Episode Report Card M. Giant: B | 1 USERS: A YOU GRADE IT Out of Time
By M. Giant | Season 8 | Episode 24 | Aired on 05.24.2010
Kiefer manages to jog a short distance down the street. He's far from home-free; just in the past few hours he's been re-shot, re-stabbed, in a car accident, gassed, and beaten up. All he's got now are the bloody, tattered clothes on his back, a cell phone that he shouldn't have and a face that looks like it was used to tenderize a frozen side of beef. He's the most wanted man in the hemisphere. So what's he supposed to do now, hop on a bus to JFK and catch the first plane to Paris? Oh, fuck it, he'll be fine. He always is. That's why this doesn't really seem any more like a series finale than the end of any other season. He's always fucked but alive when things wrap up; it's just that this time the balance is tipped a bit more toward the former than usual. We've still got a movie to make, after all.
Kiefer pauses to look back up at the drone just as its camera is zooming in tight on his face. Because Chloe's orders don't supersede Arlo's flair for the dramatic. Chloe's face is covered with tears as she says, "Shut it down." Kiefer's face dissolves into pixels -- just like the title sequence -- as he gets moving again. And the final clock beep-booms 00:00:03... 00:00:02... 00:00:01... 00:00:00. Because in a world without 24, time has no meaning.
So that's it. The last "beep-BOOM." This isn't the first series finale I've recapped, but this one's a little more significant to me than, say, Rock Star. Obviously my emotions are mixed here, but lucky for you I'm not going to bore you with them now. I decided to stick it in a blog a few weeks ago. Suffice to say I'm grateful to this sometimes brilliant, sometimes infuriating show and everyone who made it; everyone who made it possible for me to write about it (and yes, that's everyone from Sars/Wing/Glark to the current editors to you, and thanks for reading and sometimes writing); and most of all my family -- M. Edium, who's five and a half now but wasn't born when I started, and Trash, who put up with so many long hours of my eyes shuttling incessantly back and fourth between two glowing screens, especially on season premiere weeks. Sure, I've still got other shows to write about, but you never forget your first. It's been a real time.
Find out what your favorite past 24 stars are doing now, then see what made the cut in this list of TV's 50 most shocking moments ever.