The Men Who Stare at Rods

24 Season 8 Episode 7
10 p.m. to 11 p.m.
2.8.10

There's a great danger roaming through the plains of the USA and it exists in Mac Trucks hauling wooden boxes filled with penetrating rods of nuclear power and the men who stare at them.

These men may look harmless and unassuming, but they are in, in fact, there for a reason. They are the transporters of evil and are charged with the task of answering satellite phones and occasionally mumbling something in Russian.

And it is with this mission that they are the focal point of 24, the show that has found a way to weave the meandering lives of a special group of people hell-bent on proving they have what it takes to make it through yet another day of terroristic fun.

What is terroristic fun you ask? It involved wearing a pair of round black glasses and pointing a gun at someone's head as they drive a car.

"Jack…seems to be in control."

You know who isn't in control? All the women on 24.

If they aren't stabbing Russians and angry Germans, they're being naïve and thinking they can talk sense into their fathers or that their bone-headed ex-boyfriends can enter the right four-number code into a keypad.

"There's too many numbers."

I'm surprised that Starbuck was surprised that Kevin and I'm with Stupid couldn't handle a 15 minute getaway time. If they couldn't handle a keypad code, it was a safe bet they couldn't handle the concept of time.

Starbuck should have just told them the money was going to disappear if they didn't leave the magic building of wonders in time. At least those would be terms they would understand.

Instead, they go through the lockup looking for candy and eventually hit a cop with a baseball bat. Then they celebrated by drunk driving around NYC, proving once more that only dumbasses drive in NYC.

The other subplot of futility involved Hassan's daughter who sounds like a character that stepped out of Disney's "It's a Small World" ride and accidentally took the shuttle bus Guantanamo Bay.

"Everything will be alright...once I talk to my fah-ther."

Fah-ther Hassan is pissed and has succumbed to the sweet temptation of torture because once a man loses his Friday night hussy and his family in a matter of hours, the only thing left to do is beat the crap out of someone.

Bored with this subplot? So is Renee. So much so that she wants to call your attention away by stabbing some fool in the eye. In. The. Eye.

There's a special kind of rage that takes over a woman who will stab a man in the eye, and then when that man is down to repeatedly stab in him in the stomach and the balls. But it takes an even crazier dude to try to bed that woman.

Bauer: Let's fix you up and take you home. Duffman! Oh Yea!

For Bauer, a stomach stab wound is a part of foreplay, as is waterboarding and public threats. He followed this up with hiding her in the closet with a loaded weapon. Had the Russians not showed up, Jack's top sexual fantasy would have been complete.

Instead, he's hauled away in underground tunnels where CTU drones are unable to detect anything.

While Bubba Gump gets Bubba Gump furious at his team for not "caring" about their sudden lack of enthusiasm, Jack is hauled away by the people who are trying to sell the rods because thanks to the shitty economy, selling nuclear power on the black market is the new 401K.

And once it's sold, those people won't have to kill off their sons and daughters because of a lack of healthcare.