Well, once again, my intrepid powers of analysis and prediction have apparently been proven ... wrong.
Last week, I said I couldn't believe that Tony was bad. Truthfully, I still can't believe it this week, but in the Season 7 Hour 19 I just saw, Tony sure looks that way. Jack thinks so, too.
Jack's still veering between functioning and collapsing, and he collapses before he's able to further question or shoot Tony, and Kim's on the way to the airport to fly back home. I predict she'll change her mind (hey, I have to be right about this easy one), though I still like my idea that Jack developed an immunity to the pathogen if/when he was exposed to it in Sangala.
Larry seems definitely dead. Hodges should be - he took the heart attack pill - but he seems to be hanging on. Is that because he had the heart attack in the car rather than in his jail cell? But if so, the knock-out redhead with the blond wig - who gave Hodges the pill - didn't seem too upset that Hodges was being taken out of the cell.
We see her next week - in Tony's arms - which further seems to be telling us that Tony is bad. But I still have my problems with that. One problem - as Dawn commented on my Infinite Regress blog about Hour 18 last week - is how the bad Tony was able to fool Buchanan and Chloe? Jack's reasoning may also have been a little off when he confronted Tony tonight - after all, he's in the throes of the germ. And why did Tony help bring down the Dumbaku attack, the Juma assault on the White House, and the Hodges attack as well? All in the service of some even worse bad guy or force? I suppose so, but doesn't quite add up.
But Tony's doing evil after evil. He killed Larry (assuming Larry really is dead). He could have easily killed Renee when he lured her and the FBI team into the building wired to explode.
If I had to bet, I still think Tony will turn out good. But the odds look long against me....
And that's why I'm really enjoying this great season! And, yeah, it was good to hear that Kim's little daughter is named Teri.
See also: Hours 1 and 2 ... Hours 3 and 4 ... Hour 5 ... Hour 6 ... Hour 7 ... Hour 8 ... Hour 9 ... Hour 10 ... Hours 11-12 ... Hour 13 ... Hour 14 ... Hour 15 ... Hour 16 ... Hour 17 ... Hour 18
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Comments
Further, given the horrors of the real torture memos, someone's postings that promote a show that promotes torture in prime time seems a bit ugly to me.
There have been several different superlative postings in the past week and today on torture on OS, including breaking stories, but only one of them has made the cover.
Also....They have had a whole scenario about not allowing torture...everyone is so worried about being PC. I have been listening to the exchange about torture and when questioned most people feel it would be okay if it really saves the U.S. from another terrorist attack.
No one wants to sanction it and that is a natural thing, I think. At one time all of what was going on was kept hush hush. My father worked in the Air force doing top secret stuff and he took it to his grave. What has happened to us? No one cares enough to keep a friggin secret anymore.
As for the show, I am disappointed that Tony appears to be bad...but he appeared to be bad before...maybe he is being a double double spy. We know Jack won't die, as for the rest it's a mystery and I love it. Yeah I'm jealous that you get editors pick all the time...I think my last post "The Black Bra Club" should have made it. But C'est la Vie!
You write: "They have had a whole scenario about not allowing torture...everyone is so worried about being PC. I have been listening to the exchange about torture and when questioned most people feel it would be okay if it really saves the U.S. from another terrorist attack."
That idea that they're saving the US from another terrorist attack is precisely the trope that is being employed by the real torturers and their leaders. The fact that people support this idea is exactly the problem. Torturers can always claim that the barbarities that they are perpetrating are for the greater good. That's one of the reasons why torture is illegal under any and all circumstances under int'l and national law (until the Bush regime and now, under Obama who is allowing torture to continue at Gitmo and Bagram and isn't going to prosecute the ones with blood on their hands.)
But after watching the downward spiral of the last several seasons of 24, this season is actually good and offers a reasonable debate about the ethics of torture. This show to me is entertainment, pure and simple. Those who watch this show for guidance on real-life are idiots. Let the adults who understand the difference between reality and fiction have their fun.
This is from http://66.90.101.164/articles/ps/torture_24_show_torture_on_tv.htm:
The show's connection to the Bush White House and the conservative establishment became explicit last June, when Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff appeared alongside the show's producers and three cast members at an event sponsored by the Heritage Foundation to discuss "The public image of US terrorism policy." The discussion was moderated by Rush Limbaugh. The C-SPAN store sells a DVD of the event--price reduced from $60 to $29.95. Sunday night's two-hour premiere again argued not just that torture is necessary but that it works -- and it's also really exciting to watch. The show as usual made the "ticking time bomb" case for torture: we need to torture a suspect, or else thousands, or millions, will die in the next hour.
It's the same case made by Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, who proposed that judges ought to issue torture warrants in the "rare 'ticking bomb' case," and by University of Chicago law professor and federal judge Richard Posner, who has written, "If torture is the only means of obtaining the information necessary to prevent the detonation of a nuclear bomb in Times Square, torture should be used." He added that "no one who doubts that this is the case should be in a position of responsibility."
Thanks to "24," tens of millions of TV viewers know exactly what Dershowitz and Posner are talking about. As Richard Kim pointed out in The Nation in 2005, those are the cases where "the stakes are dire, the information perfect and the authorities omniscient." Of course that's a fantasy of total knowledge and power, and of course the U.S. has never had a real "ticking time bomb" case -- but Jack Bauer faces one every Sunday night on Fox.
Anyway, I'm really sorry Tony's an evil minion of Will Patton's mysterious bad bossman. It seems like if the ever-dimwitted Kim (yes, I've been this watching since season 1) had bothered to mention to Jack that he has a granddaughter (named Teri!), it might've been the reason-to-live that would change his inexplicable decision to go ahead and die. Hopefully, he'll find out soon.
Two problems with your "analysis" Dennis:
1. One, as several people have mentioned in this discussion, 24 is just a television show. You have a simplistic view of the impact of television fiction on real-life politics.
2. You apparently have not been watching the show this season - in which the prime villain is a Blackwater-like organization, the head of which (well played by Jon Voight) talks from a script that could well have been written by Rumsfeld or Cheney.
As to your low opinion of my reviews, I note with pleasure that you continue to read them, and comment upon them.
You might also enjoy my reviews of "In Treatment"...
Too many things don't add up about Tony, you're right. Is the unbeknownst group trying to take over the country? I think Larry is dead...he looked very very dead, but if this was "All My Children" he would be alive in a couple of weeks or next season. I want Renee to end up with Jack...do you? help!
It is only a show and pretty even handed I think. You take what you want from it.
As to Tony, well, he's really running out of chances to show us that he's in that deep deep deep deep deep deep cover Gail mentioned. I don't know that he can flip one more time ... unless Ryan Chappell isn't really dead and he's running a very covert operation with Michelle.
... and where's Chloe? Isn't it about time for her to save Jack with some little known intel?
Thanks for th gathering point Paul.