24: Season 4 (SPOILERS)

[Sinclair]

It would be pretty ballsy to kill the president off the show.

Yeah, but that's what I like about the show. They're willing to do stuff like that. It kind of reminded me of B5, except I'm sure the VP is on the up and up.

And what was the point about the sappy president with his son thing? Zzzz....

That was an attempt to humanize the Prez before knocking him off.

Yeah, that's the way I saw it.

The way the scene was cut, it certainly looks as tough the blast took out the President and his son immediately.

That's certainly how it looked but I guess we'll find out for sure next week.

My bad on the Anderson terminal illness theory. Instead, they made him dishonorably discharged. Still, hard to buy that he would do it for the money, but that's the way they wrote it.

I figured he was just in it for the money, but I have a feeling Marwan would screw him over anyway.

 

[Recoil]

Yea I kind of saw the whole son thing as a way to make the incident even more dramatic. My money is that the Pres is dead. If thats the case, its going to be an interesting feel for the rest of the season, on how the country could react, or even how CTU could ever "win."

At that point, even capturing Marwon, wouldn't matter because of all the damage he did. Sure there is probably an even bigger "endgame" they are working towards, given its about halfway through the season still, but stopping that, after all that he has been able to cause would really be a hollow victory...

 

[GKarsEye]

I don't really see it that way. Of the four plots Marwan hatched, two were thwarted. The train bombing and AF1 were successful, but CTU did stop the assassination of the Sec of Def and the nuclear meltdowns. I would say the latter is by far the most crucial.

A country can recover from the assassination of a president. It's happened before. But we couldn't recover literally hundreds of nuclear power plants melting down simultaneously.

The previews look like the next plot is another ultra-big-killing-many-people deal. CTU will stop that one.

 

[Recoil]

Yea I guess when you look at it like that, thats true. And it does seem that from the Air Force One thing, they will have another Nuclear issue as seen in the previews.

 

[Sigma]

I was quite dissapointed with this episode. It was everything i don't like about 24: over-the-top action scenes and drama, unreal use of tehnology etc. This hour was very predictable.

 

[PillowRock]

Sorry that I'm just catching up, but I didn't see the ep until the Friday repeat.

Did anyone else think that it might have been a useful idea to put a parachute on the President when they found out that a fighter was coming after them .... and then push him out the door when they picked up the air-to-air missile on their screens? Of course, that would pretty much require them deciding to have the President stand in front of an open door for (potentially) several minutes so that he would be in position to do that just in case they were fired upon. They may well view that as having a higher probability of creating problems than solving them.


And besides humanizing the President, putting his son on the plane for those scenes also ups the sympathy factor of the audiance by putting a complete innocent, who is outside any geo-political conflicts, into harm's way.

 

[B5_Obsessed]

If the movie Air force One is to be believed, there is a 3-seat escape capsule that looks like an Apollo command module on board.

 

[Sinclair]

If the movie Air force One is to be believed, there is a 3-seat escape capsule that looks like an Apollo command module on board.

That was my first thought while watching the episode, but I wasn't sure if there actually was one in the real Air Force One, or if it was just something Hollywood made up for the movie. It certainly wouldn't surprise me that there would be certain safety and escape features aboard it.

 

[B5_Obsessed]

The only problem is that if you drop a capsule out of the plane, it becomes a slow moving target itself, so it's probably not best suited to that situation.

Okay, last night's episode:

The Anderson thread seemed to end rather blandly.

"The pilot intercepted and the stealth was destroyed".

Is that it? Didn't he plan on being attacked? He seemed to think he could escape.

I'm getting tired of frigging Marwan's impossible escapes. A few weeks back, he walked out of a warehouse in the middle of a CTU raid where they even had all the heat signatures within the warehouse represented on their screens. Now he drives off in the middle of the desert. Last we saw, he was drivingwith his headlights on. Just how long does it take a helicopter to catch up to a jeep anyway?
2 minutes would've been my guess.

A lot of strange looks at the White House. Mike, the Veep, darting eyes. Hmmm. I think the Veep is going to crack under pressure.

 

[Sinclair]

Is that it? Didn't he plan on being attacked? He seemed to think he could escape.

I wondered about that too. I wonder if they just dropped that storyline and had him killed or if he'll turn back up at some point.

I'm getting tired of frigging Marwan's impossible escapes. A few weeks back, he walked out of a warehouse in the middle of a CTU raid where they even had all the heat signatures within the warehouse represented on their screens. Now he drives off in the middle of the desert. Last we saw, he was drivingwith his headlights on. Just how long does it take a helicopter to catch up to a jeep anyway?
2 minutes would've been my guess.

