Alias Finale
May. 24th, 2006 12:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakAs you've been all very good about not spoiling me, I shall follow your example for everyone else who hasn't watched the finale yet and be utterly discreet. But I do have a lot to say.
Okay. That was such a weird mixture of good and extremely bad that I'm still processing and utterly unsure how much of it I'll use in fanfic. I'm a canon girl at heart and usually don't take the "so and so has not happened" route, but there were huge chuncks of canon here that just did not make sense, and not in the usual Alias way. Not to mention the havoc played with continuity.
Extremely bad should come first, because I like to conclude on a positive note:
1) Backstory. Now in s1, Sloane mentions to Sydney that he has known her practically from birth, but this is news to her; she doesn't remember him and Emily from this time. Which isn't that difficult to believe - would you remember your parents' pals if you haven't seen them after you were five? Also, at Emily's "funeral", she mentions not knowing Emily at all when Sloane (re-) introduces her. So, up to the finale, it was canon that Sydney has no childhood memories of the Sloanes. And then we get told she stayed with them after Laura's "death". Ooookay. I think I can fanwank that with Sydney really having surpressed those memories until recent years, but still. On the bright side of things, this makes for a good story and may be of use in fanfic.
And then we get the Jack retcon. Which I'm already retconning. Jack should not have been surprised that Sydney can accomplish the puzzle, because Jack freakin' brainwashed her into being able to do that. (You know, JJ, I did watch season 2.) But okay, I can retcon/fanwank that, too. He's just pleasantly surprised she can do it because Sydney is the prototype, she is the first kid he tried Project Christmas out on. So he had no guarantee it would work. (Incidentally, I liked the flashbacks. You can tell it's a Drew Goddard episode when there are good flashbacks. But more about them once I got the complaints out of the way.)
2) Rambaldi's endgame. I'm sorry, JJ, but I watched s4 as well. In which we get a scene where Sloane (who is alone with a man he's in the process of killing, and thus has no possible reason to lie) explicitly excludes immortality as what Rambaldi is all about. Not that immortality could not be a part of it, I'm utterly fine with that, but ALL of it? (Watch my fanwank/retcon on that one in a few moments.) Boo. Hiss.
3) Stupid, stupid nuclear vessels plot. I mean, obviously that was meant so there is an external death threat to multitudes which our heroes can advert, but really, that was dumber than the dumber James Bond movies. They tried to bring up a flimsy justification by letting Jack state Sloane's not interested in devastation, just in the millions he can make by reconstruction, but you know, judging by all we've seen, Sloane already owns millions. So does Irina. Which brings me to the biggest complaint of them all.
4) Which, it may surprise you to learn, is not about Sloane. (Though I have something to say on that account as well, and not all critical, though see above, re: Rambaldi's endgame.) It's about Irina. Here's the irony: during the last two years, I was occasionally irritated by some fanon whitewashing Irina, making her into a "good bad girl", someone who never did anything really seriously bad. Little did I know. Hereby I apologize to all the whitewashers, because this other extreme, presented in the finale, is just the worst characterisation crime I ever saw on this show or in any fanfic whatever. Now if all Irina was after was power, money and immortality, then every action she undertook from walking in to the CIA onwards makes no sense at all. I mean, she was already the head of an international terrorist organization which was competing with the entire Alliance. She had her own Rambaldi research going on. There was no reason to bother with Jack and Sydney at all, and every reason not to. Moreover, what were all the "truth takes time" hints all about? And again, WHY ON EARTH WOULD IRINA WANT TO BOMB WASHINGTON AND LONDON? Leftover cold war issues? No. I officially declare Irina the most mistreated character of the entire show. In terms of mischaracterisation, I mean. There is competition otherwise, I admit.
