24: Solitary Recap – Tony Almeida returns

I must disagree greatly. I think we might have to wait until 2016 for it but there will totally be a Day 10.

Aww, thanks. Nice to see you, too. I can see your points but I think it’s not that he’s jazzed to work for the government (or didn’t mean to say, anyway)… I think he’s jazzed for a chance to be his old self again and that means saving people and saving his friends. Look at the plot where it was left on Day 9– it’s bleeping *dire* for anyone Tony knew from the old days. Audrey’s dead, Heller’s dying of Parallel to Prion Variant Virus from Day 7, Chloe is adrift and still trying to figure out what happened to her dead spouse and kid (her New Year’s Resolution is to be nicer to Tony now that she’s lived his life) and Jack, well… good gravy. If Tony became a terrorist to avenge his family, Jack’s become a terrorist to protect his family. And this is *after* he went on a killing spree that led him down the path to this whole mess. We know that there’s no way Day 10 doesn’t have Tony and Jack cross paths (and ditto Tony & Chloe) but the setup here is really interesting– it’s not as clear-cut as ‘Tony needs to be redeemed and Self-Righteous Jack might be willing to get off his soapbox today’. It’s more like… Jack’s so in over his head in trouble that if Tony showed up in his life again with that old spark in his eye and a willingness to regain his footing as Jack’s measure for what a good man is, then Jack would take a couple episodes out of pride where he’s not quite so sure about anything other than the plot is a lot of fun when he and Tony circle each other so, why not :)… before he’d do the stoic, Jack Bauer version of falling at Tony’s feet and sobbing in relief that there might be hope for him, if there’s hope for Tony. That Tony might have shown up with an agenda– literally ANY agenda you can think of, it really doesn’t matter what you slot in here– but that now that he’s here and he sees what Jack has become? He’s going to double up his redemption arc with helping Jack take care of the Red Squares and get himself out of this mess.

At the same time, Tony’ll relate better with Chloe now. He might even be the only one who could help Chloe if things get rough enough for her because Chloe kind of did this whole common plot she, Jack, and Tony are sharing backwards from how the others are doing it. Chloe lost her family and she became a traitor but she took out her grief on herself because she couldn’t be sure that it wasn’t all her fault. She then got her redemption arc at the end of Day 9… but the end of Day 9 is also when she learned from Adrian that it is possible to find out what actually happened to Morris & Prescott. He died before he could tell her. Chloe isn’t just going to let that go and what’s going to happen when she finds out who killed her family- when she can put names and faces to them? Her path, too, is going to cross into Jack and Tony’s stories again. Her story is now similar to Tony’s story and I’d be that if he could spare Chloe from making the mistakes he did, he would do his best to do so. (Otherwise, why are they bothering having these stories all crop up at the same time?) I think Tony is sincere when he tells the prison administrator that he wants to be again that guy that he used to be- the one who saved lives- and I think that Tony would team up with whoever he could find who would give him that opportunity. He doesn’t exactly hate the U.S. government anymore than Chloe did when she released thousands of classified documents and otherwise worked against them. They were both pissed that Uncle Sam had destroyed their lives after they had given so much to their country. I’m sure that they have bitterness but they also have that kind of work in their blood and I could see a Tony who, eight years on from Day 7, is less embittered and more just wanting out. He wants that chance again and he hates that he’s been denied it, so he’s going to get it, dammit, even if he has to do some crazy shit to get there. It’s honestly not really that much different than Jack resurfacing on Day 9 willing to save Heller because of who he is to him and Audrey and what he represents in his past and all the lives that will be lost if a third world war breaks out because Heller dies. Jack wants to do the right thing and get that one last chance to work for the government and save civilians and be a damn hero. I’m pretty convinced that this is why he smiles when walks to the Red Squares at the end of Day 9– it’s because even though pretty much everything went fubar, the things Jack could control didn’t. He stopped the war, he saved people’s lives, and he even saved Heller, even if Heller was dying from something Jack couldn’t control. Yes, he lost a lot that day, but he was also oddly successful. He was even going to go out a hero, having saved Chloe. He could walk towards death with a smile on his face because it was all mercifully over and he could live with himself in the afterlife. Jack didn’t know if he’d die in a Russian prison somewhere, if they’d just kill him there on the spot, all he knew was he was done and he did what he resurfaced in London to do. That’s what I think Tony wants, too– that kind of opportunity. Whatever this plot is, he’s found a way, and that’s why he’s all keyed up for this mission, IMO. (That and… you know, a good steak, seeing the ocean, an actual bed, preferably with Jack Bauer naked in it… you know, his usual fantasies ;))

As for the government not trusting Tony to carry out the mission, I’m so with you. But that’s why we have the new kids, who also have to be in the plot. I’m thinking maybe they know this all has something to do with Jack at the onset, which is how Kate Morgan is brought back into the plot. She might have resigned but she is so far from done in the story, it’s not even funny. When Jack pops up on the radar, she gets a call akin to what Jack got at the beginning of Day 2: a mission has come up an d you are conveniently the only person on earth who can lead it, so you must return to the plot! We know you’ll say yes so just get here already!

Now, we’d be cooking with characters who all want basically the same thing– redemption– but will do different things to get it because it is defined a little differently by each of them. Kate’s got to bring in Jack Bauer for what he’s done for the last three years. Jack has to keep on pretending that he’s not working for the Russians while helping them– he’s the mole of the story now– or else his family is in danger. Tony gets into all of this to save lives and stop Jack but then crosses into Jack’s story and, upon learning what’s going on with him, will prioritize helping Jack out of that mess more than he will anything else. Basically? Tony on an undercover mission is the easiest way to explain why he’s getting out now, who is helping him, and why it’s so urgent that it happen right away after he’s been in there for eight years, and even why it needs to be an escape to maintain his cover.

Besides… we don’t know that Tony’s planning on escaping by himself. I think it’s mighty suspicious that they kept Sergei Bazhaev alive on Day 8. Not only that but they made it abundantly clear that he’d be spending the rest of his life in federal prison on terrorism and espionage-related charges. If I were the CIA or CTU and I got wind of the Red Squares stirring up some trouble and knew that this was the Russian mob, so I don’t even really know how to get to them, I’d say that I really needed Sergei Bazhaev to somehow miraculously get out of prison and restart his relationship with the group. I wouldn’t entirely trust him to do it but I also wouldn’t trust him *not* to do it, either, since his family is still in the U.S. and under American protection. But a seventy something year old guy escaping a federal prison on his own? Nah. Requires a highly-trained, highly-experienced, highly-capable covert operative with a reputation that would allow him to go with Bazhaev to the Russians and not be seen as a spy for the U.S. because of his history… oh wait! Just so happens there’s one of those in need of a new pair of reading glasses a couple cells down from Sergei… :) Or something like that.

Oops, meant to write didn’t not dodn’t.

As you were.