the ramble dump

Warning: the following contains spoilers for 24 Season 7.

JACK BAUER
I can't tell you what to do. I've been wrestling with this one my whole life. I see fifteen people held hostage and...everything else goes out the window. I will do whatever it takes to save them and I mean whatever it takes. I guess maybe I thought...if I save them...I save myself.

RENEE WALKER
Do you regret anything that you did today?

JACK BAUER
No. But then again, I don't work for the FBI.

RENEE WALKER
I don't understand.

JACK BAUER
You took an oath. You made a promise to uphold the law. When you cross that line it always starts with a small step. Before you know it you're running as fast as you can in the wrong direction, just to justify what you started in the first place. These laws were written by much smarter men than me. And in the end I know that these laws have to be more important than the fifteen people on the bus. I know that's right. In my mind, I know that's right. I just don't think my heart could ever have lived with that. I guess the only advice I can give you is...try to make choices that you can live with.

The above exchange, from the final episode of 24 Season 7, book-ends an exploration of Jack Bauer's politics that began with his trial for criminal actions in the season's premiere. I don't really want to get into a debate about the actual politics here, but rather once again look at the way that such politics have been handled by the show in this latest season, whose thematic focus has been a specific response to the controversy surrounding the depiction of its protagonist's dubious actions.

As mentioned, this was done rather bluntly in the first episode by supposedly cutting straight to the chase and placing Bauer in a Senate hearing. I found this scene pretty obnoxious for the way in which it seemed to serve only as an opportunity for some self-righteous, grandstanding obstinance by the character of Jack Bauer, before a committee whose integrity was compromised by an individual, it is stated, with questionable motives. Combined with the introduction of very minor characters whose sole purpose was to give Bauer outpourings of sympathy and to berate the very idea of a trial in the first place, the whole premise felt like something of a bitter joke and a middle finger to the prospect of any genuine exploration.

Fortunately, the season improved. It was by far at its best when it avoided such clumsy handling of politics and went straight for the story, but when it did pause to ponder the actions of Jack Bauer and his associates, we soon learn that Jack isn't as certain about his actions as his public performance at the start would have us believe. The conversation quoted above serves as a kind of thematic epilogue, a welcome moment in which Bauer openly admits to having very human motives that may not always have led to the right decisions, even though he might strongly feel that they do. Though a little stilted and inelegantly inserted, it does allow Jack some room as a character in his own right by openly separating his justification from what appears to be the writers' tentative moral conclusion that the laws should always be upheld, a point that is emphasised by President Taylor's difficult sacrifice in the ending of a parallel storyline.

That both Jack Bauer and Allison Taylor seem to support this conclusion might seem to threaten the morality of the story with too much closure, and yet we see that Taylor is racked with guilt, acknowledging that her decision was at least difficult if not wrong, and Bauer has two clearly conflicting views that never completely resolve, leaving the matter very open to suggestion. In addition to this, Bauer's monologue is directed at Renee Walker, whom at certain points in the story had functioned as an alarmingly easily persuaded advocate of his questionable approach, despite some occasional slapping fits, and yet her anxious recourse to Jack's advice denies her, in this final instance, an easy answer. This resolves the potential problem of her portrayal as some kind of student for whom lessons are learned, a position that could very easily be extended to the audience. We never find out what she decides to do to the creepy, uncooperative bad guy. Thus the writers' moral conclusion remains tentative, never definite. Until next season, at least.

And this, of course, is just how it ends. Throughout the season, Jack has been challenged by good guys and loyal friends who are reluctant to compromise the law and won't abide by his more drastic measures: old pal Bill Buchanan refuses to torture a suspect despite a time-sensitive situation; Jack constantly butts heads with FBI Special Agent in Charge Larry Moss, who replaces the usual role of bureaucratic obstacle as someone who might just have a point; and it's even contrived that Jack gets to pay a visit to Senator Blaine Mayer, the man out for his blood in the earlier trial scene, where we discover that the Senator might not be quite the affront to heroism he was made out to be in his first appearance. The fact that all three of these men wind up dead is, I'm sure, purely incidental. And while in itself the court scene seemed guilty of pretty extreme and disingenuous posturing, the ongoing exploration of the theme renders it merely a starting point, from which some of the caricatures and assumptions are gradually dismantled.

24 remains, in many ways, pretty mindless entertainment, with the primary aim of pushing the plot along from one dramatic setpiece to the next. But its emotional and intellectual core, in its more successful storylines, has always been its investment in character, even if over time it has come to abuse and depend on the fact that we often find ourselves so gripped by the story just to see if a character will make it through the day alive. It's not great that the writers still resort to the hamfisted insertion of clumsy exposition wherever they can find a gap between the action, and there is still a little too much posturing in the kind of speeches we're offered--Jack's confession speech, for example, strikes me as a very deliberate, slightly pompous act by the writers of stepping back from the accusations that have been levelled at them--but it does something, at least, to return the focus to character. And it acknowledges the kind of challenge that has always made the series interesting beyond the excitement of gunfights and explosions--potential that was ignominiously shat upon by the obstinate, closed-book attitude of the season's opening scenes, or so it seemed. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't in it for the instant, visceral gratification as much as anyone else, but it wasn't this alone that got me hooked on the show in the first place, and I'm glad that, however bluntly they've done it, the writers have worked a little harder to treat the day-of-difficult-decisions premise with some of the complexity it deserves.

All in all, I thought the seventh season was pretty good. I get too caught up in my own rants to mention the things that I actually really liked, but there were plenty of them. And at least now a regular injection of hyoscine-pentothal to the brain is not needed to obscure my memory of Season 6.

Labels: 24, i am the ramblemaster, morality

# posted by Chris @ 3:57 PM 0 comments