It had to end at some point, but for all the ratings 24 drew in its early seasons those happy memories did not prevent it from being cancelled halfway through the season. Although they took Jack Bauer to a darker place than usual, Day 8 never felt like the concluding season of a long running series. And the darker journey for Jack was definitely the selling point for the year since everything else was business as usual.
So Jack Bauer was on death’s door at the end of Day 7. Kim’s magical bone marrow or whatever was used to treat her father worked and he randomly chose to recuperate in New York City. That means for the second season in a row 24 took place in a brand new city. Although Jack being out of the game at the beginning and then on the outs from the government at the end was nothing new, they took their most significant attempt to give Jack a darker edge. The majority of the highlights for Jack took place in the last third of the day. It was the normal running and gunning for Jack until he had sex within a season. There was no way that was gonna go unpunished. And once Renee was killed, we got to see Jack go on a very calculated and protective of the innocent rampage. From that point on we got Jack’s ambush of Cole’s CTU team, Jack killing the mustachioed DB Sweeney, the execution of Dana Walsh, the annihilation of Tokarev’s team in the department store, Jack’s torture and disemboweling of Tokarev, the One Man Army attack on Logan’s limo, the unseen slaughter of Novakovich’s entire security detail, and the moments where Jack had Logan in his sniper rifle where all some of the most memorable Jack in action scenes the show has done. And even after all that crazy violence, the day ends with Jack emotionally thanking Chloe for everything she has done for him over the years. Although it didn’t really feel like the last time we will ever get to see Jack Bauer, season 8 gave Jack a strong story to end on.
The B story for the season was the journey of Omar Hassan and Alison Taylor’s peace treaty. Anil Kapoor was brought in as the leader of a fake Muslim nation that for some reason will bring world peace if they sign a treaty led by the United States. Okay sure. There were many fun scenes between those 2 throughout the first half of the season. And after all the political nonsense it was Hassan’s fate that turned the entire season around. First off he was given one of the more brutal deaths shown on 24, then the Russian involvement in his execution led to all the nonsense that drove the season to its conclusion. I do have to say that President Taylor’s decision making after Hassan’s death was awful just so Jack is forced to act the way that he does. It was a bit of a copout.
The other major returning characters for season 8 were, obviously, Chloe O’Brian, then Ethan Kanin, Renee Walker, and Charles Logan. After a couple of seasons where Chloe was sidelined for most of the days, she was given much more to work with throughout Day 8. Of course it started off with the hilariously weak idea that Chloe has fallen behind technically, but once they got past that she was slowly pushed to the front of CTU. This lead to a conclusion that had been coming for years … Chloe O’Brian Director of CTU. I really enjoyed the character of Ethan Kanin last season and was happy to see his return. Sadly he disappeared during the first half of the season, but was given a strong stretch of episodes culminating with his resignation out of protest. Renee Walker still sucks and was killed off. Hooray. After Day 7’s annoyingly bitchy Renee, Day 8 brought us dark brooding Renee. So not only was Renee brought in as the female Jack Bauer, she now became the love of Jack Bauer’s life. If she had survived the day, I wouldn’t have been shocked if she became the first President Jack respects on the level of David Palmer. Good riddance. The big mid-season return for Day 8 was Charles Logan. It was never really explained how religious redemptive Logan returned to soulless power-hungry Logan but, once again, it worked as a way to motivate the Jack Bauer storyline. Gregory Itzin definitely tore back into some fantastic Logan scenes. He may have been the closest 24 came to a cartoon character but it was still fun to watch.
Just like Day 7, the final season introduced a truckload of new characters because the day’s events took place in a new city and a new CTU. The new CTU crew consisted of Brian Hastings, Cole Ortiz, Dana Walsh, and Arlo Glass. They all fit into the normal molds established over the years. Hastings was the director who wasn’t as helpful as Bill but not as big of a dick as Driscoll. Bringing in Freddie Prinze Jr. to be the new field agent was another amusing test of can Jack Bauer make anyone standing next to him a badass. And Jack is still undefeated in that game. Arlo was the new CTU tech that was just another CTU tech, not much more to say than that. That leaves Dana Walsh. What more do I need to say about this godawful character? It’s rare that a character is around long enough on 24 to have 2 different horrendous plotlines in one season. This was Kim Bauer territory. First we got Dana’s felonious past that went on and on for hours and hours. Then it finally ended in the scene that revealed that Dana was the new CTU mole. Of all the shitty-ass conclusions to Dana’s storyline that could have been written, mole revelation would have been one of the worst. And then it happened. It was all downhill from there and even being executed by Jack Bauer doesn’t redeem her. The Hassan family were the most significant characters introduced on the political side in season 8. I already talked about Anil Kapoor’s good work but Necar Zadegan was also strong as his wife Dalia. She ended up more as a chess piece in the final hours being moved around to influence Taylor but when she was given the chance she delivered in her scenes with the President. There were other characters but Rob Weiss, Meredith Reed, Agent Owen, etc didn’t really give me much to write about it. Hey was that Michael Madsen? Sweet.
There were way too many bad guys to list in the 8th season. You had multiple fake nation Muslims, a variety of Russians, and even an American or two. The main Muslim terrorist was Samir who just came off as another version of Marwan and Fayed. I think if Hassan’s made-up country were explained a bit more maybe Samir’s intentions would have come across better. He played the menace as well as he could. There were way too many Russians so I’ll just highlight Vladimir and Tokarev Maybe strange choices but Vladimir was the best part of Renee’s storyline and I just like how Joel Bissonnette played Tokarev. And I'm happy because villainous Russians just take me back to my childhood of 80s movies. The American that I mentioned would be Jason Pillar. Calling him a bad guy may be a bit strong, but when you get in bed with Charles Logan you know what type of work you are going to be putting in. Just like every other villain this season, he came to a very bad end.
Although I don’t really have any major issues, besides Dana Walsh, the eighth season was a mediocre end to the series. The Jack Bauer is unstable and needs to be stopped plot never worked in the way that they intended. It was still fun to watch him in action but he never even approached being the bad guy. Still like I've already written, the final scene of the day cleaned up a lot of sins. Because what all these days come down to is Jack Bauer saving the day with the help of Chloe O'Brian. I'll miss that.
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