We’ve already discussed some of the big, ridiculous things that have happened during the new 24 event series, 24: Live Another Day. Specifically, we covered the thing where the president got pretend blown-up by a terrorist-controlled drone in the middle of an empty, fully-lit Wembley Stadium, and the thing where Jack Bauer said “The only death on my head … IS YOURS!” right before heaving an unarmed, potentially useful female terrorist — played by Catelyn Stark from Game of Thrones — right out the dang window. Incredible, all of it.
But 24 doesn’t just limit itself to the big moves in the realm of the ridiculous. There are also smaller, more subtle things going on, if you slow down and pay attention. Here are my three favorite.
3) Everyone pronounces nuclear “nukular.”
This is a screencap I took from Hulu of the scene from last night’s episode in which the president and one of his top advisers debate raising the country’s nuclear alert level after China initiated potential military action. I have made one small modification to the closed captioning, however, for accuracy, because each of the three times someone said nuclear in this discussion they pronounced it “nukular.”
They do this all the time on 24. All the time. Dating back multiple seasons. I’m willing to bet that if one of you has lots of free time and a tiny bit of editing know-how, you could create a full 3-5 minute supercut of characters doing it. And my favorite part of the whole thing is that they have DOZENS of people on set watching who could point this out to correct it. That means, in all likelihood, it’s a choice. They’re choosing to have everyone say “nukular.” It would infuriate me if I didn’t find it kind of hilarious.
2) The Russian dude’s facial hair.
Tiny goatee or upside-down mustache. YOU DECIDE.
1) Chloe’s ever-fierce eye makeup.
At 11:00 a.m. on the day this episode takes place, Chloe O’Brian was a doped-up prisoner in an off-the-books American detention facility. This is a screencap from last night’s episode — about 9:30 p.m. 24 time — of her in the back of Cheng’s truck, after he has taken her hostage. In the interim she has been running all over London, narrowly escaping both death and arrest at every turn as she furiously taps away at her keyboard in high-stress situations to download schematics and crack passwords and do all the other Chloe things Chloe does.
Her eye makeup has looked like that all day. No smudges, no major streaks, nothing. Perfect and fierce, terrorism be damned. I’m not exactly an expert on beauty products, but I believe this means that she has either acquired (or invented!) weapons grade eye shadow, or she stopped at multiple points during the day — in the middle of a drone-based terrorist attack — to fix and reapply. I choose to believe it’s the latter.
