A quick review of last night's “24: Live Another Day” coming up just as soon as my name is just one word, like Madonna…
That episode was in many ways – mostly good, but some bad – the most “24” of all the installments so far of “Live Another Day.” On the plus side of the ledger, we had Chloe's last-minute save of Heller(*), the assault on Margot's hideout (including Jack rappelling down the building to get to Margot and her son) and Jack Bauer embracing his freelance vigilante status by hurling Margot out the window to join her son. That was all fun.
(*) It was spoiled somewhat by the show not using the silent clock at the end of last week's episode – the creative team pretty much boxed themselves in over the years on what the silent clock or lack thereof means – but I will deal with that in exchange for some more William Devane.
On the minus side, to a degree, is the fact that the season climaxed in episode 9, and now we have to do this other story involving Navarro, Adrian Cross and the override device. Now, most of this material was embedded in the season from episode 1, with the introduction of Cross and all the talk about Kate's husband being a traitor, so it's not like the show is just pulling something out of thin air to fill time because the main plot ended sooner than expected. Still, I would have liked to see the show make it through this season with just the single A-story, which was part of the point of doing 12 episodes instead of 24. This will give Chloe more to do – especially since we now have a better sense of her relationship with Cross – but at the moment it feels like filler.
(Also, I'm beginning to wonder if all the talk of a time jump has actually been a big fein. I could still imagine them doing one, but it's making less and less sense where it might be inserted. Maybe Navarro and Cross get caught in episode 11, everybody goes to sleep, and 12 is just an epilogue set the next day? Doesn't sound like this show.)
What did everybody else think? Will you miss crazy Margot? How did you react to the Chloe/Adrian kiss? Was Jack's stateside intelligence contact someone I've forgotten from a previous season? And does anyone grieve for poor Jordan?