The June 9 episode of 24: Live Another Day featured London in ruin. Jack (Kiefer Sutherland) and Kate (Yvonne Strahovski) tried to save Simone (Emily Berrington) — and London — from Margot’s (Michelle Fairley) wrath, Heller (William Devane) made a tough call and Margot came after Jack with her drones, resulting in mass destruction.
As always, 24 has been about cyber-security, the surveillance state, and the contrast with a world of mistrust and extreme reciprocity that is both terror and counter-terror resulting ultimately in life and death international decision making. This week's episode as always, makes some of the narrative elements clearer and muddies others, still building on the problems of US policy operating in other countries, allies or not.
The latest episode features some standard genre narrative themes: some version of parental concern or its absence and the reconciliation of difference through shared discourse. Stuff gets blown up and casualties occur as a hospital is hit by drone-launched missile. It may be the case that Kate Morgan could be the key to a revival of the show for a subsequent season or a spinoff series. This episode has decent product placement for Jack driving the latest Chrysler 200 at high speed through London streets without damage, undoubtedly an important issue for the sponsor. Continuity error: the POV of the drone camera as opposed to the missle seems to be ubiquitous and with greater range than one might expect but that perhaps is a sop to the scale of the televisual medium itself.
President Heller decides to buy time and sacrifice himself by offering to surrender himself to Margot. Jack tries to turn a badly injured Simone based on her reluctance to kill and Margot's willingness to target her with the drone that blew up a fake safehouse in a prior episode.
Missiles follow Jack Bauer around London in this episode, yet the real Wack-a-Mole, CIA station chief Steve Navarro, turns out to be a turncoat managed by Adrian Cross who turns out be more than simply a Julian Assange-like figure although it was a nice touch to make him Chloe's lover. Navarro targets Jordan Reed, the CIA analyst who raised audience suspicions about Kate Morgan's late husband not being a traitor.