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The following takes place after the airing of each new episode of 24 on FOX…

It was about time that 24 got down to business, and last night’s eighth and ninth hours filled the jones that many fans of the program have been suffering.  Murder, intrigue, romance, plot twists, dark organizations woven into our own government, and shoulder cringing (in my case) or drilling (in Morris’ case) torture - it was all there.

My highlights from last night’s action-packed two hour doubleheader included: gold-digging girlfriend Rita killing her scum-bag weapons’ dealing beau, Darren McCarthy, in hope of a big payday, Jack’s desire to stand-up for his perceived killing of Graem, Morris’ guilt for having programmed the nuclear trigger device, the development of a secret group in the government, Lennox’s desire to resign and then his recanting of that desire, Marilyn’s obvious feelings for Jack, Phillip’s confession to Marilyn that it was he who killed Graem, Phillip using Josh as a bargaining chip… holy cow there was SO MUCH that I’m not going to spend the next hour listing them all, but I would be remiss if I didn’t say,

FAYED DRILLING MORRIS IN THE SHOULDER WITH THAT CORDLESS DRILL - ouch!

Two of the more subtle items of note for me were Jack’s emotional moment immediately following the disarming of the nuclear briefcase bomb at Fayed’s safehouse, and Milo’s incredibly effective quick thinking in trying to flee Phillip’s henchmen at the West Los Angeles ambush - crashing the van behind that brick wall, arming the grenade and leaving it in the cache of weapons to serve as an explosive diversion as he and Marilyn ran away.

I do have one criticism of last night’s show and for that matter the formula the show continues to follow - it’s becoming too predictable.  Did anybody doubt that Rita was going to get killed after she decided to cash in on delivering Morris to Fayed (this happens every season when someone gets too big for their britches and decides opportunistically to take advantage of a bad situation created by bad people - in the end the bad people always bump them off).  Or didn’t you know that somehow Lennox would become entangled with some secret group intent on undermining the president?  I recognize that the formula works, but ultimately (as is the case with most popular TV shows) it will be the adherence to the formula that will spell the show’s demise.  Regardless, I still love this show!

OK, here are my things for this week:

Phillip’s confession to Marilyn about Graem’s death threw me for a loop, but I guess it was the best way to transition into his abduction of Josh. I was pretty confident that Phillip would be exposed for Graem’s murder by some kind of security lunatic surveillance camera in Graem’s office. Although, dependent on where the story goes in the future, look for some kind of tape of Graem’s suffocation to be proof positive of Phillip’s guilt.

The alliance between Gredenko and Fayed is one of mutual convenience and in the end, Gredenko will be the character to move the antagonist portion of the story forward. Fayed will be trumped by al Assad’s internationally-televised speech and compromised by muslims friendly to the United States. He’ll be captured (or killed), but Gredenko will control the remaining suitcase nukes. Why? Probably because he will be connected to one or the former Soviet republics (like maybe… Kazakhstan, Kyrgystan or Tajikistan) which conveniently border on

CHINA.

• If China’s back in the mix that will lead us back to the show’s opening with Jack being exchanged for who else, but President Logan…

ahhh, you know I’m right. What else?

• Could it be that Lennox is setting up Reed and the rest of the gang working to overthrow the president? He asked a lot of questions about who was involved - as if he were taping their conversation. In the end could he turn out to be a good guy?
• Jack’s emotional moment after disarming the bomb is another indication that he will have a significant breakdown before Day 6 is through.

That’s all for this week.  Now for your treat

As always, thanks to FOX for the video. See you next week.