Note: This review will talk quite a bit about the original seasons of 24. If you haven’t seen them and are still planning to, be warned, spoilers within.
Deaths on 24 have, with the odd exception, always been known to have a large emotional build-up throughout the course of the unfortunate casualty’s swansong episode. Live Another Day proved no different this week.
24-old-timers, cast your mind back to season 3, 6am-7am. That’s where I drew parallels to throughout this episode. That was, of course, the episode in which Ryan Chappelle met his death. Monday night’s outing was so similar to that. The secrecy from all those around the victim, Jack flying them in a helicopter across the city, the desperate attempts to try and stop the terrorist falling short. And, of course, the big climax of the character’s death. While mirroring previous episodes can go spectacularly wrong, this didn’t.
The main focus of the week was Heller. I’ve had mixed feelings on him throughout – a combination of feeling sorry for him, liking him and disliking him – but he was portrayed brilliantly this week, and William Devane played it fantastically well. Seeing Heller so readily give in, and to be fine with it, was devastating to watch. His final scene with Audrey was virtually heart-breaking.
It was really great to see something of note for Kim Raver’s Audrey to do. She’s been much underused this year, and her scenes with Heller and with Mark were incredible. 24 do emotional scenes so well, and Raver’s two scenes in this episode proved just that. Her scene with Mark mirrored that of her outburst at Jack back in season 4, when he was responsible for Paul dying.
These kinds of emotional episodes are my favourites from the show, and this was no different. A character’s death should have an emotional build-up; only when it’s for pure shock factor should there be little emotional build-up. Heller had a fantastic send-off, and I can’t wait to see where Jack, Mark and Audrey go next.
Elsewhere in the episode, Jack refrained from using his trademark catchphrase, but did deliver a nice “Wake the bitch up”. He’s certainly become a lot more aggressive in the four years that he’s been off the grid.
Kate went to the next level and pulled a full Jack Bauer by holding the doctor at gunpoint (seriously, this episode had so many connections to two past episodes – Season 3, 6am-7am and Season 4, 2am-3am). Her transformation into becoming the new Jack is pretty much complete.
Navarro continued to be the dirty rat mole that he is. But hey, at least Jordan isn’t completely brain-dead. Well, for the most part. While he went Jack-style, holding his assassin at gunpoint, he also fell for a simple trick. If he survives (which looks doubtful), he may need some firearms training.
This was the best episode of the season so far, and I’d rank it within the top 10 of the 200 episodes that the show has done.
Decrypting the CTU files:
- No silent clock for Heller?
- Jack was given a Presidential Pardon. Which is great and all, but the Russians still want his head. And Mark agreed to turn him over. I can't wait to see where that goes.
- Chloe working on her laptop in a pub. I’m reminded of Season 5’s 2am-3am. All we need now is for her to Taser a guy.
- It’s a good job that the World Cup is going on, and no one is going to be using Wembley for a while.
- Margot at least spared her son the crime of actually killing a US President. Though, for a second, it seemed like she wasn’t going to do it.
