Re-watching ALIAS

[James from London]

"Succession."

Pity poor Sydney: imagine waking up after two years and finding out that all your friends are either dead (Francie), married (Vaughn), or in the Witness Protection Programme (Will). And you've only got Weiss left to hang out with! The horror, the horror.

Meanwhile, video footage acquired by Jack reveals that at some point during her twenty-four month blackout, Sydney murdered Sark's father while wearing a blonde wig. This has resulted in Sark inheriting $80,000,000 and getting sprung from CIA by the Covenant.

In other news, following Sydney's "You wanna know how I am? I am horrible!" rant in last week's episode, Vaughn gets his right to reply:

"The other day you said that I gave up on us because I didn't have faith, that somehow you didn't mean enough to me ... After you died, I used to talk to you like you were still around. Literally. Whole conversations about nothing - the weather, shall I get a new car, shall I have another drink. And one day you started answering. I mean I could hear you in my head like you were right next to me, Sydney. I knew I was a guy who stayed up nights drinking, talking to his dead girlfriend - still I couldn't stop. So before you tell me you can handle me coming back to the CIA, there are two things you need to know. First is that I was so in love with you it nearly killed me. And second, that I don't regret moving on with my life."



He then returns to the CIA!

Sounds to me like another self-righteous heifer attempting to rationalize the old blame flip.

Hmm, I never thought of it like that.

I think I miss Alias more then any other show I've ever followed, even Angel.

Yeah, I think that's why I went straight back to the beginning after I watched the last episode. I haven't done that with any other show on DVD.

[James from London]

"Reunion"

Things are getting gloriously complicated. Sydney and Vaughn are both back at the CIA ... and so is Vaughn's wife Lauren, aka good old Melissa George from HOME AND AWAY. She's been assigned the job of solving the murder of Sark's father, the murder that was committed by Sydney during her two year blackout. While Jack does what he can to sabotage the investigation, Sydney and Vaughn team up once more to prevent Sark from destroying a satellite communications system.

Syd and Lauren clash horribly ("I hate her!" Lauren tells Vaughn in her wonderfully mashed up Australian/British/American accent) and it's really good.

I went straight back to the beginning after I watched the last episode. I haven't done that with any other show on DVD.

Apart from THE X-FILES.

[James from London]

"A Missing Link"

Sydney goes undercover to inflitrate a gang of thieves headed by Justin Theroux with an endearingly wobbly English accent. However, he already knows Sydney as Julia, the alias she apparently went under during the two years she has no memory of! Syd/Julia must prove herself to the gang first with a spot of safe cracking (which naturally involves taking off her clothes) ...



and then by stabbing Vaughn ("You never should have betrayed me!") ...



and pushing him off a cliff!!!



Oy!

[James from London]

"Repercussions"

Lauren is understandably miffed at Syd for stabbing her hubby and leaving for him for dead. With Vaughn now in a coma, the two women are sent to Mexico together to meet with Sloane (now posing as a Bob Geldof type good guy). They arrive in time to see him being kidnapped by Sark and Djimon Hounsou. There ensues a brilliant car chase-***-gun battle, with Lauren at the wheel and Syd firing bullets out of the window.



I'm trying to pin-point the exact moment where Lauren turns bad - the meeting where she and Sloane are left alone in a meeting room before Syd arrives perhaps, or maybe she was bad all along?

Meanwhile, Jack murders Justin Theroux for telling him what Sydney/Julia is like in bed: "On a scale of one to ten, ten being the most degenerate displays of sexual theatre known to man, Julia's like a 17."

[James from London]

"The Nemesis"

Evil Francie's alive!



Dixon gives Sydney her orders: "Kill the bitch!" So she does ...



... which is kind of a shame: I know she's Evil Francie, but she's still Francie. Sorta. But at least we get to see Evil Francie kill Francie in a Francie-heavy flashback ...





... and see her kiss the face of Sark.



In other news, Sloane is now double (or is it quadruple?) agent with, irony of ironies, Syd as his handler.

