Final “24” leaves Mondays; U.S. without a hero

Monday, Monday—can’t trust that day….not now that Jack Bauer isn’t here to make my day. I’ve looked forward to Monday nights for eight television seasons of “24”—truth be told my husband and I were strong-armed into watching it by our daughter. We subsequently crunched the videos from seasons one through five into a manic marathon one Montana winter while renting a small townhouse during the construction of our retirement home. Necessarily we cut ourselves off by 10:00PM; otherwise we were too keyed up to sleep.

In the span of a 24-hour real time day (which lasted an entire season) no character nibbled a granola bar, sipped from a water bottle, or visited a rest room (except to escape through its window). No one slept, laughed, or smiled. Why need we be concerned about losing a little sleep?

It didn’t matter that what our hero accomplished was virtually unachievable; it was that fine borderline between implausible and just a wee bit workable that had us clinging to the edge at every episode’s end. As fictional as any mystery thriller, when you’ve lived as long as we have, you know this: stranger things have happened. Would President Palmer (who now sells Allstate Car Insurance) prevail? And how could he allow that nightmarish first lady back into his oval office? Of course, no one, not even Richard Nixon and his sagging jowls could top President Logan whose eyeballs crossed and bulged every time his lizard-like neck elongated in evil. You half expected his tongue to flick.

Chloe, the inimitable assistant at our government’s Counter Terrorist Unit verbalized what all of us have fantasized we could voice to co-workers and superiors but never had the nerve to. She, above all others, was every woman’s heroine. After guffawing throughout the final episode—“That would never happen” and “They would have so checked her cell phone for that sim card”—Brad and I collapsed into a crying jag at the final scene. “What was that?” we asked each other, incredulous over our sudden surprising emotion. Perhaps because Jack and Chloe, both of whom have trouble emoting finally let it all hang out, so did we. Well, Brad didn’t actually cry as hard as I did—there’s a little of Jack in any male.

“I didn’t even cry!” my daughter’s telephone voice was laced with annoyance. “I was so dissatisfied with that ending!” She was one of no doubt many who wanted to see their boy Bauer reunited with his family or falling in love with someone who for once didn’t die while on duty. At the very least, he deserved a ticker tape parade for being, as always, right. About everything, despite the advice of the President’s entire staff.

But no, I explained to her. Jack had to leave unheralded and unsung. He must exit stripped of identity, community, and country—an exiled animal, bleeding. Sob.

Terrorism will never feel the same. The lights have been extinguished at CTU; the uplinks of every street and every room of every American city building are no longer being zapped to Bauer’s cell. As Chloe ordered to her staff, unable to look at Jack’s tortured visage one moment longer as he gazed up into the eyes of the satellite at her in gratitude and undying comradeship, “Shut down.”

Jack readily rescued without a spider suit or a batman cape; a slight figure whose voice rasped into nearly indistinguishable words, he was no Incredible Hulk. He was everyman who could do what no man can—not even close. So here we sit on Monday night, remote control in hand, searching for another deliverer from entertainment ennui.

Oh Monday, Monday—Jack, how could you leave and not take me?