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Alias: The Counteragent

"You and I were destined to work together. I truly believe that."

Another excellent episode.

I noticed Sydney didn't hesitate to disobey the CIA when it came right down to Vaughn's life in the balance – not to mention her willingness to set up Sloane! That decontam scene was pretty powerful. I was a little shocked that she gave in to Sark's proposal so quickly, but she hates Sloane with a passion, and what else could she do?

Sloane, after losing his cool while having Richter tortured, and desperate for a hit to keep the Alliance from closing down SD-6, was thrilled to be able to flaunt his new partnership with Sark, while Sark seemed to be a lot more fascinated with, and fixated on, Sydney. Sark and Sydney make an interesting pair. He is clearly interested in her (transferring a fixation on Irina, perhaps?) and she despises him; he brings out the worst in her.

Sydney and Jack seem to have a working truce now; he surprised and pleased Sydney by helping her kidnap Sloane. Jack clearly doesn't want Sydney to carry the guilt and responsibility of committing murder, though; he doesn't want Sydney to become the person that he is. She thought she was doing it, though, so even though she didn't take that step in fact, she took it emotionally.

On the ghostly front, Sloane now believes that Emily is alive and that she knows he tried to kill her. When Sloane was on the massage table, he was about to confess everything about Emily to a disguised Sydney... or was he? Sydney still doesn't know about Emily, and hearing Sloane confess to killing her could have been explosive.



Sydney's relationship with Vaughn is becoming more emotional, and more romantic, every week. Twice in this episode, I thought Vaughn would tell Sydney that he loves her; in the hospital bed, and later at the end – and he didn't. He did tell Irina, though. They had the same conversation twice, in reverse: thank you for saving my life... and, I didn't do it for you, meaning, they both did it for Sydney. How interesting. Well, she made him do it, but still...

Bits and pieces:

— Syd told Will about Project Christmas, which could have been tried on five million American children in 33 states. Wow.

— I knew something had happened to Vaughn in Cap Ferrat. My original thought back at the beginning of the season was that he had been brainwashed in some way. Now we know; he'd been exposed to the virus, and Khasinau was experimenting on the victims. To find a cure, according to Irina.

— Vaughn has a good-sized tattoo on his top left shoulder. He doesn't seem like the kind of guy who would have a tattoo... so either Michael Vartan has one and they decided not to cover it, or there's stuff we don't know about Vaughn.

— Vaughn also has a girlfriend, Alice, who was listed as his emergency contact. Very interesting. One doesn't think of Vaughn as having a life, since we only see his contacts with Sydney.

This week's...

... cool device: propulsion boots that zipped Sydney through the water.

... itinerary: Paldiski, Estonia; Tokyo, Japan.

... language and disguise: Sydney, almost unrecognizable as a geisha, and even speaking Japanese.



Four out of four spies. Excellent,

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

5 comments:

  1. [Vaughn and Irina] had the same conversation twice, in reverse: thank you for saving my life... and, I didn't do it for you, meaning, they both did it for Sydney. How interesting. Well, she made him do it, but still...

    What a great thing to notice. I was so fixated on Irina's desire to discomfit Vaughn and basically tell him that she'd already figured out his feelings for Sydney that I missed this delightful parallelism.

    Sark continues to be absolutely sarkolicious. How many lies and double-crosses were built into that situation, from Jack giving Sydney an alibi so she could go to Japan, to Sydney and Jack lying to Kendell, and on and on.

    The pace of this season feels much slower, even though there's still at least one cool mission per show. Taking the time to tease out these emotional relationships is definitely worth it, although I do look forward to a bit more Rambaldi soon.

    And, ahem, Dixon? You still out there?

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  2. About the tattoo, it belongs to Vartan. Unfortunately, the man has gone a bit crazy and is covered in them now. In the show he just did about the doctors that I never watched, he had to wear long sleeves under his scrubs to hide them all.

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  3. ChrisB - Oh no! I didn't know that. Gross. I'm sad now. Know when to step away from the needle, guys.

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  4. I enjoyed the Japanese trip this episode, although I refuse to believe Jennifer Garner/Sydney at about 5 foot 9" could ever be credibly thought of as a Japanese woman.

    I know Syd's mastery of languages is supposed to impress me, but it just annoys me really and seems a bit silly. I could understand her speaking one or two other languages fluently, but we must be up to the double digits by now!

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  5. "thank you for saving my life... and, I didn't do it for you, meaning, they both did it for Sydney."

    LOVED THIS!!! I love that Vaughn actually told Irina about his feelings for Sydney. I love that he was about to tell Sydney, but she'd already left. And, it just about broke my heart that he has a girlfriend. She was cute and I can't really blame him. Sydney and Vaughn may never get the chance to be together, so it is fitting he has another life. My guess is that it's a way for him to try to be normal, as he told Irina. However, the fact that the writers have been increasing the sexual tension between Syd and Vaughn leads me to believe that something big is going to happen for them soon. Or, can they continue this thoughout the series? Will a relationship between Syd and Vaughn hurt the series? (Like Sam and Diane on Cheers, for example) Do I want them to be together or do I want them to WANT to be together? Hmmmm...

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