My (somewhat delayed) thoughts on 24
26 May 2010
While I’m breaking the rules of blogging by not being particularly “timely” with my post about 24, I’ve got something to get off my chest.
Until Renee died a few “hours” ago, I’d watched every single episode of 24. Personally – and maybe this is just a chick thing – I’ve spent the last 7 (8? 9?) seasons watching Jack get tortured, screwed over, and abandoned with the hope that everything would work out fine for him. And at the start of the season, I really thought that was a possibility. I thought he’d get Renee (and Jack definitely needs the type of girl who knows how to shoot a gun), and he could move to L.A. with his daughter and watch his granddaughter grow up. When Renee died, I felt like the writers essentially snuffed out the possibility for a happy ending.
Ben kept me apprised of the last few episodes, however, and it sounds like I would have been hiding my eyes during most of them anyway. (Stephanie doesn’t do violence. Watching Jack slice open a guy’s stomach to fetch a Sim card does nothing to enhance my life.) But I wanted to watch last night. I wanted to see if the writers could pull some kind of happiness after all the blood and guts we’ve been forced to endure in the last weeks. (And when I say “we,” I mean those who actually tuned in.)
Ben felt like the end of 24 was more satisfying than the end of Lost. But to me, the end of 24 didn’t really feel like we’d closed anything. Jack’s on the run—again. He’s alone—again. He has no hope for a relationship with any of his family—again. At least not if he wants to keep them safe. Where’s the satisfaction in that?
Maybe I’m totally off about this. That’s happened before. Like how everybody around me hated the last episode of Gilmore Girls, but I felt it was great. Or as great as it could be with Luke and Lorelai still not back together and no Jess coming in to sweep Rory off her feet. But I digress.
Finales are just plain tough to write. Like the last book in a series, where you know you’re going to tick off somebody who wanted things to go a different way.
Okay, enough griping. It’s done and over with. I will move on.
Yes, they’re tough. But a good one will make a whole series shine and pay off in syndication. I feel like sometimes the writers just shrug and say, “Well there goes that paycheck. Whatever.” Totally steams me.
Posted by Roseanna White on 26 May 2010