5) And then there's my guy Arvin. Whose characterisation encapsulates the weird mixture of good and very bad this finale is. Like I said, immortality as the sole fulfillment of Rambaldism makes no sense. (Nor do nuclear vessels, but I already ranted about that on Irina's behalf.) Immortality as part of the game, however, does. As does Sloane shooting Jack in order to provoke Sydney to shoot him - that was the absolute sure guarantee she'd do it, and without hesitation, too - if you assume Sloane knew he needed to die in order to become immortal. (Otherwise, shooting Jack makes no more sense than Irina's actions, leaving entirely aside the emotional aspect. Though considering harming either Bristow directly is the one thing Sloane had not done in the course of five years, you might consider it emotional suicide as well, whether or not he knew death-by-Sydney would not be final.) Moreover, as I wrote before, I wanted either Sydney or Jack to kill Sloane, and the show gave me both and neither, which I'm fine with.
Being immortal but trapped, with Nadia's ghost - and I suppose we're to assume it actually is her ghost, as opposed to Sloane's hallucination, which is what I had previously thought it was supposed to be - leaving also works for me as a punishment by fate. I'm masochistic that way about characters I love who doom themselves by their choices, as I believe I mentioned before. Which still leaves me with the huge, huge problem of immortality as the sole endgame on Sloane's part. However, as opposed to poor Irina and the butchery committed on her, canon gives me enough room to manouevre, and declare the following personal fanon: after becoming immortal himself, Sloane wanted to move on to step two. Which he only could have done as an immortal in order for Rambaldi device X to work, and which was as unnatural as immortality itself, and if you think about it as crazy (I never claimed Sloane was the most stable of characters, especially after Nadia's death): bring back the (selected) dead. (A bad thing, as we know from other shows.) He probably would have started with Jack, and gone on to the very limited circle of people he cared about. (However, as these had been dead longer, it would have backfired terribly anyway.) And speaking of Jack -
6) Jack definitely gets the awared for most mistreated character in terms of actual fate, not characterisation (which was fine). Aside from Sydney (and Isabelle), Irina and Sloane were the people he cared about most, and to have them both go Irredeemable Evil Overlord on him at the same time was just horrible. Now his actual death, and the way he went about it, that was a classic Jack Bristow exit, but if you think about what a tragedy the man's life was - just grrr, arrrgh. However, again as opposed to Irina, canon gives me an obvious out here for Jack. To wit: the explosion threw Dying!Jack in the Rambaldi pool of immortality (tm). Which means that he's stuck there with Sloane. There will be much bitter sarcasm and utter refusal to do anything about this situation as he figures Arvin deserves it. Years pass. (In conversation and stubbornness.) And I really mean years. At some point, through, either or both will dig themselves out.
Now, on to the things in the finale that did not make me want to tear my hair out or come up with fanwanking and retconning:
1) Sydney's characterisation throughout. The scenes with Sloane and Jack were the highlights, but I also loved, loved, loved that the tag scene shows us she actually manages to be an agent and a mother at the same time (I was secretly afraid they'd have Sydney give up on work entirely), I loved Ruthless!Syd with Peyton (so Jack's daughter), and young agent Bristow in the flashbacks, again both with her father and with Sloane. Mind you, Syd's characterisation in the scene with Irina was good, too, but as Irina's was so horribly bad, I couldn't enjoy it.
2) Some continuity, to wit, Mount S., and Sloane not allowing Sydney to watch the sun rise. (Nobody told him she had done that already, after all.) Though this reminds me again of the stupidity of the Rambaldi's endgame-as-immortality-only thing, because Sydney actually does not do anything either to foil or fulfill the immortality thing.)
3) Rachel, and a pay-off to the past friendship with Peyton which I thought was a plot thread they dropped.
4) The Godfather homage, i.e. Sloane taking out Prophet Five and APO at the same time, complete with intercutting. Which I sort of had expected - we needed to get rid of the P5 guys to clear the stage for a Sloane vs Bristows showdown, they just would have distracted, and it was pay off for him having been blackmailed by them most of the year - but it was still good to see it play out.
And now, if you'lle excuse me, I'll go back to ranting on Irina's behalf, and fanwanking on Jack's and Sloane's. And wondering what the hell I should do at![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
fandom_muses, aside from going on with the AU I had already started there with the Jack and Irina muses, but I had expected to do that in addition to writing canon based stuff with a dead Arvin, not an immortal-and-trapped Arvin. All in all: I'm not quite in the mood I was in at the end of Carnivale's second season when I decided I really would have preferred it if the show had ended a year earlier, but close. Because, you know, in the fourth season finale, everyone's characterisation and aims made sense.
