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The short version of this season is that I loved the first 2/3 and conceptually like the last 6 but that it failed in the execution for me in some important aspects. Every year, there are always three threads to follow in the show (with FBI/CTU subplots as filler). You have the MacGuffin storyline (click on link for definition of MacGuffin), the President's storyline, Jack's personal storyline. The strongest arcs in those respective storylines, in my opinion, were the Dubaku arc, the episodes where Allison was the central focal point, and Jack's entire storyline. For that reason, the middle of the season, from about 7x08-7x16, was the best run for me. The weakest points for me came at the end, mostly because I didn't like the pacing and how the MacGuffin storyline lacked resolution (more of that after the cut), and for that reason, it's hard to say that it's the best season yet.
Still overall, I have to say it's a pretty strong season and coming off of S6, that's a damn near miracle. To really breakdown the season, we gotta look at the Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Pull up a chair and brace yourself cuz this is a LONG post, so here we go:
Where S7 succeeded:
1. Multiple season-long themes. Aside from the fact that they had such great LINES, the biggest improvement in the writing this year is that they actually had themes in the storylines exploring the issue of "Whatever it takes." You had, of course, the Old Tried and True: Family vs Duty, this time nicely done with Taylor and her family. But they also used the villains this year, with Dubaku, Emerson, and Hodges using angry Americans as their men on the ground and the Warping of Tony Almeida to really illustrate how a villain is born by forcing good men to the edge. This entire season was basically a treatise on the Creation of a Villain: Why Patriotic Men Go Bad.
Tied into that is the torture debate, which the writers chose to address head on. At times the torture debate was ham-fisted (see: Burnett's interrogation), but when they really let the characters talk *to* rather than at each other, the actors really sold it. As a result, the times the writers used Renee and Jack as the focal point of the debate worked the best. When we saw the little insights into Jack's character, with Mayer, Gohar the Iman, or even Jack's tiny moment with the agent in the car in 7x02, we got it. And then there was the Triangle the Wasn't: The Battle for Renee's Soul. THAT was amazing, and I've waxed poetic on it so much that I'll spare you that. I don't think that the writers meant to have a central theme in mind when they chose to respond to their critics, but that doesn't change the fact that they've managed to tie in themes of loyalty, betrayal, and the limits of one person as the rules of engagement change. It really works this season and that's leaps and bounds better than S6.
2. More cohesive plotting. The reason why they could have these themes is because of the cohesiveness of the season. This year, they did a remarkable job intertwining the storylines, and it only really split off a bit towards the end. Overall, it was nice to get back to that S1 plotting as they transitioned really well from arc to arc, and you can tell where the strongest parts of the season were because that's where the best arcs sang at the same time and you could see the themes working across the board. It wasn't perfect, especially toward the end because we kind of had to do some retconning and I could have done without so many villains (they really should get back to only 2-3 villains per season), but as a whole, this season stands up as the most cohesive we've had since S1 and S2.
3. Washington DC. The new location REALLY helped underscore the themes. With the monuments as symbols in the background, they really took advantage of visual medium to remind us of why they were doing things. Having the exchange about why the rules make us better in front of the place where laws are made gave the scene more resonance, and the impact of taking the White House amped up the feeling that they were being violated from within that we already felt when we found out that Secret Service agents were moles. When the season shifted from day to night, the show still worked, but something was lost when they moved to warehouses and shipping yards.
4. The Redemption of Jack Bauer. By far, the strongest storyline of the season was Jack's, and what I liked about it the most is that they made it personal for Jack, not by threatening his family or his love interest of the year but by drawing into question the very thing that makes Jack Bauer Jack Bauer: his ability to flirt the line of insanity and intensity. This was basically a referendum on Jack Bauer as the anti-hero because the thing about anti-heroes is that it's a very fine line separating them from good guy and bad guy. And even though Jack himself seems like he changes, upon mainlining I realized that he doesn't; our understanding of his does. All season long, the writers threw mirrors up everywhere, from Tony to Hodges to Renee to Mayer and Taylor and Larry, and with every new mirror, a new point appeared on that spectrum of "whatever it takes" so we could understand where Jack's line really rests. They used everything from his oldest friend to his newest ally and they really spared nothing. We've never heard Jack so articulate about who he is and where he stands than this season, and THAT is why it worked.
