No clues. But the writers were smart enough to "fill in the gaps" like how she killed Jamie while no one was in the room. To me it felt like they just decided to make her the mole for the sake of suspense.
But regardless of my personal ramblings, who I think she works for...well, I dont know if you've seen the seasons 2 and 3, but it seems to me like she is a free agent terrorist.
it near the very beginning if you remember. That Nina's name came up as the mole in the information on the keycard. Nina just did a good job of fooling Jack.
it near the very beginning if you remember. That Nina's name came up as the mole in the information on the keycard. Nina just did a good job of fooling Jack.
You'd be surprised to know that some shows pretty much fly by the seat of their pants. Alias and 24 storylines are pretty much up in the air to the last minute. Like on Alias they have the beginning and general ending of seasons planned, but everything in between changes from moment to moment. With 24, they are commonly so far behind they only write an episode like a month and a half before it airs, give or take.
So no, there are no intentional clues that Nina is the mole. Season 1 was an experiment, they planned more in 2,3,4, but in 1, it was kind of like "ok, this episode is over, where now?"
You'd be surprised to know that some shows pretty much fly by the seat of their pants. Alias and 24 storylines are pretty much up in the air to the last minute. Like on Alias they have the beginning and general ending of seasons planned, but everything in between changes from moment to moment. With 24, they are commonly so far behind they only write an episode like a month and a half before it airs, give or take.
So no, there are no intentional clues that Nina is the mole. Season 1 was an experiment, they planned more in 2,3,4, but in 1, it was kind of like "ok, this episode is over, where now?"
Fox initially only ordered 12 episodes, so the producers of the show had to make sure the story could end at the conclusion of those 12 (when the Bauers are picked up on the helicopter) in case the show wasn't continued.
Fox initially only ordered 12 episodes, so the producers of the show had to make sure the story could end at the conclusion of those 12 (when the Bauers are picked up on the helicopter) in case the show wasn't continued.
Yeah I heard about that, so is that for real or not?
But thats a pity though. Another case of creativity sacrificed for ratings. That's why I hate TV shows. It could be your favorite TV series and bam, they can just pull the plug without a decent conclusion.
Look, I'm a real big fan of spoiler tags, but fuck it. Season 1 is old and this entire topic is devoted to the biggest spoiler in the series, so I'm not using the tags for Season 1.
I thought Nina killing Jamey was a really arbitrary thing and really kinda stupid. I loved Season 1, don't get me wrong, but that just looks REALLY out of place. And while it might make some sense at that particular point -- you're thinking maybe Nina killed Jamey because she'd spill the beans about Nina -- if you actually go back and watch Jamey's interrogation, it doesn't make any sense for Nina (even if you KNOW she's bad at that point) to go kill her, and Jamey never even comes close to implying (with a look, or a nervous glance or anything) that it's Nina. Besides, all the evidence suggests that Gaines didn't even know Nina existed, so whatever happened her cover was safe.
Still, the Nina thing does make sense in the long run because the producers started dropping actual clues once the "second plot" kicks in after Gaines is killed. When Nina "sees" the assassins in the hospital, she never tells CTU or those CIA/FBI agents -- she just moves Teri and Kim to the safe house. And while at the time that's interpreted as her being paranoid and trying to keep them safe... since we know later that the assassins know where the safe house is, she's not isolating them for safety, she's isolating them so they can be killed without raising a fuss. And spotting the assassins was a "sign" for her that they were ready and it was time to move on. At the safe house too, notice that she leaves before the shooting starts. Again at the time it's interpreted as her being uneasy interrogating Teri because she found out about her affair with Jack, it's actually so she can get out of the way without being implicated in their deaths.
And then there was the keycard. The keycard is a nice one because it shows that Walsh was right all along, and that the "mystery" was really over by 2am since, as Walsh says... find out who encoded the card and you have the dirty agent. On the other hand, the keycard is a weird one because as Nina says she couldn't have encoded it at that specific time. Jamey did, but did Jamey ever know about Nina? It was implied (by Nina, oddly enough) that someone had to recruit Jamey... but did Nina really recruit her? As I said earlier, both Nina and Gaines worked directly under Drazen. Gaines didn't know about Drazen's alternate plans until it was too late, so he probably didn't know about Nina (though he may have suspected he was getting some of his intel from a second source). And if Gaines didn't know about Nina, it's hard to see Jamey -- a subordinate of Gaines -- knowing about her. So for whatever reason (plot holes, not enough thought put into it, etc) it doesn't seem to fit.
Finally, there were the "other" clues, which were fairly amusing. One of them was the Mac/PC rule. Good guys only use Macs. Bad guys use PCs. Double agents (Jamey, Nina) use both. There are a few exceptions here. Firstly, it applies only to CTU/Terrorists -- Sherry Palmer uses an iBook and we know she's evil as sin. Secondly, Milo uses both a PC and Mac, though I suppose you can say that's because he's taking over Jamey's work and Jamey had both a PC and Mac. For the rest of them though, it holds true. Mason, Jack and Tony only have and use Macs. Gaines and the Drazens have PCs. And Nina and Jamey have both PCs and Macs on their desk.
