That was more like it, sirs and misses.  Jack Bauer popped his season 7 kill cherry last night in ways impressive and tinged with much needed badassery.  Jack had gone nearly five and a half hours without murdering someone this season.  There were reasons for this, of course.  Jack was undercover, working with people who he couldn't kill, while working against people (the FBI) who it would be a really bad idea to kill.  But, that all changed in last night's episode of 24, in which The Bauer administered the death blow to Psychopath/Tony's friend Emerson by shooting him in the neck while on the ground.  And, for is encore, Jack saved Tony's life by picking off Almeida's would assassin with a completely, totally awesome, fist-pump inducing sniper rifle.  The build-up to Jack Bauer's long-in-the-coming quenching of bloodlust was well-earned by the writers, and it made for a more-complex-than-24-is-used-to moment after Emerson's death.  Tony was (and probably remains) conflicted about doing Emerson away, which could make for some interesting plot ramifications later in the season.

24: Episode 7.6, "1:00pm to 2:00pm" Recap

But, let us, for a moment, pause.  Forget about your daily trials and travails, ignore that old man who's wheezing and hacking next to you in the coffee shop, remove from your brain that unfortunate bunion on your big toe and think about Tony Almeida.  It feels so good to have Jack's sidekick back in the fold.  Throughout the reign of 24, Tony has really been the only worthy companion to Jack.  In the past, Tony was brooding, moody and capable of becoming a hard core bad ass at the drop of the hat.  Tony has added a whole new dimension of pathos this season.  The fact that he was a bad guy for awhile, did bad things, became BFFs with an evil-doing terrorist, adds up to a great character.  24 made the mistake of killing him off once, and I seriously doubt they'll do that again. 

As for the overall plot, I have one complaint.  President Taylor really should have pulled back her troops.  It made very little sense, her stubborn patriotism aside.  You can always redeploy the troops, especially once the CIP device was found.  They are trying to portray Taylor as brave, but she's coming off as stupid.  Nonetheless, it's hard not to like where this season is going.  There's a lot of story potential out there, and I'm excited to see how the whole Dubaku saga will end, because I presume it will end fairly soon, maybe after two more episodes or so.  Afterwards, we'll probably move full-bore into the government conspiracy and the bigger bad guy, whoever that may be.  Jon Voight, I think we all assume, is the ultimate big bad guy, so we likely won't see him until after mid-season, at the earliest. 

One more shout out to last night's episode.  The entire final scene at Samantha Roth's apartment was appropriately chilling.  It was fun to see Male Model Bad Guy get killed in such a gruesome manner, especially after cold-heartedly murdering the adorable Carly Pope.  How dare he. 


-Oscar Dahl, BuddyTV Senior Writer
(Image Courtesy of FOX)