#alias files

SYD, WHO ARE YOU WEARING? Special What-Is-It-About-This-Show-And-Red-Wigs Edition!

SARK, WHO ARE YOU WEARING?

Is Sydney a good person?

Okay, first off, this episode gives us a lot of time with Sydney's personal life, a lot more than recent episodes, so we actually have some interesting things to look at, including some of the old spy life/friend life conflict as well as some new, troubling personality developments.

So like, if we're going to judge this on the old Season 1 metric, which is to say, "Can Sydney fulfill the ordinary obligations of friendship while still maintaining her cover as a spy," then she nails it this ep. She recognizes right away that Francie's suspicion is a problem, so she deals with it quickly and in a really sweet way. It's perfect, actually! It strengthens her social relationships while simultaneously covering her ass. I can't possibly believe it's an accident that this goes so much more smoothly than it did before, given that she has an ally in Will now. Will's actually the one who helps her realize she needs to take action on the Francie thing. Folding Will into the spy game continues to be one of the smartest things this show has done.

Here's what's more intriguing to me. A lot of the first season seems to hinge on the idea that Sydney has these intrinsic values, a desire to protect her basic beliefs about friendship, family, kindness, etc., from being corrupted by her life in espionage. While it's true that she's definitely on the more selfless and considerate side of things tonight, this episode really focuses on the ways in which those intrinsic values of hers are becoming more complicated. She tells Will that her with mission her parents was "comforting," at which point the camera instantly cuts to a flashback of the Bristows emptying automatic weapons into enemy combatants. She and her mother have a tender hug in the CIA yard, perhaps the most intimately human moment shared between them so far; instantly, a squad of guards pull their guns out and begin advancing and shouting. In the restaurant with Will, she tells him that she's come to accept that "it's a gesture of love to deceive the people I care about."

To return to an old refrain of mine, it's this kind of thing that makes me believe this show was smarter than a lot of its bing-zam-zoom, laser-conspiracy-action stuff makes it seem. At the same time as Sydney seems to be learning how to care for the people she loves in a responsible way, the show is leading us to conclude that the core of her personality is being reshaped in more subtle ways. The onslaught of violence and deception, the constant danger, the ever-growing number of predatory overseers dictating her every move, they all combine to create these associations in her mind between love and lies, between comfort and murder. Along with the back-burnered Project: Christmas plot, with little Sydney assembling a handgun for her proud father, this show is becoming really invested in where our intrinsic values come from and how they can be redefined by outside forces.

Is Sydney a good spy?

This is considerably easier, so hooray! You won't have to sit through another page-long essay like the one above (haha, see how I assume anyone besides my wife is still reading HOW FUNNY AM I SO FUNNY IS THE ANSWER). Syd kicks ass tonight! She kills it on the Paris mission, and she totally handles Marshall through the London mission (a plotline, by the way, which I remember from my adolescence with a clarity uncharacteristic of my vague recollections of my first viewings). She even shows off a new superpower! Apparently, she can kiss someone and purge their bloodstream of sedatives. I know I just praised this show's nuance for like a thousand words, but this shit can get so fucking Looney Tunes sometimes.

Can we just take a quick second to appreciate how fucking slick this show's action sequences are? I've said it a million times: people don't give this show the credit it deserves for helping to usher in a new era of high-octane, high production value action television. That Paris chase scene? SHE SKY KICKS SOMEONE IN THE FACE FROM THE TOP OF A CAR I'm just saying, this show changed the game.

9 Bonds (of 10)

MVP of the Episode

I don't know, Sydney I guess? There aren't really any standouts tonight, but Syd kicks ass for the aforementioned reasons. Kind of an even-handed episode.

Honorable mention: Faye Dunaway. Guys! Faye Dunaway! Her plotline is a little paint-by-numbers, but like, shit. Faye Dunaway.

Villain of the Episode

The encroaching oppression of the American/global surveillance state. There's going to be more of this in the next episode, but this Echelon storyline kicks off some more fascinating commentary on turn-of-the-century beliefs about surveillance, both analog and digital. There are little references to it all over this episode. Jack's offer to Irina of a life outside her prison, albeit one that comes with permanent supervision, telling her that "the illusion of freedom is better than none at all." Vaughan and Sydney's immediate attention to the security camera when they run into each other at the restaurant. I mean, with the sheer existence of the Echelon program, the show just straight up commits to the idea that the government is watching everything you do, regardless of who you are or where you live. I wish I had been older in 2002, so I could have a better sense of how this was received. I mean, look, the idea that Big Brother is watching is obviously not new, but did people in 2002 see this as science fiction? I mean to say, an exaggerated and slightly fantastical commentary on perennial fears and dangers? Or did they see it as basically fact, which we now know it basically is, in this post-Snowden/PRISM era?

This episode also touches on the weird borderline consciousness surrounding digital information in 2002 America. This is a world where they understand that you can't just confiscate software code, for example, like you would physical documents. BUT! It's pre-cloud, pre-Google Everything; ultimate control of information is still possible, just difficult. But then it gets even more complicated when the human factor is involved! Once Marshall sees the Echelon data, he becomes a living copy of it. As long as he lives, the information cannot be eliminated or even fully controlled. It's an interesting nod to the future of data leaks and the impossibility of scrubbing anything out of the internet. Unfortunately, we don't all have photographic memories (actually, as far as we can tell, no one does), so using humans as data storage and security remains a pretty weak answer to the overwhelming power of The All-Seeing Eye of Government.

Honorable mention: Vaughan. Man, shut up, Vaughun! Wah wah, my girlfriend, my work crush, wah wah wah. YOU'RE JUST MAKING EVERYONE UNCOMFORTABLE. In the restaurant with Alice, Will, and Sydney, at one point there is an EIGHT SECOND AWKWARD SILENCE. That is fucking bonk-bonk crazy! Next time you're having a conversation, try and pause for eight seconds. It's a fucking eternity. Give us a fucking break, Vaughan.

Does Sydney cry?

Yup! So does her mom! It's a Bristow family sobfest.

Does Sydney listen to sad music in her mood-lit apartment?

Nah man!

