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1. I call foul on the way the writers handled the chip. First, Jack knows better than to hand the only piece of evidence/leverage/information to stop the corruption over to a stranger. I get it that they needed to do it for expediency of the plot, but dude. Come on, at least put some effort into it. Also, as mentioned in Karen's reaction post, HELLO AIDS. I'm not saying Debaku had HIV or anything, but dude, that's why we use GLOVES. Especially if you're dealing with individuals you know spend lots of time in the not-so-savory parts of [unspecified region of] Africa. Maybe this is just the stuff I hear about from Mom's reports and stuff, but you'd think Jack, having spent time in Sengala, would be more aware. Sheeesh.
2. You know, I wasn't counting on Erica being a mole as well. It makes sense in retrospect, but good on the writers for playing with our past experiences and making us think that either Sean was a red herring for Erica or vice versa, when in fact both of them were moles. I still am confused why Erica thought it'd be a good idea to start smooching when they clearly needed to get out, but I didn't really like her character so whatever.
3. Was Chloe just screwing with Larry about the information being wiped out because she thought Larry might be in on it? Because that's the only way I can explain why we got the weird fake out. Her backing up the data using a mirror database makes sense. Not telling Larry about it and making him think they lost all the information doesn't. Not unless she wasn't sure about who the mole was and was covering her bases until the mole revealed him/herself.
4. Purple stocking, Janis? Really?
5. Awwww, Bill vouching for Jack. Damn straight he doesn't deserve it. Not much else to say on the Taylor front except that I am intrigued by what the writers have planned for Olivia. Her vaguely antagonistic relationship with her mother is not unlike Kim and Jack's relationship and it certainly makes for some very interesting parallels, if the writers continue with this trend of comparing S1 to S7 via new characters as mirrors. Still, I dig the Taylor women thus far, so here's hoping.
6. Nice to see you back, Tony. I was half expecting Renee to be the one to find Jack on the steps of the Capitol, and I'm a little bit confused as to how Tony managed to track Jack down. But since Tony brought with him the "Oh so that's where we're going next for the rest of the season," I'll take it. Tony needs to stop being so shady about it though. And wow, the CoS of Senator Meyers? Thaaaaaaaaaaaaat's gonna go over well, I'm sure. I just hope they still bring Renee along for the ride. It'll ratchet up the "Are you in or are you out?" question that Renee's been forced to deal with all season long- and I hope that even if the boys go off without her for now, they bring her and Larry in on it if only because they need an actual agency to legitimize their actions in the eyes of the President.
7. Jack and Renee's hospital conversation: More on that below, but for now I gotta say, DAMN. Renee Walker, I love you and your incredible backbone. Way to totally do something and MEAN IT, girl.
So first, let's backtrack. A lot of S7 has shown Jack to be so very cold, almost zombie like in the way he switches from being a rage-filled, killing machine, poster boy for anger management to showing no emotion and being so zen about his fate, he practically rivals Charlie Crews on Life. But I've been thinking about all the stuff he's spouted this season. About how he doesn't regret his actions. About how he doesn't seem to get angry about the injustice of his being trial or his apathy when Larry baited him about his methods. About how he keeps chanting, "what is necessary" like it's his own personal mantra. About there being 2 worlds- one that he protects and the one he lives in.
And I think what it boils down to is that Jack has devised a twisted sense of justice based on necessary costs as a coping mechanism.
I think that at the end of Redemption, Jack has finally snapped. When Carl asks him to get the boys to safety at all costs and Gil Bellow's character actually names his freedom as that cost, it's almost as if Jack realized that nobody is playing by any moral code- not the terrorists, not the government- nobody. There only seems to be one rule: if you want something, you have to pay the necessary cost. And from then on, it's like something in his head clicked into place: One world benefits at the price of the other's.
In a twisted way, this system of payment makes sense to him because if he looks at his life solely through this lens, it allows Jack to live with the trauma of what he and his co-workers have lived through. The jailtime Tony did for his actions in S3? The price he paid to save Michelle. Palmer dying and Michelle dying? The cost of helping Jack disappear off the radar. Everything that he endured in China? Was to buy the safety of Americans.
So the fact that he had to give him his freedom to honor Carl's last wish makes sense to him according to this logic. It's why he accepts it without a fight, because it's no longer about right or wrong. It's about necessary costs and are you willing to live with it. The fact that he had a choice in the matter is just icing on the cake.
