Praise Jesus, 24 has been cancelled, part II

Previously on bokeen.com:  Season eight of 24 has been an absurd clusterfuck.  Fox decided to pull the plug on the show.  The terrorists have nuclear fuel rods.  Brian Hastings’ lower back hurts.  Cole Ortiz looked pretty while reading lines of dialog.  Renee Walker was officially declared a sexy creature.  Read part one for the full story. 

Dana Walsh (Katee Sackhoff) is a senior data analyst at CTU, a job that effectively amounts to “Lord of the Computer Geeks.”  Her preposterous and convoluted subplot has been a major part of season eight.

At the start of the season, viewers learn that Walsh is engaged to Cole Ortiz, and that she has an antagonistic relationship with Chloe O’Brian.  These innocuous beginnings soon gave way to the character’s increasingly ludicrous story arc. 

Walsh repeatedly received phone calls from her ex-boyfriend Kevin, a goateed hillbilly who had recently been released from jail.  After begging Kevin to stop contacting her, she reluctantly met him in the CTU parking lot.

Kevin revealed that Walsh’s real name is Jenny Scott, and that they had both been arrested for murder.  While Kevin spent seven years in prison, Walsh a minor at the time, so she was released early.  Kevin pledged to leave Walsh alone if she would use her role at CTU to aid him in committing a crime. He threatened to reveal her true identity.  Fearing potential damage to her career, Walsh agreed to walk Kevin and his trailer park companion Nick through a robbery of an NYPD evidence warehouse.  

Most of this convoluted diversion is generally implausible.  First, Walsh repeatedly ducked away into the corridors of CTU to take a series of personal calls from Kevin on her cellular phone.  The audience is lead to believe that a CTU analyst in a management position is allowed to repeatedly leave her workstation during a national security crisis, a theme which reoccurs throughout the season.  It is also doubtful that the highly secure government building lacks any restrictions on cell phone use or a means to monitor these conversations. 

Walsh was able to successfully conceal her former identity from the government in order to obtain her job at CTU.  One would assume that the government would, at very least, perform a cursory background check for a position which grants access to extremely sensitive information about national security.  Such a background check would surely reveal information such as unpaid parking tickets and criminal convictions for murder.

In aiding the bumbling hillbillies, Walsh tapped into the evidence warehouse’s security cameras to direct the robbery.  She provided Kevin and Nick with play-by-play feedback from her workstation, which went unnoticed by her CTU cohorts.  Walsh also conveniently neglected that fact that this activity would be logged, a problem that is later conveniently resolved by the detonation of a pulse bomb in CTU.

The redneck lads were pleased with the results of their sloppy robbery, and Kevin reneged on his promise to leave Walsh alone.  Walsh decided to take matters into her own hands, leaving work with a pistol with the intent of dispatching the troublesome hillbilly duo.  She followed the men to a wooded area, but Ortiz magically interceded before she could make her move. 

After a violent confrontation left Kevin and Nick dead, squeaky-clean Ortiz helped his fiancé dump the bodies.  Within minutes, Kevin’s parole officer became alarmed because he was unable to reach the goateed con, and because Kevin had not updated his Twitter status in over an hour.

The parole officer, Bill Prady (Stephen Root of Office Space fame) discovered that Kevin had contacted Walsh several times.  He traveled to CTU to confront Walsh and grew suspicious due to a combination of terrible lies and terrible acting.  Soon, Prady learned of the robbery and discovered that the warehouse’s surveillance system had been tampered with.  He requested access to the footage, which would implicate Walsh in the crime.

Fortunately, the aforementioned pulse bomb destroyed all traces of the footage.  When Walsh explained that she could no longer be helpful to Prady’s investigation.  Believing that Walsh played a role in the robbery, he decided to discuss the matter with Hastings. 

Upon learning of the meeting between Prady and her boss, Walsh killed Prady and hid his body inside of a wall.  Next, it is revealed that Walsh is actually a mole working with the terrorists when she phones on of the bad guys to check in. 

