24 Thoughts

I don't know how many people other than me are watching 24 this season (I know there are at least three of us), but it's returned to form. Sort of.

Season 6 turned a lot of people off by being completely incomprehensible, but it seems the writers' strike did some good for the show. But even with a focused story line, it seems that the series has been on TV long enough that it's becoming a parody of itself.

The clip above really jumped out at me. Since torture has been a hot topic in the news, 24 has taken it's duty to pro-torture pretty seriously - hell, I'm sure in the back of the minds of torture supporters, they think It has worked for Jack billions of times! And why not? Sometimes they set it up so torture seems like the best option.

But the involvement of a baby is a new one. I found this fucking hilarious - mostly because it seems like 24 is jumping the [torture] shark. Jack has tortured everyone under the sun - men, women, white people, black people, Asian people - this had to come up in a writer's meeting eventually. Though they were careful to portray Jack as having no intention of actually hurting the suspect's 11-month-old son, I kept imagining an intense interrogation scene with Jack and a baby.

"I WILL THROW YOUR FUCKING CHILD INTO A BLENDER. I LOVE AMERICA THAT FUCKING MUCH."

"NO! He's an innocent child! He has nothing to do with the Sengalan conspiracy!"

"HE SHOULD HAVE THOUGHT OF THAT BEFORE BEING BORN!"

Maybe that's just me.

Also maybe just me - are they trying to put a nicer (freckled) face on torture by having new character Renee Walker (the woman in the video) slowly accept the merits of it? She looks like she could be a kindergarten teacher. I want her to pop popcorn for me and start share time.

It's like Annie grew up, went through FBI training, and resists singing about her hard-knock life because she's got a motherfucking terrorist plot to foil.