I was pissed at this. There should have been no possible way he would have gotten away. That copter should have found him easily.

A lot of strange looks at the White House. Mike, the Veep, darting eyes. Hmmm. I think the Veep is going to crack under pressure.

Something tells me that Logan (I think that was the VP's name) won't be able to handle it, and this may just be a way to bring Palmer back into the fold.

I was curious about the 'football'. They said earlier in the episode that the playbook and the other thing were useless without the other. Marwan just kept the plan with the listing of the warheads and left the other guy with the briefcase and the rest of the playbook, which Jack recovered. So if one thing is useless without the other, what can Marwan do with just the warhead part? He may be able to locate them, but wouldn't it be pretty impossible to do anything with them?

 

[Recoil]

I'm getting tired of frigging Marwan's impossible escapes. A few weeks back, he walked out of a warehouse in the middle of a CTU raid where they even had all the heat signatures within the warehouse represented on their screens. Now he drives off in the middle of the desert. Last we saw, he was drivingwith his headlights on. Just how long does it take a helicopter to catch up to a jeep anyway?
2 minutes would've been my guess.

I just watched this episode, and have to admit this really made me sick. 24 used to strech the "real time" aspect of the show, but for the most part, they kept things very believable...until now.

Yea, first his escape from a surrounded warehouse seemed a little far fetched. But this escape in the Jeep is BULLSHIT.

I'm sorry. Jack saying "I had to make a choice" is just fucking whack. Last time I checked, at the begining of the episode the Jason guy saw the Jeeps coming from FUCKING FIVE MILES AWAY with those damn lights on. Now, you have a fucking HELICOPTER who can see for 15-20 miles if not more. You are in the middle of the freakin desert. The Jeep CANT drive away without his lights on (in fact you see them on in one scene). That chopper could spot them MILES away and take them out. Hell, its not like Marwon had a huge head start anyway. They had barely split up and the helicopter took out the first Jeep. Figure 3-4 min looking at the pages of the book. That is far enough time to catch up to the Jeep.

Lets say by some stroke of luck the Jeep drives over a sand dune and escapes the view of the helicopter. You mean to tell me that satellites, who have been reading license plates off cars in this series, couldnt spot a single Jeep OUT IN THE MIDDLE OF NO WHERE IN THE DESERT?!?!?!

Yea, this is by far the most blatant insult to fans of this show's intelligence. I really hope this is the last of that kind of stretch of logic and realism....

 

[Recoil]

The Anderson thread seemed to end rather blandly.

"The pilot intercepted and the stealth was destroyed".

Frankly this doesn't surprise me, and is quite realistic actually. I really dont know what made Anderson think he could actually escape alive after attacking Airforce One. Here is the thing about a Steath Fighter: It isn't meant for air to air combat, it is designed for air to ground combat. The plane is SLOW. It takes a COMPUTER to even be able to keep the plane in the air. It isn't maneuverable at all. Its ONLY advantage is its stealth, and once detected, its dead. Air to ground missions are all about sneaking in, shooting, then sneaking out before the SAMs see you, which in a stealth aircraft, if you dont make any sudden banks or maneuvers can be done. As soon as that plane makes a tight bank, its profile is visible. The second he shot that missle, his position was given up, and it is far too easy for any escort aircraft to turn on him and take him out.

Anderson was a moron, or ignorant, to think he could escape that situation alive.

 

[PillowRock]

Anderson was a moron, or ignorant, to think he could escape that situation alive.

Or ejected as soon as he fired the one missle.

When he said that he planned on escaping he also said that he knew the only way that was possible was if he made the government think he was alrady dead. It remains toi be seen who was right: the pilots reporting him dead, or Marwan / Anderson thinking that they could fool them into thinking he was dead.

Of course, Marwan probably couldn't care less whether Anderson got away or not.


I agree that there is no way that jeep should have gotten away. Everything about that was just silly.


So was anyone else thinking:
What is it with Mike and 25th Amendment Cabinet meetings? Is that just his favorite part of the Constitution or what?


Question (I don't want spoilers, but speculation is fine)
Who is out there behind Marwan, on the US government side, that we haven't seen yet? I don't think that we have seen any moles for Marwan, so far, who ought to have access to the "football" homing beacon frequency.


What good is the section of the playbook, when the said that he needed both?

