What I’m Watching: 24

24: Season 8, Episode 19 “10:00AM-11:00AM” (F)

Jack Bauer officially has the biggest ego in the entire universe. As usual, he can’t trust anyone, and he’s now the only one in the city who’s thinking clearly, according to him. He’s so smart that he can tell when Chloe is lying, and he knows that Cole will swear allegiance to him and take down someone or another. This version of the United States of America doesn’t need another President ousted from office. Over the course of this show, Keeler has been shot down, Logan has resigned, and former President Palmer was assassinated. President Taylor being impeached wouldn’t help anyone, and certainly wouldn’t do the United States’ standing in the world any favors. Back to our good friend Jack, his leaving CTU in a helicopter just to come back to extract Dana doesn’t seem like a highly expedient plan. Shouldn’t Chloe know just as well as President Taylor what Jack is capable of? She does succumb to pressure within a minute, but then there needs to be a twist: she’s actually trying to bring him in before he does something even stupider. It’s quite a surprise to see Michael Madsen, onetime star of “Reservoir Dogs” and now currently doing a million direct-to-DVD movies (he has a whopping 32 projects in production on IMDB). I’m much more excited about D.B. Sweeney (“Jericho”) as the head of the private security team currently water-boarding Dana, complete with a very villainous mustache. I must remind Jack that this isn’t a horror movie, and sending dead movies creepily on cranes through warehouses is inappropriate here.

On a side note, I never watch previews for the next episode of any shows because they give way too much away. For some reason, I opted to try it this time, and what a mistake. They give so much away – don’t watch if you plan to actually watch the next episode. With this show, I don’t care as much, but it’s still unfortunate to know what’s going to happen.