Ricky Church reviews the seventh episode of 24: Legacy…
Over the last couple weeks I’ve been disappointed with the quality of 24: Legacy, but the latest episode, ‘6:00 PM – 7:00 PM’, improved things quite a bit on several fronts. There was a good amount of character and story development on display as Carter decided to rescue his wife and brother, but at the very likely cost of his own life. We also got the return of Carlos Bernard as original 24 character Tony Almeida to boot.
One of my constant criticisms surrounding Legacy has been how it feels too much like its predecessor. It’s never seemed like enough work has gone into differentiating Eric Carter from Jack Bauer too much, especially when Carter takes the same kind of risks and plans Bauer would, but this episode helped to greater a gap between the two era heroes. Whereas Jack would simply have kidnapped Andy, Eric actually recruited him into his plot to damage bin-Khalid’s drive in a very earnest conversation.
It was this moment that really set up the character development we saw throughout the episode. Both Carter and Andy benefited from this as they contemplated and accepted the off-the-books mission, knowing full well they were unlikely to escape. I’d argue this actually helped Andy’s character more than Eric’s; throughout the season Andy has been a sarcastic yet loyal member of CTU, but beyond his relationship troubles with Thomas he’s never really been defined other than that. Seeing him accept the suicidal risk Eric proposed propelled his character and credit is due to Dan Bucatinsky for delivering the emotional weight Andy was going through.
Carlos Bernard’s return was a cool yet somewhat understated moment. Tony’s return wasn’t saved for a big, cliffhanger-worthy scene, but instead just a prompt reveal that he and Rebecca have worked together before. Tony seems to have lost some of the edge he had during 24’s seventh season, displaying a bit more dry humour than we’ve seen from him in a long time. Bernard played it well and while he didn’t do too much in this episode, it’s still nice set-up for what he may do later in the season.
However, as good as it was to see Tony again, Legacy played very loosely with the continuity of the original show. Tony mentions that he and Rebecca briefly dated after Michelle died in season 5, but he ‘died’ later that season only to re-emerge in season 7 with Jack and the rest of the government believing him to be dead in between that time.
Where Tony had the time to date anyone, much less move on from Michelle given his intense desire for vengeance in season 7, is beyond me. Maybe it will be explained in more detail later, but for now it was very distracting and I wish Legacy paid a bit more attention to the timeline of the original show.
The rest of the episode had some great moments scattered throughout. Jimmy Smits got to flex a bit more muscle as John Donovan, something he hasn’t been able to do recently since Donovan Jr.’s been somewhat sidelined lately, and Nicole was actually good again. Anne Diop shined when she verbally sparred with bin-Khalid and tearfully fought back when Eric gave himself up for her. All around, this was arguably the best episode of the season thus far with a sharper focus on the story and characters.
Rating: 8/10
Ricky Church
