Friday, December 29, 2006

Santa Claus Conquers the Martins

(Black Screen)
Narrator: Even though it is accepted almost as fact that modern day kids are usually more naughty than nice, this year many parents are demanding that Santa Claus explain his methodology in making up his famous Naughty and Nice Lists. (Stars come into view and a blur of red and white swooshes across the screen). Returning to his lair at the North Pole after making his annual Christmas Eve journey, Santa hoped to have a little rest and relaxation, but he got much more than he bargained for from these disgruntled parents and now must prepare for his greatest challenge of all.


Scene 1

(Sleigh descends to North Pole Village and Santa gets out smiling. Fade to black. “Several days later” flashes across the screen. A high-tech computer center becomes visible, with four elves wearing headsets feverishly handling calls and typing on keyboards.)

Elf 1: This is ridiculous, Hermie. I can’t keep up with these calls.

Elf 2: I know, Rolf. All the parents are calling and complaining.

Elf 3: It’s like the world has gone crazy.

Elf 4: They all want to know “why” Santa gave their kids coal.

Elf 2: Or didn’t give a bigger and better gift than he gave.

Elf 1: Their sense of entitlement is amazing this year.

(Mrs. Claus walks into the room wiping her hands on her apron).

Mrs. C: What is this I hear?

Elf 1: Oh, Mrs. Claus, it’s a terrible mess. Parents all over the globe are calling.

Elf 2: They’re angry with Santa giving their children coal.

Elf 3: Or they’re unhappy with the toys he did give the children.

Mrs. C: How dare they? Santa has done the same thing for the last seven hundred years.

Elf 3: Hey, you’re preaching to the choir, Mrs. C.

Elf 4: Yeah, we know Santa has a system and it’s always worked.

Mrs. C: Well, I don’t know about a system.

Elf 1: You mean he doesn’t have a system?

Mrs. C: I really don’t know how he does it.

Elf 3: Oh, great. Now she doesn’t know anything.

Mrs. C: I…I didn’t say that boys.

Elf 4: Sorry, Mrs. C, but we’re under lots of pressure here.

Mrs. C: Yes, of course you are, boys.

Elf 1: Mrs. C, how does Santa come up with his Naughty and Nice Lists?

Mrs. C: I have never asked him that question.

(The phones start ringing like mad and the elves busy themselves answering more calls. Mrs. C shakes her head and slowly walks out of the room.)


Scene 2

(Santa is relaxing in front of the fireplace; his red-stocking feet are propped up on a candy cane ottoman. He is sipping hot cocoa and takes a deep breath.)

Santa: Ah, it feels good to take some time off at the end of each year. It was another excellent Christmas. Yes indeed. I must give the elves a little bonus after the new year before we start working on next year. I know, I’ll give them each a quart of vodka. That’ll keep them singing elfin tunes while they work.

(Mrs. Claus enters the room slowly and with trepidation)

Mrs. C: Oh, Kris, you’re awake.

Santa: (sipping cocoa) Oh, yes, dear. I am just daydreaming.

Mrs. C: Kris, you know I usually like to let you relax these days after Christmas.

Santa: Well, of course.

Mrs. C: And I never ever bother you to do anything, even change the light bulb over the entrance to the reindeer stalls. The elves can’t reach it, nor can I, but I don’t want to disturb you as you recover from your difficult journey.

Santa: Yes, well, it’s hard work being Santa Claus, my dear. Very hard work.

Mrs. C: Well, yes it is, Kris. Unfortunately, something has come up.

Santa: (putting down his cocoa) What seems to be the problem, Martha?

Mrs. C: Well, the truth is that the elves are getting millions of complaints.

Santa: Complaints? About what?

Mrs. C: It seems parents all over the world are questioning your Naughty and Nice Lists?

Santa: (sitting upright) Questioning my lists?

Mrs. C: Yes, dear. Or they want to know why their kids didn’t get bigger and better toys.

Santa: (struggling to stand and adjusting his suspenders) How dare they. I…I have been doing this for centuries now without having my authority questioned.

Mrs. C: And remarkably well, my dear.

Santa: (ambles over to his desk where a huge book is open under a lamp) I’ve compiled these lists with painstaking….

Mrs. C: Painstaking what, dear?

Santa: Well, I use my powers to see them when they’re sleeping. I know when they’re awake. I know if they’ve been….

Mrs. C: Everyone’s heard the song, dear.

Santa: (deep sigh) Well, yes, of course, with those stupid stations playing Christmas music since Labor Day.

Mrs. C: Could so many parents be wrong, Kris. Don’t they know their children better than you?

Santa: Well, maybe they think they know them, but I…I am the one that knows better. Well,they always used to be with me on this matter. Parents accepted the coal or the small plastic toy without griping.

Mrs. C: Yes, those were the days, dear.

Santa: They’re either with me or against me. And if they’re against me, well, then, I know some parents who aren’t getting what they want next year either.

Mrs. C: But, Kris, what do we do about all these calls and e-mails?

Santa: (Santa rubs his bearded chin, snaps his white-gloved fingers, and turns on the computer next to the big book). I have an idea, Martha. (He quickly runs his fingers over the keyboard). I am doing a search just now.

Mrs. C: What are you looking for, my dear?

Santa: I remember that the President of the USA said something….something I think I could use now, but I can’t remember what it was.

Mrs. C: Oh, he is the Great Communicator, right?

Santa: (looking up from the screen) No, that was Reagan. I’m afraid he is dead now.

Mrs. C: Then he couldn’t say anything.

Santa: No, it’s the current president, my sweet.

Mrs. C: Is he the one who said he never had relations with that woman?

Santa: No, my sweet, that was Clinton.

Mrs. C: Is he dead now too, dear?

Santa: Well, he almost was when his wife found out (a little chuckle).

Mrs. C: Oh, Kris.

Santa: Let’s just say he was on my Naughty List for quite some time.

Mrs. C: Well, is this president the one who said “Read my lips,” dear?

Santa: No, that was his father.

Mrs. C: I must say I can’t keep track of the presidents very well.

Santa: The current president is W.

Mrs. C: Just a one letter name?

Santa: Well, I knew him as Georgie as a boy. Speaking of naughty lists….
(Santa claps his hands) I found it, dear. I found it.

Mrs. C: Oh, wonderful, Kris.

(Screen fades to black)

Scene 3

(The elves are all sitting at their computer terminals looking up at Santa Claus)

Santa: Okay, boys, you are going to type the following message. This is to be sent to all the parents who have complained and the ones who weren’t happy with the gifts their little darlings received. Understand?

Elves: Yes, Santa. (phone ringing)

ELf 1: (hand over headset) It's a Mr. and Mrs. Martin from Teaneck, New Jersey.

Santa: Excellent! Listen to what I say to them and copy it to send to everyone else. Okay?

Elves: Yes, Santa.

Santa: Mr. and Mrs Martin, this is Santa.

Mr. Martin: How dare you leave coal for our little Billy and Sandy.

Mrs. Martin: They aren't "naughty" kids, Santa.

Santa: Ho-ho-ho! I am sorry you do not like the way I handled the Naughty and Nice Lists this year. I understand you may want something different, but that cannot change what I have done. You see, I am the Decider. I decide what is right and wrong. I decide who is naughty and who is nice. Do you understand this? I decide; not you.

Mr. Martin: But that's not...fair.

Santa: Was it fair when you were five years old, William Martin, and you stole your brother's GI Joe?

Mr. Martin: Hey, well, that was....

Santa: You see, you parents didn't decide then and you don't decide now. I decide. I am the decider so I do the deciding. I know what I know and I do what I do and decide what I must. So, those kids who got coal this year got coal, and they and their parents are just going to have to live with it. The kids who received smaller toys than others, well they deserved that too. You can explain it to them as I have to you. The decider has spoken. It’s out of your hands. I decide; not you.

Mrs. Martin: This...this is an outrage.

Santa: Well, Sylvia, if you don't watch yourself, next year I won't even think of bringing you that diamond bracelet. (A moment of silence) Very good, Happy New Year to you. Bye-bye!

Elf 1: Santa, that was amazing!

Santa: Yes, if I do say so myself. Just add "Warm regards, Kris Kringle, Santa Claus, Father Christmas, Pere Noel, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera."

Elf 2: Do you really think this is going to work with everyone, Santa?

Santa: If it worked for W, it will work for me. Now hit “send” boys and be lively about it. You have millions more letters to get out as soon a possible.

Mrs. C: Oh, Kris, you’re so handsome when you do your deciding.

Santa: (putting out his arm) Thank you, Martha. Now The Decider wants to take you to dinner. But this time, I’ll let you do the deciding.

Mrs. C: (takes his arm affectionately) How about that little place in Oslo?

Santa: Anything for you, dear. I will get the sleigh ready.

Mrs. C: And when we get back, do you think The Decider can change that light bulb by the reindeer stall?

Santa: Ho-ho-ho! Of course, my dear. Of course. Ho-ho-ho! (screen fades to black)

THE END

Sunday, December 24, 2006

Does Santa Claus Need a Makeover?

Does Santa Claus Need a Makeover?

I have been noticing something interesting this season as December 25th has been approaching: Santa Claus is seemingly more popular than ever. Of course, this is the jolly fat guy that most of us have grown up with and now our children are growing up with too. His image is legendary, burnished in our collective consciousness by advertisements, movies, TV shows, Christmas cards, and works of art. His iconic white beard, red suit, black boots and belt, and cherry nose are more identifiable to people around the world than just about any other person living or dead. So, in the face of such success, why should I propose that Santa needs a makeover?

In essence it’s because Santa is a victim of his own success. He is trapped in his role as jolly old elf. There is no room for him to branch out, try something new, become what he has always been meant to be perhaps. For in the ubiquitous nature of being Santa, he is caught in a steel trap that would cause most people to want to escape. Obviously, he must wear different clothing during the course of the year, but every Christmas he has to wear the red suit. Why? What if he took a chance and wore turquoise? Or yellow? And those boots have got to go. Yes, they are functional for crossing snow-covered rooftops and no doubt keep his feet warm in that open sleigh, but a pair of fur-lined moccasins might be more comfortable.

No, this isn’t my version of a “Straight Eye for the Fat Guy” concept, but rather a move toward remaking Santa’s image, getting him into the 21st century and, by doing so, make him even more relevant than he is. For example, when I take my daughter to see him at the mall (okay, we all know this is one of his “helpers” and not the real deal), there are so many nervous children and equally unsettled parents waiting on line for hours. Why does it take so damned long? Because “Santa” is still using 15th century technology.

