Alias 4.5: "Welcome to Liberty Village"

Written by Drew Goddard
Directed by Kevin Hooks

In which Sydney and Vaughn must pose as terrorists attempting to portray an American couple in order to uncover the goals of a Russian insurgency group…


Status Report

Like the previous episode, this particular tale was written by an “Angel” expatriate. Drew Goddard gained something of a reputation while working for Mutant Enemy, since most of his episodes were filled with continuity references, much to the delight of the audience. One might have expected the same now that Goddard is working on “Alias”, but there’s that pesky network mandate to make the episodes more self-contained. As a result, the continuity references are used sparingly, but in each case, it gives the episode added punch.

Even before the episode aired, there was something of a backlash against it. Many fans had already lost patience with the dearth of ongoing plot threads (character threads don’t seem to count in this argument), so trotting out an episode that looks like a retread of the an episode from the sixth season of “X-Files” (“Arcadia”) was perhaps the wrong move. It’s hard to tell if this was an intentional starting point, or if the network promotional team decided to play up the common elements in some bizarre attempt to get the attention of X-Philes. If it was intentional, then it certainly got their attention. Unfavorable attention, that is!

It’s entirely possible, however, that the similarities were less homage/rip-off and more coincidental. The idea of Russians creating a faux-suburb and training their intelligence personnel to act like Americans is hardly new. The concept appeared in several films during the Cold War, and it was at least partially based in historical concerns about the methods used to develop sleeper cells on American soil. In the modern age of terrorism, such methods are in play, and so it’s not a stretch to think that the writers would have wanted to tap into that. (Interestingly enough, none of the fans of that 1980s John Travolta film are accusing the writers of ripping that off!)

Ultimately the premise of the false-suburban setting is meant to facilitate the advancement of two other plot threads: the evolution of the relationship between Sydney and Vaughn and the ever-expanding legacy of Irina Derevko. The first angle seems to be the natural next step in the relationship, coming out of Vaughn’s confessions in “Ice” and Sydney’s subsequent desire to take things to the next level. The second plot thread was somewhat unexpected, even though it confirms that the writers are slowly but surely building up a season arc, just not as obviously as the fans are accustomed.

Even without the help of German authorities, it’s likely that Sydney and Vaughn would have tipped off the terrorists sooner rather than later. The two of them are so conflicted that they are having difficulty maintaining cover, and not just because of their intimacy issues. Sydney takes too many chances, banking on the hopes that the terrorists will interpret her actions as simple precautionary measures. Vaughn also seems far too reserved and uncomfortable in his cover role, enough so that the terrorists probably should have worried over his ability to seem natural as an American. How many times did Vaughn have that sour expression, anyway?

The timetable for the operation also seemed a bit too quick. Obviously the terrorists were preparing to mobilize within a relatively short period of time, but an operation like that requires a long-term patience that would seem to exclude new recruits within 48 hours of shipping off to America. One would think that a few weeks, at least, would have been more logical. This accelerated timetable might have been necessary for the purposes of the stand-alone format, but it robbed the “deep cover” aspect of much of its strength, rendering the terrorist operation itself illogical and poorly conceived.

This is only slightly mitigated by the fact that the premise is really an excuse to force Sydney and Vaughn into a “relationship crucible”. The mission itself is almost secondary to the effort of forcing the two characters to make some serious relationship choices. Sydney wants to take things back where they used to be, before everything went to hell in “The Telling”, and Vaughn is still not sure what he wants, since he is still working out his inner demons. Being told to screw like bunnies under such circumstances, especially when every move is being watched by critical eyes, is just plain surreal.

It’s debatable whether or not Garner and Vartan had sufficient chemistry in the first couple of seasons, but at the very least, they were interested in one another on a personal level, and that seemed to shine through. This season, despite the needs of the story, the two can’t seem to pretend to have positive feelings for each other. Or rather, it seems like Garner is trying to make the effort, but Vartan is phoning in the romance. He often looks like he wants to be anywhere but there, and in all fairness, he’s in a terrible position. This is the best gig for him right now, but it forces him to do love scenes with a woman who left him for Ben Affleck. Who would want to be in that position?

This undermines some of the character development, which is a problem for the episode and the series as a whole. JJ Abrams wants the romance to return between Sydney and Vaughn, and the character threads have become more important at this stage of the game. The lack of chemistry is distracting, to say the least, and when the character romance is supposed to be moving the story forward until the plot threads can sneak under the radar, that’s a big problem.

For all that, the writers try to make it work out, using the events of the third season to play on the distance between Garner and Vartan. This is where Drew Goddard gets to work a little of the continuity magic. When Vaughn starts describing his “proposal” in Santa Barbara, the same intensity that informed his confession in the previous episode reappears. It’s a great moment, because Sydney begins to understand the depth of Vaughn’s emotional scarring. Sydney never gave Vaughn a moment of compassion for marrying Lauren, but now she can’t help but realize that her attitude was entirely self-serving. Unfortunately, this important character moment doesn’t get enough time to play out.

Beyond the relationship issues, the writers openly address the fact that Sydney and Vaughn have fallen into familiar patterns. The mission is all about pretending to be a normal American couple. One could interpret their tentativeness to the relationship issues or an attempt to look like they’re working at the assignment. But at the beginning of the episode, the truth is revealed: Sydney and Vaughn can’t act like a normal American couple simply because they don’t remember what it’s like to live a normal life. The loss is deeper than the distance between the two of them; both of them have become isolated from the rest of the world.