Vaughn Line of the Night

Sydney: "Sloan will think Cuvee installed a failsafe, to prevent un-

Vaughan: "-authorized access"

YEAH VAUGHAN, WE ALL KNOW THAT'S THE END OF HER SENTENCE, YOU DON'T HAVE TO CHIME IN, IT'S NOT COOL OR CHARMING, SHUT UP

International titles

German: Außendienst (In the Field)

Italian: Il rapimento (The Abduction)

BRISTOWS, WHO ARE YOU WEARING?

Special "How-Does-No-One-Ever-Notice-That-She's-A-FUCKING-WHITE-LADY" Edition!

(sorry, Syd, your name is not Amenah, no Pakistani is ever going to look at you from two feet away and believe that your name is Amenah)

Is Sydney a good person?

Okay, first of all, I have to say up top that I have kind of been intimidated by writing about this two-parter! You could make a pretty strong argument (and I might, later on, I haven't decided yet!) that Passage is what the entire first season and a third of Alias has been leading up to, and oh my god a lot happens in these episodes! I am going to try and free myself from any self-imposed obligation to write about everything (of course it's self-imposed, who in their right mind would make me compose these inane things if it were not in my own obsessive nature to do them myself), and instead try and stick to the big questions of my own increasingly-arbitrary format.

So! This episode actually features the return of some of the personal life/spy life balance stuff from Season 1! Although, tellingly, the tension of that narrative is pretty much gone. Sydney has to reschedule a spa day with Francie because of the mission! Oh no! Except not really oh no, because Francie is fine with it, aside from a loving eye roll. Besides, she's getting the massage today with or without Syd! Francie is doing great, guys. Ugh, I have vague memories of what happens with Francie later, ugh, ugh, I just remembered that. Not now! Weep for Francie later. Tonight, she is happy! The friendship is good! Will and Syd are getting along! And ooh that mini golf trip at the end looks fun. She's a good friend. It's interesting that the show is basically like, "Look man, it was a hard year for Syd and her friends, but now Francie has her restaurant, Will has… um, okay, Will is having a hard time, but they're happy now! See? Mini golf is what happy people do. I swear guys we didn't forget about this part of the show!" Except eh, they kind of have for the past six episodes, but whatever.

EXCEPT OKAY, NO SYDNEY, YOU ARE NOT WRITING YOUR FUCKING DISSERTATION, remember how she's supposed to be in grad school, you guys? Remember that subplot from the first season that has been completely abandoned and which the writers have the unmitigated GALL to bring up in part two? Irina's like, "So Sydney, how's school?" and I get it, okay, I get that they're going for this whole "domestic family small talk/espionage action" juxtaposition, but okay, no, Sydney has failed out of all her classes months ago and we all know it.

Academic implosion aside, we like Syd tonight. There are some other things, but they're basically all positive, and we'll get to those in the other sections.

Is Sydney a good spy?

Damn, you guys, yes. Before we even get into the meat of this two-parter, she more or less nails the little Mission Of The Week (Dixon, guys! Dixon! A mission with Dixon! Guys, Dixon.) Even when the plan goes awry, it's actually because of the incompetence of Uzbek military personnel, and not because Sydney decided to get sad about feelings in the middle of a nuclear sub or something. Good work, Syd! Clean it up, Uzbekistan!

More importantly, she does great in the big Kashmir excursion. The more intense personal stuff is relevant here, but we'll get into that later. Just the basics here. She kicks ass, keeps cool under pressure, you know the drill guys, kick kick shoot shoot, little bit of fast talk, little bit of badass parachuting. Spy stuff! The fact that she holds her own alongside Jack and Irina is amazing on its own, and these episodes really succeed in their goal of actually SHOWING those two being master spies rather than just talking about it. Rockstar, Syd. You earned this:

10 Bonds (of 10)

Is Will Tippen a good spy?

I mean YES but WHO CARES ABOUT WILL TONIGHT I can't believe I'm saying this BUT THIS IS BRISTOW TIME sorry Will I have a feeling we'll be dealing with you pretty soon anyway, I dunno man, you get:

Some Bonds (of 10)

MVP of the Episode

Sydney Bristow! This is the first time I have picked Sydney for MVP in over a dozen episodes, but goddamn motherfucker shit damn butts damn, she deserves it for this one. So look, obviously this ep is all about The Big Bristow Family Road Trip, Sydney, Jack, and Irina all going on a mission together. Ugh! So exciting! I am a little embarrassed to admit how exciting this was to me. But let's be real! It only works because of Sydney. Although they are dynamite together, Jack and Irina's relationship is so toxic and fraught that, if not for Sydney's amazing handling of them both, this would have been a fiasco!

(Although, sidenote: when Jack goes to prep Irina and strap her into her C4 blow-your-head-off necklace, doesn't it become so, so easy to imagine an alternate universe where this show was exclusively about Irina and Jack, with Sydney as a supporting character at most? And all this other shit was just prologue for their story? I mean I know TV is for young sexy people, but there is so much damn electricity in that room I literally almost forgot they weren't the protagonists.)

Tonight, Sydney is tough when she has to be, tender when it best serves her, diplomatic, decisive, and dauntless. She is the reason these two masters can actually do their damn jobs. For that badass parachute jump alone, she wins this episode. When your parents are bickering like children and you have to push them out of the way so you can jump off a moving train into a ravine? Today, you are a woman.

Honorable mention: The Bristow family! Seriously, I can't over-emphasize how much fun it is to watch these three go to work. They have all done irreparable damage to each other, but they cannot help but feel the irrepressible bond they all share, and that tension makes for grade-A television. Sure, it was fun to see Syd and Jack in character as lovey-dove father-and-daughter while they were secretly feuding the other week, but seeing these three knuckleheads as Clueless American Vacation Family? Forget about it, this is a goddamn joy. I can't even list all the highlights here! Irina kissing Jack at the border! That fucking Slow Walk out of Irina's cell! WHEN SYDNEY LITERALLY SKINS HER KNEE AND BOTH HER PARENTS FALL OVER THEMSELVES TO TAKE CARE OF HER LIKE SHE’S A KID BECAUSE PARENTS WILL NEVER STOP SEEING THEIR CHILDREN AS KIDS EVEN IF THEY’RE SEXY SUPERSPIES UGHHHHHH. Guys. This show. In all seriousness, this show. Let's just… man. This show.

