[24H] Day 7: 9:00am - 10:00am

TV Programme: 24
Season: 7
Episode: 2
Date I watched this episode: 09/02/2009
Time since I last watched this programme: Less than 1 day.

24 has an addictive quality like practically no other programme on television. After watching episode 1, I felt compelled to watch this one. In fact right now I really want to watch episode 3, but I need to go to bed after writing this review.

The purpose of this episode seemed to be two-fold: first, it drew Jack and Renee (who, don't forget, had never met each other a couple of hours ago) closer together; and second, it drew the Tony Almeida storyline closer to some actual answers. In fact, just how close this got surprised me; Jack has Tony in custody after only 2 episodes. That has to be quite impressive: JJ Abrams could learn a lesson or two.

I think Renee is clearly impressed with Jack's methods and has become something of a partner for Jack during this season so far. She's torn with her loyalties to the FBI though (and she's not the only one; that guy in the front of her truck seemed to share her views), and this internal struggle will probably dictate the way she behaves going forward. Whatever her mindset though, her and Jack work well as a team, both on-screen and within the confines of the story. This is good to see, and I have some confidence in the characters of season 7. In other words, I feel the risk of completely re-inventing the cast has paid off.

Running parallel during this episode was Allison's tactics for dealing with the crisis. As I've said before, every president on 24 deals with these things in a completely different way. I see Allison in this regard as something of a dawdler, and I'm not sure she is in the right frame of mind to take aggressive action against the terrorists. However I think she will be challenged in that regard as the seasons draws on.

The idea of having a mole is nothing new. I don't know who it could be though. Usually a mole is someone we know already (e.g. Jaymee from season 1) and then they are killed off a few episodes later. However, all of the people at the FBI Washington Field Office are regular main cast members (Larry, Renee, Janis and Sean). I doubt it would be one of them because they are likely to have season-length contracts. So I don't really know what is going to happen there, intriguing!!!

So now we know who is really behind these attacks (or do we?) General Juma. It is admittedly odd to have the leader of a conspiracy revealed so early on in a 24 season though, so there may be more to this than we know. Dubaku (who somehow miraculously survived that landmine blast during Redemption) is co-ordinating the attacks. I doubt he would make any kind of deal to stop the attacks, he will just launch them anyway. Most of all he is motivated by revenge against Jack, which means it's personal: this always makes for a more interesting storyline.

Now that we know that truth, it doesn't fit with Renee's theory about Tony Almeida. Renee had said that Tony hated the USA and wanted revenge, but Juma is out to take back his own country of Sangala, so I don't quite see the connection here. In fact I am generally a bit surprised to see so many white Americans working for Juma. I suppose they are connected with the people we saw in Redemption.

I was thinking about this and I remembered that weird scene between Allison and Noah in Redemption. Noah implied that he knew a lot more than he was letting on. Perhaps this is it - Noah had sent Tony in on an off-the-books operation to infiltrate Juma's circle, and try to bring down the People's Freedom Army from the inside? I really don't want to believe that Tony is a terrorist!!

This episode was initially shown as the second part of a double episode and so it's perhaps appropriate that I break here because this was where the original break occurred (the third and fourth were shown as a second double episode the following night). Viewers watching "live" so to speak, would certainly have a lot on their minds as I do now. Tony is now in custody, and we can expect some serious answers to our burning questions in the near future.