5. They used the history they've built over 6 seasons. Going back to point 4, the way the continuity fairy was working in overtime this season really helped the season shine. There were name checks of Palmer and Audrey and Teri and Chappelle and Curtis. Jack's time in China and his scars were mentioned, and even the presence of Sunny Macer from S3 helped remind us that we've lived in this universe for quite some time now, and that Jack has changed. And not just Jack, but Kim and Tony and Aaron have all been touched by the events of the Worst Week Ever, and it's interesting television to evaluate how much people have changed for the better (Kim), the worse (Tony) or have stayed faithful and true forever and ever Amen (Aaron). This season stands on the shoulders of giants, because the way it draws on the past could have only happened in this season.
6. Better casting & writing new characters. Point blank, the casting and writing for the new characters was off the hook this year. Almost every character sang- from the one-ep characters like Carl the security officer and Gabe Schector to the minor players like Marika and Agent Vossler to the heavy hitters like Larry, Taylor, and Renee. They casted and used almost every single character well, and even the most unlikable ones like Olivia, Cara and Sean served some purpose. The season was far from perfect (see note below in the negatives of this season) but for the most part, no character was pointless *coughMarilynBauercough*, and for that I salute them.
7. Better use of the women. Off that point, the women in particular stood out this season. We had female moles, female Presidents, female field agents, female analysts, female villains, and stupid females this season. So to me, the nicest part about this season is that we had such a wide range of women this year that their gender became inconsequential in evaluating them as characters. Yes, Allison approached things differently from Palmer, but it wasn't just because she was a girl, but because she was more blunt and had (IMO) firmer convictions that adhered far more strictly to the rules of law. Renee's popularity wasn't built on the fact that she was the first female agent we've seen who could keep up with Jack, it was that she was the first agent since Tony to keep up with him PERIOD. The women were kicking ass, taking names as much as they were acting like idiots and being all weaselly and gross- and to me that's what makes this season the most feminist one I've seen in 24 all series long.
8. Renee Fucking Walker. I would be remiss if I didn't give Renee her own section because she really breathed life back into the season. She provided a new foil for Jack, because it's been a while since we've had someone running toe to toe with him all season long. She played the love interest of Jack without really being the love interest, and that in and of itself was new. The things they had Annie Wersching do and the way she delivered them were pitch perfect, and I definitely believed that she carried this season as much as Kiefer did- to the point that she could easily submit for Lead Female if she wanted to. We stayed interested in what she was doing even when she was separated from Jack, which was absolutely necessary towards the end when Jack was taken out of the action and next to Kiefer, I'd say she probably has the most scenes and most lines. As much as S1 was Jack's origin story, I believe that S7 is Renee's so it should be VERY interesting to see where they take her next season. Best New Character since Bill, in my opinion, and we better have her up front and center for the rest of the run of the series, or I will cut someone.
Where it failed
1. Never revealing the Evil Skype Session of Doom or its agenda or motivation. No matter how you feel about whether or not it was worth it to turn Tony into a grey character, the biggest problem in choosing to go in that direction was that we got an invisible villain. It was a text-book violation of the Show, Don't Tell rule. If you're going to turn our beloved Tony into this really fucked up, crazy guy, sure you have to give us his motivations (You killed my SON! And wife! And Cubbie Mug!) but you also have to let us see the real villain. That's why Jonas and Dubaku and Juma worked. We saw them in action so it's easier to evaluate how justified our heroes are in their response. By making Tony decidedly NOT the ultimate Big Bad orchestrating the events of the day, the writers gave us a villain that we barely got see ourselves and we were just told that they were evil. We don't even know what their agenda was or why they wanted to wreck so much havoc, dating back as far as S5. All we have is what Jonas thinks everyone wanted, but that's no guarantee that he was right. Because we never got to really see them and Wilson never talked, it's hard to evaluate and forgive either Tony or Renee for the laws they break to see justice prevail (using both extremes of the law-breaking spectrum).
