Bauer's Torture Ethics Get Slapped on 24

After years of shooting, shocking, drugging, and maiming terror suspects, Jack Bauer will finally be tortured—by his own conscience, Peter Finn reveals in the Washington Post. 24 opens its seventh season with its post-9/11 action hero testifying before Congress about his interrogation tactics. Bauer remains defiant, but he’ll weigh the repercussions of his actions as the season progresses.

Jack will “travel some distance on the subject,” said 24’s head writer, who promised a more “deep” and “nuanced” look at torture. Critics have blasted the show for harmful portrayals of interrogations. It “is an advertisement for torture on prime-time television,” said one activist. Concludes Finn: “The sins of the past are beginning to weigh on Jack, and the show’s writers.”
(More Jack Bauer stories.)