Monday, February 06, 2017

24: LEGACY 1:00 p.m. - 2:00 p.m. Quick Review

After years of going silent, here we are, two days in a row with 24 posts. Last night and tonight have been different viewing experiences for me from years past. I used to sit with my laptop while watching the show and type out my thoughts as the episode played. Doing so, I spent more time looking at the computer that watching the episode, and I think I denied myself a normal viewing experience. This go-around, I'm just watching the show, no notes, no thought about how I'm going to recap the episode. In that sense, I might be enjoying this season more than the previous 2. It might also be because 24: LEGACY has all-new characters. For whatever reason, the show is clicking for me, I hope it is doing the same for you.

Okay, let's see what I remember...

Hobo hobo hobo hobo hobo chameleon, you call my phone, you call my phooone!
Grimes, the hobo with the thumb drive (holding all of the sleeper terrorists' names), calls Carter and says "Pay me TWO MILLION DOLLARS!" He may have done that pinky thing, I don't know, everything with Grimes is covered in dirt and heroin. I liked how Grimes explained to Carter "I'd ask for more, but I can't carry more than $2 million." Whatever your vocation, I respect a person who thinks through a situation. Grimes is angry at the US of A for letting him become a heroin addict while serving in Afghanistan. Okay, I'm done respecting this guy. Next, he'll blame the sun for making him like Taylor Swift.  This path is reckless, Grimes, so shake it off.

Carter tells Rebecca Ingram and her tech support guy about Grimes' pinky demand but they all agree that they can't go through official channels to get the money because that will tip off the mole to Grimes having the thumb drive. Yeah, they still don't know who's mole-ing it up in the government, but Ingram and the new CTU boss (who's zip-tied and pissed) chat more civilly about how much Ingram is in trouble.

Sidebar: if this hasn't already been done in real life, why doesn't law enforcement have really convincing, counterfeit bags of money at the ready for ransom situations? Put a few real bills on the top of each stack and fool the bad guys! Grimes doesn't look too sharp, this would totally work. Well, in 24-land, they don't have me there advising them, so Carter has to find the money within the hour from less official sources.

Carter calls his drug-dealing brother, Isaac, and casually asks "Hey how's my wife, what's the score of the Nationals game and of yeah, can I have $2 million?" Isaac doesn't have the money since his small business has been going through a bit of a recession. Jokingly(?), Isaac mentions to Carter that the police took possession of $4.2 million in a recent drug bust. Now, this is where Carter becomes an official 24-hero.  Instead of doing something intelligent, Carter decides that he should steal the money from the police station's evidence locker. Jack Bauer would approve of Carter's idea. Everyone else on Earth knows that this is a terrible plan, but that's why 24 is 24- we celebrate the craziest, most audacious schemes from our star. If we were offered a chance to watch a show called "Smart Person Makes Smart Decisions," we'd fall asleep within minutes. You go and break into that police station, Carter. Show us your crazy side!

Now, let's pause to acknowledge a couple of subplots because they cannot be ignored. There's a Degrassi High meets Homeland thing happening with a Chechen teenage girl and her Chemistry teacher, who (like Grimes) blames the world for his own problems. Chemistry Teach likes teenage girls too damn much. Chechen girl has seized upon this to employ the teacher's help in building a bomb made of chemistry knowledge. Yes, the Chechen kid is one of the many sleeper agents waiting for the boss to call with the go signal. For reasons we shouldn't bother trying to determine, the Chechen also had a fling with a true-blue American classmate- I'll call him Trevor since I don't remember the character's actual name. Trev is totally bummed that the Chechen broke up with him, but when he took a peek at her text messages, he discovered a lot of talk about blowing up the school. Luckily for the school's sake, Trev went to a teacher and dropped a dime on the Chechen. Oh, but he went to the only teacher who's sleeping with the Chechen- that's right, Chemistry Teach. Woops. Trev walks in on the Chechen and Chemistry Teach fooling around and before he can say "I'm gonna turn you both in!" he gets killed by having his head hit the floor. Trev's skull was made of paper mache. Adios, fella.
I know, I can't believe I haven't been on this show yet either!

Also, of note is that Senator Jimmy Smits' dad is Gerald McCraney! Don't worry, I know what you're thinking- they explain that Jimmy Smits' mom was the Latina in the family, as McCraney lovingly tells Smits "I hated when your mom spoke that dumbass language around my house." Ah, memories, rest in peace, mama. Anyway, Major Dad tells Smits that his closest advisor, a Muslim woman, is probably a terrorist and that "You can't win the White House, son, if you have a person that chants 'Death to America' on your team." Well, that's a pretty good point! Smits nods and you know he's going to ignore this sage advice from Major Dad. A few minutes later, Smits pulls his terrorist aide aside and asks "Are you a terrorist?" The terrorist says "No, I was at that mosque telling people 'Stop with the terrorism!' because that's young, unmarried females do with militants jihadists." Smits is convinced and BEGS the terrorist to stay on his team. She reluctantly agrees, and they smile and walk back to the party.

Meanwhile, Carter uses his skin color to get arrested by an all-too-eager old-timer beat cop. As the old man roughs up Carter, the younger cop says to his partner "Hey, that's not nice, be less of a jerk." Carter gets the drop on the two officers and has them escort Carter to the police station to steal the money. Everything's going relatively well inside the station until some lion of a man, Agent Locke, shows up at CTU like Russell Crowe arriving at a breakfast buffet. Agent Locke figures out that the CTU boss is MIA (thanks to the persistent snitch, Edgar Stiles cousin) so he springs the boss free and they all march to Ingram and her Mac Boy and shut down the operation- but not before they learn that Senator Smits' aide, the terrorist, IS A TERRORIST! Don't argue with Major Dad, people. Anyway, Carter is without help to escape the police station, and that leaves us with a great set-up for next week's episode.
Hi, I'm a terrorist, no one seems to care about this fact.

2 comments:

Granny Annie said...

I won't read this now. Will wait until I watch 1 and 2 on Saturday.

Granny Annie said...

Your reviews have had me laughing both times. Thanks for coming back with this. Glad you still have Clementine. I do still have my dog Slim and then I got a new pup Frankie, another Black Mouth Cur.

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