Illusion of Words

Alias season 1

Recently I have been rewatching Alias season 1. And I can’t believe how good it used to be. It was so great, the action, the interaction…especially the Jack/Syd scenes which totally rock. Let me list some of the more memorable scenes from the first four episodes, which of course are mainly Jack/Syd scenes (if you haven’t figured that out by now).

1x01 Truth Be Told - Danny proposes to Syd (a must watch!); Jack rescues Syd; Syd gets tortured by Suit&Glasses; in fact, watch the whole pilot episode!

1x02 So It Begins - Syd slaps Jack (ouch!); first double agent mission; Syd apologizes to Jack;

1x03 Cipher - Syd starts some questioning about mom; missions…

1x04 A Broken Heart - Syd invites Jack to dinner; Jack’s psycho-checkup; the dinner which Jack fails to turn up; Syd cries to Vaughn and throws pager into sea;

1x05 Doppelganger - Syd rescues Pattel the Nobel Peace Prize winner; blows up warehouse in Badenwailer;

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Episode 5: Out of the Box

Remember Renee the bad girl who stole the coffin-like box? After a week’s break she finally returns. We see someone break into some place and steal a thingy. Of course that person is Renee. She defeats like a dozen people and get away alive, jumping through flames.

So of course APO gets the news, and Dixon suspects whoever did it was the whoever that stole the body-in-the-box. Syd is determined to go see Renee and find out why, but Jack is over-protective and asks Tom to escort her.

Meanwhile, Sloane, enjoying his freedom, meets up with Jack, who says he’s already sent in a request to allow Sloane full access to all CIA files. (I am surprised by Jack’s all-too-simple trust…)

Tom and Syd visit Renee, where they find the corpse walking around. Renee is so happy — he’s her father. Unfortunately, they have no time for chatting, because they are attacked by a group of whoevers.

In San Francisco, Dixon and Rachel hack into some thingy using Marshall’s little remote-control thingy. They are trying to find some Dr Desantes, whose name was in the box as reported by Tom.

Tom and Renee hold off the bad guys, while Syd stays with Renee’s father. Some old stories are told, of which Syd finds a blooper. And everybody (at least she and APO people) realize that the body was Renee’s father, but the brain wasn’t. The body used some kind of thingy which is used for those transplants where the body rejects the organ.

In other words, Renee’s ‘father’ had a transplanted brain. And the bad guys were coming to rescue him. Obviously this brain belonged to Dr Desantes, because in the end, after he got rescued, Dean came to see him. And called him Desantes.

In between all these are Sloane scenes. Sloane has some deal with Dean, which means he has to get back to APO, in order to be able to allow Dean convenience. Unfortunately, there is a senator in the way, so Sloane goes and threatens her daughter.

Which in the very next day, Sloane gets complete access to CIA files. His motive was to search a cure for Nadia. And the show ends with Sloane walking into APO, towards Jack.

Rating: 6.5/10

Not bad. But the ratings have been a new low, in USA, that is. I’m afraid that it may get cancelled. Blame those stupid ABC people!! They put Alias in the ‘dead’ time on Thursday night.
Off-topic: Recently the Titanic Special Edition DVD came out. I wonder whether I should get it, seeing that there are so many special stuff. The bunny thing from angry alien productions is cute, watch it: 30-second Titanic Bunnies!

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Episode 4: Mockingbird

Syd’s in a casino, cheating with some manipulated dice. Dixon is also acting, and he points out his suspicion, which leads to Syd’s being ‘arrested’ by the casino manager. That was the break they needed, while Tom was fiddling with some codes somewhere in a garage. Syd shoots down the casino people in the room, and rush off to get some package using the codes.

As Syd drives towards home, at the dock she gets stopped by a guard, then the next moment, the whole car is lifted into the sky with a magnet crane thingy. Somebody asks for Mockingbird.

Then it’s 72 hours earlier.

At APO as usual, where everything is so bright and white… they are still trying to get Dean. Rachel is being sniffy and sort-of-weepy, recovering from the ‘truth shock’. Syd learns that Rachel’s codename is Mockingbird. (Alias people are avid bird-lovers, always using bird names as codenames).

Dean transfers some money from his account, which is just what Marshall needed to track them down, so Dixon and Tom go to some beach ‘on behalf’ of Dean for the money transfer. Unfortunately, security questions would be asked, so Syd had to drag Rachel back to Prague, into the remains of the former ‘Shed’.