And the last and most amusing clue is also the most obvious. You know that "intro" that runs before each episode to recap the basic plot (NOT the "Previously on 24" bit, before it)? When Jack says "and the people that I work with may be involved with both [his family and Palmer's trouble]", who does the camera focus on? A rather sinister shot of Nina. We dismiss it because it's a shot from the third episode when we think she's the traitor, but it stays for the whole season and... the whole time, it's true. A nice, if unintentional, touch.
One more thing about the Gaines plot ending after 13 episodes... I think it was necessary to resolve it then and there. It provided a lot of tension because there was an immediate threat to Jack, Teri and Kim. If Gaines captured Kim and Teri in the first quarter of the show's lifespan, and kept them at gunpoint for the 18 remaining hours... there would be tension, but it'd gradually seep away because you know they're not really in danger until closer to midnight. Also, it's good to have some resolution to plots. Again, it'd kinda suck if Jack just ran up against brick wall after brick wall after brick wall for 23 hours before finally striking gold in the final one. You'd get somewhat discouraged and turned off if it was just one setback after another. It's kind of like how the happy ending at the end of the original Star Wars makes the unhappy one in Empire Strikes Back so much better. I realise it's a shitty analogy, but I'm not entirely sure what to equate it with. Either way, it really made that "moment" at the end of that episode awesome when Jack was finally re-united with his family... especially since we later realise it is the last time we'll ever see all three Bauers together (unless you watch the crap Alternate Ending on the DVD).
Spoilers for Seasons 2 AND 3 below:
And even if the Gaines plot ending early was conceived solely because all 24 episodes of Season 1 weren't green-lit right from the start, a look at Seasons 2 and 3 shows that the producers actually like the format. Seasons 2 and 3 were commissioned as whole seasons, but note that both have plots that end roughly half-way through and change the focus of the season. In Season 1, Gaines died and Drazen took over with Plan B. In Season 2, the bomb went off, the hunt for the bomb was over, and the focus shifted to those behind the bomb and stopping the consequences they had planned out. In Season 3, the Salazars died and it became all about stopping madman-with-a-virus Stephen Saunders.
I do agree with the general sentiment though -- Gaines was an awesome villain, and he had an awesome plan. And for all of Drazen's bluster about "When Plan A fails, you go to Plan B, not Plan A Recycled" his plan really was exactly the same as the one Gaines used: Capture Jack's family, force him to comply, and use him to smuggle the weapon that kills Palmer past the Senator's security (in Gaines' case, the gun; Drazen's, the bomb). And Dennis Hopper... painful. Just painful.
i agree w/ your "sinister shot" of nina sign. i always noticed that one. to the topic poster, if you havent seen the other seasons yet, the answer will be a spoiler to you. just keep watching.
i like the format of the seasons personally, there are always multiple threads happening simultaneously (and usually the most vapid storyline involves kim bauer...she is hot, but i'd rather not watch her idiotic storyline). usually the obvious plot is taken care of by episode 12, and as you wonder what the hell they are gonna show for the 12 other episodes, all of a sudden things get really twisted and the plot goes towards some unpredictable direction.
*spoilers concerning season 3 and up*
i was really beginning to like almeida, its too bad he will be dropped for season 4.
same goes for reiko aylesworth, but mainly because she is hot.
good decision to drop kim, she was dragging the show down.
i found the execution of ryan phelps kinda ridiculous...was that really necessary, aside from just getting rid of yet another body?
There is one problem with 24 though, which they're trying to remedy by axing practically everyone for Season 4 (NOTE: This is not really a Season 3 spoiler because people were axed regardless of how their storylines turned out in Season 3), and that's that all the characters have too much "baggage". In Season 1 they were all on an even footing, so there was a solid mystery as to just who the mole is. But after Season 1, we KNOW Tony is a good guy. So we can rule him out of any mysteries at CTU. Which kinda makes the CTU mysteries a bit crap, really. It's unavoidable really, since Tony rocks and we love him, but he's kinda "dead" as a character for those purposes.
Wasn't Season 1 rewritten from the ground up, though? I seem to recall reading in the paper and online that episodes were already filmed before 9/11, forcing them to scrap the initial terrorist concept.
In any case, you make some great points about Season 1's pacing, Fowler. I liked how they tried to regain the mystery in season 3, but it seems even the writing staff knew they couldn't keep it up and decided to just toss the whole idea after a couple episodes.
I'm not entirely sure what I think of Season 3 yet... I'll know once I watch it again on DVD (I have it, but I'm going to watch Seasons 1 and 2 again first -- actually running through 1 right now!). But yeah, it looks like they really filmed two seasons in one with 3, quite... odd.
My understanding of the effect of 9/11 on Season 1 was that they removed shots of the 747 exploding and started to play up the Palmer rape/murder scandal a lot more (to shift SOME of the focus off the terror plot... it's still the main plot, but it's not the only major storyline now). Of course, you can't really tell what effect 9/11 had on the episodes yet to be written, either conciously or unconciously, but those are the two changes I know of for sure.
Damn... I bought the Season One DVD when the price went down, then I had to buy two (I'm about half done that now). I want to be ready when the fourth season begins so I can watch it without being confused.
The one problem with 24 is that you just can't come in halfway.