Villain of the Episode

Arvin Sloane, and not for the usual sexy reasons. This Emily plot, while interesting, has kind of sucked the life's blood out of him. I assume this is setting us up for the hot-blooded reversal, but for now he basically just mopes behind his desk, limply chiding Sark for sassing his people, issuing weak-willed demands to his blackmailers, and just kind of being a lump. And guess what, Arvin! Your people do kind of suck right now! "We scanned this package for biological contaminants, it's clean." It's clean? IT HAS A FUCKING FINGER IN IT, WHAT SCANS ARE YOU DOING. In the second part of this ep, Sark calls Sloane "a money man" to his face, and for god's sake these days he's not wrong. You and Uzbekistan, Sloane. Step up your motherfucking game.

Honorable mention: Vaughan. Let's be honest! He does fucking NOTHING in these episodes. Nothing he does makes any difference. He basically stands on the sidelines of conversations, fails to affect the mission either way, and watches shit on screens. He can't even call off the air strikes (hey, Abed's dad!), although I guess we're supposed to get some kind of charge out of that whole "hey I knew your dad you've got moxie kid" exchange. He's basically their ride home and that's it, and even THAT could've been accomplished by a random helicopter. It's all just pretty impotent WHICH SPEAKING OF WHICH

DUDE

EITHER DUMP YOUR GIRLFRIEND

OR GIVE SYDNEY A FUCKING BREAK

WITH THIS "OH BOO HOO, MY FATHER'S WATCH, YOU STOPPED MY HEART WHEN I MET YOU, BUT ALSO I CAN'T EVEN REALLY SAY THAT OUT LOUD, WAH WAH WAH"

ugh dude

ALSO YOU ARE A CREEP, WATCHING PEOPLE PLAY MINI-GOLF FROM A DISTANCE WITH A FAINT SMILE IS A CREEPY THING TO DO, YOU CREEP, YOU'RE A CREEP

Sorry Vaughan. It's just, I don't know… I don’t wanna be rude, it’s just that, I guess it's just that you're a creep? Boooooo.

Does Sydney cry?

I think Verge of Tears might be her new thing! Although Irina cries at the end, and that's good enough for me!

Does Sydney listen to sad music in her mood-lit apartment?

THE APARTMENT IS BACK, BABY and okay it's pretty well lit and the music is like maybe maudlin at most I wouldn't call it sad BUT APARTMENT BABY, WE LIKE JACK LEMMON UP INS

Sydney(!) Line of the Night:

“Not really a vacation when you’re forced to go. No offense, cute country.”

International titles

German: Hafturlaub, Teil (On Parole)

Italian: Passagio

SYD, WHO ARE YOU WEARING?

Special “I-Am-Extremely-Uncomfortable-With-Multiple-Parts-Of-This-Edition” Edition!

(okay so like, I debated with myself for a long time over whether or not to include the "naked decontamination chamber" shot, because okay, on one hand, this is about Syd's costumes and this is literally the opposite of that? and I am not eager to objectify her by putting that shot in here? But then I am also like, a HUGE part of this show is ABSOLUTELY about objectifying Syd/Jennifer Garner, so much of it is about COME WATCH OUR SEXY LADY SPY TV SHOW, and technically, "nothing" is a valid answer to "what are you wearing." But like, it's also a deliberately stark, unglamorous shot, and portrays her nudity as uncomfortable and vaguely humiliating? Which? Maybe? Is subverting something? But I don't know what? Fuck it, teach the controversy, here's the shot.)

OH GOD SYDNEY NO

Is Sydney a good person?

I'm honestly not sure whether to get into this here or in the next section, but fuck it, let's start here and see where it takes us. Let's talk about the ethics of killing. Obviously, Alias is Alias, so the explicit, textual discussion of this question is necessarily brief and somewhat cursory, but if you start thinking about it in any kind of thorough way (which, boy oh boy, how many thousands of words have I written about this show, GEE I WONDER I'M GONNA OBSESSIVELY OVEANALYZE THIS), this show has navigated itself into some really choppy waters. Which is kind of exciting! To me, anyway. Obviously.

So Sark (guys! Sark! SARK SARK SARK okay sorry; Sark) offers Sydney a deal: give me Sloane so I can kill him, and you can have the antidote for Vaughan's super-ebola. And she's like, YUP SOUNDS GOOD. Okay, benefit of the doubt, she's about to get dissolved in acid when she agrees, but she seems real eager to do this. Sure, it's for Vaughan, she'll do anything for him, but let's not pretend she doesn't have her own, barely-concealed desire to see Sloane's head on a proverbial pike. The key here is the conversation between Jack and Syd before she heads to Japan (which, again, is only 50 seconds long! they have a lot of moody Joni Mitchell slo-mo shots to fit in to this show, guys), in which Sydney says that "we have no choice" but to kill Sloane. Jack, ever the realist, replies, "Of course we have a choice." Now, he's not saying don't do it! But he's saying that murder, assassination, justifiable homicide, whatever you call it, it's a choice. You always have a choice. You can blame circumstances, you can give your reasons, whatever you want to do to distance yourself from what you're about to do, go ahead, but it's a choice.

And fuck, what choice should she make? Season 1 Vaughan made it very clear, the mission is not to "cut off the head of the beast," but rather to kill the beast. Killing Sloane is not how we win. But he is a monster! And trading his life for Vaughan's doesn't seem like the worst exchange rate. Locke (Terry O’Quinn, I can't remember his Alias name, he's just Locke to me now) tries to pull some moral high ground with her, claiming, I guess, that the CIA doesn't kill people? Which, I don't know, I don't want to get all conspiracy theory here, seems kind of laughable? I'm sure they don't, Locke, just like I'm sure the US in 2015 doesn't torture people OH SHIT I'M SORRY DID I JUST DROP SOME PARTISAN OPINIONS UP IN THIS STUPID TUMBLR POST?

Ok sorry, sorry. But it does kind of matter! This show, as I keep hammering on about, is engaging with post-9/11 American policy while the ink is still fucking drying on the damn PATRIOT Act. These are the questions the show wants us to ask, even if it is cramming them in between geisha fights and love triangles.

