Happy ending for pretty much everyone we liked, except for Gettty, and of course…
JACK IS DEAD! LONG LIVE JACK!
Wow. I still have not the slightest conception what Milo Rambaldi wanted, exactly, but hey, it was a fun ride.
Oh my goodness–could a passing mod please add the word “spoilers” to my title?
Not that it matters–there will never be another ALIAS spoiler. Ever again.
:eek: 
So what does the Rambaldi machine do, anyway? I stopped watching Alias a couple years ago.
Did anyone get the “beating death” thing Sloane was talking about?
I haven’t watched it since the first year, and the Wikipedia entry for the show just baffled me. Spoil away.
Good thing you didn’t check page 2 to see if someone already started this thread.
It controls bees, for one thing. No, really. But only certain kinds of bees, fed with a certain kind of orchid nectar. Aren’t you glad now you asked?
The main thing we’ve seen the Meuller device (which is how the crescent-shaped Rambaldi machine is best known) do is work in conjunction with certain contaminants that Sloane, through his season 3 work with a charitable foundation, was able to seed into the drinking water supply of various countries around the world (including Russia). The final ingredient was derived from the aforementioned orchid (another Rambaldi creation) and when combined with one frequency would pacify the people who’d consumed the water additives. Another frequency, however, would cause those same people to become mindless violent “zombies.” The third Derevko sister, Elena, activated such a device over a city in Russia at the end of season 4 and was going to use Russian satellites to broadcast the signal around the world so that all the contaminated people would be “zombified,” Syd, Vaughn, Irina, Jack and Syd’s half-sister (by way of Irina and Sloane) Nadia saved the day with a last-minute assist from Sloane.
Immortality. The Horizon (the spinny ball below the red ball) was creating/collecting Rambaldi Life Juice which, when Sydney snatched it, spilled out into the trough-like basin below it. Sloane got peppered with several gunshots including one to the brain (and about damn time) but because of landing in the RLJ (“Rambaldi Life Juice? You’re soaking in it!”) he came back to life. Then Jack blew up the temple, pinning Sloane under that big rock for, if not eternity, a long-ass time. Even in death, Jack is the baddest badass of them all.
Which is why it’s kind of sad that he died with some self-delusions intact. He never intended this life for Sydney? Then why make her a first-generation Project Christmas subject, Jack? More importantly–and as much as I loved this show this central flaw in the premise which has been kicking around since the pilot and was never satisfactorily addressed–why when he found out that Sloane had recruited Sydney did he not immediately get her out of the situation? Sydney was an unwitting SD-6 operative for seven years before turning double agent and Jack knew about it almost from day 1. There is simply no excuse for not either getting her out as soon as he found out or at the very least turning her double then. They sort of hemmed and hawed around it tonight a little bit, with Jack pitching a fit and Sydney storming out, but come on, the chance to talk to her again about it didn’t come up until seven years later? Please.
That being said, with only a few exceptions I was very pleased with how things ended. The blowing up the APO HQ was pretty cliche but Thomas getting iced and pretty much killing himself was unexpected. It dashed my completely unfounded hopes that we might get a Thomas/Rachel spin-off series, though. Irina had to die. Sark had to live, because he always gets away. Isabelle’s finding the puzzle and solving it was pretty clearly telegraphed but whatever.
Good season, good season finale, good series finale. Can’t wait for 2026 and “Alias: The Next Generation.”
Oh, but during the mission Nadia got injected with contaminated water and got “zombified.” Trying to cure her provided much of Sloane’s motivation for the first half of this season.
I kinda gathered that…I just wasn’t sure how it worked. I don’t remember them really saying “okay, here’s this device…it creates a liquid that will bring you back to life…” or something. I gues I don’t quite understand how the Mueller device works, how the same thing used to contaminate the world could also generate immortal juice.
But yeah, the whole thing with Sloane and the big rock…that was pretty cool. I didn’t see that coming. And to think (just like Sydney said), for a while, I almost thought Sloane had changed. Yeah, in the back of my mind, I probably knew he wouldn’t…but, of course, that’s probably what they wanted me to think.