Far more interesting was the parallel element with Jack and the small matter of Irina’s book collection. This is one of those completely unexpected continuity references that hits like a lead brick. Who expected that those books would ever play a part again? Well, not only do they play a part in getting Sydney and Vaughn out of Liberty Village alive (or so one is left to surmise), but they lead directly into one of the sneaky plot threads developing in the background.

The legacy of Irina Deverko is a major part of the season thus far. One could argue that the entire third season was about her true endgame, especially since the evidence points to Irina as the secret head of the Covenant. That would have been in keeping with the fact that most of the people in her previous organization ultimately wound up working for the Covenant (and for that matter, her previous organization never had a name, so it could have simply been revealed in that fashion).

With Irina dead, the Covenant seems to have dissolved, spinning out a number of new and exciting terrorists with various aims and goals. But someone is out there gathering up some of Irina’s old operatives. In particular, someone is looking for Irina’s sister Elena, who used to go under the codename of “Sentinel”. Considering the fact that Irina’s other sister, Katya, was running errands in the third season for some unknown purpose, it seems like the Derevko family isn’t done with the old business at all.

This suggests a number of things, not the least of which is the possibility that Irina is still alive out there. But even if she’s not, it’s entirely possible that Katya is running the Covenant now, or whatever replaced that organization, and she’s trying to gather the resources to make a play for whatever Rambaldi device Sloane and Nadia found after “Resurrection”. Jack and Sloane discuss Elena as though her possible re-activation confirms a shared suspicion, and that means they’ve had something up their sleeve for a little while now. Considering how much they hate each other, it has to be something substantial for the two of them to agree.

This is the real mystery of the episode, especially since it suggests that the lingering plot threads from the second and third season might finally be addressed in the near future. It also suggests that there may have been more to the documents Sydney found at Wittenberg after all, since Jack is running some kind of secret agenda with Sloane. And then there’s the question of Sloane’s motivations, which remain suspect at best. In a couple of very short scenes, the writers add enough intrigue to supply the rest of the season with long-term implications.

If this season is going to evolve into a true course correction, bringing the series back to the quality of the first and second season, the Derevko legacy must be fully realized and explained in sufficient detail. An interesting angle would be to have Jack, rather than Sydney, conduct an ongoing investigation into the Elena situation, using Sydney’s missions with the rest of the team as a pretext to uncovering vital clues. It would crate a necessary tension between Sydney, Jack, and presumably Nadia, and that would serve to expand on Sloane’s true purpose as well. This would allow the network to get what they want (Sydney on a different mission every week) while also serving the best interests of the series.

Understandably, the writers want to establish the current status quo in the first third of the season, so one would expect that the plot will kick into high gear around the end of the February sweeps period. Character work is very important, but the first and second season accomplished similar goals while also maintaining a strong sense of pacing. Future episodes should balance the need for character development with the expectation of unexpected plot twists and plenty of intrigue. This episode failed to capture that balance, and it suffered as a result.

Weiss, Nadia, and Dixon got very little screen time, which is another problem with the episode. The best episodes take advantage of the entire cast, giving everyone a moment to shine in their respective part of the story. With so much emphasis on Sydney and Vaughn, to the detriment of even the Jack/Sloane plot thread, the other characters were sidelined. Weiss and Nadia are used simply as a quick foil for Sydney and Vaughn at the beginning, and Dixon is essentially used for exposition again. Marshall gets more to do, including some wonderful scenes with Jack, but it doesn’t make up for the lack of variety.

Abrams did the right thing by assigning the former “Angel” writers to the early part of the season, since they have experience with making mostly stand-alone episodes fit into a larger framework. Still, it’s unrealistic to think that they would be able to make the shift in focus work every single week. Goddard does his best to give the story relevance, but it doesn’t quite come together, thanks to the lack of balance between plot threads.

It feels like the writing staff sat down and blocked out the first several episodes with index cards, and this was the episode where the writers decided they would have Sydney and Vaughn would address their relationship issues. The previous episodes of the season also seem to have been focused on a single purpose: introduce the new status quo, reveal the truth about Jack’s secret, have Jack fool Nadia regarding Irina’s death, have Vaughn come to terms with killing Lauren, have Sydney and Vaughn address their relationship. Each topic addresses something that was left hanging after the third season, more or less, so it makes one wonder how far out into the future the index cards go. Hopefully, the writers will eventually approach the season a bit more organically as plot threads develop, so that the previous level of sophistication can make a comeback.


Final Analysis

Overall, this episode wasn’t quite as balanced as the last few episodes have been, focusing far too much on Sydney and Vaughn’s troubled relationship, to the detriment of the rest of the cast. There’s a rather intriguing subplot regarding Irina’s ongoing legacy, but it’s buried by the disappointing and somewhat illogical main plot. Garner and Vartan’s personal chemistry issues creep into the action, something that ultimately weakens the episode as a whole.

Writing: 1/2
Acting: 2/2
Direction: 2/2
Style: 1/4

Final Rating: 6/10

Season Average (as of 4.5): 7.4