Relentlessly compelling and suspenseful, the first season of 24 stood out as the finest thriller series viewers had seen in a long time, its terrorist storyline getting more relevance after 9/11. Following such a pinnacle of tension and drama with an equally good second year (or day) was going to be tricky. Fortunately, the second series starts as splendidly as the previous one ended.
It's been 18 months since the tragic events of Day 1, and things have changed considerably: David Palmer (Dennis Haysbert) is now President of the United States; CTU is run by the unpleasant George Mason (Xander Berkeley); and Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland), still distraught by the loss of his wife (cue a fully grown beard) and unable to have a proper bond with his daughter Kim (Elisha Cuthbert), is no longer an active federal agent. At least until he receives a phone call from Palmer, who asks him, as a friend, to take care of a potentially lethal situation: a nuclear device that will probably explode in Los Angeles within the next 24 hours. Meanwhile, a woman named Kate Warner (Sarah Wynter) begins to get suspicious regarding the Middle-Eastern man who is about to marry her sister (Laura Harris). Could he have something to do with the threat?
Bigger and bolder than the preceding season, Day 2 is also more interested in crafting realistic, three-dimensional characters, as shown by the fact that the entire first half of the episode is used to make Mason come off as a more likable person than he was in Season One, emphasize how Palmer is more concerned with people than power and show how miserable Jack's life has become. It is this attention to detail, strengthened by the real time, that sets the show apart from most other televised thrillers. Well, that and the omnipresent suspense, also a product of the narrative structure.
And let's not forget the performances: Haysbert keeps up the good work he did previously, Cuthbert is truly affecting, while Berkeley and Carlos Bernard succeed in portraying their characters in a more sympathetic light than before. As always, though, the real focus is on Sutherland, and he doesn't disappoint once: extremely touching in one scene and shockingly brutal in the next, he injects Bauer with a moral complexity that is bound to conquer audiences, especially when Jack comes up with a very unorthodox way to get the job done and says to a very disgusted Mason: "That's the problem with people like you, George: you want results, but you never want to get your hands dirty.". That line isn't just a summation of Jack's methods, it also serves as a description of the series: gritty, occasionally merciless and willing to explore some really dark territories. Unmissable.
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