Good show.
Well, they didn’t. You kinda had to figure that part out base don Sloane’s opening his eyes after a round went through his forehead.
It wasn’t the same device. The Mueller device is made of metal and is crescent shaped. The altar thing the Horizon went into bore no resemblance to a Mueller device. It appeared to be a stone altar with the Rambaldi symbol <o> represented by two raised stone pieces making the < > and a depression into which the Horizon fit. We get a visual clue that the two things aren’t the same when the red ball bursts. When a Mueller device is deactivated/destroyed the red ball collapses into water. This ball collapsed into the red liquid.
Oh and lest we forget, Carrie was great this ep. She was always a fun counterpoint to Marshall when she appeared and it was nice bringing her back and doing something useful.
I was quite pleased with the episode. All day I was hoping “please don’t let it be a sucky finale” and it wasn’t.
Obviously Syd and Vaughn had to live happily every after, and I was very pleased that Sark got away. He’s my favorite.
Maybe I need to watch the episode again, but for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what the heck Sloane was doing down in that ice crevasse with the amulet. Did being there somehow “activate” the amulet? Did he receive information on how to find the final Rambaldi cave?
Not that it makes any difference, but it almost felt as if I had missed a scene or something.
It looked to me like sunlight was coming through the crevasse and shining through the pendant, casting some sort of light pattern on the wall. Then Sloane shot out the ground under Syd’s feet before the entire message/pattern was revealed.
Ah yes. I watched Alias voraciously for the first two seasons with my college roommates. “Sark check!” became something of an inside joke with us after an episode that had the team traveling by jeep somewhere in full camo/night-vision gear and, after arriving and splitting up, one removes his helmet to reveal: Sark!
Prompting one roommate to suggest “Ok, next time we’re headed out on a mission, first let’s check to make sure none of us is Sark.”
But then I graduated and lost interest. Glad to hear that it had a good ending.
Sorry about not checking page two. Ya know, it was actually my evil clone who started this thread.
I dunno. I would have liked to have actually MET Rambaldi; I got the impression that Sloane was trying to resurrect Milo, or what was left of him, but, like everything else, it was left unclear. Is Sloane invincible as well as immortal? If he is, why can’t he just kick off that rock and get out of Dodge? I can’t help thinking of those people in Gulliver’s Travels who are immortal but nevertheless age and are trapped in helpless debilitation for eternity. I’m going to call Sloane Floyd Collins for now, although unlike Floyd he’d be freed when the CIA comes looking for Jack. Hmmm, stairway going down, recent explosion, let’s dig, oh dear there’s Mr. Bristow here (and there, and some more there) and hello, CIA’s Most Wanted!
A single mention of Weiss would have been nice too.
Yes, but they looked like the same thing at first. I didn’t notice a difference until they collapsed.
Yes, I liked Weiss! That would have been cool.
I guess there is no scheme for which letter in the cisty name is inverse.
Or at least none explained. (I actually kept rack on season - nothing obvious)
Brian
I think you might be confusing invincibility with super strength. Imagine your body doesn’t die, but you’re otherwise the same strength. And being crushed by a massive rock. No food or water or companionship. For endless years. Seems like a fitting fate for Arvin Sloane.
I’m rapidly becoming obsessed with the series finale. I’ve watched bits of it over and over, have made like dozens of updates to various Wikipedia articles about the show and the characters, and even went back to review S1 episodes to see if Sydney was dressed the same in S1 and S5 during the recruitment scene (she was, so good job wardrobe people, but there were a bunch of other continuity differences so off to IMDB with them).
Her hair was different. Similar style, but far more “puffy”.
Especially noticable because they used the scene in the intro to each episode in Season 1 (I think…)
Her hair was different (over one shoulder in S5, over both shoulders in S1), her satchel was missing, her books were different, her water bottle was missing.
But I didn’t take notes or anything. Nope.