The current season of 24 has revealed the treachery of Jacks family, and the on-going menace of a radical Islamist threat to set off suitcase nukes in various cities of the US. One in fact, has already gone off some twenty plus miles outside the city of Los Angeles. In the meantime, President Palmer's cabinet is to a large degree pressuring him into suspending habeas corpus and other civil liberties guaranteed under the constitution in order to deal with this emergency situation, yet Palmer is adverse to doing so.
He has been advised that the founding fathers could not have envisioned a threat of this magnitude, the greatest threat to their national security were muskets, long rifles which took as long to load, aim, and fire one ball from as it took the last prematurely exploding nuke to destroy at least twelve thousand American citizens.
Palmer is unmoved by this argument. He will not suspend the constitution, apparently not even as an emergency temporary measure, and furthermore, he fears that were he to be perceived as coming down heavy on the American Muslim community, he would turn that community against the country, when they should be “our greatest asset”.
24 usually can be divided into two major segments of the season. The immediate plot line evolves about half way through the season, at times further, to the point where an even greater threat is revealed, and the true mastermind emerges.
For example, the first season turned out to be a vengeful plot by an old enemy of Jack and the first President Palmer (then just a candidate for President targeted for assassination). Season Three started out as an operation to infiltrate a gang of Mexican drug smugglers, who had acquired a biological weapon, and evolved from there eventually into yet another worldwide plot for revenge against the western democracies by a former agent who had been betrayed and left to die. Last season began as your typical terrorist plot by Chechen rebels, but this was eventually revealed to have all been masterminded by the President of the United States himself, working in concert with a shadowy group of misguided American patriots headed by a man who in this current season turns out to have been Jacks own brother, Graham Bauer.
Jacks father is a snake as well, and in the last episode murdered Graham in order to protect his own ass and their company from complicity in the current Islamist plot. Turns out the nukes were stolen after Graham, through his company, inadvisably outsourced their transport into the country from Russia, ostensibly in order for them to be better safeguarded. He then tried to cover this up, even after the devastation that occurred when the first of the nukes was prematurely exploded in a warehouse to prevent it’s confiscation by a CTU strike force.
Jack knows about Grahams involvement in all this, of course-he tortured it out of him, as well as an inadverdant confession as to Grahams involvement in last seasons plot. Jack of course is totally unaware of the true extent of his own fathers involvement. But this will be revealed in time. And then, sometime after episode twelve, the real villain will emerge from out of the shadows.
Actually, the true villain has already made his presence known, he is just not that obvious to all but the most aware. But those of us who are familiar with him can almost smell the stench of this dastardly villain emanating from the television screen.
In fact, this villain is so obvious, and so blatant, that his effect might well be described as tantamount to a CTU strike force bursting through all the doors and windows of a building while jacked up on a cocktail of steroids, acid, and downers.
You almost want to scream out at the television, “JACK, PLEASE WAKE UP, BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE!!!”
And though we are still relatively in the beginning stages of the series, and while there yet might be time, you start to come to the realization that this season might contain the most shocking chain of events in the entirety of the series history.
This series could well see the death of Jack Bauer, and the total destruction of CTU. As for how the true villain of this season will accomplish this goal, the true question to be asked is, how could he not succeed? He has infiltrated the highest echelons of the Presidency. He lurks behind every corridor of CTU itself. He has an invisible, iron grip on the heart, mind and soul of Jack Bauer himself, insidiously manipulating him like little more than a puppet on a string.
He has gotten poor Jack to the point where he has been having doubts about the validity of his methods of interrogation, and doubtless once he has discerned that his actions might have lead to the death of brother Graham, he might feel all the more conflicted. Hell, he might well decide to eschew torture all together, for the sake of his own peace of mind. Will he possibly be as effective as in the past? Without any doubt, he almost certainly will be. Yet, will that in the long run be enough?
Almost the entirety of the shows major characters and a good many of the more minor ones has been deviously influenced in some small degree or another by this master manipulator. The worse thing is, this monster might well have manipulated himself into actually believing that he is doing the right thing.
The most successful con artists have a tendency to fall for their own cons. The most beautiful yet airheaded woman imaginable can delude herself into thinking that all eighteen of the guys that have screwed her over the last six moths really do love her for her true worth as a person.
So it is with the most insanely evil villains. Even Hitler doubtless fooled himself into thinking that he was chosen by destiny to fulfill the role of that historical epoch in a way that the world would be left a far better place once he succeeded in accomplishing his goals, which he had no doubt whatsoever he would accomplish.
And so it is with the true villain of this seasons 24. And who is this villain? Well, I don’t know what his name is, yet, but I know the weapon of his delusion, it can be identified simply as-
Political Correctness.
Unfortunately for the shadowy group that has insinuated itself into what is usually one of the better dramatic action series on television, the American television viewing public has a good deal more discernment than the characters on the fictional drama.
The American people want to be entertained, not preached at, regardless of their feelings one way or another, either pro or con, as to either the “liberal” or the “conservative” aspects of the politicized “war on terror”.
But because the writers and producers of 24 have felt compelled to make every high level Presidential cabinet meeting take on the atmosphere of the last stages of a Presidential primary campaign, complete with sound bites and public personnas and mannerisms as might well be evidenced in a second rate television campaign ad, the ordinarily faithful viewers of 24 are starting to drift away from the series, and on to fresher programs, such as “Heroes”, which is indeed a compelling, well written series, with well drawn characters, plot lines, dialoques, mystery and suspense.
I mean, do the writers of this show actually think that politicians really talk like this in high level cabinet meetings, like pundits spewing forth talking points on a cable news network?
What we are getting with this season of 24 is a kind of pc propoganda that is tantamount to attempted mass brainwashing on an unprecedented scale.
The liberal view of how to engage in the war on terror-good. The conservative view-baaaaaaad.
The liberal view-common sense based determination through strength of character along with faith in and devotion to the constitution.
The conservative view-A bunch of weak kneed weenies who are reacting out of fear and ready to hand their personal freedoms over to devious agents of right wing fascism.
Well, how about some pros and cons of both sides, a little bit of gray area? If the producers and writers of 24 had to delve into this at all, wouldn’t that be more-well, honest? A little bit less-wellllll, like left wing propoganda? Wouldn’t it, finally, be a hell of a lot more realistic?
Evidently, the network executives of Fox have determined the season can be saved by pre-empting next weeks Prison Break and showing next weeks episode of 24 at 8:00 p.m., or as they call it, a “special time”.
Good luck with that. But if they continue to engage in the pc rhetorhic that has been on display over the last few episodes, they might well discover even more people than they ever imagined really do love their “Heroes”.
But, oh well-at least the folks at CAIR will be happy.If you tune into the show, you might recognize the thinly disguised organization portrayed on the show. It's leader is, you should definitely be aware, one of the "good guys".
