'Tis the season (premiere)...

Well, it looks like most of the ice is starting to melt, and businesses are slowly opening up again. Which is good, because after 36 hours of being stuck inside my house with absolutely no hope of leaving, I was starting to get rather stir-crazy. Actually there WAS a business open yesterday – the Walgreens drugstore down the street. Oh, and the CVS drugstore across from the Walgreens. (We’ve been unable to figure out WHY, exactly, that CVS decided to build directly across the street from the Walgreens, but now it seems like anything the Walgreens does, the CVS tries to do better… so if Walgreens was gonna force its employees to drive on slippery sheets of solid ice in the freezing rain and sleet to open the store, then by God, so was CVS… it’s like neighborhood drugstore wars…)

And in other news (okay, it’s not really “news”)… I watched the two-night, four-hour, season premiere extravaganza of 24 this week, even though I wasn’t sure I wanted to watch it again this year. But the fact that hour 4 ended WITHOUT Jack Bauer saving the day like a superhero has convinced me that I may have to give it a chance again. At least until hour 16 or 17, which is where it started losing me last time (“can we wrap this thing UP already???”). I wasn’t sure if I’d still watch after the first two hours – Jack’s been in a Chinese prison for 20 months, where apparently his captors fed him 2200 calories a day and allowed him unlimited access to gym equipment. Because all he had to do was shave his matted, scruffy beard and he was back in top form. And then there was the use of a plot device I’m pretty certain was already used last season – Jack calls up CTU, tells them they’re after the wrong man, and tells them who they SHOULD be after. But, “oh no, we can’t trust Jack Bauer – not the guy who’s never steered us in the wrong direction and always has correct hunches. He might be screwed up in the head because of all that Chinese food…” Did they not use the exact same thing last time? Jack tells everyone what they should be doing – and he’s correct – but no one wants to believe him. Even though he’s ALWAYS been right in the past. I guess that’s why the president finally gave him control of the operation – finally, after a myriad of times being “right,” someone realized that Jack usually knows what he’s talking about. (Of course, this’ll probably turn out to be the one time he’s wrong… who knows…)

And then there was Kal Penn. I saw his name listed in the names of the guest stars the first night and I was like, “Cool! Kal Penn! Kumar!” (Uh, that’s Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, for anyone who missed that movie… it’s an incredibly dumb yet absurdly funny movie... at least I think so… but I tend to have a weird sense of humor at times…) On 24 his character’s name was Ahmed, and when we first see him, the FBI is dragging his dad away as he insists his dad has done nothing wrong. Then the big neighborhood bully shows up, talking about how “we don’t want your kind here” or some such nonsense, and the nice family across the street decides to intervene. Dad goes over and tells Big Neighborhood Bully to get lost, and that Ahmed and his family are “no more terrorists than we are.” And then he invites Ahmed to stay with his family until things get back to normal. Aw, what a nice guy. But hey, guess what? Ahmed really IS a terrorist, and when he sneaks back to his house to get a “package” the terrorists need, Big Neighborhood Bully shows up again, a scuffle ensues, Ahmed gets thrown into a glass coffee table, and Big Neighborhood Bully gets shot. And then the nice kid from across the street shows up, and everything just goes downhill from there.

I must say it was quite interesting to see Kal Penn in this role – in fact, I have to assume he took it because he’s trying to break away from his “college comedies” typecasting. But it was rather disconcerting to see silly, hamburger-hunting Kumar holding a gun and snarling, “do exactly as I say or I’ll kill your family.” And when the kid from across the street says, “but Ahmed, we’re friends!” and Ahmed says, “friends? You can’t even pronounce my name right. It’s not ah-med, it’s agh-med,” I just wanted to slap him silly. But I guess that just means he’s equally as convincing as a bad guy as he is playing a guy who’s got the munchies… I was scared… I wanted to give him a bag of White Castle burgers and hope that was enough to appease him…

As a little side drama, CTU was thrown into chaos by a passionate love triangle consisting of two fairly decent-looking guys, and Chloe. Wait – Chloe? Two guys are fighting over Chloe? Chloe. That girl who’s always scowling and looks mad at the world? That girl who snaps at everyone and furrows her brow and acts like she’s doing you a favor just by coming to work? That Chloe? Maybe there’s a different Chloe somewhere… or maybe I just don’t have a clue what guys find attractive… which is totally possible…

But like I said, the ending was quite a surprise. It’s not too often that Jack Bauer can’t save the world. So I’ll stick around for a few more hours and see where this is leading. I’ll bet it’s leading to a White Castle…