The Best of TV w/o Pity

For last week's 24.

Bitchelle looks at him speculatively, then renews the conversation: "I heard Kiefer called you today," she says. Soul Patch admits it. "And that you saved his life," Bitchelle presses. "Well, we both know I owed him one, right?" Bitchelle gives him a tight smile. They do not have sex. Yet.


"Who was in charge of this operation?" DoDder demands, so she can know off of whom she needs to go rip a strip. "I was," Bitchelle says levelly. DoDder looks at her like, "Oooooh, maybe not." She just says, "Get him back, Bitchelle," and walks away rather than throwing down. Sure, she's pissed and freaked out and terrified, but she's not suicidal.

Potato Face is having trouble doing something on her computer, so she calls Lispy Skip to ask for the password to the central server. He offers to sign her on. She declines, insisting on the password. He refuses. It quickly devolves into an argument over who outranks whom. We all have so much time for this shit right now. Girls, girls, please. You're both pretty. Well, except for both of you.

The two men leave the room together at 9:19:20 as Potato Face confirms to Bitchelle that ImhoTerror's voice print confirmed his identity. Which she learned by comparing a "voice memo" from MacGuffin Factories. Too bad the EMP wiped out everything at MF HQ, huh?

Do you suppose people ever complain about the danger that 24 will inspire copycat crimes? I think this is one scheme they'd like more actual terrorists to try, because I think in real life a lot more of them would get caught.

"I'm really sorry about your husband," Potato Face says. Now stop talking. DoDder thanks her, but we all know Potato Face isn't done: "I can't imagine how I'd be feeling right now if I were you…you and your husband are separated, you've fallen in love with Kiefer, I guess. Then they end up together and your husband ends up taking a bullet that saves Kiefer's life? What do you do with that?" I think a more relevant question is, how does Potato Face know all this? Has she been watching the previouslies? Does she know they LIE? ["And do a lot of people start watching shows halfway through the fifteenth episode of the season? I understand that making Chloe socially awkward gives them some latitude with exposition, but that was absurd even for this show." -- Sars] DoDder tries to close the discussion down, but Potato Face plows onward: "What about Kiefer? You just assume the terrorists aren't going to kill him?" DoDder snaps again that she doesn't want to talk about it, and stomps over to the OR window to watch the operation, because looking at her husband's innards is better than sparing another moment for Potato Face. Who's saying, "I was inappropriately blunt, wasn't I? I do that a lot." Yeah, but you don't normally feel bad about it and it's kind of freaking me out.

I'm not there to point out that if your chess opponent is prepared to sacrifice a knight for a pawn -- particularly a whiny, clueless pawn -- he's got something else going on.

Kiefer and TerrorTeen walk slowly towards each other, Kiefer with a distinct limp which I'm sure will be gone by next week.

The sniper aims. When Kiefer is yards from Curtis at the open gate, a shot rings out. Guess who goes down? Keep in mind everything you know about this show before you say anything. I'll give you a second. Are you ready? Here's who dies: the sniper. Can you even believe it?

A stealth fighter taxis out of a hangar. Which is weird, because Poor Man's Eric Stoltz spent the whole episode walking around in front of a conventional fighter plane. It's not like I know the difference between an F-14 and an F-16, but I'm not going to mistake either one of those for a stealth fighter, and this is most certainly the first time we've seen this particular aircraft. But it's too late to bitch about it now, because it's 10:00:00. Don't worry; we have all of next week.