her a good life at this point.  Jack visits Audrey’s bedside, and surprisingly (1) does not get smacked on the head with a lamp by Heller and (2) tells Audrey he loves her and has to let her go.  Jack leaves the house by the wrong exit, winding up on the back porch looking out at the ocean.  Instead of leaping to his death or something, he stands there, fading to black and a silent countdown.  I assume he’s going to just walk the earth, like Kane in Kung Fu.

In the final analysis, it looks at first glance like Jack was putting himself ahead of the country for the first time, but it’s really not the case.  This country was built on guns, tits, and not taking crap from foreigners (it’s right there in the Constitution, check it out sometime, comrade).  It was not built on scheming with the fucking Russians who are too drunk to keep track of their own suitcase nukes and a Chinese guy with an overdeveloped sense of vengeance to hand some kid in a sweater over to a sociopathic pederast.  By interfering with this bullshit plan, Jack was simply getting America’s priorities back into whack.  Jack loves America.  Part of that love means disobeying orders from the idiots in charge, which is ironically the most American thing anyone can do.  I already can’t wait for Day 7.

Best shot of the episode: When Josh gets to the rig, Dad gives a weird look out at the beach for no reason, sort of holding his head like he just sensed something.  Jack looks back with a weird look, too.  It was exactly like the mind-shit that Darth Vader was pulling on Luke in Empire.

Moment of Gravitas: Jack to Heller, on his plan:  “I’ll disappear.  I’m pretty good at that.  If you send someone after us, I’ll kill them.  I’m pretty good at that, too.”  Heller’s Depends were probably full by this point.

Final Proposed Kimeo: Once the dust settles, Mandy exits the Whiskey, visibly pissed that she had no role in the day’s events.  Kim, dressed like she’s just joined the X-Men, pulls up in the 1970 Dodge Challenger that Fillion had in Drive (you cancel Drive, but you’re cool with Foxworthy quizzing people on that fifth grader shit?  fuck you, Fox) and pushes the passenger door open.  Mandy lights and drags a cigarette, and asks, “What time is it?”  Kim’s response: “It’s go time.”  Mandy gets in, and the two head off into the dawn to do god knows what.

Awesome Picture I Didn’t Find Until It Was Too Late: Fayed, in Mortal Kombat mode.

The ep opens with a pretty badass sequence of events at CTU.  You knew the Chinese dudes really hadn’t thought this thing through, considering that they kept walking through shitwater on the way over when they could have avoided it all by walking on the side things, so their demise comes as no shock.  Liu bitch-slaps Nadia and the hostages are verbally abused while Josh gets spirited away to appease Phillip Bauer.  Jack and Nadia organize a prison break, with Jack breaking Liu’s neck and Nadia somehow keeping a guy from shooting her in the face with an M16 until Doyle busts in and shoots the dude.  It was really pretty badass on Nadia’s part.  Think it, if you were sitting on the couch with Nadia, you could probably throw her over the back with one hand, but here she is, handling Chinese mercenary guy?  Cool, yet hot. 

In the meantime, Cheng gets his little mitts on Josh and chats up Papa Bauer, who remains creepy.  When Phillip tells Josh the whole plan is to go to China, Josh has some thinking to do.  On the one hand, he’s set up to be a rich white kid in China, and that can’t be bad from the booty angle.  On the flip side, Papa tells Josh to “keep an open mind”, so he’s got to expect his pee-pee to get wrongfully touched at some point.  Josh makes a break for it in a rooftop chase scene, Cheng is pissed, and Jack gets Cheng in his sights for a moment – but there’s just enough of a pause for Josh to lose his grip on a pipe and for Cheng to magically disappear like he’s the sixth Deadly Venom or something.  Jack rescues Josh (similar to Kim for his ability to get imperiled, dissimilar for obvious reasons) for a brief while.

Washington is still bullshit.  Lennox is exposed to the bad porn that is Lisa Miller vs. Mark Bishop, and is visibly annoyed.  Bishop notes that Lisa is extra cold in the sack, so Lisa smacks him in the face with a wine glass.  After strangling Lisa, Bishop gets taken down by the feds, and he plays ball with the ruse. Unfortunately, the Russians are savvy, and don’t buy Powers’ chicanery, demanding proof that the component is recovered, or else they’ll blow some shit up.  Instead of threatening the Russians with the Lisa sex-tape, Powers calls in the chiefs to explain to him that our supposed central Asian base is probably toast.  Suvarov gives Powers two hours to come up with the component or it’s adios to Tashkent-com.  Meanwhile, Lisa could be brain-damaged due to lack of oxygen to the brain during her recent strangling, which may lead to symptoms such as never changing facial expressions or being unresponsive during sex.  In other words, she’ll be the same.

