24, episode 8: You never know what is going to happen in soccer

1. let’s hear it for world cup action

This is what we get when the writers of 24 are finally allowed time to plan ahead. They look on the calendar and realize that their season will overlap with the World Cup, and think, “hey, let’s tie in some soccer, that will be fun.”

Their solution is to make the President of the United States walk into the middle of Wembley Stadium and be exploded by a giant missile.

President James Heller is dead, and I’ll be straight-up, it might be the funniest thing the show’s ever done. He’d struck a deal with the terrorists: “I’ll sacrifice myself if you promise to destroy the rest of your military drones.” The terrorists had clamored for his head all season, but they were pretty surprised when he actually agreed to it.

This left us with two possibilities:

a. The terrorists actually keep their word, crash all their drones, and refrain from further attacks on London. This would be very strange, and end the primary story arc of the show with a resounding, “welp.” Anyone who has ever watched 24, or any television show, or has heard any story of any kind told to them, knows that this will not happen.

b. The terrorists welch on the deal and just keep on shooting missiles anyway. This would mean that the terrorists -- who have killed scores of innocent people, who by all accounts lust for blood, and who are absolutely not to be trusted -- offered the President a deal, and without hesitation, he agrees. “okey-doke! lemme grab m’ballcap!”

It’s b. The answer is b. In the preview of the next episode, we see that the terrorists are still totally out there shootin’ missiles. James Heller trusted a mass-murdering stranger to adhere to the honor system.

This would have been funny enough if Heller died quietly in a back alley or something, which is just about what I expected when I (and everyone else, probably) saw this coming several episodes ago. The writers could have killed him that way. Instead, they make him stand in the middle of the biggest stadium in the entire world and blow him up with a giant missile.

me: ahaha i just now watched the preview and they’re gonna make a drone strike anyway

THANKS HELLER

Spencer: DIPSHIT PRESIDENT

PRESIDENT DIPSHIT

me: “puttin’ on m’ballcap, goin’ to the ballgame with m’buddy jack!”

Spencer: Jack you are the worst ballpark buddy

me: ballpark bozo’s more like it, JACK

Spencer: “Oi thinks ye’s just been relegated, sir”

[dances like a chimneysweep]

me: lolllll

RIP cut-rate ted kennedy

2. The President died because of shitty pub wi-fi.

Chloe has fought the “sub-optimal work environment” battle many times. At one point in seasons past, she had to hole up in a crummy hotel bar. It was one of the best, and most, Chloe moments ever: she’s trying to work, some drunk guy won’t stop hitting on her, and she hits him with a taser when he won’t screw off.

We didn’t get that this time, but we do see that Chloe is totally slummin’ it. She set up shop in that establishment without ordering anything, so she can’t really complain much about the presumably crappy wi-fi. She’s been in London a while now. Shouldn’t she have some good spots picked out by this point? I mean, here in Louisville, I do:

- Normal Starbucks. A decent place to work from if a solid Internet connection is absolutely critical.
- Weird Starbucks. The closest one to my house, and usually a last resort. Four out of five times I go in there, I see Batmobile Guy. Batmobile Guy is a guy who has taken what may once have been a Chrysler Le Baron, spray-painted it all matte black, put Batman stuff on it, and drives it all around the neighborhood. I think he might not have or need a job, and seriously, good for him.
- Allergen coffee shop. Really good coffee and friendly folks, but it harbors some sort of weaponized allergen. If I’m there during the wrong time of year, it’s trouble. One time, they were out of napkins and I just had to sneeze into my bike bag. It’s real out there.
- Coffee shop with overly friendly clientele. One time I was here, clearly working on my laptop, with earbuds in, and a guy tapped me on the shoulder and immediately started asking things like what I did for a living. I rarely talk about my job in real life, because telling people you’re a writer/blogger/whatever is the “I’m a poet” of the 21st century, and rightly so.
- Coffee Shop 4 Christ. I love Christians! But this establishment is frequented by a very specific subset: the college-age right-wing fundamentalist Superchristians. I keep my earbuds in here. One time I didn’t, and overheard a man with a Bible tell a tearful young woman that it was her duty to remain faithful and submit to her husband even though he was unrepentantly cheating on her. This place is capable of making me very sad.
- Coffee shop where people bring their kids. NEVER

3. the hell you lookin’ at, normcore

This guy just overheard a conversation in which Jack demands that a woman with valuable intelligence be woken from a coma. Sometimes 24 will chuck a Normal Person -- like, a person from our universe -- into the show and have them interact with Jack, just to remind us that Jack is an insane person.

4. Language, Jack.

It’s interesting to me that a show that is so outrageously misanthropic is also, more often than not, ahead of the pack when it comes to its portrayal of women. There have been a few “damsels in distress” and hypersexualized terrorists, but there have also been a whole lot of strong female characters. Women who are President, women who make the big decisions, women who unravel conspiracies, women who win surprise knife fights and stagger away with stab wounds.

Jack’s most trusted allies, notably Chloe, tend to be women. I think this is the second time Jack has ever called a woman a “bitch.” The first one was a total sociopath who murdered Jack’s wife in cold blood. This one is a mass-murdering terrorist who murdered a person in front of her kid, and then attempted to murder the kid. At least he picks his spots, I guess.

5. I’m kinda gonna miss this old guy.

President James Heller, who is having a transponder cut out of him, knows he is minutes away from a certain, violent death. “Yikes!” he says. “Yow!”

It’s like “ordering his closeted gay son to be tortured and then scolding him for being closeted” James Heller never existed. This season, Heller has been in full-amble mode. He ambles through anecdotes he gets wrong. He ambles through his son-in-law yelling at him and being cruel, and he frowns. He ambles into the British Parliament and is screamed at by angry Britains. And now, at last, in a poorly-thought scheme that will accomplish absolutely nothing, he ambles to his end. Rest in peace, James Heller. Heaven needed a Ted Kennedy-Mr. Rogers hybrid.

6. let’s check in once again on world cup action

lol