So. Jack claims this is different from self-defense later on, but let's be real! How many people has Sydney killed? It may have been self-defense, heat-of-the-moment, but when she loads her gun in the drop plane, she does it knowing she might have to kill someone with it. The real issue at hand here isn't whether or not the US Government, aka The Good Guys, kill The Bad Guys to save lives. It's whether or not Sydney would be sacrificing part of her soul by agreeing to facilitate Sloane's murder in cold blood, as it were. And I just don't know! I always want Syd to toughen up. But! I am also a fan of the old-fashioned hero narrative. I was raised on Batman and Superman, we do not kill, etc. Which, I realize as I type this, is a fucking absurd touchstone to use here. Obviously, Alias is, kind of, a comic book show, what with the go-go-gadgets and the good guy/bad guy shit, but they are also killing people all the time.

I don't know, man. She does it! She goes with the plan! It's all a ruse, duh, obviously, this show is not killing Sloane right now, come on, but she doesn't know that! She does it to save Vaughan, and she does it because she hates this man, and I honestly don't know if either of those reasons are good enough or not.

Oh, uh, also she's real nice to Vaughan when he's dying, and then later doesn't try and break him up with his girlfriend. Jesus guys! This section was invented because Season 1 was SO MUCH about Syd balancing Spy Life and Friend Life, and I'm just not sure the show cares about that as much anymore? I don't know. This format, man, it is useful to have the structure, but this show is slippery as fuck and it can be hard to square-peg it sometimes. Anyway. She's doing okay. She's not a brat or a crazy person. Good on you, Syd.

Is Sydney a good spy?

I mean, yeah! Horrifying orientalist yellowface (whiteface?) aside, she more or less rocks the missions. The only thing I could maybe criticize her for is her rash decision to just go ahead and synthesize the antidote, knowing it'll trigger the security system. But you know what? She's under insane time constraints, and her comeback to Locke's warning ("They'll know you're there" / "Then I'll run fast.") is… kind of badass, actually!

Her Japanese accent could use some work. Or, you know, don't pretend to be Japanese. Either one. Actually, not either one. The second one. Jesus Christmas, you guys.

8 Bonds (of 10)

Is Will Tippen a good spy?

Deus ex Francie's aside, he is tenacious and incisive. I like Will plotlines. I like them so much, guys.

5 Bonds (of 10)

MVP of the Episode

Sark. Come on! What, you thought there was a chance I might pick anyone else? I mean, yes, maybe Lena Olin, because GOD I missed her, she's back and she's better than ever, FUCK she's good, but I'm actually saving the honorable mention for something else this week (see below). No, man, it's Sark. He's so good! He's always in control, he's one step ahead (at least) of just about everybody, you guys he is inside SD-6 now! He can talk his way into anywhere! And when Sydney tries to wrangle a better deal in the Sloane-antidote exchange, he's just like, "Um, no, I literally hold all the cards, I got the whole deck, you don't even have the Rules To Five-Card Stud card, fuck you, we do it my way." I don't know, I'm not going to pretend to be objective about this, I just love him, here is a verbatim quote from my notes:

"omg Sark, you sly, handsome fucking devil UGH HE'S SO GOOD"

I feel like I’ve made my case.

Honorable mention: Random tortured guy in the SD-6 basement. I remembered the "Smila is my wife" twist about a second before he said it, and damn that's good. In an era when people are finally starting to question shows like 24 and their implicit argument that torture does, in fact, work, it's great to watch this 2002 episode and see the opposite depiction, which is likely a much more accurate reflection of real life. Plus, it's vaguely reminiscent of Will's "ONE IN FIVE" triumph from last season. Whether it's the heroes or the villains, seeing someone who is unbreakable in the face of death reminds us that, maybe, we shouldn't be trying to break people in order to save lives.

Villain of the Episode

Locke, or whatever his actual character name is. I mean, he sucks, he's in this episode to suck, he exists purely for us to resist and dislike and so Syd and Jack have something to rebel against. Although, also! If I may just say? He's also still giving Jack operational control over Sydney's missions! I know Syd got Jack off the hook last ep, legally speaking, but like! The dude confessed to sabotaging a mission with potentially fatal results! Who puts that dude back in charge? Locke! Buddy! I know, I know, it's a TV show and he's Victor Garber, but jesus, that just hit me tonight for the first time. How the fuck does he keep his job.

Honorable mention: Dixon, buddy, where have you been! Come back to this show! We miss you Carl Lumbly, please come back pleeeeeease

Does Sydney cry?

God, again, I wouldn't blame her if she did, but despite a lot of eye wrinkling, no tears did I see.

Does Sydney listen to sad music in her mood-lit apartment?

GUYS I THINK SYDNEY MIGHT BE HOMELESS seriously if the apartment doesn't make an appearance next episode I'm officially putting this category on hiatus

Sark Line of the Night

(just before pouring corrosive acid down onto Sydney)

"You and I… we're destined to work together, I truly believe that."

International titles

German: Kollaboration (Collaboration)

Italian: L'antidoto (The Antidote)

French: Dangereuse alliance (Dangerous alliance)

SYD, WHO ARE YOU WEARING?

Is Sydney a good person?

I would like to give Syd shit for her back-and-forth on ratting out her dad tonight, but upon re-watching a lot of those scenes, I mean, fuck, as smart and capable as Sydney is (on her BEST day), she is trapped in a decades-old power struggle/vendetta between two veteran spies, arguably each other's equals in manipulation, inscrutable facades, emotional withholding, and long-game master planning. Who am I to blame her for being indecisive? How can I, in good conscience, berate her for agonizing over a literal life-or-death decision that will dictate the destiny of both her parents? Yes! Jack did a terrible thing, lying to his daughter and risking her life, and maybe Syd is right that he did it, in part, to hide his involvement in Project Christmas. But! Even if that is true, it does not invalidate his other suspicions about Irina and the threat she poses! Yes! It is reprehensible to indoctrinate a child in spycraft and usher them into a life of violence. But! With her parentage, was a normal life ever really an option for Sydney?

