By the time you read this, Season 8, and the series itself will be over.  Finished.  No doubt, by that time, Jack Bauer will have made some difficult choices — er, difficult for us mere mortals.  See, Jack Bauer is not paralyzed by the indecision that often comes with seemingly intractable moral dilemmas.  No, sir, he takes action.  He has to take action.  That's because There. Is. No. Time.  No time for second-guessing.  No time for deliberation.  That's right.  No time.  No time, despite the fact that his day is long.  Really long.  Twenty-four hours long.  Let’s not forget, however, that's twenty-four hours of tough choices and no time to make them.

The show, you have probably figured out by now, if you haven’t been living under the proverbial rock, is “24.”  (Is there a proverb about a rock?  Not sure.  Doesn’t matter.)

Why do I know all this, and more?  Ask my mother.  It's her fault.  Her fault that I know this stuff about Jack, and other stuff about Chloe, Kim, Tony, Michelle, Nina, President Palmer, etc., etc., etc.  Yes, I blame her, and I enumerate each offense on what I call, “The List.”  I think every child has one of these, or at least every child like me.  Anyway, it's a list of all the ways my mother has failed me or been a bad mom.  It’s a short list, really, because truth be told, she has never really been a bad mom or actually failed me.  Still, one does need some leverage, so there it is.

The fact that there's no list means, for example, that I forgive her for that time when I was four and I fell off the chair and broke my collarbone, only she didn’t know it and so picked me up by slipping her hands under my arm pits and kinda shaking me around telling me how I’m fine and to stop crying.  Heck, I survived.  My shoulder healed.  I’m not John McCain.  I can still raise my arms above my head.  Then again, McCain got a cameo.  I didn’t.  I guess he’s got the last laugh, after all.

But I'm thinking Mom has finally pushed things too far.  Maybe I need a list.  After all, there’s “24.”  It’s her fault I am now obsessed with the show.  I don’t think forgiveness is an option.  Just ask Kim what she thought about family relations in Season 5.

Here’s how it went down.  (Things “go down” with my mom.  That’s how she rolls.  Have a dispute with her?  She’ll just tell you, “Things didn’t go down that way,” when she really means, “You’re so poorly misinformed, I can’t believe you’re wasting my time with this.  Why don’t you get a life?  Why are you harassing me?  Do I have to call the cops again, you $#&* moron?”

Double parenthetical: don't act like you don't know how people do that.  You probably do it yourself.  You don’t say it, but you insinuate in no uncertain terms by your tone that something is so freaking obvious I’d have to be a moron not to see it — and clearly, I don’t see it.  End double parenthetical.

Or she’ll say, “Look, that’s just how it went down,” when she really means, “I don’t care what you think or how you feel.  Suck it up, you whiny brat.  Whose kid are you, anyway?”  This is a woman made for Jack Bauer.)  Yeah, my mom could have been the CTU partner Jack never really had.

That reminds me of the time my sister and I were fighting in the back of the car.  (She was wrong, but I suppose that goes without saying.)  Anyhoo, our mom pulled over to the side of the rode and screamed, “Get OUT!”  Then she pointed off in the distance.

Across a swampy plot of land was a big, dark building with rusted bars over cracked windows, old school prison style.  (Did I mention I couldn’t have been more than age five or six?)  Slowly, she turned around so we could see the full extent of her fury, which had morphed, as it was wont to do, from blind rage to catatonic disinterest.  “Go there," she whispered, her voice hoarse.  Then, in case we weren't sure, she added, “It’s an orphanage.”

My sister and I blinked once or twice, during which time I could've sworn our mother added, "The only reason you're still conscious is because I don't want to carry you," but my memory may be a little skewed.  PTSD does that to you.

I know, I know.  It seems a little, ah, extreme.  But, you know, I get it.  I can understand.  Mom was under a lot of stress and stuff at the time.  My sister was a handful.  Remember Nina Myers?  Try growing up with her.

Suffice it to say, then, it's clear that for “24” to be on The List, things have got to be bad.  Not good bad, but bad bad.  Like real bad.  Like I started to say before, here’s how it went down: I was staying with my mom after her second hip replacement surgery.  (For the record, I never yanked on her leg and said, “You’re fine, fine!  Just get up!”  But that’s just me.  That’s just the kind of person I am.)  The second half of Season 7 was starting up, and Mom had to watch it.  She’d put it on her calendar, made me write stickies, set my alarm.  I drew the line at a tattoo across my forehead.  I have some dignity.

From the first “plink-plink,” Mom was entranced.  For my part, even before the first commercial break, I was hooked.  (Yes, I said "commercial break."  Remember, I was at my mother's house, where you watch network television and change channels with the clicker.  And it clicks.)  Turns out, I'm glad for every one of those commercials, since while they were yammering in the background, Mom tutored me on previous episodes.

"He can't do that to people," I objected when she told me about Jack's "methods."  She merely smiled at me patronizingly.  "Just like Renee Walker," she murmured.  "We'll see how long that lasts."

Indeed, my mother has continuously held the line when it comes to her loyalty to Jack.  In her world, there are no moral questions.  There are only answers.  ONE answer, actually, the RIGHT one.  And it's is clearly right because Jack made it.  And Jack made it because it was clearly right.  Right?

Mom was right.  It didn't last long.  I quickly came to see how Agent Walker would, you know, maybe recognize how there could be times when said methods are perhaps admissible.  So far as I can tell, no one in Season 7 who didn’t deserve a little torture got tortured.  (See, the trick is, only torture and kill the bad guys.  Duh.  WWJD?  Whatevs.  It’s WWJBD.)

In the end, I've finally decided that “24” is, ultimately, a show about acting in the face of imperfect knowledge.  There is always something to know, but more often than not, we lack all the relevant information.  Thus, our actions are ultimately rather tenuous.  Such is frequently the case with the characters on “24.”  And, since knowledge is arguably necessary to correct moral decision-making, we can see that bad things happen not always as a result of malicious intentions — that’s not nearly as interesting anyway — but because there is a lack of crucial knowledge.  In other words, the “right” decision may be accidental or it may be because a character has obtained a bit of information that allows them to know the moral landscape of their current circumstances, and hence what is to be done.  (Of course, if we could all be Kantian — sapere aude, I say — this wouldn't be an issue.  But in that case, the world would probably have been blown to bits years ago.  Not very pragmatic, that Kant.)

But having the courage to act in the face of insufficient knowledge — to be miserably, agonizingly human, after all — is why we love Bauer.  He is neither omniscient nor a dolt.  He is neither ill-intentioned nor dispassionately rational.  (Let’s not worry ourselves here over what constitutes ill will, and similar problems.)  In short, Bauer is like us.  In Sutherland’s remarkably subtle performance (despite the over-the-top-soap-operatic-drama), we see someone trying to figure out the best way to achieve a given end, and to make that end consistent with a clearly defined worldview.  In these characteristics, Jack is less like us in our daily lives, but this, I think, is precisely what makes him something of an ideal for us.

For their part, the creators and writers continually, if not always plausibly, put before us scenarios in which we have asked ourselves what we would (or ought to?) do if we were the ones making the decision.  And that is, despite the spectacle of the show, what makes it real for us.  It makes us, in some small way, philosophers.

So you see, Mommy, your devotion to “24” has afflicted me, and instead of allowing me to be entertained, has made me bring my day job into night.  I've bought and watched all the back-seasons just so I could be ready for the final episode of the final season.  Thanks.  Thanks a lot.  It's on my list.

Wait, wait!  I already know what you're going to say: “Look, kid, that’s just how it goes down.”

*****