Anyway, since the Chinese lost Josh, they don’t have shit on Papa Bauer, so he calls Powers to broker the deal, the component for Josh and a ticket out.  Powers is down with it, and Josh is nabbed by Doyle as Jack is restrained.  Division fuckheads take over CTU, but everyone tells Nadia that she’s hot and shouldn’t take shit from anyone.  I agree.

Off-Season Romance Update:  Marylin is clearly setting herself up to be Jack’s off-season disastrous romance, but is this a good call?  Sure, it always seems like a good idea to get back together with an ex after being taken hostage by slicky-boy Asian mercenaries, but has she really thought it through?  If Marylin had used some of her downtime at CTU to check out Jack’s file (Appendix D - The Ladies), she would quickly savvy to the concept that hooking up with this guy is a losing proposition.  The only survivor so far was the spicy desert-cougar from the start of Day 5, and even she’s got to be looking over her gently-freckled shoulder by now.  Marylin should be surfing J-Date before making any final call. 

Major character deathwatch: Mostly, it seems like a no-brainer from the preview, so check YouTube for spoilers here.  However, I don’t think Chloe is going down, it’s too obvious.  Or is it?  Let us know whom you think is going down at craftinvegas@gmail.com!  Or don’t, that’s fine. 

The Chinese shit has hit the fan.  Doyle’s investigation of the Bloomfield copperworks comes up empty, as Cheng has met up with Liu Diamond Phillips and some other extras from Tokyo Drift at yet another abandoned location a few feet from CTU.  Cheng’s plan, for these guys to raid CTU, probably kill some people, and get something, is audacious but not entirely stupid.  CTU has already lost about a thousand dudes so far today, and the rest of them are off following obviously false leads.  So, they bust in through the sewer and take everyone hostage.  Liu’s first demand is to know who’s in charge.  In a last ditch effort to sleep with Nadia, Milo says it’s him.  This was apparently the wrong move, as he is immediately dead, shot to the five-head, and he spends the rest of the show laying on the floor.  Suddenly 24 is Die Hard, with Chinese instead of Germans, and Jack instead of Bruce Willis.  Jack works his way around CTU killing Cheng’s goons (they should have put some of this FPS-style, but still it will definitely do), and temporarily rescues Marylin and a suddenly-emo Josh, who apparently is the target of the whole operation.  More on this in a moment.

But first, can you believe the balls on these Chinese bastards?  And seriously, how pissed off can Cheng Zhi really be about the death of the Chinese consul in Day 4?  It’s not like you’re exactly running short of Chinese dudes to replace the guy.  Wouldn’t you expect that kidnaping/torturing Jack, brainfucking Audrey, and starting a war between America and Russia would be enough?  Not for Cheng, my friend.  He’s basically a Chinese Keyser Soze at this point. 

Washington is, as usual, a festering mess of sex you don’t want to see and other filler.  Lisa goes back to sex up Mark Bishop and create the subterfuge that the Russian component has been destroyed, but is unconvincing, even by her icy, thick-calved, bottom shelf Nicollette Sheridan lizard-woman standards.  She looks to be about a 38A.

Back at CTU, just as Jack shoves Josh into an air duct, he and Marylin are captured and taken to Liu, who threatens to kill Marylin if Josh doesn’t get out of the fucking ducts, because crawling through a bunch of dusty-ass ducts is going to totally mess up Liu’s slick-Asian Fast/Furious vibe.  Josh caves (Jack would have done the same) to save mom, and he’s captured as well.  Everyone’s brain explodes at once as Cheng reveals that it’s not Josh that’s some sort of computer genius to fix the chip . . . but Jack’s dad is!  Papa Bauer has sold out to the Chinese, and he’s got a guy fixing the chip in exchange for Josh.  It’s almost unnecessary to make a joke about this guy wanting to molest Josh, isn’t it?

Actual Kimeo!  At last!  I don't care if it's just a commercial for something else.  She’s hot, she’s imperiled . . . she’s Kim!  Elisha Cuthbert stars in the upcoming “Captivity”, a film in which Kim is chesty and locked in a big glass room that is rapidly filling with sand.  And you’re probably down with it, you sick bastards.

