Curb Your Enthusiasm: Season 7, Episode 6: "The Bare Midriff": 6.2/10

Curb Your Enthusiasm: Season 7, Episode 6: "The Bare Midriff": 6.2

I personally thought that this episode had a bit too much going on that it tried to cram into the episode. I know that the show usually does have a lot of threads that all tie together in some way but I think this episode overextended himself. That being said though I still liked the episode.

I was happy to see Jerry and Julia back this week. I really love Larry and Jerry's interactions with each other. At a certain point I started to wonder if the episode was going to be following them around all day and I sort of wish it had. The material with the bare midriff was funny although I wish they had addressed the issue more as a personal offense of what is and is not office appropriate wear and not so much as the fact that they were offended by someone of her body type wearing the shirt. I love the way Larry brought the whole thing up. He tried to be gentle but it backfired of course. Other highlights included Larry and Jerry refusing to move over for Richard Lewis and Richard Lewis getting hit by a car.

24: Season 7, Episode 22: "5:00am-6:00am"

24:
Season 7, Episode 22: “5:00am-6:00am”
Grade: 6.9

I am not sure why, after so many great episodes of 24 this season I have no idea why they decided that the last 6 episodes to drop the ball. This episode was not bad. There were good things about it definitely. I guess I am just disappointed that the season went in this direction. I was really hoping and not only hoping but had faith that this season of 24 would manage to bring Kim in and not have her be in danger. I was hoping that they would rely on Kim for something else than to be in peril. But once she was in the airport, I knew that she was in for it. As soon as we had the first shot of the woman that we are supposed to think is a nice woman that will help Kim out, I knew they were bad. There are some things and some situations where 24 cannot fool me anymore, but it’s cute to see them try. There are some things with the Kim thing this time that I appreciated. One was that Kim was not actively kidnapped like she always is; in fact at this point she has no idea what is going on. This was a clear decision made by the writers so that even though they have the same situation going on that we’ve seen before; it’s being done in a different way. So this I appreciated. Something else I have realized about it is that it is the most dramatic thing they can do. It has been a while since we’ve seen Kim and thus it has been a while since Jack has had to face this situation. When you add Tony into the mix of things and the fact that Jack is dying and Renee, you pretty much get the most dramatic situation that Jack can have going for him. So I am excited to see how this I resolved and I am also excited that if they had to bring the Kim thing in, that they have done it in a way that is slightly different. I just hate that the show became so clearly predictable this late in the game.

However I really cannot stand seeing Jack having to play the bad guy. Not in the sense that I think its bad TV but its just hard to watch. Again though, we’ve seen this situation so many times and while it is exciting, I was hoping that this season could continue its’ really impressive exciting streak by bringing something new to the table. Since Kim has to stay alive for Jack to give him the bone marrow so he can survive and since we know Jack survives, we know that both of them live. And since someone big has to die because this is the finale it has to be Tony. So Jack and Kim and Renee (she’s due back next season) will survive and Tony will not. It is not hard to figure out what will happen in these last 2 hours and that is very unfortunate.

In other news, what for me is extremely exciting is that Ethan is back!!!! Here is hoping that Ethan comes back for next season because there is no way Olivia is obviously going to keep this job. I have always liked the Olivia story because even though she is aggravating, I have always been interested in the story. Again though, it’s another story that we pretty much know how it is going to end. I may not know the specific outcome of it but obviously Olivia will no longer have her position at the end of the season and she will be found out. However it will be interesting to see how this effects the Taylor administration. YAY ETHAN!!!

This episode among the goods was a great scene between Jack and Tony in which Jack beat the hell out of Tony all in a minute. Then we see him asking why he betrayed him. Neither has anything left to lose. He looks at Tony like a sad puppy. Then we go to Renee as she gets a position on Jibraan. Then she goes to get Jack and we see that he has been standing there looking at Tony all sad and disappointed and betrayed for the past minute and a half. Oh boy was it sad.

On the other hand we saw Jibraan and Hamid reunite which was nice. I really was hoping they would end up happy. No Taylor which was weird. She has been pretty absent lately. So that is pretty much it. Everything is set up for the next two final hours of 24 Season 7. I’m not too thrilled with the familiar situations we are in going into the finale but I am hoping it will be exciting nonetheless. Even though I’m pretty sure about what is going to happen, it will still be really heartbreaking and dramatic for sure if Tony is in fact dying next week.

