‘24’ episodes 1 and 2: Jack Bauer is 56 years old, and is gonna kill all y’all nerds

1. Jack Bauer is the James Bond for the folks who listen to AM radio and eat inside the Burger King. At this point, Kiefer Sutherland has played Bauer for 14 years, which is longer than Sean Connery or Roger Moore can say of their work as Bond. We can’t really tell the story of 21st-century Americana without him.

He’s only James Bond in that way, though, because Jack Bauer has never found anything funny or sat down for a drink. (At one occasion, in Season 5, we very briefly see him eat some bacon and eggs. This is the only time he eats anything.) He’s more like ... I don’t know, a Charles Bronson who cares way more.

Like Bronson in the Death Wish era, he is pretty dang old: his actor, Sutherland, is 48 years old. Bauer is even older. In the show’s universe, the year is actually roughly 2022. It might even be a little later than that, actually. Point being, Jack Bauer is at least 56 years old. And this is why, when we check in on him for the first time in four years, this is what he’s doing.

Just nappin’ in an abandoned building in London. This is a show about not sleeping as much as it’s about counter-terrorism. For the first time -- apart from a moment in Season One when he briefly nods off, and excluding all the times he’s been knocked out by the butt of a pistol -- he’s sleeping.

Come on, dude. You can’t get away with that, and you REALLY can’t get away with that in the opening scene of a show that, unlike any other show, explicitly notes what time it is. Dude, it’s 11:09 in the morning.

2. Jack Bauer loves that hoodie. It’s kind of adorable. Note above that he sleeps with the hoodie pulled over his head. When the CIA finds him and chases him through said abandoned warehouse, he and the hood are inseparable.

That’s nine un-edited seconds from the scene. He’s pulled down the hoodie. He’s shot at, he takes cover, and THERE’S THE HOODIE AGAIN. Jack, are you trying to conceal your identity? I doubt the CIA is gonna go shoot up a warehouse on foreign soil to apprehend some rando for loitering and petty trespassing; they usually just issue a citation for that. Think they know it’s you, pal.

3. Again with every intelligence agency office looking like it was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

It seems to me that if you’re building an intelligence agency’s office, there would be a special imperative not to make it so you can see through all the walls. And y’all know that’s gonna break, right? In nearly every single season, CTU came under direct attack and lots of people died. It’s like the Simpsons chalkboard. It’s just gonna happen. (It does happen, only 40 minutes into this first episode.)

The only intel office in the 24 universe not to look all artsy-poopsy is the Washington, D.C. office in Season 7. It was all bleak fluorescent lighting and cubicles, and if that isn’t a dig on D.C.‘s relative squareness, I don’t know what is. 24 spent one season in the capitol, and it got the hell out.

4. The President was born in 1440.

When James Heller first appeared on 24, his actor was 66 years old. In the show universe, we’re roughly 15 years later, which would put the President at around 81.

I think this is 24’s way of going normcore. They’ve already had two black Presidents and a lady President. I’d suggest they go with a gay President next, because it’s the year 2022 and they could sell that, but to my recollection, there have only been two gay characters across the show’s entire run:

a) A hyper-sexualized evil lesbian terrorist who makes out with ladies for the benefit of male gaze, and
b) James Heller’s son. Heller and the government suspected he met with terrorists, so he subjected his own kid to torture techniques that left him thrashing and screaming and in misery. Later, it was revealed that he didn’t know they were terrorists, and wouldn’t talk because it was a sexual encounter with another man. When Heller finds this out, he scolds him: “What’s the big deal? You should’ve told us.”

Yep, Heller -- and, by extension, the show and its writers -- just shake their head ruefully at a gay man who won’t come out in this neocon rightist universe they’ve created. I don’t think anyone who writes this show has ever met a gay person.

Anyway, Heller’s a shit. He’s like if Pat Buchanan never found God.

5. Internet cafes are probably the best cafes.

Remember, in the 24 universe, it is the year 2022. This is one of the most tech-forward agencies in the world. They are calling them “Internet cafes.”

6. Y’all, we don’t really need all this continuity.

Please note that on Jack’s file screen (which looks like a player bio in Madden 06), there is a file for “children” and a file for “brother.” In the future, nobody has more than one brother.

