‘24’: Jack calls it a day

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

Who could have predicted, with ‘Lost’s’ myriad mysteries still unexplained and ‘Heroes’ just beginning to uncover the extent of its mythology, that the series with the most head-scratching moments this season would end up being ‘24’?

But that’s how it ended up playing out, right up to the final ambiguous seconds of Monday night’s two-hour season finale, with Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) standing alone on a Malibu cliff and staring off into the surf, possibly considering suicide, but considering Fox has renewed the series for two more years, probably not willing to act on it.

There’s an argument to be made that Jack’s closing stance was the perfect embodiment of the mental state of the writers at the end of ‘Day Six’ -- lost, confused, unable to turn back yet unsure of how to proceed. Coming off the show’s most uneven and critically condemned season yet, it’s understandable they’d be a little shaken. This was the year that all the old tricks stopped working, when the show’s reliance on torture came under attack from the media and co-creator Joel Surnow’s conservative credentials were scrutinized. It’s also the first season the series’ basic 24-hour structure seemed to fail, when the writers decided to end the main storyline with six episodes to go, and grabbed at a few unresolved story threads from last year to fill the hours.

The season finale brought a final close to most of those story lines. Jack’s dad, Phillip Bauer (James Cromwell), will never get a chance to fulfill his promise as Jack’s great arch-nemesis. After going conspicuously absent for most of the season, he returned in the last few episodes only to get shot in the chest by his grandson (Evan Ellingson) and left on an offshore oil rig by Jack to get blown up in an air strike.

Chinese agent Cheng (Tzi Ma) who also seemed to be auditioning for some kind of recurring nemesis role, got arrested by CTU and brought in for questioning. He was last seen whining about how his government wouldn’t abandon him the way the U.S. abandoned Jack Bauer in China, but it would have been so much better if he’d screamed, ‘I’ll get you Jack Bauer, if it’s the last thing I ever do!’

And after being groomed as some kind of mini-Jack Bauer, Mike Doyle’s (Ricky Schroeder) hot-shot anti-terrorism career got cut short when Phillip Bauer’s old exploding circuit board gag left him blinded and wishing he’d listened to Jack Bauer all along.

In the end, everyone learned that lesson. After this year it’s inconceivable anyone in CTU, nay, the entire U.S. government will ever again doubt Jack Bauer’s moral certainty and tactical judgment. At every turn, he was proved right, again and again. Even the hawkish President Daniels (Powers Boothe) seemed to concede that he didn’t have all the answers once he learned what it was like to occupy the Oval Office -- or, it was implied, to disagree with the awesome might of Jack Bauer.

The most surprising thing about this season finale was that there were no surprises. No threads were left hanging, no unexpected cameos popped in at the last minute nor did the plot culminate in much of a cliffhanger. Unless you count Chloe’s revelation that she’s pregnant. Or Jack’s almost tearful bedside goodbye to his girlfriend Audrey (Kim Raver). With these closing events, it felt as if the closing twist was that ‘24’ was now going to become a soap opera instead of an action thriller. Goodbye CTU, hello Malibu beach house!

If the goal was to wipe the slate clean, they certainly achieved it. The series could really go anywhere from here, and as long as they aren’t afraid to get outrageous, it can only improve. After daring to detonate a nuclear device in a Southern California suburb in its fourth hour, the show seemed to pull back from pushing the envelope any further. Admittedly, that was a hard thing to top, but no one seemed interested in trying.

Despite the occasional bouts of rousing action, from the car chases early on to the concluding oil rig shoot-out and explosion, the series seemed content this year to slip away into the night and let the clock run out. Like Jack Bauer, the whole enterprise seems to be teetering on the edge of a cliff, and it’ll take some pretty fancy footwork to drag it all back.

In this rescue mission, the show’s open-ended structure may be its saving grace. Unlike other serialized shows, ‘24’ has always been free to jump ahead in time between season, or even replace large portions of the supporting cast without missing a beat. This season may have misfired, but in Jack Bauer’s world, next year is another day.