My idea for “seeing Santa” is to have an elf sitting right next to Santa with a laptop at the ready. Parents could save time by placing their children’s lists on disc, thus the elf would need to type in the items the kid is asking for immediately. Elf could take the disk, click once, and send the list off to the newly computerized center at the North Pole, where the other elves could be getting right to the task of making that rocking horse, iPod, cellular phone, or video game. And, if they can’t find the materials, there is always eBay. I estimate the kid could sit on Santa’s lap, grab a candy cane, and be off with his parents in less than sixty seconds.

I think we are all locked into this old-time kind of Santa thing mostly because of Clement Clarke Moore’s poem. “The Night Before Christmas” (published in 1822) really established the image of Santa Claus that we use to the present day, and after that there was no escaping his bowl full of jelly physique or the red suit and white beard. Santa’s path was set before him for centuries to come, and I’ve got to wonder what the real guy felt about that.

The original Saint Nicholas was from Turkey (where he lived and supposedly “died”), so I doubt very much that he ever wore such warm clothing. During the Middle Ages, when he began to expand his operations to the northern countries like Holland and Norway, he may have needed that warm suit. But I’m sure as his sleigh moved south over the equator that Santa has always switched (there is a powder room on the sleigh if you didn’t know) to a pair of shorts, T-shirt, and a nice pair of sunglasses.

Also, I’ve always had a feeling that there was a darker edge to Santa Claus, one that has been suppressed by adults and the corporate world. Could a guy who “sees you when you’re sleeping” be really so nice? Just what gives him the right to make up a “naughty and nice list” and then leave coal for the naughty kids? Coal is kind of sinister and comes from a dark place akin to the underworld, and if you take the “saint” out of “Old Saint Nick” you get “Old Nick,“ which just happens to be a nickname for Satan (a word which by rearranging the letters gives us Santa).

I think that dark side is something the current Santa Claus needs to exploit. It worked for Billy Bob Thornton in the film Bad Santa, and I have a feeling that Santa with an edge could redefine the old guy and make him as cool and as rich as The Donald. Also, it might be a very good idea for Santa to change his name or hyphenate it. Perhaps something like S-Claus, Fifty Sant, or Ice-C could work, or maybe he could just take the Cher and Madonna route and go by one name. I’d say drop the Santa and go with Claus.

This reinventing or refreshing the Santa Claus image is not my idea alone and is nothing new. In Iceland there is the tradition of the 13 Yule Lads (Santa Clauses), and although they leave goodies in children’s shoes, they perform some kind of act of mischief as they do so. With names like Spoon Licker, Door Slammer, Sausage Swiper, and Window Peeper, it doesn’t take much imagination to associate the kind of trouble they would make as they went from house to house. This tradition has been handed down over the centuries, but it seems that in modern-day Iceland there are thirteen brothers who live in Dimmuborgir (Dark Castle) in Mývatn (http://www.snowmagic.is/page.asp?Id=600) who carry on as the various personalities. Needless to say, parents must be thrilled to have someone like Window Peeper leaving goodies in their children’s shoes on the front porch and lingering for a look in the bedroom window.

Still, according to what I’ve read, this thrills the Icelandic children more than the standard “Ho-ho-ho” of the old jolly elf. No one knows when or where the Yule Lads will strike, thus making each night of the Twelve Days of Christmas exciting indeed. Our traditional Santa Claus doesn’t bring that kind of excitement, and even kids on the “naughty list” still seem to get gifts (according to my daughter who is in Kindergarten and says even her naughty friends do get presents). Santa needs to shake things up, change his image, and even go a little toward the dark side. People will not only like him then; they will positively love him.

A song like “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” gives just a hint of how mischievous the old elf could be, but I imagine we could someday have a song like “I Saw Santa Stealing Daddy’s BMW Last Night.” Ah, and just think how jealous those Yule Lads of Iceland would be then.

Happy Christmas to all and to all a good night!

* For an English translation of the original Yule Lads story, check out http://notendur.centrum.is/sjbokband/joh.html/yulelads00.html

Monday, November 13, 2006

Boring Rats: Cultural Learnings of "CitiField" Makes Inglorious Nation of Mets Fans

This New York Mets fan wanted to believe deep down to his orange and blue heart that the Mets organization would do the right thing when it came to naming the new ballpark. I wrote an article earlier this year about this topic in which I proclaimed that the new park should be named Jackie Robinson Field. I think I stated my case clearly and succinctly, but there was probably never a chance for this to happen because the whole thing came down to dollars and cents. Notice the words “common“ or “sense” are no where in sight.

Today there was a “groundbreaking” ceremony for the new park (despite the fact that construction work has been going on for months) outside the centerfield fence at Shea Stadium. This place will be called CitiField, though it will resemble the old home of the Dodgers, the legendary Ebbet’s Field, in order to evoke memories of the history of baseball in this town that has nothing to do with the Yankees. They have their own new stadium to contend with, but that’s another issue. The Mets have caved in big time, greedily sucking up $20 million a year in order for Citigroup to have its name plastered on the façade of the new ballpark. For baseball purists like myself who find this offensive, we are supposed to be assuaged by a statue of Jackie Robinson that will be placed at the entrance of the new stadium.

Of course, many Mets fans will not mind any of this, for they felt the fact that Robinson never played in a Mets uniform was more important that anything else. It mattered little to them that the Mets were the logical, emotional, and spiritual heirs to the Dodger legacy in New York; and Robinson, more than any other Dodger, embodied that gutsy type of player that became emblematic of the Bums’ heart and soul.

My uncle used to say, “You can beat the Dodgers, but you can never defeat them.” This was a man who got so drunk in 1955 after the Dodgers beat the hated Yankees that he was lost for three days. He drank “in every bar in Brooklyn” according to his story years later, then got on the subway and started to visit every one in Manhattan for good measure. How he ended up in Teaneck, New Jersey, is still a mystery unlikely to ever be solved. Nevertheless, he and many Dodger fans bled Dodger blue and then cried a river of it when the team went out to California.

The Mets replaced this team in the hearts and minds of many of old Dodger fans, and the Mets’ roster had so many former Dodgers over the years that the connection seemed unquestionably obvious. Still, Mets fans were kind of hybrid, because many ex-Giants fans were also drawn into the Amazin’s web. The Mets logo on their caps comes straight from the Giants with its orange N and slightly bent Y. The marriage of that orange with Dodger blue gave us vibrant team colors that seemed to remind everyone of the history of the other two ball clubs while noting that this was the new team in town.

In response to today’s groundbreaking ceremony for CitiField, the first thing I screamed was “Boring!” This was followed by “Those dirty rats,” in my best James Cagney imitation. I could not believe the sound of those words, the hollow ring of corporate shilling echoing across the East River all the way to the Citicorp Building with its slanted roof. CitiField? Man, that is not only shocking but a less than amazing choice for the new home of the Amazin’ Mets.

I was mortified, angry, and then wondered how others were feeling about this. I donned my Mets windbreaker, Mets cap, and old Mets shirt (1986 World Champions no less), and I went over to the commercial heart of Queens, the newly refurbished shopping mall known as Queens Center. Located on Queens Boulevard on the corner of Woodhaven Boulevard, Queens Center is minutes from the current home of the Mets, Shea Stadium. It was filled with people doing early holiday shopping, so I pushed the Mets cap back on my head, took out my pad and pencil, and started to ask questions of people passing in the first floor’s main lobby.

I asked one simple question: What do you think of the new name for the Mets’ new ballpark? Here is an example of some answers I got:

Jose (18- Corona, Queens): I think it stinks, man. It should be something like Keith Hernandez Park or something like that.

Bill (49- Elmhurst, Queens): What name? What is the name (I told him it is being named CitiField for Citibank)? Oh, that’s terrible. That’s a lousy name for a stadium. Why not name it Gil Hodges Stadium? The team would be nothing without that man!

Cesar (22- Long Island City): That’s cold, really cold. I’m a Yankees fan, but I think even Steinbrenner wouldn’t do that.

Mildred (84-Maspeth, Queens): Oh my, that is sort of odd. Why can’t they just call it Shea once again? Make things easy for us all.

Willie J. (33-Brooklyn): Just too corporate, son. I mean, it’s just too damned corporate. Damn!

Alyssa (19-Whitestone, Queens): I’d call it Jose Reyes Park or name it for David Wright. They’re hot, and I don’t know who this CitiField guy is anyway.

Chuck (53-Mineola, Long Island): I’ve got one word for it: sell-out.

In all, I asked thirty-two people this question, and not one of them liked the name for the Mets’ new ballpark. Everyone seemed surprised that the Mets would do this, that the team ownership would make such an obvious play for corporate sponsorship. There seemed to be shock, disappointment and, for many, simply embarrassment that the team they loved would have to play home games in a field so-named.

I got back in my car and drove around onto the highway. It was a gloomy day today; the leaves that remained on the trees were clinging onto branches despite the robust wind blowing across Flushing Bay. I drove past my beloved Shea Stadium and felt a shiver scoot down my arms towards my hands on the steering wheel. I never realized how much I loved that ugly old place.

CitiField may one day prove to be the true home of the New York Mets the way Shea Stadium has been. So much of Mets history has taken place at Shea, so many Mets fans have spent long, hot afternoons and cold, windy nights there. It is a place where the present and past intermingle, with apparitions of our heroes long gone still shagging fly balls, tossing perfect strikes, and hitting the long one on each swing from here to eternity. CitiField is going to have a long way to go to find a similar place in the hearts of Mets fans.

Sunday, October 22, 2006

The Tale of My Broken Mets Fan Heart

It’s never been easy being a New York Mets fan and everyone knows that. Now, as my crying of an orange and blue river has subsided, I sit staring into space and keep thinking of what might have been. I try watching the Jets and, even though they won today’s game, I find no solace in that at all. I take a walk through the falling leaves, seeing an occasional Mets’ flag or banner waving in the wind from someone’s house. I understand that person’s loyalty since I’ve been fervently rooting for the same team for so long, but I am still too hurt by this loss. I’m not in my right mind, and I know if I saw Mr. Met on the street (with his incessantly happy face) I’d punch him in his great big head.

I guess there are other fans for other teams who could maybe empathize with my feelings, but I think no other team has the ability to break one’s heart more than my Mets. It has to do with many things, but one thing I remember from my youth was manager Casey Stengel saying something about having to get them (fans) early, when they‘re really little tykes. Sure, they got me all right. I was hooked in my youth by the team that made me dream. Sure, they couldn’t win too many games, but damn they were fun to watch and also just amazingly likeable guys. I felt like they could be my uncles or older cousins. Art Shamsky, Ron Swoboda, Ed Kranepool, Tommie Agee, Tug McGraw and the rest were just like any other adults I knew; they just happened to get to suit-up, run out on the field at Shea, and play ball against Henry Aaron, Willie Mays, Bob Gibson, Pete Rose (grrrr!!!!), and all the rest of the league’s superstars.

