Alias

THis has to be by far the best episode without Vaughn. The new guy was better in this episode but he will not replace Vaughn or Weiss for that fact. Rachel will come into her own as the season unfolds. Sydney still kicks butt and the attidude she has now is fantastic. Keep up the good work and bring back Michael.

I loved the flashback the writers provided for us today and how we saw things the second time we did not see the first. They did a good job of making us think Tom was "Sidewinder" the first time around, but apparently that's Rachael's code name along with "Mockingbird".







The car dangling in the air plot was excellent and had me on the edge of my seat. It felt like 'Alias' in the good old days and I enjoyed myself. Dean is really desperate to get Rachael out of the picture and I suspect that as more time goes on with Rachael alive the more drastic he will get.







I also enjoyed Dixon and Tom trying to extract money from that hard ass bank. It provided another moment that had me tense while laughing at the same time. Dixon (to Tom): "Oh I think this one's yours." Tom: "No remember you had all the odd number ones." Dixon: "Oh yes, that's right.” I sure am glad it doesn't take that much trouble to get money out of my bank.







Sloane's trial interested me and I was happy to see that somebody else thought Sloane's actions were horrible. Everybody else has been forgiving of Sloane and it was good to see somebody who thought his crimes were unforgivable, even though in the end they did set him free. It does look like though that the bad Sloane is back, since it turned out that the man who worked for Dean was the one who got him set free. I wonder what Dean wants in return. Rachael?







This episode was humorous and filled with action, which is what 'Alias' is at its best. Sydney ended up providing a lot of the funny lines tonight and I really like how they are incorporating her pregnancy into the episodes.







Funny Lines:







Sydney: "Mama, wants a new pair of shoes."







Sydney: "I'm not like other moms."







Sydney (to Rachael): "Don't worry; I've been in much worst situations.



Rachael: "You have?"







Finale Rating: 4 out of 4 stars....or close to it











-Tim Bronx

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The episodes (for me) in season 5 have gotten a little worse each time. Start off with the 9.4 of "Prophet Five" and then move down to 9.2, 9.1, and now an 8.8. I dont know what it was about this episode, it just didnt feel like we were moving rhe story along. There seems to be two split storylines at the moment - one with Dean/Peyton and there own little SD-6 adventure and the other is Renees storyline, which we havent seen at all since the end of ...1...



I thought Arvins storyline was the most boring any of his scenes have ever been. A man ont he inside tells him he can get him out for something we dont know yet - and the next day he is realeased. Hopefully he will turn bad for the remainder of this season. He has been a good guy far too long.



I liked the beginning at the casion and then the later clips when they went back and added the woman into the scenes where we didnt see her earlier. I thought Sydney and Rachel hanging from the magnet was kind of dumb, I would rather have seen Marshall crack the code in time.



Overall, decent episode...I just wasnt feeling it.

What a mix of good and bad.



First of, I loved the beginning, and I loved the casino part. It was great that small moments were explained later on and they seemed like much bigger after. But that's about it.



The episode was very... empty. Rachel and Sydney trapped in a car isn't very exciting ,especially if the solution to it all is pretty lame.



Not to mention that... oh come on. How cliché is this "Arvin Sloane... I know a way out of prison. Only if you do me a favour, though". Please.... (of course, episode ends with Sloane judged innocent). It was a big plot development but not very exciting.



Overall, I loved the 72 hours earlier start to see how things are eventually connected. I also liked Rachel's development... but that's about it. The episode felt dull at times.

The episode starts off in Monte Carlo, where Sydney is heading an operation at a casino (it IS Monte Carlo, after all). On successfully completing the mission, Sydney's car is ambushed - a long way off the ground. She then receives a phone call from the notorious Gordon Dean, demanding that she returns "Mockingbird" to him. This is all we are given in the opening scene, before we are taken back "72 hours earlier".



Prior to the mission in Monte Carlo, Rachel is back with the real CIA, giving them everything that she possibly can to help with the investigation. It is here where we find out, for the first time, what Mockingbird actually is.



