Twenty-frickin-Four

I don't watch a lot of TV. Sometimes I wish I did so I could share in the conversations about Survivor or Lost or House (which has awesome commercials that make me want to watch it) or whatever everyone else is talking about. I'm so out of it. I only have two shows that I watch every week: Gilmore Girls and 24. I've been watching GG for years, but I was only infected with the contagious 24 virus at the beginning of last season. Our neighbors talked about it all the time and were so hooked on it that we wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

Well. Let me tell you. All the fuss was about Mr. Jack "I can kill you with just about anything including my penetrating stare" Bauer. And the super-suspenseful structure that keeps 24 going (which, for anyone out there who might watch less TV than me, is that each season takes place over the course of only one day, each weekly episode is an hour in that day). We were hooked and watched every week until the end where Jack had to fake his death and disappear forever to avoid imprisonment by the Chinese government. Forever? Really? I had a feeling he'd have to come back for some reason and I wanted to see that, so we started to watch 24 this season. And he came back. Surprise, surprise.

Since this season began, I have been loyally watching every show even though I get so emotionally wrapped up in the show that I get physically uncomfortable and want to leap through the TV to slap that smug bastard President Logan and I shout things at the TV like, "slap him with your pistol!" or "kick him in the nuts!" (which I yelled last night). It's not healthy. I don't sleep well on Monday nights because I go directly from watching 24, holding my breath for an hour, to trying to sleep and instead, having fitful dreams of the CTU and things exploding and me running from bad guys.

So we had agreed that we wouldn't watch 24 next season. Luke doesn't like to have shows that we watch and he'd be happy to just get rid of the TV altogether and I thought I could do without the stress, so it was settled.

Until last night. Last night was the season finale. The last two hours. The wrap up in which Jack Bauer saves the day again and gets hit in the head with a wrench and shot at and kills many bad guys and then gets to go back to his girlfriend and actually have a happy moment. A moment where he might actually smile for the first time in the two years I've watched this show - but wait, before you go home with your girlfriend and live happily ever after Jack, there's a phone call for you, and even though we all have multiple cell phones and calling devices, we've forwarded this call to the phone inside this creepy dark warehouse. Go there, take the call in "private".

It's at this point that I said to Luke, "there's still the small matter of the Chinese government who are going to want to kill him now that they know he's alive." Well. Wouldn't you know, the Chinese government kidnaps Jack and beats the crap out of him. He tells them to kill him, they say that he's too valuable to kill. And the show ends with Jack's girlfriend noticing that he's missing and a view of a container ship sailing away, toward China I assume.

NOW I HAVE TO WATCH IT NEXT SEASON! Damn it! All I wanted was to see President Logan go down (check), I wanted the terrorists to be stopped (check) and I wanted to see the creeps who worked with Logan (like that weasely little jerk with the wireless headset and the irritating glasses) to get what was coming to them, too. Then I would have been happy. But noOOoooo. Instead, Jack Bauer has to be dragged off by the Chinese and now I have to wonder about him until next January when I'm sure I'll be too weak to resist the lure of the commercials and I'll be hooked again on another emotional season of twenty-frickin-four.

Thanks a lot FOX!