Living a stone’s throw from Shea in Queens, New York, I really felt like the Mets were my neighbors. I grew up with them, loved them whether they won or lost (but mostly they lost), and then experienced the shock of my young life when Cleon Jones genuflected in left field as he caught Davey Johnson’s fly ball, signifying that my Mets had actually defeated the Baltimore Orioles and won the World Series in 1969. The love affair was thus cemented and meant to be forever, for I collected on several two-dollar bets on the team, but even more importantly I was able to now boast to those Yankees fans I knew that my team was on top of the world.

Needless to say, the road since that heady October of 1969 has not been very smooth for my Mets. I had my heart broken in 1973 when a team, with many of the old ’69 fellows still on board, took the Oakland A’s to the seventh game of the series. It was certainly a David verses Goliath story there, but the Mets just didn’t make the slingshot work in the end. No matter, I still kept the faith all the way until the 1980s, when once again Shea started rocking as hard as it did when the Fab Four stood on a stage out around second base for their legendary concert in 1965.

I found the guys on the 1986 team to be quite different than their 1969 counterparts. Although you had some of the old Met types in Wally Backman, Lenny Dykstra, and Howard Joghnson, the big guns weren’t the same kind of underdog players. Hernandez, Carter, Knight, Strawberry, and my favorite Doc Gooden were stars in their own right, and their wattage was never brighter than that summer at Shea when they were amazing again. Yet they seemed ready to break my heart all over, until Bill Buckner made the unthinkable misplay (not of letting Mookie Wilson’s ball roll through his legs but of wearing a Chicago Cubs batting glove for old time’s sake while making the error). Until this day I can remember closing my eyes and picturing Buckner tagging the bag for the out, only to hear the roar of the crowd and upon opening my eyes seeing Ray Knight gripping his head incredulously as he scored the most unimaginable run in Mets history.

Admittedly, it’s been a long haul since 1986. All year long I’ve tried not to get the jones going for the world series. This new team of Carlos I and II, Wright, Reyes, and the rest kept plugging along, but I kept saying to anyone who asked, “Well, we have a long road ahead yet.” Still people persisted to push the Mets’ luck saying stuff about them going all the way, to which I usually replied, “Yeah, but we have a tough series with those Dodgers.” Even after we lost all our pitching except for Tom Glavine, nothing I said or did really worked. These people still wanted to jinx the team, but when John Maine pitched so well in that sixth game of the NLCS, I started hearing old Tug McGraw like a little angel on my shoulder whispering, “You gotta believe” in my ear enough times until I just gave in.

I sat back and daydreamed about the champagne soaking my team as they celebrated the win. I felt the Tigers could be had easily, that we really had it in the bag already, that no one more than Willie Randolph deserved this (for he seemed so destined to be Met manager in the spirit of Yankee greats who were Mets‘ managers: Casey Stengel, Joe Torre, and Yogi Berra). I had my orange and blue Mets flag ready to fly in front of my house (to irk my neighbor the Yankees fan). I closed my eyes and saw the huge parade going down Broadway (along the so-called Canyon of Heroes), and I imagined the guys all getting their rings on a wonderful Opening Day in 2007.

Alas, none of this is meant to be. Endy Chavez had some of that old Met magic when he caught that homerun and brought it back into the park, but it just wasn’t enough. I can imagine the ghosts of Agee and McGraw helping Endy on that one, just pushing that ball a little bit into his glove for a nice snow cone catch. I guess all the great old Mets spirits were there, including Hodges and Stengel, as well as the legendary announcers Bob Murphy and Lindsay Nelson. They must have all been cheering on the 2006 guys, but they just came up a little short.

So now I am nursing a broken heart that will not heal all that easily. It’s a long winter ahead, and maybe I can get into the Jets if they win a few more. Still, spring training is far away and the crack of the bat and pop of the ball in the glove are faint sounds in the distance. I don’t want to dream and I don’t want to hope or anything right now.

There was a great cartoon in the New York Daily News yesterday of Mr. Met going into a bar and standing next to a dejected and drunken Yankee fan. He tells the bartender, “I’ll have what he’s having.” Man, did that cartoon hit home. Some people might say, “Hey, there’s always next year.” Maybe, but right now there’s enough left of this year to keep me feeling like there’s no tomorrow.

 

Monday, October 2, 2006

A Tale of Two Cities: Baseball Playoffs Divide New Yorkers

East Side, West Side,
All around the town;
The Mets and Yanks fans are training;
They’re ready to go a few rounds.

Boys and girls are a bit anxious,
But that's not stopping them from talking the talk;
If either the Mets or Yanks win the Series,
Look out on the sidewalks of New York!
                  (with apologies to Chas. B. Lawlor and James W. Blake)

 

It’s becoming very apparent on the streets of New York that the city is preparing for war between Mets and Yankees on the baseball diamond. One can see an almost equal amount of colors being worn by people around town for both clubs. There are signs in store windows; flags for both teams are flying from car antennas, and even babies in carriages are wearing team shirts and hats. The thing I (as a Met fan) am waiting for most is to see The Empire State Building bathed in orange and blue. Yes, ladies and gentleman, the gloves are off and the fun has just begun.

Of course, the Yankees have to first get through the Detroit Tigers and the Mets will have to deal with the Dodgers. The Yankees would seem to have the easier task here, for the Tigers literally collapsed and had to settle for the wild card instead of winning their division. It is almost unbelievable that a team seemingly destined for one hundred wins and a runaway with their division fell apart like this. As Mets fans have come to know, when Kenny Rogers is involved, all bets are off.

The Mets have their own problems meeting the Dodgers at Shea starting on Wednesday afternoon. Some of us diehard (and older) Mets fans can recall the crushing loss to the Dodgers in the playoffs in 1988, when a hobbled Kirk Gibson and an ubiquitous Orel Herscheiser (working as a starting pitcher and reliever) led their team to victory over the Amazin’s. What we’re really dealing with here is not just the LA team but the Brooklyn ghosts, notwithstanding all those former Dodgers who subsequently went on to wear Mets orange and blue (current Met Shawn Green is one of them).

If the Mets and Yanks can get through their respective division series, then there is the more difficult and daunting league championship series. We won’t know which opponents will be waiting, but these are really just like preliminary rounds. Everyone here in New York knows what theywant to happen and, while there is no guarantee that the Mets and Yankees will make it to the World Series, most of us are salivating at the prospect of a rematch of the 2000 Fall Classic.

As a Met fan, I like to think things are going to be different this time. Back in 2000 we were dealing with the Valentine-Piazza Mets. These guys were a likeable enough bunch, but they were not dominating or any way similar to their 1986 counterparts. Conversely, the 2006 Mets look an awful lot like the guys from the Hernandez-Johnson Mets. While not without their controversy (Lastings Milledge is something like him, but nothing really close to Darryl Strawberry in the talent department as of yet), the 2006 Mets are a clean, lean, nothing near mean fighting machine.

The 2006 Yanks remind me a good deal of the old Mattingly era Yankees. Derek Jeter has morphed into a leader like Mattingly with two hundred plus hits and almost took the batting title. These are still Torre’s boys, but there is a new feel to them thanks to contributions from young players like Melky Cabrera and Robinson Cano. Also, veterans like Sheffield and Matsui were just getting hot at the end of the season, so more than anything else the Yanks can be categorized as dangerous. In some ways, much more so than the 2000 team seemed to be.

There is also the walking wounded and the stretcher case (aka Randy Johnson and Pedro Martinez). Johnson has struggled all year and one must wonder if he can muster the grit and determination necessary to get out there and pitch like he used to. The Mets are in worse shape because Pedro is gone and has confirmed the fear most fans had all along. Pedro is a great guy and an amazing presence in the clubhouse, but he is fragile and always seems this close to breaking a bone, pulling a muscle, or popping something. Without him, the team is less confident and yet there is the possibility that young John Maine might step up and surprise us all (if he can keep the ball from being hit over the wall too much).

Whatever actually happens in the playoffs does, of course, matter a great deal, but New Yorkers have been treated to a year of solidly played baseball by both of its teams, but we’re not satisfied with that by any means. So now, as we all wait for the first volley, New Yorkers are preparing their base camps and stocking up on gear necessary for the long struggle ahead. If both teams can make it to the World Series, then there will be a battle for the city like no has seen since 2000 (but, as a Met fan, Iam hoping it’s more like no has seen since 1955 when the Dodgers finally deflated the Yankee bubble).

So I am hoping for a subway series, but if I get my wish I can’t help thinking that I might be quoting the immortal words of Charles Dickens even before the first pitch is thrown: It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. Still, there is nothing like this tale of two cities here in old New York: the New York Mets City verses the New York Yankees City. Let the games begin!

Sunday, July 30, 2006

MTV Turns 25: What a Drag It is Getting Old

I hope I die before I get old.

-The Who

 

 

This Tuesday a somewhat monumental day shall come to pass: MTV will turn 25 years old. I don’t know how much the music channel is doing to promote this auspicious occasion, though it seems that its targeted demographic of 14 to 25 year olds probably doesn’t give a damn. In truth, since I stopped watching the channel long ago, I don’t really care either, but I feel some kind of recognition should be bestowed upon the channel for its enormous impact on culture and life in America and the rest of the world.

MTV’s impact on my generation came swiftly. Prior to the day The Ruggles “Video Killed the Radio Star” debuted as the first video to be broadcast by the channel, we were relegated to wondering what images might go well with our favorite tunes. Now, in vivid and living color, our minds were deluged with images of artists, some ill-prepared at best, who hoped to capture our imaginations with their visual visions of what their songs looked like. Thus we were inundated with some good, some bad, and some rather ugly interpretations of popular songs.

The power of the early days on MTV was found in its song play list and its VJs, among whom Martha Quinn stands out as the girl I (and lots of guys) fell in love with. When I think back on it now the channel threw way too much power into these fledgling hands, but this helped shaped the 80s musical scene more than anything. Singers like Madonna and Sinead O’Connor and groups like Wham! and A-ha became household names because they were exposed and over-exposed on MTV.

Still, when I think about those days, the impact more than anything else was akin to the Beatles appearing on The Ed Sullivan Show for an earlier generation. MTV more than anything else was a corroboration that “our music” mattered. The old visual of the astronaut and the MTV logo drove home the message that this was not only one small step for young fans, but a giant leap for youth that sealed the fate of those watching and those not even born: young people’s music was as essential and significant as anything for adults, maybe even more so.

