"Day 3: 12PM - 1PM"

Written by Joel Surnow and Michael Loceff
Directed by Jon Cassar


In which Jack and Chase track down the location of the final vial of virus in Los Angeles, while David and Tony deal with the consequences of their decisions over the past several hours...

Status Report - Final Analysis




Status Report

Unlike most series today, every season of “24” is like a novel consisting of 24 individual chapters. Coming to the end of the third novel, having seen these characters take some rather odd and disappointing directions in the attempt to keep things interesting, many of the plot threads end in pleasantly unpredictable ways. The trouble with that is the word “pleasantly”. With the exception of one short stretch of the final hour, this chapter was rather calm.

“Calm” is not a word typically used with “24”, and so it’s hard to decide if that’s a good or bad thing. It all comes down to perspective. In the first season, the story ended just a little too quickly; there was no time to deal with emotional fallout. The second season also ended abruptly, leaving several plot threads unresolved and a massive final scene for the viewers to chew on all summer long. This third season finale almost seems like it was intended to be a final statement; instead, it becomes a commentary on the mental instability of Jack Bauer.

Of course, there are other plot threads to resolve in the meantime. As if to demonstrate why Tony shouldn’t be given a free pass on his decisions of late, he half-heartedly attempts to excuse his behavior by claiming to have been working both angles during Michelle’s hostage crisis: giving information to Chloe while pretending to follow Saunders’ demands. Of course, it takes about five seconds to completely rip that story apart.

Fact is, it shouldn’t have been necessary. Tony should have been a man about it and confessed to his true intentions from the start. This isn’t some macho nonsense; it’s about the personal honor of having made a bad decision and taking responsibility for it. It’s clear that Tony did what he did out of love for his wife, and at the very least, that can be understood, even if it was the wrong thing to do. To attempt another excuse almost makes it seem like Tony wasn’t sure of the purity of his own intentions, and that’s a terrible facet for his character to take on.

As soon as Gael’s wife shows up at CTU, it’s rather obvious what’s going to happen and when. It’s even more obvious when Kim is pulled away from babysitting duty (an unfortunate theme for Kim this season). The lack of security at CTU is astounding. It’s bad enough when operatives repeatedly infiltrate the organization, but when they can’t even stop a civilian from shooting people in the office during a crisis, it’s enough to destroy all sense of credibility.

Considering how low David Palmer has fallen this season, the finale was a test of the man’s character. This season turns out to be the day that David either completely loses his soul or defines his presidency by making the tough call. While the previous episode left David with a huge opportunity for political spin, Sherry’s death forces David to see what all of this personal baggage has forced him to do. And for all that Sherry did to betray him, there was a part of David that still loved her as the mother of his children.

One thing that is very unfortunate is the portrayal of Wayne Palmer. A lot of fans dislike Wayne for being too political, for always searching for the angle and spin on a situation. Here’s the reality check: Wayne is the Chief of Staff for a compromised president. It’s Wayne’s job to figure out how to use every situation politically! And the truth of it is, Wayne’s damned good at it…maybe too good.

There’s no question that Wayne is stunned by what he has witnessed, and to question that is insane, because it’s also very clear that Wayne’s reaction is borne mostly of shock and fear. Wayne is too shocked to consider the emotional impact, so he focuses on his job, which is to protect and serve the interests of the president. Wayne may be making bad decisions, but part of that is David’s responsibility as well; David should have drawn the morality line for his Chief of Staff long before this point.

Developing the tone and theme of this season finale, David’s mournful call to his children is followed by a very well written scene between Jack and Chase. Chase has been forced to examine his priorities, especially in light of the 24-hour lesson Jack has just given him. Chase has been a younger version of Jack all season long, and in a way, this is a moment that Jack must have arrived at in his own career. But this time, Chase chooses to change his job to suit Kim and Angela.

It’s always hard to read Jack’s expression, but one can tell that this decision hits home. He doesn’t want to lose someone with the same drive and sense of duty that he has, but at the same time, Chase is doing everything that Jack now wishes he would have done. Jack is definitely thinking about Kim and how things might have been different if Terri were still alive, and that’s at least part of the reason he tells Chase that Kim’s happiness is what really matters.

