By Elaine B
Lesson learned: People will follow anyone who pays them enough.
Recently, I reported that, according to Kiefer Sutherland, Jack and Renee will be an item next year. But after the last two hours, I am wondering if Day 8 will, as was done with season two of Breaking Bad for obvious reasons, start immediately after Day 7 ends. It can be informally called “Jack gets a few moments of bliss before he dies.” That’s because, in Hour 14, during one of the most thrilling chase sequences of any season, he was exposed to the nasty bioweapon Starkwood imported. As a result, in a first for the series, he has to strip down and take a shower then sit, just sit. I wish someone had given him a cup of coffee or a milkshake or a double Whopper with cheese. I just know the man is hungry and thirsty. And if he is dying, he deserves a last meal.
But Jack’s biggest problem isn’t just physical. He’s lost too many friends and allies in the last few hours. He’s tired and in spite of the adrenaline rush, is clearly having a crisis of the soul. Why else would he risk his life and the mission to save the far-from-upstanding port guard from Starkwood’s goons?
And goons they must be, with IQs somewhere south of orcs, since they are blindly following a lunatic who makes statements such as, “They are 6-year-olds, Greg, and they need to eat their carrots” and “Tell them to pack their toothbrushes and pajamas, it’s going to be a long night.” Or maybe Starkwood’s civilian army is on a Blackwater pay scale (rumored to be over $1000/day in world hot spots) and figure they can’t bite the hand that feeds them so very, very well.
It’s far less likely that they are, like Jonas Hodges himself, misguided patriots who believe that private armies, like private enterprise, should be allowed to do what they want. Hodges intimated that when he said to minion Greg Seaton, “I won’t let them destroy a company I spent my whole life building.” But is the Day 7 scenario far-fetched? Currently the word “Minutemen” is associated with the group of civilians independently patrolling our borders to keep out illegal aliens. In years past, it was the name of a group planning to overthrow the United States government if their leaders ever deemed that our liberties had been sold out. Tiny Minuteman recruitment posters cropped up in phone booths all over Washington D.C. in the late ’60s. Hodges is the logical extension of that group, and he has a lot more money and some really lethal toys to drive home his beliefs.
We’ve just hit 24‘s witching hour. The night game is always the most suspenseful. I expect a lot – and I hope that “lot” will include an antidote for whatever nasty killer bug is multiplying inside Jack. Hopefully, when it is over, he’ll get the recognition he deserves, both for this day and for the days when he got those scars so evident on his body when he stripped for the shower, as well as a chance to find a bit of peace and love. He’s earned it.