While The Bubble Boy reveals his impressive electrical engineering skill-set, the forces of CTU scramble to figure out a way to keep him alive. He’s their only lead and with the frightening nuclear kill rods on the loose—and the threat of a dirty bomb lurking though if I were CTU I wouldn’t worry too much about it considering that NYC appears to be completely abandoned—Jack will have to call upon all of his gravitas to squeeze intel out of the little bastard. Sadly this does not include any kind of sweet, bizarre violence, but rather a stern talking-to.

Back at the Swamps of Sadness, Cole and Dana wrap up their dirty work and head back to HQ, where a forgiving Hastings tells them their absence from a terrifying nuclear crisis is quite possibly career-threatening but not really because of their high level ranking in the Counter-Terror Local 47 and you know how hard it is to fire someone from a union.

Hastings warns Dana to watch it and reminds her that he promoted her because he really saw some awesome potential in her, calling her a leader and such, despite the fact that not one second of this day rolled by where Dana hasn’t made the dumbest decision she could have. This personality quirk continues when she receives a call from Kevin’s parole officer (at 2:30 in the morning?!) asking about his whereabouts. The quick thinker that she is, she coughs up the lamest lie ever, gets caught, panics and begins the second leg of her subplot , which is destined to eliminate the audience’s remaining brain cells that survived the first leg.

In the hospital, Jack brings in The Bubble Boy’s mom in an effort to talk him out of rewiring his explosive vest for self-detonation (the kid drew that complicated wiring diagram in like 20 seconds of real time by the way). Bubble Boy is none too happy, and grows even unhappier when Jack tells him that if he blows up, his mom is going to a) come in and clean up his blood and body parts and b) get a personal escort to the radiological site from the dirty bomb. Bubble Boy falls for this obvious deception by looking into Jack’s eyes and leaves the chamber. The IRK thugs watching the events immediately activate the failsafe somehow and Bubble Boy ends up exploding despite that fact that the only thing holding the vest to his body was a Master lock that could have easily been snipped had that douchebag Owen thought of bringing some bolt-cutters.

Thankfully Jack ended up with a name: Hassan’s chief of security, who’s busy putting the falafel to Hassan’s daughter, setting up yet another recycled plot where the damsel in distress is clued in on how much of an a-hole her lover is, yet is trapped by his menace!

So ends yet another droopy installment, highlighted by a hospital standoff that featured all the tension of a Grover children’s book. Worse, it highlighted the main problem of Jack Bauer’s character these past couple of seasons: he’s completely defanged. The writers wanted to make Jack bad-ass through his (obviously empty) threats, but come on, the old Jack Bauer would have faked the mom’s death or shot her in the colon.

The following was taken from CTU Special Agent Owen’s personal journal, following the events of last hour:

Dear Journal:

How are you? I’m okay. A little nervous. Things are crazy around here. When my uncle got me this job last fall I tried to tell him that I had no practical experience as a field agent and that my previous job as a zookeeper’s assistant wasn’t nearly enough to earn me a second-in-command position behind Cole.

Speaking of Cole, where the heck is he? No one seems to know. And how about Dana? She’s gone, too. I’m tempted to say they broke out for a quickie or something, but why would they do that now of all times? Rumor around the water cooler is that Dana has been up to something shifty. Ralph, the gate guard, told me some scrub dudes pulled up in a trashy van to talk with her. I wonder if they’re bullying her? If so, Cole will no doubt shoot them with a shotgun and bury them in one of our famous New York City swamps. I just wonder how that will affect their relationship…

Enough about them. I have problems of my own. With Cole missing in action, I was tasked with helping to lead a rescue mission. President Hassan’s exceedingly-well-coiffured traitor brother had information about the nuclear fuel rods but he was under attack by some Kamistan rebels. This guy Jack Bauer was put in charge and he seems to know what he’s doing. I get the sense when he looks at me he’d rather have a cactus as his second-in-command, but whatever—I’ll show him.

Unfortunately, our guy was dead when we got on the scene. Jack had an idea to pretend he was dead and leak it to the news, who picked up the story in a matter minutes. That way we would be able to intercept any bad guy who came to the hospital to finish the job.

