Lost 1.19: "Deux ex Machina"

Written by Cartleton Cuse and Damon Lindelof
Directed by Robert Mandel

In which Locke begins to experience his old paralysis without warning, but a prophetic dream sends him and Boone onto a trek into the jungle, where one of them is gravely injured…


Status Report

After a wait that felt like forever (even after the hiatus was shortened by a few weeks with little warning), “Lost” returns with a Locke-centric episode that begins to pay off a few character threads that have been lingering for quite some time. The writers continue to execute a brilliant balancing act between answering questions and introducing new ones. For those with an eye only for plot, this had to be a frustrating episode. But for those still in love with the deep character development on this series, this was a keeper.

Certainly this episode sets a few plot threads into motion, but unlike some series, where the plot dictates the choices of the characters, everything that happens in the next episode is directly related to Locke’s psychology in this episode. And while the writers could have taken the easy road, this episode presents an incredibly complex and psychologically damaged man in place of the confident and wise shamanic figure that Locke has become to most of the survivors.

There’s a sense, from the beginning of this episode, that this has been a long time coming. Locke placed himself in a position of semi-authority from the beginning, and it’s not hard to understand why. In “Walkabout”, Locke was presented as a broken man granted a miracle, someone who had every reason to advocate the concept of “tabula rasa”. This episode begins to explain why Locke slipped down that path, and why he needs to feel a sense of importance within a structured, meaningful universe.

Locke found himself abandoned to a foster care situation that left him feeling unwanted and possibly unloved. Even so, as the beginning of the episode demonstrates, Locke was not an outwardly negative individual. He wasn’t enormously successful, either, but he seemed to be content with his place in the world. It was the callous actions of his parents that appears to have been the trigger. It’s possible that he felt a sense of universal entitlement before his parents betrayed him, but it wasn’t something at the forefront of his mind.

What’s worse is that the audience knows, from the beginning, that Locke is going to be the unwitting victim of an elaborate trap. He’s just too naïve to realize it. By giving the audience all the clues necessary to recognize that Locke is walking into the trap, the focus shifts to the nature of the manipulation. In a way, this leaves the end of the episode with an air of inevitability. But since the audience knows that Locke will be paralyzed at some point, there’s the expectation that this situation with his parents will explain how that happened.

If Locke’s history prior to the flashback in this episode is still unclear, one thing is certain: the betrayal he experiences is the beginning of a harrowing, long-term breakdown. Locke begins to develop an intense control issue. He doesn’t want anyone to dictate what he can or cannot do. He doesn’t want to feel powerless. And above all, he feels an intense need for validation. His miraculous recovery upon arrival at the island must have felt like the ultimate answer to every indignity.

From the beginning, Locke embraced the concept of the island as a unique consciousness, a higher power. It would have been easy for the writers to reveal, quite simply, that Locke was rather insane for assuming that random events and discoveries were part of some greater purpose. However, quite apart from Locke, the audience has been privy to the odd coincidences that speak to something more than random chance. On top of the predictions about Claire’s baby and the “power” of the numbers, there’s now the prophetic dream that Locke experiences.

This doesn’t contradict the possibility that the transmissions from the island utilize a carrier wave that brings about an altered state, as theorized in the review for the previous episode. If anything, it adds to the evidence supporting such a theory. Claire also had dreams that were apparently prophetic in nature, according to her diary, and that suggests that certain people with potential psychic ability are more easily swayed by the effect caused by whatever is on the island.

Psychologically speaking, from Locke’s point of view, it wouldn’t be an unusual leap from an altered, expanded consciousness to the assumption of a higher power facilitating that altered state. And indeed, it still hasn’t been ruled out that the island is home to some God-like higher power. In terms of this episode, the implication is that Locke has only assumed that his experience on the island is the result of some higher-order manipulation, and that he could be very mistaken. As already mentioned, this makes Locke far more dangerous to the other survivors, because many of them have accepted Locke in his self-appointed shamanic role.

