Hour 10: Holy Crap! Body Count Escalades!

Another good ep!

Poor, poor embattled Marika.



Dubaku gets in his big Escalade and rolls it...



...and all he ends up with is an emergency appendectomy...


(notice emergency use of cheap forks from Shoney's)

...while Marika pays the ultimate price, giving up this...



...for this.



While it seems like not a bad trade, it still isn't very fair, but alas, little did Marika know she was an "Expendable Character Who Contributes Interesting Plot Details But Nonetheless and Inevitably Ends Up Dead."


(picked a bad day to stay in love)


(picked a bad day to appear in the 24 prequel Redemption)


(picked a bad day to eat lunch at home)


(picked a bad day to slip the First Gentleman a neuromuscular paralytic, murder Samantha Roth [who picked a bad day to eat lunch at home], not leave the First Gentleman on the ground level of Samantha's apartment, stand next to the railing, and not notice the First Gentleman's fading paralysis)


(picked a bad day to get in a knife fight with an immortal)


(picked a bad day to knock boots with a coworker)


(picked a bad day to be an engineering expert on CPIs and let some dude from a fake African country hot-wire him with explosives)


(picked a bad day to sit by a big window)


(picked a bad day to be an Escalade)

Of course, we, as the audience, are quite accustomed to a high body count. Shoot, I think we've already lost the entire population of Wyoming in just the first 10 hours.



Agent Walker, however, is gradually becoming overwhelmed with the ever-escalating carnage.



My guess is, having noticed sparks here and there, she's equally overwhelmed with the prospects of becoming Jack's next love interest, as we all know that never goes well.



Before we know it, in between dismemberings...



...electrocutions...


(poor Paul Raines)

...and vampiric neck-biting...



...she and Jack will be making out behind a widescreen monitor.



Next week, we enter PHASE II, when, after a tiny breather during which the dust settles and the entire cast gets to take a bathroom break...



...evildoers storm the White House and take the President hostage?!



What the...?! Are you serious? Okay, 24, quit testing the limits of my disbelief! It's getting suspended beyond measure.



We can only hope Sean Hillinger, Mole and Undercover Unpaid French Actor...



...gets a little "meeting" with Jack in the FBI's highly sophisticated state-of-the-art interrogation room.

Hour 9: AMP UP THE KICK-A$$NESS!

Up where the mountains meet the heavens above
Out where the lightning splits the sea
I could swear there is someone somewhere
Watching me

Through the wind and the chill and the rain
And the storm and the flood
I can feel his approach
Like a fire in my blood

I need a hero
I'm holding out for a hero 'till the end of the night
He’s gotta be strong
And he's gotta be fast
And he's gotta be fresh from the fight

You know whose approach I'm feeling like a fire in my blood?!



AARON PIERCE, THAT'S WHO! WOO HOO! Suddenly America feels a little bit safer. I might have to go eat some apple pie...



...and play some baseball.



Of course, nowadays, more than a bat and ball, you need this to play:



By the way, though everyone thinks Bonnie Taylor penned those "I Need a Hero" lyrics...



...we all know who REALLY wrote that song of lust, desire, and passion:



Same hair, different woman. I mean, after years of being married to this guy...



...what do you expect?

Wow. Great ep!

So, the First Gentleman's life hangs in the balance. He looks pretty bad.



If only he had been wearing his special suit.



I liked the scene where Bill Buchanan offered to protect Prez Taylor on her way to the hospital. He said, "I brought this conspiracy to your attention. I hope I've earned your trust in me...AND my WHITE WIG OF SPECIAL POWERS!"



Country singer? Faith healer? It's hard to tell.

Meanwhile, the day's happenings continue to chip away at Agent Renee Walker's confidence. Here she takes a much-needed breather:



Of course, it doesn't help that she and Jack are potentially sending poor Marika Donoso to her unfortunate death. You know she's wishing she'd listened to her sister and stayed in her last relationship...



...because Samuel/Dubaku is bad news, not only on the global stage, but also in fashion circles.



Cheetah hats are so 1998.

Poor Marika is not only trapped in a bad situation with a psychopathic killer, but she's also headed to Belize to live in Dubaku's country villa.



She better get out of this mess before it's too late and sister Rosa is left under the care of some mean, old nurse.



It was good to see Morris again, sending Chloe off with a kiss and a wave. I suppose toting Prescott around to the grocery and the McDonald's ball pit...



...is WAY better than the last time we saw him.



Let's see: mundane errands with the kids vs. torture by hand-drill. You choose.

And let's not forget the mole...



...revealed to be, not Janeane Garofalo as we first suspected, but that weasel Sean Hillinger.



Yes, he's a mole AND a weasel! A measel, if you will. Here we see the stinky measel's attempt to blend into the seedy underbelly of Los Angeles, posing as an unemployed French actor.



He won't be smiling long, once Jack gets a hold of him.

Speaking of disguises, next episode, Aaron Pierce, with whiny First Daughter Olivia Taylor in tow, decides to take a small detour and surprise his wife, the former First Lady Martha "Brass Ballz" Logan.



Problem is, he has trouble deciding which undercover disguise to use:

Hour 8: Things I Lost in the Mire

Well, I must apologize. I don't know what happened. Instead of writing the blog for Hour 8, I got distracted thinking about this...



...for an entire week!

Hour 7: Things I'm Not Buying

There are a lot of things I'm not buying.

This:



This:



This:



Or this guy's apology:



Nor am I buying a lot about Day 7.

The more I look at her, I'm not buying that Agent Walker is a flesh-and-blood human being. I mean, you're telling me she was buried alive basically a few minutes ago...



...and is now perfectly fit to rescue someone?! There's something very wooden and stiff about her. I mean, just look at this screen grab from Hour 7:



Maybe it's just the Botox and all those freckles getting in her way of actually showing any believable emotion.

I'm definitely not buying Jeneane Garofalo playing it straight as agent Janis Gold.


Hmm. This appears to be a flash-forward to FBI League Night. Distraught over the death of Plant Manager John Brunner, Agent Gold has his head encased in resin. Nice.

I don't buy her trying to handle all that heavy dialogue. I also don't buy the goofy, draconian tones coming from the Abbott & Costello of prime-time crime, Agents Larry Moss and Sean Hillinger.



I found myself having a Tourette's Syndrome-like moment when I was hit with an uncontrollable urge to scream, "PLEASE! GOD HELP ME, JUST SHUT UP!"



I'm just not buying into the side stories. They don't matter. Remember 24 when you could really suspend your disbelief and think, "Hey, this could happen to me." Like when Kim Bauer was being stalked by both a cougar...



...AND MATT DILLON'S BROTHER?!



Now THAT I could buy into!

I'm also not buying that Larry Moss, a high-up in a federal agency, would have a screen saver of his secret lover on his computer. I mean, it might as well have been a freakin' shot of them at the last FBI picnic!



I'm not even buying Bill Buchanan's oddly mesmerizing Kenny Rogers-like hair.


(before or after the surgery)

I'm not buying that Dubaku eats lasagna.



I mean, he strikes me...



....as more the "grab a yogurt smoothie on the train" type guy.



I mean, evildoers really don't have a lot of time to eat? Or crimefighters, for that matter. No one EVER eats on this show...



...or pees...



...or has to stop at the ATM.


(no one human, that is.)

Oh well, we can only hope. Maybe next week, someone will lose a limb.