Last night, ’24′ dished out another 43 minutes of pure action. There were some refreshing additions to the episode. For one thing, it was nice to see a character besides Jack or Tony do some major butt-kicking. There was also an unexpected–but not unwelcome from a writing standpoint–death in the show. That sounds a bit harsh, but I’m speaking purely from a plot mechanics point of view. The death of this particular incidental character was, I think, a “trap door”. The character was a plot device inserted into the show that could, if necessary, be used to provide an exit for another character.
SPOILERS BELOW (for last night’s episode, and speculation on next weeks’ episode):
In this particular case, the trap door character was Erin Driscoll’s psyc–er, mentally unstable daughter, Maya. She was completely unrelated to the plot of the show, and at first, just seemed to be there to provide a distraction for Driscoll. However unnecessary Maya seemed to be, it became apparent that she wasn’t just there to interfere with Driscoll’s ability to run CTU. She was Dricsoll’s trap door. If, for some reason it was necessary to remove Driscoll’s character from the show (or at least from her character’s position as director of CTU), Maya would unleash her zany paranoid-schizophrenic antics to render Driscoll ineffective and thereby require her dismissal. It seemed that may have happened last night when Maya, left unattended, committed suicide. The previews for next week indicate that Tony Almeda will take over as interim director of CTU. If that’s true, then the seemingly unnecessary Maya character just showed her purpose.
END SPOILERS