With killer-germ-laden surface-to-surface missiles pointed at the city of Clarksville, the evil mercenary outfit Starkwood is threatening to smite thousands of Clarksvillians unless Madam President agrees to the terms of Starkwood’s megalomaniacal leader, Jonas Hodges. What no one has banked on is the fuel tank exploding prowess of one Tony Almeida.
Massive spoilers for this game-changing episode below.
Okay, if you’re reading this then I assume you’ve seen the episode so TONY! SAY IT AIN’T SO?! That’s right, the writers pulled a switchback or head fake whatever the term is for “they done messed with our heads all season or possibly wrote this in last minute because they were out of ideas” and revealed Tony to, in fact, be one evil bastard.
Backing up a bit, Tony was given the green-light by a sickly Jack to try and blow up the Starkwood fuel tanks to eliminate the missile threat. He, of course, did that with a minimal amount of effort, inconsiderately raining on Jonas’s Presidential blackmail parade.
After the missiles are blown to kingdom come, Larry and the Feds pour in to secure the site. Tony is found with nary a soul patch singed from the fiery holocaust and hauled into Larry’s chopper.
Back at HQ, Jack is stunned to see his daughter Kim waiting for him, eager to share her stem cells with him in an effort to fight back the zombie virus that has been eating away at his brain (literally). The two have a heart to hear and then, well, Kim leaves and Jack cries.
Meanwhile, at Starkwood, a bad guy has escaped, capping two Feds, and carrying a bottle of Bioweapon to unleash on God knows what jerkwater town. Larry and Tony track him down and then–Tony kills Larry.
That’s right, Tony has been playing everyone from the start and the less I think about the particulars of how he put his plan into action. Regardless, Everyone’s Favorite Sidekick (EFS) is irredeemable and judging by the preview for next week’s episode it looks like he’s about to go nuclear on the FBI.
The big question: when he inevitably dies by Jack’s hand, will Tony finally receive the silent clock countdown?
Memorable Bauer Maneuver
Okay, this is getting a lot tougher the longer Jack refrains from shooting people and there’s no way “exposing his soft emotional underbelly to his daughter” counts.
FBI Agent Least Likely to Get a Promotion If He Hadn’t Been Shot to Death By His Own Prisoner
That guy who took his eyes off the deadly terrorist to look at his backpack.
Tony Grimace of the Week
“Sorry Larry.”
14. April 2009 at 6:48 am
I finally figured it out. This world’s Tony Almeida did really die in Season 5. This Tony is from the evil parallel alternate universe in those South Park/Star Trek episodes. What do Evil Spock, Evil Cartman & Evil Tony have in common: THE EVIL GOATEE! He’s gonna sell that bio-weapon canister on the black market so he has the cash to make a Stargate device to get back to his world.
Seriously, I was shocked when Tony killed Larry, but then it turned into a WTF reaction. Is Tony now a triple agent working against both the government & Starkwood? Does this new group share Tony’s views of not killing thousands of innocent civilians? The writers have alot of explaining to do to have this “twist” make any sense. The Jack/Kim reunion was suprisingly good & I’m glad they didn’t kill Hodges.
14. April 2009 at 7:48 am
I fear that this evil/triple-agent Tony twist is much like, say, the big reveal in The Sixth Sense: it’s shocking, and sort of cool but the longer you think about it the less it makes sense. If this was all some brilliant plan by Tony and whatever his secret cabal is called (Almurder, Inc.?) I don’t know how they could have possibly anticipated all the variables that went down thus far.
Then again, maybe I’m just upset about the fact Season 8 won’t revolve around the Jack and Tony Detective Agency. Twenty-five cents, no case too small!