24: Live Another Day 9.08 “6:00pm-7:00pm”

Last week’s hour was all about the exciting thrill of the chase. Big explosions dogged Jack all the way, and the fun was in wondering how and if he’d get away. Could he get Simone to useful safety when her mom was aiming missiles at her?

This week was more about quieter moments of internal struggle, with the most emotional impact coming from a wordless scene where two generations stare at an old photo that matters only to them. Such are the many moods of 24. There is one big explosion, but it comes at the end, and it’s just one of many question marks at our 2/3 mark of the season.

Is the show daring to ask if a terrorist can be honorable? Margot, whom we’ve seen murder people, who filled London full of holes last week trying to kill her possibly traitorous daughter, believes Heller’s mea culpa and accepts his terms for submission to her plan. She promises to be happy killing him and him alone, and he believes her in turn. In order to avoid negotiating with terrorists, he also resigns as President. In order to convince Jack to go along with the plan (and in fact make it happen for him), he lets Jack know about the Alzheimer’s, including his sour prognosis and the impending public revelation.

I’ve been waiting for Heller to bark orders at Stephen Fry, and for Prime Minister Davies to meet him blow for blow. Instead, Davies has led clandestine agendas while trying to maintain diplomacy, and Devane has saved his bellowing for Jack. Those two go way back. Jack pressures Chloe to give him more options, but even he relents slightly as she vents about her less than ideal working conditions, and her own frustrations. Heller meets his fate head on, but not before enlisting Chief Assface as his other accomplice (and Mark actually acquits himself more honorably than he has yet in LAD – though he doesn’t clue Jack in about the Russians, he does provide him with sincere and accurate support, for what it’s worth).

Heller also chooses to spend one last moment with his daughter, but only he knows it’s a goodbye. It’s this quiet scene that lets you know what he’s losing, hinging on a doctored photograph of a much younger Devane with the long-absent mother and their gawky adolescent daughter in a moment of familial bliss that clearly defines family for all of them. He can’t confess to her because he knows she’d try (and possibly succeed) in stopping him, and the loneliness of that choice is wonderfully conveyed by Devane.

The action in this episode is provided by Agent Jordan, sent to his death by Navarro last week but lucking out with an incompetent hit man. The hit man and Jordan play cat and mouse in a bike shop for a while, with their struggle ending in a draw with both possibly dead. However, there’s too much story left for that to be the case. Because Jordan knows that Navarro covered up something relating to Kate’s husband and his supposed betrayal, and that information has to got to get to Kate one way or another.

So the questions that remain are: who is going to get the punishments they deserve, and which ones? Will Margot truly be satisfied with Heller’s demise, or will her son encourage greater vengeance (or betray her and act on his own?). Will Simone survive to realize her mistakes? Is Heller really dead? Will Mark betray the Russians or Jack, because he’s going to have to make a choice. And who’s going to give Navarro the smack down he deserves, Jack, Jordan or Kate herself? It’s pretty good, at this point, with four episodes to go, not to know.