The questions surrounding Locke take him out of the typical “good” or “evil” categories. Locke is clearly neither. He’s simply a human being with psychological baggage. If he has an agenda, it’s the product of his own assumptions about what “the island wants”. When he acts towards the goal of opening up someone’s eyes to the possibilities of a “clean slate” or what he perceives to be the “will of the island”, there’s nothing sinister intended. Nor is it necessarily a good thing, if taken too far.

This episode is a perfect example of that. Locke believes that he is meant to open the hatch, and everything that he does becomes subservient to that imperative. He lies and deceives if he believes it necessary to that goal. Similarly, he has come to believe that Boone is meant to be involved as well, no matter the cost. The results are, as one would expect, tragic. Boone is in critical condition on an island where medical supplies are scarce. Locke’s understanding of his place in the intended order of things is shaken. And of course, there’s still the little matter of Claire’s baby, which is apparently coming into the picture very soon.

One can’t help but wonder if the writers intended the Jack/Sawyer subplot as a reminder that there’s only one doctor on the island, and he’s lucky to have fresh water to work with. So far, major accidents have been few and far between. But at this point, it’s going to become a serious issue. Locke’s medical status is not even remotely clear, Boone is apparently dying, and once Claire goes into labor, someone is going to have to be there throughout the process. It’s more than Jack can easily handle, even with Sun covering where she can.

As the writers have pointed out on more than one occasion, the survivors have been largely fortunate to this point. Sooner or later, the luck is going to run out. Part of the brilliance of the writing is how situations arise organically over time. Character conflicts simmer until they explode. If the writers have been planning out a general season arc, and if they are now pushing over all the dominoes they’ve erected over the course of the season thus far, then they are also intelligently ensuring that the triggered events take place in a logical progression.

With medical issues coming to the fore, it could have some interesting implications in terms of Jack’s leadership role. One of the reasons that Locke has been granted something of a shamanic status is his appearance of superior survival skills. Similarly, Jack has given everyone the impression that he can handle situations as they arise. If the intersection of so many medical crises overwhelms Jack and his resources, the rest of the survivors could subconsciously begin questioning his leadership role.

This episode deepens the complicated “love triangle” between Jack, Kate, and Sawyer. Kate gets Jack involved because she genuinely cares about Sawyer’s welfare. As seen in “Outlaws”, the two of them have a lot in common, not the least of which is their stubborn inability to open up emotionally to others. At the same time, if Kate is currently leaning towards Sawyer, it’s still looking like Jack will eventually win her heart. As noted in previous reviews, this continues to suggest that Kate and her struggle to decide between the two men will be a metaphor for the struggle all the survivors feel between “embracing the will of the island” and remaining stuck in old patterns.

Sawyer, on the other hand, continues to hold firm to his introverted self-interest. If he wasn’t the one in pain, he still would have avoided Jack like the plague. As it was, he only accepted Jack’s help under a bit of social duress. For once, Jack appeared to be playing on a level playing field with Sawyer, and the interplay between the two of them was amusing, to say the least. The inevitable showdown between Jack and Sawyer, probably related to Kate and her character’s future, will likely come into play later in the season.

Among the remaining characters, Boone is the only one to play a major role in this episode. At first, Boone seemed to be Locke’s somewhat fanatical acolyte, but as the days have passed and Locke’s mystique has faded, Boone has become the voice to Locke’s internal doubts. Boone has every right to question Locke and his choices, but at the same time, it feeds into Locke’s assumptions that the survivors shouldn’t question what the island seems to want them to do.

Metaphorically, Boone also gives Locke the chance to be the kind of father figure that he always wanted to have in his own life. This episode goes a long way towards explaining why Locke chose to guide and foster Jack as a leader, and why he has chosen Boone as his apprentice. He wants to believe that Boone can see and understand what the island wants as well as he can. Unaware of why Boone remained in the plane, Locke is left with an immense guilt over Boone’s medical condition.

