24: Season 8: Part 2

I wasn't really sure if I wanted to write this review in two parts. I wanted to just write it in one fell swoop but as I was writing the first part, I realized that there are a lot of problems with the 8th season, but the main problems come from the last act of the season.

A brief overview leading up to the hardest part of the 8th season is that Jack is in New York with his daughter, her husband and his granddaughter. I'll reemphasize the point I made in past reviews that Jack is happy with his daughter and granddaughter. This is a place we have never seen Jack Bauer before. He's ready to start a new civilian life with his daughter in LA, its a great opening to a season.

 At the same time, President Omar Hassan, a President of a middle-eastern country is in New York with President Taylor trying to reach a controversial but very important peace process.

Jack is planning on going back to LA with his daughter until a former informant comes to his door and tells him that there is a mole within the government working to bring an assassination attempt on President Omar Hassan.

So Jack is brought back into action to search for the assassins looking to kill Omar Hassan.

He joins up with an old friend in Renee Walker when its discovered Hassan's assassinators are looking to get ahold of nuclear rods and the rods are being held by Russian mobsters who Walker had worked with before.

I may have said this before, but everything with Renee Walker was phenomenal. The storyline of her undercover in the Russian mob was dark and it was different than anything we had ever seen in 24. It was good. That also important to note. Annie Wersching was phenomenal and the relationship between her and Jack was really good. I will talk more about that in a little bit, but the series got a lot better when Renee Walker was back in the picture.

So after the plot line with the Russian mob, there is a short period where they are going after the terrorists who have the nuclear rods and plan to detonate a dirty bomb in New York. Now there are a couple problems, one being the daughter of Hassan, she was annoying. Also the idea that the dirty bomb was such a small part of the threat was a little bit of a problem. The first two acts of the 8th season have problems, but they not horrible. They're kind of like season 6, it was different and sometimes had stupid characters. However, it still would have been a good season.

However, then there was the final act. (I know that wasn't a really brief overview)

The final act of the season begins with the death of Omar Hassan, the death of the main terrorists, and the conclusion of pretty much everything that had been built up in the past 16 hours.

Jack apologizes for failing to save Omar Hassan but he takes Renee back to his apartment and they begin a romantic relationship.

I'll address this before I move on. On its own, making the relationship between Jack and Renee a romantic one was pretty predictable. It was sort of alluded to in the end of the 7th season and I think it was something fans were waiting for, or expecting by that time in the 8th season.

That being said, I liked it. Pretty much anytime Jack is happy, I'm happy when I'm watching 24. Its something Jack accomplishes finally and its a great feeling.

However, it does bring up the biggest problem I have with the last act and really the 8th season of 24 as a whole. Jack falls in love so quickly with Renee. It happens so quickly, and at the same time, she is murdered very quickly. Now when that happened, I was just heartbroken. It was the loss of a great character and the destruction of something that could have been a really great relationship between the two of them.

But the aftermath really bothers me every time I watch it.

The reason is mainly because of the first scene we see of Jack in the 8th season.

We see Jack Bauer as the grandfather, having the family he's always wanted but never could because of his obligation to his country. Suddenly Renee is killed and he is willing to throw everything away to make sure that she didn't die in vain.

Now Jack makes the rationale that he is not just doing to get revenge, that he is instead doing it because he doesn't want the United States government going into a peace process that is so corrupt without doing all he could to make sure it doesn't go that way.

But then you watch the brutality of the torture scene with the man who killed Renee. Compare that with how he killed Nina Meyers, compare that with way he killed the man who assassinated David Palmer. It was just an escalation of violence that was very confusion to me as someone who had watched Jack Bauer for 8 seasons. You may say he had more time and needed to get information from him so he had to torture him. Well then look at the mess Jack makes at the Russian consulate. He straight up murders a whole Russian delegation at the United Nations all because of a peace process that was corrupt and that the Russians killed Omar Hassan.

Jack Bauer goes from a man with everything to a man with absolutely nothing to lose with little to no transition. If you look at the promos for Live Another Day, you can see a much darker Jack Bauer that I would understand would murder a whole Russian delegation. But when Jack says he has absolutely nothing to lose in season 8, I just don't buy it. He has EVERYTHING to lose!

We've seen Jack rebel against the government before, we've seen him exact revenge. I don't think we have any misconceptions that Jack is going to stay within the law when he's doing what he thinks is right. However, to chop Renee's assassin up into little pieces, put a chimney prod through the chest of a Russian delegate, it just seemed over the top, even by Jack Bauer's standards.

All I can say is that it was a...