Tuesday "24" Blogging

Again with the torture!

On "24," sometimes torture yields results and sometimes it doesn't. One thing about it is consistent, though. It is always ugly and it always diminishes the person who commits it. On occasion, it ennobles the person who endures it. Think of Sarah, the CTU staffer who was mometarily thought to be the terrorists' mole at headquarters. Her interrogation at the hands of that guy with the needles transforms her from a shifty office rat to a sympathetic hero. And, poor Paul! He actually had to have his wife in the room while her lover Jack tortured him with live electrical wires. It's hard to know which was worse for him, the torture, or later taking a bullet for the guy who just finished electrocuting him and who has been having sex with his wife. Talk about a lousy day. But, again, he ends up a hero in the eyes of the viewer.

Even when the victim of torture is an unequivocal villain, you still have to cringe when they break out the brass knuckles and syringes. I almost had to mute my TV when Jack started breaking that guy's fingers last night.

By the way, if you're a bad guy and you're only helping the terrorists because of the money, and you know that you're going to give up the goods if they start hurting you, wouldn't it make more sense to go ahead and talk while you still retain the use of all the fingers on your right hand? Or, barring that, after your thumb is permanently disabled, would Jack really need to break the rest of your fingers and then put a knife to your throat to get your full attention? Wouldn't the first broken finger be enough to convince you that this deranged man is, in fact, willing to hurt your dumb ass as much as he can to get the information he wants?

The protagonists on this show make a lot of noise about "extraordinary circumstances" and the extraordinary measures required to deal with them, but as often as not, torture fails to provide the solution to the crisis.

Speaking crises, how about that President Flopsweat? Is he a piece of work?

MIKE NOVICK: Um, Mr. "President," wouldn't it be better to address the nation from the Oval Office, hint, hint, rather than in this bomb shelter 200 feet beneath the White House? You know, to project confidence for the American people?

PRESIDENT FLOPSWEAT: What? Are you crazy? What if the terrorists attack while I'm up there? I could get killed!

I could take the danger an incompetent president much more seriously if the writers hadn't gone so far over the top in creating President Flopsweat. Nobody would pick this guy for vice-principal of a high school, much less Vice-president of the United States. What's with the glazed-over eyes and the pursed lips, the stumbling through the halls of the White House as though he's never even been there before? I half-expected the guy to get drunk or to pull a copy of "My Pet Goat" out of his pocket!

And, what about that address to the nation?

PRESIDENT FLOPSWEAT: I am sad, angry and afraid. Thank you, and good night.

THE AMERICAN PEOPLE: What? "Afraid?" God help us!

I mean, okay, we get it.

I do wonder, if the attack on Air Force One was a device to introduce the leadership crisis, why they didn't just kill off President Keeler. It feels like they intended to do so, and then blinked. At any rate, if you stuck around for the teaser of next week's episode, it's THE RETURN OF PRESIDENT DAVID PALMER (!). Too cool.