The other major event in this episode is the trial of everyone's favourite monster, Arvin Sloane. He is being placed before a panel, who will ultimately decide on his freedom. The head of the panel, however, doesn't give him a warm reception, and it becomes evident that Sloane's chances of freedom look bleak. Of course, no Alias story line is ever straight forward, and the plot really thickens when Sloane is greeted by a mysterious visitor during his trial.



There is a fair bit that happens in this episode, in regards to both story line and character development. We're starting to see Rachel Gibson coming out of her shell a little more, as it occurs to her that her stay with the CIA (the REAL CIA) will most likely be an extended one. On the whole, this was a good episode that continues to keep the audience guessing.

This was a great Alias episode. The pregnant mama is still able to kick some ass when she has too. This episode she goes to a casino for the mission, and when the manager is talking to her about other other people, she says "I am not that kind of Mom" I loved it. This episode showed more into the new character to, she is able to face her fears and go back to the blown up office to recover data. Dixon and the new guy use the data to clear out Rachel's bosses bank accounts. As Syd is leaving the casino, with Rachel in the truck her car is picked up by a giant crane. This was such a great episode. I really hope that Alias can build up it viewer, so it can be renewed. I know I am getting a little ahead of myself, but this is a great show.

It seems that the Mockingbird can sing alright, much to Gordon Dean’s chagrin. Rachel truly believed that she was working for the CIA, and not for a ruthless mercenary organization that thought nothing of setting off explosives that killed its own staff in order to protect information, and she was a party to it. She has been betrayed and feels responsible for the death of her colleagues and friends, and will do whatever it takes to bring Dean down. Even if it means walking back into what remains of her former office to retrieve information.



The crash course of taking on an alias did not protect Rachel from what greeted her when she walked back into her old office. Through the rubble and debris, she could see the office as it was, and imagined former colleagues looking at her as if to say, “you did this to me.” Opening the computer case and seeing blood did nothing more than to confirm her part.



Thankfully, she’s working with the best. Syd kept her focused long enough to come through in time to get the hard drive up to provide Dixon and Grace with the answers necessary to access Dean’s accounts. Unfortunately, in so doing, she inadvertently let Dean know that the Mockingbird could indeed sing.



Dean’s reach is apparently farther than what we initially thought. His wrath will inevitably come down on Mockingbird soon enough, especially now that he is pulling Arvin Sloane’s strings.



Poor misguided Sloane. For all his faults and crimes against humanity, there is one thing that can never be questioned and that is his love and unwavering loyalty to the women in his life. He doesn’t even know (or does he?) who he’ll be answering to for his release, but because of his fierce love and loyalty to Nadia, he’s going to sell what’s left of his soul.



Once again, his reasoning will test his already tenuous relationships with Sydney and Dixon who in spite of their misgivings voluntarily wrote statements on his behalf. And what of Jack, who without hesitation was willing to take care of Nadia? Nadia, who is the product of his wife’s betrayal with Sloane?!



Thoughts and observations:



• Great closing scene when Rachel telling Syd that it was never going to safe. As Sydney says, “I guess we’re going to have to bring them all down” we see Sloane walking out of court, and glancing at Dean’s messenger. That along with the ominous violin music gave me the chills!

While there’s plenty of reason to complain about the awkward transition from the Sydney/Vaughn-centric material of the fourth season to this season’s shift to new characters, this episode is probably the best episode of the series yet. It’s still not perfect, and the new characters aren’t quite coming together as well as one might like, but there’s a clear process taking place.



Rachel is a lot more naïve about the business and her current situation than Sydney was in the first season, and that can be a little annoying. She can get a little hysterical, and while the actress pulls it off, it’s not the most flattering introduction to a character in the world. When the writers are trying so hard to get the audience to care about Rachel, they could do some things to make her a bit more sympathetic.



That said, this episode is about gaining the first hint of confidence, as Sydney slips more and more into the Vaughn-esque role. Speaking of Sydney, this episode is a good example of why her time as an active agent is going to come to a rapid close. It was very hard to rationalize her presence on a field mission while so obviously pregnant (and therefore, to an extent, more vulnerable than ever). She needs to step back and push Tom and Rachel into the forefront.



