Ricky Church reviews the tenth episode of 24: Legacy…
Well, the comparisons to 24: Legacy and its predecessor grew even more with its latest episode. The cast once again gave a strong performance, but not even they could elevate ‘9:00 PM – 10:00 PM’ past its story problems.
One of my constant criticisms of the rebooted series – I’ve really starting to sound like a broken record – has been how often Legacy hinges on the same tropes of 24 without taking any new risks. With this latest episode, however, Legacy’s shown itself to be specifically inspired by the very first season of 24 to a large degree.
For those who might have forgotten, 24’s first season featured Jack Bauer and Senator David Palmer as targets for the Drazens, a pair of sons who wanted revenge against Bauer and Palmer for killing their father in a covert operation. The latter half of the season revealed Drazen senior had actually survived the assassination attempt and kept on attacking Bauer and Palmer for revenge. Sound familiar?
The reveal that Ibrahim Bin-Khalid survived Carter’s operation after all wasn’t too much of a surprise given the couple hints we got about Naseri’s true identity in the previous episode, but it was surprising just how much Legacy was willing to contrast the original series. It also pushed Raphael Acloque’s Jadalla to the sidelines. Though he never got too much time to truly shine as Legacy’s primary villain, he at least seemed a bit more interesting than his father.
That said, though, it also shows how much Jadalla was wasted throughout the season. He actually had a fairly interesting backstory – at least it sounded interesting. The potential was there for him to standout as a good villain, someone who began not believing in his father’s work, but it was never fully realized. Even the scene where he reunited with his father lacked any emotional punch. In the end, all Jadalla amounted to was a textbook 24 villain with daddy issues.
The rest of the episode at least allowed for Corey Hawkins’ and Miranda Otto’s Carter and Ingram to get some more one-on-one time. The chemistry between the two is good and Otto sells her role as CTU’s leader, willing to make tough calls and be just as involved as those in the field. Otto gave a pretty good performance for what I thought was going to be her last appearance in Legacy. Given the way the episode ended, she has at least one more episode to go, if not the finale itself.
The rest of the episode was okay. John’s uncle predictably went on the run rather than risk getting in a bit of trouble to save his nephew’s life while Andy uncovered a connection between Bin Khalid and a government agency, once again utilizing the mole or shadowy-government force trope. Carter’s love life also went further on the rock, looking more likely that she’ll either end up back with Issac or, if Legacy continues to borrow from the original series, die by someone’s hand in the finale.
It’s a shame because 24: Legacy was actually improving the last few episodes, but now it slipped quite a bit with its copying of 24’s first plot. The cast and some of the character work helped bring some interesting dynamics to an otherwise uninspired episode.
Rating: 5/10
Ricky Church