Reviews and More

Monday’s episode of 24 took place between 3PM and 4PM. Let’s get right to the recap of the program.

• Milo gets shot in the arm while trying to defend Marilyn from Gredenko’s men. Then, just as he’s about to get killed, Jack comes storming to the rescue. He takes out two of the three baddies, and then quickly turns his attention to Marilyn.
• Marilyn tells Jack that it was Philip who ordered her to send the CTU team to the wrong house. She then explains that Philip is holding Josh and threatened to kill him if Marilyn didn’t do as she was told. Jack is surprised by this info, but quickly processes it and calls Buchanan to request a backup team. Bill wants to know exactly what’s going on, but of course Jack doesn’t “have time to explain right now.” He goes on to say, “It’s personal,” so Bill relents.
• Jack uses the surviving baddie to find out Philip’s location. He has Marilyn say that she won’t give up Gredenko’s address until she sees Josh. Philip agrees, but of course he’s not in the hotel room when Jack and Marilyn arrive. Instead, he’s watching from across the street. Jack gets Philip to agree to let Josh go and take Jack hostage instead.
• The hostage exchange takes place. Philip tells Jack to get “on his knees,” a phrase we’re so used to hearing Jack say to others. It looks like Philip’s about to shoot Jack in the back of the head or something, but before that Jack wants to unburden himself so he launches into a long-ass speech about not wanting to abandon the family or let his father down, blah, blah, blah. Philip apparently wasn’t interested either because when Jack turns around, his father is gone.
• Jack finds a cell phone with instructions to call a certain number. Who should pick up on the other end except Charles Logan, the disgraced former President of the U.S.!
• Morris is still acting all angst-y about giving Fayed a working device to trigger the nukes. It doesn’t help when he hears that Milo was shot in the field and will be receiving a commendation for bravery. Morris basically goes off the deep end and heads out to purchase some whisky and Altoids to make everything better. Oh, did I mention he’s a 12-stepper? So he takes a big swig of alcohol, but decides to puke it up right away.
• Chloe and Milo both realize Morris has been drinking, but they decide not to go to Buchanan with the info. Instead, I guess they’re going to wait until Morris makes a huge mistake or something.
• Just when we thought Tom Lennox was willingly going to take part in a plot to remove Wayne Palmer from power, we see that he was actually trying to set up a trap for Chad Lowe. (Hold on. I have to look up this character’s name. It’s Reed Pollock, according to IMDb.) But Reed somehow realizes that Tom wasn’t going to go along with the plan, so he knocks him around in the boiler room for awhile.

My Reaction: I don’t like how the suitcase nukes are being pushed to the backburner while we deal with the Bauer Family Drama. That’s two eps in a row that we’ve seen next to nothing of Fayed, even though he’s had a working trigger all this time. I know the writers wanted to take the show in a different direction this year by working in all this “character development,” but I’m not interested at all. Don’t get me wrong, I still love Jack Bauer. But he’s definitely one of those guys where the mystery of his background is part of the appeal. I don’t want to know any more about him than I have to.

I’m still not interested in what’s going on in Washington, D.C. either. I think the pacing of that whole storyline is just way off. Things should be happening much quicker over there considering what’s going on in California.

Overall, I’m afraid I’m just watching 24 out of habit now. There were so many times in previous seasons where I could not wait to see what would happen in the next ep. That hasn’t happened yet this year, so I’m just not excited about the show anymore. There’s still time for it to get better, but I wish the writers would realize that the appeal of 24 has always been the action, not backstories and personal drama.

I’ve got a couple of friends who live in New York City, and the one thing they complain about the most is the rental environment. It’s common knowledge that finding great (and affordable) apartments in NYC is practically impossible to begin with, so when you throw in all the extras, such as the insanely high brokerage fees and the amount of personal time you have to waste looking at unfit properties, it’s no wonder that people abhor the entire process of securing living quarters out there.

That’s why I’m sure my friends will be interested in a company called Innovative Apartments. Innovative Apartments is a service that specializes in helping renters find suitable NYC apartments without all the usual hassles that go along with that task. I spent some time browsing through the Innovative website, which is at www.inapts.com, and came away with the following impressions.

First, I really like how easy it is for users to set up their personal search parameters to help narrow down the list of available apartments. For example, you can specify any of the five boroughs, as well as a specific area within the boroughs, the price range you’re willing to pay, the number of bedrooms you require, and whether or not you want a furnished apartment. When the results come back, you can see the rent, the date the apartment will be available, the cross street to give you a general idea of the location, and a photo if there’s one in the database.

A second thing I like about Innovative Apartments is their Email Alert System. This is available to members and allows you to receive email notifications when an apartment matching your criteria gets listed on the site. This is a very convenient feature because it means that you don’t have to constantly search the site until you find what you want.

Finally, Innovative Apartments charge much lower fees than traditional brokers. You won’t have to worry about paying thousands of dollars or a high percentage of your first year’s rent in order to take advantage of Innovative’s comprehensive services.

Overall, I’d have to say that Innovative makes finding an apartment in NYC as painless as possible. So if you’re currently looking to rent in Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, Staten Island, or the Bronx, then you really have to check out InApts.com first!

I haven’t been very interested in Prison Break this season, but I think the show took a turn for the better with last night’s episode. It was called “Bad Blood,” and here’s what happened.

