More of the same from last week. Very well written; I couldn't tell what was going to happen from moment to moment. I thought the dialogue was particularly clever, too – especially the Cole/Sydney scene about him asking her out, and her shooting him down. I particularly liked Tarantino's line about the mall, Haladki's about pizza, and Sloane's "tastefully minimalistic office."
Jack proved irrevocably that he loves Sydney more than himself, giving himself up to protect her. Which also left Sydney alone to save the day, to deactivate the C4 before the vault door opened. And Vaughn, upon receiving Dixon's plea for help, galloped to Sydney's rescue, and he and Sydney got to do danger stuff together. This was the first time we got to see Vaughn in the field, wasn't it? He's cute and brave. My favorite scene was the two of them trying to defuse the C4 without knowing what they were doing.
Sloane has tremendous courage. I don't care if you know that you're going to die if you don't; telling Jack to deliberately cut off his finger took real guts.
Haladki became even more annoying and unreasonable. "Extraction teams R Us." Now he has both Vaughn and Weiss mad at him. They have good taste.
And Will decided to go ahead and make a stand. This is SUCH a mistake.
Bits and pieces:
— The scene where Cole just killed the SIS agent because he was upset with Sloane was very effective. A life, a good life, just gone.
— Alva Varden. Wasn't that the ship in one of the Lethal Weapon movies?
— All of this carrying on was about a tiny bottle of Rambaldi perfume? "Infinity. By Rambaldi."
— This week's itinerary was still pretty much the depths of SD-6, and the parking garage.
Quotes:
Marshall: "Hey. Sloane gave me the finger."
Sydney: "Does anyone ever learn anything in seminars?"
Four out of four spies. Marvelous.
Billie
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Billie Doux loves good television and spends way too much time writing about it.
Hi Billie,
ReplyDeleteI've just started watching Alias, and this was my favourite episode so far! I particularly liked the flirting between Sydney and Vaughn before they ran in opposite directions to diffuse the 2nd and 3rd bombs. Definite 4 out of 4 spies, thanks for the great reviews!
This was great. Alias hasn't gone wrong yet, have they? That's an amazing track record for a first-year show!
ReplyDeleteThe Theme of the Week was was definitely trust. Sloane and Cole talked about how Cole's men trusted him (Cole) to lead them well, but he failed. He saw this as a failure on Sloane's part to back him up, and Cole was ashamed that he'd failed to live up to the trust Sloane put in him by being broken during the interrogation.
Sydney trusted Jack to follow through after he let himself get captured (by leaving her a note), and Jack trusted her to manage the situation effectively.
Interestingly, Dixon didn't trust Sydney to pull it off, and he emailed Langley, showing his trust in the CIA and his willingness to go over Jack's head (so he thinks) in service to that trust.
The female member of Cole's team trusted Sydney and Vaughn even when she had no reason to: telling them she was SIS only made sense if she thought they were CIA, but Sydney wouldn't have told a member of Cole's team that she was a double-agent. That trust worked out well for Sydney, although of course the female spy didn't catch a break.
And Vaughn's emotional reactions to Sydney are causing his colleague Haladki to mistrust him, and probably causing Devlin to feel the same. But Weiss trusts Vaughn, because Weiss is awesome.
Vaughn doesn't quite seem to trust himself in the field: he was very upfront about his lack of knowledge about C4. (That was hilarious, and a perfect lead quote, Billie!) But he also looked very nervous about disarming the crystal, and had to use the spray canister even though Sydney managed to memorize it with just a few glances. Is she better at this than him? Maybe it's her super-spy genes.
I can't believe how short my review was for such a major episode. Hey, I hadn't been reviewing for very long. :)
ReplyDeleteLoved Sydney and Vaughn in "the field" for the first time. They are almost as good together as Sydney and Jack. Love that Sydney is more of a super-spy than he!
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure she meant she was an SAS agent - but she definitely said SIS. British SD-6?!
ReplyDeleteSo fun to see Vaughn in the field. I can't remember, but I feel like, earlier in the season, they made a point of saying that he wasn't really a field agent. Well, he did pretty well. Not as strong as Syd, but he held his own.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure what purpose the Haladki character is serving. Is he there simply to point out Vaughn's growing emotional attachment to Sydney? If so, it's unnecessary. Michael Vartan is playing his role well - we don't need someone else explaining what's happening. Is he just there for dialogue? He isn't integral to the storyline. He just sort of popped up and I don't really know why.
Still loved Quentin. And I still have admiration for Sloane. He may be evil, but he has guts and evn som depth.