Date of airing: April 16, 2002 (FOX)
Nielsen ratings information: 7.70 million viewers, 5.0/8 in Households, 3.5/9 with Adults 18-49
written by: Robert Cochran, Howard Gordon
directed by: Stephen Hopkins
This was a great episode. With David Palmer not having to deal with the cover-up of the accidental murder any longer, and Teri having gotten her memory back, the episode was ready to focus a lot on Jack Bauer and the masterminds behind today’s deadly events, which was not only necessary for the story to move towards its final hours, but also helped focus the show on what made it intriguing and unique in the first place: Jack and his way of securing himself a few words with a prisoner for information because he cannot wait for bureaucracy to finish working its way up the chain of command. At least this time around he did not need to tranquilize someone in the foot or execute a prison break under the disguise of craziness and aggression, and instead just needed to call his new best friend David Palmer to get access to Victor Drazen. It helps to know the next president of the United States of America personally.
That the prisoner turned out to be supposedly dead Victor Drazen was a nice little surprise, though in hindsight who else could it have been? But the writers made it pretty easy for themselves to have the Drazen kids know about the prisoner delivery, including time and target. Yes, Jack and DeSalvo were figuring that someone within the agencies tipped them off (or the Drazens paid a lot of money, begging the question of where they got that money from and who is paying them for today's events), but in this case that someone must have been a high-ranking member of the Department of Defense, which means the entire administration in Washington, D.C. might be dirty when even one of them sells high-value security intelligence to a terrorist group.
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| Jack finally has some big guns in his hands. |
Nevertheless, the second half of the episode was entertaining: Jack was doing everything nice to get over DeSalvo’s head, and eventually was allowed to interrogate Victor Drazen in the most boring way imaginable, with none of them sharing any serious words, let alone knowledge. Still, I loved that quiet moment between Jack and Victor. The former knows that he is one step short of saving his family (if only he knew), the latter looks the man in the eyes who killed his wife and daughter (kidnapping Teri and Kim makes a whole lot of sense all of a sudden – this was a literal “eye for an eye”). In a way, Victor is not even a supervillain in this episode. He just happened to be rising from the dead, shocked that he is looking into the eyes of his arch-enemy. At that table, Victor and Jack were both villains in each other’s lives, giving the story a unique touch. If Victor had not been the asshole he was more than two years ago, I would have started to understand why his sons were doing what they were doing.
In the meantime, Kim is in jail, and I am celebrating a bit, even though I should not. When she got locked into the collecting cell, I had to roll my eyes because the producers managed to throw all the cliched punk girls in there with her, and of course, they had to throw shade at Kim who is a pretty young white thing dressed sexy, which means she is from money, which means she probably has to be beaten up. Is Kim thinking that this might still be the best place she could have ended up in? Having to deal with crappy women may be much easier than being in the crosshairs of terrorists who have targeted you specifically.
I did like whatever came before Kim arrived in jail. She gained some confidence and did not lose her cool in front of the undercover cop who busted her (though him not believing a single letter that came out of her mouth is also very stereotypical of him – she is giving him information about an unrelated crime and it is his job to follow up on it). She even had enough emotional strength to not immediately implicate Rick in anything and instead made sure that he is not seen as the villain of the story, showcasing that Kim has made her way through some character development recently, making me accept all the crappy events that she had to go through over the past couple of hours. Turns out that the writers fixed Kim’s story with this episode, although that does not necessarily mean I have to like it. Her romance with Rick is still terrible (something that could have been fixed with a mention or two of the Stockholm syndrome), and the fact that Rick has been carried all the way through the aftermath of the kidnapping still gives me the shivers.
Teri is remembering again, and as soon as she did, she was pretty much out of the episode. I was a bit disappointed that creepy Dr. Phil was still alive, but he was not part of the story either after Tony finished his conversation with Nina. Even Tony seemed entirely useless after he saved Teri and Dr. Phil, as all of their stories ended as soon as Jack was taking part in the prisoner exchange on the other side of the city. Even Nina failed to mention to George Mason that Teri was targeted once more and that she is safe for now.
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| The final boss has been introduced. |
And George Mason is not doing
anything as well. He went back to being the CTU butthead he was at the
beginning of the season. I have no idea if he would have done
something about the Bauer situation if Nina had told him about Teri.
Mason cared a bit during the previous episode, now he stopped caring
again. By the way, how convenient of Jack to forget all about Mason’s
phone battery having died in the previous episode, now that Mason got a
call from CTU to tell him that Alexis Drazen is out of surgery. His phone charges fast.
And finally, Super Tuesday found its ending with this episode, with David Palmer getting some good grades from the electorate. I am shocked that polls tell you how great David Palmer’s speech was, a mere 30 minutes after he finished delivering it. I am not shocked though that the internal drama with Sherry kind of climaxed in this episode by making sure that he knows she does not love him and she knows she still has all the power in her hands and she is ready to use it to her gain. David telling her off was a great moment for his character, and Sherry telling him off, promising that she will stand beside him during Inauguration Day, gave me chills. All of a sudden, Sherry is a lot more dangerous, and David realized how sized-up her own political agendas may be. There is a major conflict to be written into the show here, with Sherry having been given the potential to be a villain herself.