The only thing pure and undivided about Syd tonight is her pain. That speech she gives Jack, about how she has to assume he sees her as a reminder of his weakness and failure, that is fucking legit. She is not mean or cruel, she is just clearly stating her wholly logical conclusions, unavoidable given the circumstances of her batshit life. "I think you loved mom so much that when she left you, you lost your soul." OOF, YOU GUYS

Jesus fuck man, shit, I don't know, she is really nice with Will today, she is a good listener and a good friend, and she is a solid are-we-infected-with-super-ebola buddy with Vaughan. Dang man, isn't that enough FOR YOU VULTURES

Is Sydney a good spy?

haha NOPE

SYDNEY YOU CAN'T JUST KIDNAP A SENATOR

YOU'RE A RECOGNIZED INTELLIGENCE AGENT, JUST GO TO HIS FUCKING OFFICE

also, oh boy, what a great idea to tell a fucking senator AN OBVIOUS LIE about an Alliance mole inside Congress THAT YOU HAVE NO WAY OF SUBSTATIATING AND FOR WHICH YOU HAVE NO ENDGAME

I WONDER IF THAT'S GONNA COME BACK TO BITE YOU

Plus she like totally spazzes when a sick dude grabs her arm through a sealed hospital room. He just has super-ebola, Sydney, he's not the walking goddamn dead.

I guess she does fine on the hospital mission, but jeez, Syd, KIDNAPPING A SENATOR like I literally don't even know what to do with you

2 Bonds (of 10)

MVP of the Episode

Emily's Ghost (or whatever). Guys! I don't remember where this plotline goes! And like, I haven't been talking about it because it doesn't usually fit into the (completely fucking arbitrary) categories of these reports, but like, whoever is fucking with Sloane is KILLING IT. I'm actually giddy about a plotline I saw resolved 13 years ago, because that wine glass in the bathroom, the empty coffin, UGH SO GOOD sorry guys I like a good haunting/fucking-with-you.

Honorable mention: The Bristows' Southern accents. A crowd pleaser if ever I heard one, ah do decla-uh.

Villain of the Episode

Family. I am not going to get into this, I wrote like a thousand words about it last time.

Okay, I can't resist, I'm going to get into it a little. I won't go too much into detail, but my wife has a lousy relationship with her parents, and for years I was just like FUCK 'EM, YOU'RE FREE NOW. And I admit! I had a hard time seeing why she didn't just cut ties. But let's be real. I get along with my parents. I like my family. It's pretty goddamn easy for me to be all WHO NEEDS FAMILY because I've never really had to experience the real-life fear of not having one, even if the one you have is awful. It has taken me years, but god, I am almost oppressively aware of how hard it is to quit family. Almost impossible. Maybe Syd could try, but I honestly don't know if breaking out of these family ties is even an option for her in her (or our) wildest dreams. It's honestly the biggest danger to her in this entire show.

Honorable mention: Sydney Bristow. YOU CAN'T JUST KIDNAP A SENATOR, SYDNEY

Does Sydney cry?

You know, she doesn't! I almost wouldn't blame her if she did, tonight, but she holds it together.

Does Sydney listen to sad music in her mood-lit apartment?

Does Sydney even have an apartment anymore? Does she just have like two cots at each of her spy camps?

International titles

German: Virus

Italian: Salvezza (Salvation)

SYD, WHO ARE YOU WEARING?

Special "Holy-Shit-It's-Been-Almost-Three-Years" Edition!

Is Sydney a good person?

Guys, woof, it has been just shy of three years since my last ALIAS File. I re-read some of the immediately previous reports, but damn, it is jarring to drop back in like this. Let's see if I can get a handle on it!

Surprising no one (who has read my other posts), I am conflicted on this question tonight! Okay, first off, she hangs with Francie at her restaurant, she has a really nice, charming talk with Will in the park, her friend game is on fleek. Guys! "On fleek" was not even a popular phrase last time I did one of these! Let's stay on track. Syd is a good friend tonight.

But who cares about that! Let's talk about this hyper-fucked up father-daughter shit! She starts the ep literally walking arm-in-arm with her father, which, damn, that is an impressive show of affection, given where this relationship began last season. And, you know, at that point she believes her father has saved her life and that his judgment has been accurate all along. So why shouldn't she be sweet to him! This even kind of justifies, for me at least, her snapping at Vaughan when he (100% accurately) speculates about Jack's possible involvement in Madagascar. She's on Team Jack! But, I mean, oof, there is just no getting around this whole "my father brainwashed me into being a spy when I was a child" thing. Her reaction? It's… I mean, it's kind of justified! Like, she keeps it pretty cool, and doesn't lash out unduly. Not that I have a frame of reference for this thing, but

actually, you know what? Let's get into it! No, I didn't get spy-washed as a kid. But like, Syd tells Jack that he "took away my choices in life. You programmed me." Not to get too heavy here, but like, this is an interesting question: what does it mean, exactly, for a parent to take away a child's choices in this way? Obviously, all parents program their kids, one way or another. Sometimes it's unintentional, just basic upbringing shit, but other times it is… maybe not that different from what we're seeing here? Kids soak up what they're told to a startling degree. This episode calls out linguistics and problem solving skills, but I mean, why not add to that list career goals? Moral priorities? Attitudes about money, friends, happiness? Look, I'm not going to go all the way down this rabbit hole, because this is a show where a sexy lady wears wigs and hunts down magic Renaissance sci-fi boxes, but let's just be honest here: this is a pretty good metaphor about growing up for a sexy-lady-wig-and-sci-fi-box show.

Is Sydney a good spy?

Man I am not gonna write another 500 words after that fucking inexcusable digression about parenting and childhood. Syd's pretty on her game here: she doesn't get busted on her wig mission, her Hungarian is good enough to convince a civil servant that he might get some action from Sydney after she's done looking up her grandparents' wedding records, she's stealthy, she has some weird go-go-gadget launchpad in Buenos Aires? She does good. She does get tased by an old man at one point? That's not the best. But man, she does real good tonight.

