The Alias season premiere has aired on the East Coast, and let me start by saying it’s been a long wait. Glad I had my DVDs of Season 1 to tide me over.
Now, if anyone will show up to talk about the episode, we’ll get some discussion going.
I knew some of what was going to happen (spoilers are bad, children,) but the ep was still fun to watch.
Questions:
Who was using Syd as an assassin?
Why do I still not trust Sloane?
If Dixon has been head of the L.A. Task Force for six months, then why did Kendall answer the phone when Syd woke up?
When did the animosity between Vaughn and Jack return? They got along for most of the second season, so that was odd.
How about when Vaughn hurt Sydney a whole bunch?
I very much got the feeling that I was watching an entirely different show with some incidentally overlapping cast. Even the repeat figures (other than Sydney and Jack) were entirely different people: Dixon the boss, Weiss the in-charge cool guy. I’m kinda bummed over it, actually.
I think that was the intent. Remember, Sydney’s going through the same thing. She recognizes all the people, but nothing seems right. We are supposed to feel uncomfortable with how the show played out tonight.
That, plus this episode was very Syd-centric. As everyone gets dealt back in, things will settle down.
Two more things:
Was it just me, or did this episode seem a lot like “Truth Be Told,” the pilot? Syd discovers a life-changing set of circumstances, goes rogue, returns with an important item and uses it to get “leverage.”
Didn’t “the Telling” turn out to be a major cop-out? That sucked. Something tells me either Rambaldi is headed for the scrapheap alongside SD-6 and Francie, or Sloane’s got a HUGE secret he’s not sharing with the class.
Transplanted from the thread I strted that posted four minutes after this one
It’s two years later. Sydney wakes up in the streets of (where, Hong Kong?) with a mysterious scar on her stomach and no memory of the lost time. Vaughn is married, her father’s in custody and Dixon’s in charge. Where does the incredulity begin?
First, I loved the ep, even if there was absolutely nothing the slightest bit realistic about it. Good fight scenes, nice playout of the mystery, nice interaction between Sydney and Vaughn. Oh Marshall, how I love you. “I lost my keys. It’s a metaphor.” The parallel to the series premiere was interesting (Sydney retrieves something her bosses want to allay their suspicions of her…nice) and I wonder if it speaks to how the season itself is going to play out. Unraveling the mystery of the two years vs unravelling the mystery of SD-6 (which took, hey, two years).
I’m really torn between wanting this to be some elaborate (perhaps Rimbaldi device-inspired) dream/hallucination and this actually being two years in the future. (Or, “almost” two years as the narrative would have it. I have a feeling that as real time advances, if this isn’t an elaborate hoax, that the “almost” two years will shrink and shrink until reality and the show are back in synch.) Mostly because I don’t like the idea that Sloan went to all the trouble of 30 years to assemble the device and it yields the one-word message “peace”? Side note, what language do you suppose it was in? How was the message presented, audio or print, or maybe some other freaky format?
On the “completely beyond the pale” side of things, I don’t think there’s any way that Dixon would become some sort of section chief in two years. He was an (admittedly unwitting) enemy agent for a decade or longer and had only been with the real CIA for a few months before Sydney’s disappearance. I don’t think he’d be trusted enough to be in any high-level position in that short a time. I’m hoping maybe that’s a clue that this is unreality.
In Syd’s little whited-out dream sequence, did anyone else think the figures were Irina and the Asian torture guy? I forget what happened to him, is he dead?
I forgot to note which letters were highlighted to see if they spelled anything. Anyone else note them?
I actually did some figuring, and there is a way that the show could be about 3-4 months ahead of current time. Unfortunately, it contradicts Sydney’s birthdate and time at SD-6 before she became a double.
The Asian guy (“Suit and Glasses”) is alive, but in a wheelchair. Don’t think he was in the “dream sequence,” but an Irina look-alike did seem to be in it.
It was EXACTLY like the premiere. I suspect it was deliberate, as on the first season DVD, they discuss how they deliberately made the Season 1 finale like the premiere. If they did it once, they can do it again.
I don’t think Sloane was telling the truth. Totally a cop-out.
Also, where the heck is Will? He wasn’t in the credits.
I agree, they were probably going for that. I really hope it settles into something I like as much as I liked the first two seasons. Oh, and I really really really want to hate Vaughn’s wife.
Also, the Chinese guy isn’t dead, he’s paralyzed. “One in five, BITCH!”
I liked it, but I wasn’t blown away. I was seriously dissapointed that of all Syd’s old aquaintences, we spend the most time with Agent Weiss, who I kinda like, but could honestly not care less about.
I don’t buy Sloane’s “Peace” garbage for one second, and it irked me that Syd got all dolled up for absolutely no reason (she couldn’t have shot a gun at the car in her normal clothes?).
Looking forward to seeing Will, Sark, and most of all Irina again.
Shy Guy, I’m new to this show, but didn’t that guy see her before, when the CIA team was ambushed? So maybe the dress and hair and stuff were a disguise of sorts? Especially if she was trying to lure that guy out of the car before she blew it up, so that the microchip wouldn’t blow up, too. Just my thoughts.
We don’t know what phone number Sydney dialled when she called. She could have called Kendall directly (presumably the CIA would have a way of routing calls and changing TNs to follow people). Not a big deal to me.
Why did the Hong Kong safe house people attack Sydney with guns when she attacked Vaughn? Were they just attempting to subdue a possible impersonator or turned agent?
If she was being used as an assassin, the people controlling her obviously ‘shut off’ the control, allowing her to regain her personality. Can they turn her back into an assassin at will? And who else could do something like that, except Sloane with his new toy.
