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January 06, 2005

Sydney Get Your Gun

My overall impression of last night's Alias season premiere - pretty good. Not great, but better than average.

WARNING!!!

SPOILERS AHOY!!

I've only watched it once, and some of my questions will probably be answered with a second viewing, but these are the things I'm thinking about this morning:

  • Sydney + Dixon 4 Ever – I squealed with joy when Sydney said that the thing that made joining APO (hello, lame!) worth it was being partnered with Dixon once more. Which made me shudder with glee because I think their relationship was one of the bedrocks of this show, and getting away from it last season was a big ol' mistake.

    BUT THEN! Who does Syd get partnered with both times she goes out into the field? Sucky li'l Vaughn. So I'm peeved that JJ didn't actually deliver on the renewed Sydney/Dixon partnership.

  • The Eagle Has Landed – What's up with the new call signs for these people when they're on operations? Sydney is now "Phoenix" and Vaughn is "Shotgun"? SpyDaddy is "Raptor"? Bring back Mountaineer and *chortle* Boy Scout *guffaw*. I can't recall what Jack's former call sign was.

  • Mama, Just Killed a Man – Okay, so, Sydney found her mother's dead body and had her buried in a mausoleum in Moscow. When did this happen? And why does Syd not even mention it until the final act of the two-hour episode? I have a feeling we'll see this part of her story in greater detail later, told in flashback, but it was just really jarring to have this information casually dropped into the episode at the end. Especially when prior scenes showed Sydney weeping to Vaughn about how her father had killed her mother.

  • Spare the Rod, Spoil the Child – Why is Sydney such a spoiled brat when it comes to SpyDaddy? As soon as it was revealed that Jack had requested permission to kill Irina, I knew that the only reason he'd do that would be to protect Sydney in some way (although I didn't guess it was due to Irina putting out a contract on Syd's life). The Sydney/Jack relationship is, to me, the very foundation of this show, and the past two seasons have shown that the two of them had grown extraordinarily close. Sydney finds out that her dad killed her mom and she doesn't even get around to asking him WHY? And it doesn't occur to her that just maybe he did it for a good reason? The man went to PRISON for you, Sydney! Wake the hell up!

    And THEN, at the end, when she finds out that SpyDaddy killed Irina because Irina had hired someone to kill Sydney, does Sydney thank her father? No. Does she do ANYTHING that shows any sort of gratitude? No. She wouldn't even hug the man who saved her freaking life.

    Given the past two seasons and the arc of these characters' relationship with each other, these scenes just rang very untrue to me.

  • Using "Bad" was BAD – I love U2's "Bad" very, very much. It's a beautiful song that evokes so many different emotions and thoughts. But frantic shagging is not one of them! What an odd, odd choice of music for Sydney and Vaughn having sex for the first time since she "died." Lyrically I can understand the choice (a little) but the pacing of the song is the antithesis of frenetic, which was exactly what was being shown. Guh! Fire the music coordinator!

  • Marshall-ing the Forces – I love Marshall. No, I FLOVE him. "I've been to see Sark twice, just to see a familiar face. We had eggs." I love you, little man! "Did I die?" LOVE. ADORE. Just don't bring back his wife and kid, because they're boring.

  • Hey Little Sister, What Have You Done? – Please please pleeeeeeeeeeeease let Sydney kill Nadia soon. Heck, have ANYONE kill Nadia soon. "I will find the person who killed our mother, and I will KILL HIM." Shut it, twit. The day SpyDaddy dies is the day I stop watching this damn show, and I really don't want a season where Nadia is just about almost kinda finding out that Jack killed Irina. Sloane knows that Jack killed Irina; I wonder if he'll tell Nadia at some point in order to get back into her good graces?

    Of course he will.

  • Credit Where Credit Is Due – The opening credits? I'm not sure I like them. The music doesn't seem as jittery as it was before; I wonder if it's slowed down? I do kind of like the collage of Disguised!Sydney - because really, don't we also watch this show to see Syd's outfits while she's undercover? - but I found myself wanting to see shots of the other cast members, too.

