[24H] Day 7: 8:00pm - 9:00pm

TV Programme: 24
Season: 7
Episode: 13
Date I watched this episode: 14/03/2009
Time since I last watched this programme: 9 days.

A lot happened in this episode from start to finish, as the "Juma" storyline was wrapped up (how predictable) and the Hodges storyline got underway. This kind of split the episode into two parts; and the action-packed part was first, leaving us with the rather more boring and repetitive part taking up most of the episode.

I don't think the ending was an anticlimax - and Bill's death was a major part of that. Buchanan is one of my favourite characters on the show and I was very sad to see him go. But it was necessary in order to create an ending which didn't belittle what had just happened. There were lingering scenes in the aftermath later on in the episode too - and in particular I think Sprague's acting is amazing here; she is just as good as she is in Jericho.

I don't think it's believable that they'd know that Hodges was such an accomplice from just fragments of Juma's conversation with him; they probably had loads of people on the outside and it was impossible for them to know that Hodges was so key. But this was kind of glossed over in the episode and won't be mentioned again. Hodges' endgame is still not clear even to the viewers; his comment of "let's hope we never have to find out" was interesting; presumably he is going to be making some demands.

Quinn (who I didn't recognise from Redemption, but apparently he was in it too) was an amazing character in this episode. It's good to see Jack being outwitted, and I hope they meet again at some point. He's also a character who has some moral standards too, as he decided which of the two elderly men to kill based on their family histories (though he spent way too long on this when time was running out for them). He's also a mercenary though - so kind of like Tony; who incidentally we haven't seen for a while, this is a shame.

Larry Moss's objections to Bauer's work are getting boring, and he was totally unreasonable with Renee in this episode. Surely he can see that he is letting his emotions get in the way... he is probably the most two-dimensional of the characters, unfortunately. I'm not sure whether now the White House threat is over, the VP will be back or not. Larry did order an operation without his authorisation, so he might get called up on that. The VP was getting very repetitive anyway, even using the same words ("I cannot authorise any action which may result in the President's death..." etc etc).

Now Jack is on the run from the police and things are going to get very ugly, especially if Larry thinks that he really killed Burnett. So we have some good setup, although it still feels like it's all been done before.