Like most of the TV series, 24 season 2 had right-wing undertones for the majority of its run. A little over a year after 9/11, its initial main plotline of a group of heroic counter-terrorism agents working to thwart an Islamist plot to detonate a nuclear bomb in Los Angeles felt in sync with the neoconservative messaging of the Bush administration. However, once this plotline was resolved, matters took a decidedly more progressive turn, in large part thanks to a standard-setting performance from a then-little-known character actor as the season’s new primary antagonist, Peter Kingsley.
With substantial parts of season 1 having been written and filmed prior to 9/11, 24 season 2 was the first season of the show to reckon with the post-9/11 world directly. This aspect is perhaps what caused the writers to briefly consider adopting a non-real-time format for 24 season 2. The season’s depiction of Islamist terrorism and the issues surrounding it largely echoed the Bush administration’s Manichean worldview, pitting Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) and the Counter Terrorist Unit against Second Wave, a jihadist group led by Syed Ali (Francesco Quinn). At the conclusion of episode 15, CTU director George Mason (Xander Berkeley) safely detonated the nuclear bomb Second Wave planned to use to kill thousands of Angelenos in the Mojave Desert. Audio evidence then emerged of government officials from three unnamed Middle Eastern countries planning the attack alongside Ali. It soon transpired that this evidence was faked at the behest of Peter Kingsley (Tobin Bell, shortly before the Saw franchise belatedly shot him to stardom), the leader of a shadowy cabal of industrialists aiming to implicate these three countries in a terrorist attack so as to start a war in the Middle East that would enable them to take control of the Caspian Sea’s oil reserves.
When these episodes of 24 season 2 aired in spring 2003, the parallels with the Iraq war that was happening simultaneously were obvious to many progressive viewers of the show. Having previously espoused a neoconservative view of the War on Terror as a conflict between good and evil, season 2 now acted as a source of catharsis for anti-war viewers of the show who wanted to see the instigators of an oil-driven war in the Middle East brought to justice. Key to this was Tobin Bell, who gave these viewers a focal point for their anger through his performance as Kingsley. Of the great 24 villains, including David Palmer’s (Dennis Haysbert) killer, Christopher Henderson (Peter Weller), Kingsley was the best, as this aspect of his character meant he had the most powerful effect on a cross-section of the show’s audience. With 24 season 2 providing the clearest and most direct attempt by the writers to appeal to progressive viewers, it was also able to create the most nuanced and interesting villain of the series.
Having made a late start in film aged 36 as an extra in Woody Allen’s Manhattan, it took Bell years of honing his craft in minor roles like Jimmy Conway, (Robert De Niro)’s parole officer in GoodFellas, before he was considered a good enough actor to take on a plum role like Kingsley in a major show like 24. He deploys these years of refinement to great effect. Political surrogacy aside, he imbues the character with genuine detestability and sleaze. Witness, for instance, the gratuitous way in which he pats down David Palmer’s wife, Sherry (Penny Johnson Jerald), and makes Bauer endure a heart attack before attempting to execute him in the 24 season 2 finale.
24 season 2’s deft incorporation of real-life events into the show’s scripts by the writers gave viewers its most progressive storyline. Doing this, and having Kingsley’s detestable character serve as a cipher for real-life war profiteers makes him 24’s best villain. The program-makers made similar efforts to toss progressive viewers a hate figure subsequently, most notably Jonas Hodges (Jon Voight), a thinly veiled fictionalization of Erik Prince, but none were as effective as Tobin Bell’s performance as Peter Kingsley.
