Alias 4.11
Mar. 20th, 2005 06:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakDuring a busy weekend with a 70th birthday of a quasi family member, I watched Alias 4.11 and enjoyed it muchly.
This season is great with one-shot guest stars. There was the ex IRA member to whom Vaughn confessed and who forgave him, and now there is Sam. Whom I liked very much. His interaction with Sydney both showcased Syd at her best, by featuring one of her traits not exhibited since the season 3 episode with the fake fellow prisoner - the fact that she's able to care about the civilians in the line of fine, and hasn't forgotten these are the people she's supposed to protect. The spying game has become pretty much its own purpose for old pros like Sloane and Jack (about whom more in a minute). But not yet for Sydney. At the same time, the episode also showcased how she must look to an outsider, and that the stuff we see her do without blinking comes across as brutal and scary.
Speaking of: the Jack subplot was great. Not least because it was, again for the first time since that season 3 episode with its reference to Allende, a shoutout to the shadier dealings of the CIA proper. Mind you, it would have been nice if we had ever heard of Sasha before, but hey. I'll wave that aside, because Jack mentoring a rebel or whatever Sasha used to be before going rogue who got dumped by the US and turned Evil Overlord made all kind of sense and was good storytelling in its fallout. "You betrayed me." (Lord, I hope Jack's not a B7 fan, nor JJ, because otherwise I have a sudden idea of how the thing with him and Sloane might end...) And that's the thing - Jack's morality and ethics have long lost connection to a larger ideal. Bear in mind his relationship with his old pal Arvin and what he said, in the few situations where we could be reasonably sure he wasn't lying, about same. When asked in season 2 when the friendship ended for him, he replied "when you recruited Sydney", i.e. not when Sloane defected and became a master criminal, not due to the bodycount and the co-founding of a terrorist organisation, no, when Sloane commited what Jack regarded as a personal betrayal by pulling Sydney into this world. In season 3, he was all ready to work for Sloane's release from prison, again never mind the man's past crimes (though he didn't actually commit the one he was on that occasion accused of), until hearing about the Sloane/Irina affair. Which resulted in an almost-use of the US justice system to punish adultery through death. (Unless you assume Jack always planned his last minute rescue, and not just when Sydney blackmailed him into it, but the direct parallels to the way he set Irina up to die in season 2 makes me doubt this). Adultery, not murder, blackmail, etc. (insert Sloane's criminal record here).
And now we have Sasha, your avarage Evil Overlord (tm), not unlike Arvin Sloane in that he's fiercely fond of Jack Bristow while carrying some resentments as well, and a devoted husband when not being a ruthless crime czar. And the guy gets the garotte, as ordered by the CIA, but not without Jack informing him that this is punishment for personal betrayal. It's impossible not to draw the conclusion that if Sasha had been random crimelord X without past friendship with Jack, Jack would have just let Dixon carry out the state-ordered assassination. (And btw, thanks for the clear acknowledgement the CIA orders this kind of stuff, and orders nice guys like Dixon, too, not just by beloved First Generation Spies.)
Sidenote I: And that's why, unless the Lena Olin rumours are true, I completely believe Jack would kill Irina.
Sidenote II: Whose idea was it again that Jack became a double agent, and maybe he did it originally (i.e. years and years before Syd ever was old enough to enter the spying business) because he felt that by going Evil Overlord, Sloane betrayed him first?
Sidenote III: Was I the only one who suddenly had a flashback to Sydney's hallicunatory fears of Jack killing her as a bad, Irina-resembling daughter?
To top it all, I even got another of my beloved edgy and ambiguous Jack 'n Arvin scenes. "I can get close." "Frankly, that's what I'm afraid of." Well, Sloane would know, having nearly been killed last season because Jack "can get close" to him. As ever, you can't make out here whether he's mindmessing with Jack or seriously concerned.
Meanwhile, news about Bill Vaughn. Seems it's Vaughn's turn now to go from having revered a dead saint as parent to finding a live bastard, though my unfortunate guess is we'll rather find out that the not so late Bill really was undercover at the time and had no choice etc. How on earth this ties together with Irina supposedly having killed him and last season's retcon about him having spirited Nadia away, I've no idea. It smacks of Chris Carter, I tell you. Still, I'm neutral about this plot point.