P.S. Evil Francie's not dead after all! In fact, she might just be ... immortal!

[James from London]

"Prelude"

Lauren and Vaughn are on their way to a Mexican jail to interview a friend of Justin Theroux who's going to point the finger at Sydney for killing Sark's father, a Russian diplomat. The only way Jack can prevent Sydney being exposed is to arrange for some local bandits to hold Lauren and Vaughn at gunpoint long enough for him to get to the jail and murder their interviewee. Vaughn is mighty pissed at Jack when he realises what he's done, and the two men nearly come to blows.



Turns out it was all for naught as Sark then appears in the back of Lauren's car and provides her with proof that Sydney murdered his father.



At this point, it's clear that Sark and Lauren don't know each other - which maybe means she hasn't become bad yet. And how angry is Lauren that Vaughn knew Sydney was the killer and didn't tell her?



She also tells Dixon he is relieved of his duties because he kept Syd's ID as Lazarey's killer a secret. Sydney faces at lobotomy at the hands of the Russian government so Vaughn helps her flee the country so she can find out about her missing past. It's all very romantic.



In Rome, Syd's just to learn something crucial about her past when she's captured by the authorities.



http://www.twoevilmonks.org/alias/season3/as307p01.htm

[James from London]

"Breaking Point"

It's all very Abu Ghraib as a hooded Sydney is taken to a secret government detention centre and subjected to all manner of unsanctioned nasties. Sloane and Vaughn find themselves in close proximity for the first time as they work with Jack to free Sydney. Sloane goes so far as to take a bullet meant for Jack



This show is all about strange bedfellows. Even Lauren, who appears genuinely appalled by the torture inflicted on Sydney, joins the rescue party (which I guess means she has yet to turn evil).

"You and Sydney are my absolution, my penance. You're all I have left." - Sloane to Jack

[James from London]

"Conscious"

Who better to help Sydney resolve her Cronenbergian dream sequences/flashbacks than David Cronenberg himself, playing a delightfully dippy, facon snacking dream analyst? Much trippy fun ensues as Syd beats up Lauren ...



... Lauren suffocates Syd ...



... and Syd shoots her dream self ...



Meanwhile, back in the real(ish) world, Dixon's replacement at the CIA, Robert Lindsay (no, not that one), asks Sloane to hire an assassin to bump off Sydney. Wonder who he'll choose?

[James from London]

"Remnants", aka The One Where Will Shows Up Again - hooray!

When Sydney approaches Will, he pulls a gun on her thinking she must be Evil Sydney.



But when he gets past the whole I-thought-you-were-dead thing, he and Syd discover that Lazary, Sark's father whom Sydney thought she murdered during the period when everybody thought she was dead, isn't dead either. Then Will impersonates a rock star and kills Evil Francie---but then we've thought Evil Francie was dead so many times before, it's hard to be sure.




And then the hit man Lindsay asked Sloane to hire to kill Syd kills Lindsay instead. I'm pretty sure Lindsay's really dead. And Will finally gets to have sex with Syd before going back into the Witness Protection Programme.




See you in another couple of years, Will!

[James from London]

"Full Disclosure"

Sydney gets snatched by Kendall, (former alien Super Soldier on THE X-FILES; future Locke in LOST) so he can tell her what happened to her during her missing two years. Most importantly, she went blonde:



She was also kidnapped by the Covenant, drugged, forced to watch her own funeral service ...



... starved, subjected to electroshock treatment and sensory deprivation, in order to brainwash her into believing she was Julia Thorne.



Except she only pretended to believe she was Julia Thorne so that she could inflitrate the Covenant while working as a double agent for Kendall. This involved her faking the murder of Lazarey (Sark's dad). Then there was some RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK stuff where Lazarey gets his hand chopped off. And it turns out that Blonde Sydney made the decision to have her memories erased herself.



