"I Work for Dick Jones!" -- 24, Prisonbreak, etc.

So last night, between the time that 24 ended on the east coast and the time it ended here in California, I was bombarded with IM's stating things like "daaaaaaaaaaamn!", "wow! wow! wow!" and (in best Joey Styles impression) "Oh my god!" So suffice to say that my expectations were raised to a pretty high level by the time I popped in my tape of the night's episode at about 11 pm. And it was, as usual, a fun, intense, exciting episode of 24, and yes, my nails were bitten to the core by the time it was done. But come on now, was the ending THAT shocking? I mean, from the reactions that i heard I thought that Jack had turned evil or something. But no ... it was merely a case of ...


SPOILERS ....







President Logan not only being incompetent and indecisive ... it turns out he is also this season's secret EVIL MASTERMIND BEHIND EVERYTHING~!

Now sure, it's shocking in a way that the President himself is evil. But is this really all that shocking given a.) our current political situation and b.) the alternate universe of 24, where pretty much anyone in a position of political authority NOT named David Palmer is at the least manipulative and conniving, and at the worst a full-on bad guy. So come on, how could anyone be that shocked that President Logan of all people was the mastermind? I mean we already knew that at best he was not exactly a saint. Now if someone like Bill Buchanan was a turncoat, that would be shocking. Now am I saying that this was a poor twist? No, actually, it's pretty cool and opens up tons of awesome story possibilities. But anyone who's ever watched much 24, played Metal Gear Solid, or had even a bit of conspiracy theorist in them should know that when these big government conspiracies occur, the trail usually leads right to the top.

As far as if this twist makes any sense or not, well, that will take some time to digest, but my gut says it does actually fit pretty well into the grand scheme of things, and could go all the way back to Logan being responsible for the last President's near-fatal air force one crash last season. No big contradictions that i can think of YET, but I'll have to keep mulling it over.

Otherwise, this was a cool episode. Great action scene towards the end with Jack and Wayne Palmer doing their best Batman and Robin impression. Awesome stuff with Peter Weller as always - that man is just ridiculously badass. How sweet would it have been if he was like "I work for Dick Jones! Dick Jones at OCP!"

The CTU interoffice stuff though was getting pretty annoying with about the fifth shift in power to occur thus far in a twelve hour period. It seems like Chloe's been removed and reinstated like 50 times already. I mean why would Homeland security just replace all personnel in the middle of a national security crisis, at 11 pm?

But yeah, this was a decent episode, but not all it was cracked up to be. And what happened to Bierko, by the way? Anyways, Jack as always ruled it, Robocop was da man, and for an hour I was thoroughly on the egde of my seat and entertained. But was this better than last week's episode? Don't think so. My grade: B+

PRISONBREAK:

Wow, great ep. A change of pace flashback episode that was a very welcome shakup from the usual format, and a very interesting look at the pre-prison lives of our protaganists. I especially loved the Teabag storyline, with him seemingly reformed at and domesticated only to be turned on, sent to jail, and regressing back to a vicious serial killer while incarcerated. Sweeet. Cool stuff with Lincoln having funded his brother's education, and some more neat twists in the backstory of how Lincoln went to prison and Michael dedicated himself to breaking his brotha out. Actually, Lost could take a lesson from this episode, as pretty much ALL of the flashbacks were smart, interesting, and clever. Michael's cellmate's was particularly funny as he robbed the same liquor store over and over again to fund his romance with an uptown gal. Just good stuff overall, one of the overall best episodes yet. My grade: A

OTHER STUFF:

- Whoah, we had an EARTHQUAKE DRILL at work today. That's a personal first. Funny part is, since I was ALL ALONE on my ENTIRE floor at the time of the drill, a loudspeaker told me to duck and cover and wait for my floor warden, but that was about the extent of it. Let's hope in the case of a real legit earthquake whoever my floor warden is remembers to check in on us elusive employees here in sector 7-D.

- A quick FINGER OF SHAME to some of my fellow bloggers out there, who as of late have taken it upon themselves to air work-related dirty laundry that should remain private on their all too public blogs. Not only is this inappropriate and immature, but it's potentially damaging to those who get caught in the crossfire. If you have issues with someone having to with work, tell them TO THEIR FACE, or complain to your friends in private if you must, but don't talk about someone behind their backs via a stupid blog that will likely get back to them within minutes anyways.

- Well it's Tuesday and pouring rain once again. Hopefully our second writer's meeting tonight will still manage to attract a few people, despite LA becoming one giant flooded mess whenever it rains it like this.

- GREAT NEWS for The Simpsons Movie ... from Ain't It Cool News:

This morning, an Austrailian publication called The Melbourne Age shed some light on who will be handling these monumental duties. According to The Melbourne Age, THE SIMPSONS MOVIE is written by Matt Groening, James L. Brooks, Al Jean, Brian Scully, Ian Maxtone-Graham, George Meyer, David Mirkin, Mike Reiss, Matt Selman, John Swartzwelder, and Jon Vitti (thanks to Skel for pointing us to this article).
In related news, Reuters is reporting that David Silverman, co-director of Pixar's MONSTERS, INC., director of many SIMPSONS episodes (and now the series' "supervising director") is helming the movie.

This is awesome -- a few of the classic writers like Reiss, Swartzwelder, and Vitti he who wrote the classic Leftorium episode!) are in there so that is definitely a positive sign. Let the countdown begin ...

- Alright, people. Chill ...