The episode finally starts to take off when Rabens, the terrorist with the final vial o’ virus, slips and stabs his way out of the train station, sending Jack and Chase on a mad dash through mid-day Los Angeles (which still looks far less congested than those roads should). For some odd reason, Michelle seems to think that Tony is vital to the coordination effort between CTU and Jack, even though Chloe and Adam are going everything well enough on their own. It’s really just an excuse to make Tony look good before the end.

The resulting car chase is well done, especially the camera angles used and the sense of urgency. As if to really play on people’s fears, Rabens decides to run into a middle school, forcing Jack to lead a CTU team into the hallways to track down the terrorist and contain the virus. One must assume that Michelle or someone at CTU has called the school and given them instructions, because not one person looks twice at Jack, Chase, or the other people running around with guns.

Leaving aside the somewhat foolish decision not to evacuate (which was mostly to eliminate the need to film the scenes related to an organized evacuation), this is the best part of the finale. You know it’s going to be good when the same “graphic violence” warning given at the beginning of the episode is repeated just for this segment! It’s one of the best fight scenes in quite a while, in terms of action and suspense, especially when Chase is forced to clamp the virus release mechanism to his arm as a last-ditch move.

Predictably, Rabens activates the mechanism, only to be shot immediately by Jack. This leaves Jack to disarm the device or otherwise find a way to get Chase isolated or free. Most of the audience, at this point, has already thought of Jack chopping off Chase’s hand, since it’s a typical Jack move. And that’s exactly where the writers go, except this time, Jack can’t just cripple his partner. The interaction between Chase and Jack is incredibly well played, and Chase shows some serious nerve as he forced himself to stay conscious long enough to properly tie off his hand to prevent massive blood loss.

And that’s the climax in terms of the action. Jack easily contains the virus using a refrigerator, and the threat is over. Earlier in the episode, it’s explained that Saunders was acting on his own, so there’s no immediate threat of continuing action from possible allies. (Assuming Saunders had no support system is not at all smart, since he wanted to go to North Africa for what had to be a damn good reason!)

This time around, the writers want to show the impact of the decisions made during the previous 24 hours. No matter what he might have done right at the end, Tony knows he has to pay for his crime. In fact, he’s willing to live with whatever punishment he gets, as long as Michelle is safe. It’s a given that Tony won’t be around next season, barring severe circumstances, and at this point, Michelle has to be an emotional wreck. Who wants to bet that Michelle will end up in Chappelle’s job, thus explaining her relative absence in the fourth season?

David did the only thing he can do in this instance: choose not to run for re-election. It’s not all that different from what Keeler was trying to force him into doing, but at least this time, he’s making the choice for himself. It makes his entire plot thread this season a lesson in how easily someone with a strong sense of morality can still let a situation overcome him and drag him down.

David’s comment about catching up with Jack in private life lends some support to the idea that Jack Bauer and David Palmer are still going to be at the center of next season’s action. One could assume that Saunders was the one behind Nina and the Drazens in the first two seasons, leaving the field wide open for something very different in the fourth season. But leaving Jack and David at the center of the storm leave open the possibility of international terrorist elements with reasons to want Jack and David dead.

One interesting possibility that the writers might want to consider, despite the gamble, would be taking David Palmer and his family out of the fourth season completely. There’s really nothing else that David can contribute. The only exception might be a situation related to something he put into motion as president. Imagine a scenario where Jack, no longer a favorite of the president with the new administration in place, needs classified information and has no choice but to get Palmer involved to call on the necessary contacts and piece everything together.

This scenario would also have the benefit of pulling Jack away from the CTU, which seems to be the direction the producers want to go. For one thing, all those people cost money, and it’s hard to develop meaningful storylines for everyone. Better by far to have Jack in charge of the office, forced once again to “go rogue”, because Hammond is towing the party line.