2. Failure to give resolution to the MacGuffin storyline. To make matters worse, once we finally got at least Wilson, it's not clear if Renee gets answers from him or not (or even if it will hold up in court because it's torture.) So not only do we not get the others, we might not even get Wilson. For Renee's storyline, yeah it's good that they left it ambiguous. However, for the MacGuffin storyline, doing so leaves you wholly unsatisfied because there's no resolution. The bad guy isn't caught at the end of the day. The rest of the Evil Skype Session of doom is still out there. So unlike any other season, the MacGuffin storyline in S7 doesn't get resolved. Part of this may be because the original idea for S8 was for it to pick up 6 weeks later, but since that isn't the case now, that's a HUGE sticking point.
3. Not using strong actors enough. They did this to Cherry, which I'll get into below, but the other big misstep they made was that they did nothing with Janeane. Love or hate her politics, she's good at injecting *life* into her characters, and I kept waiting for them to do something with her other than make her into the Greek Chorus. Every year they do this, and the only time the Greek Chorus ever really worked is in S4 when it was Michelle and Tony, because they were also working on issues of their own that we cared about. It's a waste of talent and they could have done so much more.
4. Failure to connect Taylor to Jack enough in the end. It marvels me how one could possibly CONSIDER sidelining an actress like Cherry Jones when you have her in the wings. Not to knock Sprague (because I LOVE her and the fact that she made me hate Olivia is a testament to her acting ability), but the whole "Olivia gets in over her head" would have been a much better storyline if they had brought in Allison earlier. It's better when you mainline it than when we were waiting between weeks, but I still think the Olivia reveal broke up the flow of the finale since they were already bouncing between Kim and the airport and a kidnapped Jack. Had they skipped the subterfuge and just let the guilt get to Olivia so she'd come clean to Allison, it would have been interesting to see Taylor forced to work and focus on the FBI's efforts in spite of her inner turmoil. I also think ever since Allison and Jack connected in 7x08, they've been building a personal connection the way he did with Palmer, and it's a damn shame we didn't get an end note on that.
Where it hurt:
1. Death of all the straight and narrow boys. I put this in this section because these particular deaths (Senator Mayer, Larry, Bill) were good for the storyline in that their deaths amped up the feeling of loss and desperation for the ones left behind, but their collective loss also meant a loss in the complexity of the themes. All three of them had meaningful and memorable deaths, so in that sense, the writers succeeded because we cared about them so much. But the problem with killing them off in the beginning, middle and end of the second act of the season, is that for the last act, they have no one except Janis left to be the Jiminy Cricket voice. Without the voices of the straight and narrow characters like Mayer, Larry and Bill, there's nothing stopping Renee and Jack from slipping into the whatever it takes mode except Tony (who functions as a cautionary tale). There's no equal pushing back to keep that dialogue up, and I believe the show is lesser for it.
Next season, they're going to have to establish a new moral voice for the anti-heroes like Jack and Renee. It's absolutely necessary in every season of 24, because as I have said before, watching this show is kinda like being tethered by string and being left to twist in the wind. It doesn't have to be much, but you have to have something to ground you to survive with your sanity intact. Same goes for characters like Jack and Renee. As much I get why Bill and Larry "had" to the die, I just wish that S8 could have had one of them, because they were both good characters and putting that onus on a new character means the writers better deliver a worthy successor in S8.
2. Tony twist. I've been thinking about this for so long, because truth be told, I've always been more interested in Tony's character than Jack so this has been hard for me. He was the original Jiminy Cricket voice and he's fallen so far from that that on one hand, I get it why they took him to this place. Making Tony into this tragic figure does feel organic, like the punctuation on seasons past that have built to this moment. All series long, we've pushed Jack to the edge, but he has always needed a foil to show why he's not the villain and a foil to show why he's not the hero. Tony now has played both sides of that foil and to the writers' credit, they did it a way that played on our emotions completely. Until the reveal in 7x24, the last six episodes has the audience focused on entertaining whether Tony really is a villain. It poses the question to the audience: how far are you willing to trust a character's history goodness against the clear evidence that they are doing something bad?
