Bah. Lame final episode...I have to say that this season really petered out towards the end and IMHO the blame must fall on the writing. It had been consistently poor throughout this season, but things *really* fell apart over the past few episodes (a marked contrast to last season when just about everything wrapped up quite nicely).
If nothing else the Kim subplot alone is reason enough to fire the whole stinking lot of '24' writers. In the first season her stupidity was at least connected to the main plot, which (combined with her boobies) almost made it tolerable. This time the entire g-ddamn Kim subplot came off as some kind of second-rate urban adaptation of 'Alice in Wonderland', as the audience was subjected to a series of increasingly irrelevant encounters with one overly contrived character after another. We meet Mr. Psycho Wife-murdering Fugitive Husband, Mr. Psycho Kung Fu Cripple Boyfriend, Mr. Psycho Anti-social Lovesick Survivalist, and finally Mr. Psycho Incompetent Shopkeeper-shooting Crybaby....
AND *NONE* OF THEM HAD ANY FREAKING RELATION TO THE MAIN PLOT.
*bangs head against wall in frustration* And fer the love of Jebus, if you're going to waste ~1/4 of the show's running time on a completely unrelated storyline at least put some thought into it...I came up with better ideas than that garbage in junior high. :disgust:
Even worse, it wasn't enough for those sadistic bastards on the '24' staff to make us suffer through the painfully pointless Kim plots. Nooooo, they just *had* to inflict more carnage on their viewership...so they wracked their walnut-sized brains and finally came up with the Oh-So-Original Office Love Triangle (with a special 10-second guest appearance by Danny the Amazing Drunken Wonder Hick). Oh joy, just what I wanted--more excrutiatingly tedious drivel crammed into each episode for no apparent reason except to steal air time from the *vastly* more interesting storylines of Palmer & Jack.
Overall I grade this season a C (compared to last season's B+). I'll watch next season but the writing had better improve dramatically. Either (1) kill off Kim, (2) make her subplot directly relevant to the main storyline, (3) make it waaaaay more interesting as a stand-alone storyline, or (4) give up all pretense and have her spend the entire 24 hours doing jumping jacks in the shower, because as things stand now she is killing the show.
And one more thing--Haysbert's character had better live because he is one of the only two '24' actors (the other being Kiefer Sutherland) capable of carrying a scene on their backs...without their fine performances to satisfy viewers the writing flaws would really begin to stand out.