selenak

Thanks to

kskitten, the latest Alias episode was in my letter box yesterday. So, let's see:

Bad things first. In contrast to last week's eps, the German accents from everyone were truly atrocious. Also, that wasn't Munich. And even my season 4 only affection for Vaughn doesn't help considering his injecting himself with some unknown substance as stupid beyond belief. Father obsession or no father obsession.

On the other hand, Jack manipulating Sydney and Sydney deceiving Jack (well, attempting to - as Sloane remarked near the end, who'd believe that story?) while both were being genuinenly glad to be in each other's company fed my kink for SpyFamily twistedness. Regarding Jack and Sloane - can't decide whether the "exploiting your daughter" remark was a glitch on the writers' part (because hello, Nadia and the Rambaldi juice), or whether we're meant to take it as an example of Sloane deluding himself. Which would also be in character. (When Jack in very early season 3 tells Sloane the difference between them is that he, Jack, did everything morally questionable he ever did for Sydney, he's as Andraste puts it either using a very bizarre definition of "morally questionable" or exhibiting massive self delusion. Same thing with Sloane here, only replace "morally questionable" with "exploiting".) So, power games between the Crafty Old Men, but at the end when Jack drifted off into silence you could see the gears in Sloane's mind switching from "what is Jack up to?" to genuine concern when he asked whether Jack was alright.

Which brings us to: SpyDaddy angst alert! Oh, I don't really think Jack will die from radioactive poisoning unless Victor Garber wants to leave the show, about which we haven't heard anything yet. So like everyone else, I'm betting on the magical last minute Rambaldi treatment. Until then, of course, there'll be massive angst on everyone's part. No, I don't think Marshall will blab, despite his normal propensity for doing so, but I think either Sydney or Sloane will figure it out. (My money is on Sloane.) Anyway, 'twas of course totally a Jack thing to do, but I'm glad that the episode for once didn't go the usual "Jack does something seemingly bad, Syd is angry, it's revealed Jack really did it for her benefit, she forgives him" route, instead making it clear that whatever Jack's long term aims are, he WAS deliberately manipulating Sydney, who wasn't angry but later doing some deceiving on her own.

Now, bring on the next episodes. With no more badly spoken German, please.

A couple of months ago I wrote about watching "Der Untergang"/ "Downfall"; now the film has been released on both sides of the Atlantic in the English-speaking world, and