The plan worked, but wouldn’t you know, I was the one who found the guy. Man, I had chosen the back entrance precisely so I wouldn’t have to deal with this crap! And guess what—the guy had a bomb vest on! Needless to say, a tiny amount of urine escape into my standard-issue counter-terror britches, but I did was Mr. Bauer told me to do. I brought him to the hospital room. Luckily, just before he hit the trigger, Chloe used her CTU magic to disarm the bomb, something I didn’t think was possible, but we did get a generous portion of stimulus money last month, so I guess Mr. Hastings went to Radio Shack to upgrade out technology.

Journal, it was now my chance to be the hero. With the bomb defused, I attacked! And was promptly knocked unconscious. Man, I knew I shouldn’t have listened to the HR rep and taken the Introduction to Hand-to-Hand Combat training instead of the Blood-Borne Pathogens course.

That’s where we are now. This kid locked himself in some crazy pressure chamber and is threatening to kill himself. Jack is down there screaming at him, Cole and Dana are still gone and I have to go change my pants.

XOXOXO,
Owen

Russian gangsters are dead. Nuclear fuel rods are gone. Rogue Islamic Republic loyalists are running amok. All Hell has broken loose and there’s only one man who can stop it: CTU Agent Owen!

Ha, just kidding. Everyone knows that Owen is a joke. A sad, pathetic joke.

See, CTU Director Brian Hastings, who displays the backbone common in many types of sea cucumber, is getting pressure from the White House–namely, what’s-his-face, the weaselly Chief of Staff–to pin the failed mission on Renee Walker. Apparently, if the Department of Justice can nail Renee for murder that will make the nuclear holocaust that is set to hit New York much more palatable for its citizens.

Jack is unimpressed with this bureaucratic tomfoolery and forcefully removes Renee from custody before she lands herself in prison for her stab-a-thon. He almost makes it out of CTU and onto another round of roguedom before an enterprising CTU guard tasers the crap out of him.

Meanwhile, in the subplot that is simultaneously dumb and awesome, Dana is prepared to confront Kevin and his psycho BFF and if that means shooting them in their
White Trash heads with a gun from Goldeneye N64, then so be it.

Before she can throw down her violence, Cole shows up, finally gets the truth about her past, walks over to Kevin’s dirtbag van, waves his gun around, threatens them, and eventually goes hog-wild with his shotgun. Alas, I’m sad to see those two guys go. The entire storyline was moronic, but I was consistently and pleasantly surprised as to the depths of poor decision-making all participants sank.

Over at CTU, Jack makes a deal with Hastings: let Renee off and he’ll track down the nuclear rods. Hastings is obviously relieved, because with Cole out gallivanting in the Everglades with his girlfriend, that left CTU Agent Owen as the only field commander and everyone knows that Owen is not to be trusted. Just look at him. Something’s not right with that guy.

Hastings agrees and like that Jack is officially back. And since the Islamic Republic nutjobs have opted to avoid all the red tape that comes with shipping illegal atomic fuel rods overseas and instead make some kind of a bomb to nuke NYC, it looks like Jack will be needed more than ever.

Next week: Dana and Cole go about the cover-up, Jack leads the assault and Owen is finally exposed as the creepy douchebag that he is.

Jack is in the custody of a nasty gang of Russian gangsters, Renee’s lightened her hair, Chloe is smirking, Aldo or Alpo is a preening jackass and Dana Walsh continues to build on her awful life choices with even worse decisions.

As last week’s episode came to a close, Jack was being dragged off by another batch of evil Russians, who had the know-how to doge CTU’s impenetrable surveillance by using a tunnel. Renee, fresh off of a homicidal meltdown has returned to CTU HQ, sporting a more ginger coiffure.

Back at the ridiculous subplot, Dana still has her hands full with two of the biggest idiots to ever grace a scripted network hourlong: Kevin and Nick. After they trashed the evidence lock-up and made off with a satchel of drug money and a, er, squirt gun, they hit up the local strip bar, get wasted and tell Dana that they’re not leaving and wish to continue the partnership. Dana, shocked by this betrayal by two men she had deemed trustworthy and principled, opts not to tell her boyfriend (who happens to be a counter-terror field agent adept at murdering people covertly) and grabs her handgun to settle the matter herself.