Ethnic stereotype update: Seems like a bit of a stretch that the Chinese can’t find a guy with the “expertise” to make the Russian chip work.  Have they tried every Chinese guy I’ve ever met?  Also, I found the assault on CTU to lack the Chinese’s trademark subtlety, it’s more something I’d expect from Fayed or maybe the Vikings.

Do you have a recommendation for CTU improving their internal security?  Like maybe putting someone on the roof with a five-iron to make sure no terrorists plots occur within 200 yards of the joint?  We want to hear from you.  Ish.  At craftinvegas@gmail.com!

This episode was so good that even Washington was interesting.  Powers takes a call from Russian President Suvarov, who subtly informs him that (1) he knows that the Chinese have the component thing, (2) that we have a military base in Central Asia (what? where?), and (3) that if we don’t fix number (1), he’s going to fucking destroy number (2).  Powers has the right answer, that none of this would have happened if the Russians kept tabs on Boris the Blade, who a few hours ago almost blew up California, but no dice, it’s almost WW3 all over again.  There’s no way the Russians should have known about the Chinese or the component, so Lennox suspects a spy, and pretty much instantly discovers it’s some lobbyist named Mark who gave Lisa Miller a spicy eight-minute bone in the first part of the show!  More great work by the CIA, by the way, who apparently knew this guy was working for the Russians a couple years ago but let it slide.  Go back to leaning on your shovels, assholes.  Later on, Lisa returns to the White House for some very creepy breathing by Powers, now in full-on Senator Roark mode, who calls her on her sexual treason and threatens to throw the icy bitch in an old refrigerator if she doesn’t work with Lennox to un-fuck this whole debacle. 

Cheng Zhi is driving around in the wilderness of Los Angeles County, holding his little component in his hand and talking on the phone.  His computer guy finds out the thing is damaged (Cheng, come on, it’s basically a computer chip which you’ve been holding in your hand while driving in a Humvee over rough terrain – what the hell did you expect?), and it’s useless without someone who can bypass the security code, prompting everyone watching to suddenly be very concerned as to Morris’ whereabouts.  For the love of god, Morris, please get drunk and knock yourself out until this blows over.  Cheng (whom everyone calls “Chang” now) is pissed about the  computer chip, and, from the preview, it looks like the Chinese are very, very serious about finding someone to fix the thing.

The main story at CTU is the rise of Nadia, and it’s about damn time.  Filling out the pants of authority with peppy aplomb, Nadia doesn’t care if the fucking system is overloaded, she doesn’t give a crap about Morris’ personal problems with Chloe, she thinks Karen’s firing of Buchanan was bullshit, and oh, Milo?  When Mike gets here, send him to meet me in medical, bitch.  Nadia’s only mistake is not to immediately trust Jack, who has been brought back to CTU with Audrey and wants to talk to her.  Nadia, come on, the first rule of running CTU is that Jack is always right (rule two, as always, is that you do not talk about Fight Club).  Jack’s locked up while Nadia lets the “doctors” from Division check out Audrey (the prognosis? she’s a mess).  Before Division can force Audrey conscious and probably kill her, Mike springs Jack and Jack rescues Audrey.  I can’t imagine any of CTU’s internal security guys really want to be the first one to find Jack, so he has time to coax some consciousness out of Audrey, who gives up “Bloomfield” as a Cheng-clue.  After a couple of seconds, they find out that Bloomfield is a copper plant, and Audrey’s covered in copper dust, so there ya go.  Nadia shuts down the Division guys and gets kudos from Doyle.  I’m liking CTU with Nadia wearing the pants, except that she’s literally wearing the pants. 

Moment of Gravitas: At the close of the show, Secretary Heller shows up to take Audrey home, but not before dropping by to visit Jack.  After telling Jack to stay away from Audrey forever, Heller puts his forehead on ultra-wrinkle and sneers, “You’re cursed, Jack.  Everyone you touch one way or another ends up dead.”  With gravitas like that, you don’t even have a response... Such as, you know, why are you in a suit at 2:00 am?  Or, where the fuck were you when Audrey was getting her brain fried by Cheng? 

Chloe’s minute: Acceding to my demands for More Nadia, 24 had no choice but to reduce Chloe’s role to about a minute per hour.  This week, Morris makes her cry for telling him how he fucked up by arming nuclear weapons for terrorists last week.  Apparently, for Morris, it’s over.  Weren’t they divorced already?  Well, it’s double-over!  Unless the divorce was during one of Morris’ blackouts, technically, but that’s a stretch.  This paragraph was longer than Chloe’s entire script.