24 4.14: "Day 4: 8PM - 9PM"

Written by Howard Gordon and Evan Katz
Directed by Tim Iacofano

In which Jack decides to use Dina’s relationship to Marwan as a means of gaining access to the terrorists, but when things go wrong, Jack ends up in a precarious position…


Status Report

Ever since the end of the nuclear meltdown threat, the writers have been in a skid, unable to make a smooth transition into the terrorist threat that will define the second half of the season. Unfortunate as it is, this is what happens when the writers are forced to make up the plot threads as they go along and the lead time suddenly disappears. As long as there’s a semblance of a plot outline (the nuclear deadline), they were able to keep their heads above water. Now, the surf is choppy, the sharks are circling, and the writers are barely treading water.

The beginning of the episode is a great example of how far the writers have strayed from the path blazed in the first half of the season. An amazing amount of time is spent recapping the last episode, with a major emphasis on the PSA-style inclusion of patriotic Arab-Americans. The focus then shifts to Jack’s emotional response to Paul’s medical situation and Audrey’s response. This gets rather ridiculous, especially when Jack seems to get all choked up. This is a guy who reacted far less when Claudia, the woman he supposedly loved in the third season, died helping him escape the Salazars. Is his reaction more for himself, and the relationship he knows will end now?

Tony and Michelle manage to extract, in a matter of seconds, a name from Paul’s encrypted printout: Joseph Fayed. Instead of sending someone to take Fayed into custody, Jack suggests using Dina as an undercover operative. While Jack has a point (Dina demonstrated earlier in the season that the terrorists are unlikely to be taken alive), Tony has a better one. Time might be running out, but if something goes wrong with Fayed, they still have the printout and Dina, never mind whatever McClennan-Forster employees they can manage to apprehend.

Meanwhile, Marwan’s plot with Mitch Anderson straggles along. Making it very clear that the operation is meant to be perceived as long-term, an Air Force pilot about to go on duty is held up by his girlfriend after nice bout of energetic sex. Marwan’s people, of course, have the pilot’s family at gunpoint. Anderson shows up and takes custody of the pilot. The plot ticks off another minor advancement.

Jack comes up with the brilliant plan of posing as a hostage so that Dina can gain access to Fayed and therefore Marwan. Jack is apparently forgetting that the terrorists already have plenty of reasons to question Dina’s loyalty, given that they had ordered Dina’s husband to kill her and their son. But since that would generate a good argument against this plot twist, that information is overlooked. Dina agrees to help in exchange for a new life with her son, which pretty much seals her fate.

While the rest of the CTU team is briefed on Jack’s incredibly bad idea, Tony comes to the sudden realization that Edgar is having problems concentrating on the job. The reason, of course, is his mother’s suicide during the meltdown. Never mind that his abilities weren’t in question in the meantime; this is the excuse used to bring back Chloe, who gets to show Michelle more than a little attitude. All of a sudden, CTU looks an awfully lot like it did in the third season. Go figure!

Just to ramp up Jack’s relationship drama a little more, he refuses to let Audrey know that he’s getting involved in a potentially deadly situation. Tony doesn’t understand it, and it makes Jack look like he’s doing something terrible in the process. But the fact remains that this is what Jack has done several times this season already. Audrey already knows that Jack puts his life on the line, and that it’s his choice. Telling Audrey that he’s going on a dangerous mission would be manipulative at best.

Chloe’s return, of course, undermines Edgar’s confidence and attitude, right at the very moment that it shouldn’t be questioned. Meanwhile, Dina asks to see her son before the mission, and the scene is requisitely melodramatic. At this point, the morgue personnel are preparing for another impending arrival. With CTU operatives crawling all over the neighborhood, Dina takes Jack to Fayed at gunpoint. Sure, Fayed contacts Marwan, but the signal is scrambled. This should be the first sign for CTU that the plan is going to go badly.

While Anderson uses the pilot to gain access to an Air Force base, slowly but surely advancing Marwan’s agenda, another subplot continues in its entirely predictable course. With Paul facing paralysis or even death, Audrey suddenly realizes how much she really cares for her husband. In other words, Jack is screwed. Since Heller doesn’t like relationship issues to get in the way of the job (unless they fall under his favor), Jack is probably not going to last long on Heller’s staff after the day is done.

Marwan is no idiot; if he were stupid as CTU thinks he is, he wouldn’t have been able to mastermind a long-term terrorist operation. So of course he finds a place where he can swap Jack and Dina into a different vehicle while out of surveillance range. CTU should have seen it coming, but then, the little plot twist at the end couldn’t take place. It’s far too easy for Marwan to get his way.

With CTU rocked back on their heels, scrambling for Marwan’s trail, Jack and Dina are taken to an unknown location. Marwan, of course, knows that Dina is working for the enemy, and he tests her in the most efficient manner possible. The result: Dina is killed off-screen as Jack is dragged away, now a prisoner of the terrorists with little hope of rescue.

At the same time, Anderson gains access, using the dead pilot’s extracted thumb, to a fighter jet. Here’s where the writers tease the audience with a rather interesting Clancy-esque possibility: is Anderson gaining access to the fighter jet so he can shoot down Air Force One, where the President and much of the Cabinet has been since the beginning of the terrorist threat? Even if that plot is ultimately unsuccessful, it would be a major plot and would work well with respect to the rest of the season.

Once again, the writers seem to be struggling to find ways to get from point A to point B in each episode. In this case, it’s a question of getting Jack from the McClennan-Forster siege and into the hands of the terrorists. Anderson has to get onto the Air Force base. Everything in between is rather contrived, especially the logic for letting Dina take Jack “hostage” in the first place. The whole operation was ill-conceived and Michelle ought to have been more insistent in her command style as the AIC.

Similarly, there was no reason for Michelle to bring Chloe back into CTU under the pretext that Edgar was unreliable. Since his mother’s suicide, Edgar has been forced to stop several nuclear meltdowns, aid in the operation to help Jack and Paul get out of the EMP zone alive, and deal with more than a few changes in authority under incredibly uncomfortable circumstances. In every case, he’s kept his focus. So what possible reason could Tony have to question Edgar’s concentration?

The answer is that the fans were begging for Chloe to be written back into the story, because she was one of the few highlights of the early slump this season. Much like the PSA-style scripting in the previous episode, this smacks of creating drama for the sake of pleasing the fans. Michelle’s return had a strong rationale, even if Driscoll’s exit took place for the wrong reasons. Chloe’s return was simply contrived.

Many of the earlier episodes had similar weaknesses, but there were elements that kept the story from losing momentum. There were layers to the characterization of the Araz family and the CTU/Heller alliance that forced the audience into uncomfortable psychological territory. Nothing has replaced that dynamic, and the story suffers as a whole. There are no grey areas right now, and that only helps to reveal the lack of depth in the recent episodes.

The season is rapidly approaching the end of the “complication” phase, when there would typically be a major event to transition the story into the “resolution” phase of the arc. Within the next few episodes, Marwan’s plan will likely come to fruition. Hopefully, when this happens, it will give the writers more inspiration. If future episodes cover as little ground as this one, it won’t be pretty.


Final Analysis

Overall, this episode continued the remarkable downturn in the quality of the season. The writers are still struggling with how to handle the transition between terrorist plots, and the result is an episode where very little happens. Many of the plot points are incredibly contrived, and none of the nuanced characterization of the first half of the season remains. If the writers don’t get things turned around soon, the season could fall apart completely.

Writing: 0/2
Acting: 2/2
Direction: 2/2
Style: 0/4

Final Rating: 4/10

Season Average (as of 4.13): 6.9