131 - Hard Reset
Summary
Jack gets shot right at the beginning, and then how his team eventually figures out he’s missing (’cause he was dumb and didn’t mention his rogue plans) and then has to recreate his steps to find him.
Rating
Ugh. Rogue-Jack is annoying. He’s ridiculously stupid and should be fired immediately as soon as he’s recovered, but we all know he won’t be. This is not at all fun or interesting to watch. Hopefully this story arch will end quickly.
Discussion
What is there to say besides “yuck”. I guess it would be an interesting episode if I actually believed Jack was that stupid. I don’t, however, which means I feel like the writers are just jerking the audience around, trying to clumsily manipulate emotion. It just isn’t working. Emotion is easily provoked by a good story with characters we care about. I care about the characters, but when they act so out of character, it just all falls flat, and the manipulation is at the forefront. Annoying.
I try to step back and look at the storyline without what I see as mischaracterization. However, that doesn’t even help because it’s really kind of a boring storyline without the support of our already (supposedly) warm feelings towards our characters. The plot doesn’t stand on it’s own very well. Human trafficker shoots FBI agent and dumps his body. Meanwhile, other FBI agents try to find both of them through building records and a lawyer. Ooo, the excitement.
And what is with Jack’s haircut? Was that Anthony LaPaglia’s idea? It is not a good look on him. However, I do know from feeling the heads of uncles with hair cut that short that it feels very nice on the hands - all velvety and soft. So if we had feel-o-vision, I might be all for the hair cut just so I could feel his velvety hair. But we don’t have feel-o-vision, and so it’s just a bad look.
There is one scene in this episode that I like. Samantha is thinking about a recent conversation with Jack in front of the vending machine in the break room, where she confides in Jack with some of her fears of not being able to make the right decisions when it comes to her soon-to-be born child. Jack offers some support and encouragement, some nice words of comfort and wisdom. I’m not a fan of the pregnant-Sam storyline (I’m hoping her child has as much airtime as the other agents’ kids, i.e., almost none and almost never mentioned), but this was a very nice scene. It was well written and well acted. I love the friendship amongst the team, and it really came out well here.
Notes
In computing and electronics in general, a hard reset refers to cutting power to a device abruptly and then having it start up again, without doing a proper shutdown process. In computing, this would generally be accomplishing by hitting the device’s “reset,” button, rather than choosing the “restart” option from the operating system menu. In this episode, the program undergoes its own “hard reset” of sorts, starting off with Jack Malone going missing after the program’s having been in repeats for over three months due to the television and film writers’ strike. [source]
Vivian speaks fluent French. She’s from “a little bit of everywhere.”
Quotes
Witness: How much longer are y’all going to be down here?
Danny: What, are you in a rush to see us leave?
Witness: I live in the building across the street. Your sirens keep me awake.
Vivian: Mm. Probably keeps the customers away too.
Witness: Yeah, what customers is that?
Vivian: Oh, I don’t know. Dock workers. Construction guys. Probably hard to sell junk when there’s cops around.
Witness: I don’t know what you’re talking about, a’ight? I just want my siesta. So… what… a half hour?
Danny: Did you see who torched that car?
Witness: I don’t know. With all this time, my memory’s starting to fade.
Vivian: You know what, Agent Taylor?
Danny: Yes, Agent Johnson.
Vivian: If we don’t get any answers from him. We’re going to have to talk to all his neighbors–
Danny: All of them.
Vivian: –and that could take what? A couple of days?
Danny: Mm, weeks.
Vivian: Yeah, weeks, right?
Danny: Weeks.