Perhaps most strikingly, in front of a congressional committee, she refers to her mother as "Derevko" and her father as "an agent." PROFESSIONAL DISTANCE AND COMPOSURE FUCK YEAH

8 Bonds (of 10)

MVP of the Episode

Michael Vaughan. I mean obviously! Like, he has got this all pieced together from moment fucking one. He's the first to smell a rat on the Madagascar incident, even thought it exonerates Irina, for whom he has no love. He is not cowed by Sydney's tantrum, and thanks to a just plain wonderful coincidence ex machina (from a dude who, unless I'm having a stroke, calls Vaughan "Daddy"? Barf.) gets at Jack's demo man and gets the truth out of him in fucking no time at all. And he is there for Syd in the end! This is not a nuanced decision. Vaughan is the truth-telling, perp-crushing, shoulder-to-cry-on hero of this episode.

Villain of the Episode

I mean, Jack Bristow. He is just shady AF (another expression that was not around in 2013! I am timestamping the FUCK out of this report!) all over tonight. I'm sure this is gonna get complicated later (or maybe not? I can never tell whether this show is gonna be smart or dumb, to be honest, it zigs and it fucking zags), but for tonight, seeing a man tenderly commend his six-year old daughter on mindlessly assembling a handgun, I mean, that's villain material.

(Addendum: I just re-read my 2013 report on the episode RIGHT BEFORE THIS ONE, and holy shit, tonight I have somehow arrived at the polar opposite opinions I had about Syd and Jack in that one. Huge emotional arc between episodes? Psychological change in the author over three years? Plain old emotional inconsistency about a dumb TV show? U-DECIDE, TRUE BELIEVERS)

Honorable mention: Marshall, SHUT UP FOR FUCK'S SAKE SHUT UP

Does Sydney cry?

IT'S A DOUBLE CRIER TONIGHT FOLKS

Does Sydney listen to sad music in her mood-lit apartment?

No apartment tonight, but hella sad music for sure.

Vaughn Line of the Night

"This is not a good time to be a terrorist. Now, a couple years ago and you would've had some civil rights. Now we just throw you in a cell, no due process, no attorney."

THIS WAS IN 200FUCKING2 GUYS

International titles

German: Projekt Weihnachten (Project Christmas)

Italian: Il puzzle (The Puzzle)

SYD, WHO ARE YOU WEARING?

Special "Vaughn's-Goofy-Headgear" Edition!

  Is Sydney a good person?

Sydney is… Sydney is dumb. That's… let's just move on.

Is Sydney a good spy?

Sydney! Ugh! Come onnnnnn. I thought we were making some progress! Basically, everything Jack says and does in this episode, I agree with. Sydney's all "I'm not that naïve." OH OKAY YOU'RE A BIG GIRL NOW, I GUESS WE'LL JUST IGNORE THE AGENT WITH THIRTY YEARS MORE EXPERIENCE THAN YOU, AKA THE MAN WHO HAS SPENT MORE TIME WITH IRINA DEREVKO THAN ANYONE ELSE HERE, AKA VICTOR GODDAMN GARBER.

Seriously! I know they don't know they're on a TV show, and so they aren't looking for "plot development," so to speak, but everything Irina is doing is so clearly manipulative! First you ask for a pencil and paper. Then it's a pair of earrings. Before you know it, it's all "Oh, well, we couldn't decipher this map in like the two hours we've had it, better give it right to the sneaky, devious mastermind we have in the cell next door!" It's called lulling, people. I am not a spy, but I am also not a dummy.

And so we have Jack calling Syd out for telling Irina about the Thanksgiving play, and Sydney being all, "You were watching me?" NO HE WAS WATCHING IRINA ugh guys I am so mad at Sydney right now! Look, more on Papa Bristow below, but for now, ugh, Syd.

Is she at least doing well on missions? Well, she escapes from the ice by using the air and gun from one of Sark's drowned scuba assassins who… wait, who killed that guy? How'd he get down there? We never saw anyone kill any of the underwater guys. How did… forget it. We'll call that one a wash. Then she tries to deadpan Sloane when he's all, "Huh, weird, supergenius inventor forgot to weatherproof the magic music box he left in the Siberian ice, that's suspicious." Uh, yeah! It is! Not your best countermission, CIA. Then she's all Ms. Russian General Hardass, which, okay, sweet costume, but I am unimpressed by her ad-lib of, "We lost a lot of good people in Chechnya." Good one, Syd. Real natural. Nice detail work. Plus she gets jumped by Sark twice (twice!) in one episode, both times with him wearing essentially the same costume as her. Woof.

(Also, sidenote, am I the only one who thinks "Freelancer" is a terrible radio codename for a double agent? Why didn't they just name her "Traitor" or "SloanSux.")

I am giving her one Bond for using the limitations of Marshall's medal/USB key to spring the alarm on Sark. That was a sweet on-the-fly repurposing. One Bond, Syd. Clean it up. Come on.

1 Bond (of 10)

Is Will Tippen a good spy?

Yes! God, yes. Sexy lady is all, "Hey I believe your story on SD-6 come and help me with my conspiracy site and then fuck me I'm obviously a spy trying to catch you fucking up wait never mind I mean boobs eye-shadow I look like Lisa Bonet in High Fidelity," but he's all NOPE I AM NOT STUPID, NICE TRY and thus, Will Tippen gets through another episode without getting murdered. This is an overinflated grade, but I'm so proud of Will and so mad at Sydney that I'm giving him

10 Bonds (of 10)

MVP of the Episode

Jack Bristow. Sure, you say, he staged a trap that could've theoretically killed his daughter just to get his ex-wife locked up. That seems shady. Sure, he patronizes Sydney and attempts to completely circumvent operating procedure just to keep her away from Irina. That could be seen as somewhat unprofessional. He totally loses his temper with the psychiatrist, that was a little red flag-y.

GUESS WHAT HE'S TOTALLY RIGHT. He is surrounded by people who are just totally down with Irina helping out, and no one will listen to his totally rational concerns. People keep trying to blame this on his bias. You know what? He is biased. So are most of the people involved here. The difference is, his bias is leading him to err on the side of caution, not blind trust. Plus, again, he was literally married to this woman. Sydney has known her, really known her, for like a few weeks. When Jack points out that she has been idolizing this woman she thought was dead, that she's spent her whole life yearning for her mother, and now that she seems to have her back Sydney is blinded to reality, he is dead-on. More power to you, Jack. You are gruff and secretive, but you really are not an idiot, which snags you the MVP for this episode with no difficulty.

