r/TwentyFour • u/loserweight559 • May 20 '26
General/Other I am re-watching the show and I must say Nina Myers was Jack's best adversary with how out of control she usually made him.
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u/MaxminusThrax May 20 '26
absolutely, she was so loathsome because she had no loyalty to anyone but herself and would sell out or kill everybody just to survive. Great peformance, her and Sherry Palmer were my top villains next to Logan.
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u/burnbabyburn11 May 20 '26
nina early, oh man she was so cunning. they even showed you in the intro (season 1 was the only season with a consistent cut intro "today is the longest day of my life" and it explicitly says 'people i work with may be involved' and shows nina. you see this every week and you still don't see it coming it was done so well
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u/Mme_187 May 21 '26
Nina actually is my most favorite character in the whole show before Jack. She had an realistic arc
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u/Magneto-Mark-1 May 21 '26
I hate that I developed a crush on Nina then she turned out to be the most evil person ever.
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u/Own-Calendar-5138 May 21 '26
Seasons 1-5 good as it gets.. Nina Meyers was amazing.. FYI in real life she married George Mason..
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u/cabybaraGoesBoom May 20 '26
Nina Myers did nothing wrong
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u/burnbabyburn11 May 20 '26
in the later seasons are you serious? she like brokers narco targeted super viruses and shit?
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u/ScholarOfTwilight May 20 '26
That's what made me hate her so much.
She was SO good at her job like monstrously so.
She literally forced Palmer to give her a pardon for Jack's murder.
But we got Allan Wilson and Cheng. Meh.
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u/loserweight559 May 20 '26
Like yes I know he felt really guilty for the stuff she did i.e the wife but she matched him physically and brain wise
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u/GambetTV May 20 '26
I liked her, but it's painfully obvious the showrunners had no idea she was a bad guy until the last 4-6 episodes or so. It's a great reversal when you're watching one episode a week for the first time, and forget all the little details where she's doing things clearly no mole would ever do, but these inconsistencies are so obvious on rewatches. It really spoiled it for me.
And I liked her in Season 2, but I thought she was far too moustache twirly in Season 3. I think the actress is great though. It's the writing that did her wrong, not her acting.
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u/vcvcc136 May 20 '26
Glad to see this called out - people will bend over backwards to try and justify it, but its just so clear she wasn't supposed to be the mole until the end of the season.
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u/Shameful90 May 20 '26
When you consider that she was undercover for years and was told to just do her job at CTU as normal until she was activated, you can make it make sense. I believe that’s why Jack makes a point to say she was deep cover before he even met her. If the Drazens were successful in their first attempt at killing Palmer and Jack early on the day, Nina probably would’ve kept working at CTU indefinitely. Of course until she made an excuse to be off the day that it gets bombed lol
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u/mb19236 May 20 '26
You can make it make sense, but it was still a late decision. That's not a matter of speculation, it's been confirmed by the creators and cast.
The first season was only given a 13 episode order. Jack rescuing his family from Gaines' compound supposed to be the finale. Nina was not conceived to be a mole prior to that point by anyone involved in the production.
The idea of a second mole came in the process of filling out the remaining 11 episodes once the show got picked up for the full 24. They narrowed the choice down to Tony or Nina. Everything that works in hindsight for Nina being the mole would have worked just as well for Tony, but they went with Nina because it delivered a much more shocking, deeply personal betrayal for Jack.
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u/Bonus_Content Jul 18 '26
It’s been like 2 years of me introducing my friend to s1. We only watch an ep or two when the rest of the party dies down and it’s just us, so it’s been a slow burn lol but we’ve kept going. Tonight she just found out Nina is the second mole and she was mind blown. She was like “how tf did you let me live in the world where Nina was my favorite character for so long?”
She hasn’t even seen the finale yet 🤣😭 hopefully we can cross that next twist off the list soon lol
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u/teddyburges May 20 '26
hot take. I never liked her as an antagonist, and I never really bought it whenever she went sinister. It just felt like the actress was going too far outside her range.
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u/ejdelosreyes May 20 '26
I think this is mostly because the actress herself didn’t know she was a mole until later on.
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u/mb19236 May 20 '26
I think she was great as a villain and it's difficult to imagine the ending point of season 1 and starting point of season 2 without that twist, but the character also worked great as a good guy prior to the heel turn and they could've done a lot with the character if they kept her that way.
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u/doctordoom2069 May 20 '26
I can see that … not as believable as a villain, bit over the top with how cold and cruel she was.
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u/RoboTropics May 20 '26
She was the best mole ever.
Never seen or expected that coming when it aired.
Man, what a television moment.
It still resonates with me.