Ricky Church reviews the second episode of 24: Legacy…
As 24: Legacy continued with its second episode, Corey Hawkins still impressed as Army Ranger Eric Carter, but he’s becoming even more of a carbon copy of Jack Bauer with this instalment of the series. ‘1:00 PM – 2:00 PM’ was still an enjoyable episode, but unfortunately leaned a bit too much on the usual tropes from of the original series, something I feared might happen with the series premiere.
As the episode progressed, Carter showed the same kind of moral ambiguity and disregard for protocol that Bauer was known for as Carter kidnapped a pair of police officers in order to steal a bunch of evidence money. It’s a little far-fetched to believe he had to go through all that in order to get the terrorists’ cell phone from his former partner. Time is obviously short, but he and Rebecca really thought that was the best plan to get Grimes his money?
It’s a typical situation from 24, but replace Carter with Bauer and it could be right out of the original series. Combined with the possibility that CTU has a mole in it, its kind of disappointing that creators Manny Coto and Evan Katz are using so many of the same tropes without trying something a little new. At this point, there’s just really not much to differentiate 24 and Legacy from each other.
One aspect that was nice to see explored, and will hopefully will gain more depth later, is Nicole’s belief that Carter actually misses the war. It’s a good bit of character development with him and his family, that without a battle to fight he doesn’t feel like himself or even alive. This at least separates him from Bauer; the former CTU agent was always on edge and, despite having a family on some other relationships, never really wanted to get out of the game. Carter does, but refuses to recognize his devotion to the battlefield.
On the other side of 24: Legacy, we got a bit more of an idea how Amira’s plot at the high school is intertwined with the main plot. The reveal that she’s part of the larger attack against the country, not just a member of a small splinter group, makes sense and will hopefully be intriguing to see play out. Hopefully, however, there won’t be a lot of high school drama that will distract from the rest of the series, especially now that she and her teacher have gone and killed her ex-boyfriend on school property.
One of the other downsides of the episode was the fact that Teddy Sears didn’t appear in a whole lot of it. Being relegated to an interrogation room for the episode, and really appearing in only one scene, didn’t get us to know his character much more or why he’s fit to run CTU. Unfortunately, this is also where Legacy borrowed a bit too much from its predecessor: the head of CTU runs a behind the scenes op, an assistant or other CTU agent who disagrees with them informs their superior, CTU head is caught, etc.
While it’s still off to a fairly good start, 24: Legacy is relying too much on the regular twists and turns fans of the franchise know all too well. I’d like to hope this will change, but judging from the way the plot is progressing, I’d say it won’t deviate from the formula too much more.
Rating: 6/10
Ricky Church
Originally published February 9, 2017. Updated April 16, 2018.