Michael/Sara/Linc/Kellerman: Michael and Sara tried to go into the cigar club to see what Sara’s father kept locked away in his private humidor, but within seconds there were patrol cars outside the door. So they had to make a break for it without getting any more information.

Their next move is to go visit the WARDEN!! Apparently, he’s also a member of the club, so he’s now their only hope of finding out what Sara’s father was hiding. Of course, Pope is none too happy to see Michael and Sara, and isn’t willing to help them out. But Michael makes a bargain with him: if Pope gets them whatever’s in the humidor, Michael will turn himself in.

So Pope goes in and finds a flash drive in the humidor. He borrows some guy’s computer to listen to the audio files that are on the drive, but we don’t get to hear what that was all about. As Pope is walking out to rejoin Michael and Sara, who should intercept him but Kim? Just when it seems like Kim’s going to force Pope into his car, Michael comes tearing down the block and runs Kim over. Then, Linc and Kellerman join the fray, and Linc whales on Kim numerous times for good measure. Michael, Pope, Linc, and Sara drive off just as we hear sirens in the background. Meanwhile, they purposely leave Kellerman behind, so he’s forced to take off on foot.

Sucre: Sucre’s borrowed car breaks down when he’s 20 minutes away from the Ixtapa airport, which of course is his rendezvous point with Maricruz. But some guy pulls up just a minute later and gives Sucre a ride to the airport, so Sucre’s still on schedule. Unfortunately, the guy happens to be part of the airport security team, and he mentions that they’re looking for an American fugitive.

When they arrive at the airport, Sucre makes all kinds of excuses in order to get away from the security dude as soon as possible. He’s just in time, too, because a few seconds later another guard comes by and hands the first guard a photo of the suspect. He immediately recognizes Sucre, and the chase is on. Sucre manages to scoop up Maricruz, run to the exit, and hop in a cab before security can catch them.

C-Note: C-Note spent the whole episode trying to get medical help for Deedee. The first hospital he went to gave him a hard time about not having insurance or proper ID, so he left there and took his daughter to a free clinic. The place was a dump, and the doctor on duty was just sitting in his office smoking cigarettes while people coughed and hacked out in the waiting room.

Anyway, C-Note gets him to take a look at Deedee, and the doctor says that the girl is going into renal failure. He’s about to insert a catheter in her neck when C-Note intervenes. He doesn’t want to take any chances with his daughter’s help, so he calls Mahone and is willing to turn himself in on two conditions: 1) Deedee must get the medical treatment she needs; and 2) his wife must be set free so she can take care of the girl. Mahone doesn’t agree to this, but when C-Note sweetens the pot by offering up Michael as well, Mahone bites.

T-Bag: T-Bag takes the Hollander family to his childhood home. It’s been abandoned for years and is completely vandalized and unlivable. As T-Bag starts cleaning up, he recalls various happenings from his childhood. Of course the memories are bad, and he tells Susan that all he wants to do is start over. He’s not a bad guy, he says, and all he wants is for Susan to love him and make him part of her family. She refuses, which nearly sends him over the edge. He locks her and her two children in the cellar, and spends a long time contemplating an axe that’s just handily sitting around — not rusted or anything. But in the end, T-Bad calls the cops to go and rescue the family while he makes his escape.

My Reaction: I thought this was a pretty good episode. I liked how the various plots are finally moving forward: Sucre has finally hooked up with Maricruz; T-Bag has finally let the Hollanders go; Michael et al. have finally found out what the key was for; and Mahone has finally captured a fugitive instead of killing him.

I thought the return of Henry Pope was perhaps the highlight of the episode. He’s a great character, and I hope there’s reason for him to stick around for awhile longer. I also enjoyed Michael and Sara’s banter about dinner while they were waiting in the car. It was nice to see the writers bring up something that happened so long ago and make it work in the current context.

And how satisfying was it to see Michael run Kim down like a dog?? I don’t particularly care for the Linc character, but it was so awesome to see him beating the crap out of Kim there in the driveway!

Finally, I have to say that C-Note’s final scene with his daughter, while he’s holding her and crying because he knows what he has to do, was very well done. That was the first time I felt anything for the C-Note character; too bad he had to ruin it a few minutes later by agreeing to betray Scofield!

There were several things that bothered me, too. First, do we really need more instances of freakin’ incest on prime time television? CSI just had an incest storyline a couple weeks ago (not their first, BTW), and now here we are with T-Bag’s father putting the moves on him. That’s just sick and makes my stomach turn.

Another thing I didn’t like — which is actually a theme for the entire season and not just of this episode — is how the cops are always just two seconds behind the cons no matter where they go or what they’re doing. How did the cigar club owner even know to call the cops in that first scene? Sara and Michael weren’t even inside for more than a minute when the cops started swarming. How did that happen???

How did Mahone find C-Note’s clinic right away? He just landed at the airport and said some people were monitoring the hospitals. Next thing you know, he’s outside the right one?

How in the hell did Kim get to Chicago from Washington, D.C. in the same amount of time it took Pope to get to the club from his house?

Despite these flaws, I still thought this was a solid episode. I have no idea where we’re going from here, and don’t see how the writers can stretch this thing out to a third season, but I guess I’ll find out soon enough!