Honorable mention: Sark. Guys. He's such a good spy.

Villain of the Episode

Sydney Bristow. I… I believe I've made my argument abundantly clear.

Does Sydney cry?

Oh yeah! A return to form!

Does Sydney listen to sad music in her mood-lit apartment?

The apartment is getting mad neglected, you guys.

Vaughn Line of the Night

Irina: "How do you say 'thank you' to the woman who killed your father?" Vaughn: "You don't."

COLD-BLOODED

International titles (* indicates winner of Best International Title of the Week)

German: Bewährungsproben (Practical Tests)

Italian: Bugie (Lies)

SYD, WHO ARE YOU WEARING?

Special "When-This-Thing-Hits-88-Miles-Per-Hour-You're-Gonna-See-Some-Serious-Shit" Edition!

Is Sydney a good person?

I tell you what, this episode really gives you a good portrait of basically every single one of Syd's relationships! If you're looking for a strained but touching Jack-Sydney scene, we've got it. Curious about the weird, sublimated love triangle between her, Will, and Vaughn? Covered from every angle! Sloane, Irina, even (god help me) Marshall, if you wanted to pick one episode from this period of the show to lay out exactly where Sydney stands with everyone in her life? If, say, for example, you were doing dumb, silly reports on every episode but hadn't done one in 10 months and could really use a refresher course? You could do a lot worse than "Cipher."

Let's break it down a little bit! Tumblr, drop me a beat.

I just want us all to take a second and remember where Sydney and her father were at this point last season. Her life had been turned upside down, he had become important to her for the first time in years, and everything each of them thought they knew about their relationship was thrown out the window. Lots of yelling, lots of stony glares. Now? Sydney is laughing as her father tells her a cute story about her childhood. Jack's saying, "I trust your judgment." There are still long silences (which, I don't know, seems ballsy on a network show like this), but they're no longer the silences of resentment and repression, but the silences of contemplation as two people try to navigate a treacherous world together. It's cute (at face value; more on that later).

Meanwhile, she is being supportive as fuck of Will Tippen! I think there's an easy way to go on looking at this episode, in which we see Will putting himself through pain and suffering to help Syd be a spy, an example of her putting her professional needs over taking care of her friends. But I don't know! My gut tells me that this is actually a remarkable show of faith and trust in Will, that Sydney believes that Will has earned the right to be taken seriously. He's obviously still fragile, but the fact that his world has been destroyed and he's not just saying "Fuck you" to all things espionage seems to indicate that Sydney's faith in him is well-founded.

Her faith in certain other people? Well, that's another section. There's already so much amazing shit in this episode I can't fit in here, we have to move on! Guys! I love this show!

Is Sydney a good spy?

Operationally, Sydney is on point today. You won't get any arguments from me there. She pretty much nails all the "mission" stuff. As a sidenote, and I know I try not to get too "review-y" in these things, I have to say that the missions are particularly good this episode! That absolutely ridiculous SUPER LUGE sequence alone is worth the price of admission, but it also continues to make me absolutely giddy that this show doesn't care about traditional episode structure. A show like Chuck would've made that rocket mission the third act climax, everything building up to the one, easily packaged objective. Alias? It's barely a mid-point act break. They just keep steamrolling through everything, never letting us get complacent and reliant on formula. END OF BORING REVIEW SECTION

So look, Sydney is good at being an action hero. She rocks a wicked pickaxe to the leg when Sark gets the drop on her at the end, and if you don't think that's a solid Fuck Yeah, then this is not the show for you. It even makes me want to forgive her for the awkward, "Dixon, the ice is shaky in here, so I'm going to go radio silent… because the radio waves might… cause an avalanche? Or something? I SWEAR I'M NOT A DOUBLE AGENT" nonsense right beforehand.

But ugh, look, I'm obviously just dancing around the real issue. Sydney! Your mother is going to fuck you over! It is agonizing to see her slowly get sucked into her mother's web. She starts out strong, refusing to let her boss call her "your mother," and insisting that Irina call her "Agent Bristow." Vaughn even backs her up by saying what I said last time, that they weren't exactly losing the war before Irina showed up! They have other assets! But man, as the episode goes on, those walls come down, and she is vulnerable as shit.

Although I can't not mention that little, "Give me a pencil and paper," "No." "Please." "Okay!" nonsense (seriously, Syd, you folded faster than that piece of paper you gave her OH SNAP), the big thing is this Thanksgiving play thing! It is so obvious what Irina is trying to do. Every time anyone walks into that room, she immediately starts trying to seduce them, trying to elicit emotions, referring to her shared past with whomever she's speaking to, telling personal stories. This is how she gets you! This is how she gets you to forget she's a murderous mastermind. When Sydney turns at the end and tells her that she was a turkey? Why would you give that to her? That benefits you NOT AT ALL, she's already giving you intel, and now you've given her a piece of you, a piece of your past. Don't hand your enemies a loaded gun, Sydney. Maybe Jack was premature in trusting her judgment.

5 Bonds (of 10)

Is Will Tippen a good spy?

Uh, yeah! Sort of! Obviously he's got some experience rolling with weird shit as an investigative journalist, but you have to give him props for just being like, "Yup, dead drop, secret elevator, induced regression, I can deal, I'm cool." He should probably learn how to mask his obvious intimidation/competition complex with Vaughn, but he's not the master actor Syd is (am I being sarcastic? I'm not even sure). Plus, he even tells Vaughn that he has to postpone the hypnosis session so that he can help Francie set up her restaurant. Granted, it's not exactly the most time-sensitive thing, but it already gives him a leg-up on Sydney "Oh Shit I Missed Another Important Friendship Commitment" Bristow.

