‘24’ episode 3: Terrorists have awful sex

1. We’ve been here before: in the fifth season, Jack needs to interrogate Peter Weller (who played RoboCop, so he’s RoboCop here too). RoboCop isn’t home from work yet, but his wife is kind enough to let Jack into the house while he waits. Just a perfectly nice lady who did not know her husband was covertly aiding Russian terrorists.

RoboCop gets home and won’t talk to Jack. Jack puts his pistol on RoboCop’s knee. RoboCop, a hardened bad guy, says, “Do it! I don’t care, Jack! Do it!”

What Happens Next Will Leave You Speechless:

2. I brought that up in order to establish that last night was not the first time Jack Bauer shot innocent people in their legs. This time, he did it because he couldn’t get into the embassy, was Running Out Of Time™, and needed to create a diversion so he could sneak in.

This is the cold, unfeeling calculus of Jack Bauer: like the Terminator, he shoots folks in the legs matter-of-factly, knowing they will live. He knows this just as surely as you know that leaving your faucet on a drip will keep the pipes from freezing; in both cases, the knowledge is just as unremarkable.

That right there is one of the funniest moments in the history of 24. Jack may as well have been yelling WHY ARE YOU HITTING YOURSELF? WHY ARE YOU HITTING YOURSELF? at full throat. It also, at long last, gives me just a little insight into how the hell these two men were brothers:

Jack Bauer, even in his fifties, is a trim, athletic specimen, and a pretty good-lookin’ dude with countless unbelievably attractive ex-lovers. Graem Bauer, who Jack killed in the sixth season, is the bald guy from Dilbert. Jack fights for the safety of the American people; Graem wanted Russian terrorists to deploy nerve gas and kill millions of people. Jack has one of the most recognizable names of any fictional character of the 21st century. Graem, or Graeme, or Ghraeehhehhhehahme, or whatever, is such a Bluetooth-wearing, squatty little shit that the writers of 24 haven’t even bothered to be consistent about how they spell his name.

Finally, last night, it started to make just a little bit of sense, because I am an older brother and I see these things. Jack’s WHY ARE YOU HITTING YOURSELF moment reeks of expertly-deployed older-brother nonsense, and enough of that will break a man down.

[knocks over china set]
MOOOM! MAWWWWM! GRAEM KNOCKED OVER THE CHINA SET
GRAEM KNOCKED OVER THE CHINA SET
MAWWM
MAWWWWWWWWWWM
[shoots Graem in knee]

3. Careful, friends! Carbon monoxide poisoning is the Jack Bauer of household dangers! We follow the terrorist to the terrorist lair, which turns out to be a quaint little countryside cottage (that is 15 minutes from the heart of downtown London). It’s pretty standard terrorist-lair setup, with terrorist computers and terrorists and whatnot.

And there is a fire in the middle of the room.

Like, it’s not in a fireplace. There’s no chimney or anything in sight. It’s basically a campfire, just sitting there on the floor in the middle of the room. I guess they set the fire on purpose? They’re kinda just staring at it while they’re talking. This is every game of The Sims I’ve ever played.

4. Chloe. :(

Chloe entered 24 in the third season as an unlikable computer nerd. Somehow, she usurped Tony Almeida, David Palmer, and everyone else as the only character, aside from Jack, who is un-killable.

In so doing, she’s become a character that might be completely unique in American television. She’s a star character. She is a woman who isn’t necessarily super-attractive or “TV hot.” One would probably expect such a character to fall into the “manic pixie dream girl,“ but she’s basically the opposite: antisocial, grumpy, perpetually annoyed, nearly always frowning. Like Jack, she has never smiled in her life.

Her husband, introduced in earlier seasons, is Morris O’Brien, a guy the writers failed to make interesting despite dumping tons of screen time on him. During Season Six, he was the star of the most meaningless scene of all time: he’s stressed out from working at CTU, goes to a corner store, buys some liquor and a Red Bull, then drinks it. SCENE.

Last night, we learned that Morris and their son were killed by shadowy folks who were trying to off Chloe. She loses a terrorist she’s trailing because she sees a man and his son, and sort of gets lost in heartbreak.

Sigh. The characters in this show are food in the fridge, man. They’re nothing until they’re eaten.

5. Respect for Chloe’s get-up, though.

The hottest, most humid place I have ever been might be Columbia, South Carolina. Pretty sure that any goth scene there is full of people who could withstand every 24 terrorist attack at the same time.

6. President Jerry Gergich.

President Heller’s outright fecklessness is through the roof. His memory loss is progressing to the point at which he should probably resign from office, but when an American drone strike kills British citizens, Heller decides it would be nice to address Parliament.

His chief of staff, knowing this is a horrible idea, does everything he can to talk him out of it. “Nahhhh, it’ll be fine,” Heller says. The British Prime Minister also tries to dissuade him, and Heller quotes Churchill with a self-satisfied grin. He’s the worst. He gets three words into his address before being humiliated by the most yelly, angry assembly of politicians in the world.

Since the show doesn’t really go into it, I will take the liberty of writing a complete history of the Heller Administration.

Day 1: Tells the “I went to a fight ... and a hockey game broke out!” joke in the middle of his Presidential oath, chuckles to himself, tells it again when nobody laughs

Day 13: Signs an executive order that he himself drafted granting 38 million inkjet printers to the CIA

Day 38: Eats too many crumpets, barfs on the Queen

Day 72: Introduces public education reform, declares that “if ya do ya schoolwork and learn about the shapes, ya get a muffin”; nobody knows what this means

Day 108: Misses G8 summit via being hit in the face with a garden hoe

7. The worst sex of all time.

Terrorist Lady has a fairly mousy boyfriend who is having second thoughts about being a terrorist, and is guaranteed to die in brutal fashion at some point. She tries to make him feel better by initiating sex, and he goes along with it, even though he kinda doesn’t look like he wants to.

Since this show unfolds in real time, we know exactly how long it takes for them to get from sitting on the bed, with all their clothes on, to this:

Three minutes, 14 seconds. And holy Hell, he does not look like he had a good time. This is probably the worst sex I’ve ever seen on dramatic television. I wonder what could produce such unhappy sex.

Perhaps it had something to do with HER MOM WATCHING THEM HAVE SEX ON THE SECURITY CAMERA.

And, like, staring and staring and staring. God, guy, I’m really sorry.

Miss the recap for Episodes 1 and 2? Head over here and get caught up.