Tuesday, March 16, 2004
The Timeline
So I'm rewatching S3 like I said I would. Knowing the info that I know up until the 3-4am hour, I'm confused, so I'm going to try and work out my questions by writing a nice long ramble about the events of the day so far.
Jack and Chase witness Ramon Salazar stab his attorney with a pen just after he signs his 'deal' for a lighter sentence. He is suposed to give up his terrorist contacts to Jack in exchange for less jailtime or something like that. He is carted back to his cell calling out, 'What happens next is on you Jack!'. Jack spends some time going over video of the stabbing, requesting images be sent to him at CTU.
Meanwhile a body infected with this Cordilla virus is dumped at Health Services and eventually they work out that the body was infected via a crystalline substance, most likely cocaine or heroin. Tony tells Michelle to activate a level one protocol (or whatever level it was). Now, Tony is meant to be working with Jack on this point and they both supposedly arranged for this body dump. If I've got this right, Jack is working with Hector, as is Gael, but unbeknownst to Hector, Jack is also working with Gael and Tony to double-cross him down the road because they know about these Ukrainian scientists trying to sell this virus. Jack needs to get back undercover with Ramon because without Ramon, Hector is unable to come up with the necessary funds to purchase this virus. I think.
So in order to do this, Jack has to convince Ramon he's flipped sides. I guess this is where I get a little muddled. Why the elaborateness of Kyle Singer and the body dump? During this hour we meet Kyle and learn he's been hired as a mule to bring a small bag of dope across the border from Mexico. We learn that the bag may contain the virus in its crystalline form. Kyle is supposed to meet someone later in the day to drop off the bag and pick up the rest of the cash he was promised. Is the whole Kyle Singer thing just a ruse to keep CTU busy? It just seems that Jack was pretty gung ho on tracking him down - chasing Goss, interrogating him to get Kyle Singer's name out of him etc. I guess it just seems weird to me all of these elaborate setups and plans just so Jack can get back undercover with Ramon.
I'm guessing that a lot of things went wrong with Jack/Tony/Gael's plan along the way. If Tony also knew about Kyle Singer from the beginning, maybe that's why he approached Kyle in such a laid back fashion. And I guess that even though Gael and Hector know about Kyle Singer, the minions don't and that's why Gomez ended up shooting Tony in the neck. But why was Hector keen to get Singer into the isolation chamber if he knew he wasn't really infected or associated with the virus at all? Just to keep up the pretense? Or maybe so that those outside the triumverate would continue to believe that Hector does have the virus and will let Kyle go infect everyone if Ramon isn't released.
But then, Jack knows the president won't release Salazar so basically the ruse of Kyle Singer was just a way to pressure the president into allowing Jack to break Ramon out because Ramon needs to see Jack betraying his country in order to come around to believing Jack isn't with CTU anymore. But then Chase had to wreck that by squealing on him and so he had to create the riot to break Ramon out. It wasn't part of his plan to play russian roulette or have his clever daughter (yes I said Kim is clever. Shut it.) suspect Gael and end up forcing him to hold her hostage for a little bit which eventually led to him being discovered as a mole and tortured for a while by Chappelle. Jack didn't mean for Tony to get shot, or Gael to get the Johnson treatment. He didn't mean for that guard to die at his urging.
Bue even as he and Ramon escaped the jail, he doesn't want to know that CTU has recovered Kyle because that would mean he'd have to give Ramon back. I believe Jack figured out that Chase was screaming at him that they had Kyle as he lifted off in the chopper, but chose to ignore it. Chase didn't know it, but Jack had other plans.
That's as far as I've gotten in my rewatching. Jack just took off with Ramon. and as I'm writing this, I'm thinking that only someone addled by heroin could have come up with a crazy plan like this to buy a virus. What seemed foolproof in writing and planning, ended up getting completely blown off course by the unpredictability of human nature - ie. Gomez taking his own initiative and shooting Tony, Kim blowing Gael's cover, the prison warden discovering Chase in Salazar's cell before Jack could get away from the prison etc. Even up until the whole virus auction, Jack is following his plan while fighting his addiction, but he still has to think on his feet when Chase shows up and almost blows it for him. He didn't count on running into Claudia again either. Or Nina for that matter...
I don't think I'm making much sense, but I can kind of see now how they were able to pull off the big twist of Kyle and the body dump. It was incredibly elaborate and bizarre, but for the most part it worked. It's just that upon rewatching all of this, and knowing that the writers don't have a 'grand plan' for the season I sometimes get the feeling that the twist of Jack, Tony and Gael working together to get back under with the Salazars was something they just came up with along the way rather than something they planned from the start, know what I mean? I'm not saying it doesn't work for me, I'm just saying that it's rather like watching S1, knowing that Sarah Clarke had no idea she was the big bad guy until close to the end of the series, so it's difficult to go back to the early episodes and try to spot some point where she was acting suspiciously because there aren't any. Early on she was playing Nina as a good guy. That's what this feels like to me.