Unfortunately, MTV’s evolution away from its early format of music all the time was no doubt preordained. Just as the Beatles moved from the mop-top image to something almost unrecognizable to their teeny-bopper fans, MTV became the marketing and cultural juggernaut that it is today because it took chances, made changes, and became something totally different.

Most viewers would have been hard pressed to find the “music” on MTV around the time of its tenth year on the air. Original programming became what the channel was all about, and while I used to faithfully watch that old show Remote Control (I think more than anything else to see Kari Wuhrer), I knew it was the beginning of the end for me and MTV. By the time The Real World became a hit, I was through with watching the channel, but then again I’m sure that didn’t bother anyone at MTV since I had passed beyond the 14 to 25 year old demographic so important to the channel and its advertisers.

So what will be MTV’s place in television history? Perhaps one should go out and see the new film Miami Vice this weekend with Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx. MTV impacted the old show on which this film is based as it has done with so many other things we may not even connect to the channel. Shows like Survivor and American Idol would not be as they are (maybe not even “be” at all) if not for the MTV influence. Also, the amazing and now seemingly essential integration of music (timely, popular, or cutting edge as needed) into all programming, but specifically drama, proves that MTV became the soundtrack for our lives.

I am not doing anything too special to mark MTV’s 25th birthday this week but, not surprisingly, neither is the musical channel. MTV probably doesn’t want the kids counting the candles on the cake or singing the child-like question “Are you one? Are you two?” for the answer might surprise some of its young fans.

In my time we used to say “Never trust anyone over 30.” Then, when we sort of got close to that birthday and that designated age seemed a little “young” after all. But that kind of knowledge comes with time and experience, so MTV’s demographic will learn like all generations have no choice but to learn, but by then most of them will be watching VH-1 or maybe even (perish the thought) CNN.

So on Tuesday I’ll take out my old Martha Quinn poster, lift a glass of bubbly (probably seltzer), and toast the old days while listening to Sinead O’Connor sing “Nothing Compares to You” (I’ve seen the video hundreds of times but know I’ll never be able to find it on MTV these days). Afterwards, I’ll lug my old dinosaur bones over to the television and probably watch So You Think You Can Dance. Sadly, I fear that’s where this old MTV fan goes to get his kicks these days.

Saturday, June 24, 2006

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Chris-Mets

Okay, Mets fans, I know that you (like I) dread spoiling things, jinxing them, putting the horns on our men in orange and blue. But as things stand here in New York City on June 24, 2006, I’m feeling a little bit like that Jolly Old Elf and Mr. Met all rolled up in one. Is it time to hang up our orange and blue stockings and hope for World Series tickets yet? I don’t know, but the smell of 1986 is undeniably in the air.

Thinking back to that glorious summer 20 years ago, I was deliriously happy at this time for the Mets were well ahead of the second place Expos and nothing seemed to be going wrong. Now in 2006 the Mets are comfortably ahead of the second place Phils by 11 games, and the always hated Bobby Cox and his Braves are in last place. Oh, do I love it. Yes, I am gloating and that’s dangerous, but I’ll take the chance right now because the cushion is big enough at this point.

Have you looked at the All Star voting? Beltran, Wright, Reyes, Delgado, and even Lo Duca are up there in the votes. Tom Glavine might should get the start if anyone does things right. Smells like team spirit or something like Nirvana for long-suffering Flushing fans. The National League teams in this town never got the respect they deserved. I mean, they used to call the Dodgers “Bums” even after they defeated the Yankees in 1955 in the sweetest of all victories. Even the “Amazin’ Mets” label is pejorative if you think of its ancestry, thrown on the team after losing so many games in the early years.

Still, I believe in Santa and Mr. Met more than ever now with my team owning a 45-26 record. There are also very tangible signs that the tide is turning again here in New York. I judge the sign of the times by what I see in public, especially the young people I encounter everywhere I go. A ride on the subway provides a good measure of what’s happening: there are just as many Mets T-shirts and caps being worn as there are Yankees. Go into a sporting goods store, and the Mets items are in the front racks where Yankees paraphernalia ruled even last year after they lost to the Bosox.

Even more impressive is when I pass a school, particularly the high school in Queens not far from where I live. The students in orange and blue clearly dominate the scene now as I watch the kids coming down the steps toward their buses. When I was growing up in Queens the Mets ruled the borough, and it feels like that is happening all over again. The occasional guy in a Yankee cap walks by, but the bravado and arrogance seem long gone.

This Mets resurgence is not relegated to their home borough. Just pass the Mets store on 42nd Street and see the crowds of shoppers going in excitedly and coming out with full shopping bags. Walk down the street and see Mets insignias in store windows, most notably major appliance stores that used to always have a Yankees sticker splashing across the TV screens. Also, go inside that appliance store and find more of the sets tuned to Mets games than Yankees games. Ah, sweet delight.

I feel there is an overall benevolence for the Mets this year, even grudgingly from some Yankees fans. A good friend who used to wear his Yankees cap all the time is starting to refrain from doing so after they lose. Why? He says that he’s “embarrassed” to wear it. Now, all real orange and blue in their blood Mets fans never have been accused of that. Losing takes character (just as much and probably a lot more than winning does) and Mets fans have had lots of experience with it over the years. Sometimes my friend will even manage to say, “Hey, your guys are doing good.” Man, to hear that from his Yankee-loving lips is sweet delight.

It’s also hard to be a good loser, but it’s even harder to be a good winner. Yankees fans (at least those that I’ve known) have not been the latter. They have treated Mets fans despicably, and now that the Yankees are struggling a bit they are floundering. They have trouble with not winning and, with the Mets doing so well across town, Yanks fans are in an even greater predicament. One colleague who is a Yankees fan said it best, “You guys (Mets fans) know how to be losers, but we just don’t.” Yeah, uh, right.

Well, I don’t know what to say to him and others except to tough it out. That’s what Mets fans have been doing for many long years (between 1969 and 1986 and until now). We don’t know what will happen yet, but I am confident that by September the Amazin’s will be still in the thick of it. With Boston doing so well, it would be very interesting to see a repeat of 1986 in the Fall Classic, but we do have an awfully long way to go.

I think that somewhere in the Mets section of heaven Casey Stengel, Gil Hodges, Tommie Agee, and many others are leading legions of fans in a cheer of “Let’s Go Mets.” If I stand quietly enough in the upper deck, I might be able to hear it, and I won’t have to wait long until another almost capacity crowd will echo those words as Wright, Delgado, or Beltran steps up to the plate.

I revel in the new look of the streets here in my hometown. They are more orange and blue shirts and caps being worn just like back in the 1980s when the Mets ruled New York. Yes, it’s beginning to look a lot like Chris-Mets in and it’s about time.

Monday, June 5, 2006

For My Mom

For My Mom, Joan Lana

By Victor Lana

 

June 3, 2006

The thing everyone used to notice about my Mom was her smile. She had the most beautiful one I’ve ever known, and it has been embedded in my mind no doubt since I was a baby and she looked down on me. Over the years her smile did not dim even though she was experiencing increasingly greater pain from rheumatoid arthritis, one of the most horrific and debilitating diseases there is. Now, as I write about her, that smile burns through the fog of sadness and the haze of tears and reminds me how much she loved me and everyone in her family.

Mom’s beginnings were modest. She was born in 1930 and grew up during the Depression. She and her sisters lived with their mother and father in a cold water flat in Glendale, Queens. While her father was a firefighter and had a steady job, they still lived sparely but managed to get by on what little they had and lots of love. She went to PS 91 in Glendale and then on to Richmond Hill High School. At the age of 18 she went into Manhattan and entered the working world, taking a job with the Equitable Insurance Company where she worked with an IBM machine that filled an entire room with what was ostensibly the first operational kind of business computer.

Mom and her sisters Margie and Ruth were so very close that they were like triplets of different ages. Sharing everything sisters share and loving each other so irrevocably and completely, their bond remained throughout life and has never been broken, not even now that both my Mom and Aunt Margie (died Feb. 6, 2006) are passed on. Their kind of love is that unconditional and eternal type that poets write about and regular folks hope to attain someday. Mom loved her family and friends so earnestly and unendingly that absolutely nothing could shake its tenacity or endurance. I know that even if Mom didn’t like something we did it meant nothing compared to how much she loved us. The power of that love overcame any kind of adversity, thus letting us know we mattered more than everything and anything else.

After Mom married my father she quit working and happily set up her household. They were very much in love and remained that way for almost 48 years (their anniversary being the 24th of this month). Mom kept a sparkling clean house, cooked wonderful meals, and soon gave birthto me and then only fourteen months later to my sister. Despite our being so close in age, she handled all the complexities of our infancy and kept doing everything else. During our Catholic school days, I recall that she always had crisply pressed uniforms, spotless white shirts, and shiny shoes at the ready for us. She was there when we came home from school, beaming that megawatt smile as she gave us a snack and then helped us with homework.

I can especially remember struggling in the early grades, and Mom helped me with constant patience until I understood math, English, and eventually everything else; I don’t know what I would have done without her quiet and graceful intelligence. Mom had a special bond with my sister Joan, whom she helped with homework too and also taught her invaluable lessons about style and grace. Mom was an extremely beautiful woman, always dressed in the latest fashions, wore high heels, and applied her makeup perfectly. As a little girl, Joan liked to dress up in my Mom’s clothes. Now that she is a woman, my sister has inherited all my mother’s best qualities, especially the same kind of ability to love and capacity for generosity beyond imagination.

Mom had such a zest for life and found ways to express it in big shows put on by our school’s St. Anne’s Society. Mom appeared in musicals like Showboat and belted out a song like she was on Broadway. I remember sitting in the audience listening to her singing “Old Man River” and feeling so proud that my Mom could do something so cool. She joined the Ladies’ Auxiliary at the VFW 123 in Ridgewood where she rose to the office of President two times. There she and her friends did a good deal of charitable work and managed to have many good times too, including the weekly coffee klatch in our home that became a ritual for about twenty years.

Mom loved giving big parties at home and also hosted Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas Eve gatherings for our family every year. In those times before she got sick, Mom had so much energy and enthusiasm for all that she did. Even after she was hit with arthritis, Mom continued to do many of these things for years until she could no longer manage. My father did so much for her; he took care of her and us children while still managing his own business. As Joan and I got older, we did more and more too as did our cousins Margaret and Ruthie. No one in the family ever thought twice about helping Mom, and her legacy is that we all loved and cherished her so much that we’d do anything to help her.