It all comes down to Jack and his sense of duty. Jack has been ripped to shreds over the past few years. The first season was about a man desperate to save his family in the face of ghosts from his past. The second season was his search for personal redemption. The third season, by contrast, makes the case that Jack has never been able to cope with the cost of being “detached”: his drug use matched with his complete sense of loss in this episode.

Jack is stunned because his entire support system is gone. Everyone that he might have turned to is going to be out of the picture. Kim is going to be with Chase, so he can’t even rely on the emotional crutch of taking care of her anymore. Tony is going to prison, he was forced to kill Chappelle, and David has decided to leave office after one term. Jack is alone now, with only his personal demons for company. It’s no wonder he starts to break down from the crushing weight of that knowledge.

The framing of the final two scenes is somewhat odd. His conversation with Kim suggests that someone is watching them, as if ready to do something horrible to Jack. It’s as tough someone is on the stairway, watching and waiting for an opportunity. And the amount of time Jack spends on his emotional outburst, as appropriate as it is, screams that something more is about to happen.

And maybe that was intentional, to throw off the audience. It’s also possible that the writers weren’t sure if the series would return, and more than one ending was filmed. If the series were coming back in September, would the ending have been different? Imagine the possibilities: a sniper shot throws Jack back in his seat, the screen goes black with the clock silently ticking down to 1PM as several more shots ring out...

Whatever the case, it’s probably best that the season end with some sense of closure, without the fireworks of a false cliffhanger like David’s apparent assassination. The novel ends, as it should, with the personal cost of Jack Bauer’s anti-heroics leaving him barely able to go on. The format of the series should be exploited for the future, especially if the rumors that most of the supporting cast will not come back. This is a series that can handle major changes season to season because any amount of time can pass.

Keifer Sutherland was right when he said that the series could survive without Jack Bauer, though it would be harder now that three seasons have focused on his character. The time to make a change would have been the second season, establishing the pattern that every season would be a new situation. Of course, there are contracts and network expectations to consider, all of which conspire to leave Keifer in the driver’s seat.

One thing the writers and producers need to do, in short order, is sit down and map out a strong 24 episode season with as few idiotic plot threads as possible. One can understand that they’re working from the typical television mindset: work out your first 8-10 episodes, then adjust along a loose roadmap to the desired conclusion. Well, that’s all well and good for episodic shows, but a serialized series like “24” needs to be far more consistent and thought-out.

In the first season, it was forgivable; it wasn’t clear that the series would get more than 13 episodes, so that’s all the writers worked out. But the second and third seasons have suffered from the mad scramble to put just about anything in the middle act of each season, because there’s no time to work storylines out in the middle of intense production. It’s a needless situation, since a strong writing staff should be able to sit down, work out the beats of each story, and take into consideration contingency plans for last-minute changes due to the real world.

Without that extra effort, the fourth season could fall into the same mediocrity trap that the past two season have, and if that happens, it would be the end of the series. This season, in particular, was a mess of aborted plot threads and forced attempts to bring back favorite characters for ratings. An audience knows when it’s being toyed with.

While the overall season was far from perfect, it was a mixture of polar opposites that yielded an average result. The bioterrorism plot was the best material by far, and David’s entire storyline was the worst. One plot thread had something approaching a reasonable logic, while the other was filled with so many unexplainable gaps in reason that one couldn’t make sense of it. Ultimately, this is weakest season of the series. Whether or not the fourth season can represent a turn in the right direction will depend greatly on the ability of the writers and producers to learn from their mistakes.


Final Analysis

Overall, this episode was lacking in the intensity of past season finales, but the emotional content was much higher. This is the end of a season of loss for Jack Bauer and David Palmer, and both must face the fallout of their own choices in the recent past. The bioterrorism plot ends well, but some lapses in logic and an overall lack of action take away from the proceedings. Still, the end is a disturbing glimpse of the man that might emerge in the fourth season.

Writing: 1/2
Acting: 2/2
Direction: 2/2
Style: 2/4

Final Rating: 7/10




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