Little nuances

I watch American Serials nowadays. Some are murder investigations, some other are revenge stories and many more subjects. I watch one by one, the whole set. Then I will go the next episode of each of the serials.

But one serial stands out. It is a political thriller with espionage, action, mystery, suspense all rolled into one serial. I have already told about the serial earlier in this blog. It is called 24.

Yes, 24. I have already seen all the 8 seasons and a 2 hour movie Redemption two times (at least).  But I am seeing again from the first season.

This time each day one episode. That too when I am on the treadmill. The serial has the right mix of everything to make one’s adrenalin run fast.

The serials is very beautiful in its narration, though sometimes one feels that this is too much to happen on one day.

But considering the mindless, logic less movies what we watch, this has been done with a lot of conviction. Come to think of it, the whole crew is so sincere in its narration and depiction of the serial.

A special thing I noticed in the serial today is what I want to write about. It has lot of these ‘little’ scenes which make the serial elevated from the mundane ones.

A confrontation between estranged couple,  a meeting of separated couple, the relation between father and daughter, mother and daughter, son and mother and so on.

The serial has terrorists as the antagonists. They are ruthless in execution of their plans. But when it comes to their own kith and kin, they become vulnerable. This ‘weakness’ will be well exploited by the protagonist Jack Bauer.

The man is the hero. He would do anything for his country. He escapes many deaths unscathed. In fact, in one of the umpteen episodes of the serial , one character exclaims, “This man has more lives than a cat!”

And all the scenes in which the hero escapes death look real. He really doesn’t care when he is facing death. He is ready. But fate would have it otherwise.

He is made to torture many people, some of them close to his associates. He is made kill some of the characters forcefully. He does it without any feeling (or so is what we are made to think). But we are made to see his vulnerable face a few times.

He goes out, sits in his car and cries his heart out for a few minutes. And then he is back in business. The season 4 has an estranged couple. One was the head of the office and he is forced to resign since he jeopardizes a covert operation to save his wife who is captured by the villain.  He is jailed, but later pardoned by the President of US of A because of his sense of duty.

His wife leaves him because he is now unemployed and starts drinking. Now in the next season, he is back because he is the only one Jack Bauer can trust to save him. He comes back, assumes duty as the head of the office because the erstwhile head leaves because her schizophrenic daughter commits suicide.

But the wife comes as the permanent replacement and the sparks start flying. Slowly the wife comes to know through someone else that her husband still cares for her. The feeling slowly softens. All these are shown in between tense scenes.

Hats off for the whole team! I wish they had continued the serial instead of stopping it after the 8^th season.

Well, even good things come to an end!