Wednesday 14 August 2013

Season 1: Episode 2, 01:00:00 - 02:00:00

Ok I have to start this blog with a confession; I had to watch this episode again to remember what happened because I left it far too long between watching and writing. Lesson learnt. I have also got to admit, and some people might have noticed this, but a few things that I blog about in episode 1 actually didn’t happen until episode 2…. This project is starting to feel messy and unorganised so I might have to impose some rules on myself!

With all that in mind, onto the episode:

At the start of each episode they go through what happened before, this reminds me that Alan York called Terri about her daughter being missing. Now that makes him even more suspicious to me, I definitely do not trust him.

The actual episode begins with ‘bomb girl’ landing in the sand and then burning her clothes and burying the ID – now this was something I mistakenly thought happened in the last episode so I won’t go back through that part! Although Dan and I realise why she would have buried the ID within 2 minutes of someone showing up and un-burying it – it’s so that the people she is working for don’t kill her and take the ID. Clever girl.

Ok we are back at CTU and they are looking into the flight that blew up – they want to know if this is at all involved with the threat on Palmer’s life. It is the first real look we get at Tony in the team and he isn’t a likable character at first; he is very nosey, suspicious and acts like he is entitled to information. To be honest from the two episodes I have seen, I have no favourite character; everyone has a dislikeable trait about them. The only one that so far hasn’t annoyed me and seems to be good at her job is Jamie, also in the CTU team.

Back at the furniture store Terri and Alan meet and have a look around to see if the girls are still there – there is food and wrappers everywhere and the place is a tip but to really prove they were there he shows Terri a used condom wrapper. Now to me this is unnecessary information for a mother that is already worried about her missing daughter. Quite insensitive of old Alan York!

Anyway Terri talks to Jack and asks him to come and help her look for Kim but he can’t as has just got the call from ‘Walsh’ who is being shot at. Again this is something I wrote about in the first blog in error! But now I have watched the episode back I know that Walsh was in that building to discuss the threat on Palmer’s life with the man that found the evidence about it. He was promptly killed once he agreed to carry on helping. Poor guy, he just wanted to go meet his family…

When Jack calls CTU to get the pass code for the building from Nina, Tony listens in. Now we have only seen a bit of Tony but I get the feeling they want us to believe he is the spy in CTU as he is always asking questions and now is monitoring phone calls. Either that or he is just jealous as Nina obviously has still got the hots for Jack – got to love a love triangle J

We go back to Palmer’s hotel room and his wife asks about the phone call he received earlier. He brushes her off saying it was nothing and that seems to be good enough for her. I’m sorry but either she is the sort of wife that doesn’t question her husband at all OR she actually believes him, either way she comes across like she doesn’t really know her husband enough to know when he isn’t being honest with her. So far their relationship has only caused me frustration!

A bit later Palmer has another secret conversation on the phone and we find out a little bit more about the original call he received. It was a lady called Maureen Kinsley – we don’t know much more than this but I expect it will be a subject that will come back. After the phone call the secret service turn up looking for Palmer due to the threats on his life but when they try to find him they realise he has left. Alone. Uh oh!

So we are back with the, I am going to call the bomber and the guys she works for the ‘Terrorists’ so it is clear who I am talking about, terrorists and the ID is being explained. Basically one of these guys has had plastic surgery so now he looks just like the photographer whose ID they stole. This group are working on the attack on Palmer and the photographer was on the flight because he was going to be taking photos of Palmer at an event. See, it is all coming together J

The person who dug up the ID from the sand is the bomber’s girlfriend. Instead of giving the leader the ID she gives him a picture and tries to take charge of the situation and make sure her and her girlfriend get even more for the ID. This really pisses off the main guy and pisses off bomber girl as it is making her look like she is playing him.

Back to my favourite story line, the kidnapping. Terri is still at the furniture store and they have more information on the boys that are with the girls. One of them works for the furniture store and they have found the owner’s name but they can’t get his number. So Terri says she will call her husband as he can help. When Alan asks how she said ‘he works for the government so can get access to that sort of thing’ – surely she isn’t meant to tell just anyone that information? Nina answers the phone and says that Jack isn’t there but Terri asks for her help and – after a little bit of pressure from Terri – she gives in and gets the number for Terri. I assume out of guilt because she has feelings for Jack.

We go back to the Jack story which we already know about because I thought this had already happened. Walsh has been shot but his last words to Jack are ‘take the card and give it to Jamie to match it to a computer. Match the computer to the dirty agent’. Then Jack runs off and calls Jamie with the details – I told you Jamie was good!

We finally go back to Kim and the boys have pulled the van over and are trying to get Kim to call her mum to say she is alright. Kim refuses so the main kidnapper breaks Kim’s friend’s arm as an incentive to do what he asks. She, of course, does and speaks to Terri. This part is the most annoying of all the scenes so far and adds to my dislike of Terri. Kim calls her and makes no effort to sound like she is ok and having a good time at this party, in fact she sounds scared, upset and like she has been crying. But Terri doesn’t seem to notice and when she gets off the phone she says the weird thing is that Kim ended the conversation saying ‘I love you’. I can’t believe that she doesn’t notice a problem – it is so obvious.

