A confusing episode. With a toy helicopter. This can't be good.
What was this, a day in the life? Jack goes to Angola and assassinates a former protege, Sydney has a fight with a high tech toy helicopter, and they both go grab some dinner? I kept waiting for some meaning to become apparent, but it didn't. Yes, I get that we were seeing things from poor Sam's point of view; an innocent civilian, accidentally swept into Sydney's crazy spy life. I'm glad the poor schlep didn't die a painful, meaningless death, but that's about it. Why center an episode around it, when it worked so much better with Will Tippin?
Unless that wasn't the center of the episode. There was an emphasis on coldblooded ruthlessness in general here, and Jack's in particular. The subplot about Jack and Sasha and the garroting was intriguing but ultimately disappointing, because we didn't learn anything substantial about Jack and Sasha.
Who was he, really? When were they friends, and what happened between them? All we learned was that Sasha was once a CIA agent trained by Jack, but later abandoned. Couldn't we have had flashbacks or something so that we'd know why Jack felt responsible for Sasha's evil? Sasha appeared to be Russian; did it have something to do with Irina?
I wonder if they gave us Jack and his ability to almost effortlessly murder a man who idolized him because it had something to do with the wandering subplot about Bill Vaughn. Bill Vaughn seems to have shot his buddy Frank Murdock in the back, lit a cigarette, and walked away. Was this intended as a comparison thingy, with Bill Vaughn turning out to be another ruthless Spy Dad capable of killing a friend?
Whatever. I was enjoying the development of Nadia as a character, the semi-return of SD-6, and the fun of having Sark back, and this episode just came out of left field. And I'm clearly having a hard time getting past the toy helicopter.
Bits and pieces:
— Veteran actor Cliff deYoung was in this episode for about five minutes, and then he was dead. Why hire him if they weren't going to give him anything to do?
— During the opening scene, Dan said to me, "That's not Jennifer Garner's nose."
— Sydney treated Sam like a child, talking about bad men doing bad things. She was actually condescending.
— Unreality check. Jennifer Garner is standing in a bar, dressed like a wholesome, all-American girl (basically herself, no wig or fake nose), and no one was hitting on her?
— Sam: "That smile and those dimples are much the greatest thing I've ever seen, so..." Sydney (quickly): "I have a boyfriend." Except Vaughn confided in Weiss this time, not in Sydney. More evidence that their relationship really... isn't one any more.
This week's...
... itinerary: Paris, Madagascar, Salzburg, Angola, San Diego. Somehow, San Diego seems a little tame in comparison; I spent last weekend in San Diego. Couldn't it have been Paris?
... hot look: I'm groping, but coming up empty. There was a complete lack of hot looks.
... grossouts: the guy who cut his own throat, and the weirdo informant in the bar with the screaming video. Exotic snuff film? Titillating torture? Frankly, I don't want to know.
I kept putting off watching this episode a second time, a sure sign that it wasn't stellar. (Hence the late review.) Personally, I would have preferred going along with Weiss and Nadia to the movies instead.
One out of four spies,
Billie
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Billie Doux loves good television and spends way too much time writing about it.
I agree about this one being a dud. Part of it is that I don't like Jason Segel (now on How I Met Your Mother) and part of it is the incredibly long helicopter video-game thing. I fast-forwarded through it.
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