People who torture people are good guys.

This implies that the people who torture Jack are good guys.

Well, or it implies that torture is part of the repertoire of good guy actions, no less so than for bad guys. I think you're taking Gus's sentence in a stricter logical sense than he intended.

My take on 24 is that, in service of a SHOCK!!@!, they will do anything. Which, you know, I get bored with that. And once I'm bored, I can sit there and analyze the social-political-cultural thoughtlessness of the plotting, and that is when it becomes time to change the channel.

I mean, I suppose it would not be a fun plot for Jack to torture somebody in Hour 17 and discover in Hour 23 that the information he obtained thereby was totally wrong and led him into a series of stupid mistakes. But cavalier use of a Taser in the workplace sort of warrants some, you know, electricity in kind as a response. Also possibly some hair-pulling, dope-slapping, and a beating about the head and shoulders with a psychology textbook.

Actually I think the cavalierness-to-reality weakens the show substantially. It is like outlandish serial-killer movies: in order for the outlandishness not to become a joke, the contextual details have to be nigglingly perfect (i.e., real-world). I think 24 would be a more effectively gripping show if it did not require viewers to accept that its central premise is a joke.

I haven't been watching 24, but why should I let that stop me...

I think you lose your position as "good guy" once you start torturing people. Kick the Spike always made me uncomfortable, but I could sort of let it go because he was a vampire and (my) normal rules don't have to apply to them. But they should apply to Buffy.

I guess I don't mind writers allowing their supposedly good characters to torture people, but I think there should be consequences in the story for that. Joss had a term for it that escapes me, but sort of along the lines of "there was a price for bringing Buffy back."

When Sayid tortured Sawyer, in Lost, Sayid seemed to be bothered by it and took some time away from the group because of it. I'm not really sure what that time away did for him, however.

eta: So, getting back to Jack. If our hero Jack is going to be torturing people, there should be some visible price paid for that along the way.

I am Stephanie. I don't watch 24, but I agree that good guys don't torture folks. If they do there should be a big price paid. Ends don't justify the means. Two wrongs don't equal right. It seems others also feel this way. The good guy character that is written to do very bad stuff without torment is not really written as a good guy.

Jack does nothing without torment, up to and including taking a pee, I'm pretty sure.

His character is standingly gutted, because he's the one who does things so the "good" guys don't have to. He's Mr. Plausible Deniability, and it's left him alone, alone, alone, and also harrowed.

Will he be extra alone because of this season's torture? More alone than stopping the surgery on the good guy who'd taken the bullet saving his life (and who died soon after) so the bad guy could get sewn up, because he had info?

Remains to be seen, but it'll be hard to tell the sources apart, when all is said and done.

I think God has a Jack Bauer complex.

That would explain all the smiting.

To be fair, it doesn't take much to understanding smiting, at least where humans are the smitten, when and where smiting capability is a given.

I'd totally be a smiter.

Smite. Smote. Smitten. The words are meaningless.

Ahh, see, you've over-smit yourself. Step back from the thunderbolt for a bit and your joy in smiting will return.

So, I heard Tony dies in the finale. I'm assuming it's true, since he and Michelle got their teary goodbye in.

oh what bullshit. It kinda looks like he might be a goner.

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in other news, "Charmed" was renewed for God's sake. So this finale should be interesting.