#the indicator

Passing the Bechdel:

Sydney greets and congratulates Francie on her restaurant opening. Sydney talks about the training program for children with Dr. Kerr. Sydney meets with Dr. Kerr again.  They proceed with regression therapy.

Female Characters:

Sydney Bristow

Francie Calfo

Virginia Kerr

Male Characters:

Senator Douglas

Jack Bristow

Arvin Sloane

Dixon

Michael Vaughn

Marshall

Will Tippin

Craig Blair

Manolo De Souza

Valery Kholokov

Agent Kelsey

Other Notes:

Francie’s restaurant has now opened and is apparently a hit, and this is still the least realistic story Alias has ever done. I do appreciate that she followed SpyDaddy’s advice about red walls.

Vaughn, when interviewing the person SpyDaddy hired to not blow up Sydney last episode, who is being kept prisoner by the C.I.A., actually says, casually and uncritically, that “A couple of years ago, and [he] would have had some civil rights. Now we just throw you in a cell, no attorney, no due process.” It is A LOT, and in stark contrast to the very sanitized version of the C.I.A. the show usually tries to present. 

The guy from the Hungarian records office is probably my favorite minor extra from a Sydney SpyBarbie mission, in part because he and Sydney actually get to say lines that are not simply there to further the plot.

This episode deals with Project Christmas, a part of the Alias mythos that really should be far bigger that it ends up being. Unlike Rambaldi, it’s a story that is linked directly to the series’ themes of legacy, parenthood, and agency, and is much more immediate and personal than the ongoing treasure hunt. And yet, for some reason, the series never actually did much with it. This episode, which is the one that perhaps most focuses on it, folds the revelations surrounding it into the ongoing attempts by SpyDaddy to frame SpyMommy, in a way that frankly, doesn’t make a whole lot of storytelling sense.  

First of all, tying the two stories is unnecessary. Sydney doesn’t really need an additional reason to be mad at Jack for manipulating her and placing her in danger.  Just finding out that he did should be enough. Similarly, tying Project Christmas to SpyMommy’s fate minimizes Project Christmas; Sydney’s anger and its immediacy prevents her or the series from thinking of the full implications of what she or the audience has learned—and indeed, once Irina is saved, Sydney’s emotional investment in Project Christmas quickly recedes.   Plus, Sydney’s conclusion at the end of this episode—that SpyDaddy framed Irina in order to prevent Sydney from knowing about Project Christmas—doesn’t really make any sense—how would Irina know?  

Of course, part of the problem is that in the end, the implications of Project Christmas are shockingly minor. The training regimen itself does not appear to be harmful—the most we see of it is puzzle-building and weapons maintenance, and none of the people familiar with the program ever suggest that its participants require urgent saving or intervention.  Additionally, while Sydney may complain that Jack removed her agency by subjecting her to the regimen, that claim is at odds with the fact that Jack had absolutely no involvement in either her recruitment into SD-6 or her decision to join the C.I.A. While there is a lot of interesting ambiguity to the whole affair—the fact that Sydney’s memories of the regiment were erased without her consent, for one, is plainly immoral—Sydney and the episode resist attempts to acknowledge that ambiguity.