Here’s another expanded chunk of my ACMI lecture on ‘Loveable Murderers’. (You can read the first piece here.) Who knew that 24 would finally come to an end between now and then?

Back in 2007, Brigadier General Patrick Finnegan said: “The disturbing thing is that, although torture may cause Jack Bauer some angst, it is always the patriotic thing to do.” When even the military asked producers to tone down torture on 24, it’s sometimes difficult to explain why I watched all eight seasons.

In fact, I confused some of the ACMI audience by accidentally sounding so pro-death penalty. In fiction, it’s surprisingly easy to say that some people ‘deserve to die’. In reality, I’m a bleeding-heart liberal crybaby. But I still enjoyed much of 24’s car crashes and inexplicable traitors and clenched fists and, yeah, even torture scenes. I guess I’m with Sarah Vowell, who wrote back in 2006 that “…there is a jarring disconnect between what I want my real-life intelligence officers to be doing versus what I want my fake TV intelligence officers to be doing.”

My lecture mostly focused on Showtime’s Dexter as the pin-up boy for loveable murderers everywhere. (Come on, he’s pretty dreamy.) But what’s the real difference between Dexter Morgan and Jack Bauer? Is there a slippery slope between how Dexter justifies his kills with ‘Harry’s Code’ and how Jack Bauer tortures in the name of patriotism?

I asked Dr. Jessica Wolfendale. She’s an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at West Virginia University, and the author of the book Torture and the Military Profession. You can listen to her response here:

Jack vs Dexter

In essence, what separates these men is that Dexter enjoys what he does, and Jack does not.

Further, as Derek Johnson noted recently, 24 does happily suggest torture results in “actionable intelligence”, but it also shows us what it does to the torturer. “Jack may repeatedly stop terrorist attacks,” he writes, “but at the expense of his loved ones, the health of the American political institution, and ultimately, his own humanity.”

As it continued, it was fascinating to see 24 slowly begin a new war – one against its own perceived politics. Season seven introduced a barrage of ways to address qualms over Jack’s actions. Jack was called to government hearings to justify his violence; he offended and befriended an Islamic imam; he explained that while he knows that laws have to be the most important thing, his heart won’t let him stand back when he thinks something needs to be done.

The series’ final shot – Jack, staring up into the camera of a high-flying spy drone, saying goodbye – was a suitable finish. Jack doesn’t get a happy ending. No well-deserved peace. Like John Wayne, walking away from the family he’s helped reunite at the end of The Searchers, he’s got too much blood on his hands to re-enter civilization.

(And the surveillance aspect was fitting, too, considering the obsession with mediated communication required for 24’s real-time gimmick to function.)

But it’s the ending of the penultimate episode, though, that might’ve sealed Jack’s fate. Pushed too far, out for revenge, Jack gets an old enemy in the crosshairs of his sniper rifle. Just before the familiar ticking clock ends the episode, we see him smile.

Jack’s enjoying himself. Suddenly, he’s Dexter Morgan.