The way I did last week’s review, by jotting down thoughts as I watched the episode, made it alot easier for me to remember everything I wanted to say about it, and so I’ve done it again this week, although not to such a strict timeline as I did last week.
There was something odd about the early scenes, they were extremely heavy on exposition and dialogue which explained what the heck was going on, three entire scenes were dedicated to this sole purpose, now normally the show treating it’s audience like idiots with the memory of a fly really annoys me, but for some strange reason it didn’t this week. Maybe it was because on first viewing the regular audience was joined by my sister who hasn’t seen the show since mid series three, and these scenes meant that she wasn’t asking questions thoughout the episode, or maybe it was because of the sense of urgency which seemed to underpin these scenes, or maybe it was because I knew these scenes were coming, and I just let them wash over me. Whatever the reason, they didn’t both me as much.
The next thing on my list of things to comment about was the chemistry Curtis and Marianne had in there scenes together, especcially those in the interrogation room, for the first time, two nothing characters came to life for me, the resulting scenes being ones which you couldn’t take your eyes off. Up until now, they’ve both been characters which haven’t held much consequence and whoose scenes I’ve merely tolerated and paid attention to for any important story information. While I’m on the topic of Curtis and Marianne, a comment on the storyline, while the scenes themselves played out well we could all see that it was going to be a trap of some kind, even if Marianne didn’t know it, which surprisingly enough lessened the impact when it was revealed it was infact….a trap. It might have been more of a shock if Marianne had escaped and CTU had trailed her to her employers, only for them to kill Marianne and then spring a trap. Or atleast I think so.
Now on to what was the best scene of the episode, Jack’s Mission Impossible style skills. I was extremely impressed with the direction of the scene, it could have looked down right ridiculous but it was down well and with quite a bit of flair. Bravo to the director of the episode. The rest of the scene was just as exciting, and even though you knew Behrooz would shoot Navi it really made for great television which you couldn’t take your eyes off.
Jack and Tony finding the Terrorist War Room made for intriuging viewing, although I’m surprised that nothing has of yet come from that itself, it was odd that they had found a room mapping out what seemed to be the entire Terrorist Operation and they only gave it a vaguely interested glance instead of carefully studying it to see if there was anything they didn’t already know about, or wether indeed the Power Plants is the end of there plans. It could also cause them some continuity headaches in the future if it turns out the Power Plants are indeed not the end of there plans.
The one thing which I really didn’t like about this episode was the final scenes between Audrey and Paul, the actor playing Paul really annoys me with his accent (which I still can’t figure out what it’s meant to be) and it amounted to little more than a soap opera until Jack came bursting in and reminded us that millions of lives hang in the balance.
Overall the episode continued the series steady thickening of the plot and gave us one very memorable action piece, although again the cliffhangers lacked that extra spark which leaves us begging for more.