Illusion of Words

Alias - Episodes 10,11

After months of endless waiting, Alias is BAAAAAACK!!! Now I won’t trouble myself into typing a whole review (seeing that nobody will read and besides I’ve written it already), but just to give some thoughts.

The first episode was just icing on cake. Yes, Jack being as cool and just … fantastic was great. Who else will have the guts to shoot a CIA director in the leg and start interogating him like he was just some nut? And the dumb security guards couldn’t even get through the glass door quickly enough, letting Jack have enough time to extract an answer. Very characteristic of Jack, the brilliancy and coolness we’ve all come to know and love.

That was pretty much the best part of Episode 10: S.O.S. Of course, the APO people infiltrating Langley (Dixon and Marshall as part of a tour, they must have been like, ‘Neener neener we’re real spies and you’re not).

As for Episode 11: Maternal Instincts, it’s superb (I think I’m running out of adjectives to describe great things). Any episode with Lena Olin in it is superb anyway. From the beginning where Dixon says Syd ‘waggles and teeters’ to the end where Vaughn - NOOOO - appears. That ending, well, I guess for the sake of the other Vaughn-crazy fans, I have to watch this dummy again.

Irina making a cold-blooded entry into Season 5 by shooting that poor director and killing him, was simply just like her. Then Syd goes home and finds Irina sitting at her table. If I were Syd I’d probably have a heart attack on the spot. And Jack comes into the house too and oh, the loverly family scene.

But wait. More SpyFam action comes right up. Remisniscence of Season 2’s ‘Passage’ (one of the best, period), they act as a family in a bank to get the ‘Horizon’ from a deposit box there. The acting is so brilliant. Then Syd stays upstairs while Jack and Irina head down with the bank guy and Irina stabs the poor guy with a large needle. Yes, so they got the Horizon, but Irina doesn’t exactly have pure motives (and Peyton is hot on their trail). She tries to stab Jack too, but fortunately the guy isn’t too dumb and gets her back. And their sharp exchange of words (as he holds a gun to her, Season 4 anyone?) pretty much bombs a hole in the ship I’ve come to love. Why, oh why?

When the chopper to extract them is blown up by Peyton and her bazooka, Syd is about to give birth. Yes, giving birth to your baby in a bank that is locked down with only your mother who just betrayed you again for the zillionth time is not the best thing in the world. Jack goes to finish off the bad guys, while Irina tells Syd that she (Syd) was never wanted and only was so because the KGB ordered.

Then to birthing babies. For Syd, it was very easy - too easy, I may add. But the baby is absolutely cute. And later, Vaughn receives tidings of the baby in some remote place (Bhutan, I think).

In all and all, I was pretty disappointed with the J/I stuff. Is their relationship too far beyond repair? I will hang on to the fraying threads of the ship (or just stand on the tallest point while the ship is half-sunk) as long as I have breath in me and the writers don’t blow up the entire ship in my face. This episode, admittedly, they weren’t mushy and all - even if the family pretense - Jack seemed irritated and annoyed somehow. I guess with Jack killing not-Irina and all that not far behind them, it’s just not possible they’re all happy. But I did think they finished with a good note at the end of Season 4. And in that, the writers do not have much continuality because with everything and all, Jack and Syd are still shocked about Irina’s betrayal, which they should’ve expected. Irina - I mean Lena Olin - will probably come back for at least one episode (there are only 6 episodes till the very end of Alias, NOOOOOOOO) and then maybe they can patch up their relationship and I don’t know, live happily ever after? But I think Syd and Vaughn and the baby will live happily ever after - if one of them doesn’t die. According to spoilers, one of the spyfam will die. Definitely not Syd, and I hope it’s not Jack or Irina. So the best candidate - Sloane or Nadia.

I have really babbled too much.

Posted in Alias, TV/Movies |