Meanwhile, Jack’s getting tortured by a Russian thug, but he pulls the old “fake passing out from the pain” routine, catches the thug by surprise and electrocutes him with his feet! Just when I think Jack can’t discover new ways to get out of a hanging torture scenario. He then goes about decimating the rest of the bad guys and capturing the boss, who agrees to an immunity deal in exchange for the location of the nuke rods…which are, of course, gone when CTU arrives, stolen by the boss’s son. And so the hunt continues.

A good time here, mainly because a) Jack got to unleash some serious violence, notable because of the presumed residual effects of the stab wound and the electro-shock interrogation and b) Kevin and Nick continue to impress with their profound stupidity (these guys are quickly becoming my favorite 24 supporting characters ever). No surprise that the nuclear rods are in transit, though the preview for next week’s show where Hastings plans to pin the mission’s failure on Renee (?!) leads me to believe that once again Jack Bauer is going to go rogue. Fancy that.

The last new episode until the end of March tosses in another dose of Apocalypse, as well as the second nefarious Horseman that Team Winchester will have to face: Famine.

The brothers roll into town to investigate a particularly stomach-churning double-homicide, where a man and a woman literally ate each other to death. Castiel shows up to inform Sam and Dean that is appears a rogue cherub is behind the malfeasance. That is, Cupid is the one doing the killing. But when they confront the cherub, an overly-sensitive nude man who cries when people yell at him, they realize that there’s something else behind the murders.

And that something is Famine, another Horseman of the Apocalypse, who’s rolled into town to gather souls and bring them to Lucifer (or something). Regardless, he needs killing. Unfortunately, Castiel has fallen victim to his meat-suit’s craving for, well, meat, and Sam is hit with some serious demon blood urges. Dean, curiously, is unaffected.

Famine explains why, during the face-off: Dean’s empty inside. While Dean-o processes his voidiness, Sam turns up, hopped up on the juice and smites Famine. The curse is lifted, Sam is dropped in a panic room to detox and Dean wanders outside and, in a rare moment of vulnerability, looks to Heaven and cries for help.

Good episode, earning bonus points for being maybe the goriest broadcast show I’ve seen in some time. The impromptu cannibalism in the beginning was genuinely disgusting. The humor was appreciated as well (“Unattached Drifter Christmas”), which is characteristic of a Ben Edlund script. The big surprise was Dean’s apparent lack of a soul (this point was vague, but the dude is obviously hollow) and his desperate plea at the end.

A huge hiatus awaits, but I foresee a Dean/God powwow sometime in the near future.

Things aren’t looking great for Team CTU, partially because their deep-cover operative may be out of her gourd, but mainly because there are still 17 hours to go in the day. The last time we saw them, Jack and Renee were poised to score some of those elusive nuclear rods that President Hassan’s Prell-pimping younger brother is after. To make this happen, Jack is posing as an undercover German arms dealer/software engineer and Renee has “gone dark,” willing to use any of her, um, assets to persuade Vladimir the nutso Russian gangster to track down the enriched uranium bonanza.

Jack is uncomfortable with this because Renee is so obviously crazy. You know who else is crazy? Special Agent Starbuck Walsh, who launches her ridiculous plan to get her ex-boyfriend and his trashy BFF off her back by getting them into a police evidence lock-up. Shocking to absolutely no one except for the highly intelligent top-level counter-terrorism data analyst, the caper goes horribly awry, leading to the bludgeoning of a cop and a DNA-contaminated crime scene.

Back at One Life to Live with my Russian Mob Boss Dad, Josef is misty-eyed over the death of his radiation-addled brother, but his spirits seem to marginally buck up when dad–who pulled the trigger–gives him the whole, Your Brother’s Treatable Ailment Would Have Jeopardized the Entire Mission pep talk.
President Hassan, intent on unearthing the conspiracy within his government, goes hardcore, ordering his secret police to start kidnapping and torturing people and even arresting his trusted advisors when they question his tactics. President Taylor is unaware of this. She had like five lines in the whole episode.

