Of All the Nerve (Gas)!

24 was a special 2-hour episode tonight, starting at 8pm.

I did not discover this until 8:20pm or so, as I was preparing to do some cardio.

(Monday is supposed to be legs and shoulders, but my back is still a little sore from Saturday, which was makeup back and bicep day, so I decided to do cardio, which I have been avoiding for a while and thus will probably kill me as I attempt to get back into it. I think that's irony.)

Anyway, it was bad enough that I'm about 2 episodes behind because I've been taping them and letting them stack up, but I had to watch the rest of the 8pm episode (out of order!) so I would know what was happening in the 9pm episode, which I will probably get to, oh, next month.

This irritates me.

Since I'm so far behind, I'm still kind of annoyed at the whole nerve gas thing. Not the "weaponized nerve gas" thing -- I'm over that (though it's still stupid).

Besides, how weaponized can it be -- you only need a respirator, not a full body suit; you can take off your respirator if a little girl needs it, and instead of the whole painful, bloody convulsions thing as your nervous system shuts down, you just bleed a little from the corner of your mouth after you get a lungful.

A good portion of the first few episodes involved the separatist terrorists needing to get special chips and unlock codes to release the nerve gas. This was a source of considerable consternation.

Now, these canisters are metal cylinders about the size of scuba tanks. Assume they're locked -- how would a terrorist intent on dispersing nerve gas go about opening a metal cylinder to which he doesn't have a key?

Let's see, what do terrorists do? Shoot people... nah, probably wouldn't work. Take hostages? Not applicable. Blow stuff up?

Holy shit, that just might work! They could strap bombs to the canisters and detonate them to breach the cylinders and release the gas!

Of course, these terrorists aren't even considering this, probably because they're trying to get their deposit back or something.

Oh, and from the end of the 8pm episode, where the bomb squad is rushing the nerve gas canister, with the clock ticking down, through the crowded hallways of the hospital with the worst evacuation plan ever so they can get it into a containment unit?

Guys, it's not a nuclear bomb, and we've determined that the terrorists aren't going to blow it open because they want their refundable deposit back. Your containment unit is a hermetically sealed glass box. You can carry it towards the guys with the nerve gas canister and meet them halfway.