The other characters remain in the background or make minor appearances. Charlie and Claire have nothing to do with this episode. Sayid only gets involved when it comes to making Sawyer his glasses. Shannon doesn’t have a thing to do, and Hurley gets one line, however priceless it might have been. Michael and Jin continue to make progress on a new raft; what Walt thinks of that is left unspoken. Sun continues to work on agriculture, which could become important in the future.

The end of the episode is begging for speculation. Was that light from within the hatch a sign of habitation? Or was it some kind of automatic response? It would be a major revelation for Locke to discover that the island is inhabited and that the survivors (of all groups) have been under observation. This adds another layer to all the theories: what if the experiment that started everything, perhaps going back to decades, is still ongoing? What if the survivors are unwitting subjects of the experiment (or more broadly, everyone affected by the “numbers” and associated psychic phenomenon)? Now that someone might be looking for the survivors of Oceanic 815, will that only cause another incident, adding fresh survivors to the island?

While there are certainly transitional elements to this episode, it is also a payoff for so much of what has happened with Locke since the beginning of the season. The writers are approaching the series from a character-centric position, and as such, the story doesn’t break into an easily digestible plot structure. Character evolution is fluid, constantly moving from one state to another, sometimes moving backward without warning. When events are predicated on complex character interactions and choices, there’s no such thing as pure stability. The resolution of one mystery becomes the fertile breeding ground for new situations and consequences, thus creating new mysteries and questions. As this episode aptly demonstrates, when one comes to accept that concept, the brilliance of the series shines through.


Final Analysis

Overall, this episode was an interesting in-depth look into Locke’s psychology. The writers avoid the simplicity of a single interpretation of events by questioning Locke’s conclusions while continuing to provide reasons for them. While largely transitional in scope, Locke’s perspective is central to the world of the survivors, making this episode a critical step towards serious future consequences.

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

Final Rating: 8/10

Season Average (as of 1.19): 7.9

X-Files 4.23: "Demons"

Written by R.W. Goodwin
Directed by Kim Manners

In which Mulder awakens in a hotel room, covered in someone else’s blood, with no memory of his recent activities, save the fragmented memories from before Samantha’s abduction…


Status Report

As the fourth season came to a rousing finish, both main characters were facing a slow but steady disintegration of their lives. Scully’s cancer was a physical breakdown, her body betraying the strength of her mind. Mulder’s world, however, began to fall apart more methodically and psychologically. It began with the concept of losing Scully, the woman he had learned to trust with his vision and his life. It continued with the loss of trust in Skinner and the realization that Cancer Man had regained a hold on his life. This episode takes it that much further, with Mulder facing the terrible knowledge that his own family might have been compromised from the beginning.

Mulder had learned the truth about his mother’s involvement with Samantha’s abduction at the beginning of the third season, but that did nothing to take away from his regard for her. Though never fully explored, the implication was that Mulder was estranged from his father and closer to his mother. This would make sense, given that Bill Mulder had apparently adopted a “hands off” approach to preserving Mulder’s future. (The premise being that Bill Mulder was allowed to live once leaving the active conspiracy, on the predication that he would not interfere with Cancer Man’s plans for Fox.)

While it certainly could have something to do with the fact that his father was already gone, Mulder seemed much more upset at the thought of his mother dying. By the end of the third season, it was clear that Bill Mulder had been involved in Samantha’s abduction, so perhaps there was some underlying resentment. His mother, after all, had been pressured into making a choice. For Mulder, that placed him and his mother on identical moral ground: one forced to make a decision, one surviving that decision, both living with the guilt.

This episode, however, rips that assumption right out from under Mulder’s feet. With Skinner and Scully all but taken from him, his mother was the last person he could trust. Now he knows that she’s lying to him as well, concealing the fact that Cancer Man was much closer to his family than he could have ever imagined. And of course, by the end of the series, the truth gets much worse. If Bill Mulder betrayed his family by colluding with a monster, then Teena Mulder betrayed her family by sleeping with that monster and bearing his children.