Okay. That was such a weird mixture of good and extremely bad that I'm still processing and utterly unsure how much of it I'll use in fanfic. I'm a canon girl at heart and usually don't take the "so and so has not happened" route, but there were huge chuncks of canon here that just did not make sense, and not in the usual Alias way. Not to mention the havoc played with continuity.
Extremely bad should come first, because I like to conclude on a positive note:
1) Backstory. Now in s1, Sloane mentions to Sydney that he has known her practically from birth, but this is news to her; she doesn't remember him and Emily from this time. Which isn't that difficult to believe - would you remember your parents' pals if you haven't seen them after you were five? Also, at Emily's "funeral", she mentions not knowing Emily at all when Sloane (re-) introduces her. So, up to the finale, it was canon that Sydney has no childhood memories of the Sloanes. And then we get told she stayed with them after Laura's "death". Ooookay. I think I can fanwank that with Sydney really having surpressed those memories until recent years, but still. On the bright side of things, this makes for a good story and may be of use in fanfic.
And then we get the Jack retcon. Which I'm already retconning. Jack should not have been surprised that Sydney can accomplish the puzzle, because Jack freakin' brainwashed her into being able to do that. (You know, JJ, I did watch season 2.) But okay, I can retcon/fanwank that, too. He's just pleasantly surprised she can do it because Sydney is the prototype, she is the first kid he tried Project Christmas out on. So he had no guarantee it would work. (Incidentally, I liked the flashbacks. You can tell it's a Drew Goddard episode when there are good flashbacks. But more about them once I got the complaints out of the way.)
2) Rambaldi's endgame. I'm sorry, JJ, but I watched s4 as well. In which we get a scene where Sloane (who is alone with a man he's in the process of killing, and thus has no possible reason to lie) explicitly excludes immortality as what Rambaldi is all about. Not that immortality could not be a part of it, I'm utterly fine with that, but ALL of it? (Watch my fanwank/retcon on that one in a few moments.) Boo. Hiss.
3) Stupid, stupid nuclear vessels plot. I mean, obviously that was meant so there is an external death threat to multitudes which our heroes can advert, but really, that was dumber than the dumber James Bond movies. They tried to bring up a flimsy justification by letting Jack state Sloane's not interested in devastation, just in the millions he can make by reconstruction, but you know, judging by all we've seen, Sloane already owns millions. So does Irina. Which brings me to the biggest complaint of them all.
4) Which, it may surprise you to learn, is not about Sloane. (Though I have something to say on that account as well, and not all critical, though see above, re: Rambaldi's endgame.) It's about Irina. Here's the irony: during the last two years, I was occasionally irritated by some fanon whitewashing Irina, making her into a "good bad girl", someone who never did anything really seriously bad. Little did I know. Hereby I apologize to all the whitewashers, because this other extreme, presented in the finale, is just the worst characterisation crime I ever saw on this show or in any fanfic whatever. Now if all Irina was after was power, money and immortality, then every action she undertook from walking in to the CIA onwards makes no sense at all. I mean, she was already the head of an international terrorist organization which was competing with the entire Alliance. She had her own Rambaldi research going on. There was no reason to bother with Jack and Sydney at all, and every reason not to. Moreover, what were all the "truth takes time" hints all about? And again, WHY ON EARTH WOULD IRINA WANT TO BOMB WASHINGTON AND LONDON? Leftover cold war issues? No. I officially declare Irina the most mistreated character of the entire show. In terms of mischaracterisation, I mean. There is competition otherwise, I admit.
5) And then there's my guy Arvin. Whose characterisation encapsulates the weird mixture of good and very bad this finale is. Like I said, immortality as the sole fulfillment of Rambaldism makes no sense. (Nor do nuclear vessels, but I already ranted about that on Irina's behalf.) Immortality as part of the game, however, does. As does Sloane shooting Jack in order to provoke Sydney to shoot him - that was the absolute sure guarantee she'd do it, and without hesitation, too - if you assume Sloane knew he needed to die in order to become immortal. (Otherwise, shooting Jack makes no more sense than Irina's actions, leaving entirely aside the emotional aspect. Though considering harming either Bristow directly is the one thing Sloane had not done in the course of five years, you might consider it emotional suicide as well, whether or not he knew death-by-Sydney would not be final.) Moreover, as I wrote before, I wanted either Sydney or Jack to kill Sloane, and the show gave me both and neither, which I'm fine with.