Finally, we return to Jack and Renee, the latter of whom flips out in one of the most memorable psycho meltdowns in show history. When Vladimir starts beating on her, she snaps, grabs a knife, stabs the dude in his eye and proceeds to ventilate the living crap out of him. When Jack comes to help, Rene whips around and STABS JACK IN THE STOMACH!!!! Luckily, she just hit his pancreas, and Jack Bauer’s pancreas, as we all know, is made out of carbon fiber. So he bounces back with little to no problem, removes the knife from his own gut and throws it in bad guy’s neck! Next, he clues Renee in on the new plan: to allow himself to be captured by the new group of Russian psychos that have just broken into Vladimir’s. See, CTU can then track him with their awesome drones that don’t seem to do anything useful.

Needless to say, the thugs accessed Vlad’s apartment through the tunnel system that just happens to run directly under and Jack is snatched up with no eyes on him.
I enjoyed this episode considerably more than the last couple. Renee’s stab-a-thon was legitimately shocking, almost as jarring as Jack’s Wolverine-like healing ability. The various subplots are, as the show’s playbook dictates, considerably less compelling. Ortiz isn’t doing anything, the CTU scene is dull, Hassan’s such a new character it’s difficult to feel his downward spiral, the Russian family drama is comatose and Walsh’s idiotic decision-making is laughable; Dear Lord, would I love to see those two morons caught up in a horrifying industrial accident.

Still, looking forward to next week, where I predict: 1) Jack will get the jump on his torturers with the old neck-snap-with-his-legs-while-dangling-from-a-chain trick, 2) Ortiz will commit some violence on Walsh’s behalf, prior to breaking up with her to date an organism with vastly superior problem-solving skills, like a house-plant, 3) Hassan’s actions will lead to President Taylor making a face full of consternation and, 4) Renee will reveal to the CTU therapists that she has a conjoined twin located under her left arm and the little bastard just won’t shut up!

Meanwhile, back at the Apocalypse.

While in the middle of an apparently typical stripper dream, Dean has a vision of Anna, the fallen-angel-turned-resurrected-angel, who begs him for a meet-up; apparently she’s just escaped from Angel Jail and needs the Winchester boys to help out.

Castiel warns them that something seems a bit off and SPOILERS FROM HERE ON OUT his instincts are proven correct. Anna didn’t escape from Heaven; she was dispatched to kill Sam and prevent Lucifer from inhabiting his one true vessel and this unleashing all kinds of Hell on the planet. Castiel threatens her, so she travels back in time to kill the Sam’s parents.

Castiel and the brothers follow suit and manage to intercept the younger versions of their folks before Anna can drop the hammer–and blow their minds with the truth of their time-traveling shenanigans.

Eventually Anna tracks the family down and hires a younger Uriel to help out with the killing and their plan actually goes swimmingly: they kill Sam and are about to wipe out the rest of the Winchesters when a bright light appears before Young John Winchester and…BLAMMO! Michael the Archangel is in the house.

Wearing John as a vessel, Michael proceeds to nuke Anna from the inside out (in a pretty cool series of visual effects actually) and banish Uriel into the ether. Then Michael and Dean have a heart-to-heart, as Michael explains that a) he loves Lucifer like a brother but has to kill him because he’s a Good Son, b) Sam and Dean are descended from Cain and Abel (aren’t we all?), c) if Dean says yes, Michael won’t leave him drooling and inert, and, d) Free Will is a crock and he’s going to say yes because that’s the way it has to be.

Following those megatons, Michael resurrects Sam, scrubs the memories of John and Mary and teleports our heroes back to 2010.
Will Dean say yes? Is Free Will a myth? That Michael isn’t as big as a dong as we were expecting, huh?

We shall see how this all rolls out, but for now I am pleased as punch that we got back into the teeth of this arc. This was a great episode, and setting aside the problematic time travel gimmick (which leads inexorably to asking all kinds of questions about “”Shouldn’t they teleport to the Garden of Eden or something and step on Satan’s serpent head before all this craziness gets going?!”), lots of high-quality stuff transpired.