Our friends were always welcome in the house and they knew it. My mother would make us snacks and we’d hang out watching TV, playing pool, or listening to records. Mom’s love for us extended to our friends and then eventually to when in-laws came into the family. Mom always opened that umbrella of love for them; and Susan, Ozzie, Mike, and Tom were never considered anything but part of the family, and they reciprocated by also helping out whenever they could. When we had our daughter Lauren, Mom was thrilled to become a grandma, and she cherished that role and doted on Lauren and marveled at everything she did. Mom also loved Margaret and Ruthie’s children like her own grandchildren, and nothing made Mom happier than being with Lauren, Michael, and Thomas.

There is much more I could write about Mom, but none of it would be enough to capture her amazing zest for life and immense capacity to love. She was struck with rheumatoid arthritis at thirty-nine years old and suffered with it until the day she died. Increasingly crippled and disabled by the disease, Mom never let that stop her from loving us or giving us that smile when we needed it. We all know how much pain she endured, but we also are buoyed by the spirit of her love and faith in us despite the odds against her. She was there for us whenever we needed to talk, to get a hug, or to just be together. Whenever we had a problem, Joan and I knew Mom would listen and give us the best advice. Now we feel a great void with her gone, but I know she can still be there for us if we shut our eyes and remember that she is with us always.

I will miss many things about Mom, including her funny sayings, which I recall now fondly and with a grin. They included, “Stop looking six ways for Sunday”; “I am no bluenose” ; “You’re an accident looking for a place to happen” ; “You’re like a bull in a china shop,” and many others. But my favorite one is “Every knock is a boost.” I always remembered Mom saying that when I faced tough times. Life certainly gave her more than her share of knocks, but she fought back with that philosophy that boosted her spirit and kept her going and taught me that the best thing to do was never give up.

Mom, I love you and miss you but your smile is burned into my heart and soul. Dad, Joan and Ozzie, Susan, Lauren and I, your sister Ruth and Uncle Frank, Margaret, Ruthie, Mike, Tom, Thomas, and Michael and all the rest of your family and friends are all so fortunate to have had you in their lives and your impact on us and strength of your love will never be forgotten.

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

Season 5 Finale of "24": A Very Slow Boat to China

Season 5 Finale of 24: A Very Slow Boat to China

By Victor Lana

 

 

While writing about the Season 5 episodes of 24 previous weeks, I have been constantly reminded of a Shakespearean tragedy, and the two-part season finale only reaffirmed my belief that this is the case. Shakespeare usually focused on the matters of kings, queens, or procrastinating princes, but our story is more a about a soldier named Jack Bauer. Jack fits Aristotle’s model for a tragic hero very nicely: he is elevated in society or the world as a CTU agent; there is an innate goodness in his nature (he loves and wants to be loved); he has a tragic flaw (he makes mistakes based on those he loves, like taking a phone call from his daughter); and he most definitely realizes that his tragic flaw is destroying him (as most evident from the final scene last night).

After making my case for Jack being a tragic hero, it is also necessary to make it clear that President Logan is one classic villain, most definitely an Iago-like chameleon but with even more power. In some ways I’ve seen Logan as a kind of Macbeth, but in truth Shakespeare’s character fell very far from grace and was led down that path by his wife’s insatiable lust for power. Here the opposite is true: Martha Logan brings about her husband’s destruction not in an effort to obtain power but rather to obliterate it. Hers is a worthy cause, and thus she does not bathe in the imaginary blood of her husband’s victim but instead avenges their innocent blood.

I have tried in my reviews each week to inject humor into the mix, but I am abandoning that today because I am so thoroughly disappointed with the outcome of the last fifteen minutes of the season finale. I would think that the producers (and Kiefer Sutherland is one of them) and writers would have had enough respect for the loyal fans of the show, many of whom have watched all 120 hours of the five seasons passionately, to give them an ending that was at least plausible. Instead, we are left with a totally contrived and obviously manipulative ending that will leave many of us grumbling for months to come.

Season 5 has been devoid of humor for the most part. By killing off Edgar, they lost the comic edge that his seasons with Chloe gave each episode. Edgar and Chloe were like the gravediggers in Hamlet, and we really need that relief from the grim reality at hand. In the last episode they brought in a bald guy named Morris, who just happens to be Chloe’s ex-husband. I never even knew our intrepid gal was married, but perhaps it explains the stun gun she has been carrying around with her. There was some attempt at humor between these two, but otherwise it was one long and grim ride.

The first hour basically took care of the Henderson-Bierko storyline and did it well. This was satisfying and in keeping with 24 tradition. Jack stops the threat of the nuclear missiles with Henderson’s help, and he even finds the time to break Bierko’s neck. For a character who wanted to bring fire and brimstone down on the innocent population centers of this country, it is fitting that kills Bierko like the common thug that he was.

With the nuclear threat averted, Jack realizes Henderson is missing and goes outside to look for him. Henderson comes up from behind Jack with a gun and basically it looks like Jack made one major mistake (giving Henderson the gun in the first place). But Jack comes from the John McLane school of smart (remember that scene in Die Hard when he gives the unloaded gun to Hans?) and Henderson pulls the trigger and comes up empty. He says, “Good for you, Jack.” Henderson, the master teacher, has been eclipsed by his pupil. Jack, as if reciting the charges against Henderson, reminds him that he is responsible for the deaths of President Palmer, Tony Almeida, and Michelle Dessler. “They were my friends,” Jack tells him and then blows him away.

The second hour is all about bringing down the malevolent president. Jack concocts a rather crazy plan to infiltrate Marine One as a co-pilot, and he does this with the assistance of Mike Novick (Chief of Staff) and Aaron Pierce (bloodied but unbowed Secret Service Agent). Once on board the helicopter, Jack takes over rather quickly, pulls off his helmet, and handcuffs Logan like the common criminal he is. Logan can’t believe it, but we the audience can because Bauer Power has come through again.

Jack takes Logan into yet another abandoned warehouse, and there he relieves him of presidential pen and cell phone and sets up a video conference with CTU. The object is to get Logan to confess and send the recording to the Attorney General, but Logan isn’t giving in one bit. He denies all Jack’s charges and soon Logan is rescued by a rush of agents who capture Jack. Logan then returns to the airfield where the body of the dead President Palmer is being readied to be flown back to Washington for the funeral.

No one could miss all the symbolic significance of this moment: the sitting president responsible for the death of the exp-president is going to speak over the body. The level of repugnance for Logan reaches its greatest heights, for only minutes before he dared to compare Jack to Lee Harvey Oswald and John Wilkes Booth. Surely Logan is delusional at this point, almost not knowing the depths of his abomination, for he still clings to the “I was doing what I thought was best for the country” routine. Logan is the most utterly and disgustingly ignoble scurvy little spider of a man to have ever occupied the highest office in the land.

It seems it’s all finished: Jack has finally lost and Logan is home free. But wait, Martha Logan has yet another breakdown on the tarmac. She accuses her husband of being responsible for everything including David Palmer’s death. Logan has her rushed inside a hangar and they are alone. He pats her down looking for a wire, understanding now that she had made love to him before only to delay his getting onto the chopper for Jack to get onboard. When she still insists on listing his accusations, he gives the same “good for the country” excuses and yet also admits his complicity. He warns her that he’ll send her to the funny farm forever, and then they go back outside and he starts to give his speech where he hypocritically praises the great man he had killed.

There is hope though in that his whole conversation with Martha in the hangar was recorded, via the magic of a little micro-recorder that Jack placed on his pen. Jack Bauer is vindicated as the Attorney General listens to the admission of guilt by Logan, and soon the Secret Service are escorting Logan to a waiting limousine telling him they don’t work for him anymore. Just as this is happening Palmer’s body is being loaded onto the airplane to the sound of a 21-gun salute. The symbolic message is clear and Logan shuts his eyes; no such honor will ever be provided for him as he will leave office in disgrace.

At this point I am happy with the finale and ready for Jack and Audrey, and sure enough Audrey jumps out of a car in her unblemished white blouse (and, man, does she look good in the natural light of outdoors away from that awful CTU lighting) and runs to Jack. It’s a touching scene, a follow-up to brief ones throughout Season 5 when Jack and Audrey have had little moments. Audrey is ready to be alone with Jack, and if anyone deserves some down time it is our hero. However, someone interrupts their reunion to tell Jack he has a call from his daughter Kim on a landline inside the building.

This is the moment where the writers and producers of 24 lost me. Jack is way to smart to believe that his daughter would find the phone number of this building to call him. If anything, she would have called CTU and then they would have patched her through to his ever available cell phone. Jack Bauer wouldn’t make that mistake, but maybe Jack the father would. Caught up in the emotion with Audrey and wanting to love and be loved as I mentioned before, Jack might have lost his senses for a moment. It’s a real stretch though, and when he goes in to pick up the phone he is grabbed by three masked men, one of whom covers his face with a rag no doubt drenched in chloroform.

So after the absolutely worst day in the five days that we have come to know Jack Bauer, he doesn’t get to go home and snuggle with Audrey. Jack Bauer deserves that and so do the fans. This man is ready to break and now he is in a situation where he could be broken. Dragged into the bowls of a ship, Jack is bloody and beaten and lying on the floor like a piece of garbage. The Chinese diplomat from Season 4 who jousted with Palmer comes into view, and Jack asks for one phone call.

It’s his last chance and Jack knows it. Last year he faked his own death and left Audrey and his daughter in limbo, but now this is even worse. If he can’t let them know what has happened, they will think he has done the same thing again. Thus, Jack loses any possibility of love that he needs and will be a lost soul. When he realizes this Jack asks to be killed, but the Chinese guy tells him he is far too valuable for that. The last thing we see is a boat with Shanghai written on the back heading off into the ocean, and we know Jack is in for one hell of a ride on that slow boat to what would seem to be no return.

Until this time I though the ending of Season 2 was the most depressing, but now I am overwhelmed by these last moments of Season 5. I know some people will love this turn of events, thinking that it will change the dynamics in Season 6 and bring Jack into a whole new level of the heroic. But I see it differently for Jack will become a prisoner with little or no hope for the love he craves or the ability to do the job he lives to do. Jack will become more desperate, less human, and infinitely more dangerous. I don’t think Jack needs to descend to that level and if he does, any hope of redemption or happiness may be lost. Jack Bauer doesn’t deserve that and neither do the fans of 24.

It’s going to be a long wait until January 2007. Until then, Klaatu Barada Nikto!

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Episode 22 of 24: The Bad Liar,The Bitch Slap, and the Wardrobe

 

 

“I don’t need another excuse to put a bullet in your brain.”