24: The Past Three Episodes: 2:00-3:00am, 3:00-4:00am, 4:00-5:00am

24:
Season 7, Episode 19: "2:00am-3:00am"
Grade: 7.8

The episode after Tony reveals that he is in fact still bad is a solid one which is more than I can say for the two episodes following this one. Something that I admire about this season is how fast everything has moved. Things that would take 5 hours in another season of the show take 1 or 2 episodes at the most. So I was afraid that Tony would have to play it cool under Jack’s nose for multiple episodes which was something that I was dreading. Luckily this was all solved at the end of the episode when Jack figured out that Tony was bad. Wow Tony has really turned into quite the douche. I really just do not care much about him anymore. I’m still attached to the character only in that I’ve known him for so long but I really just do not care about him anymore. It’s what he does to Jack that I really care about. So it was pretty difficult to watch where Jack and Tony’s friendship has gone when Tony refused to give Jack his medication during his seizure. I wonder what others think about the question if Tony is willing to kill Jack if it came down to it. I think he actually would be able to do it. I hate to admit it but I think he would be able to. It was a very exciting episode during the parts with Jack and Tony because Tony was just trying to get Jack to leave because of his condition while Jack knew something was up and could not quite figure it out for a little while. However by the end of the episode he realized that he had mistrusted Tony all along. Jack was about to shoot Tony because he had said that if he found out that Tony was fucking with him, he was going to kill him on the spot. His seizure prevented him from doing that. I think Jack is extremely willing and ready to do whatever it takes to make sure that Tony stays dead this time around as much as it pains him to.
Renee learned about Moss’ death : ( and we see that Renee deals with death by bottling up her emotions (seriously, Jill Bauer coming through). I felt really bad for Renee because she cared for Moss so much and they really had their relationship put through the ringer during the season. Crazy stuff happens with a blonde woman who shows up as Hodges look alike lawyer who she killed and presents him with a suicide pill because his death will save his family. I do not get how any of this connects because I’ve just lost track of things. Hodges swallows the pill but he survives. So much for the “suicide pill”. Kim leaves and we find out that Jack is now Grandpa Jack because Kim herself has a daughter name Teri. Oh my god how depressing is that? Overall it does keep the momentum of the last episode and is good but the next two episodes just kind of meander a bit for me.

Season 7, Episode 20: "2:00-3:00am"
Grade: 6.3
Here is where we start our two episode slump. Its not an actively bad episode and I understand that set up needs to be provided on this show but honestly it just felt like we were dragging ass here. There was no urgency to anything and there should be urgency at this point in the season since there has been for the rest of the season. Tony kills the guy with the canister because he wants to double cross Tony which was a stupid thing to do. Jack questions Hodges but gets nothing because Hodges truly knows nothing about the people he was working for. This was probably the best scene of the episode as Hodges tried to compare himself to Jack. We finally see Chloe again who hugs Jack which is adorable because they are BFF’s at this point even though being friends with Jack is not what its like being friends with other people. The CTU servers are put back online which is awesome because its just like old times. Then we are introduced to the illegal Muslim that is going to be framed for the attacks that Tony and his group are going to be doing on the country. I know his role is just another one of those “how are we supposed to give a crap about you when we will only see you for a few episodes kind of person” but honestly I feel for this guy and his brother. What a sucky deal. Olivia has no capability of being mature and understanding her mother’s decision to give Hodges a Witness Protection Program deal even though he was responsible for the death of their brother/son. So she calls someone to help her take care of Hodges even though she made it pretty clear to Aaron moments earlier that this was something she wanted so it won’t look good if he turns up dead an hour later but apparently she does not care. Olivia can be a moron sometimes. Oh and Jack flipped out on Janice because she was being annoying and because of the mood changes that the virus has inflicted upon Jack. It was awesome. The throwback to Palmer’s name was enough to almost make me cry. Again, the episode was not bad but parts of it seriously dragged and that is the last thing you want to happen on an episode of 24.

Season 7, Episode 21: "4:00-5:00am"

Grade: 5.9

And we enter the second hour in which we get…a lot of set up. The moment with Chloe and Jack when she figures out that something is wrong with him and finds out that he is dying was the best moment of the episode. It was weird how slow this episode was. Again with the no urgency. It did not even feel much like 24 to be honest. The parts that I liked were the fact that Olivia called off the assassination but a bit too late apparently or maybe not because we have no idea what happened as Jonas Hodges blew up. Thank God. Seriously, what a whiny annoying schmuck he was. After he was taken into custody he just became pathetic. I actually feel bad for Olivia. That’s right. Because no matter who killed him, she is totally taking the fall for it and that sucks for her but it’s what happens when you almost set up an assassination.
Tony and others are taking on the subway system. I still feel bad for Jabraan and his brother although it should hopefully be fairly obvious to the brother that Jabraan was forced to tell that lie. It’s a pretty shitty plan Tony I have to be honest with you.
Jack and Jabraan’s imam stuff was kind of annoying. First of all it pissed me off that way Jack handled the entire situation. He was a total asshole about the whole thing. Second of all brining him along makes no sense. It’s just so another person could point out how fucked up and lost and sad Jack Bauer is. Just one more person to pity him. We get it. It just felt forced to me.
Even though this episode was another one of mostly set up for these final hours, things pretty much look as if they are set in motion. They know Jabraan is being set up already and all of the final pieces are being set in motion. Next week looks like it is going to be very intense with lots of stuff happening. So let us hope that all of this set up was worth it as we head into the final 3 hours.