The caper: Sydney asking Jack out for dinner. Awwwww. With just the slightest touch of creepiness, as Jack just came from killing someone who loved him. And might I add that saying of Jack's Sasha quoted about treating agents like children - "give them rope to grow up but if they fail you, hang them with it" (no wonder Jack used the garotte on Sasha) - would not be conductive to inspiring relaxed Bristow family relations, had she heard it.
In conclusion: was this the first time we see Jack do something as ruthless as murder which can't in any way be excused as "I did for Sydney", but rather is presented as a) part of his profession, and b) motivated by purely personal vendetta feelings?
***
In other news, I think I'm feeling the inklings of an Alias fanfic idea. Did we ever find out Emily's maiden name?
This season is great with one-shot guest stars. There was the ex IRA member to whom Vaughn confessed and who forgave him, and now there is Sam. Whom I liked very much. His interaction with Sydney both showcased Syd at her best, by featuring one of her traits not exhibited since the season 3 episode with the fake fellow prisoner - the fact that she's able to care about the civilians in the line of fine, and hasn't forgotten these are the people she's supposed to protect. The spying game has become pretty much its own purpose for old pros like Sloane and Jack (about whom more in a minute). But not yet for Sydney. At the same time, the episode also showcased how she must look to an outsider, and that the stuff we see her do without blinking comes across as brutal and scary.
Speaking of: the Jack subplot was great. Not least because it was, again for the first time since that season 3 episode with its reference to Allende, a shoutout to the shadier dealings of the CIA proper. Mind you, it would have been nice if we had ever heard of Sasha before, but hey. I'll wave that aside, because Jack mentoring a rebel or whatever Sasha used to be before going rogue who got dumped by the US and turned Evil Overlord made all kind of sense and was good storytelling in its fallout. "You betrayed me." (Lord, I hope Jack's not a B7 fan, nor JJ, because otherwise I have a sudden idea of how the thing with him and Sloane might end...) And that's the thing - Jack's morality and ethics have long lost connection to a larger ideal. Bear in mind his relationship with his old pal Arvin and what he said, in the few situations where we could be reasonably sure he wasn't lying, about same. When asked in season 2 when the friendship ended for him, he replied "when you recruited Sydney", i.e. not when Sloane defected and became a master criminal, not due to the bodycount and the co-founding of a terrorist organisation, no, when Sloane commited what Jack regarded as a personal betrayal by pulling Sydney into this world. In season 3, he was all ready to work for Sloane's release from prison, again never mind the man's past crimes (though he didn't actually commit the one he was on that occasion accused of), until hearing about the Sloane/Irina affair. Which resulted in an almost-use of the US justice system to punish adultery through death. (Unless you assume Jack always planned his last minute rescue, and not just when Sydney blackmailed him into it, but the direct parallels to the way he set Irina up to die in season 2 makes me doubt this). Adultery, not murder, blackmail, etc. (insert Sloane's criminal record here).
And now we have Sasha, your avarage Evil Overlord (tm), not unlike Arvin Sloane in that he's fiercely fond of Jack Bristow while carrying some resentments as well, and a devoted husband when not being a ruthless crime czar. And the guy gets the garotte, as ordered by the CIA, but not without Jack informing him that this is punishment for personal betrayal. It's impossible not to draw the conclusion that if Sasha had been random crimelord X without past friendship with Jack, Jack would have just let Dixon carry out the state-ordered assassination. (And btw, thanks for the clear acknowledgement the CIA orders this kind of stuff, and orders nice guys like Dixon, too, not just by beloved First Generation Spies.)
Sidenote I: And that's why, unless the Lena Olin rumours are true, I completely believe Jack would kill Irina.
Sidenote II: Whose idea was it again that Jack became a double agent, and maybe he did it originally (i.e. years and years before Syd ever was old enough to enter the spying business) because he felt that by going Evil Overlord, Sloane betrayed him first?
Sidenote III: Was I the only one who suddenly had a flashback to Sydney's hallicunatory fears of Jack killing her as a bad, Irina-resembling daughter?
