24: The Season 7 Finale - Reviewed! Now With More GRAVITAS.

TWENTY BY-GOD FOUR (24) Season Finale Review:

- Man, I want to be writing this still riding a buzz from an awesome season finale, but the truth is, this latest season of 24 ultimately ended without much of a bang. This episode did a lot of course correction, which was cool, but at the same time, there just wasn't enought momentum to keep the intensity up until the final clock counted down. By the end of Season 7, the show had simply run out of steam.

That's not to say that the finale didn't do a lot of things right. Last week, I was pretty vocal in expressing my disappointment at the been-there, done-that cliffhanger in which Jack is forced to aid Tony and work against the FBI because Tony's people were in a position to harm Kim if Jack didn't cooperate. I figured that that cliffhanger tried (but failed) to go over on shock value alone, and that we'd see that part of the plot wrapped up pretty quickly in the finale. I was happy to see that the show nearly leaped past it altogether. Instead of a tired "Jack-gone-rogue" angle, Kim was warned of the plot against her, and then all broke loose at the airport where she was located as the badguys realized that their jig was up. What ensued was a pretty kickass sequence that saw some great, chaotic action. Not only that, but Elisha Cuthbert actually got a chance to show her inner Bauer and kick some ass. Yep, Kim actually managed to contribute to the good guys' effort rather than impede it - no cougar traps tonight folks. It goes to show - there are no bad characters, only bad storylines. Kim even got to do her daddy proud by uttering a well-timed "dammit!". Not bad, Kim. Not bad at all.

The other key thing that this episode did right was that we finally got an explanation of Tony's motives, and with it the revelation that, as some guessed, the Soul Patch-ed one was really working to further his own interests. Namely, his whole plot was to get deep inside the big conspiracy we've heard so much about, to the point where he could get a one-on-one meeting with its head honcho, played by Will Patton. In the end, Tony was convinced that this guy was not only the head of the current conspiracy that was trying to engineer a bioweapon, but that this same dude was behind the killings of David Palmer and Tony's wife, Michelle Dessler. More on that in a second, but what I'll say for now was that this is, really, the only explanation for Tony's actions that really would have made sense. So, I'm glad they went with it. All around, this was a really strong ep for Tony. Seeing the usually-stoic Mr. Almeida show some real emotion and desperation was pretty intense. They even let Tony get in one final, emphatic "yeah" before all hell broke loose. Dammit all.

What else worked in this ep? Well, like I said, there were some great action scenes. The aforementioned airport scene was really well-done. Also - Jack's last-minute escape from captivity toward's episode end was particularly badass. Since he had the bioweapon-generated disease inside him, Tony's group planned to produce another bioweapon by harvesting Jack's blood. However, Jack showed some vintage Bauer badassery and took out about five guys before a thrilling mano e mano showdown with Tony. Good stuff. It's funny, because I feel like one thing this season lacked was an abundance of classic Jack moments. When you think of this season, the image will likely be Jack cringing in pain or (god forbid) Jack crying like a baby. This season was so concerned about moralizing the whole torture thing that it rarely let us just have fun as Jack whooped ass seven ways to Sunday as only he can.

And that's one thing that annoyed me about this ep - suddenly, the whole torture thing was once again front and center. I mean, who really cares if Renee tortures that Alan Wilson guy or not? To have that be the character's big season-ending exclamation point - that she is going to torture this apparently wickedly evil guy - I just didn't think it was that big of an exclamation point. I just think that putting real-world morality into the fantasy world of 24 has been one of this season's biggest failings. 24 has always subscribed to a comic book mentality, and therefore I can't help but think that the pundits who have tried to draw real-world parallels between the show and real-life politics are idiots. It's annoying that the show had to spend so much of this season dealing with this kind of meta-commentary rather than just telling a good story. It's like if you write too many stories about why Batman doesn't just kill the Joker. You can get one or two good stories out of the question, but dwell on it too much and you just expose the limitations of the fiction. It's the same with 24: Jack was originally written as a violent badass not for political reasons, but because it made for entertaining television. To then try to retroactively insert this whole morality question into the equation is lame in my book. And worst of all, it weakened the character of Renee Walker. A character who could have been a real standout was ultimately reduced to a woman whose main character arc was: "how willing is she to torture a known criminal?" Again, it might make sense from a "real-world" angle, but 24 has never been about playing by the rules of the "real" world, and there was no reason for it to start doing so now.

