I don't like this.
Dan said halfway through that he felt they were yanking his chain, and I think he's right. When Lehman was talking about how the people who were after the book would stop at nothing to silence Vaughn, I thought, aha! The new bad guys have to think that Lehman and Vaughn are dead, or they'll never stop looking for them. And hey, closed coffin, right? Did the bad guys find a way to extract Vaughn again? Did APO? Was he wearing squibs? Were the doctors in Italy (and Sydney and Jack) faking it?
I don't know. And I'm not sure enough to feel good about it. If Vaughn is really dead and Vartan out of the show, I am seriously bummed. They spent four years developing Vaughn as a character, and now he's gone. I didn't feel moved by his death scene; I felt manipulated and pissed off. I'm bummed about Nadia's "permanent coma," too. They spent an entire season developing Nadia as a character, and now she's gone, too. I almost don't want to watch this season.
And as feminist as I am, frankly, I feel uncomfortable with the pregnancy thing, too. Wouldn't it have worked better if they'd written Sydney out of the show or minimized her role until Jennifer Garner gave birth? What about the loss of Sydney's eggs? Wouldn't a Rambaldi plot make more sense, considering that they tried something along these lines before?
So what do we know at this point? That the Mueller device, designed by Rambaldi, has something to do with Prophet Five, the "book" project that Lehman, "Bill Vaughn," and Rene Rienne's father all worked on. That Vaughn chose to become Sydney's handler six years ago because of the Mueller device. That Vaughn was working with Rienne, a "known criminal," to find out what happened to his father. Yes, Vaughn had his own agenda, but this isn't like Irina: how does this add up to double agent? Am I being dense?
Bits and pieces:
— There was no credit sequence. We have three new cast members: Rachel Nichols, whom I think we saw as super-hacker for a moment; Elodie Bouchez as Rene Rienne, and Balthazar Getty (did we see him here?). Greg Grunberg was listed as a special guest star. I don't like that. And there was no Mia Maestro. I don't like that, either.
— The best part of this episode was Sydney telling Vaughn she was pregnant right before they jumped off the cliff.
— Michael Vaughn's real name was Andre Michaux. Not that it matters, since he's been Michael Vaughn since he was eighteen months old. His father's watch was more than a keepsake. I wonder if Lauren knew that when she got it fixed?
— Jack is the APO director now, and Sloane is in jail. How did Jack miss Gordon Dean being a ghost? That's not like Jack.
— I liked the bit with Dixon telling Sydney that he should have trusted her back in the SD-6 days.
— I wish we'd seen Vaughn and Weiss waltzing. My mental picture has to be enough, I guess.
— All of the shots of Jennifer Garner in this episode were designed to conceal her pregnancy. To me, it was like a neon sign.
Vaughn: "Owen. Sounds like something you name a gerbil."
Sydney: "Clementine is cute."
Vaughn: "For a fruit."
Sydney: "It's also a name."
Vaughn: "It's also a campfire song."
They did settle on a name: Isabelle Bristow Vaughn. Very pretty.
This week's...
... itinerary: Cape Town, London, somewhere in Italy, Mexico City, and a road halfway between L.A. and Santa Barbara.
... hot look: Well, sort of. Long blonde hair, gorgeous print dress, scarf strategically draped to disguise her pregnancy.
I liked this episode a little more when I stopped feeling pissed off and looked at it objectively. But still, it was unsatisfying. Two out of four spies,
Billie
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Billie Doux loves good television and spends way too much time writing about it.
I differ from you on this one, in that I like the pregnancy plot and especially how it plays out over the season.
ReplyDeleteBut I completely agree about feeling manipulated by what they're doing to Vaughn, both in terms of his dark past and his untimely death. Why does he have to have a dark past? Isn't that well dry yet? Can't we admit it's dry and move on to another plot?
Having said that, I do like Season Five. Quite a bit.
- 20 years later, now that I have my own children, I found the pregnancy arc of season 5 to be the single most important aspect of Alias to me. The one element that makes it stand out among all other TV shows. I rewatched season 1 to 4 just to be able to experience season 5 again, to see Sydney go through the motion, now as a parent myself.
ReplyDelete- The way Jack and Sydney look at each other in the funeral, and how their emotions are considerably brighter and more hopeful than the rest of the cast. It's obvious.
- The episode title led me to believe "APO" has been dismantled following Sloane's imprisonment, and the new office / CIA secret branch is called "Prophet Five", where Gordon Dean is the director. Gordon Dean is their boss throughout season 5, and doesn't turn out to be evil until much later. That's what I always thought, ever since I first watched it. It's funny how far from the truth that is.
- How will Irina watch their wedding if they decided to elope? Maybe Irina watched them elope. She seems to follow Vaughn's schedule quite closely.
- Reason for Greg Grunberg's removal from the main cast is likely that he has no purpose in the story anymore, now that Vaughn and Nadia aren't on the show. What is Weiss gonna do when the two characters he interact with the most are gone?
- Vaughn was apparently shot with two machine guns like 50 times all over his body, without wearing a vest. If that doesn't kill him right there (I mean, there's no reason to even move him to the Italian hospital. He should be dead right there and then), Jack killing Irina's double with one bullet in season 4 might not get the job done either. I understand how this episode is a major disappointment upon first viewing. Too many things don't make sense (even after a rewatch) or aren't explained well enough, even by Alias standards.
- I bet the writers came up with the cool line "My name isn't Michael Vaughn" by the end of season 4 without having a real plan to make that work. The explanation is super lame.
- My favorite part is when Marshall immediately starts working against Gordon Dean. Marshall was loyal to Sloane for 6 years, and Gordon would have to be a real pain in the ass to make Marshall not want to obey him even for one day. Sloane seems like a saint compared to Gordon. Oh well.
- By the end of the episode, Sloane has officially been a good guy for more than 22 consecutive episodes, without betraying Sydney or Jack once. That's a record.