The problem with that, of course, is Rachel’s lack of training. Tom, however, can help with that by working with her in the field, not unlike how Noah Hicks must have helped Sydney get her bearing. That would fit into the parallels with Sydney’s life, in many ways completing the cycle of her experience. And there’s a good support system in place with Jack as the director and Dixon also in the field. It could work, but the writers need to get the story there organically.



This episode does a good enough job of that, though it relies on a few gimmicks and conveniences to do so. Skipping over the whole rescue at the end was either required for time or a huge writing mistake. That was hardly the only example of one. Sydney takes a lot of time to advise Rachel to stay in character while rummaging through the crime scene, yet both of them act like anything but their alias while on the scene.



So what did work? Dean is becoming a very interesting villain, and while his goals are still murky at best, he fits the bill as a post-Yelena Rambaldi fanatic trying to get something out of the situation that still hasn’t been fully resolved after the fourth season finale. This is, of course, assuming that the whole “Prophet 5” document is an indirect reference to Rambaldi.



But why else would Dean want to spring Sloane and get him involved, if he didn’t have some goal related to Rambaldi and the prospect of a cure for Nadia? It’s doubtful that Sloane would stay away from something related to Rambaldi yet again, especially since he would have the chance to do things right this time. After all, he was following the Rambaldi blueprint for more than 30 years. Why would he be compelled to change now?



While he claims redemption, having infiltrated Yelena’s organization to disrupt her plans, it’s important to remember that Yelena was definitely not following the Rambaldi endgame. Yelena perverted Rambaldi’s plans to her own ends, which is why Sloane wanted to stop her in the first place. Under no circumstances can it be claimed that the Rambaldi endgame is over and done with.



Of course, part of the problem with this episode (like all the episodes since the premiere) is the obvious attempt to leave Rambaldi out of the equation. There were about a hundred reasons to bring Sloane’s obsession with Rambaldi into his hearing, and the writers were clearly jumping through massive hoops to remain Rambaldi-free. By now, the network should realize that the invocation of the Rambaldi name is hardly a factor in the series’ success, and there’s really no reason to water things down by not bringing up the central piece of the series’ mythology.



A couple of other things are notable for this episode, which despite some of the nitpicks, was at least on par with the quality of the third and fourth seasons (which remain underrated). The first is largely for the men of the audience (and those with similar taste): just how hot is Rachel Nichols? Sure, she was a model before getting into the acting thing, but she is one highly attractive young woman. And that camera angle in the trunk was giving the audience quite the bird’s eye view, considering how low cut that top was! Oh, for the moment she starts getting into Sydney’s old wardrobe!



The ratings are also a matter of concern. As anyone with half a brain could have predicted, the series is getting crushed by the competition. A lot of industry insiders are talking about the series as if it were already dead, and that’s a real shame. The network is largely to blame, especially since they gave the series an early renewal last season and then botched its return this fall in nearly every way.



This season’s episodes have been cursed with the scent of decay, because too many outside issues were dragging on its premiere, it probably came back too quickly, and it’s on the wrong night to fit well within the schedule. It was bad enough when the series moved into the post-“Lost” slot. This new slot is just plain evil. The only benefit of the current situation is that the writers have plenty of warning to plot out the season finale as an end to the series as a whole. Unless, of course, the network delivers the ultimate betrayal and cancels the series before it gets a chance to end.

When the writers either lose an actor or run out of creative plots they always bring in new characters who never measure up. Now that Sloane is no longer a threat they bring in Gordon Dean. He is not very interesting and the Shed is just another SD6 without the butt-kicking.

