Friday, April 14, 2006

24: Day Five, 11pm-12am Jack Bauer Gets a Bank Manager Killed After Assuring Him He Would Be Okay (#17)

Can I say that Monday’s episode KICKED BOO-TAY! It’s sad to think of the season coming to an end, isn’t it? Only seven episodes left for Jack to give President Logan a BRAND-NEW ORIFICE!

My observations, fellow Jackophiles.

1. The cheap motel industry was given a shot in the arm, thanks to this episode. Poor Evelyn, shot in the leg with nowhere nice to go.
Jack: Put her on the bed. NOW! I DON’T HAVE TIME TO EXPLAIN!!
Wayne Palmer: Geez, Jack, what’s to explain? It’s just a bed.
Jack: I’VE GOT ISSUES FROM MY CHILDHOOD!
Evelyn: Will I be paralyzed?
Jack: NO! You will NOT be paralyzed! DAMMIT! I wish I had shot you! We wouldn’t be here right now!
Evelyn’s daughter (unnamed, so let’s call her STUPID FOR CALLING 9-1-1!): You know, just because you SAY my mom’s okay doesn’t mean she’s actually okay! You have a messiah complex.
Wayne Palmer: Lil’ girl. How do you even know what a messiah complex is? You’re eight.
Stupid For Calling 9-1-1: HELLO! There’s the thing called the INTERNET! Geez.
Evelyn: Uhh, back to me, guys. My leg is burning like fire. Like a disco inferno. It feels like the funk is flamin’ outta control.
Jack: That means THE INFECTION IS SPREADING! We need help. STAT!
Wayne Palmer: Why, on God’s green earth, do you have to scream everything? Hey, look. This is one of those vibrator beds. I’ve got quarters, too! (sound of coins falling like in a vending machine. Bed starts vibrating violently)
Stupid for Calling 9-1-1: I’m getting scared. MOMMY!
Wayne Palmer: Hey, lil’ girl, you sound like you’re talking through a fan. Let me try it. Lalalalalalala! Wheeeeeeeeee! Luke, I’m your fawthuh! Oh, we gonna rock down to Electric Avenue. And then we’ll take it higher! Watch this: I can do “The Robot.” This Super 8 ROCKS!
Jack: Listen, Evelyn and Stupid for Calling 9-1-1, Wayne and I have to go. It’s not safe to take you to a public hospital. If only we were in a small town where the only doctor is also mayor, basketball coach, veterinarian, and village harlot. But, alas, we aren’t, so we’re SCREWED. Don’t do anything ‘til we get back. Everything’s gonna be okay.
Stupid for Calling 9-1-1: Okay, my a$$!

2. Speaking of Stupid for Calling 9-1-1: did she not LISTEN when they taught her about 9-1-1 in school?! She apparently was playing paper/scissors/rock or text-messaging her grandma when she missed the part about how 9-1-1 is for all emergencies EXCEPT when you’re trapped at the Motel 6 and the recently assassinated president’s brother is there bouncing around on the vibrating bed and some control freak of a secret agent is using Kleenex and a travel-size mouthwash to sterilize your mom’s gaping leg wound.

3. I have to wonder if Our Man Jack can really be trusted with anything more than, say, a bowl of cereal or a bag of lawn clippings. Anything living or breathing associated with him ends up shattered, either physically or emotionally. And at BCC (Body Count Central), the Doomed Minor Character this week was, according to the official ep guide, known merely as “Bank Manager.” Let’s give him a name. Let’s call him Kenny Wayne Covington: “Uhh, Mrs. Kenny Wayne Covington, you remember how President Palmer’s brother and I made you pee yourself by pointing guns at your head in your bedroom and kidnapping your husband, and then we suggested that your husband would be okay if he helped us get into his bank? Well, uhh, something sort of happened to Kenny Wayne. As we say in government circles, Kenny Wayne is now, uhh, ‘heart-beat challenged.’ Kenny Wayne is the ‘recent purchaser of a crop- and/or livestock-producing rural estate.’ In fact, Kenny Wayne is ‘thrusting in an upwardly manner several stems of the flora known as Bellis perennis.’ Basically, we killed him. Except not on purpose, and actually WE didn’t do it ourselves. The police did. Or the terrorists did. I think there were snipers there, too, and even a couple of duck hunters. Anyhoo, REST ASSURED, we did NOT do it. Had we shot Kenny Wayne, we—actually I should say ‘I’ since the president’s brother is a marine biologist, not a REAL marine—I would have shot him in the leg above the kneecap so he wouldn’t be dead or even paralyzed, though he would undergo months of painful physical rehabilitation. Uhh, Mrs. Covington, please don’t cry…or sue…or tell my girlfriend.”