Of course Rachel is all ‘I-can’t-do-this-cuz-I-keep-seeing-them-people’. And Syd is all ‘act-normal-just-like-me-cuz-I-do-it-everyday’. That made Rachel quite paranoid then, but they managed to get the hard drive.

Somewhere else, Dixon and Tom get asked questions by a lady. Rachel types in the questions and Syd gives them the answers through comms. Until the data gets corrupted, which is not good. Dixon and Tom buy time in an exciting moment, but Rachel remembers the correct answer and gives it just in the nick of time.

So Marshall gets some video thingy, where they find out that Dean’s archives are stored someplace, which is the casino Syd went to in the beginning. The previously watched scenes are hurried through, this time with the missing link - Rachel Gibson, who was the one who cracked the codes and gave Tom the codes and yeah, you get the point.

Rachel is in Syd’s cartrunk when the whole car was hoisted couple hundred feet into the air. Dean does not know Rachel is in the trunk, though. Dixon and Tom try to get the crane down, but Dean is controlling it from somewhere else. He releases them couple feet, like a theme park ride, as a warning.

So Dean thinks that Rachel’s in CIA custody. He wants Rachel to call, so Rachel calls, acting all scared. Unfortunately, some dumb ship chose that moment to make the sound which ships make at docks.

Dean, realizing that he’s been duped and Rachel’s in the car, screams, “RELEASE!” While Syd and Rachel manage to get out through the roof in time and hang there using some metal thingy.

All the while, sandwiched between these scenes, are the not-so-action scenes of Sloane’s ruling thing. The guy is against Sloane getting a pardon, so hopes seem really dim, until somebody under Dean comes and gives him a deal.

So at the ruling, the obviously corrupt guy says that he’s in favor. Which stuns Jack, and everyone else (except Syd and friends, who did not watch). As Sloane walks out alone, he passes the guy who gave him the deal. And the words ‘ALIAS’ come out.

Rating: 7/10

Alias might have sucked somewhat in the previous two eppys, but it’s picking up. Go, go, go!

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Episode 3: The Shed

I’m feeling quite lazy now, and plus the episode is far from brilliant, so I’ll just give a short recap.

We see Nadia swarmed by zombies (from last season’s finale), but unfortunately, we aren’t going to see Nadia in coma this episode, much less walking around.

Anyway, the new agent Tom Grace and Syd go to somewhere with Marshall to get Dean’s hacker. Yup, they’re still chasing after Dean. Syd isn’t happy to go with Tom, because Tom has always been a loner - working alone. But because Dixon is going to ‘monitor’ Sloane who is getting some kind of cure for Nadia in a trade thingy going to take place in Russia, so Syd has no choice.

They get the hacker - Rachel Gibson. She’s just like Syd-in-the-beginning, not knowing that she works for the bad guy, which in this case is Dean’s ‘black-ops division of CIA’ - the Shed.

Rachel is pretty cooperative, and she helps them download the files. Unfortunately, Dean finds out, and promptly sets the bomb and escapes. With everybody still in the office. Of course Rachel gets out alive, while I doubt anyone else did.

Meanwhile Sloane isn’t having a good time. The cure and everything was just a trick because the contact was angry at Sloane for having released the poison water. Anyway, Sloane gets away fine because the guy wasn’t the killing type.

Rating: 6.5/10

Well, well. At least this episode is a little better than the previous one. Some are speculating whether Alias would be cancelled mid-season, which I do hope isn’t the case. I don’t like Rachel Gibson. And Tom Grace isn’t too high on my ‘like’ list. My problem is that I am against new characters. It may take sometime to settle in, but boy, do I miss Weiss and perhaps, even Vaughn!

Now we just need Irina back to make the whole show much more watchable again.

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Episode 2: …1…

The episode begins with a flashback of what happened, i.e. Vaughn being not-Vaughn and car-crash and him dying and stuff. And then there’s Syd meeting with Renee (whatever).

So Syd meets this Renee person because she wants to find Dean and sort of get revenge. They get some hard disk thingie and extract a video from it. Video is on Ivan Curtis, the guy who killed Vaughn, and some Heinrich guy. Syd goes to ultra-sound scanning for her baby, alone, which is pretty pathetic.

So we arrive at Amsterdam, where Dixon and Weiss go on point, while Syd directs them. And the two guys do some cool acting in front of Heinrich. Then Curtis comes, unexpectedly, to get the package ordered from Heinrich.

Curtis gets the stuff, and kills Heinrich, cold-blooded man he is. Syd and Dixon and Weiss capture him though. And they start to question him and stuff, and find some green whatever stuff in the box, which reminds me very much of Rambaldi and the season 3 green stuff.