I’m just thrilled at the new direction Alias has taken since the “death” of Michael Vaughn! I’ve got to say I hated the fifth season premier a few weeks ago because I resented my Alias being reduced to soap opera schmaltz with discussions of impending marriage and babies and so forth, but worst of all for me was how completely indifferent I was to Vaughn’s death. What terrible storytelling that is, when after four seasons of following a show you could care so little about one of the main characters that you don’t even care if he dies. Of course, that would only apply to Vaughn, because I’ve found Michael Vartan’s acting consistently to be the least compelling, most pedestrian, and truly boring aspect of the show. I truly could care less when he was killed, which for me demonstrated terrible character development.

Now an Alias mind-game I adore. Sydney is on her own again being the driving force of the mission’s she undertakes. Her character is no longer being defined by endlessly boring soap-opera style relationships. Even pregnant Jennifer Garner looks absolutely amazing in all of her slinky spy outfits, and I love that tonight’s episode got back to Sydney playing other “characters,” the aliases she assumes when undertaking missions. Tonight’s episode began with Sydney playing an obnoxious American gambler who uses her pregnancy to con her way into winnings at a Monte Carlo casino. The start of the episode was structured to let us enjoy Sydney’s hilarious new persona, a great opportunity for Jennifer Garner to let loose and demonstrate the full range of her acting ability, which really hasn’t happened in the more conventional storylines of the past two season which haven’t included as many aliases for Sydney. The show is called Alias after all, and I’m glad the writers have chosen to add a little levity to an otherwise very serious storyline, that of tracking down Vaughn’s murderers. That being said, I do think it is interesting that Sydney would be able to so easily get back into her routine of putting on aliases for undercover ops when she has lost the love of her life; perhaps, deep down, she really was as indifferent to Vaughn’s death as I was.

One of the more interesting storytelling devices this season so far is the introduction of the character Rachel Gibson, whose background is very similar to that of Sydney at the start of the series. Syd has taken Rachel, played by Rachel Nichols, under her wing, and in so doing has had to look inward to reconnect with her own wounded past of being betrayed and mislead by people deluding her into believing she was working for an organization that was something it wasn’t. This has led to some thoughtful commentary from both characters that really addresses not only the themes of the show, but the mythology that it was founded on and had been kicked aside by less-enthused writers in the past couple of seasons. For example, tonight we had Sydney give an analysis of the utility of assuming aliases, a psychological explanation for a big part of the show that was always implied before, but never explicitly stated.

I was worried when the season began that the adoption of the Rachel character would detract from Jennifer Garner’s character much like the introduction of Jeri Ryan diminished the role of Kate Mulgrew on Star Trek: Voyager. I thought that Sydney would be relegated to only adding insightful commentary from the sidelines, and indeed she has performed that function far more brilliantly than I would have expected. However, much to my delight Sydney has continued to be active in missions, trouncing her adversaries as in the Monte Carlo casino tonight, and providing us with some of the most thrilling scenes this series has ever had, especially her dangle from the crane after leaping out of the car as it was about to be dropped during the episode’s climax. I must say that the characters played by Elodie Bouchez and Balthazar Getty add absolutely nothing to the storyline and should be dropped. First of all, Bouchez’s character of Renee Rienne has hardly appeared on the show and deserves nothing more than a guest credit. Balthazar Getty is as bad an actor as Michael Vartan. My message to the writers is this: stick to developing the characters with whom we already have an emotional investment, whose storylines are deeply rooted in the mythology of the show. This is why I am not upset with the departure of Vaughn, because I never had an emotional investment in that character, and why I am also indifferent to the departure of Nadia, played by Mia Maestro, whose character was a late addition to the Alias mythology.

I was also very pleased by the reintroduction of the non-linear chronology in tonight’s episode. I haven’t seen such a creative story structure since some of the better episodes of season three. This plus the possible reemergence of Sloane as a threat now that he is working for Dean’s organization as a condition of them getting him out of jail, made for tonight’s episode to be much more interesting structurally and substantively, especially since Dean’s organization poses a much more visceral threat as opposed to the shadowy, insubstantial organizations of The Covenant and Elena Derevko. Bring Lena Olin back for more than just a guest appearance or two and I will be as fanatical an Alias fan as ever! Keep ‘em coming J.J!