Another less complex yet equally irritating problem: the President's daughter, Olivia Taylor. The problem with 24 is that its structure is designed to make each storyline as intense and urgent as possible. Olivia's subplot over the last several episodes, on the other hand, has been a total momentum killer. To think that so much of this finale was spent with Olivia and the discovery of her scheme to kill Jonas Hodges ... well, you couldn't help but be annoyed whenever we cut away from Jack, Tony, or Walker to focus in on this neverending Presidential soap opera. Yes, there was a thematic tie to the season's overarching ideas, but, there's no delicate way to say that Olivia was simply a grating character from start to finish in Season 7. If nothing else, her storyline should have been wrapped up as quickly and painlessly as possible. Instead, it dragged and dragged to the bitter end. And to make matters worse, we got a last-minute injection of further family turmoil when the President's husband returned and out of nowhere turned on his wife and blamed her presidency for destroying their family. Um, what? I mean, man, I give Cherry Jones credit for doing a great job with everything she's been given this season, but by the end, you just wanted to be rid of the President, her husband, her daughter, her aides, and the entire 24-verse version of the White House. To add insult to injury, the great AARON f'n PIERCE, who we all want to see kicking ass and taking names, was reduced to being a bit player in all of this melodrama. The "Agent of Awesome" deserved better.

And then there is the whole conspiracy angle. Last week I talked about how 24 has seemingly introduced a new all-encompassing evil conspiracy every season, set the group up as the season's Big Bad, and then unceremoniously forgotten about them. Well, this ep made some kind of half-hearted effort to TIE THEM ALL TOGETHER. Yep, Walt Cummings, Naked Mandy, Graem Bauer, the Blue Tooth Mafia, Charles Logan, that guy from Saw ... all of them were apparently merely stooges to this Alan Wilson character. Okay ... I thought he simply led a group of PMC's looking to undermine the government? I'm sorry, but this came off as half-assed. How many times now has 24 introduced the "real" mastermind behind Palmer's assassination, et al?

The thing that kills me about it too is that this season of 24 had a number of potentially awesome villains who deserved more time in the spotlight. TONY TODD! I mean, come on! Who wouldn't have enjoyed seeing the season build up to a climactic confrontation between him and Jack? And how about Jon Voight as Hodges? It just seems odd that he was ultimately not the main badguy. Sometimes, you get the feeling that 24 gets so hung up on its twists and turns that it ignores the more straightforward but ultimately cooler options for telling a season-long story. It reminds me of last season when Graem Bauer was set up as a potentially classic villain only to be abruptly killed off. Don't worry though, he was apparently working for Alan Wilson the entire time!

Finally, I just kind of felt like the episode ended without much of a bang. I don't mind them going for a quieter sort of ending, but the final scene was just kind of there. We all knew that Kim would ultimately try to undergo the procedure to help save her dad, so I felt we needed some final twist or reveal to really end things with a "wow" moment. Even a little mention of CTU needing to come back, or a scene implying that Tony escaped custody, or ... something! Anything! Instead, what we got was a bit anticlimactic.

In the end, this episode for the most part got the job done, and was workmanlike in that it got us from Point A to Point B pretty much how many might have expected. But, this is 24 we're talking about, dammit. I expect to be shocked and amazed. I expect a killer ending that will send me running to call my friends and share my excitement. I expect an ending that will have me waiting with eager anticipation for next season to arrive. This episode entertained, it had some great action, and it featured a typically-awesome performance from Kiefer Sutherland, who makes you feel every cough, every gasp, every eye-twitch. Thanks to him, there was no shortage of *gravitas* to be found. But did this episode go above and beyond? Was it a game-changer? Did it remind us all why 24 is still the undisputed king of the TV mountain? Nope, it was merely competent. In the end, this was a good, solid season of 24. But next year, I think it can do better.

My Grade: B