Out Of Africa

The world can be a cruel place, especially for children of Africa, but as we learned last night on 24: Resurrection, the wee ones have help in the form of not just Sally Struthers, but the incomparable Jack Bauer. Yes, the not-so-secret agent with the survival skills of a superhero has become a friend to the impoverished boys of some fictional country, and a good thing too. If he weren’t around, who’d be able to take out an entire convoy of guerrillas hellbent on stealing the kiddos and training them to be pint-sized soldiers of destruction? Surely the UN couldn’t help. According to this movie, all those peacekeepers are spineless, not to mention European, (U-S-A! U-S-A!) jerks who look the other way when it comes to overseeing conflict in the Third World. Well, it looks like 24 is ready to start making some political damnations. United Nations — you just got served!

There was plenty to admire in this prequel for season seven. The streamlined cast kept the story simple and moving forward, and the locations were a refreshing change from the typical Los Angeles industrial quagmires Jack finds himself marching through. The story, which focused mainly on Jack’s attempt to rescue a bunch of boys from the aforementioned guerrillas, was an enjoyable adventure, and let me be the first to say that I was practically cheering through the first action sequence, which had Jack launching dynamite at foes and gunning down faceless baddies with various firearms. When he extricated himself from a torturer by locking the guy’s head in his legs, I nearly cried with joy (but instead I laughed). Jack was back indeed. All that was missing was a hard perimeter and an order to “Trust me.” Luckily, Jack did use his third favorite phrase: “I don’t have time now. I’ll explain later.” Nailed it!
Not everything was perfect in Africa though. Yes, the scene with the land mine was tense, but it also solidified a notion in my head that had been growing since the top of the show: I HATE WILLIE. Because of that damn kid, Jacks’ poor friend — he of the generous heart and altruistic wishes — wound up exploding in a puff of what I imagine was pink smoke. The good news is that the mine also took out that African bad guy (so we think), but dammit, Willie, did you really have to go after that stupid cloth from India? You are an awful child. AWFUL. If the producers were smart, they’d make sure we never see him ever again. Ever.
And yet, I fear that when the show returns, we’ll see Willie and his brother living in Jack’s apartment, new foster kids that he’s taken on in honor of his slain buddy. This will be horrific because a) Willie already has an established a track record for being a terrible, and b) clearly these kids will wind up being Kim 2.0 and 3.0. But who knows. Maybe we’ve seen the last of them after all.
Meanwhile, over in Washington, we had some new players to contend with, starting with the next president elect — this time a woman with hair so blown out she looked like she’d just stepped off a motorcycle. I forget her name — I pretty much forget all the new characters’ names, and I’m too lazy to look them up — but we knew she was Good because she wanted to intervene with the brewing coup in Jack’s African country (oh yeah, those guerrillas were being funded by Jon Voigt for some reason so that they could overthrow the current government). This was in conflict with the intentions of outgoing President Noah Daniels, played by the criminally overlooked Powers Boothe, who wanted to pull out all U.S. forces and let the pieces fall where they may. Hmmm… something fishy was afoot, and President-Elect Big Hair could smell it. The two spent most of the movie locking horns quietly with some carefully stated verbal put-downs and steely glares.
As is always the case, there will surely be more chaos swirling around the new Prezzy soon enough. Her family alone looks to be the source of many headaches, starting with her husband whose lizard-like appearance surely hides some sort of nefarious scheming. Then there’s the First Son, who seems just about ready to fall into a whole host of problems. You see, some lowly analyst at the firm handling Jon Voigt’s illicit finances came across some dangerous files. He was instructed to destroy them, but, well, you know how these idiots are on this show. Instead, the jittery, possibly drug-addicted guy headed over to his friend’s house in a panic and asked what he should do. Just so happened that the friend was the President’s son. And he was banging a prickly girl from the nervous guy’s firm. (I really should look up some names). Anyway, I could get into the details of this, but what’s the point? You all know where this is going. The analyst went home to copy the files to give to the son and ooops! Some hitmen came in, destroyed the evidence, and buried the dude in cement. All’s well that ends well.
Oh, and it turns out that the son’s Secret Service guard was in on the plan. Dunh dunh DUNH! This, my friends, will not end well. And oh yeah, I definitely do not trust that girlfriend.
Ultimately, while the movie wasn’t mindblowing, it was quite entertaining, and if the preview for the upcoming season is any indication, it looks like the show should be back in fine fettle. Don’t call it a comeback. Jack was here all along.
What did you think about the show?