Just last week I suggested that Jericho is the anti-24, and boy, did the show go out of its way to drive the point home in last night's episode.

I mean, look: Jack Bauer has become a notorious torturer -- "Gimme a latte, quick, or I'll bite your nose off!" -- and he isn't even dealing with the end of civilization as we know it ... and you get the feeling that maybe Jack can't wait for civilization to end so that he can really take the gloves off. But our Jake, it's not like he's any kind of naive fool. He's been around -- he's been in Iraq. He knows exactly what kind of bastards they're up against in Blackwater -- I mean Ravenwood. Through Hawkins he knows (or he thinks he knows) exactly how precarious the situation is for the entire United States, teetering on the brink of a civil war ignited by a terrifying alliance of homegrown nutjobs. And on top of having the almost literal weight of the world on his shoulders, he's worried sick about his missing brother, who's probably been killed or is at least in great peril with only Jake to save him.

So how does Jake react when Hawkins wants to torture someone for information that could help improve the situation? He's horrified. He's appalled. And he stops Hawkins -- who could be seen as a Jack Bauer stand-in, actually, and Hawkins is pretty close to being a villain -- not with violence but with the force of his condemnation. You know, with his moral fervor.

Wow.

I was stunned, in the best way possible. I've been ragging on this show since the beginning -- though obviously there's been enough interesting to keep me watching -- and here it finally really floored me, genuinely hit me emotionally and in the gut. In one simple moment, the show figured out how to say organically what it's been trying oh-so hard to say since the beginning about what's important in life and what makes America America.

Take that, Jack Bauer.

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MaryAnn Johanson (email me)

reviews, reviews, reviews! at FlickFilosopher.com