After establishing itself as TV’s elite adrenaline rush in the epic Season 2, “24” Season 3 (2003-04, Fox; now streaming on Amazon Prime) gets introspective and examines how family and romantic relationships can suffer under the weight of a job where you must put the safety of thousands of Americans above that of a loved one (or conversely, your work can suffer because of the distraction). Simultaneously, Season 3 marks the first time when I can see how easily “24” could slip into parody. This is the conclusion of a trilogy of great “24” seasons, and the show will never again be as consistently good.
While Season 3 is the end of an era in that sense, it features a notable beginning: Chloe O’Brian (Mary Lynn Rajskub) joins the CTU team. The perpetually scowly tech genius will go on to appear in 126 episodes, second only to Kiefer Sutherland, who of course appears in all 195 episodes as Jack Bauer.
By day’s end, it’s clear she is the most competent techie, a perfect complement to Jack’s work in the field. The relationship isn’t quite formed yet. Chloe stands up to Jack in her first scene, telling him that if he needs someone who can read minds, he’ll have to replace her. Later in the day, Jack pulls a gun on Chloe, suspecting her of being a mole.
She rubs everyone the wrong way – she admits that Chappelle is “mad at me for like 12 things” — culminating in Tony (Carlos Bernard) telling her “I’m getting real tired of your personality.” But Chloe’s skills are unparalleled, most starkly illustrated when she stops a computer virus unleashed on CTU by Nina Myers (Sarah Clarke), who surfaces for a final round of villainy.
Although we’ll learn in future seasons that Chloe has an estranged husband, here she’s married to her job. Without the distraction of relationships, she’s really good at it. Those who are distracted by worry for loved ones have serious problems in Season 3: Kim (Elisha Cuthbert), now a CTU tech, and her boyfriend, agent Chase Edmunds (James Badge Dale), wonder if their relationship can survive job-induced stress. Jack gets pulled into this, suddenly finding out his field partner might be his future son-in-law, and his over-protectiveness only makes matters worse.
Meanwhile, Tony and Michelle (Reiko Aylesworth), who married in the three-year gap between seasons, spend the day in mortal danger or worrying about their spouse. Tony gets shot in the neck and has emergency surgery; Michelle is exposed to the Cordilla virus and awaits test results, then she’s kidnapped by the Big Bad, Stephen Saunders (Paul Blackthorne, who I initially thought was “Titanic’s” Billy Zane).
Showing that few people are immune from being affected by this threat, CTU tech Adam (Zachary Quinto, before his “Heroes” breakthrough) learns his sister has been infected, and the wife of heroic agent Gael (Jesse Borrega) – who gets the first face-full of the virus (right at the top of an hour, natch) – further ruins her life by gunning down Saunders in the CTU offices.
Even among the villains, the work/family balance causes rifts: The drug-kingpin Salazar brothers, Ramon (Joaquim de Almeida) and Hector (Vincent Laresca), disagree about whether a payday from dealing the Cordilla virus is worth the risk to their family. Ramon makes the fateful choice when he guns down Hector, but the vial he acquires ends up being a bomb that kills him too, thus ending the brothers’ tragic tale of 12-hour villainy.
Later, CTU holds Saunders’ daughter Jane (Alexandra Lydon) as a bargaining chip. Had Saunders been childless, he certainly would have succeeded in wiping out a huge chunk of the U.S. population with the Cordilla virus. Family is their reason for living, but also the reason why these villains die rather than succeed.
When giving a speech to the Salazars to prove his loyalty, Jack is speaking more truth than he realizes, saying he’s tired of being a tool of CTU who is rewarded by seeing his family torn apart. Jack sums up the day’s theme in the finale by telling Chase, “If you want to do this job well, you have to stay detached.” After a “Star Wars”-ian dismemberment metaphor – Jack detaches Chase’s lower arm with an ax, as it’s the only way to free him from the clamped-on virus – Jack breaks down sobbing in his car. Then he gets back to work as the 24 hours finish counting down: Detachment may be essential for CTU agents, but it’s also impossible. (Or rather, it’s impossible without the hero becoming the villain, as we see in so many sagas, and will eventually see on “24” with Tony.)
Season 3 delves into fascinating legal territory, as most of the heroes’ decisions to help loved ones have repercussions. It’s tempting to laugh when Jack notes that he’s the perfect man to infiltrate the Salazars because of his “history of insubordination” at CTU. But “24” doesn’t let all its heroes off the hook: Tony faces treason charges – possibly even the death penalty – for springing Jane from a CTU holding room in order to exchange her for Michelle.
Perhaps accidentally, the writers starkly comment on the system’s hypocrisy. In the season’s most controversial episode, Jack – on the orders of President Palmer (Dennis Haysbert), who himself is following the demands of Saunders – murders CTU director Ryan Chappelle (Paul Schulze) in cold blood.
I say this episode is controversial not because the internet is filled with debates about it (although it might be), but because I can’t wrap my head around it myself. When it first aired, I probably figured Jack wasn’t really going to murder Chappelle on a terrorist’s orders; that it was some kind of narrative ruse. But it concludes with the shocker of Jack killing Ryan in a train yard. From a sheer drama standpoint, it works.
