What I’m Watching: 24 (The Penultimate Episode)

24: Season 8, Episode 22 “1:00PM-2:00PM” (F)

Well, Jack Bauer has officially gone off his rocker. Watching this episode, it was hard to distinguish exactly how many people he actually killed versus those he merely wounded or gassed, but there definitely isn’t a happy ending in store for him. He has officially murdered government officials in cold blood and a shoot on sight order has been put out on him. Even if Chloe and Cole can work their magic, this man is going to prison for life if he doesn’t get killed first. You do have to give the guy some credit though, since he was able to put together a mission to singlehandedly kidnap a former President of the United States in under twenty minutes. Sadly, his skills won’t help his case in court. Moving on to less violent but infinitely more stupid characters, I really have to hope that Meredith Reed didn’t carry the evidence in her purse and was able to hide it somewhere else. That woman failed so incredibly at achieving her mission, and Jack would have been much better off giving it Jim and having him disseminate it virally, a la “Antitrust.” In the latest preposterous twist, why does the Russian President have to be directly involved in the conspiracy? Worse still, does he really have to admit it on an unsecured line? Don’t these big shots realize that cell phones can be tapped and tracked? Obama wasn’t even allowed to keep his Blackberry, so what are all these heads of state doing carrying around their own cell phones? Well, after next week this will all be over for good. Tune in Monday night from 8pm to 10pm for the final two hours of “24” ever.