Then there's some Scully from THE X-FILES stuff about the Covenant stealing Sydney's eggs to fertilise them with Rambaldi's 500 year old DNA, or something like that. So she, Dixon (who, it turns out, has known what had happened to Sydney all along but was ordered to say nothing) and Vaughn storm some church-***-labaratory somewhere where they blow up Sydney's eggs and rescue Sark's dad into the bargain.

Sark then gives the order for his own father to be killed, but even more shocking than that is who he gives the order to:



Angel from HOME AND AWAY!!!!

[Christine]

OT question:

This is the "Cult Central Chat" from 24, Lost to Battlestar Gallactica.

Where the frack is the Battlestar Galactica thread?

[James from London]

"Crossings"

The episode opens with Syd and Vaughn kissing before being yanked in front of a firing squad. Then we flash back 72 hours to find out how this came to be. It all started with them being sent to North Korea to rescue the guy who was in AFTER HOURS, that Scorsese comedy film off of the 80s. Lauren informs the Convenant who arrange to have their plane blown up in mid air. (Boy, when Lauren turns bad she turns really, really bad--her own husband!) Syd and Vaughn somehow manage to survive, natch, but soon have half of North Korea on their ass. News of the explosion reaches Jack, who makes contact with Irina, who sends someone to help. Why, it's Isabella Rossellini!



She agrees to rescue Syd and Vaughn, on the condition that Jack kills Arvin Sloane. Quite why she wants Sloane dead is anyone's guess. After seeing her stab a bad man's hands with some chopsticks, Jack surmises correctly that she is Irina's sister, Katya.



Meanwhile, Syd and Vaughn have been double crossed by AFTER HOURS guy, with a little help from Sark, and end up in jail where they do some nice kissing.



Katya messes with Jack's head, telling him she doesn't want Sloane dead after all. Vaughn and Syd are rescued at the last minute, return home and there's lots of hugging - even from Lauren who pretends to be happy that her husband's still alive. Jack meets once more with Katya, she plants a smacker on him, says something cryptic about Irina's intentions and saunters away enigmatically.

[James from London]

I knew there was a reason I loved this season so much:

After Six



Lauren makes a brilliantly sexy bad girl. She and Sark join forces, bumping off Covenant cell leaders, including Dick Tremayne from TWIN PEAKS, with the intention of taking over the organisation themselves.



In the event, they end up working under a fabulously annoying Quentin Tarantino. It's Quentin who spills the beans to Lauren about Vaughn and Syd's apparent affair. Back at CTU (or wherever it is), Lauren buttons up her blouse to play the primly wounded wife and tells Syd to "stay away from my man". Meanwhile, Dr Barnett (Patricia Wettig) is assigned as Sloane's therapist.

There's also some comedy stuff with Marshall marrying his girlfriend as she goes to into labour while simultaneously guiding Syd and Vaughn through a lethal obstacle course, which is OK, and Weiss going undercover as a South African, which is cringe-worthy.

"Blowback"

Deadly plasma bombs and thrilling car chases notwithstanding, this episode's all about illicit relationships: Lauren and Sark commence their affair, Syd and Vaughn fight their feelings for one another and, most compellingly of all, Sloane begins his forbidden, cat-and-mouse seduction of Dr Barnett (during which he reveals his belief that he is Sydney's father).


At a glance, this could easily be a scene from BROTHERS AND SISTERS, but ALIAS is by far the tauter, superior soap.

Then there's brilliantly clever stand off whereby Vaughn has a gun pointed at the enemy, not realising it's his own wife:

As he is ordering her to show her face, Sark appears holding a pistol at Sydney's head:

"If you love her, drop the gun," shouts Sark. And when Vaughn chooses Sydney, spurned wife Lauren takes time out to punch him in the face before making her escape.

"Facade"

aka The One With Ricky Gervais. And he's really, really, surprisingly good in a straight role as totally unsympathetic terrorist.



