24: Capitol Crimes

So it goes that after another wild year full of senate hearings, airline disasters, bioweapons, and the White House under siege, 24 has left us begging for next January by delivering one of its finest seasons. And it’s all thanks to stunning action, solid storytelling, compelling performances from new faces and returning favorites alike, and more introspection than Kiefer & Co. ever seemed capable of.

After the events of Redemption, last fall’s 2 hour quasi-movie that depicted Jack protecting an African orphanage from a brutal warlord, the inauguration of first female president Alison Taylor, and the crafty machinations of mysterious tycoon Jonas Hodges (Jon Voight!), the season kicked off in Washington, DC– a welcome change after six days in LA– with Jack testifying before the senate, having sacrificed his freedom for the safety of his young charges. Apparently years of faithful service to your country, including a two year stint in a Chinese torture camp, aren’t enough to dodge torture charges of your own. But before judgment can be passed down, impressionable FBI agent Renee Walker and her stern boss Larry borrow Jack for a rather shocking assignment: old friend and apparent season 5 casualty Tony Almeida ain’t dead, and he’s playing for the bad guys! This time, it’s that pesky warlord from last fall, General Juma. He really doesn’t want President Taylor’s administration sending troops into his country, and to make us listen he’s got his hands on a nasty MacGuffin that can effectively hijack any infrastructure computer system, which he uses to guide two passenger jets into a midair collision.

From there, the story sails through FBI moles, forbidden terrorist love, faked suicides, diplomats in peril, and coolest of all, the reveal that Tony’s still on the side of righteousness and running a shadow intelligence op with the help of old friends Chloe & Bill. During a brief but thrilling arc in which Juma himself pulled off the aforementioned attack on the White House, Bill heroically sacrificed his life to save the day and everyone’s favorite Secret Service agent Aaron (the only character besides Jack to appear in every season!) arrived back on the scene to protect first daughter Olivia, a woman of deep ambitions and shady methods.

All seemed peaceful in the wake of Juma’s defeat, but Tony shows up once more to put Jack on Hodges’ trail, now revealed to be the CEO of a powerful Blackwater-esque private military corporation who’d been using Sangala (Juma’s conveniently fictional home) as their own personal bioterrorism lab in preparation to launch some deadly seizure inducing crap all over the eastern seaboard to create enough chaos for an entire network of power brokers to seize control of the government. Jon Voight brought a vibrant sense of menace to his role, relishing plenty of twisted one-liners and moments of pure crazed evil. In the course of his efforts, Jack gets exposed to the bioweapon and soon finds himself needing loads of anti-seizure injections just to stay functional. This does provide a nice excuse to bring back the much maligned Kim Bauer, now married with an infant daughter named Teri (cue some manly nostalgic tears for Jack’s fallen wife). She’d been in town all day to have dad’s back after the hearings, and wouldn’t you know, the only potential cure for Jack’s woes are stem cells from a direct relative. But not so fast, Jack’s too tough to accept Kim’s help at the possible cost of her health.

Elsewhere, the writers disappointed me by letting Hodges get arrested too far from the finish line. Olivia does spice up the scenario by ordering his assassination (Hodges had her “knew too much” brother killed and made it look like suicide), but Voight could have easily carried the villany mantle to the end and it would have avoided the slightly too random endgame involving the uber-conspiracy’s efforts to frame one last terror attack on an innocent Muslim. And Tony? Evil again. No wait, good again. Well… technically good, but far too vengeance obsessed and willing to kill other good guys (RIP Larry) to be put in the same column as Jack & Renee.

Speaking of whom, the season long debate between our hero and his new sorta-partner over the ethics of torture was fresh and timely without ever completely hijacking plot momentum or feeling like a “very special” episode. Renee may or may not end the day on her way to the dark side, as an unauthorized interrogation with the man pulling everybody’s strings ends tauntingly behind closed doors, leaving us to wonder how much of a Lady Jack she’s become. The season ultimately ends with Jack unconscious and at peace with his impending death, but not if last minute arrival Kim can help it!

There are dozens more fun details and ancillary plot threads that I could dote on for pages (Chloe butting heads with Janeane Garofalo’s fellow techie Janice, the death and resurrection of CTU, a mind blowing fight scene involving a bulldozer, a screwdriver, and a 2×4) but I’ll try to preserve a few of 24‘s suspenseful wonders for the curious home viewer. And thanks to the genius move of putting the entire season’s DVD set on the market only a day after the finale, why are you not watching it right now?!

Season 7 (originally aired January 11 – May 18, 2009)

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24 returns to Fox in 2010

Photographs courtesy of Fox and IMDbPro