My problem with this twist is, did they really have to go there with Tony? It's not just the double, triple, quadruple back flip twist in the pike position that they've put the character through. I get that they were trying to illustrate a point by having him take the "Whatever it takes" attitude to the most extreme point possible. But did they have to make him so damn selfish to show us why Jack, while extremely flawed, isn't completely irredeemable?
Because if you think about it, the level of selfishness in Tony's motives is astounding. Most villains that have brought this level of chaos are fueled by loss of home, country, and family. Tony's is purely loss of family, so that kind of puts him on this totally different level. Yes, the Evil Skype Session of Doom was responsible for organizing all the attacks in S7, so stopping them showed us that old!Tony still existed. But capturing the CIP device, warning them about the White House, stopping Hodges- all those were afterthoughts. He did it to make himself into Wilson's only option, and when it comes down to it, he was ready to kill Wilson, even if it meant never knowing who the other members of the group were.
Would it have been more acceptable if everything he had done (killed Larry, be ready to sacrifice hundreds in the Metro) had been to take them all down as much as it was about revenge? If he was all about CAPTURING Wilson rather than killing him? I don't know. It depends on if you think the lives lost in the plane crash in 7x05 were acceptable losses for getting Dubaku and finding out who all the moles on his payroll were.
But I do know that because they painted Tony here with such a dark brush, I'm less forgiving of his actions. Now it will never NOT hurt to think about Tony and the T/M ship. Tony and Michelle rank up there as one of my top 5 ships. It hurt when they died in S5, but at least they died together. I eventually made peace with it because they went out the same way they came in: full of love and souls intact. This hurts so much more because it's twisted my ship into hate, and while the English major in me is satisfied for the catharsis, the shipper in me will always wonder if they could have spared us that cut. Revenge AND stopping the bad guy would have gone over so much more easily than just revenge, and I don't know if I'll ever forgive the writers for doing that.
Despite these negatives, however, I still really really loved this season and I agree with the critics and the cast and crew that this is one of their strongest seasons yet. I came for the Tony but I'm staying for the Renee, and the bar for S8 is now set extremely high.
Final Score
Storyline Concept: A-
Storyline Execution: B
Writing Mechanics (lines and themes) : A+
Acting: A
Final ranking of the seasons: S2/S7 (tied), S3, S5, S4, S6. I refuse to rank S1 because it's too much of an origin story to compare to the rest. The MacGuffin, Jack's family, and Jack himself are too different, that any comparison would be unfair.
Still overall, I have to say it's a pretty strong season and coming off of S6, that's a damn near miracle. To really breakdown the season, we gotta look at the Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Pull up a chair and brace yourself cuz this is a LONG post, so here we go:
Where S7 succeeded:
1. Multiple season-long themes. Aside from the fact that they had such great LINES, the biggest improvement in the writing this year is that they actually had themes in the storylines exploring the issue of "Whatever it takes." You had, of course, the Old Tried and True: Family vs Duty, this time nicely done with Taylor and her family. But they also used the villains this year, with Dubaku, Emerson, and Hodges using angry Americans as their men on the ground and the Warping of Tony Almeida to really illustrate how a villain is born by forcing good men to the edge. This entire season was basically a treatise on the Creation of a Villain: Why Patriotic Men Go Bad.
Tied into that is the torture debate, which the writers chose to address head on. At times the torture debate was ham-fisted (see: Burnett's interrogation), but when they really let the characters talk *to* rather than at each other, the actors really sold it. As a result, the times the writers used Renee and Jack as the focal point of the debate worked the best. When we saw the little insights into Jack's character, with Mayer, Gohar the Iman, or even Jack's tiny moment with the agent in the car in 7x02, we got it. And then there was the Triangle the Wasn't: The Battle for Renee's Soul. THAT was amazing, and I've waxed poetic on it so much that I'll spare you that. I don't think that the writers meant to have a central theme in mind when they chose to respond to their critics, but that doesn't change the fact that they've managed to tie in themes of loyalty, betrayal, and the limits of one person as the rules of engagement change. It really works this season and that's leaps and bounds better than S6.