There's some excellently twisty-turny stuff here: First Vaughn impersonates Sark. Then Vaughn arrests Sark on a plane. Then Vaughn and Sark must work together to prevent one of Gervais's bombs from exploding in mid-air. Then Sark stabs Vaughn. Then Vaughn finally gets Sark into handcuffs. All without Vaughn realising Sark is screwing his wife.

"Taken"

Lauren is SUCH a magnificent bitch. Having arranged Sark's mid-flight escape from custody, she then frames Sloane for the kidnapping of Dixon's children, thereby wrecking his relationship with Dr Barnett. Syd and Dixon go to Nevada in order to rob a Rambaldi artefact they can trade for Dixon's kids, (resulting in a sizeable cameo by Gary and Abby's housekeeper Maria from KNOTS) while keeping truth from Lauren's father Senator Somebody, played by Senator Somebody Else from THE X-FILES. All is neatly resolved ... but then in the closing seconds, Jack suddenly twigs that Lauren may not be all she seems.

[sunshineboyuk]

I'm trying to pin-point the exact moment where Lauren turns bad - the meeting where she and Sloane are left alone in a meeting room before Syd arrives perhaps, or maybe she was bad all along?







She was bad all along .

She's so bloody fantasic , I still get nervous for her when she's playing double agent in these eps , its just gloriously exciting even when you know what happens!!

[James from London]

The Frame

Or The One Where Lauren Frames Her Dad As A Spy To Deflect Attention From Herself

... with the shocking yet hilarious scene where Lauren pulls a gun on her dad ...



... then has second thoughts, only for her mother---that nice Peggy Lipton from TWIN PEAKS--to walk into the room, take the gun from her ...



... and then finish the job herself.



Outrageous! And so very ALIAS.

[sunshineboyuk]

Yeah! That's one of the best ALIAS scenes ever !

I love Lauren and Sark and their dirty, dark, sexual love. Interestingly we find out even more about Lauren when adydney impersonates her and the mark asks to watch her and Sark having sex to witness some special thing she's into .
The mind boggles as to what Lauren could be up for ...

[James from London]

"Unveiled"

Syd and Jack are now both convinced Lauren's a baddie, but Vaughn ain't buying it. This leads to a great scene where Jack reaches out to Vaughn, telling him what it was like to be married to a woman who turned out to be a double agent. In particular, he recalls times when Irina would kiss him instead of answering a direct question about her activities. This would arouse Jack's suspicions, which he would then dismiss as professional paranoia.



"I don't regret having married her. I have Sydney because of our time together. What I do regret is that once I saw signs of her duplicity, once I sensed her betrayal, I chose to ignore it. All I'm asking is that you be responsive to the signs, if and when they present themselves."

Then Vaughn lets Jack have it:



"You never respected me. Never thought I was worthy of your daughter. So I'm not surprised you're so quick to think Lauren is betraying me. But whether or not you or Sydney believe me, I know the life I'm living, and I know the woman I am married to. Lauren is not Irina, and I am definitely not you."

Despite his protests, Vaughn's suspicions are awoken, and in a great sequence, he tails Lauren during her lunch hour ...



... Lauren manages to shake him loose long enough to liaise with Sark in an underground car park ...



... Realising Sark is under orders to kill her, Lauren escapes just in time ...



Lauren manages to explain her way out of trouble with Vaughn, and Sark manages to explain his way out of trouble with Lauren. Then right at the end of the episode, Vaughn and Lauren are at home and he asks what she got up to while he was away. Instead of answering, she kisses him and leaves the room. Remembering Jack's words, he searches the bedroom and ... finds a false-bottom suitcase containing a wig, fake passport and gun.



He knows!!

[James from London]

"Hourglass"

Sloane is sentenced to death. But ironically, it's for something he didn't do. Jack has the evidence that can exonerate him, but after learning that he once had an affair with Irina, and that as a result Sydney has a half-sister, Jack decides to let Sloane fry.



Sydney is appalled by her father's actions, not realising that the execution is some kind of suspended animation hoax ...



and that Jack is keeping Sloane (secretly) alive for reasons of his own ...





Ha ha!