Realistically, it’s nonsensical. While it’s barely plausible that Palmer and Jack could make the decision to kill Chappelle in order to save thousands of people from exposure to the Cordilla virus, this is a cut-and-dried situation where these officials have to be held legally responsible for the murder. Following a terrorist’s demands is a shaky legal defense, especially when operating under a policy of non-negotiation with terrorists. Yet – despite Jack often saying he’ll turn himself in after the threat is over in regard to other transgressions – they never even consider turning themselves in for the Chappelle murder, nor do the government’s internal investigators weigh the option of arresting the duo.
This is either a horrendous narrative oversight or a brilliant commentary on how the worst government transgressions can happen out in the open, while – like suckers for a magician’s trick – everyone’s attention is diverted by other scandals; in the case of Season 3, Tony’s actions and Jack’s decision to get hooked on heroin for the sake of infiltrating the Salazar drug ring. Heck, Chloe even faces a rebuke for bringing a baby into the office, a jarring example of a bureaucracy’s blunt-force failure to gauge degree and circumstance.
That’s not to say good old-fashioned cover-ups don’t happen on “24.” In a prescient parallel to the 2016 election season where many voters suspected the two main candidates of crimes, Palmer is a mere degree removed from the murder of a political enemy (Penny Johnson Jerald’s Sherry Palmer, of course, is directly responsible) – and that’s to say nothing of the Chappelle imbroglio.
The first three seasons operate as a nice trilogy about the dangers of the military-industrial complex, blowback and the cycle of violence. And they hit on perhaps the three scariest widespread fears: Assassinations of public figures (Season 1), nuclear weapons (2) and chemical weapons (3). (In Season 3, the writers continue their indecision about whether to cite real countries. After studiously avoiding it in Season 2, here the Salazars are Colombian – and stationed in Mexico – and the Cordilla virus comes from scientists in Ukraine.)
Interestingly, the Englishman Saunders was initially on the side of the good guys, part of the infamous Kosovo mission that was eventually chronicled in the IDW comic-book series “Nightfall,” which I haven’t read. Just as the target, Victor Drazen, surprisingly survived (to emerge as the Season 1 villain), so does the presumed-dead Saunders. He diagnoses the problem – “The U.S. government is the greatest threat to world peace, and must be forced to retreat inside its borders” – but like so many action-film villains, he loses his audience’s sympathy for the same reason he gains their attention: by killing innocents.
Season 3 puts a bow on a lot of threads. Jack offs Nina in a classic scene in the same room where Nina murdered Teri in Season 1. Nina insists she still has valuable knowledge, Jack says “No you don’t” and blows her away with three gunshots. Cut to commercial as smoke rises from his Sig Sauer. The scheming Sherry also wears out her welcome; Julia Milliken (Gina Torres, fresh from “Firefly” and “Angel”), the meek pawn of Sherry’s schemes, guns her down, reflecting a viewer’s feelings that enough is enough.
Feeling the weight of having ordered atrocities on individuals (Jack must officially become a fugitive to pursue the drug kingpins, and Palmer OKs the Chappelle murder) in order to safeguard thousands, Palmer – engaged in presidential debates earlier in the day – decides to not seek a second term.
This is also Kim’s final year as a main character, having completed her journey in her dad’s footsteps. On an undercover mission – Kim is the CTU employee who most closely resembles Jane – she guns down an attacker and is so unfazed that she has a relationship chat with Chase mere hours later. I spent three seasons on this rewatch waiting for Kim to do something stupid enough to justify her reputation as one of TV’s dumbest characters, and I still don’t see it. Aside from getting briefly captured by the attacker – and let’s remember she’s not a field agent – she is smart and clearly does not have the job just because Jack works there. (Chase more accurately fits the “dumb behavior” stereotype, as he follows his undercover partner to Mexico and nearly forces Jack to kill him to prove his loyalty to the Salazars.)
Cracks begin to show in “24’s” foundation this season. Jack screams about “the virus!” so often that if it were a drinking game, viewers would die of alcohol poisoning. I wanted Jack to say “Looks like I picked the wrong day to quite shooting heroin” at least once – although if that had happened, I’d probably be criticizing the joke. Jack shouting “Dammit!” at the end of a botched mission is becoming a cliché, although he does pepper in the occasional “Sonofabitch!” for the sake of variety.
On the plus side, “24” has solidified its spot on the short list of great action shows. (Maybe even the greatest ever? Discuss.) In a batch of midseason episodes, Jack takes down two bad guys with bullets while fighting a third baddie for the gun; he head-butts Nina, then smashes his chair against the wall to free himself; and he points his gun at a pilot to get him to countermand CTU orders and land the plane. Back in L.A., when Jack calls in an airstrike on Saunders’ chopper and the jets arrive in minutes, it’s utterly ridiculous – but also kind of satisfying.
“24” is beginning a gradual shift from brilliantly written, acted, shot and produced television into something we love partially for its silliness and internal cliches. But it’s not at that point quite yet.