Well, when he had both he could conceivably launch nuclear strikes (involving *all* US missile forces; we like to think that manned bombers could be told in advance what the situation was and not launch any agregiously illogical nuclear strikes) by launching the missiles directly from whereever he happened to be. He can't do that now, which is a significant improvement over letting him have both.

However, if he can physically get his hands on a warhead that was listed in that section of the book he now has the codes to arm the thing. It's not nearly *as* bad as him having both, but it still isn't good. You would like to think that physically gaining access to a warhead would very difficult, especially when they can narrow it down to the sites listed in that section of the "playbook". However, it has already been proven that the CTU universe does not allow the possibility of anything vaguely resembling logical, effective security.

 

[Sinclair]

I think last night's episode was probably the most irratated I've been with the show. I found it to get more and more rediculous as the episode went on.

How long did it take for Curtis and company to nab that guy and bring him to CTU? It seemed like it took like five minutes from the time Marwan called that lawyer and he arrived at CTU. For once it took Jack forever to get from one place to another.

I thought Edgar was going to attack that dude or something and he was getting on my nerves.

President Logan's a coward. He's more concerned about his own safety.

The one thing I liked about this episode is the way they let that dude go free. That was pretty clever.

 

[GKarsEye]

This episode made me realise how evil those goddamn liberal civil rights lawyers are.


[spoiler from next week's preview]

The president's cowardice is an awkward set-up for the return of David Palmer as an advisor as suggested by Mike.

 

[haze]

My thoughts mimic Sinclair's. I felt the exact same way as the episode went on.

When Jack first gave up on interrogating the prisoner, I was wondering why he didn't point out how quickly the Amnesty guy was brought in. He did bring it up later, but I wish he'd have confronted the Amnesty lawyer in the hallway to make him realize he was bring used by terrorists to further their agenda.

Worst part of the episode for me: Jack is asking the President to allow him to question the prisoner and the President asks for advice. Mike agrees with Jack and then the other guy in the room says something like, "If you allow them to do this and he isn't involved, I'd hate to see that be your first act as President and forever taint your legacy."

HELLO, something tells me his legacy would be greatly ruined if terrorists succeed in setting off a STOLEN NUCLEAR WARHEAD.

A lot happens in an hour. Maybe next year they should call it 48.

 

[Chilli]

Does anyone actually know what happened to Berooz?

...


Berooz? Who was Berooz?

God this season has a short attention span. I can hardly remember all the plots we've been through. And the bending of the time frame isn't really funny anymore .. just HOW did that Amnesty guy get there so quickly with a full plan and a court order? In the middle of the night too?

24 never was 100% realistic .. but the discrepancies have been too bloody strong this season to not notice them. Oh well .. I'm hoping they just borrowed the Star Trek movie odd/even system, if there is a season 5 .. season 3 having been WAY superior to season 2 IMHO. I will still be giving it a chance next season. I just hope the plot will be a bit more .. consistant then.

 

[Sinclair]

Does anyone actually know what happened to Berooz?

I'd wondered about that too. He's not the main focus right now, but something tells me he'll pop up again.

 

[GKarsEye]

Well I'm having a hard time swalling this season- for the reasons mentioned but just the plots of the bad guys are comical. In one day staging a train bombing as a distraction to capture the secretary of defense for a mock trial just to use up internet bandwidth to steal some nuclear trigger to melt down all the plants... wait, there's more... which, even if successfully wiping out half the US population is still in itself just yet another distraction to hit the president in the air by stealing a freakin' stealth fighter all in order to get a nuclear "football" or even just a page from it and somehow steeling a nuclear warhead... I mean what's next, a goddamn giant Death Ray from the moon?

 

[PillowRock]

I realize that the way things have been going this season on 24, this just picking nits, but ......

Let me see if I have this straight:

DoD is having trouble checking on "in transit" warheads in a timely manner because all of the routes were changed after the train bombing. Apparently they are just winging it, and the dispatchers that they are checking in with every 20 minutes don't have a clue where they are.

Marwan got the location from stolen "playbook" pages.

The playbook had been in a locked case on board AF1.

AF1 had been in the air continuously since ..... wasn't it before the train attack?

Do you really mean to tell me that those hardcopy pages are more up to date than the info at the fingertips of the dispatchers etc. actively coordinating the moves through the night?


And how many strike teams with how much firepower each would Marwan had to have had in order to be confident that he could intercept one quickly enough?

And that is manpower that he has to have in place for a backup plan, isn't it? Didn't he intend to have the whole "football", and just be able to remotely order the missiles to fire?