24 Executive Producer Howard Gordon on The Last Days of 24

24’s Executive Producer Howard Gordon on the last days of 24

By Jim On May 10, 2010

The final season cast of Fox's 24

With only a few weeks left until the series finale of the FOX hit 24, one thing is certain – Executive Producer Howard Gordon isn’t holding back from saying what he thinks of how the series is going to wrap up, the fate of Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) and where things stand with the in-the-works24 feature film. Gordon talked to a crew of journalists last week and I was there to hear what he had to say.

Kiefer Sutherland and Freddie Prinze, Jr.

Question: There is a huge online and Twitter fan base of this show that has been upset about the death of Annie Wersching’s character, Renee. Was there another choice you had been pondering, or was killing the character off the idea from the beginning?

Howard Gordon: Actually, typically we come upon these things as more improvisations, but this was one that we had come up with at the very beginning of the season and stuck with for reasons that I think everybody is seeing right now, which is obviously motivating Jack to this very final, climactic confrontation and taking him to a place he has never been before. I have to say that I’m taking people’s outrage as a measure of interest, and their indifference would have been far more hurtful than their outrage. But we have a history of doing that. I remember when that happened with Edgar; we got a fair bit of angry email. But yes, this is something that we’ve thought about and thought about very carefully, and hopefully did it well. I hope.

Question: If the decision that this would be the last season came early enough that you could do any adjustments in the show, or is this just plain the way you were going to end this no matter what?

HG: It’s a good question, and it was one that the network asked as well. To me, the show was always going to end the way it was going to end, whether there was a ninth season or whether there was a movie because the story has been told. What I think changed, though, was the context of it all. In other words, it really took on a different meaning. I’ve said this in the past that I think any number of seasons in years past – season four, season five, I think even last year – could have been a really, really cool series finale. Only the fact that this was our series finale did it really have the kind of context that, wow, we’re really saying goodbye to this character. And there is a final moment that is very, very specific to the series finale. It’s not so much a plot moment, but it’s a punctuation mark that I think is unique to the series finale. But the answer is really no. We told the story the way it was going to be told and would have no matter what.

Mary Jane Rajskub's Chloe is at odds with Jack in the final episodes

Question: Is there any hint you can give about what people might expect in the season and now what will be the series finale? And just a little bit about maybe where you want to leave Jack.

HG: Where we wanted to leave Jack was something – we tried on a couple of very different endings for size and the one we came to at the end is the one that felt just right. So it was not for lack of trying a couple of different ways. But we knew it when we saw it, that this was the right way to do it.

One thing we tried and didn’t work was happily ever after for Jack. What he has done, forget about the last eight seasons, but in these last six episodes or what he’ll have done in the last six episodes, which you’ve not seen yet, leaves him once again in a very compromised place morally and ethically andemotionally. This show is a tragedy and so to give Jack a happy ending just didn’t feel authentic. We gave him a happy beginning, and I really am very pleased with the way we started and, of course, gave him something to care about with Annie Wersching (“Renee Walker”) and his own family. And of course, circumstances and the story dictated a kind of very complex confrontation.

And going out to where the end and what we can expect is the things that were aligning, which were basically Chloe versus Jack versus President Taylor, we’re taking all these characters to places that we’ve never seen them before. We knew it constituted a risk and one that was frankly challenging to write and, among the actors, pretty challenging to play. But it was one really we think was worth taking and I think it pays off really well in the end. But in the spirit of trying to take the series to a place where it hasn’t been before, we’ve done this thing. It’s certainly not playing it safe, but it is very emotionally climactic and, we think, we’re pretty excited by it.

The final showdown between Jack and villain Dana Walsh (Katee Sackhoff)

Question: A lot of fans absolutely hated the whole Dana Walsh character (played by Katee Sackhoff) and sub-plot. I wanted to sort of get your defense of how that whole thing played out.

HG: Man, every season there is something that people seem to fixate on. You know, I got it and I guess all I kept telling people was to please wait until the story had been told before you commented. To me, I think episode 20 answered that question. I was really, really proud of that episode and what I liked about it, too, was that for the first time, this very complex and admittedly very … confused and crazy character, this onion of a character, got peeled down to the nub and you finally really understand a little bit, anyway, who she is. Now of course she is a sociopath and of course it’s kind of an insane story. But to have seen in that moment that she actually really cared about Cole, that she really had done this all to get out of a situation she got herself into.

Look, it’s crazy. There is a girl from Rock Springs who somehow manages to get in to CTU as an analyst under an alias, it’s crazy. And the fact that it was the Russians, that the Russians had sponsored her and put her in there made it make some sense. And I think it was a pretty wild roller coaster of a character which Katee pulled off, I think, beautifully. What I liked about it was that what felt unnatural or felt weird and maybe what didn’t resonate with people at the beginning was that very part, that she wasn’t authentic, that she was this counterfeit personality in the midst of our heroes. I’m happy with the way it resolved. I really haven’t gone online and seen how people reacted or whether they are even more pissed off, I don’t know. But I think in the end, she acquitted herself pretty well and I think the story turned out to be pretty interesting.

Question: What is the current status of the movie?

HG: The current status of the movie is that Billy Ray has written a draft which Kiefer has read, and we’re all working together on the second draft. Now, it’s not been shared with Fox or anybody so there is no official status right now. It’s very much a work in progress. Honestly, the movie division is on the other side of the lot and I don’t know and can’t measure their intentions or their timing, and certainly can’t measure their reaction to the script because they haven’t read it yet. So I think it’s all very much speculative at this point. I think our preference would be to do it sooner than later, of course, and get Jack back out in front of people within a year or two, but I don’t know. That would be just me speaking.

Question: I guess you’re taking Jack to a place he’s never been, but he’s been pretty far down already in past episodes.

HG: Yes, it’s true, it’s true. Although I’m trying to think if it’s ever been quite like this. Yes, it’s a color we’ve seen before, but this time we’re kind of pressing our bet. As you’ll see in the next couple episodes, we’re all in.

Question: Can he get so low he can’t come back? Can he come back?

HG: That’s a great question; that was really the question we asked ourselves and certainly the studio asked us. The answer is no. The good part about Jack’s character, and I really believe what has been a good part of the show, is we never press reset. In other words, Jack is a character and you feel the accumulated scars of his experience and the weight of his actions for eight years. Jack has never been able to sort of snap back, even when he is happy, even with Audrey in season five when we introduced Audrey. It wasn’t like that didn’t discount all the tragedy that had preceded it. Like in the beginning of this year, Jack allowed himself a moment of joy or possibility of human contact with his own daughter and her husband and his granddaughter, it doesn’t discount what has happened before. So I don’t think Jack is ever going to recover from what has gone on. It just adds to the weight and the complexity and to the darkness of his character. The character has never gone happily-ever-after; that’s just not in his wheelhouse. The show is ultimately a tragedy and you have to really play that and you have to honor that.

24 airs tonight on Fox at 9/8c with the series 2-hour finale airing on May 24^th at 8/7c.

Source: Jim Halterman