TV Review: 24 - SEASON EIGHT - 12 p.m. to 1 p.m.

TV Review: 24 - SEASON EIGHT - '12 p.m. to 1 p.m.'

Jason Pillar (Reed Diamond) tries to take down Jack Bauer on 24 "12 p.m. to 1 p.m."

Jack takes another step to completing his revenge ... and it's gloriously brutal

Grade: A-
Stars: Kiefer Sutherland, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Annie Wersching, Freddie Prinze Jr., Cherry Jones, Katee Sackhoff
Release Date: May 10, 2010

By EMERSON PARKER, Contributing Editor
Published 5/11/2010

The one time where Kiefer Sutherland’s short stature comes in handy - in a shopping mall, who would have thought?

While this moment on 24 “12 p.m. to 1 p.m.” was rather amusing, there was no levity at all during this episode of the show as it gears up toward its series finale.

Jack (Sutherland) is on a one-man mission. Eliminate all of those people that had ties to killing Renee Walker (Annie Wersching). While Jack’s side objective is to reveal the real culprits behind the day’s events – where they killed President Hassan (Anil Kapoor) and planned to set off a dirty bomb in Manhattan – he is after the killers of his girlfriend that was shot in his apartment after they had just had sex.

And he took one step closer to ending his quest in yet another wicked episode showing the real brutality of Jack Bauer and his unabated tendency for kicking ass. Jack played CTU and the Russians like a deck of cards by using their own desire to kill him (in order to prevent him from revealing what he knows) against them.

First, he contacted the journalist whose career he saved during the beginning of the season because of her ties to now-dead President Hassan. He wants to give her the memory card from Dana Walsh (Katee Sackhoff), who he executed that week, so that she, as a journalist can reveal the cover-up by President Taylor (Cherry Jones) and the Russians.

Knowing they would be waiting for something like this to happen – Jack turning to the press to reveal what he knows – CTU, now headed up by President Logan’s (Gregory Itzin) crony Jason (Reed Diamond), has been keeping tabs. And when Jack calls they set a trap for him at a local shopping mall.

But Jack was already ahead of them and with the help of his arms dealer, Jim (Michael Madsen), Jack not only kills the Russians that CTU sent (because they want as minimal involvement from the U.S. government because of the cover-up) and kidnaps Pavel (Joel Bissonnette), the dude who killed Renee.

Oh you just knew what happens next wasn’t going to be pretty. But it may have been one of the worst (best?) torture scenes the show has ever actually shown and really pushed the boundaries of what can and can’t be shown on network television. What’s funny is that Jack could have just checked the dude’s phone right from the start and avoided a lot of wetwork, but the episode wouldn’t have been as fulfilling as those also mourning the loss of Renee.

But Jack found the answer he needed as to who was responsible for Renee’s death – Charles Logan. And now the circle is complete. Jack, who originally took down Logan during his presidency and disgraced him, wounded terribly by him with the loss of Renee is now back in the pole position to get his final revenge. The mole dead. The assassin dead. Now, all that remains is the man who ordered the hit and from the looks of things next week, Jack gets his hands on him.

And if his previous actions are of any indication, we may see the final justice we were hoping for on Logan from the moment we learned he ordered the hit on David Palmer so long ago.

Source: IFMagazine