We finally got a look at Michael, and you have to admit the guy makes a persuasive case, even to the point where Dean’s holding out seems a bit wrong-headed. Good to see Castiel, though he was underused, and Anna’s fate was surprising and delectable. The best bits were Sam’s scenes with Mary and John, genuinely emotional and heart-ache-a-riffic.

Best of all, the episode kept the ambitious plot moving forward. Keep it coming gentlemen!

Renee is going dark! Two Russian Mafia brothers have held a health clinic hostage with their whiny demands! Starbuck continues her shockingly poor conflict resolution skills! Jack is driving a car! Where do these tension-laden events lead us in this episode?

To Snoresville. Which is somewhere in Coma County in the United States of Shoot Me in the Face.

Last week’s episode was definitely a filler show, but there were flashes of entertainment embedded in the plodding narrative. This week? Just barrels of slowness and tedium. It wasn’t until the very end that we got to sniff around some righteous 24 action, with a few well-placed sniper shots and Jack getting his shout on. That was at like minute 57. Everything that preceded it? Ugh.

Let’s check up on the different storylines that Season 8 is juggling so far:

Renee Walker undercover. The gloomy gus revealed last week that she’s on a self-destructive downard spiral and this is obviously reflected in her deicision-making skills, as she chooses to drop her earpiece down the sink for whatever reason and then, wouldn’t you know, panics when she finds out her evil former boyfriend is going to nuke the deal and probably kill undercover Jack. “Say, Vlad, you don’t happen to have a pipe wrench, do you? Don’t ask, it’s a woman issue.”

Starbuck’s decision-making is even worse. Frantic to cover up her secret past life, CTU Agent/blithering idiot Dana Walsh agrees to get her trashy ex-boyfriend and his trashy friend into a warehouse to steal drug money. The hell???? Strikes me that the fallout from this complicated and obviously doomed mission will be a whole lot worse that telling her boyfriend that she spent some time in juvie.

Boring brothers are boring. So the two sons of the Main Evil Russian Bad Guy go in this clinic and force the doctor to ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

President Hassan arrests his friend. And maybe tortures him? Or sets him on fire and pushes him off the building? Man, I hope so. Something to spice up this flagging sub-plot. Then again, anything’s better than another hour spent on his domestic troubles.

As is the case with similarly lame 24 episodes, this one focused on the dumb storylines, depriving us of consequential Jack Bauer action, Chloe barbs (she did land a nice one on that d-bag Arlo) and, well, anything resembling suspense. I’ll even take more Freddie Prinze, Jr.

Sadly, next week’s show looks even more painful as Jack and Renee have A Moment.

No, that’s not some euphemism for a disgusting sexual act. Sam and Dean are on a routine ghost hunt that–shockingly!–turns into something far from routine. Spoilers ahead!

While helping out their former babysitter with a poltergeist, the brothers catch the attention of a cabal of teenaged Satan worshippers, who realize that Hell has a bounty on the Winchesters. So they set out to collect what they hope to be a lucrative reward by worknig a body swapping spell, that puts Sam in the meat suit of a 17 year-old boy. Sam’s body is then occupied by a kid who’s way too excited about drinking banana daiquiris and seeing adult women naked.

After some goofy Freaky Friday-like hijinks, the brothers realize the malevolence behind the plot. Unforutnately, one of the idiot teens summons a demon, who is ecstatic at the idea of delivering Dean and the Sam body to Lucifer. A surprisingly easy exorcism later (you kinda have to wonder why the brothers don’t have that Latin ready to roll out on a tape recorder at the first sight of demons) and everyone’s learned a Very Important Lesson. Sam: his life is actually more enjoyable than “normal” suburban living; Dean: his brother is a downer; the Satan-worshipping teen kids: demons from the pit of Hell aren’t the most trustworthy types.

This was another one-off episode but it floated my boat because a) there were suitable call-backs to the season’s storyline (there is an apocalypse still going on, right?) and b) it was clever and fun. The body swap stuff was entertaining, though it would have been funny to see more of Sam’s experience in the body of a 17 year-old, you know, squaring off with algebra and bullies and stuff. Also, this show was clearly made as an energy-saver for the actors, prepping them I’m sure for some long work days as we enter the home stretch.

