Previously on 24, it was announced that the currently airing eighth season would be the show's last. Jack Bauer's days on the small screen are quite literally numbered, though Kiefer Sutherland's ex-CTU badass is on track for a cinematic return by way of Billy Ray's currently in progress screenplay.

I'm certainly on board for Jack's big screen debut — going international and loosening the real time factor seems logical and potentially fantastic — but I am equally glad that this show is leaving my television screen in a few weeks, as it continues to break my heart week in and week out... and I'm not talking about the good old fashioned "you live, you learn" kind of heartbreak, either.

Spoilers below.

As a fan of the series since day one, it pains me to see how far 24 has fallen. The same twists are repeatedly utilized from season to season as if long-term viewers don't remember what's happened in previous years. Forgetting this season's "Katee Sackhoff is a mole" reveal, let's look at a recent example of a beaten-to-death 24 twist — last night's assassination of Renee Walker (Annie Wersching).

Just as everything the light touches is Simba's kingdom, everyone that Jack touches is marked for death. Not even a full minute after consummating their relationship, Renee was gunned down by a faraway sniper for knowing too much. Another lover dies in Jack's arms, following in the footsteps of Teri Bauer (Leslie Hope), Claudia Hernandez (Vanessa Ferlito) and the not-quite-dead-but-certainly-brain-damaged Audrey Raines (Kim Raver).

To clarify, this sucks on multiple levels. For one, Jack didn't need yet another love interest to die in order to scare him away from the female portion of society — if his previous romantic misfires didn't seal the deal before, this one certainly won't either. Renee's death only serves to make Jack angry for the remainder of Day 8, which could potentially create for some old school badass Bauer moments, but it's at the expense of the show's first truly great female character since the death of Michelle Dessler (Reiko Aylesworth).

Renee's death was so shocking because it came just one hour after the brutal slaying of President Omar Hassan, played by Slumdog Millionaire actor Anil Kapoor. The Middle-Eastern leader's final moments were so well executed — forgive the pun — thanks to the show's use of its real time element to trip up the viewer's expectations. It also laid out several interesting character paths, including the ascension of Hassan's wife Dalia (Necar Zadegan) to her deceased husband's position of power. But most interesting of all, Jack was forced to confront his failure. He failed to get to Hassan on time — that's enough baggage to push him through the day in an interesting way.

Now, Hassan's death is completely cheapened in terms of being a motivator for Jack — with Renee dead, all he wants is revenge.

It says a lot that Bauer's happiest 24 ending placed him in an ambulance having suffered from a heart attack endured while eliminating a stadium filled with terrorists. Not that Jack and Renee should have walked away into the sunset together — as TV Guide Magazine's Damian Holbrook astutely pointed out, Renee could easily say: "Your life is kinda fucked, call me when you aren't all saving the world, ok?" But even at its best, 24 has never been a show that knows how to file characters away with ambiguous endings. Very few major players have ever been able to leave the series with their fates open to interpretation.

I suppose if Renee's death does anything, it reminds the viewer that anything can happen in the final season of 24 — it's just a shame that the message had to be delivered by way of the show's best character outside of Bauer himself.

Next week, recently returned ex-President Charles Logan (Gregory Itzin) continues to thoroughly creep out everyone around him; Jack Bauer presumably goes on a killing spree after the death of Renee; and, hopefully, Chloe (Mary Lynn Rajskub) is no longer in charge of CTU. I mean, really, even for 24, that just makes no sense.