At times during 24’s run, things had a tendency to get a little ridiculous, and the suspension of disbelief needed to be unfathomably high. Ironically, some examples of this provided plenty of entertaining story material and helped contribute to the show’s reputation as being ludicrously crazy.
Legacy’s embracing of that idea in having Eric rob a police precinct by getting arrested is neither surprising - given that the creative team is the same - nor is it necessarily a bad thing. Certainly, in implementing plots like this, a great deal of care needs to be given so that there’s always a hint of logic and/or grounded nature (within the 24 world, at least) to it. And, when that fails as it did here, the fallback is on whether or not it is entertaining enough to mitigate the stupidity.
Fortunately, that was the case here. Well, mostly.
The idea that Eric could - or even would - manage to successfully steal from a precinct full of armed officers is fundamentally insane, and it’s difficult to believe that he ever genuinely thought it would work. Perhaps it’s just cynicism towards this series and its tendency to enact these plots, but there was never much of an option other than for him to fail and end up dealing with a difficult complication that spills over into the following hour. Still, his quest to find the money needed to pay Ben was a fun romp, giving Hawkins the chance to be at once conniving and desperate, a blend that goes further to establish his strength as the new lead.
However, 24 has long been criticised for its depiction of Muslims, notably, and Eric’s faux arrest brought up a similar issue: the portrayal of police treatment towards black people. Even in 2017, the idea that a cop would stop someone running down a street because they’re black (*) doesn’t seem especially unrealistic, given many of the news stories reported so often, but the refusal to even try and address the problem is the issue. Although not every show needs to be deeply political with a message, including something so blatantly political and doing little else but serving it up on a plate and saying “This is how the world is. Next scene!” isn’t great, particularly given how important politics is to 24. Again, it’s tough to expect much more given the track record, but that doesn’t lessen the disappointment.(*) This wasn’t explicitly stated as the reason, but it’s difficult not to insinuate it from what we saw. Also, Eric was presumably counting on this fact, so treating it as given seems the prudent course of action.
Still, it was energetic and entertaining, and it presents a starting point for next week’s hour, so that’s something.
Far less so, though, remains Amira’s story, which is annoyingly terrible to the point of inducing legitimate anger. Not only is her plan to dissuade Drew from his suspicions bizarre - surely, the forthright nature of her kiss, given they had just recently broken up, presents alarm bells - but her subsequent engagement in sexual relations with Mr Harris (Kevin Christy) in his classroom where anyone could walk in the unlocked door is undeniably and laughably dumb. So while it’s somewhat sad, contextually, that Drew - who was only trying to do the right thing - was killed because of his knowledge, it’s virtually impossible to care about how endangered Amira and Harris’ mission now is. They’re clearly not very experienced, yes, but given that her brother would seem to have a much larger role in their plot, it’s not a stretch to wish that these two were more intelligent and/or cautious. Interestingly, too, Amira seems to be far calmer and more composed for the majority of this episode prior to Drew’s murder, which would indicate that her brother trained her only partially well; Harris, on the other hand, seems terrified.
Sticking with this side of the show, and “1:00pm - 2:00pm” introduced Jadalla Bin-Khalid (Raphael Acloque), the son of now-deceased terrorist leader Ibrahim, who is currently planning an attack in the United States. Jadalla, however, appears to be much less ruthless than his father supposedly was, opting not to carry out any punishment on Kusuma (Laith Nakli) for pointing a gun at his head (*). His leniency may prove his undoing - though if someone within the cell kills the leader for having a thought-out plan with a timetable in favour of carrying out a more hasty, likely less well-constructed plan, no one is going to reasonably follow that individual - but it at least gives a sense of what kind of character he is, a useful decision thanks to using him in just two short scenes.
(*) Given that they were never going to kill Bin-Khalid’s “only living son” - this early, anyway - the whole scene was devoid of any real tension.
