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• Tuesday, January 23, 2007 05:22 AM

  Jack in the Box

  Newsflash Wachowski Bros. – I have found him! Jack Bauer IS the One! At some point there was an aural misconception that led to the belief that Jet Li was the One, but nay, it wasn't Jet, it was Jack. It is.

  And surely, he just has to be the one; there's no other choice for him, he has to be perfect at what he does, because everyone around him is so shabby at what they do. Just, just take a look at CTU, what a bunch of amateurs! Ever since season one there has been so much treachery, infiltration, breaches of all sorts, compromises and protocol-twisting within the ranks of CTU, that I would seriously consider privatizing the whole organization.

  But not only CTU is flawed – everyone is, every un-one is: the cheerful Chinese who torture Jack for two years and don't leave a single scar on his face (what on dear earth happened to traditional eye-meets-spoon techniques?); the parade of myriad terrorists who cannot secure a man normally to a chair; the assassins who fail miserably to assassinate; and of course bleeding hearts such as Curtis, who just cannot set aside the trivial mental folly of hate, just because a guy once, way in past, in a faraway land, beheaded some of their mates. Blimey.

  Along comes jack, and does what every good teacher should do: set an example. For me, Jack is a guide, a mentor, a pundit, a guru, a rabbi! For in him lie all the answers, and he knows best, and he outdoes Spike Lee when the time is nigh to do the right thing. That's what I truly adore about him, and that's why I look up to him: because emotionally I'm too mellow and malleable, whereas he just aims at being right and shoots truth straight in the heart (perchance torturing it a bit beforehand, being jack).

  Bauer has hardly more then two dimensions to him, and exactly two modes of operation: Whisper and Shout. When he whispers you should listen carefully, because many lives are at stake, including yours, and normally he would whisper in your ear sweet nothings such as grid coordinates, locations, names, number plates, acronyms, data of sorts essentially. But when he shouts, Lord have mercy, better cower and tell him all you know, because this dog's bite is so much worse than his chilling bark, as the new season so subtly demonstrated already. The last voice one wishes to hear, under any circumstance, is Bauer's Gato-Barbieriesque wail, "PUT YOUR WEAPON DOWN!!!" as this is the voice of doom, and doomsday is approaching, obviously.

  Yep, Bauer is a god of vengeance, a god of retaliation, a desolation angel, and being an atheist I can deeply relate to that. I revere him. He is a modern-day Tisiphone; a digital Tisiphone.

  Surely, he's one cold cucumber as far as idle chats are concerned, he knows nothing of and is not interested in winter sales, the new i-something gadget is of no importance to him, and if you try to indulge him in a conversation about Shostakovich's early symphonies and the change in his musical line after Stalin's article in Pravda, well, you'll probably find yourself in dire straits (the condition, not the band), answering questions in a secluded soundproof CTU interrogation room, mumbling answers about your Pravda subscription and Shostakovich's evil plans of terminating the Americas.

  WHERE IS DMITRI RIGHT NOW?! Where Is He?!! (Hand grabs hold of spoon in shiny cold metal tray)

  So, Jack Bauer is not someone I would have as friend, but he surely is someone I would like by my side when the fundamentalist shite hits the detonation-fan; how can you not adore a man who gets stabbed in a bundle of nerves in the shoulder and just goes on as if all is well, because he has to, because he is the only chance the United States and the free world have, because he is the one person who can stop Them, all of Them, because he is the only one, because he is the One.

  And if today is the worst day of his life, it will probably make the happiest twenty-four hours (minus commercials) in our season of content.

  —Erez Asherov
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