Date of airing: February 19, 2002 (FOX)
Nielsen ratings information: 7.98 million viewers, 5.0/7 in Households, 3.8/9 with Adults 18-49
written by: Howard Gordon
directed by: Stephen Hopkins
Finally, we are getting into the afternoon side of this day’s business activities. This was an exciting episode, because it managed to deliver the tense thriller (Rick getting the van and being interrupted and detoured by Gaines) and action (the shootout at the end, in which a van stopped four people from getting riddled with bullets) it was promising at the end of the previous episode, and I am glad that Kevin (formerly known as Alan York) did not lead Jack into any kind of trap or anywhere else that was not the location of Jack’s family.
This time I also liked the writers’ tactics of stalling time, and waiting for the breakout of Camp Gaines until the final moments of the episode, even if it means Jack needed nearly half of the episode to find his family inside Camp Gaines, and stayed with them for nearly another half an episode before he finally made his move. Because in this case, it seemed quite realistic that Jack would not just storm out guns blazin’ – he needed to take a bit of time to settle and calm down and mentally prepare for the next step of his mission, as well as preparing his family for what was about to happen. As you can see, every once in a while, stalling time works story-wise.
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| Jack really does not like Kim's new boyfriend. |
But Gaines was stupid as heck throughout this hour. He had a random dude look for Evil White Rapist without making the effort to look for the guy himself, and he never quite realized that things were not going his way, even though sometimes he looked like he was suspicious about his luck having made its way out of his life. He sent Evil White Rapist to kill the girls, but he has never heard back from him – that is usually the first sign of something going wrong. Then Gaines found out that Kevin is unconscious somewhere on the other side of Camp Gaines, and Gaines needed Kevin’s actual words to realize that something is fishy when Gaines could have realized that exact fact by looking at unconscious Kevin, let alone realizing that Evil White Rapist seemed to be missing. Gaines was essentially preparing for Jack to come to him, but he was not able to think about the probability that Jack might arrive “out of nowhere.” Once again, Gaines is a terrorist I would not pay for his troubles because he failed to deliver results here. He hired two idiots to kidnap Kim (one of them even turning against him), Kevin could not stand a chance against Jack, the Martin Belkin lookalike screwed off into the wind after the failed assassination attempt... The only good hire Gaines made was Mandy, and she disappeared back to where she came from nine episodes ago because her job was done.
Now that CTU is on its way, I am kind of expecting another blowout between Jack/CTU and Gaines and his men, which means the shootout during the closing minutes was not the end of the story. After all, Gaines has been the villain throughout the first half of the show, and for Mr. Drazen to become the next villain and his contingency plan to spring into action, Gaines needs to be taken out in the next episode, ending that storyline, and essentially the first 13 episodes of TWENTY-FOUR that FOX ordered for the 2001 Network Upfronts. Since the show was stalling a lot of time throughout the twelve episodes, there should have been enough in the budget to have a nice five-minute action sequence in the next episode, ending the Gaines arc properly and satisfyingly, and giving Jack something that could be considered revenge for kidnapping his family, and FOX a nice ending to the show if it had been a flop and the network needed to cancel it after the initial 13-episode order.
The rest of the episode was okay. The thing with Keith’s therapist has finally gotten out of hand, though I was expecting it to do so two episodes ago. But the scandal is continuing to grow, and now that David Palmer has seen with his own eyes what Carl can do, he might think twice about telling anyone anything (maybe even running for President). And the temperature in the CTU has normalized itself again after Jack called in and told Alberta Green what was happening. Sure, Alberta looking into what Nina and Tony were doing these past hours could still hurt them, but for now, I will not care about this story, since it will not be necessary until it gets back on track. Alberta’s “I’m looking into it” to Nina just meant that the two have a strained relationship, and that is part of Nina’s backstory that had already been delivered when Alberta came into the office two hours ago. Besides that, it is kind of weird how Alberta has been an underdeveloped character so far, even though she was included in the narrative as an obstacle for Team CTU. Alberta could not stop Nina and Tony from helping Jack, so what is she actually good for and why was she introduced in the first place?
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| Alberta is finally running an operation from headquarters. |
Finally, I must say I loved Jack’s words to his family while they were waiting to escape. It is almost like they needed to get through this hell to find back together. Jack and Teri might be a loving husband/wife team again after this, and Kim might for once be a good daughter and recognize all this precious she has with her parents, learning something about how her parents indeed love her – nothing quite like a kidnapping to find out that fact. It was a touching scene when Jack and Kim talked about their ongoing chess match, while Teri was looking at them, happy for a second or two that their problematic family members were sharing. One might have thought that this happiness would lead to death later, because... Well, when you show your characters happy for a minute, they usually end up dead. That is TV Writing 101.