-Jack Bauer talking to Henderson

As Season 5 of 24 moves toward what I believe will be its inevitably bloody climax, I am reminded of what an old professor said about Shakespeare’s plays. He loved them very much, of course, but was bothered by the time it took to get to the final scene. Mostly, I think the thing that annoyed him was waiting for the climax and then not having nearly enough time to process the Falling Action and Resolution that followed it (even though he may have seen the play hundreds of times). Anyone who has seen Hamlet should understand this, feeling that time between the young prince’s death and Horatio’s famous line about angels singing him to rest is like a few seconds; considering the ponderous length of all that has proceeded it, something doesn’t seem equitable about that.

24 brings this kind of Shakespearian baggage to the screen, and not just because of the length of twenty-four episodes we’ve watched this season, but due to all 120 episodes we will have watched (sometimes many times more than once on DVD) going back to Season 1. This kind of extended arc is like a series of acts in an incredibly long play, but really can be more easily compared to the length of a sometimes laborious novel that we still love to read (and maybe skip more than a few chapters along the way).

In the end we still have our stalwart hero, Jack Bauer, and though he’s lost too many people in previous seasons but particularly in this one, he is now more than ever poised to be like good old Hamlet: ready to take on all comers, to leave the stage littered with corpses, to not only capture the conscience of the king but to bring him down with an unceremonious thud.

Last night we learned that the damaging evidence on the recording had been erased by slimy Miles (Touchy Feely Guy). Jack, Chloe, and company figure this out in a relatively fast manner, and before we know it Jack is giving Touchy Feely the old neck choke and slamming him against the wall. Touchy Feely, no doubt preferring to be on the giving end of such contact, squirms as Karen (Cruella Now In Love with Bill) screams at Jack and begs him to release the little twerp. Jack reluctantly does so, and Touchy triumphantly tells them he no longer works there. Jackinstantly surmises he works for Lowguns, and storms off to join Chloe and Bill.

Meanwhile, in one of the sweetest little moments that are in keeping with the best ones in 24 tradition, Cruella tells off the slime bag Touchy and gives him a swift little bitch slap that he’s been deserving all along. Touchy grabs his coat and briefcase and stalks off into the night of curfew, perhaps heading toward the presidential retreat or to the closest swamp he can slither into. Back in the Sit Rom (Situation Room), they all try to deal with the compromised recording and Cruella cancels the arranged meeting with the Attorney General.

At the presidential retreat Lowguns has happily received word that the recording is gone, so he gets on the phone with Graham (Gang Leader of the Gang of Four who must all be sleeping or otherwise engaged). He reassures Gang Leader that the hen house is under control. We then see Lowguns go into some secure room and there is our handcuffed and bloody Super Secret Service Agent Costner sitting slouched and looking pretty grim.

Lowguns tells him things can be different, that there is no recording, and that it’s all a lie. Basically, Lowguns gets nothing right. First Lady MacDeath chided him last week about being such an accomplished liar, but the truth is old Chucky Boy is far from that. As his secrets unravel, his nefarious plans come undone and he looks more and more like the sniveling little weasel that he is. He is at a point where the difference between his lies and the truth is undecipherable. Unlike President Lincoln who spoke of pleasing all the people at least some of the time, Lowguns doesn’t even know what is right for himself let alone the people of his country at this or any time.

Back at CTU Cruella persuades Jack to offer a deal to Robo Henderson, who is sitting in a holding cell handcuffed. As Jack talks to him, it is clear the lighting has now changed, making Robo less robotic and more human. It’s a clever little piece of business, but 24 is best at spinning the plot and characters into the appropriate postion for the moment. Jack still wants to kill him, but Robo doesn’t want an immunity deal because the recording was his safety net. Now he has nothing (just like Jack in a way) and wants to disappear. Only Jack can do this, but Jack has to do it better than he did for himself. Jack agrees, and soon Robo is in the Sit Rom and helping devise a plan.

At this point the lovely Audrey appears, and man she’s looking good despite that severed artery. What is it with this gal’s wardrobe? Somehow she has found a white silk blouse and is adjusting it ever so slightly as we first catch a glimpse of her. Undaunted by the lovely coat that was ruined earlier, Audrey no doubt had this little thing hanging in her locker. The choice of color for Audrey is clear: the pristine white sending a message that she is still unblemished by her relationship with Jack, though just the same slightly tarnished and compromised. With what is yet to come next week, Audrey might be in need of another change of clothes before the end of Season 5.

Audrey is mortified that Robo Henderson is being given a deal. I mean, he cut her arm, stole the tape, killed Evelyn and her daughter, caused the death of President Palmer, and the accident that almost claimed the life of her father (Secretary of Defense Nuts Landing). After all this, it’s a little hard to process a “deal” with such a monster, but Jack is all back to business and remembers other similar deals with worse monsters. It’s all part of the game: a truly ugly one at that.

Meanwhile, word has come down that Jerko Bierko escaped. That CTU medical center really works wonders. Sporting a face bandage he must have borrowed from Tony A’s corpse, Bierko manages to get out of the convoy unscathed and meets up with his Russian buddies who just happen to have one last canister of Sentox left. This goes up against the earlier narrative that led us to believe ALL the canisters had been destroyed by Jack at the gas plant, but this is 24 and we’re used to the constancy of inconsistencies at this point. Bierko and his crew get their best menacing look (like the one explained in the terrorists’ handbook) and proceed to a submarine that just happens to be parked in Los Angeles harbor as part of the deal Lowguns signed earlier in the day with the Russian President. Man, does it get any better than this?

Robo leads them to a guy named Molina who just happens to live in a secure fortress nearby. Robo is going to get inside and find the info on the computer they need to locate Jerko. This is when Jack, his wonderfully scratchy voice weary from the long day, tells Robo, “I don’t need another excuse to put a bullet in your brain.” I’ve got a long list of “Jack Quotes” someplace in the mess of my office, but this one is going to the top of the list.

After a lot of hullabaloo and a gun battle in Molina’s house, Curtis and Molina are wounded, but Jack gets the files he needs and is not sure whether Robo was trying to pull a fast one or not. Either way, the info is sent to Chloe who quickly deciphers it and before you can sing “Yellow Submarine,” Jack and Robo are off to port and poor Curtis has to go back to CTU medical for attention (unfortunately, the kiss of death for many).

Back at the funny farm, Secret Service Creep is getting ready to put Costner in the plastic lined trunk of a dark limo, which doesn’t bode well for our friend. Finally, Lady MacDeath’s snooping pays off, and she intervenes in the proceedings. Creep points the gun at Lady and she says something about shooting the First Lady. Costner is lying on the ground but manages a swift leg kick, and Creep drops his gun but somehow grabs a tire iron.

He’s about to give Costner a lobotomy when Lady pumps a few into him. Ah, what a sweet way to say “I love you.” Costner warns her that the president must think he’s dead. He tells her to go get Mike (The Grimace) Novick, to tell him everything, and then send him to Costner. This will surely make Mike’s day (night).

Although the commander of the submarine is warned by Jack, it is too late and Jerko Bierko drops a canister into the hole and soon the whole crew is dead. Man, that Sentox works fast! After a short time Bierko and company put on gas masks, descend into the ship, and prepare to utilize its arsenal of missiles for some quality time with sections of LA. Lowguns wasn’t expecting this turn of events, and he is appalled when Mike tells him what has happened. Is it acting or is it that he’s afraid he might get a missile up his ass?

All the proverbial crap is now ready to hit the fan, and next week’s two-hour season finale should be a real gas (I couldn’t…help…myself). Will Jack and Robo be able to stop Bierko? Will Robo try to turn on Jack? Will Costner and the Lady be able to do some damage internally at the ranch? Will Bill stop being so stoic and just give Cruella a kiss? Will Touchy get his Feely when he meets up with Lowguns? Will Chloe ever forgive herself for yet again failing Jack even though all she has ever wanted to do is please him? And finally, what is to become of Audrey’s white blouse?

It’s going to be tough waiting, but until next week, Klaatu Barada Nikto!

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

A Brief Survey for "24" Fans Only

                     A Brief Survey for "24" Fans Only

There are a plethora of questions that fans of the hit Fox TV series 24 ask themselves each week. Usually it's something about the plot like "Why didn't Jack kill Henderson when he had the chance?" Or it could be about the details: "Why didn't Jack copy the tape when he had it?" These kinds of questions have been asked for the last five seasons and are part of what make 24 fans so committed to watching the show because they want answers. Unfortunately, sometimes we get hit with only more questions.  

Now it's your turn to answer a few questions, 24 fans. I'd like to see how other people feel about these things. Everything is based on your own opinion making this a very subjective little survey.

1. What was your favorite season? Why?

2. How should this season end? Are you happy with the way other seasons have ended?

3. Which villain was your favorite? Why?

4. Should Jack get to kill the big bad guy at the end of the season?

*Remember, Jack has only killed one major villain: Victor Drazen in Season 1. All others have died by someone else's hand except Marwan, who jumps to his death.

5. Will Jack die at the end of this season (or be handed over to the Chinese government)?

Everyone keeps asking these questions (even though Kiefer has signed a three-year deal to keep playing Jack), so I am asking it too.

There it is. I'd like to see what other people think and will share my own opinions in the comments.

Klaatu Barada Nikto!

Tuesday, May 9, 2006

Episode 21 of "24": The Tale of the Tape

Episode 21 of 24: The Tale of the Tape

By Victor Lana

 

With just three episodes of 24 left to Season 5, I am wondering just how much the producers and writers think the loyal viewers of this series will accept. What I mean is more about not just this season but all five of them. The death of Jack’s wife at the end of the first season was the first blow, and there have been many subsequent shocks along the way that have shaken the loyal fan base to its core.

Admittedly, some of us have been annoyed by the subplots involving the Perils of Kim, but most viewers even grudgingly like her in their own way. This year she has been (wisely) used sparingly, though I have a suspicion she may be taken prisoner as “bait” to get Robo Henderson released and maybe even to force Jack to give himself up (that whole mess with the Chinese still looms somewhere in the background). We’ll have to see if this comes to fruition, but one thing is very clear: the deaths of David Palmer, Michelle, Tony, Edgar, and Lynn this season have been devastating. I don’t think the loss of another major character will be accepted by fans; however, one thing fans of 24 have come to expect is the unacceptable.

Last night Jack had the damaging evidence on the recording in hand but was stuck on an airplane waiting for it to land. President Lowguns has agreed (thanks to prodding from Graham, Gang Leader of the super secretive Gang of Four) to order an F-18 to shoot down the plane because of some silly transponder code Gang Leader has sent. Jack is going to use the plane as a weapon according to this code, so it is in the best interests of all to shoot down the plane and its fifty innocent passengers along with it.