It is definitely to be used for powering something, and they don’t know what because Curtis won’t blab. So Syd kicks Curtis crashing out of the window, storeys above water, after he drinks some water with tracker in it.

Meanwhile, Jack recruits a new guy, obviously very naughty and rogue, called Thomas Grace (Balthazar Getty).

Curtis is tracked to somewhere in the air, flying towards North Korea with the thingie wanted. Which is a big no-no, so the three get into a fighter jet and intercept the plane, climbing into the cargo place, all without his knowledge.

Syd starts fiddling around with the cargo, Marshall on comms, trying to find a detonator, except there isn’t. Meanwhile, aboard the plane, Dixon and Weiss jump the people and a fierce battle ensues.

Curtis gets into the cargo area, and catches Syd. Who has just found out that the bomb isn’t a bomb — it hosts a frozen body. Syd doesn’t have time to marvel over her new find, and she and Curtis exchange sharp talk.

The guy keeps telling Syd that she doesn’t know what she is getting herself into. And he won’t tell where Dean is. At that point, the pilot is shot to death accidentally, and the multi-talented (all of them are actually) Dixon takes the controls.

The walls of the plane behind Curtis suddenly opens (or whatever, I’m not really sure what he did), and he gets sucked out into the air, while Syd looks on sadly.

Back at APO, Syd has a heart-to-heart talk with her dad, in which she invites him to come to her next checkup, which Jack readily agrees. She’s really sad because they lost their last lead to Dean. And the body is being sent to DSR.

Thomas Grace the new agent comes in, and Weiss has a sort-of-sad moment with Syd and Dixon, knowing that he won’t be there soon. Dixon tells Syd something, and later Syd calls Renee, telling her that the body was intercepted.

Renee agrees to check up on it, but right next to her, there’s the body and ‘coffin’! And the fingers begin to move — Frankenstein’s monster!!!!!!!!! (nah, the fingers move, and that’s it)

Rating: 6/10

the green stuff…

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Episode 1: Prophet Five

Alias is back, after months of absence, and I just had the honour of watching the premiere episode. Before I proceed further, YYYYYYYYYYAAAAAAYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yup, that’s better. Okay so now. Back in season 4 we were left hanging with a bone-rattling car crash. Syd and Vaughn (I’ll call them S/V to save time) are in the car, and there’s a medical team coming to help them. Syd is conscious, but Vaughn isn’t. And Syd sees the medical guy with guns all over the belt, so she kicks his butt and runs off into the cornfield.

Where they play catch-me-if-you-can, which ends up with two ‘paramedics’ killed and Vaughn brought off in a helicopter. Well, so right now it seems like it was an extraction, especially after Vaughn had just said that he wasn’t Vaughn.

Syd gets back to APO, where there’s a guy called Dean from Langley who asks her questions. Jack steps in and interrupts, and in a way chases Dean away.

Meanwhile Vaughn is in some place, getting tortured because the people want to know about ‘Prophet Five’. Probably something (or everything) to do with Rambaldi. Anyway he somehow escapes and calls Syd for his father’s watch, which has something to do with decoding the mystery.

Then everyone is against Dean, including Marshall, trying to protect not-Vaughn. S/V go and meet some old guy called James Leaman who is a cryptologist trying to figure out about Prophet Five. Previously Vaughn had tried to find that guy with a girl called Reine, who is a terrorist. Whatever. The technical part is not easy to understand.

So the Leaman guy wants them to get a book from some place in Cape Town, where S/V go. They get it successfully. Then meet with Leaman at some train track. But not before Syd receives the news from her doctor that she is pregnant.

Somewhere out there, Dean has this agent who finds out where Vaughn is.

Vaughn goes by himself to meet with Leaman, and suddenly cars pull up, Dean the Langley guy pops out with some people, and they fire round after round into Vaughn and Leaman. And steal the book. Syd watches helplessly as a train rattles past between her and the scene.

Vaughn ends up in the hospital, where Syd waits anxiously. Jack comes in, and scolds her for being stupid. But Syd flashes up her final defence: “Vaughn and I, we’re having a baby.”

Which changes Jack’s mind, and he sides them. Then Syd goes in and has a little talk with Vaughn, and suddenly the machines start to beep red and doctors swarm the room….and Vaughn’s dead.

Cut to funeral. With closed coffin, which arouses suspicions.

Then four months later. Syd finally finds Reine, and says that it has something to do with Michael Vaughn.

THE END.