24: Season 7, Episode 18: "1:00am-2:00am"

24: Season 7, Episode 18: “1:00am-2:00am”
Grade: 9.5

I have been wondering what to give this episode for a while. It’s not what prevented me from writing the review sooner. I’ll be more caught up with things when school ends. Even though the twist at first upset me greatly, I have gotten over it and am simply ready to see where the show takes all of this even though it will probably end with Jack killing Tony. I also would like concise explanation writers. Seriously, make me believe this. I guess the reason I am so ok with this is because of the strong reaction I had to it. 24 made me react like that in the past. It had not for such a long time though; no show has really gotten that reaction out of me for years. So that is ultimately why I loved this episode, for better or for worse, the episode absolutely left me screaming at my television set in ways I could not have imagined. But it is not simply this; the rest of the episode was incredible. Really really great. So off we go.

We had President Taylor trusting Jack in ways that only Jack Bauer can do. I love the relationship he had with Palmer (David not Lame Wayne). We saw her hold her own in a conversation with Jonas Hodges and painfully have to endure going through his list of ridiculous demands. When they started reading those off and we saw what he wanted it became clear to me just how lame Hodges is. What kind of delusional world is he living in that he thinks he can walk away with these privileges’? What a loser.

Then we had Renee tell Jack that Kim was there to see him. They threw in an interesting twist here. While I had originally assumed Renee would butt her way into Jack’s business like she always does, Kim had actually been trying to get a hold of him all day and for a long time now. The scene between Renee and Jack was ridiculously intense and incredible. Kim’s always been the only thing that Jack cannot face. And I love his line to Renee ''I am dying! And I was okay with it. I could handle it. And now you put in front of me the one thing — the one thing that's going to make this unbearable?...I specifically told you: Do not drag my daughter into this!'' It’s just so true and I was already crying by this point.

Then we get the Jack/Kim reunion which was thank God all hugs because I could not handle them getting into a fight. Is it me or did Elisha look not so good? I was surprised by how old she looked and I wonder if that was intentional. Anyways, Jack is crying, Kim is crying and I am sobbing. Then Kim leaves and jack starts sobbing and then I go into emotional breakdown mode. Seriously…I cannot handle it. These scenes were just so satisfying as a fan to see and I love that these last few hours have showed us that Kiefer could do more than yell at people. The guy can seriously act when it comes to Jack Bauer and I do not think there is a TV character I am more attached to. I’ve been watching him for 7 years. That’s insane. We have not seen the last of Kim and I hope they keep this up with keeping her out of the danger. I sincerely do; the one thing they can do to fuck up Kim’s return is to put her in danger.

Onto the Tony extravaganza. Well…I knew something was up. I had an off feeling. The shots to Tony at the elevator, Moss taking off Tony’s handcuffs, the one too many shots of him in the helicopter. I said to myself “This feels weird” but I never even went to the idea of Tony being bad in my head. Never. I truly believed him when he said he was ready to answer for all of the things he had done. I had heard something big was going down in the way of the silent clock although I was so caught up in the happenings of the episode that I do not even know if I heard one. Either way, I figured Moss would die about 20 minutes in; just a hunch. Did I know Tony would kill him? Fuck no. It really sucks for a couple of reasons. One is that I genuinely liked Moss. A lot. I had texted my mom at some point in this exact episode that simply said “I love Moss”. I thought he was great; an idiot sometimes to be sure but ultimately pretty awesome. So his death really blows just as a death on the show. Then we bring Tony into it. Can Jack handle this? I sure can’t. What I am going to hate seeing is us knowing what is going on with Tony and knowing that nobody else knows what is going on. I hate that. I just want everyone to know. He killed Moss with his bare hands!!!!!!!!! What the hell?! The reason that I am more excited about this than I am pissed about what they did with Tony specifically is because between Seasons 5 and 7 I got over Tony. He was my favorite. I liked him more than Jack. When he came back I had simply moved on from the character. I still care and I still really like him and Jack/Tony will never get old. But it’s not the same with Tony. However it is exactly the way with Jack as it has always been and that is why I am pissed; not because of what they specifically did to Tony but because of what that will specifically do to Jack. So here is hoping they can pull this off. The episode proved that the show still has the ability to completely pull the rug out from under us. They will not get an opportunity to do something quite this substantial I suspect for some time if ever so let us hope they make the most of it.