Graeme Bauer is a callback to Season Six. It turned out that the mastermind of an Illuminati-esque shadow organization who wanted to destroy the world, and who was little and bald and mousey and looked absolutely nothing like Jack Bauer, was just coincidentally Jack Bauer’s brother.

Season Six really might have been the stupidest season of any show in the history of American television. This is only one of several callbacks to that trash fire of a season in last night’s episodes. In fact, it’s like part of the point of Season Nine is to retroactively tie up that season. No need, y’all, really. You’re like a five-year-old who just knocked over a jar of spaghetti sauce at the grocery store. Honey, no, don’t clean it up. You’ll cut yourself.

7. The U.S. government keeps ‘high score’ screens.

Bauer got all those on a single quarter, too. Should’ve typed in “ASS” for every one. Would’ve been funny.

8. A WOOD AND WROUGHT-IRON DOOR ARE YOU SHITTIN ME

That’s the door to an interrogation room in the CIA office, which is supposed to be the very most secure room in the entire building. You know, the building with the plasma screens and fashion-forward lighting and glass walls? I think the set builders just put in a request for “LONDON STUFF.” This show’s interpretation of “LONDON STUFF” is just castles and dungeons and shit.

Also, we almost got through two entire hours of this show without a single line of dialogue in a British accent. THIS SHOW IS IN LONDON

9. Jack Bauer lacks a healthy social life.

His wife’s dead, his girlfriend’s dead, his other girlfriend was so traumatized by torture as a result of affiliation with him that he had to leave her. His daughter might not hate him but is presumably on another continent. His best friend magically turned into an evil terrorist and is in prison. One of his bosses was the only casualty of a nuclear explosion; another was shot in the head in a train yard by Bauer himself.

Even his greatest nemesis -- who, in some ways, would make him kind of a peer -- isn’t around. President Charles Logan nearly committed suicide, was kidnapped by Bauer, was stabbed by his wife, was kidnapped by Bauer again, and eventually shot himself.

He’s so lonely. Please don’t shoot at him.

10. And definitely don’t shoot at him like this.

Ma’am, I’m not sure what your plan was here. You’re firing your handgun into foreign soil, and in the general direction of a windowless van that is 150 feet away.

And you really think that this is what’s finally gonna bring down Jack Bauer? Don’t you remember the time his enemies fed him so many torture drugs that he literally, actually died, and then woke up and violently murdered them all? Ma’am, do you even watch this show?

11. we at Dish Network are pleased to announce that we have added the Stranglin’ Henchman Network to our premium lineup of programming

simply tune in to channel CAM012 to get your fix of your fellow disposable bad guys gettin strangled

Also, dude, if you lose one feed in a partitioned, multi-feed display, the first place you wanna look is the switch box you’re running it through. I’ve never seen a TV with four built-in inputs that will simultaneously display four feeds without some sort of external receiver. It looks like you’re, uh, foolin’ around with the volume buttons? Yeah, you’re gonna die in like 75 seconds probably.

12. Also, dude, you’re gonna die. Guaranteed.

I’m not bothering to go back and find out what his name is, because he is definitely going to die. He’s some sort of aide to the President, or the Secretary to the Whatever Thing Guy. I’m not going to look up his official title, either, because he is definitely going to die.

We know this because the show is already setting him up as a total hate-able stiff. When President Heller, who is suffering from progressive memory loss, forgets a couple details in a practice speech, this guy just rips into him. Heller is clearly embarrassed and hurt by this, and if there’s one thing in the world I cannot stand to see, it’s bad or sad things happening to old people. Even if that old person is kind of a shithead, and a President who really should be stepping down.

I’m also pretty sure that Jack is going to be the one to end him, directly or indirectly. Jack and Audrey (on the left there) were ex-lovers. Jack probably has feelings there, and if he acts on them, he’ll have to compete with this guy. He competed for Audrey with another guy once. I don’t remember his name either, but I called him Mr. Bean, because he looked and talked exactly like him.

Jack tied him down in a hotel room, stripped the wiring from a lamp cord, pressed it against his nipples, and electrocuted him to death.

Bye, dude.