Originally published April 12, 2017. Updated April 16, 2018.
Ricky Church reviews the eleventh episode of 24: Legacy…
Though I’ve been slightly disappointed with the last couple episodes of 24: Legacy, its penultimate episode actually brought the quality up by several notches. ’10:00 PM – 11:00 PM’ focused a lot on the characters and story rather than pulse-pounding action, though the final few minutes provided quite a bit of tension.
Seeing Carter and Donovan together was actually an interesting pairing and gave viewers something different than we’ve seen previously in the season. Donovan was rightfully angry at Carter for going through with Rebecca’s plan, but the rest of their time together saw them actually bonding. It was interesting to see the parallel between them as John wants the same thing for Rebecca as Nicole wants for Carter: both their spouses to fully leave their dangerous profession behind only to realize they might just be made for it.
We also got to see Jimmy Smits portray Donovan in a very different light. In his quest to protect and save Rebecca, we saw Donovan acting very resourcefully, using his status as senator to sneak Carter into the Pentagon and getting the idea to use Shalowitz to hack into Sims’ phone (speaking of Shalowitz, he continues to add some good humour to the series. “I’m a bit worried about the past tense you used” was great). This episode brought Smits into new territory and he played it very well.
What also helped elevate this episode was a couple of the reveals that were made. I mentioned before how Oded Fehr’s Naseri would have benefited from being built-up some more before becoming the next main bad, and while this latest episode doesn’t fix that, it at least went a long way to further his motivations against CTU and America. Believing they had killed his daughter after they took her hostage for leverage added a bit more to his character, such as his line in the previous episode about how “people are monsters only when Americans are killed” and his scene with Miranda Otto was well acted.
Then there’s the fact that Sims’ indicated Rebecca was not only involved in the kidnapping of Naseri’s daughter, but was actually her idea. Whether this was something Sims just said to take Donovan’s confidence down or was the truth is unknown, but we’ve seen Rebecca make some hard and cold choices this season that it’s not outside the realm of possibility. I’m pretty sure that’s a line Carter wouldn’t cross himself so it will be interesting to see his reaction if Rebecca was involved at all.
We’re so close to the endgame now that not much else happened aside from the main plot, which was actually another strength of the episode. Nicole and Isaac didn’t appear at all, giving a whole lot of space for Carter’s story to progress, though it was a bit weird there wasn’t any follow-up on Donovan’s on-the-run uncle, the only one who can possibly contact bin-Khalid and the terrorists. Still, that’s probably being saved for an 11th hour save in the finale.
The conclusion brought about some nice tension as Carter faces the very real possibility of fighting Tony and his team of mercenaries. It will be interesting to see how this is resolved, but I’m betting next week they’ll join forces pretty quickly in order to save Rebecca from bin-Khalid and Naseri. Hopefully the finale will stay away from the typical tropes Legacy has fallen into and deliver an episode along the lines of this with a strong story and character moments.
Rating: 8/10
Ricky Church
