Hour 12: An Episode Good Enough That I Forgot to Take Notes

I really liked this episode. Not quite as good as the previous two, but still quite intense.

By the way, I came across an interesting Time.com article about Jack's ongoing shenanigans and the future direction of the show. Click through at your own risk.

Because I was glued to the TV and barely took notes, this will be a short post. Sadly, in spite of it being quite riveting, the episode really revealed how the producers have really begun to run out of fresh plot ideas. Saw a lot of rehashed devices.

Some observations.

1. Were any of us surprised when the bad guys pulled the old "drive under an overpass never to exit the other side" trick? I think that's happened at least twice in previous seasons. YAWN.

2. Meanwhile, on Kamistan's only sanctioned daytime drama, Discreetly Draped Loins of Admiration (DDLA)...

...Kayla and Tarin's relationship goes downhill faster than any model Toyota without its brakes, from any year. 

...and this is AFTER risking their lives imagining each other's naughty bits in a lily field in the middle of a dangerous lightning storm. 

3. In a brazen rehash of a plot device within its own season, this episode has the Stud from Constantinople come back from the dead...

(uhh, they forgot to reanimate his clothes, forcing him to seductively contemplate his predicament)

...JUST LIKE JASON SCHWARTZMAN FROM A FEW EPISODES AGO when the kid from the TV show Fame shot him three times!

4. What about File 33?
Samir: I want File 33! Give me File 33!
Hassan: File 33? Never heard of it!
Samir: You've heard of File 33. BRING ME FILE 33 OR KAYLA, STAR OF OUR ONLY OFFICIALLY SANCTIONED DAYTIME DRAMA, DDLA, DIES! FILE 33! I DEMAND IT!
Kayla: Daddy, give him File 33!
Hassan: Never heard of this File 33!
Jack: Mr. President, what about this File 33?
Hassan: I've only heard of File 13!

Dalia: Omar, you're not gonna give them File 33? She's our daughter, and the star of our country's only officially sanctioned daytime drama, DDLA!
Kayla: Yes, father, I'm your only daughter, and the star of our country's only officially sanctioned daytime drama, DDLA. Give them File 33!
Hassan: Uhh. Okay, File 33 it is. Don't be surprised if it's full of top-secret anti-nuclear classified information. Don't say I didn't warn you! This has been so stressful on me, I've ripped my clothes in anguish!

...and put on my favorite long necklace and then change into my horizontally striped mesh shirt. And blow-dry my hair. On my head AND my chest. And stand sexily in front of an oscillating fan. All in anguish, of course. Man, I wish I was on DDLA.

5. Tell me again how many times CTU has been rendered inoperable?! Let's see...it's been bombed, gassed, and now EMP'd. Not only did it do in Security Guard Gerrard, but it also really messed up the Coke machine in the CTU breakroom.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

And, it prompted BBQ Shrimp to run screaming down the hall to save his Red Lobster leftovers being reheated in CTU's only microwave.
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


Next week, after a devastating setback, the shattered CTU agency gathers its surviving agents in an attempt to remain feebly in control of the national crisis careening toward a horrible end.