A hero’s back, just when we need him

Thank heaven for Kiefer Sutherland. What with all the big-changes-afoot brouhaha about the writers-strike-delayed return of “24” -- Did a stinky Season 6 mean the writers had run out of steam? Could a show based on torture survive in a Gitmo-outraged world? Were the creators out of their flipping minds when they claimed that the silent, stopped clock made it clear that Tony Almeida (Carlos Bernard) wasn’t really dead? -- one had to wonder if Jack Bauer’s next assignment would be to save the baby from the upwardly arching bathwater.

In a way, it is. As we learned in November’s two-hour prequel, “24: Redemption,” the Counter Terrorist Unit (CTU) has been disbanded and Bauer hauled back to the States to face a Senate investigation. That’s where we find him Sunday night, at the beginning of Day 7 in the series, newly shaven and facing the consequences of his (many and mostly illegal) actions.

Well, consequences may be too strong a term. From the opening remarks of the peevish and smug head of the subcommittee, anti-torture sanctimony is flung about with so much abandon -- almost every character who is not Jack gives some sort of speech about the importance of working “within the law” -- that you have to wonder if the writers are channeling network notes or just poking fun.

Mercifully, the action soon pulls (mostly) away from sticky moralizing into a classic bullet-riddled “24” plot. A nefarious group of murky intent has procured a device that can hack into every security system in the country, including those guarding air traffic control and the water supply. Only Jack can save the day, because one of those guys is Tony, resurrected from the dead and not, it seems, improved by the process.

Jack may be sporting an unfortunate Inside-the-Beltway-issue trench coat, but otherwise he remains as he ever was: sorrowful but unbowed, angry but not bitter, plagued by regret perhaps, but not guilt. He isn’t sorry for what he has done, he’s just sorry he had to do it in secret. The people “deserve to hear the truth and decide how far they want to let us go,” he says at one point, as if his attempt to drive a pen into the eardrum of an uncooperative arms dealer were a local proposition on commercial rezoning.

It’s hard to imagine another actor who could say this line, and so many like them, year after year without straying occasionally into satire, if not actual camp. But Sutherland, bless his soul, plays Jack absolutely and brilliantly straight. All super-spies have broken hearts, which they camouflage with martinis or dames or icy blue eyes, but Jack Bauer wears his right on his sleeve, even as he picks up that pen and heads for the first available eardrum.

So when he’s yanked out of his Senate hearing to aid the FBI in the investigation of a major security breach, he gives his little speech about how he can’t help them because he’s been deactivated, but then he gets down to work. Because it’s Tony, man, and what’s he doing playing for the bad guys? Not to mention FBI agent Renee Walker (Annie Wersching), as steely as she is lovely. Her boss (Jeffrey Nordling) may be the biggest by-the-book, anti-Bauer speech-giver around, but Walker, well, she’s not so sure. She likes a man who gets things done.

Meanwhile, and “24” is all about the meanwhiles, new President Allison Taylor (Cherry Jones) is about to invade the mythical tyrant-oppressed country of Sangala (am I the only one who finds this name hilarious?), no matter what her strangely dour chief of staff (Bob Gunton) might think, while her husband, Henry (Colm Feore), is obsessed with proving that their son’s recent suicide was actually a murder. The three situations are, of course, connected, and soon the screens are splitting among Jack, the bad guys, the White House and FBI headquarters, where Janeane Garofalo adds a little Chloe-like warmth to the proceedings as the nervous and nerdy systems analyst Janis Gold.

But Jack is the glue that holds the show together, and Sutherland, with his pained, superhuman skill set, makes him a physical statement about the toll violence takes, even violence committed in an attempt to save the world. Much has been written about “24” as a reflection of the country’s post-9/11 politics and whether a shift in those will affect the show. But “24” isn’t so much about politics, at least not in the liberal/conservative sense, as it is about the modern American hero. About what we expect from him, what we will take from him and how far he can be pushed before he shatters. Right in front of our eyes.

--

mary.mcnamara@latimes.com

--

‘24’

Where: Fox

When: 8 p.m. Sunday, Monday

Rating: TV-14-V (may be unsuitable for children under the age of 14, with an advisory for violence)