To top it all, I even got another of my beloved edgy and ambiguous Jack 'n Arvin scenes. "I can get close." "Frankly, that's what I'm afraid of." Well, Sloane would know, having nearly been killed last season because Jack "can get close" to him. As ever, you can't make out here whether he's mindmessing with Jack or seriously concerned.
Meanwhile, news about Bill Vaughn. Seems it's Vaughn's turn now to go from having revered a dead saint as parent to finding a live bastard, though my unfortunate guess is we'll rather find out that the not so late Bill really was undercover at the time and had no choice etc. How on earth this ties together with Irina supposedly having killed him and last season's retcon about him having spirited Nadia away, I've no idea. It smacks of Chris Carter, I tell you. Still, I'm neutral about this plot point.
The caper: Sydney asking Jack out for dinner. Awwwww. With just the slightest touch of creepiness, as Jack just came from killing someone who loved him. And might I add that saying of Jack's Sasha quoted about treating agents like children - "give them rope to grow up but if they fail you, hang them with it" (no wonder Jack used the garotte on Sasha) - would not be conductive to inspiring relaxed Bristow family relations, had she heard it.
In conclusion: was this the first time we see Jack do something as ruthless as murder which can't in any way be excused as "I did for Sydney", but rather is presented as a) part of his profession, and b) motivated by purely personal vendetta feelings?
***
In other news, I think I'm feeling the inklings of an Alias fanfic idea. Did we ever find out Emily's maiden name?
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no subject
Date: 2005-03-20 06:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-20 07:04 pm (UTC)Sydney not expressing more regret: you know, I found that realistic. Because empathy for Sam aside, she doesn't know him, and there is no way she'd open herself to a stranger to tell him something as intimate. (As opposed to, say, Buffy, who in later seasons can tell this kind of thing only to a stranger.)
no subject
Date: 2005-03-20 11:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-21 05:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-21 09:54 am (UTC)heart-warming, and, if you ask me, a perfect instance sydney not being written out of character this season, as many claim-- see also her "shades f grey" confession to nadia.
perfect, i said; as for sasha, you *got* the connection between them. so much history, jack somewhere between playing god & rectifying his mistake and being the sternest of all fathers who takes proper punishment to the ultimate level.
yes, personal betrayal is jack's achilles heel...or actually, in a way, it's not his problem as much as the problem of whoever happens to betray him in such an intimate way.
i'm loving the whole development; from apo itself to direct orders to kill-- lovely in that UTTERLY REALISTIC way.
sadly, it does. however, if jayjay tries, he may be able to work it-- if bill vaughn faked his death with or without irina derevko's knowledge and complicity, he may just as well be alive and trying to foil sloane's rambaldi plans.
but you know my opinion of the whole rambaldi arc...
no subject
Date: 2005-03-21 10:25 am (UTC)Absolutely. Sydney and Vaughn were the characters most damaged by bad writing in season 3, so recovering them was one of the most important tasks of season 4, and so far, to me, it succeeded very well.
(One of the keys to success is that we see Sydney interact with a lot of people - Nadia, Dixon, her father, Sloane, and now civilians like Sam - who bring out various sides of her, which makes for a three dimensional character, whereas in the second half of the last season she got only written as party of an angsty romance. Same with Vaughn, who gets Sark, Weiss, the ex IRA girl and now his father-seeking quest.)
jack somewhere between playing god & rectifying his mistake and being the sternest of all fathers who takes proper punishment to the ultimate level.
Yes. Which btw works neatly on a symbolic level for the overall show and ties with Sydney's vampire-induced hallicunation of him and Sloane melding into each other. They've always been the good father and the bad father respectively, ruthlessness in its allowed form because it was justified by protection, and ruthlessness in its forbidden form. But when it's about the shades of grey, which it seems to be, we see Jack exerting the darker father actions as well.
if jayjay tries, he may be able to work it-- if bill vaughn faked his death with or without irina derevko's knowledge and complicity, he may just as well be alive and trying to foil sloane's rambaldi plans.
Let's hope for the best. If he is still around, I certainly hope for an actor who can hold his own next to the likes of Rifkin, Garber and Olin...