Meanwhile Jamie has located the match for the card and sent the details over to Jack… It is NINA! I feel un-shocked as I think she is another dodgy character, but have we found out the spy in CTU within the second episode? Is it a double bluff? I guess I will have to let you know!


Episode 2 down, 22 more to go…

Sunday 4 August 2013

Season 1: Episode 1, 12:00:00 - 01:00:00


Ok I just want to start this by saying I feel under a lot of pressure already. Not only am I starting to watch something that is one of my Husbands favourite things ever, but I am also blogging about it and have already had requests to ‘get on with it’.

I am trying to go into this with no judgement. If you read the intro you know I have actually watched the first season but I am going to try and watch it as if it is the first time. I have pretty much forgotten everything that happened anyway.

Episode one:
I am shocked, firstly, by the quality of the shooting. It is awful! But Dan reminds me that it is old and hasn’t been shot in HD – obviously I have been spoilt by good quality filming in more recent programmes!
Unfortunately the ‘watching with fresh eyes’ has already failed slightly as I remember how much I dislike the mum Teri! There is something about her; she seems whiny, wet and always miserable. I might be being unfair but this is the impression I get from her straight away.

Anyway we start with Jack and his daughter playing chess, half way through the game (it seems, I don’t play chess but no one said check mate) he sends Kim, the daughter, to bed as it is a school night. It is obvious that the mother and daughter’s relationship is fragile, Kim favours her father and that Teri and Jack are newly back together after a recent split. Long story short, Kim sneaks out to go meet two boys at a furniture store with her mate – sounds like amazing fun huh?!  While Jack and Teri look around her room for clues he is called into the office. There is apparently going to be a threat made on the life of the possible future president – this is something that Jack already predicted which Dan thinks makes him awesome...

Jack heads to the office and George Mason, from ‘Division’, arrives to speak to Jack about this plot on the non-president / almost president, Palmer's life. During their discussion Jack is made aware that George isn’t telling the whole truth so Jack grabs a gun and shoots George, which seemed pretty extreme until we realise it is a tranquilliser gun.

Meanwhile Teri is looking for Kim and finds out who she is with because Jack got access (illegally) to her phone – I think these little bits point to the fact that Jack will do anything to get the information he needs, he will break rules and shoot people all to get information! Probably not a bad thing in his line of work I guess. Teri speaks to the dad of the girl that Kim is with and they meet at the furniture store – by this time the group have left.

The girls are now in the van with the boys and things start to turn sour. Turns out the boys' intentions weren't to ‘party’ as they originally thought but were to kidnap the girls! DUN DUN DUNNNN – I remember now that this was my favourite story line in the first season so apologies if I fixate on it!

Meanwhile we are taken to a scene on a plane with some creepy guy who is sitting next to a girl he doesn't know and doesn't seem like he wants to know. We come back to these two a bit later and they are getting on much better – she is really flirting, embarrassingly so, and he is loving it. She asks if he can show her one of his photos (this guy is a professional photographer apparently) and he picks up her magazines and says ‘this is one of mine’ – straight away I think this is the WORST chat up line, how gullible do you have to be?! But she laps it up and they end up joining the mile high club…. She is well easy.
Spoiler alert – it turns out that he isn't a creepy guy at all (well he is but not a baddie), she is the bad one… shocked even though I have seen this before. She ends up blowing up the plan and shooting out the side in a parachute, which, Dan and I agree, is pretty extreme.

Jack has now been called by his friend, Walsh, who is being shot at in this empty office space. Jack arrives to help Walsh and then the shooting breaks out again. Jack manages to kill one of the shooters and to get his ID he cuts off the bloke's finger!! Now I don't know about anyone else but this shocked me. There was no hesitation from Jack, it was as if that was a pretty average way to gain an ID from someone. Maybe that is how they all are, or are we seeing what extremes Jack will go too early on? They manage to get out but the old guy is shot. During his last moments he tells Jack that there is a mole in the team. Things are spicing up.

Now the girl that blew up the plane lands in a desert, changes, burns her clothes and then buries the ID card - of the photographer she slept with - in the sand. Almost as soon as she has left the scene someone on a motorbike rocks up and digs up the ID card – considering there is about 5 seconds worth of it being buried – it seems to me like she shouldn't have bothered and just left it out for the other person to find?! Just seems like effort for no real reason….

Now if you haven’t seen any 24 before, each episode ends with all the main story plots splitting on the screen so you are reminded of all the chains that are happening within the show. I think it is very clever HOWEVER it is proving hard to blog about – if you read this and think it is very fragmented then you would be right… I am hoping that as we go on I will find a simpler way of being able to write about each episode. But for this one I am feeling slightly confused trying to keep up so my blog is going to reflect that I guess!



Episode 1 down, 23 more to go….