Review: 24 #721 (4am - 5am)

721: '4am - 5am'

Wr: Manny Coto & Brannon Braga
Dr: Brad Turner

Synopsis: While lives remain on the line, an emotional Chloe copes with the declining conditions. With only a few hours left in Jack Bauer’s day, the situation worsens when the politicking inside the White House corners the divided administration.

Review: 24 takes a pause for breath this week, concentrating squarely on character rather than action and while this would ordinarily be somewhat lamentable, in the hands of the superlative Manny Coto, the strategy is a generally successful one. Crucially, the vast majority of the more introspective moments have some bearing on the overall plot, either arising organically from it or affecting its progression. Take the Chloe and Jack two-hander, which is a considerably lengthier scene than the show is really used to and essentially consists merely of the imparting of information that the audience is already aware of. In lesser hands, this would seem extraneous, an unnecessary pause for thought at the expense of narrative movement. However, the combination of some believably laconic dialogue and a stellar tour de force by both actors really validates the moment, making it powerful and engaging rather than pointless and tiresome. The same can also be said of Olivia's moment with her parents (nice to see Colm Feore again) which is very naturalistic; the inclusion of small familial exchanges such as the comment about leaning in to kiss him really helps sell the situation and while sure, it isn't exactly necessary to the story, it does help solidify Olivia's redemption and provide a semblance of foreshadowing when considered in relation to what ultimately happens to Hodges, placing the potential damage that this could cause to the Taylor family unit at the front of the viewer's mind. Coto even manages to create entertaining emotional conflict between characters with whom we aren't particularly familiar: Al-Zarian's scene with his brother is pointedly moving, something which can be credited also to Omid Abtahi's stellar acting skills, and only really falters when Hamid utters that horribly clichéd final line, "you said today was a bad day to be a Muslim, but it's a worse day to be a brother". Euck.

This particular plot element is certainly a high point overall as well: it is very refreshing to see the intricacies of the set-up actually being orchestrated, as opposed to the narrative simply arriving at the end-game (which, regrettably, appears to be to do with a subway... guys, we've done that before!) and the details being fleshed out later. This sells the threat even more and allows us to further get inside the head of the duplicitous Tony Almeida, whose oscillation between good cop and bad cop only amplifies the eerieness of the scenes. It is also a somewhat brave decision to have our protagonist misinterpret the situation. Thanks to the dramatic irony afforded by our glimpses into the Al-Zarian household, we are all too aware that Jack is barking up the wrong tree, so to speak, when he confronts the priest and it leads to some very strong exchanges. The dialogue here is superb, loaded with political relevance but grounded firmly in realism. Of course the guy would object to having his place of worship infiltrated and accusations being tossed about left, right and centre. The actor does a wonderful job of making the situation organic rather than forced, and actually acquiring the viewer's sympathies. I don't know about you, but I was rooting for him and not the bullish, head-strong Bauer!

It's a shame that this particular angle of storytelling is abandoned towards the end of the episode when, yet again, the terrorists prove that they are completely incapable of handling technology and have left errors in their programming, or whatever other gobbledegook technospeak Janis feels like uttering this week, and so the truth magically comes to light. This certainly could've been handled a little more believably, if at all; would it have killed the writers to have stuck with the problem of misinterpretation and for the truth simply to have come out later, thanks to the acquisition of evidence or even after the terrorist threat has been executed or thwarted? It would certainly have been more realistic and given some credit to Almeida and his crew, who already proved incapable of sustaining a ruse a few episodes ago when all it took was Jack spotting that the transponder was transmitting from outside the building it was supposed to be in. Oh, and we really could've done without the blatant stalling for time prior to Bauer and Renee's storming of Al-Zarian's home, when the completely unqualified priest gives operational advice to an FBI agent! "Oh, I don't think that man should be in charge of this operation, he looks unwell!" Huh? Instead of simply telling him to shut up, Renee actually goes to the trouble of explaining Jack's condition to the guy, repeating information that we are very familiar with in completely unnecessary fashion. There's some filler to be found elsewhere too, particularly in Hodges's, sorry Tippet's, narrative: while the scene where he is told about his new life is well acted, because Jon Voight can usually do no wrong, it achieves virtually nothing in relation to the overall plot. Sure, I got a mild kick out of seeing him throw a hissy fit by chucking the papers at the door but come on... we didn't need to see any of this. And if it was supposed to somehow disguise the 'surprise' execution of his character, it really didn't succeed. If anything, the overt concentration on him makes it feel like a conclusion, and you know what conclusion usually means on 24... death by horrible means! Jonas gets all blowed up and while it does elicit a slight shock thanks to its excellently abrupt positioning in the sequence of scenes, it's hardly a surprise that he snuffed it, is it?

This is an unusually quiet hour for 24, focusing more on character than drama, but there is still much to enjoy. Manny Coto's script is loaded with excellent and believable exchanges that make a number of individual scenes stand out as highly memorable, and there are several refreshingly original narrative slants to make things interesting. It's not without its flaws - occasionally, the stalling for time becomes too obvious - but '4am - 5am' certainly keeps its head well above water. 8.0