The Dow Is Up!

Last night was the season premiere of 24. As I wrote last week, I was really looking forward to it. The Wife? Not so much. It’s not that she doesn’t like 24, which she doesn’t. Rather, she doesn’t like that it turns me into a useless shush-ing machine. (“Luke just lit the dog on fire.” “SHHHH! At the commercial!”)

And so 24 picks up 2 years after last season ended. Jack has been in a Chinese prison the whole time, being tortured. I’m a little surprised that we haven’t heard anything from a Chinese spokesman saying that they don’t torture people, let alone rogue agents of fictitious government agencies. I’m guessing we’ll hear something later this week. It is Martin Luther King Day, after all, and even the Chinese have the day off work.

Jack is a little worse for wear. He has scars all over his body from the torture, including a rather crusty-looking hand. I can understand giving him scars on his back, but why did the producers put them on his hand too? All I could think is that Keifer is going to have to sit through an extra 30 minutes of make-up every day just to make it look like his hand was scarred. That seems unnecessary. Of course, they could just go the Star Wars route like they did with Luke Skywalker and just give him a glove to wear. But Jack isn’t that much of a wimp. (Furthermore, I don’t think Jack would have put up with any of those Ewoks. He would have just shot them all because they weren’t being “cooperative.”)

It was interesting to see them develop Jack’s character. If there was one thing Jack was always good at, it was torturing people. But now after being tortured himself for 2 years, he’s lost his edge. I wonder if there’s a connection there. What I’m really looking forward to is episode 6 (or so) when Jack forgets he was ever tortured and goes back to being Jack. It happened in Season 2 when Jack managed to kick heroin in about 6-8 hours. It can happen again.

A lot of familiar faces show up this time around, with Wayne Palmer taking over the role of President. The Wife caught a few minutes of 24 and saw Wayne as President. “Another black President?” “It’s actually the brother of the first one.” (Cue eye roll.) Yeah, like this country would ever elect someone for President based solely on the fact that someone in his family was President before. Really, if you’re going to roll your eyes, it should be at the fact that the people of the U.S. just elected a man with no political history as President. Really, the closest he came to politics was when he nailed the wife of a prominent Senator. And he got elected despite being at the scene of the crime when said mistress killed (a) the former First Lady and then (b) herself? Okay. Whatever.

Anyway, Jack is back doing what Jack does best. Like killing people in creative ways (by biting someone’s neck), tossing off great lines (like “we have no other choice!”), and disregarding the orders of his superiors but eventually being proven right. Of course, since his superiors basically just sent him to his death, does he really have to listen to them? What are they going to do, kill him? Really, what he should be afraid of is that they would send him back to China to be tortured. And since none of the physical torture worked, they should just make him watch a Bears game. After seeing Devin Hester fumble his third punt return, I would have told the Chinese that I was the gunman on the grassy knoll.