Next week Castiel finally returns, which is cool.

The Islamic Republic of Kamistan is imploding, the peace treaty is in serious jeopardy, Renee Walker has been revealed to be a psychopath, CTU Data Analyst Starbuck can’t get rid of her scumbag ex-boyfriend and Jack is babysitting.

What lies ahead for out intrepid real-time adventurers? Spoilers, that’s what!

Last week’s episode ended with the stunning sight of Renee sawing off a guy’s thumb to earn enough trust to get her undercover in the Russian mafia again. Shockingly, it worked, as the fella quickly forgot about his mutilated hand and quite easily led Renee to the head of the outfit, Vladimir, a wack-job who has a creepy history with Ms. Walker.

Jack isn’t liking what he’s seeing out of his former protege and tries to cancel the mission, but Renee successfully convinces him that the show will end if he does that.

Back in the VIP lounge, President Taylor isn’t feeling much love coming out of Kamistan. President Hassan is rounding up his political enemies and smiting them, much to the chagrin of the free world. And now with the threat of his brother and his crafty plan to secure uranium kill rods still looming, Hassan is motivated to be even more unforgiving. I sense a beer summit in the near future.

Things are even worse for CTU Analyst Starbuck, who comes home to find her white trash blast from the past and another scummy squatter hanging around. Turns out he wants money and will force her to do something in the CTU computers to come up with the dough. She looks like she’s willing to get her treason on to protect the horrible, disgusting, dark and awful secret that she was in juvie.

Back in the action, Vladimir gives Jack the slip and is poised to shoot Renee, until she convinces him that she’s vulnerable and depressed and suicidal and as he presumably fights against an erection, Vlad opts not to kill her and welcomes er back to the family.

Jack is unhappy and drives his car wildly to reflect this.

This episode was a filler show, but I was still compelled. So far there aren’t any dead weight storylines, though the ex-boyfriend extortion plot is real close to getting on my nerves. Just get Freddie Prinze on the job, sister!

I’m more tolerant of Renee, too, who really came across as a train wreck. Let’s just make sure Jack doesn’t become a weepy sponsor any time soon and get to wasting some Russians right quick.

It’s been, what, five years since the last new episode of Supernatural? In case you need a brush-up on what’s happened: the Apocalypse is going strong, Lucifer is walking the Earth, Sam and Dean are stressed, God is off the radar and cats and dogs are living together. The Fall finale saw some big things hapenning with respect to Armageddon and a pair of semi-regulars bought the farm. What do the writers have cooked up to follow those megatons? (Spoiler alert)

Um, a monster-of-the-week episode.

It’s not that I’m against these one-and-done baddie shows; after all, that’s how the series made its bones back in the day. Just after the interminable wait for a new episode and the huge events that transpired when we last saw the Winchesters in action, it’s a bit of a letdown to get into a story that has very little to do with the compelling Acopalypse arc.

Sam and Dean admit themselves into a psychiatric ward, suspecting that a demon or ghost or whatever is feeding on the patients. They are, of course, right, and call upon the aid of a mentally unbalanced former Hunter to help track down the supernatural rapscallion. Turns out, the monster this time is a Wraith, which can take the form of a human and drive its victims batty.

The brothers eventually succumb to the Wraith’s poison and they both lose their grips with reality: Dean is off-the-charts paranoid and Sam can’t control his rage. Before they totally slip off the deep end, they’re able to corner the Wraith and kill it nice and dead. As they make their escape from the ward, Sam pauses and confesses to his brother that he is in fact chock full o’ rage and he’s worried about it. Dean suggests Sam bury those feelings and get on with his life. (Methinks that Sam’s anger problem will manifest once again in an inpportune moment.)

“Sam, Interrupted” was a decent filler episode, but I was hankering for more angel/demon tomfoolery and some grist for the season-long arc, which I really, really dig. The writers toss in a few one-off lines about it, but this is a straight monster-of-the-week show, and merely an okay one at that. As a villain the Wraith was sort of boring and seemed to serve only one purpose: getting Sam to say he’s mad at the world, which will no doubt figure heavily into future proceedings. All in all, a serviceable, if forgettable installment. And where’s Cas?