24 Hours to Kill

What does a Great American TV Series look like? It can make you think, cry or laugh, but only for a second. It can make you frantically search for the remote, just to hit pause or fast forward through frustration or rewind for remembrance. A finale should make you want to order pizza, pop popcorn, or open a microbrew.  It’s as bloody as the red on Old Glory’s stripes or the Scarlet in the end zone of the Horseshoe. It’s riddled with bullets and gore, and bandaged together by one compelling story. The simple, believable plot is as timeless as it is awe-inspiring; that one man with the help of the 2^st Amendment and balls the size of hand grenades can right the wrongs of government, war, social disparity, and greed.

There are the good; the characters that are charismatic, charming, and witty. They win our confidence and guard it for a series and some of the spin-off. There are the bad; the characters that question the definition of corruption, darkness, and disorder. They push us to question choices and selfish motivations. Then there is Jack.

On 24, there were 2 Black Presidents. Lost had zero. LOST is racist. Let's look at the black people that have been on the show.

Mr. Eko ~ an African warlord posing as his dead priest brother crashes on the island in a plane full of heroin, hidden in figurines of the Virgin Mary. Ends up being murdered by the Smoke Monster for no apparent reason.

Michael - Sells out his friends to save his own ass and the respective ass of his son. Sails off the island only to return estranged from his son and with a death wish. Dies in a huge boat explosion
Walt - the magical son of Michael. Fades to obscurity but reappears periodically to offer vague clues about how stupid the show is. Gets old and is not longer "adorable"

On 24, our Jack would have killed or tortured Sawyer, Ben, Locke, Michael, that weird polar bear and all of the Others within the first hour.  Then he radio’s for an evac 20 minutes into the second hour. That’s how you do a Series Finale.

On 24, all loose ends are cut. Literally. Jack Bauer literally had all of the armed men, women, and children in New York (and, from what I hear, that’s the entire population) hunting for him and he still managed to steal a Helicopter, shoot/stab/maim his way to the truth, and finally don a Batman-type body armor suit to abduct a guarded, corrupt ex-President. What have you done with your day?

On 24, Bad guys definitely don’t make it off the island. Every person who attempted to or succeeded in hurting any of Jack’s friends ended up wearing their insides on their outsides, all of them far from the Manhattan island border.

On 24, there wasn’t just one smoke monster. There were several. Jack witnessed or defeated several smoke monsters. You know what he called them? Mushroom clouds. I could go on about bright lights and water, but I think the words “hydrogen bomb” say it all.

           

On 24, Jack’s father wasn’t a “Christian Shepard”. He was a “Dickish Traitor” who killed Jack’s brother, kidnapped his grandson, tried to bring down the government, and had Jack sent to a Chinese torture camp for over a year. For Father’s Day, Jack is giving him a bullet.

On 24, Jack doesn’t need food, water, or shelter; just a 9 mm and a satchel full of clips. The last man to call it a purse ended up holding a good amount of those bullets for Jack, the hard way.

On 24, Jack answers all questions in one day. Jack murders about 160 terrorists in a single day and somehow, miraculously, people start to give him answers. Who knew? Do you know what Jack calls a cliffhanger? A terrorist that refuses to let go. Jack’s cliffhangers are never a 2-parter.