With this in mind, now flash forward now to Marika Donoso. Suddenly all his speeches to Renee about things being necessary, about Marika having a choice, make sense. In his eyes, Marika had made the switch from the world of benefiters to the world of those paying the price. He didn't bother pulling her from the car because she no longer fit into the former (or he already saw that she was dead, whichever you want to believe). So while it's sad, he can't bring himself to get worked up about it. It's the cost of doing business.
The problem is, this logic of no moral code and everyone falling into one world or the other doesn't hold up over time, and he knows it. He knows because of Teri. If everything has a necessary cost, then Teri's death should have bought Nina enough time to escape. But she didn't, and she could have picked another way to incapacitate a pregnant civilian, so that makes Teri's death senseless. Same goes for Audrey. Audrey suffered at the hands of the Chinese, but she still wasn't able to break Jack out. Teri and Audrey don't fit his theory.
But if Jack lets himself think about it, then he'll lose it. He'll get angry Teri again. He will get angry at what happened to Audrey. He'll get angry about what happened to Palmer and Michelle and Tony. And he'll be angry about Carl and about the Senate hearing. If it's just business, then it's just business- but if you bring right and wrong into the mix then it becomes messy and senseless. So he keeps repeating himself over and over, like he's trying to convince himself more than Renee and Larry, that his logic makes sense. Even though at the core of it, he knows that full of shit, he needs it to operate.
That's why Renee is so problematic for him. She keeps getting under his skin because she does all the "necessary" things Jack does, but she also thinks about the world the way Larry does. She keeps FEEEEELING things, and reminding him that some people still operate under a moral code of right and wrong. Renee make Jack question own his logic and keeps forcing him to feel things. Her emotions keep making him lose his grasp on his world because he sees himself in her, but the old him that still saw things in right and wrong.
That scene in the hallway pretty much is the culmination of what has been building since the beginning of the season: "What do you want from me?" "I want to know if you feel anything." And even though her reference to Teri didn't make sense (because why would Jack see her as a necessary cost, when her death had nothing to do with preserving national security), the mere mention of Teri coupled with Renee's sense of right and wrong set him off.
I suspect that if Renee keeps hanging out with Jack, Jack's gonna lose it and I think that's what the producers are talking about in terms of bringing Jack's character to a new emotional space. Seeing Jack really deal with his trauma is something we've never seen on camera, beyond the short bit we saw in the beginning of certain seasons, because he's always been running. Carl mentioned in Redemption that the only way he figured out how to live it life was when he stopped running. If Renee ends up being the person who forces Jack to stop and explain himself (since he's about to do it for the Senate), if she ends up being the person he actually TALKS to about this stuff or (bears witness to it with a certain someone coming along), I say bring it on.
2. You know, I wasn't counting on Erica being a mole as well. It makes sense in retrospect, but good on the writers for playing with our past experiences and making us think that either Sean was a red herring for Erica or vice versa, when in fact both of them were moles. I still am confused why Erica thought it'd be a good idea to start smooching when they clearly needed to get out, but I didn't really like her character so whatever.
3. Was Chloe just screwing with Larry about the information being wiped out because she thought Larry might be in on it? Because that's the only way I can explain why we got the weird fake out. Her backing up the data using a mirror database makes sense. Not telling Larry about it and making him think they lost all the information doesn't. Not unless she wasn't sure about who the mole was and was covering her bases until the mole revealed him/herself.
4. Purple stocking, Janis? Really?
5. Awwww, Bill vouching for Jack. Damn straight he doesn't deserve it. Not much else to say on the Taylor front except that I am intrigued by what the writers have planned for Olivia. Her vaguely antagonistic relationship with her mother is not unlike Kim and Jack's relationship and it certainly makes for some very interesting parallels, if the writers continue with this trend of comparing S1 to S7 via new characters as mirrors. Still, I dig the Taylor women thus far, so here's hoping.
6. Nice to see you back, Tony. I was half expecting Renee to be the one to find Jack on the steps of the Capitol, and I'm a little bit confused as to how Tony managed to track Jack down. But since Tony brought with him the "Oh so that's where we're going next for the rest of the season," I'll take it. Tony needs to stop being so shady about it though. And wow, the CoS of Senator Meyers? Thaaaaaaaaaaaaat's gonna go over well, I'm sure. I just hope they still bring Renee along for the ride. It'll ratchet up the "Are you in or are you out?" question that Renee's been forced to deal with all season long- and I hope that even if the boys go off without her for now, they bring her and Larry in on it if only because they need an actual agency to legitimize their actions in the eyes of the President.
