Date of airing: January 22, 2002 (FOX)
Nielsen ratings information: 9.10 million viewers, 5.6/8 million viewers, 4.6/11 with Adults 18-49
It was another rather quiet episode, in which the main characters were mostly sitting around and talking to one another, and even had the chance for a little, minute-long power nap. Jack quickly escapes from the Secret Service (and like David Palmer, I asked myself how the heck he managed to do that), takes a hostage, sits around for half the episode while waiting for a car and exchanging information and plans with Nina and Tony over the phone, and escapes again by the end of the episode. Compared to later seasons, it is astonishing how slow-paced the first season can be and how often the writers have stalled time by quieting down the narrative for an hour.
It turns out the writers and producers still cared about the real-time premise during this season (due to the uniqueness of the show itself), but I do not think it is too much of a spoiler when I say that this part of the show will become non-existent with time and in later seasons, and the real-time premise itself is just an excuse to get the viewers back in. Also, it is because the writers actually seemed to have planned ahead and therefore thought about how to include the real-time premise into the narrative, making this season work a lot better than later ones. Because Jack waiting for the car and falling asleep seems fairly realistic in the confinement of a real-time thriller. But more to that when I get to the later seasons.
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| Evil White Villain gets really evil. |
Jack’s escape from the Secret Service was indeed a little dumb-founding for everyone involved in the Secret Service business. I am glad that the producers did not turn that scene into a harsh action sequence (instead, Jack was just running away and taking a hostage, like an escape artist usually does), but the fact that he just needed to run away a little and put his knee into one of the Secret Service agents is a little too cheap for my taste. The same can be said about Jack’s escape at the end of the episode. If he only needed to get out of the window, down the scaffolding, down a truck, and alongside a road to get to the parked car, why did he need Lauren to get it for him in the first place? He could have simply abandoned the construction site office in a hurry and made his way to the car without having to terrorize an innocent woman he just carjacked. Also, why was there no police around the construction site with the exception of that one cop car? It looked like police were being tipped off by someone, and they were there. They were looking for an escapee from the Secret Service. Yet the LAPD seemed unable to cover the entire perimeter. Though from an action point of view, the moment with Jack walking towards the car with his weapon drawn and holding it behind his back was a nice visual.
Before the escape charade could happen though, Jack and Lauren had something that can be considered a conversation, with the addition of some backstory for the central character. I loved that Jack’s story in the middle of the episode went a bit personal, and that the hostage situation was not used to show Lauren as a hostage, but as a person, Jack was able to talk to her for a second or two and be relatable. She might have just been a plot device to deliver Jack’s backstory of being a soldier once, as well as mentioning his dark and trippy CIA missions, but it was one of the better ways to calm down the narrative and focus on character development. Also, it was nice to see that Jack is being physically affected by the recent events in one way or another, though I am questioning the writers’ decision to have him nod off during a hostage situation when it did not even cause great tension plot-wise. I thought his adrenaline would be high enough to keep him awake. Then again, I have never been in this situation to know if you can actually nod off for a second or two. It is somewhat consistent in the show, however, since Kim also nodded off for a little while on the haystack in a previous episode, only to be awake and on her feet again after one or two commercial breaks. So, the characters do not sleep a lot in this show...
The story at CTU also continues, and in a very nice way it does, too. I could curse the writers for killing off Jamey because she just started to turn into a more intriguing character, but now that something happened within CTU and Gaines’ mole is out of the picture, the agency might be able to spring into action now. As in: They could officially start working on the case and find out who is behind the assassination attempt, now that Gaines does not have video of the CTU grounds any longer. Nina and Tony have enough information and Jack is in the field (not getting any help because the opposite would be boring), so maybe let’s bring some spy stuff into the show and depict the CTU as an agency that deploys its agents to investigate a current assassination attempt.
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| Jack runs towards the next plot point. |
And then there is the heavy stuff of the episode, which surprisingly got lost at the end. When Evil White Villain came into the barn to rape Kim and Teri offered herself instead, I was hoping for a lot more drama than just Teri coming out with a cellphone and trying to contact the CTU. Heck, Teri was raped behind that door (with Kim standing there, not knowing what to do, for an uncomfortable amount of time), but Teri did not seem to care about it a lot when Evil White Villain finished with her, because she magically produced a cellphone, moving on with the story. Basically, the story was both heavy and miserably handled.