“Peace”? Right. How the hell did he convince the CIA it just said that?
How come Syd extorts a DOJ official into letting her dad out of prison, and she avoids prison herself? And when they let him out of prison, they decide to give him his CIA job back?!? The fuck?! This was resolved way, way too quick.
The issues brought up in the previous posts I basically agree with - 1) there are big challenges to my willing suspension of disbelief - just when I think they’ve stretched their credibility, they stretch it even further; 2) it often feels like they are muddling things up just to muddle them up, as opposed to have an eventually clear purpose.
What I do appreciate about the show is the acting. Sydney/Jen Garner’s speach to Vaughn at the end about how she felt about him checking in on her was emotionally credible. I guess that’s what I like about the show - the various actors, regardless of how rediculous of a situation they find themselves in, seem to sell the emotions well.
That’s what keeps me tuned in.
PS: Why the hell didn’t Dixon answer one of Sydney’s “more than a million questions?” He could easily have explained what happened to Will, Francie, etc. in response to Syd. When stuff like that is left, that’s when I feel innappropriately manipulated, not credibly manipulated…
As for people not answering Syd’s questions, well, they are in the spy business, after all.
Syd returns from the dead, and they really have even less idea than she does about how it happened. They’d be silly to trust her with government secrets until they know more about her.
What doesn’t fit is her and her dad ending the episode with their jobs back.
Dixon did it. He has a lot of pull, and he trusts the Family Bristow. Syd’s saved his life a few times, and Jack is too valuable as a strategist and planner to lose (remember, he’s one of the top game theorists on the planet,) plus his incarceration was politically motivated to begin with.
Besides, Lindsey is just Kendall part two. He’s not that important, other than to bitch about Jack and Sydney.
Marshall’s entire scene was hilarious. The poem was matched only by Carrie’s responses to the marriage questions.
The more I think about it, the stranger the Vaughn-Jack situation gets. If Jack has been in prison for a year, then Vaughn met his new wife and got married in less than a year, since Jack didn’t know about it. And why wouldn’t Jack have shown him the video proving Syd was alive? Something’s not right here.
As for not answering the “more than a million questions,” Dixon probably doesn’t know where exactly Will is, and Francie/Allison presumably escaped, since they didn’t find her at the apartment fire. Plus, Sydney and Will were the only ones who knew Francie wasn’t Francie, so that explains that.
As much as I hate to, I am beginning to think Vaughn is a baddie, either conciously or unconciously. Maybe he’s been replaced by a Francie-like clone person?
It makes absolutely NO sense that Syd’s father wouldn’t have shown Vaughn that video to prove to him that she’s still alive. And her father’s cryptic message about what really happened to her…I was really hoping they would continue that conversation before the episode but no such luck.
I also think Sloane is totally behind whatever evilness Syd’s been involved in. He looks even more evil when he’s pretending to be good. And how in the hell did he end up the boss of a WHO organization? Even if he gave himself up to the CIA, why on earth would they let him walk? He was the head of SD-6, for crying out loud! Something doesn’t add up there either.
But Marshall–ahhh, Marshall, who steals every single scene he’s in. Even if the entire show sucked, I think I’d still tune in to see him.
There was a lot of info last night, so please correct me if I’m off here.
But Vaughn quit 6 months after Syd disappeared, right? And Jack was imprisoned 1 year after Syd’s disappearance? That would make it make sense. And it would also explain why Jack is so pissed at Vaughn.
Greywolf, I completely agree about Sloane. I have a feeling there’s a TON more about the Rimbaldi machine, and it spat out a hell of a lot more than “PEACE”. I’m thinking “Giant Mind Control Machine” myself.
I mean, he quits the CIA six months after Sydney’s presumed death? I know they were romantically involved and everything, but still, the CIA was Vaughn’s life. I don’t buy that her death was so traumatic that he had to quit.
So, him quitting probably seemed conspicious and uncharacteristic to Jack. Like, as if, Vaughn knew something, and had to quit because of what he knew.
And, speaking of Vaughn’s wife, in the preview for next week’s episode, his wife is shown. Maybe it’s just me, but she kinda looks like his old girlfriend from around the middle of last season --is it her?
I have a feeling that it’s going to turn out that Vaughn was just getting close to Syd so that he could set her up for the fall. I bet Jack has some sort of dirt on Vaughn and is waiting for the right time to tell Sydney.
Let’s not forget Irina Derevko. She has to be tied into what happened with Sydney. It seems like it must have had something to do with the Russians, which Derevko obviously has close ties with. She is the one person in the show that I have never trusted.
I hope they scrap the whole Rambaldi thing, it is just too wierd for a show of this quality.
I started watching last season, and my interest is hanging on by a thread. Though it’s still queued in my “TiVo”, for the time being.
But I do want to give a shout out for casting Oleg Taktarov as the big bad…I assume we’ll see him again.
In real life, he’s the guy who beat Marco “Dinosaur Hands” Ruas in the championship bout of UFC…6, I think. (Mixed martial arts combat.) He made his acting debut in 15 Minutes, (he was the guy with the camera), and for a boxing-type lunkhead, I think he’s a phenomenal actor.
As for Syd’s emotional scene at the end, I was a little annoyed. I think she overacted that scene approaching the scale of Jim Carey. Less is more, Jennifer.
But overall, I look forward to next week’s episode.
Regarding the new wife, btw, I read an interview where the producer said something to the effect of “we’re writing her in a way that will make it very difficult for our female fans to hate her.”