So Vaughn died. Can my dreams be finally coming true?? I doubt so, but I do hope Vaughn’s dead. Give me reason to enjoy the season all the more, man! But indeed, not too bad a premiere.

Rating: 7.5/10

Vaughn’s coffin flanked by colleagues of APO, front line: Marshall (tech guy), Dixon; second line: Weiss. Syd and Jack are unseeable in this shot.

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Past, Present, Future

I can’t really remember how my obsession with Alias started, but it sure had everything to do with season 1 which aired some years back on TV3. That’s one of the four basic channels of Malaysia’s pathetic television network.

I still remember that the first ever episode I watched of Alias was by an accident. Almost. Alias aired on Thursday nights, 9:00pm, and before that there was the Invisible Man, which my sister and I watched periodically for entertainment. Back then we had to be in bed by 9:00pm, except on school holidays, which it was when we watched the Invisible Man. No offense, but now
I think that show is quite silly.

So when IM ended, I had to find out what show was airing next. I did not watch the pilot episode (I can’t remember why), but I managed to talk my mom into letting me watch 10 minutes of the new show. The only thing I remembered from the first 10 minutes I ever watched of my future obsession was the scene where Sydney slapped her poor father (strange, but I like this kind of weirdness).

I didn’t really care at that time, but every chance I got, I watched 10 minutes. Gradually my mom loosened up, and we got half an hour. That was great, but it still wasn’t enough. I remember just at the half-hour mark there was an exciting escapade cut off by an advertisement, and as we were ushered off to sleep, I wasn’t too happy.

Well, the big break came soon enough. There was a holiday on Friday, and it was the first time I ever watched the whole episode of Alias. And I was hooked. My mom obviously liked it too, because she let us watch the whole show finish ever since then, until the end of the season.
Everytime before watching it, I would be close to hypervilenting, my hands cold. It was silly, but I couldn’t help it. As the season closed, I prayed with all my heart that Alias would return for a second season.

It didn’t.

But I found another place to feed my obsession. Thanks to the Internet, I continued chasing after Alias. When my dad went to USA, I got him to buy the season 2 dvd, which started a whole new phase of Alias in my life.

I was finally up to date in the real Alias world.

Season 3 was a total disappointment to me, personally. The only thing that kept me going was those brilliant Alias fanfics. When season 4 came, I had high hopes, which I tried to lower. I downloaded two-thirds of all the episodes, marvelling over those last 2 episodes, where Irina Derevko came back, despite the stupid clone matter.

Now season 5 will premiere September 29. I probably will never watch Alias again live on television. Although I can still watch it after downloading and buying the dvd, watching something on tv is forever a different feeling, a different excitement. Just as long as Jack and Irina remains in Alias, it is fine with me. In the beginning, I was hooked by the roller-coaster plot. It’s different now. The plot isn’t great, I watch it purely for the sake of characters.
Alias never returned to the glory of seasons 1 and 2. But if the plot should captivate me again, that, I think, will be the best thing besides Irina’s return after one-and-a-half season’s absence.

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Vaughn dies?

Prior to any show with an upcoming new season, there are always rumors. They always cause huge uproars, whether or not they be true.
As Alias nears the fifth season (yay!), there are rumors saying that Vaughn would be leaving. Or rather, the actor, Michael Vartan. Either way. Anyways, all the Vaughn fans were going crazy (even though it’s only a rumor), trying to get him back to stay. I for one don’t care. Vaughn is by far the character I hate the most.
With the rumors about him leaving, I can only hope it’s true. While it’s a major setback for some fans (some because not everyone likes Vaughn), I think it can be a breath of fresh air for Alias, along with some new cast, especially since Alias has not really recovered since the brilliant season 2.
So I don’t really like change. But so long as Jack is still a character in Alias, and Lena Olin comes back for more episodes, the rest of the Alias world can crash for all I care. What else can you ask for as a die-hard J/I shipper? The Alias plot, which I fell for in the beginning, isn’t really intriguing now, as it has just faded away into one of the average shows of today. If it wasn’t for Jack and Irina, I won’t be here as I am, an Alias fan.
Back to the rumors. Whether they turn out to be true or not, whether Alias falls or not, looks like season 5 will be the last season. And with a last season, shouldn’t there at least be a happy ending? Sydney with her ‘true love’ Vaughn? If Vaughn is going to die, please DO NOT tell me Syd will have a new love interest. She had had like, 5 love interests already. And that sucks. I always enjoy one true love kind of thing, and that many love interests isn’t what I like.

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