Walsh’s complex story arc exposes several gaping plot holes.  Her progression from a CTU employee with a checkered history to a full-blown supporter of terrorist was forced in a quite awkward manner.  For example, she was incredibly hesitant when she was plotting to kill Kevin and Nick, but she gleefully choked Prady to death and disposed of his body like a seasoned pro.

Furthermore, Walsh’s links with the terrorists underscored that her interactions with Kevin were a superfluous distraction.  Walsh’s position inside CTU would be incredibly valuable to a terrorist organization, and Kevin’s attempt at blackmail was a great threat to her career.  Instead of aiding Kevin and Nick’s risky gambit, she could have dispatched a friendly local jihadist to kill the hillbillies and eliminate the problem.  I am sure that the terrorists would have been happy to comply.     

In retrospect, the insertion of Prady’s character in the storyline proved to be a harbinger of absurdity.  Prady is allowed to loiter in the CTU building for several hours, most of the time completely unescorted.  He eventually wanders onto the floor of CTU where Chloe and her fellow geeks work without as much as a visitor’s badge pinned to his dirty flannel. 

When Walsh finally kills Prady, she disposes of his body by removing a panel from the wall of a holding room, then dragging his bloated corpse into the exposed cubbyhole.  This may most pathetic attempt at disposing of a body in the history of storytelling.  Prady was a very large man who presumably reeked of a combination of stale nachos purchased at a gas station, bowling alley shoes and butt sweat.  One would assume that the scent of his decomposing corpse and his natural musk would combine to form a potent odor that would quickly alert CTU employees that an obese man might be rotting inside the walls of the building. 

Fortunately, Hasting quickly forgot about his meeting with Prady, leaving him at peace in a makeshift casket which would impress even Bob Vila.  This oversight afforded Walsh the opportunity to begin diligently working as a traitor. 

The most disappointing aspect about this entire season has been the revelation that Walsh is actually a mole working for the terrorists.  The “mole in CTU” plot device has been a convenient crutch for the writers over the course of the entire series.  It is a ploy that has been repeatedly used to add interest in the storyline, and it has become senselessly trite.  In fact, the Wiki 24 website lists 14 different moles that have appeared in the show, 8 of which worked for CTU or the FBI. 

It is quite fitting that the show was cancelled days after the audience discovered Dana is a mole.  Justice is served when hackneyed, uninspired writing earned the show cancellation.

Walsh’s silly story arc will likely unfold like many of the moles before her.  She will funnel information to the terrorists, helping them evade capture.  Jack will reason that the bad guys had a tip from the inside.  CTU may intentionally plant misinformation to root out the leak.  Walsh might cover her tracks well, temporarily implicating an innocent person.

Ultimately, Walsh will be apprehended and interrogated by Jack.  She will initially be defiant, refusing to divulge any information.  She will eventually relent, but only after having being granted immunity from prosecution with a statement signed by the President herself.  This will all occur while Jack is running out of time. 

While it is possible that the story will not take such a predictable turn, but I have little faith in writers’ ability to break the habits that they have formed during the past eight seasons.

::

Perhaps the most maddening aspect of being a fan of 24 is witnessing how drastically the quality of the show has declined.  It was once one of the most innovative shows on television, and it was acclaimed for its taut, gripping storytelling.  Today, 24 is a plodding collection of convoluted, derivate storylines. 

Parting with 24 will certainly be bittersweet, but doing so is necessary.  The show is like a childhood pet that has grown into a sickly, aging shell of its former self.

It is time to take 24 behind the shed and blow its fucking brains onto the lawn. 

3 responses to 'Praise Jesus, 24 has been cancelled, part II'

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1. So how do you feel about the movie version? Apparently despite the cancellation they are moving forward with plans to take Jake to the silver screen. I personally only believe that this would be good if the movie was literally 24 hours, and that all in attendance were only alloted movie popcorn and limited bathroom breaks. 24: The Movie seems too far fetched for a show that was baseed out of a one day span of hell fire for the government’s one true hero Jack Bauer.

   Alisa

   03.31.10 12:47 PM

    

2. And by Jake, I mean Jack.

   Alisa

   03.31.10 12:48 PM

    

3. I would watch a 24 movie for 24 hours straight.

   mizChartreuse

   04.08.10 02:05 AM

    

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