Just so people don’t start thinking I’m only Jack-oriented around here (well I am but honestly, I do love all the characters on the show. Really I do) I thought I’d talk about Tony today. I’m just looking at Almeida’s profile on the Fox site and am impressed with the background he’s been given. An ex-Marine, a double Bachelor’s degree in Engineering and Computer Science with a Masters on top of that in CompSci. Not too shabby.

It’s actually been interesting to watch him climb the ranks through the seasons. In S1 he was serving under Nina - I wonder if that would have been considered Michelle’s position from S2. Interesting if that’s the case, then Tony took over Nina’s job and of course we know how he gets promoted to director in S2. I don’t know, the hierarchy and job positions are so ambiguous on 24 it’s hard for me to follow.

Anyway, Tony rarely gets to leave CTU which is a shame. I’d like to see some of that Marine training in action. So far all he’s done outside of CTU is shoot one of the Drazens at the Bauer house, and then get shot himself in a mall. Well actually I guess we see his training in action all the time but normally just contained within CTU. In the first season, I don’t think they quite knew what to do with Tony yet as he was a bit of a pain in the ass towards his superiors (he still is but in a good way.) But over the rest of the season, as 24 got into its groove he became stronger as it finally dawned on him that maybe Jack, Nina et al had justiable reasons for breaking protocol (Jack’s family was kidnapped, Nina, as ranking officer, was trying to help.) Then in the second season, Carlos shaved the mini-beard and kicked it up a notch.

After getting burned by Nina the traitor, he has shied away from mixing business with pleasure, but he didn’t count on the hotness that is Michelle Dessler (Reiko Aylesworth). I thought the chemistry between them was fantastic, especially when Tony was suspicious of Michelle helping Jack. Here they had this burgeoning romance, and she is already lying to him - but once again it was for the greater good: Jack has to get that damn chip and prevent a war. But when they both began working together with Jack on the chip issue, and Tony drugged Chapelle (yay!), well that rocked. And now look, they’re married

I don’t think their marriage will suffer much from Michelle’s attempt to remove him from his post. It may be an obstacle for a little bit while they work on their trust issues. But I don’t want to comment too much on whether Tony really is capable of doing his job until the season’s over. Current speculation (not mine) is that he covered his tracks before going in to see Chapelle and that he may not truly be ‘on top of things’. For me, the jury is still out on this issue. He didn’t slip-up at all in the last hour, but he could just be on his guard. I do think the boy needs to stop for ten minutes and recoup a little. Let Michelle run things for a bit. He was shot in the neck after all.

Visit Carlos Bernard’s official site.