2. More cohesive plotting. The reason why they could have these themes is because of the cohesiveness of the season. This year, they did a remarkable job intertwining the storylines, and it only really split off a bit towards the end. Overall, it was nice to get back to that S1 plotting as they transitioned really well from arc to arc, and you can tell where the strongest parts of the season were because that's where the best arcs sang at the same time and you could see the themes working across the board. It wasn't perfect, especially toward the end because we kind of had to do some retconning and I could have done without so many villains (they really should get back to only 2-3 villains per season), but as a whole, this season stands up as the most cohesive we've had since S1 and S2.
3. Washington DC. The new location REALLY helped underscore the themes. With the monuments as symbols in the background, they really took advantage of visual medium to remind us of why they were doing things. Having the exchange about why the rules make us better in front of the place where laws are made gave the scene more resonance, and the impact of taking the White House amped up the feeling that they were being violated from within that we already felt when we found out that Secret Service agents were moles. When the season shifted from day to night, the show still worked, but something was lost when they moved to warehouses and shipping yards.
4. The Redemption of Jack Bauer. By far, the strongest storyline of the season was Jack's, and what I liked about it the most is that they made it personal for Jack, not by threatening his family or his love interest of the year but by drawing into question the very thing that makes Jack Bauer Jack Bauer: his ability to flirt the line of insanity and intensity. This was basically a referendum on Jack Bauer as the anti-hero because the thing about anti-heroes is that it's a very fine line separating them from good guy and bad guy. And even though Jack himself seems like he changes, upon mainlining I realized that he doesn't; our understanding of his does. All season long, the writers threw mirrors up everywhere, from Tony to Hodges to Renee to Mayer and Taylor and Larry, and with every new mirror, a new point appeared on that spectrum of "whatever it takes" so we could understand where Jack's line really rests. They used everything from his oldest friend to his newest ally and they really spared nothing. We've never heard Jack so articulate about who he is and where he stands than this season, and THAT is why it worked.
5. They used the history they've built over 6 seasons. Going back to point 4, the way the continuity fairy was working in overtime this season really helped the season shine. There were name checks of Palmer and Audrey and Teri and Chappelle and Curtis. Jack's time in China and his scars were mentioned, and even the presence of Sunny Macer from S3 helped remind us that we've lived in this universe for quite some time now, and that Jack has changed. And not just Jack, but Kim and Tony and Aaron have all been touched by the events of the Worst Week Ever, and it's interesting television to evaluate how much people have changed for the better (Kim), the worse (Tony) or have stayed faithful and true forever and ever Amen (Aaron). This season stands on the shoulders of giants, because the way it draws on the past could have only happened in this season.
6. Better casting & writing new characters. Point blank, the casting and writing for the new characters was off the hook this year. Almost every character sang- from the one-ep characters like Carl the security officer and Gabe Schector to the minor players like Marika and Agent Vossler to the heavy hitters like Larry, Taylor, and Renee. They casted and used almost every single character well, and even the most unlikable ones like Olivia, Cara and Sean served some purpose. The season was far from perfect (see note below in the negatives of this season) but for the most part, no character was pointless *coughMarilynBauercough*, and for that I salute them.
7. Better use of the women. Off that point, the women in particular stood out this season. We had female moles, female Presidents, female field agents, female analysts, female villains, and stupid females this season. So to me, the nicest part about this season is that we had such a wide range of women this year that their gender became inconsequential in evaluating them as characters. Yes, Allison approached things differently from Palmer, but it wasn't just because she was a girl, but because she was more blunt and had (IMO) firmer convictions that adhered far more strictly to the rules of law. Renee's popularity wasn't built on the fact that she was the first female agent we've seen who could keep up with Jack, it was that she was the first agent since Tony to keep up with him PERIOD. The women were kicking ass, taking names as much as they were acting like idiots and being all weaselly and gross- and to me that's what makes this season the most feminist one I've seen in 24 all series long.