While it takes the entire episode to get there (and that’s rather quick compared to the answers to most questions raised on this series!), what’s implied is effectively the truth. It wasn’t Bill Mulder who pressured Teena into choosing Samantha. Nor was that decision made in a vacuum. Cancer Man was a part of the process, and it was his decision that led to Samantha being taken instead of Fox. Bill Mulder was somehow powerless to interfere, perhaps aware that he was beaten.

It’s easy enough to speculate that Fox was Cancer Man’s son, and therefore he made sure that Samantha was abducted instead of his own flesh and blood. But it’s far more interesting to consider that both children were likely Cancer Man’s progeny. It would explain why, if both parents were forced into choosing Fox or Samantha for abduction, they grew apart rather than facing a common enemy together. Instead, Bill and Teena went their separate ways, unable to even live in the homes that defined their previous life together. Even without the constant reminders of a life ruled by the desires of a madman, Mulder didn’t have a prayer.

Even before knowing that his mother had been sleeping with the enemy (quite literally), Mulder is dealing with some serious psychological damage. This is no surprise, given his obsession with everything paranormal, all dedicated to the pursuit of maintaining his hope that Samantha is still alive. One has to wonder how much of that is driven by guilt. For years after Samantha’s abduction, Mulder barely remembered a thing about it, and this is a man who normally operates with a “photographic memory”.

Upon recovering his apparent memory of the abduction, he had to wonder if there was something more he could have done. Cancer Man manipulated Mulder into recovering those memories, and there’s more than a little evidence that those memories were themselves fabricated. Considering that those memories set Mulder upon his current course, it’s a definite possibility. Without that moment, Mulder wouldn’t have been positioned to find the X-Files, and Cancer Man couldn’t use him in his endgame. And since the whole point was that Mulder was Cancer Man’s best chance at success, it all begins to paint a depressing picture of a man who never really got to make his own choices. Even his relationship with Scully was eventually manipulated.

It’s one thing to search relentlessly for some shred of truth regarding the things science won’t admit or even address. There’s a semblance of sanity to it all, a thread of self-awareness that keeps Mulder from going over the deep end. It’s quite another thing for someone to let a crazy doctor drill holes into one’s skull in the hopes of recovering a glimpse of a hidden truth. Mulder really steps over the line in this episode. Is it because he’s beginning to lose the person that keeps him relatively sane, when so much has been falling apart over the previous few years?

Whatever the case, it would be easy to dismiss the idea that Mulder would go to such extremes. After all, the whole “short term memory loss” concept is a stock plot device, and the complicated plot structure to justify the procedure and its effects is hardly the strength of the episode. What makes the story work is the tightrope that Mulder walks along the way. His rationalism, biased as it might often be, is the one thing that keeps him credible. Even while his memory fails him, and he lets his obsession take him into insane situations, he approaches the criminal investigation in a very sane and clinical fashion.

Without Mulder’s rationalism regarding the case, Scully might have faltered. Her own rationalism keeps her from losing faith in Mulder. Had this taken place in earlier seasons, Mulder’s decision might have been too much for Scully to handle. But Scully’s seen four years worth of Mulder’s fractured psyche, and after incurring a personal cost metaphorically equal to his own, she’s simply concerned that he might let himself go too far. Abandoning him never even crosses her mind; this is exactly the kind of fearless passion that attracts her so strongly to Mulder in the first place.

As interesting and visually intriguing as Mulder’s flashbacks are, they are so physically debilitating that it’s hard to understand why Scully would let him struggle on, his life at risk. For one thing, his apparent symptoms are dangerous enough that Scully should drag him to the hospital despite his protests. So why doesn’t she? It’s not a question of giving him the chance of proving his innocence; she’s hell bent on that path as it is. Having him at the crime scene actually makes it harder for him to maintain a steady front with the police.

Despite the fact that Scully conducts a clean investigation, the best lead comes with the world’s most convenient suicide. It just happens that a cop has undergone the same treatment as Mulder, without the sudden lapse in memory, to account for his missing time during apparent alien abductions. And sure enough, that leads to a connection to the Cassandras, and thus to the doctor that specializes in recovering memories through an illegal and dangerous technique. It’s a rather annoying plot convenience, because there were any number of other ways to put Scully on the right track.

