Wow, this was such a good ep I had to watch it three times in a row. I’m really enjoying the final eps of 24 and I keep wondering how this will really end. Who Jack is going after next is no big secret, and what he’s done so far has been so genuinely Bauer that it made your skin crawl. The interrogation of the Russian sniper was an instant revival of the Ronnie Stark interrogation of Jack in season 2 – you could say Jack has learned from the best. Except he’d taken it up a notch, and eviscerated the guy to dig out a sim card… Dude. If that wasn’t cool.

I feel no sadness about the demise of the sniper dude, but I am finding it increasingly difficult to stay on Bauer’s side and see him as a real good guy. I get the whole, “You killed Renee, so I’m gonna kill you” attitude, but with some of the things he’s done in this ep he crossed the line, and like his pal said, “This path you’re on, there ain’t no coming back from it.”

Of course, Jack wasn’t planning on coming back. He’s a man with a mission, a suicide mission, and wants only revenge. And so it makes you wonder, is Logan’s faithful underling all that wrong when he says the simple truth is that Bauer has lost it? I’m not sure how much I can support his eye-for-an-eye attitude at this point. As entertainment, what he’s doing is fun and finally gets me sort of excited. It’s great to watch. But when you think about it, what he’s doing  – going after Logan while shooting at Secret Service agents (although he “shot to wound”, not to kill) just gives you that bitter taste in your mouth where you ask yourself, where does the good end and the evil begin? And that’s regardless of what kind of a bastard that guy is, and how much he does deserve to die.

But this is just 24 doing what it’s’ been doing when it was at its best: making you think, making you wonder. How far would you be willing to go? How far can or should Bauer go?

If you’ve seen the ep, you’ve probably answered the questions yourself. Are you having trouble supporting Bauer’s doings?

I won’t go into the details of the ep, but there is one really good synopsis & review of it on TheJackSack. It’s a bit longish, but well written, and with a great sarcastic undertone. There’s really not much to add to it. Go and read, and chuckle.