  • Weiss Up – Give Greg Grunberg more to do, please! They need to bring him into the black ops fold (he's the only one outside the loop now that Marshall has been recruited). Did anyone else get a very "Will" vibe from him when he and Sydney were bantering in her kitchen? And Weiss is supposed to be 38? Or was it 37? Either way, that struck me as a little bit old (not that I mind, it just didn't seem to fit with what was in my mind for that character). I guess Nadia could be Weiss' Jenny. Only deadlier (one would assume).

  • Pure Evil – Sloane can be my Bad Daddy any day. Because he's BAD! And EVIL!! And don't you forget it!!

Posted by Highwaygirl on January 6, 2005 09:08 AM to the category Entertainment
Comments

I haven't seen the whole epi yet but know what I loved about what I saw?

NO FREAKING COW!!!

Posted by: Mandy at January 6, 2005 09:34 AM

Brace yourself. I thought it was okay. Being that I have never watched a single episode of Alias, I think 'okay' is pretty good for someone that didn't know who anyone was. One major suggestion from me would be ..someone PLEASE get Jen an accent couch STAT! I had to stop myself from changing the channel in the first 5-minutes with that whole stupid swedish (?) chickie thing at the beginning. ::shudder:: Other than that, yeah, not as sucky as I expected. (Which is a good thing) Thanks for convincing me to watch, Heewig.

Posted by: TVJ at January 6, 2005 09:39 AM

Uh. That would be accent COACH. Not "couch". BWAH.

Posted by: TVJ at January 6, 2005 09:40 AM

TVJ!! I'm so glad you liked it. I was thinking about you as I was watching the episode, because I wasn't sure it was good enough to grab a new viewer.

I agree with you about the accent couch (hee) though. Vaughn's accents are equally bad as well.

Posted by: Highwaygirl at January 6, 2005 11:49 AM

Yeah, I agree about the accents, but then I think "well, they're *supposed* to be Americans playing Russians/Swedes/whatevers, so it's OK." It's not like we're supposed to think they really are that nationality, just the baddies are supposed to think that. Oh, I don't know. Rambling here.

I wondered about it grabbing new viewers, too. Because the whole time I watched, I'd just get excited about all my peeps being on screen again together (plus distracted by the fabulousness of Jen's hair!). I think that this episode was kind of a setting up of the whole season, so there were a lot of things to cover. I didn't hate last season like a lot of people, but it definitely wasn't my favorite. Vaughn said it himself though, "Last year sucked!" Hee.

Posted by: Roo at January 6, 2005 04:58 PM

Yeah, but if you're going to do an accent, and your life is at stake because you're trying to convince the bad guys you're somebody you're not, you better hope your accent is pretty freaking good.

Posted by: Teem at January 6, 2005 05:00 PM

True. But oh well. Just hush, you hater! :)

Posted by: Roo at January 6, 2005 06:52 PM

Teem is right! Teem is right! Because, if I was a bad guy selling bad blow you up or biological warfare goodies .. I'da been like "What's up with your accent, chickie? Make up your mind where you're from, fer cryin' out loud!"

*chuckle*

Posted by: TVJ at January 6, 2005 08:08 PM

We must acknowledge the tragic lack of Sark in this premiere, though. Is he even ON the show any more?

Posted by: Highwaygirl at January 6, 2005 10:21 PM

Roo pointed out: Vaughn said it himself though, "Last year sucked!"

I totally didn't think of it like that, but that is hilarious! I was also glad to see everyone back together, but poor Weiss. They can't leave him hanging like that. (And 38 surprised me, too.) Re: Sark, it looks like he is scheduled to be in a couple of eps, at least.)

Posted by: kicks at January 6, 2005 10:30 PM

How correct you are, TVJ! In fact, the words "Teem is right! Teem is right!" haunt me each night as I lay down to sleep. :)

Posted by: Roo at January 6, 2005 10:51 PM

Hello! Not one but TWO big ass shoutouts to me! See, what you don't know is that JJ and I have been secretly having a torrid affair (I dig the geeks), and I've been whispering sweet nothings in his ears, which is why SpyDaddy has the call name "RAPTOR", and why they were playing my favourite Juanes song when Syd went to see Nadia in Argentina.

Posted by: rappy at January 7, 2005 05:31 AM
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