8. Renee Fucking Walker. I would be remiss if I didn't give Renee her own section because she really breathed life back into the season. She provided a new foil for Jack, because it's been a while since we've had someone running toe to toe with him all season long. She played the love interest of Jack without really being the love interest, and that in and of itself was new. The things they had Annie Wersching do and the way she delivered them were pitch perfect, and I definitely believed that she carried this season as much as Kiefer did- to the point that she could easily submit for Lead Female if she wanted to. We stayed interested in what she was doing even when she was separated from Jack, which was absolutely necessary towards the end when Jack was taken out of the action and next to Kiefer, I'd say she probably has the most scenes and most lines. As much as S1 was Jack's origin story, I believe that S7 is Renee's so it should be VERY interesting to see where they take her next season. Best New Character since Bill, in my opinion, and we better have her up front and center for the rest of the run of the series, or I will cut someone.
Where it failed
1. Never revealing the Evil Skype Session of Doom or its agenda or motivation. No matter how you feel about whether or not it was worth it to turn Tony into a grey character, the biggest problem in choosing to go in that direction was that we got an invisible villain. It was a text-book violation of the Show, Don't Tell rule. If you're going to turn our beloved Tony into this really fucked up, crazy guy, sure you have to give us his motivations (You killed my SON! And wife! And Cubbie Mug!) but you also have to let us see the real villain. That's why Jonas and Dubaku and Juma worked. We saw them in action so it's easier to evaluate how justified our heroes are in their response. By making Tony decidedly NOT the ultimate Big Bad orchestrating the events of the day, the writers gave us a villain that we barely got see ourselves and we were just told that they were evil. We don't even know what their agenda was or why they wanted to wreck so much havoc, dating back as far as S5. All we have is what Jonas thinks everyone wanted, but that's no guarantee that he was right. Because we never got to really see them and Wilson never talked, it's hard to evaluate and forgive either Tony or Renee for the laws they break to see justice prevail (using both extremes of the law-breaking spectrum).
2. Failure to give resolution to the MacGuffin storyline. To make matters worse, once we finally got at least Wilson, it's not clear if Renee gets answers from him or not (or even if it will hold up in court because it's torture.) So not only do we not get the others, we might not even get Wilson. For Renee's storyline, yeah it's good that they left it ambiguous. However, for the MacGuffin storyline, doing so leaves you wholly unsatisfied because there's no resolution. The bad guy isn't caught at the end of the day. The rest of the Evil Skype Session of doom is still out there. So unlike any other season, the MacGuffin storyline in S7 doesn't get resolved. Part of this may be because the original idea for S8 was for it to pick up 6 weeks later, but since that isn't the case now, that's a HUGE sticking point.
3. Not using strong actors enough. They did this to Cherry, which I'll get into below, but the other big misstep they made was that they did nothing with Janeane. Love or hate her politics, she's good at injecting *life* into her characters, and I kept waiting for them to do something with her other than make her into the Greek Chorus. Every year they do this, and the only time the Greek Chorus ever really worked is in S4 when it was Michelle and Tony, because they were also working on issues of their own that we cared about. It's a waste of talent and they could have done so much more.
4. Failure to connect Taylor to Jack enough in the end. It marvels me how one could possibly CONSIDER sidelining an actress like Cherry Jones when you have her in the wings. Not to knock Sprague (because I LOVE her and the fact that she made me hate Olivia is a testament to her acting ability), but the whole "Olivia gets in over her head" would have been a much better storyline if they had brought in Allison earlier. It's better when you mainline it than when we were waiting between weeks, but I still think the Olivia reveal broke up the flow of the finale since they were already bouncing between Kim and the airport and a kidnapped Jack. Had they skipped the subterfuge and just let the guilt get to Olivia so she'd come clean to Allison, it would have been interesting to see Taylor forced to work and focus on the FBI's efforts in spite of her inner turmoil. I also think ever since Allison and Jack connected in 7x08, they've been building a personal connection the way he did with Palmer, and it's a damn shame we didn't get an end note on that.