But like I said, I don't think that's a bad thing :)
Jack and Chase witness Ramon Salazar stab his attorney with a pen just after he signs his 'deal' for a lighter sentence. He is suposed to give up his terrorist contacts to Jack in exchange for less jailtime or something like that. He is carted back to his cell calling out, 'What happens next is on you Jack!'. Jack spends some time going over video of the stabbing, requesting images be sent to him at CTU.
Meanwhile a body infected with this Cordilla virus is dumped at Health Services and eventually they work out that the body was infected via a crystalline substance, most likely cocaine or heroin. Tony tells Michelle to activate a level one protocol (or whatever level it was). Now, Tony is meant to be working with Jack on this point and they both supposedly arranged for this body dump. If I've got this right, Jack is working with Hector, as is Gael, but unbeknownst to Hector, Jack is also working with Gael and Tony to double-cross him down the road because they know about these Ukrainian scientists trying to sell this virus. Jack needs to get back undercover with Ramon because without Ramon, Hector is unable to come up with the necessary funds to purchase this virus. I think.
So in order to do this, Jack has to convince Ramon he's flipped sides. I guess this is where I get a little muddled. Why the elaborateness of Kyle Singer and the body dump? During this hour we meet Kyle and learn he's been hired as a mule to bring a small bag of dope across the border from Mexico. We learn that the bag may contain the virus in its crystalline form. Kyle is supposed to meet someone later in the day to drop off the bag and pick up the rest of the cash he was promised. Is the whole Kyle Singer thing just a ruse to keep CTU busy? It just seems that Jack was pretty gung ho on tracking him down - chasing Goss, interrogating him to get Kyle Singer's name out of him etc. I guess it just seems weird to me all of these elaborate setups and plans just so Jack can get back undercover with Ramon.
I'm guessing that a lot of things went wrong with Jack/Tony/Gael's plan along the way. If Tony also knew about Kyle Singer from the beginning, maybe that's why he approached Kyle in such a laid back fashion. And I guess that even though Gael and Hector know about Kyle Singer, the minions don't and that's why Gomez ended up shooting Tony in the neck. But why was Hector keen to get Singer into the isolation chamber if he knew he wasn't really infected or associated with the virus at all? Just to keep up the pretense? Or maybe so that those outside the triumverate would continue to believe that Hector does have the virus and will let Kyle go infect everyone if Ramon isn't released.
But then, Jack knows the president won't release Salazar so basically the ruse of Kyle Singer was just a way to pressure the president into allowing Jack to break Ramon out because Ramon needs to see Jack betraying his country in order to come around to believing Jack isn't with CTU anymore. But then Chase had to wreck that by squealing on him and so he had to create the riot to break Ramon out. It wasn't part of his plan to play russian roulette or have his clever daughter (yes I said Kim is clever. Shut it.) suspect Gael and end up forcing him to hold her hostage for a little bit which eventually led to him being discovered as a mole and tortured for a while by Chappelle. Jack didn't mean for Tony to get shot, or Gael to get the Johnson treatment. He didn't mean for that guard to die at his urging.
Bue even as he and Ramon escaped the jail, he doesn't want to know that CTU has recovered Kyle because that would mean he'd have to give Ramon back. I believe Jack figured out that Chase was screaming at him that they had Kyle as he lifted off in the chopper, but chose to ignore it. Chase didn't know it, but Jack had other plans.
That's as far as I've gotten in my rewatching. Jack just took off with Ramon. and as I'm writing this, I'm thinking that only someone addled by heroin could have come up with a crazy plan like this to buy a virus. What seemed foolproof in writing and planning, ended up getting completely blown off course by the unpredictability of human nature - ie. Gomez taking his own initiative and shooting Tony, Kim blowing Gael's cover, the prison warden discovering Chase in Salazar's cell before Jack could get away from the prison etc. Even up until the whole virus auction, Jack is following his plan while fighting his addiction, but he still has to think on his feet when Chase shows up and almost blows it for him. He didn't count on running into Claudia again either. Or Nina for that matter...
I don't think I'm making much sense, but I can kind of see now how they were able to pull off the big twist of Kyle and the body dump. It was incredibly elaborate and bizarre, but for the most part it worked. It's just that upon rewatching all of this, and knowing that the writers don't have a 'grand plan' for the season I sometimes get the feeling that the twist of Jack, Tony and Gael working together to get back under with the Salazars was something they just came up with along the way rather than something they planned from the start, know what I mean? I'm not saying it doesn't work for me, I'm just saying that it's rather like watching S1, knowing that Sarah Clarke had no idea she was the big bad guy until close to the end of the series, so it's difficult to go back to the early episodes and try to spot some point where she was acting suspiciously because there aren't any. Early on she was playing Nina as a good guy. That's what this feels like to me.
But like I said, I don't think that's a bad thing :)
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