1) Will this post contain plot spoilers?

Yes. By the score. If you don’t want to know what happened over the last four episodes, I recommend you stop reading now.

2) That pain in the neck commenter who says after every FAQ post how much he hates them probably already has. Anyway, you’re a “24” fan. Why? Isn’t it cartoonish and silly?

It is cartoonish, but it’s not silly. It’s extremely well done, anchored by a very serious protagonist who has to constantly make serious moral decisions while trying to save America. It’s actually kind of incredible how a show so utterly implausible remains entirely gripping and intense in a way that the typical James Bond movie could never dream of being.

3) What makes it implausible?

Everything. Start with the notion that the people running our counter-terrorist operations are, as Lileks noted, forced to toil away in the world’s most poorly lit workspace. Continue with the fact that every plot development happens to unfold neatly within a given episode’s confines. I could spend all day listing “24’s” implausibilities. And yet the show still works.

4) How?

In addition to brisk and creative writing and directing, the key to the show’s success is that everyone involved with the production does their job with complete intensity and conviction. There’s no winking at the camera. Ever. In reality, it would be impossible for an American super-agent to go to China, be tortured for two years, never say a word, grow a Rip van Winkle beard, and then get cleaned up in ten minutes to be handed over to a bunch of Arab terrorists for some torture and execution. But if it were possible, the agent in question would act just like Jack Bauer does.

5) There were murmurings throughout the right wing blogosphere that “24” had grown soft and politically correct. Say it ain’t so!

I didn’t see it that way. The terrorists were Radical Muslims, doing things like screaming “Allah Akhbar” before blowing themselves up on commuter lines. The ACLU lawyer is a tiresome scold that even her innocent Muslim client/boyfriend wants to strangle. When the president succumbs to the temptation of negotiating with terrorists, his weakness results in a nuclear bomb being detonated in greater Los Angeles.

6) Whoa! A nuclear bomb exploded in greater L.A.? Bummer. Jack must have messed up.

No. As always, had they only listened to Jack, none of it would have happened. It’s also worth noting the causal chain that led to the bomb exploding: It was a team effort among terrorists, weak-kneed politicians and suburban weenies suffering from white man’s guilt that made it all possible.

7) The suitcase nuke that exploded on the show last night – could anything like that really happen?

Short answer – no. Slightly longer answer – it’s virtually impossible. I’ve written on the subject at length in the past if you feel like Googling through the archives here to put your mind at ease. A mushroom cloud over an American city because of terrorists getting their grubby mitts on a so-called suitcase nuke is for many reasons not feasible. (A dirty bomb, however, is quite feasible.)

8) Do you think the show will awaken the country to the dangers of terrorism because part of L.A. got vaporized last night?

I would love if the country once again focused on terrorism and put aside Donald and Rosie for a spell, but if our political discourse has become so degraded that a TV fantasy drives the debate, we’ve got big troubles.

9) But isn’t it art’s job to move hearts and minds?

Good point. But still, while “24” is great fun and a skillfully produced piece of entertainment, I think confusing it with thoughtful social commentary might be inappropriate.

10) It’s often been posited that Hugh Hewitt is the Jack Bauer of the blogosphere. Is this true?

Completely.

Compliments? Complaints? Contact me at Soxblog@aol.com.