5 Bonds (of 10)

MVP of the Episode

Guys, I want to give it to Irina, obviously I am in the tank for Irina, but it's gotta be Sark. Forget for a second that he goes down like a punk at the end. What would you do with a pickaxe to the thigh! That's what I thought, shut up. Look, at the shuttle launch, when they cut the surveillance feed so Syd can fuck with the rocket, the scientists are all I'M SURE IT'S NOTHING. Obviously SD-6 is counting on this, for people to just assume that it's an innocent malfunction, and since it doesn't actually affect the launch, no one will panic. Here is what they forgot: Sark is a fucking smart dude. He has clearly learned, "If anything goes wrong, it's Sydney Bristow." So he just says LAUNCH IT, which is a baller move. He has also clearly learned that, apparently, the CIA has like, two field agents, so if anyone fucks with him, it's obviously going to be Sydney Bristow again. Is that how the CIA actually works? Do they just send the same spy after the same dude over and over? Wait, why am I using ALIAS to make predictions about how the real CIA works. Pitr. That is stupid. You are stupid. Sark is smart END OF SECTION

Honorable mention: Emily Sloane. That is some badass botanical haunting, guys!

Villain of the Episode

It pains me to say it, but look, it's Jack Bristow. Part of me really admires his early gambit to get the psychiatrist (whose appearance is blissfully contained) to help him plan a strategy to manipulate Sydney. That is some classic SpyDad shit. However, this quickly becomes less charming and more sinister. It took me three viewings until I really picked up on it (because I am dumb, but also because Victor Garber is a good actor), but when Sydney is talking about how her memory from right after her mother "died" is fuzzy, his face almost imperceptibly drops. I had always just gone with what Syd told Irina, that she was a little kid who had just been told that her mom died, of course her memory is scattered, but when Irina asks Jack, "You haven't told her what you did to her after I disappeared, have you?" Well, those memory gaps don't seem like the normal result of emotional trauma anymore. It is sweet that Jack is getting closer with Sydney, but this show will not let us enjoy that for a moment. Nothing in the Bristow family is ever that simple.

Something I also am only now really picking up on is the parallel between Sloane and Jack right now. Both of them are being haunted by their "dead" wives, making them unstable, uncertain, and unreliable. At least Sloane has the luxury of believing his wife to be a) actually dead, and b) wholly unaware of his other life. Jack has had that stripped from him, and it is fucking him up. Pull it together, Jack.

Does Sydney cry?

Nope!

Does Sydney listen to sad music in her mood-lit apartment?

Nope! All business!

International titles (* indicates winner of Best International Title of the Week)

German: Musik aus dem Eis (Ice Music)*

Italian: Cifre (Figures)

SYD, WHO ARE YOU WEARING?

Special “What-You-Just-Did-With-Your-Hair-That’s-Your-Thing” Edition!

Is Sydney a good person?

Man, she is trying her best. Obviously, the fact that this is a TV show with a plot means that her I’m Never Talking To My Mother stance was going to have to weaken and break, but I respect her instincts. Furthermore, she doesn’t listen to Irina’s message about the failsafe, and even though in that specific instance it led to trouble, I back her play on principle (more on this below). She is trying to be strong right now, but obviously it’s harder now than ever. I don’t know if I can fairly fault her for getting jumbled by Irina.

I don’t know, she doesn’t openly disrespect or screw anyone tonight. We’re going to just have to see how this plays out.

Is Sydney a good spy?

I’m going to sidestep the issue of Sydney not being able to rig a rappel-line handbrake, because it’s nothing compared to the bigger issues at hand, but damn Syd, get it together. Also, would it have killed you for that to have been a sword-cane?

Obviously the big question of tonight (gee maybe the episode titles aren’t chosen by random word generators) is whether or not to trust Irina’s intel, which is as good a synthesis of Sydney’s personal and professional struggles as this show has had yet. Sydney chooses to ignore Irina’s tip about the failsafe in Rabat. This tip appears to have been legit. However, it’s Jack who (as usual) tells it like it is when he says that this is irrelevant. Irina giving one or two tips, or really, any good intel at all, is not equivalent to her cooperation. It could just as well be a ploy to draw the CIA in, at which point she will, as Jack puts it, “gut you.”

What it comes down to is really one simple question, asked in this very episode: what does Irina want? Even if we want to believe she has truly turned, there’s no explanation we’ve seen as to why a criminal mastermind wholly untraceable and uncatchable would flip. It’s not impossible that such a thing could happen, but without motive, there’s no reason to believe it’s sincere. Until Sydney and the CIA knows what Irina wants, they don’t have an asset, they have a fox in the henhouse (this is not a pun about how hot I think Lena Olin is, but it may as well be).

It’s not as if Syd and her people were desperately losing the fight before Irina walked in. They have assets! They have resources! However tempting it may be to try and use Irina, they have countless other sources that they can trust; opening up to the one source they definitely can’t is a huge risk. Although Sydney seems to know this, she is clearly sliding in the other direction. Bad news, Syd.

4 Bonds (of 10)

MVP of the Episode

Hopefully, this section won’t get too boring when I just say Irina Derevko for every episode. She gives Hannibal Lecter a run for his money in the category of Running The Show Without Ever Leaving Your Cell. In particular, the moment when Vaughn walks in to interrogate her, and she instantaneously presses herself against the glass, both predatory and alluring. She’s so much like a snake it’s literally frightening. Her last line to Vaughn, “You look just like him,” to say nothing of her episode-closing smile, is so classic supervillain that I suddenly remember why this show was kind of a huge deal at the time.

Honorable mention: Victor Garber. This is another one where I don’t have anything new to say. The man is a national treasure.

Villain of the Episode

I’m going to make an unconventional pick and say Michael Vaughn. I am usually all about the V-Man (officially never calling him that again), but tonight he is at best obstructionist, at worst actively counter-productive. Sydney, Jack, and Vaughn all have their anger and grief issues tied up in Irina’s past, but at least Sydney and Jack’s are focused directly at her. Vaughn’s feelings are muddled with his relationship with his father, and absent is any direct history between him and Irina. Because of his pull with Sydney and his own overactive emotions, he’s one of the strongest forces pulling Sydney towards her mother, and his irrational need for confrontation is only fueling the same feelings in Syd.

Does Sydney cry?

Yep! Classic “Stay Tough In The Room And Then Immediately Weep Upon Exiting.” Old school.

Does Sydney listen to sad music in her mood-lit apartment?

Nope! She’s off-campus for most of tonight.

Vaughn Line of the Night

“Killing his wife wouldn’t surprise me. Eating his wife wouldn’t surprise me.”

International titles

German: Erpressung (Blackmail)

Italian: Fiducia (Confidence)

French: Confiance aveugle (Blind trust)