"24 S8.13" Recap - “Writers Meeting at the Karaoke Bar”

24 S8.13 – “Writers Meeting at the Karaoke Bar”

• EMP aftermath – it’s been 5 minutes and they’re acting like it’s been a half-hour later judging by how much has transpired.
• Zaboo is having remorse for selling out Fajita. No kidding. She won’t be giving up her falafel to him anytime soon.
• Jack calls an old pal who happens to be working at 3 am and then guesses the exact dock that the Jihd Gang is shipping the rods from. Good thing the bad guys had time to put a quartet of snipers all over the place just in case someone found them there. Wait, what?
• NSA shows up and in the midst of a national security emergency, they have time to get into a dick-measuring contest with Bubba and CTU.
• Bubba rallies the troops with some Chumbawumba lyrics. OK, this is deliberate; no way have there been this many song lyric references this year.
• Chloe has a good idea to get online but NSA blocks her. Hmmmm, I wonder if they’re evil or just the usual government a-holes.
• Oh, there’s Agent Red; at Casa de la Jack. She’s looking remarkably refreshed for someone who was a total mess the last time we saw her.
• MILTON Yahoo is still jonesing for the Starbuck tapes. First lameness of the hour arrives halfway in.
• I guess NSA techs aren’t armed as Chloe whips a gat on them. This isn’t gonna end well, is it?
• Jeez, is that gun fight still going on and no one has called the local cops? Is gunfire like that that common in Brooklyn these days?
• Jack tries to reassure the Red Shirts, but as expected they screw it up and get themselves capped. Full Metal Jacket homage.
• Fajita is back at the UN and Regis is gonna ground her for eleventy-gajillion years.
• Screaming Trees lyrics now?!? Oh, come on!!!
• They bust in on Chloe who convinces Bubba to give her 10 minutes to win it. Starbuck disagrees with her plan and we all know what a good egg she’s been .
• For crap’s sake, why the hell doesn’t Bubba tell Milton to come back during business hours. ”Hmmmm, I’ve got a national security threat; my agency has been blinded by terrorists; I’ve got my nerds ready to cat fight and pulling guns on the intra-agency nerds; why not take the meeting with the probation officer from the Ozarks?”
• Yay, Chloe!!! NSA dweeb is like, ”Whutevah.”
• Why the heck didn’t Jack and Damp Boi put on the Red Shirt’s armor or at least helmets? Good thing that Red showed up in time to save the day, no?
• Line of the Week: Chloe, “I’m not good with praise.”
• Starbuck goes to see Milton and WHOA!!!! Starbuck goes hardcore and garrotes him! Yeah, like that body’s not gonna start smelling in the vents. Where the hell was this chick all day?
• Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me!!! Starbuck’s a jihadi mole?!?!? We’re supposed to believe she’s been laying low and dodging hicks from the sticks all day like a kicked puppy and now she’s a badass terrorist insider?!?!?!?

Thoughts: Another really solid episode with good tension until the very end when you can just tell that the writers stopped trying to shoehorn in song references to amuse themselves and tried to address the fact that Starbuck has been a total annoying doormat all day long. It just doesn’t make any sense and the desperate changeup was really noticeable and means that CTU’s screening has to be even worse than initially thought.

Hardcores: Jack, Chloe, Evil Starbuck.

Little Bitches: Red Shirts, minions, NSA dweebs, Milton Yahoo, common sense.

Up Next: Judging from the lightness of the sky, it looks like they previewed the next few hours where we’re going to be playing “Find the Dirty Bomb,” the new show on the Game Show Channel.

Episodes Score: 8/10 – I was gonna give it a 9, but the Derka Starbuck twist was just too stupid.

JBBC: Jack finally pops another pair, so he’s up to 10.