Prisoners

No major spoilers here

Having nothing better to do with Beth out of town, I decided to check out Prisoners, director Denis Villeneuve’s follow-up to his 2010 Best Foreign Language Film-nominated Incendies (which I have not seen). Coincidentally, Prisoners opens on Thanksgiving Day with the families of Keller and Grace Dover (Hugh Jackman and Maria Bello) and Franklin and Nancy Birch (Terence Howard and Viloa Davis) celebrating together. The young daughters from each family, Joy and Anna go missing while walking back to the Dover home.

Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal) heads up the investigation. He brings in Alex Jones (Paul Dano), a simple minded guy who lives with his Aunt Holly (Melissa Leo) and drives around in a creepy RV. Because Alex has “the mind of ten-year-old” Loki can’t get anything out of him and suspects that he wouldn’t have had the mental capacity to plan and carry out a kidnapping. Against Keller’s arguments, Loki is forced to release Alex. Keller, even more suspicious of Alex, contemplates doing some interrogating of his own…

24: The Longest Dead Series Discussion of Our Lives – Season Three

“HOW A FATAL VIRUS THREATENED, THEN SAVED THE CHANDLER PLAZA HOTEL’S TRIPADVISOR RATING”

24 is a groundbreaking and important television series. Beyond the thrills, kills, twists and tragedies is a show that reached a new level of serialized storytelling and set the bar for action and suspense on network television. Lasting for 8 full seasons–192 Episodes plus a TV movie–24 is one of the longest-running shows of the past 15 years. Others, like Grey’s Anatomy, NCIS, Smallville, all three CSIs and three of four Law & Orders, may have run longer, but the argument can be made that none of those shows are equally as worthy of contributing to the debatably labeled and vaguely-defined “Third Golden Age of Television Drama” that began with The Sopranos in 1999 and is now fading with the end of Breaking Bad and the impending finale of Mad Men. Perhaps 24 doesn’t quite reach the dramatic heights of those shows, or others like The Wire and Deadwood, or even The Shield, Lost or Battlestar Galactica, but it was always a strong awards and ratings contender and it was just so addicting and fun to watch.

Please join us—Patches, Zach, Jeff and MegaMix—as we take a look back at this series, discussing one season every month until the premiere of the new 12-episode miniseries 24: Live Another Day in May 2014.

This month’s discussion is focused on Season 3 of 24, which premiered in October of 2003.

It contains SPOILERS for the entire series of 24 and strong language. Parental discretion is advised.