4. Was it just me or was anyone else really grossed out by the presidential makeout session? Yes, we love the First Lady, Martha EMMY! Logan, but c’mon, it was like watching Don Knotts and Barbara Mandrell get it on. EWE! And the SOUND! It sounded like someone slapping hamburger patties together or squishing one of those tubes of squeeze mayonnaise. Oops. I think I just made myself vurp*. Please, no more of that. By the way, now that EMMY! Logan hasn’t “chased the dragon” or “smacked doobie” or “gone ice-fishing” whatever the Goths are calling illegal drug use these days, her head is clear enough to keep her on her toes. She’s not taking everything at face value, which is a good thing.
* Vurp: a burp that almost comes up, but not quite.

5. Barney Fife is SO despicable at this point that I’m afraid his downfall, whatever that may be, will not satisfy my bloodlust. He killed our beloved President Palmer (forcing him to sell insurance), allowed his own drug-addled wife to ride in the Limousine of Doom, and shattered Michelle and Tony’s Taco Bell dreams. All that crap about “new evidence.” Grrrrrrrrrr. Oh yeah, don’t forget his ITTY BITTY TINY SHRIVELLED UP MICROSCOPIC TESTICLES OF SHAME AND DERISION! And then there’s Henderson! What tragic demise awaits these two vile troglodytes? I can’t wait, yet I fear being disappointed. Maybe I should just get a life.

6. How’d you like to be the poor guy who got stuck with Audrey’s tracking device?
Nameless Agent: Sir, according to your license, you’re not Audrey Raines.
White Truck Guy: No, I’m Clyde Bevin. I remove roadkill and all those single sneakers you see. One time I found a small futon.

7. It’s good to see the ol’ badger, William Devane, back in the role of Secretary Heller. He’s got a real surly feel to him. I imagine him eating paper clips and sandpaper for breakfast before he nonchalantly TAKES DOWN THE PRESIDENT! Was it me or did he say at the end of his phone call with Audrey: “Honey, call your brother. He’s still upset over being seduced by that guy and nearly getting us all killed. Plus, he lost his gig on The O.C. He needs you.”

8. God bless Chloe O’Brien. When Miles confronted her outside the “powder room,” why didn’t she just say, “Miles. I WAS POOPIN’! You know, I haven’t POOPED since I took Jack and Derek, the daughter Jack Never Had, to Wayne Palmer’s penthouse. That was 15 HOURS AGO. MILES, HAVEN’T YOU HEARD? YOU EAT…AND THEN YOU POOP! GIRLS DO IT, TOO! GET OVER IT!”

9. And God bless Aaron Pierce. I hope and pray he comes out of this alive. Wouldn’t it be great if he gets to choose President Logan’s punishment? I imagine Aaron giggling uncontrollably as he and Mrs. Martha Logan Pierce, slightly tipsy on mint juleps and Honduran cigars, sit on the White House portico, firing red, white, and blue paintballs at a naked President Logan streaking in zigzag fashion across the White House lawn, like a metal duck in a state fair shooting booth: “Oh, Aaron, you have such broad shoulders. Oh my, that one looked like it stung! Evelyn, dear, I know your leg still hurts, but hop up and get that tequila out of the credenza.”

Next week: It turns out that the Shake-a-Bed was vibrating Evelyn so violently that Henderson couldn’t get a good shot in edgewise. He runs out of bullets and is incapacitated when Stupid for Calling 9-1-1 temporarily blinds him with a move she learned on The Matrix: Reloaded. Chloe gets on the intercom and announces: “Hello? Just wanted to let everyone know I’M CONSTIPATED! I MAY BE IN THERE FOR 20 MINUTES AT LEAST!” Audrey and Jack try to decide on a honeymoon destination: Kabul? Fallujah? Niagara Falls? Satan prepares a room for President Logan.

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