We get to see Curtis again (obviously, slow and sure wins the race back to CTU) and he is talking to an ever more fetching Audrey, who is now wearing some kind of sexy strapless thingy and has her arm bandaged. The infamous white coat is long gone, presumably covering one of the many corpses still left in the bowels of CTU after the gas attack earlier in the day. At least it’s being put to good use. Curtis tells Audrey her daddy, Secretary of Defense Nuts Landing, is alive and almost well. Fetching Audrey thanks Curtis and looks lovely even though bathed in that sickly hue of CTU medical unit’s lighting.

Karen (Cruella Now Making Goo-Goo Eyes at Bill) calls Jack from CTU and warns him of this development, so Jack decides to land someplace right away. Bill (I look great in a T-shirt) Buchanan is now back at CTU, and soon Chloe waltzes in with her super duper laptop and is back in business helping out as always. Miles (Touchy Feely Guy) is really not happy with this turn of events. He hasn’t had a chance to use his hands the way he has wanted this day, and now he is being kept out of the loop. Man, somebody is going to pay for this!

Thanks to CTU, Jack directs the co-pilot Otto to land on a stretch of highway. Otto is a little resistant (he is upset Jack broke his nose), so Jack handcuffs him to the stick and warns him nicely (with gun pointed to his head) “If you don’t land this plane, I will.” That should be enough for any inflatable dude to realize he isn’t getting Julie Haggerty lucky and just land the damn plane. As the plane goes into its descent, the so-called disaster is over. The General on the video link tells Lowguns as much. Mike (The Grimace) Novick tells him too. Lowguns wants that plane shot down, but it’s too late. It’s landing. Mike grimaces as he leers at Lowguns. Mike, you aren’t too quick, but you know this guy is bad news. Right? Come on, Mike!

Once on the ground Jack makes a slick move slipping off the wing of the jet, dropping onto the highway, and running off into the night with his bag of tricks and the all important tape. Curtis is only a short sprint away, and Jack is soon in the back of the SUV and heading toward CTU. They have to get through a Marine roadblock, but Curtis uses his charm and soon they are off into the night riding merrily along as almost everyone else has this night. Curfew obviously isn’t such a big deal after all, at least not in LA.

Back at the funny farm, Lowguns is informed by Gang Leader that Jack has escaped the plane, has the tape, and is heading toward CTU. It is really very unfortunate and that kind of thing follows. Lowguns is still clinging to the notion that they did the right thing for the country. I’m thinking, “Uh, yeah, right, dude! Get out the .45 and whack yourself.” And what do my wondering eyes see, but good old Lowguns has a gun all ready. He takes a slug of whiskey and prepares to meet his maker, but first he is going to go in and say he’s sorry to First Lady MacDeath.

Cruella is confronted by Touchy Feely. He doesn’t like being out of the loop, and his hands are itching for somereally good action. Cruella tells Bill and Chloe that he has been “nothing but loyal,” but that goes for the Pit Bull down the street who just bit his owner’s face-off. Anyway, Cruella meets with Touchy in one of those dark corridors (obviously CTU has lots of those). Touchy is all tingly, though he makes no attempt to grab Cruella as she explains about the tape and Jack and Lowguns and the whole ball of wax. Touchy doesn’t like it (some crap about his career), and we know Touchy is inching toward that dark side.

Lady MacDeath has been teetering on the edge for most of the season and seems to have lost it completely since her personal hero, Secret Service Agent Costner, went missing. She has no one to turn to now (except that bottle of Merlot and those meds). Bathed in an eerie light from the TV set where she is watching the unbelievable day’s events being retold on Fox News Channel, Lady MacDeath looks pretty close to, well, death. She has no use for Lowguns anymore. Even his lying so effectively can’t impress her. Lowguns, tail between legs and synthetic spine ready to pop, goes out the door and back to his office.

Back at CTU Jack returns and is given the royal treatment by Cruella. He gives her the tape and has ten minutes until Chloe can tell all the world. The Attorney General has been called, and it seems all is set for Lowguns to be charged with conspiracy in the death of beloved President Palmer. Jack takes his ten minutes and goes to see Audrey. They have a moment: a real tender one at that (juxtapose this with Henderson who let Jack shoot his wife). She’s looking might fine in that little thingy; even her bandaged arm is sexy. Jack leans over and gives her a soft kiss, tells her to close her eyes, and then sits at her feet and kisses her knee. Man, Jack, you’re one tender dude after killing so many bad guys. There just might be hope for you and Audrey yet!

Back at the presidential retreat, Lowguns has the gun ready; he is seemingly set to meet the big red guy (and I don’t mean Santa). It’s kind of like, “Walt Cummings, here I come!” But wait, there’s a snake in the grass. Oh, no, it’s just Touchy Feely on the phone. Hey, poor fellow is really worried about his career. He knows all about the tape and will help out. Yeah, you know, help out. That’s the, uh, ticket.

Lowguns is relieved and lets it be known he will be very grateful. Touchy Feely wants to be loved and says they’ll be in touch. In touch? Hmmmm. Anyway, Touchy ambles over to the room where Chloe is working on the tape. This important tape, with all its damaging evidence, is under her supervision with no guards or anything. Touchy puts some kind of laser device near the tape and it flashes sinisterly. Chloe gives one of her best annoyed Chloe expressions as she tells Touchy to go away, but the damage is already done.

Judging from the brief previews shown for next week, the tape has been erased. None of this makes any kind of sense. Why didn’t Jack download the tape in the first place? Why didn’t they copy the tape immediately before trying to digitally “clean it up” or whatever the hell they were doing? If the tape is blank, does that insinuate that Lowguns will get away with his dastardly deeds of the day? Now that Jack and Audrey have had some alone time, will Jack ever be happy? Oh, and when Nuts Landing is sufficiently dried out and ready to talk, will he able to give evidence against Lowguns while sanctioning his daughter’s relationship with Bauer Power?

Three episodes left to unravel it all, and I can’t wait. Until next week, Klaatu Barada Nikto!

Tuesday, May 2, 2006

Episode 20 of 24: Turbulence

Episode 20 of 24: Turbulence

By Victor Lana

 

As the final episodes of 24 have been unraveling, I find that there is a great deal of sub-textual information being thrown at us in a very deliberate and intriguing manner. One of the pleasures of this series is always knowing Jack is stuck within a structured time frame, and it has never allowed the use of flashbacks (which would obviously, as it does on ABC’s show Lost) allow for deepening and enriching character development. 24 has always relied on the action to dictate the reaction, thus we get to do a good deal of work ourselves making connections and remembering moments in seasons past that correlate with what is happening now. As the frenetic pace of show continues to accelerate, I have been doing that a lot lately as I watch while fidgeting in my seat every week.

Planes have always figured into the plotline: think Season 2 when a dying George Mason takes the nuke out into the desert or Season 4 when President Keeler’s jet is shot down. Now in Season 5 we have Jack basically hijacking a plane to get a tape that will implicate the President of the United States in the biggest scandal in American history. Appropriately, the flight hits turbulence along the way that references what is not only happening on the plane itself but also the country: smooth sailing is something that is not possible or even imminent. Perhaps, it foreshadows the anarchy that possibly awaits in Season 6.

This episode starts off with Chloe and Bill at mini-CTU in Bill’s humble abode, but Karen (Cruella Now Sweet to Bill) warns them that Homeland Security agents will be there momentarily, so Bill sends Chloe off to a hotel on Ventura Boulevard where she heads to the bar and sets up shop. Of course, in keeping with 24 tradition, there must be some obstacle in her way; in this case, it is an annoying Bar Jerk who is drunk and looking to score. Chloe ignores him and gets to work, quickly calling Jack and letting him know where the air marshal is sitting on the plane.

Good old Jack ambles down the aisle, sits next to Air Cop, and quickly renders him unconscious. Man, do I feel safe about flying when I see how quickly an air marshal can be taken out of the equation. Jack then procures Air Cop’s gun and badge, then proceeds to the back of the plane to await Chloe’s call. It turns out there is a guy from Omnicreeps aboard sitting in another seat, so Jack proceeds to gently persuade this German fellow to follow him into the bowels of the ship for a little Q&A.

Back at the Presidential retreat, Lowguns is talking to Leader of Gang of Four (we only see him and the other three are presumably getting their beauty sleep), who is very disappointed that Bauer Power is still on the run, no less that he is on the plane and still looking for that frigging tape. Lowguns insists that it will be handled, but Gang Leader is looking a little scared this week.

Mike (The Grimace) Novick is dismayed that Lady MacDeath is so upset. She wants her meds and she wants them now. What’s a good glass of wine without some pills, right? Mike cajoles her to tell him what’s happening. “Maybe I can help,” Mike says. Yeah, okay, Mike. We know you’re always snooping around, but sometimes that’s a good thing (it saved Jack‘s life in Season 4). Mike goes to Lowguns and tells him about this, and Lowguns realizes Mike is getting closer and closer to knowing something. He tells Mike there’s trouble in the marriage, that’s it’s just a façade now while he’s president, and to give her as many pills as she needs to shut up. Nice going, Mike.

Jack interrogates German dude and searches his checked luggage but finds no tape. Meanwhile, Air Cop wakes up and has the stewardess warn the pilot about what’s going down, so Peter Graves turns on the no smoking signs and secures the cockpit door. Co-pilot Otto (with no Julie Haggerty around to inflate him as necessary) seems a little shaken by the goings on. How could this be happening on my flight kind of thing. They decide to seal Jack in down below and cut off the air supply to the baggage area, rendering Jack and German dude close to dead.

Back at the hotel bar Chloe is working very hard. She is interfacing and splicing and dicing with her laptop, and Bar Jerk finds his way over and starts making the moves on our gal. We have already learned that Chloe is not afraid to kick ass (her memorable use of an M-16 comes to mind), but it’s just a pleasure to see her take a stun-gun from her pocketbook and zap the bastard. You go, girl!

Over at CTU Bill is brought into his old haunt in handcuffs, and Cruella immediately has him taken to a cell for questioning. In that room Cruella shuts off the monitors and she and Bill finally have some alone time. Oh, baby! Meanwhile, Miles (Touchy Feely) is not happy about any of this, and since he’s not getting his way (and has not been able to get his slimy hands on Chloe or Shari), Touchy calls up Mike and starts venting. Mike quickly discerns that Touchy is nuts and tells him off, but Touchy runs to his work station and we can see he is not going to give up too easily.