7. Jack and Renee's hospital conversation: More on that below, but for now I gotta say, DAMN. Renee Walker, I love you and your incredible backbone. Way to totally do something and MEAN IT, girl.
So first, let's backtrack. A lot of S7 has shown Jack to be so very cold, almost zombie like in the way he switches from being a rage-filled, killing machine, poster boy for anger management to showing no emotion and being so zen about his fate, he practically rivals Charlie Crews on Life. But I've been thinking about all the stuff he's spouted this season. About how he doesn't regret his actions. About how he doesn't seem to get angry about the injustice of his being trial or his apathy when Larry baited him about his methods. About how he keeps chanting, "what is necessary" like it's his own personal mantra. About there being 2 worlds- one that he protects and the one he lives in.
And I think what it boils down to is that Jack has devised a twisted sense of justice based on necessary costs as a coping mechanism.
I think that at the end of Redemption, Jack has finally snapped. When Carl asks him to get the boys to safety at all costs and Gil Bellow's character actually names his freedom as that cost, it's almost as if Jack realized that nobody is playing by any moral code- not the terrorists, not the government- nobody. There only seems to be one rule: if you want something, you have to pay the necessary cost. And from then on, it's like something in his head clicked into place: One world benefits at the price of the other's.
In a twisted way, this system of payment makes sense to him because if he looks at his life solely through this lens, it allows Jack to live with the trauma of what he and his co-workers have lived through. The jailtime Tony did for his actions in S3? The price he paid to save Michelle. Palmer dying and Michelle dying? The cost of helping Jack disappear off the radar. Everything that he endured in China? Was to buy the safety of Americans.
So the fact that he had to give him his freedom to honor Carl's last wish makes sense to him according to this logic. It's why he accepts it without a fight, because it's no longer about right or wrong. It's about necessary costs and are you willing to live with it. The fact that he had a choice in the matter is just icing on the cake.
With this in mind, now flash forward now to Marika Donoso. Suddenly all his speeches to Renee about things being necessary, about Marika having a choice, make sense. In his eyes, Marika had made the switch from the world of benefiters to the world of those paying the price. He didn't bother pulling her from the car because she no longer fit into the former (or he already saw that she was dead, whichever you want to believe). So while it's sad, he can't bring himself to get worked up about it. It's the cost of doing business.
The problem is, this logic of no moral code and everyone falling into one world or the other doesn't hold up over time, and he knows it. He knows because of Teri. If everything has a necessary cost, then Teri's death should have bought Nina enough time to escape. But she didn't, and she could have picked another way to incapacitate a pregnant civilian, so that makes Teri's death senseless. Same goes for Audrey. Audrey suffered at the hands of the Chinese, but she still wasn't able to break Jack out. Teri and Audrey don't fit his theory.
But if Jack lets himself think about it, then he'll lose it. He'll get angry Teri again. He will get angry at what happened to Audrey. He'll get angry about what happened to Palmer and Michelle and Tony. And he'll be angry about Carl and about the Senate hearing. If it's just business, then it's just business- but if you bring right and wrong into the mix then it becomes messy and senseless. So he keeps repeating himself over and over, like he's trying to convince himself more than Renee and Larry, that his logic makes sense. Even though at the core of it, he knows that full of shit, he needs it to operate.
That's why Renee is so problematic for him. She keeps getting under his skin because she does all the "necessary" things Jack does, but she also thinks about the world the way Larry does. She keeps FEEEEELING things, and reminding him that some people still operate under a moral code of right and wrong. Renee make Jack question own his logic and keeps forcing him to feel things. Her emotions keep making him lose his grasp on his world because he sees himself in her, but the old him that still saw things in right and wrong.
That scene in the hallway pretty much is the culmination of what has been building since the beginning of the season: "What do you want from me?" "I want to know if you feel anything." And even though her reference to Teri didn't make sense (because why would Jack see her as a necessary cost, when her death had nothing to do with preserving national security), the mere mention of Teri coupled with Renee's sense of right and wrong set him off.
I suspect that if Renee keeps hanging out with Jack, Jack's gonna lose it and I think that's what the producers are talking about in terms of bringing Jack's character to a new emotional space. Seeing Jack really deal with his trauma is something we've never seen on camera, beyond the short bit we saw in the beginning of certain seasons, because he's always been running. Carl mentioned in Redemption that the only way he figured out how to live it life was when he stopped running. If Renee ends up being the person who forces Jack to stop and explain himself (since he's about to do it for the Senate), if she ends up being the person he actually TALKS to about this stuff or (bears witness to it with a certain someone coming along), I say bring it on.
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