Being immortal but trapped, with Nadia's ghost - and I suppose we're to assume it actually is her ghost, as opposed to Sloane's hallucination, which is what I had previously thought it was supposed to be - leaving also works for me as a punishment by fate. I'm masochistic that way about characters I love who doom themselves by their choices, as I believe I mentioned before. Which still leaves me with the huge, huge problem of immortality as the sole endgame on Sloane's part. However, as opposed to poor Irina and the butchery committed on her, canon gives me enough room to manouevre, and declare the following personal fanon: after becoming immortal himself, Sloane wanted to move on to step two. Which he only could have done as an immortal in order for Rambaldi device X to work, and which was as unnatural as immortality itself, and if you think about it as crazy (I never claimed Sloane was the most stable of characters, especially after Nadia's death): bring back the (selected) dead. (A bad thing, as we know from other shows.) He probably would have started with Jack, and gone on to the very limited circle of people he cared about. (However, as these had been dead longer, it would have backfired terribly anyway.) And speaking of Jack -
6) Jack definitely gets the awared for most mistreated character in terms of actual fate, not characterisation (which was fine). Aside from Sydney (and Isabelle), Irina and Sloane were the people he cared about most, and to have them both go Irredeemable Evil Overlord on him at the same time was just horrible. Now his actual death, and the way he went about it, that was a classic Jack Bristow exit, but if you think about what a tragedy the man's life was - just grrr, arrrgh. However, again as opposed to Irina, canon gives me an obvious out here for Jack. To wit: the explosion threw Dying!Jack in the Rambaldi pool of immortality (tm). Which means that he's stuck there with Sloane. There will be much bitter sarcasm and utter refusal to do anything about this situation as he figures Arvin deserves it. Years pass. (In conversation and stubbornness.) And I really mean years. At some point, through, either or both will dig themselves out.
Now, on to the things in the finale that did not make me want to tear my hair out or come up with fanwanking and retconning:
1) Sydney's characterisation throughout. The scenes with Sloane and Jack were the highlights, but I also loved, loved, loved that the tag scene shows us she actually manages to be an agent and a mother at the same time (I was secretly afraid they'd have Sydney give up on work entirely), I loved Ruthless!Syd with Peyton (so Jack's daughter), and young agent Bristow in the flashbacks, again both with her father and with Sloane. Mind you, Syd's characterisation in the scene with Irina was good, too, but as Irina's was so horribly bad, I couldn't enjoy it.
2) Some continuity, to wit, Mount S., and Sloane not allowing Sydney to watch the sun rise. (Nobody told him she had done that already, after all.) Though this reminds me again of the stupidity of the Rambaldi's endgame-as-immortality-only thing, because Sydney actually does not do anything either to foil or fulfill the immortality thing.)
3) Rachel, and a pay-off to the past friendship with Peyton which I thought was a plot thread they dropped.
4) The Godfather homage, i.e. Sloane taking out Prophet Five and APO at the same time, complete with intercutting. Which I sort of had expected - we needed to get rid of the P5 guys to clear the stage for a Sloane vs Bristows showdown, they just would have distracted, and it was pay off for him having been blackmailed by them most of the year - but it was still good to see it play out.
And now, if you'lle excuse me, I'll go back to ranting on Irina's behalf, and fanwanking on Jack's and Sloane's. And wondering what the hell I should do at
fandom_muses, aside from going on with the AU I had already started there with the Jack and Irina muses, but I had expected to do that in addition to writing canon based stuff with a dead Arvin, not an immortal-and-trapped Arvin. All in all: I'm not quite in the mood I was in at the end of Carnivale's second season when I decided I really would have preferred it if the show had ended a year earlier, but close. Because, you know, in the fourth season finale, everyone's characterisation and aims made sense.
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Date: 2006-05-24 03:20 pm (UTC)See my reply to