Looks like Mike Novac landed on his feet after being dismissed by President Palmer back in season two. He's back in the White House, this time advising the vice-president on how to be presidential and to come out of the crisis not looking like he doesn't have a handle on the crisis. The American people need a leader, Novak says. And I keep thinking--yeah, a man like David Palmer who'd be pretty pissed at all this going on on his watch.
So, upon seeing Mike Novak back on the scene, did anyone else immediately jump to the conclusion that he's played some part in the events unfolding during day four? Or was that just me?
Meanwhile, Marwan finds vehicles that are faster than any helicopters and rushes out into the Mojave Desert to retrieve "the football." It's interesting that the suitcase holding the codes to all of our nuclear missiles is called "the football" since everyone and their uncle fumbles it in this episode. I had to feel a bit sorry for the nice couple who were just out in the desert to try and get away from the stress and "make a baby" and instead get drawn into Jack's world of terrorist fun. (One huge quibble..so uber-camper has a compass and such but not a pocket knife? Come on!)
Following the couple as they elude Marwan sustained the tension for the entire hour and made you forget about some gaping plot holes, such as shouldn't the Secret Service, the Army and the Marines be swarming across the area? And also, wouldn't it have made sense of the CTU helicopter to blow up Marwan's escape jeeps so that he couldn't dash away. Yeah, buddy, you can run, but only into the desert, ha, ha! Instead, it's yet another contrived way for Marwan to get away in the end. And is he really such a control freak that he'd lead the assault to find the codes? I mean, earlier in the day he's letting the Araz family run the whole show but now he becomes control freak man?
And don't get met started on why Jack doesn't turn his cell phone to vibrate when he's pursuing the bad guys. That just made no sense at all! OK, yes, part of it is that we had to know that Jack was getting a call. But it just didn't make a whole lot of sense for Jack to leave it on while trying to go commando and kill everyone himself.
Does CTU issue any agent who goes with Jack a red-shirt? They must as going into the field with Jack pretty much means you're dead by episode's end. Man, I'd had to draw the short straw on that one.
And where is Heller in all of this? A couple of weeks ago, he was off for some secret meeting and we've not seen him since then. Also, what happend to the pilot and the stealth fighter? Did it crash? Did he run off? Why is there little or no effort being made to find him? And if he is going to crash and he's a terrorist, wouldn't he crash the plane into a city and thus create more havoc and terror? Plus a good distraction for Marwan to come in, pick up the codes and run off.
I can't see how logically Marwan will get his hands on any weapons. First of all, we've seen that throughout the day, his campaign of terror is centered on the Southern California area. So, if I'm the military, I'd be changing the codes on those bombs first and not worrying about, say, Delaware, where it seems less likely that Marwan has operatives. Second of all, I'd figure the weapons are stored on places with men and women who have guns. So you triple the guard on the bases and around the weapons, thus defeating Marwan that way. Of course, I have a feeling we'll come up with some way for Marwan to get him a weapon of some kind. Or perhaps there will some type of high up consipiracy (maybe involving Mike Novak!) that lets him get a weapon. But honestly, you'd think Marwan would have a plan in place to shoot down Air Force One while stealing a few weapons. It just doesn't make a lot of sense to say--well, first I need this and then I need that. You'd think he'd go for all the marbles and use the chaos and confusion surrounding multiple attacks to divide CTU's attention and resources as well as to achieve his goals.
And did anyone else wonder if they keep forgetting that D.C. is three hours ahead of L.A.? It just seemed to me that they missed the fact that it's 3 a.m. in Washington D.C. as the episode ends.
posted by Michael Hickerson at 4/12/2005 08:49:00 AM |
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