On 24, it’s virtually a given that there are going to be civilian casualties. We accept that. But I still think this week is worthy of note. As happens every season, terrorists have breached a firewall, and in this case, they’ve taken control of the network at a chemical plant. With the pressure building, tons of toxic gas will be vented into the atmosphere. FBI Analyst Janis Gold (Janeane Garofalo) calls the plant manager to coordinate their efforts.
Ultimately, John Brunner, the manager, evacuates the plant and goes in to vent the gas manually. As soon as anybody vents anything manually, it’s a death sentence. And Brunner (played by Tom Irwin, who’s currently appearing as Benry’s lawyer on Lost) is no different. He vents the gas and is the only casualty of the attack. But that’s not what really gets me.
See, while all this was going on, Jack Bauer and his team mounted a direct attack on the terrorists. And while the Big Bads got away, they still had to shut down their system and abort their plan. This happened as Brunner was venting the gas. The man died for absolutely no reason. If he’d waited two minutes, the problem would have been taken care of for him, and he could have gone home to his wife and kids. This poor bastard, a guy who had a job that should never once have required him to be a hero, died for absolutely no reason. He made a completely selfless sacrifice, without a second thought for his own safety, and in the end, it didn’t matter.
It was only a few minutes out of the episode, and we’ll never hear one word about John Brunner again, but it really got to me. Maybe it’s because nobody in the episode is aware of both Brunner’s sacrifice and Bauer’s raid, so we’re left to make the connection ourselves. Maybe it’s Irwin’s pleasant, subtle performance. Whatever the reason, in a series that’s full of death and carnage, they managed to make one man’s passing stand out. And that, after seven years, is really kind of awesome.
For second place, it has to be James Lipton performing a dramatic interpretation of Christian Bale’s blow-up. Between his Late Night appearances and his recurring role as the warden on Arrested Development, Lipton might just be cooler than we think.
Myndi
OK, well, I’ll write about 30 Rock, then, EJ!! Adding Jon Hamm to the mix worked beautifully, and we could cite any scene in the show as comic genius this week. There were three storylines that played out in 22 minutes, and the key was interweaving two of them perfectly (the Tracey subplots always seem to do fine on their own, really). By integrating Liz’s and Jack’s arcs, Salma Hayek’s Elisa finally had something to do other than show off her boobs. You see, it turns out Elisa’s grandmother doesn’t like Jack because she reminds him of the villain on her favorite telenovela (Alec Baldwin in a dual role). Liz is charged with rewriting the show to kill off the villain–The Generalissimo–but ends up stealing dastardly ideas from the show to trick Jon Hamm’s character into dating her. In the meantime, Elisa is helping with the rewrites and comes up with a way to bring her grandmother over to Jack’s side without killing off the character–she has him woo an older Puerto Rican woman, a scene that is intercut with Lemon’s own attempted seduction of Dr. Drew, which almost works..and then collapses when he’s accidentally roofied. I hate when that happens!
Casey
The most awesome, incredible, heartwarming, touching, funny, and poignant thing I saw last week was Conan’s “Final State of the Show Address” for Late Night. It even brought tears to my eyes when he mentioned the Masturbating Bear. I couldn’t help it.