Up in the air Jack is not thinking about writing the airline about the service on this flight, but he is angry about having no air to breathe. Out comes his trusty knife (you should have noticed by now that Jack uses his knife like a surgeon) and Jack is cutting away the ceiling, pulling on wires, and sending the jet into a dive. Passengers scream, Graves gets all stressed out, and eventually Air Cop is ordered to let Jack out of the baggage area. Jack comes up gun in hand, locks Air Cop below, and then takes over the plane intending to search every passenger for the tape.

Mike gives Lady MacDeath her meds and she swigs them down with wine. He knows it’s more than a marriage problem, continuing to pry but the good Lady is not revealing anything yet to Mike. Still, the plot thickens and the wheels are spinning in Mike’s beady little eyes; he’s taken down a president before (if you recall his underhanded moves against Palmer in Season 2), and it seems he’s chomping at the bit to get at Lowguns now.

At this point the desperation in Jack’s demeanor is so obvious, the situation so overwhelming as to be incongruous, and one can see it as defining moment for Season 5. Jack is always in over his head, battling against time and incredible odds, but it seems there is absolutely no hope of finding that tape. In a terminally grim season, this would appear to be the lowest point of all.

Until, that is, Chloe finds what she is looking for. Bar Jerk starts to wake up, so she zaps him again and gets back to Jack. She reveals that the co-pilot Otto works for Omnicreeps and is a long time associate of Robo Henderson. Trouble is the cockpit is sealed, but Jack has Chloe call Cruella who calls the head of the airline who calls Chloe who patches Jack through to the pilot (got that?).

Jack warns Graves that Otto is the bad guy, and Graves fakes a leg cramp and goes to open the door. Otto slugs him but Graves manages to let Jack in, and Jack secures himself in the cockpit and takes the tape after telling Otto, “You don’t look like someone who wants to die for Henderson.” Man, Jack, I guess you can tell after already killing about thirty guys who were willing to die for Robo. Finally, Jack has the frigging tape, but how the hell is he going to land that plane and get off without being arrested?

In the final seconds of the hour, Gang Leader calls Lowguns and lets him know that Bauer Power has the tape and control of the plane. Lowguns quivers and shivers, his jowls looking like he’s ready to capitulate, but Gang Leader orders him to do the unthinkable. He must shoot down that plane! Damn, being President his really hard work, but being a bad President is the salt mines.

There are many tantalizing questions for next week. Why haven’t Curtis and Audrey returned to CTU? What the hell has happened to Audrey’s coat? Will Cruella and Bill get so close that it becomes personal? Will Touchy Feely feel so unloved that he rats Cruella out to Lowguns? Will the F-16 score a direct hit on Jack’s plane? Will Jack survive? Will the tape ever be played for the American people? And just how good will Lowguns look in an orange prison jumpsuit?

Until next week, Klaatu Barada Nikto!

Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Episode 19 of 24: Sometimes You Feel Like a Nut

 

By Victor Lana

 

One durable device used to advantage on 24 has been occasional comic relief, usually provided by our intrepid gal Chloe. Just like the gravediggers scene in Hamlet, it brings a brief respite from the charnel of horror we know is going to occur elsewhere. In this amazingly fast-paced and increasing grim season, comic relief has never been more welcome. In past seasons the interactions between Chloe and others, particularly Edgar, have given us that quick chuckle we need before getting back to business. With Edgar gone, humor has also surfaced with Shari (Twitchy/Nutso Girl) and Miles (Touchy Feely guy). Good thing too because in last night’s episode, things became increasingly dark and disturbing within the first few moments.

A question that has been posed throughout Season 5 has been the sanity, or the lack thereof, of certain characters. Most prominent has been First Lady MacDeath, who has dealt with one tragedy after another going from a semblance of composure to at times what seems to be complete meltdown. President Lowguns has used her mental instability to his advantage, and at other times for sympathy. Those around her are not sure if her spouting of conspiracy theories is coming from her derangement or her medications.

Sweet Chloe has always come off as a bit mentally unbalanced, but she is a computer whiz with a heart of gold, so we’ve all cut her some slack. Edgar seemed at times a little looney tunes as well, but the grand nutcase of the year is now Twitchy/Nutso Girl. But within the words of madness there is the inevitable truth, and by the time Touchy Feely thinks he has his golden moment (bringing his former accuser of sexual harassment before Karen (Cruella Once Mean to Bill), it is apparent that Cruella is changing her stance and even listens as Shari speaks of how “crazy” Chloe is thinking President Lowguns is somehow behind the day’s catastrophic events.

At the airport Audrey sits on the floor as Jack tends to her wounded arm. Her once unblemished white coat (with which we’ve had some good fun) is becoming increasingly soiled, certainly a metaphor for not only her relationship with Jack but the whole season as well. Audrey looks damned fine sitting there, her long and lovely legs positioned just so on the floor of the hangar. A lesser man than Jack (and, hey, most are lesser men than Bauer Power) would be a bit tempted to just hold her and be passionate, but Jack has bigger fish to fry.

With Chloe and Bill helping from the mini-CTU established at Bill’s pad, Jack is back in business and tracking Robo Henderson via satellite. How Chloe can actually take an ordinary laptop, some household bleach, and WD 40 and do the things she does continues to amaze, but I’m starting to think she might be the illegitimate child of old TV vet MacGyver. Anyway, Chloe is doing what she does best, but Cruella has Touchy Feely trying to find her whereabouts, and he is so bent on getting his, uh, hands on Chloe that he is one dedicated but rather sick dude zipping around the inter-whatsitface to get our gal.

Somehow or other Jack finds Robo, drives him off the road, and handcuffs him to a pole (yes, I know Jack was handcuffed to a pole last week). As each episode has progressed, Henderson has been bathed in a deeper red hue, as if all the death and destruction he has caused are simmering right beneath the surface, and yet he glares at Jack with those cyborg eyes and we know he’s got nothing inside that Dorothy’s Tinman would ever wish for in Oz.

As in the past, Jack leaves someone he loves to go off and do his work. This occurs because of one turning point: Secretary of Defense Nuts Landing has apparently died in a car accident. Once Robo is captured he tells Jack he has a contingency plan (how this guy manages all this during martial law and at two o’clock in the morning is beyond understanding), which is that a helicopter has been following Nuts since he left Lowguns ranch.

If Jack doesn’t allow Robo to go free, Nuts gets crushed. Jack offers Robo his freedom for the tape, but Robo has handed it off to some dude and that’s why Jack was able to catch up with him so easily. Jack talks to Nuts on the phone, but Nuts blames himself for not trusting Jack earlier. He knows what’s best for the country now. Jack needs to get that tape and the hell with it all. Nuts basically is saying, “Goodbye, cruel world” as he drives off an embankment and his car crashes into the shimmering lake below.

Now, Jack has lost enough people today and he is even more angry. Audrey is livid. “Kill him, Jack!” she says (imagine when their married and the mail is late?). Jack knows he needs Robo alive, and Chloe is able to determine that whomever Robo gave the tape was in a car that has returned to the airport. Jack gives Audrey agun and a cell phone (man, he knows how to treat his women, right?) and tells her not to even talk to the handcuffed Robo. In another slick move, Jack has somehow managed to get Curtis and a CTU team to come retrieve Audrey and Robo. The problem is Curtis is a “few minutes” out, but we’re even wondering where the hell Curtis has been the last few weeks. He was supposed to be taking Jerko Bierko, Russian super bad guy, to the CTU medical center (the place where it seems good guys die and bad guys live to tell the tale and escape), but we haven’t heard about him and glad the guy is still alive anyway.

Jack gets back in the police car and drives to a rear entrance to the airport where he checks out the plane in question. Security personnel are everywhere, but Jack’s eyes are spinning as he thinks about how he’s going to get on that plane and retrieve the tape. Bill and Chloe are still providing tactical when Bill gets a call from Cruella after Touchy Feels discovers Chloe’s location at Chez Bill. Seems Cruella just got off the phone with Mike (The Grimace Novick), and he is not only in the dark but out of the loop. Cruella makes a quick decision to circumvent protocol and move toward the light. She warns Bill that he and Chloe have about seven minutes until a team comes to get them.

Meanwhile, Lowguns has been dealing with his own demons and Lady MacDeath. His interaction with a shadowy group of men is revealed, and the Gang of Four is a bit worried themselves that things are unraveling. Gang Leader seems to be bossing Lowguns around a bit, and now we wonder who the hell these guys are to be more powerful than the President (hmmm, oil company execs perhaps?). No matter, Gang Leader tells Lowguns, his synthetic spine clearly popping out of his shirt collar, that Lady MacDeath must be dealt with. Lowguns does not tell them that he has revealed everything to the Lady, who is mourning the loss of Super Secret Agent Costner (who is said to be reassigned, which is kind of like the show Joey being on hiatus). Lowguns assures them that all is well, but he is sniveling more than Nixon right before the Checkers Speech.

All this time Robo has been handcuffed with Audrey holding a gun on him (some men might kill for this opportunity, by the way). He sees the cell phone and goads her into feeling a daughterly duty to save her daddy. Nuts has been in the lake for thirty minutes. He might have an air bubble. We can save him. Blah-blah-blah. Audrey is a little jittery and wants so badly to give him the .45 caliber tonsillectomy he so richly deserves, but her hands are shaking and she just can’t pull the trigger.

Robo’s men suddenly come on the same helicopter that sent Daddy Nuts into the drink, and Audrey runs and prepares to use the gun as necessary; however, Curtis appears and his men take out Robo’s dudes and get him too (man, that was just way too easy). Audrey is safe and on her way back to CTU (wait, nobody is safe there, especially with Robo and Jerko Bierko in the house).

Meanwhile, Jack wants to get on that plane real bad but has misplaced the frequent flier miles somewhere in that bag of tricks he’s been carrying. Our hero has been informed by Chloe that it is a diplomatic flight (which explains why it could be flying during a time of curfew and martial law), so Jack knows the tape is in the hands of someone probably very important on that plane. So, how the hell is Jack getting on that jet? No problem: he stows away on top of a truck, gets inside the gate, grabs two pieces of luggage, puts his hood over his head, and walks up the freight ramp like any other baggage handler. Man, Jack is a creative dude.

As Episode 19 ends Jack is secure in the baggage compartment of the jet, so we know we’re in for a bumpy ride. Will the Homeland Security team get to Bill and Chloe before Chloe can tell Jack what he needs to know about that flight? Will Touchy Feely find out that Cruella warned Bill and is turning away from the dark side? Will it take three weeks for Curtis to get Audrey and Robo back to CTU? Will Lady MacDeath keep her promise to be quiet or will she and The Grimace find a way to stop her slithering husband? Finally, does the flight Jack is on serve breakfast? The poor bastard must be starving.

Until next week, Klaatu Barada Nikto!