Where it hurt:
1. Death of all the straight and narrow boys. I put this in this section because these particular deaths (Senator Mayer, Larry, Bill) were good for the storyline in that their deaths amped up the feeling of loss and desperation for the ones left behind, but their collective loss also meant a loss in the complexity of the themes. All three of them had meaningful and memorable deaths, so in that sense, the writers succeeded because we cared about them so much. But the problem with killing them off in the beginning, middle and end of the second act of the season, is that for the last act, they have no one except Janis left to be the Jiminy Cricket voice. Without the voices of the straight and narrow characters like Mayer, Larry and Bill, there's nothing stopping Renee and Jack from slipping into the whatever it takes mode except Tony (who functions as a cautionary tale). There's no equal pushing back to keep that dialogue up, and I believe the show is lesser for it.
Next season, they're going to have to establish a new moral voice for the anti-heroes like Jack and Renee. It's absolutely necessary in every season of 24, because as I have said before, watching this show is kinda like being tethered by string and being left to twist in the wind. It doesn't have to be much, but you have to have something to ground you to survive with your sanity intact. Same goes for characters like Jack and Renee. As much I get why Bill and Larry "had" to the die, I just wish that S8 could have had one of them, because they were both good characters and putting that onus on a new character means the writers better deliver a worthy successor in S8.
2. Tony twist. I've been thinking about this for so long, because truth be told, I've always been more interested in Tony's character than Jack so this has been hard for me. He was the original Jiminy Cricket voice and he's fallen so far from that that on one hand, I get it why they took him to this place. Making Tony into this tragic figure does feel organic, like the punctuation on seasons past that have built to this moment. All series long, we've pushed Jack to the edge, but he has always needed a foil to show why he's not the villain and a foil to show why he's not the hero. Tony now has played both sides of that foil and to the writers' credit, they did it a way that played on our emotions completely. Until the reveal in 7x24, the last six episodes has the audience focused on entertaining whether Tony really is a villain. It poses the question to the audience: how far are you willing to trust a character's history goodness against the clear evidence that they are doing something bad?
My problem with this twist is, did they really have to go there with Tony? It's not just the double, triple, quadruple back flip twist in the pike position that they've put the character through. I get that they were trying to illustrate a point by having him take the "Whatever it takes" attitude to the most extreme point possible. But did they have to make him so damn selfish to show us why Jack, while extremely flawed, isn't completely irredeemable?
Because if you think about it, the level of selfishness in Tony's motives is astounding. Most villains that have brought this level of chaos are fueled by loss of home, country, and family. Tony's is purely loss of family, so that kind of puts him on this totally different level. Yes, the Evil Skype Session of Doom was responsible for organizing all the attacks in S7, so stopping them showed us that old!Tony still existed. But capturing the CIP device, warning them about the White House, stopping Hodges- all those were afterthoughts. He did it to make himself into Wilson's only option, and when it comes down to it, he was ready to kill Wilson, even if it meant never knowing who the other members of the group were.
Would it have been more acceptable if everything he had done (killed Larry, be ready to sacrifice hundreds in the Metro) had been to take them all down as much as it was about revenge? If he was all about CAPTURING Wilson rather than killing him? I don't know. It depends on if you think the lives lost in the plane crash in 7x05 were acceptable losses for getting Dubaku and finding out who all the moles on his payroll were.
But I do know that because they painted Tony here with such a dark brush, I'm less forgiving of his actions. Now it will never NOT hurt to think about Tony and the T/M ship. Tony and Michelle rank up there as one of my top 5 ships. It hurt when they died in S5, but at least they died together. I eventually made peace with it because they went out the same way they came in: full of love and souls intact. This hurts so much more because it's twisted my ship into hate, and while the English major in me is satisfied for the catharsis, the shipper in me will always wonder if they could have spared us that cut. Revenge AND stopping the bad guy would have gone over so much more easily than just revenge, and I don't know if I'll ever forgive the writers for doing that.
Despite these negatives, however, I still really really loved this season and I agree with the critics and the cast and crew that this is one of their strongest seasons yet. I came for the Tony but I'm staying for the Renee, and the bar for S8 is now set extremely high.
Final Score
Storyline Concept: A-
Storyline Execution: B
Writing Mechanics (lines and themes) : A+
Acting: A
Final ranking of the seasons: S2/S7 (tied), S3, S5, S4, S6. I refuse to rank S1 because it's too much of an origin story to compare to the rest. The MacGuffin, Jack's family, and Jack himself are too different, that any comparison would be unfair.