24
Fox
Tuesday, 9 p.m / 8 p.m. CST

Fox's "24" is an action-espionage drama that unfolds in real time — meaning that the hour it takes you to watch it corresponds to an hour in the lives of the characters. Correspondingly, Flak will be providing a written-in-real- time-alongside-the- show review of "24" each week for the duration of the series or until the gimmick of the review becomes tiresome. Ah, screw it. The gimmick has become totally tiresome. No more "24" reviews for you! We're packing it in after 23 episodes. What, you actually read this every week, even though it's always the same? Of course we're kidding, Sean will be back next week with the final installment.

<>Episode 23: 10 p.m. – 11 p.m.

So: A few episodes ago we discussed the Plausibles, a class of viewer whose ability to take pleasure in a story is bound in lockstep with that story's plausible causality. Like people whose appreciation of songs is limited to the supposed "poetry" of the lyrics and not the richness of the music, the Plausibles often appreciate only peripherally the artistry of visual storytelling. It's a somewhat square, ego-stroking pleasure, and it's central to the TV industry, which has thrived on shows that deliver just this. Paragons of this mentality include "Matlock," "Murder, She Wrote" and "CSI"; the mentality has taken hold of the film industry as well.

It's bad that the Drazens want to use Jack to kill Palmer — give it up already, you know? OK, so the Drazens' family died, but that sounds like it was the truest kind of collateral damage, and something Palmer can scarcely be held responsible for. Them using Jack to manipulate David to free up some funds that have been frozen is lame — theft (or restitution) is as played out a motive as revenge — but at least it's something.

Wow. The next-to-last episode, and it's not directed by Stephen Hopkins. I haven't been keeping a close eye on the show's various directors, but Hopkins has directed the great majority; I'm surprised that he's willing to step away from the show in its most important hours. It bespeaks a somewhat surprising lack of commitment; though it's television, it's certainly the nearest Hopkins has gotten to prestige in some time. Here's his filmography from IMDb; see for yourself. Of course, the decision may have been out of his hands, but all the same, you would have thought that his success in delivering what he has to date would have given him clout to continue to be attached if he so desired.

And so David is going to try to make time with Patty. Very interesting. Judgment shall be withheld for now.

Here are George and Nina; apparently, these two (Xander Berkeley and Sarah Clarke) are engaged in real life, which adds a mean bite to some of their nastier scenes in recent weeks.

Doesn't CPR also, uh, require respiration? Perhaps it's not Serbian tradition.

This seems strange, the introduction of the Sherry-pimping-Patty plotline in the last two hours of the show. If they use David's sudden acquisition of extra security (because CTU knows Jack's en route) to, farce-style, spoil the opportunity for the affair, that'll be bad. It's much better story design to let this choice of David's play out than to complicate it, deus ex machina-ly. But, of course, deus ex machina has been the whole modus operandi of the show.

They aren't giving Teri much credit in these scenes; she's lost too much cool, and seems more than a little clueless. Meanwhile, Nina seems as collected as ever. The momentum these two had recently seems to be mostly spent; there may be no real resolution to this plot thread, per se.

Exactly 20 minutes after David says, "Meet me in 20 minutes," we see Patty arrive. I still love this effect. And, ta-da, he fires Patty — this guy's a straighter arrow than King David; I wonder if that was a deliberate reference — although just how he's intuited Sherry's involvement is unclear. More on this later.

So they've discovered George is, in fact, who'd have known, the mole. We need to scrutinize just why he did what he did in trying to secure Jack's rescue last time.

OK. So what's happening here? Why would they have tried so hard to kill David the first time if they really felt he was needed to get these funds? Is the phone, like, a bomb that's going to take David's head off?

Hel-lo! Who called it? Oh yes. It's my birthday. Although Kim's continued lack-of-convincingness — here, crying over the suspected death of her father — remains tiresome. Maybe it's Method acting on Elisha Cuthbert's part; maybe she stayed up for 23-plus hours to prep for the scene. I dunno.

This also may answer the why'd-George-save-Jack question — he's been working for Drazen to get Jack in a place to be able to kill David — but then why did he seem to take so much convincing to move forward? This is the problem with mole stories; they require you to think pretty highly of the acting abilities of the character — in this case, one we've often seen in solitary moments … writers' increased reliance on these twists really does decay the good the stories have to offer. (Who's seen Frailty?)

"You've got to be kidding!" "I've never been more serious in my life." Wow; I'd love to see the computer program that generated that exchange.

It's hardly dramatic to set David's decision to cover up his survival as a choose-Jack-or-choose-David moment. Gee, I wonder.

It's good of the writers to give us the catharsis of watching CTU and the Drazens react to news of the killings. It'd bad of the writers to have had someone answer a phone call made to a sealed-off supposed murder site (necessary to set up the Jack-trading-himself-for-Kim climax). Argh! Slow brain death is setting in.

This is a good scene — Jack, thinking he's marching off to die, finally learning that Teri's pregnant. Finally, he just bursts, with perhaps the show's most emotionally genuine moment.

Of course, that's emotionally genuineness in respect to the show as a plausibility machine. The final point of the whole Plausible discussion, which I guess I have to dispense now for fear of not having another chance to do it, is that "24" has never aspired to anything greater than Plausible thrills, and, as such, is shackled by it. Story art can (and should more often) be allowed to transcend strict plausibility — among recent TV, "The X-Files" used to be able to achieve this, really summoning up manically engaging bursts of paranoia, or comedy, or sexual tension; and, of course, there's "Twin Peaks" — but "24" has never exhibited that spark. It's never had gonzo, go-for-broke verve. It's played it safe — and this shouldn't necessarily be held against it — but that means that every time they violate plausibility, they threaten everything they've achieved. Time willing (heh), I'll put on my Plausible hat and dig into just how much its implausibility has soured the show.

Again, the story choice to make the diminished Kim the means by which Andre tries to make his moral point is ineffective. In an attempt not to extend too much offense to Cuthbert, she has been written into an untenable corner (and that coffeepot incident was weak). But still, and all things considered, making her our point of entry/sympathy to the alleged moral complexity of what the Drazens are up to … it's not working.

And so, a strange non-cliffhanger. Will Kim reach Jack? It seems easy enough for her to intercept him, which could make the final hour just Jack putting the beatdown on the Drazens. There's really no more drama left in the Palmer family debacle, I don't think, although they can probably milk a last climax out of it.

Ah, blast. They're making Nina the mole. Lots more on this development next week. It's … well, it's the whole ball of wax.

— Sean Weitner (sean@flakmag.com)