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Alias: Blowback

Sark: "Sweetheart, this should be fun."

Spy dad, Spy mom, and now... dueling spy couples! This episode was so much fun, very twisted and Tarantino. I even laughed out loud several times, and Alias doesn't usually make me laugh.

I actually like Lauren as a character now, because she is turning out to be a good villain. She and Sark are like a blonde, evil version of Sydney and Vaughn. I absolutely love it. And their affair makes it better for our heroes. If Vaughn had cheated on Lauren at the beginning of the season, we would have had contempt for him. But now...

Sark is clearly smitten, too. This relationship is a lot more fun than his relationship with possibly dead Allison. He said a lot of fun things to Lauren in this episode: "Ambitious and domineering. Fantastic." "You are soooo controlling." He likes strong women, doesn't he? Which explains his interest in Sydney.

I have one complaint. In the scene on the ship, Vaughn was looking right into Lauren's eyes. She's his wife. Mask or not, how could he have missed that?

Dr. Barnett is an odd character, and something of a cipher. I guess, like most shrinks, it's her job to keep her true feelings to herself. Can she actually be hot for Sloane? She must find him fascinating, or she wouldn't have written her "post-doctoral thesis" on him.

And what is Sloane up to now? Is he hitting on Dr. Barnett, or setting her up for reasons of his own? Does he really believe he's Sydney's father? An affair with Irina at the appropriate time is one thing, and it may have happened... but I definitely do not believe he's Syd's father, and even more, I hate the idea. I just don't believe it. Sydney is just too much Jack's daughter. And if it's true, they'd be screwing with the strongest relationship on this show.

Bits and pieces:

— When the Vaughn/Lauren bedroom scene began for the second time, I actually thought it was a mistake.

— Marshall and Carrie had a boy, Mitchell. The comments were great: Vaughn: "He has my nose." And Jack's offhand, "Cute," with absolutely no expression on his face.

— Lauren mentioned that Vaughn wasn't the first person she's tried to ruin. I wonder who else? Perhaps her father, the Senator?

— Jack is now searching for "the mole," meaning Lauren. How long can she avoid interrogation? At least it probably won't be a fatal session in the SD-6 basement.

— What was on the eight yards of parchment? How can Sloane think that anyone is going to believe he threw it out, when Rambaldi was the king of invisible ink?

— Okay, the Ford F150 commercial was just tacky. I forgive them because I love the show, but really.

This week's...

... itinerary: Vancouver and Lisbon... twice.

... hot look: Definitely Dr. Barnett and her incredible floating cleavage. And Lauren in disguise, looking a lot like Sydney in disguise. Plus I absolutely loved Sydney posing as a nerd for a change, but how come Vaughn wasn't wearing a nerd pack and glasses?



I know Alias hasn't been quite as kick-ass this year as last year, but I think this episode deserves a four out of four spies,

Billie
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Billie Doux loves good television and spends way too much time writing about it.

2 comments:

  1. Sark certainly has mother issues, doesn't he? Sublimate, dear Sark. Sublimate.

    Dr. Barnett said she wanted dinner to be professional, but her "incredible floating cleavage" said something else entirely. And what is a "post-doctoral thesis," anyway?

    I love the same-scene-from-different-perspectives thing, in theory. But, like you, I though the second bedroom scene was a mistake and my DVD player had miraculously skipped backwards. They didn't quite pull it off, in other words, and breaking up the scenes with repeats of Dr. Barnett and Sloane (extended the second time) didn't really help. I certainly applaud the choice, but I wish they'd tweaked it somehow so it was both more obvious what was going on and more seamlessly integrated. Oh, well: narrative delights are what Lost is for!

    I watched these episodes all at once, so I forget if Sloane says it here or in the previous episode, but: he really thinks that he cares about Sydney, doesn't he? Even if he doesn't think (intellectually) he's Sydney's father, he believes it, or wants to believe it.

    Vaughn loves Sydney. It's hard to feel bad for Lauren, especially since she's having so much crazy fun with Sark.

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  2. I’m assuming what Lauren was shown in the previous episode was a photo of Vaughn and Sydney kissing when they were being held, in captivity, in north Korea. Lauren was so angry at this and not because she loves Vaughn ( frankly she could not care less about him ). She is a narcissist and was most likely thinking: how dare he cheat on me!! Although , Lauren confronts Sdyney with the line “stay the away from my husband”, the person Lauren is most angry with is Vaughn. But Lauren cannot confront Vaughn directly, as she has been ordered by the covenant to keep her marriage to him going.
    Lauren just looked fed up the whole episode. She wants out of her assignment of being Vaughn’s wife. I noticed frequently during the episode Lauren completely forgot that she is suppose to be playing the part of loving wife. For example, in the briefing Vaughn looks over at her with a warm smile. But she does not reciprocate, her focus is on gathering intel about the mission so she can leak it to the Covenant and this makes her forget her other assignment of playing the loving wife. With all this extra work Lauren has taken on, I hope the covenant are paying her a good fee.
    I find it interesting that Vaughn never told Lauren about the significance of his father’s watch and its connection to Sydney. I bet that is just one of many things about his past relationship with Sydney that he has not told Lauren about.

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