Senator Donovan (who I keep wanting to call ‘Senator Smits’ as I type) was faced with a dilemma upon learning that his campaign manager, Nilaa Mizrani (Sheila Vand), attended a mosque that applauded terrorists and prayed for the death of American troops. Her justification for this - that she went there to tell everyone that their religion was being distorted - is both weak and unprovable (*), while her suggestion that she assumed it wouldn’t matter because it was so long ago indicates that Donovan should fire her for incompetence; literally everything about people matters in politics (**).
(*) Not that anyone should have to prove the nature of her visit to a mosque, or anywhere, but in a world where anyone and everyone could be a traitor, it doesn’t inspire a great deal of confidence.
(**) Well, until the most recent U.S. election, at least.
Meanwhile, Ingram continued trying to help Eric despite his lone wolf status, which meant she wasn’t given a whole lot to do, apart from order CTU programmer Andy Shalowitz (Dan Bucatinsky) to do his magic with the keyboard. However, aside from being detained by the now-released Mullins at the end of the hour, she did learn that her CTU code was used to access the Rangers’ new identities and that it was done from Nilaa’s computer. Between her appearance at the mosque and this reveal, Legacy is trying incredibly hard to paint her as a traitor. And yet, the show’s history would suggest apprehension towards accepting that as given; there are still ten hours to go, and a lot can - and will - change. Miranda Otto was given one particularly strong scene as Ingram tells the then-restrained Mullins: “Now, give me the damned override so I can get you out of here and get back to my life.” As with last night’s premiere, not a whole lot of great material for her, but this was a highlight.As for Nicole, it’s hard to know right now exactly what the point of her character is, but her drug-dealing brother-in-law is about to walk into a trap set by his soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend, Aisha (Tiffany Hines). Nope, 24: Legacy, not interested.
There’s some good content that’s advanced here, mostly involving Eric - even if it isn’t the most logically sound - but the genuine problems being had in other subplots weighs down this hour, a flaw that will continue to plague 24: Legacy for the foreseeable future unless some drastic changes take place. These first two episodes have established a very okay show, and that’s fine.
From the CTU Archives (connections to 24’s original run that aren’t referenced above):
• Ben tells Eric that he’s “never been more clear in [his] life” about getting $2m in exchange for the strongbox; Jack Bauer, to Sherry Palmer, in season one’s penultimate episode: “I’ve never been more serious in my life.”
• Kusuma made a plan to attack the North Pines Mall; season five’s Ivan Erwich used another mall, Sunrise Hills, to test the remote trigger on the Sentox Nerve Gas. Like Sunrise Hills, North Pines doesn’t actually exist.
Notes:
• At around 1:07pm, Ben told Eric that he’s expecting the money in an hour. It is around 1:20pm when Eric tells Ingram that there’s only half an hour until the deadline.
• The desk officer in the precinct says “That’s not a good way to start the day” when it is nearly 2:00pm.
• It’s unusual for 24 to use just two split screens right before the final clock, but for those screens to flicker between several different scenes; most of the time, we’d see four or five frames at once.
• “They destroyed your marriage, and now they're trying to destroy your career,” Amira tells Harris. I don’t know who “they” are, but what will destroy his career is sexual relations with a student and planning to commit an act of terror.
• There’s nothing especially memorable yet, but this episode featured the first few notably Sean Callery pieces of score.
• On some level, it’s seeing a Gerald McRaney character so casually remarking about his wife being dead after watching him be so broken about the same thing in This Is Us. Conversely, it’s a shame to see him - so far - get so little to do, given how talented an actor he is.
• Andy and Thomas Locke (Bailey Chase), the head of Field Ops, seem to have a less than pleasant history.
• I didn’t note it in my review of the premiere (since the screener had a very rough-looking yellow clock and the typically yellow credits text), but the on-screen text is now tinged blue. It looks nice, and it’s a simple but effective way to differentiate Legacy from 24 - just as Live Another Day did with its slightly brighter font.
What did everyone think of “1:00pm - 2:00pm”? Leave your thoughts in the comments, and vote in the poll below!