Teena’s harsh denials regarding her affair with Cancer Man and the question of Mulder’s parentage might seem like an unnecessary dodge of a definitive answer. In actuality, it explains a number of seeming discrepancies between Teena’s belief in Samantha’s return, circa “Colony”, and the fact that she knew about Samantha’s apparent death in “Sein und Zeit”. Teena shows a remarkable ability to convince herself into believing that which she knows to be false, especially when it is far more preferable than reality.

In terms of Samantha, it allowed her to believe that her daughter was still alive out there, able to come home again one day. It was a belief fed by Mulder’s belief. It was a fiction that enabled her to survive, and in tandem with her self-denial of her long-term affair with Cancer Man, it enabled her to shift any and all blame onto Bill. In many ways, Teena exemplifies the kind of irrational denial of reality that Scully sometimes relied on to maintain her sanity.

The end of the episode makes an important observation in terms of Fox Mulder and his psychology. By all accounts, Mulder falls into the trap that Scully describes: chasing the shadows of truth, unable to reconcile what he uncovers with his fragmented memory of the past. Mulder doesn’t even know the full truth by the end of the series, let alone the true motivations of Cancer Man and the nature of the future he’s meant to fight. One could conclude that this is why the spiritual forces that occasionally aid Mulder and Scully are in place: to make sure that Mulder doesn’t stray too far from his appointed path out of ignorance and despair.

As contrived as some of the plot points might be, this is an important moment in Mulder’s life. All he has left, at the end of the episode, is his belief. Without context, without definitive evidence, Mulder is more vulnerable than ever. Scully fears what might happen if Mulder loses his desire to believe, because ultimately, it was the one thing giving him hope. In the end, as much as Scully’s medical condition is meant to test her own faith, it also serves to place Mulder’s faith under the microscope. And as this episode demonstrates, Mulder will go to extremes when it comes to his faith.


Memorable Quotes

MULDER: “I had those people’s blood on my shirt, Scully. I was missing for two days. I have no recollection of my actions during those two days. There were two rounds discharged from my gun. I had the keys to this house, the keys to their car…do the words ‘Orenthal James Simpson’ mean anything to you?”


Final Analysis

Overall, this episode continued to strip away, in methodical fashion, Mulder’s psychological support system. In particular, this episode forces Mulder to reconsider many of his own basic assumptions about Samantha’s abduction, which in turn erodes his trust in his mother and her word. While there are some plot contrivances that are troubling, the episode as a whole comes together very well.

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

Final Rating: 8/10

24 4.15: "Day 4: 9PM - 10PM"

Written by Joel Surnow and Michaell Loceff
Directed by Bryan Spicer

In which Marwan uses Jack and Behrooz to distract CTU from information regarding his true target, while infighting between Chloe and Edgar inadvertently aids that effort…


Status Report

Ever since the resolution of the nuclear meltdown scenario, the writers have been casting about for a sense of direction. The result has been a series of uninspired transitional episodes and a loss of narrative momentum. Whereas events were unfolding at a blistering pace during the crisis itself, each hour barely moves the story forward lately. There are signs that this will change as the arc moves into the “resolution” phase, but so far, the “complication” phase has been disappointing.

The middle of the season is the most dangerous stretch for the writers of “24”. For the most part, this is a self-inflicted wound. The producers made the early decision, after the first 13 episodes of the first season, to leave the plot arc “open” so that changes forced by real world considerations or an unpopular topic could be “corrected” with relative ease. Pre-planning such things is nearly impossible; even when contingencies are in place, ala “Babylon 5”, timing can still throw everything out the window. So flexibility has its strong points.

Unfortunately, the downside is that the lack of a plot outline or strong sense of direction leaves the writers with a constant struggle to keep the narrative moving forward at a consistent level of quality. That requires lead time. And as mentioned several times this season, once the lead time for each episode disappears, the writers are working without a net. Since the middle of the season forces the writers to create a scenario where moving the pieces on the chessboard in preparation for the true gambit is interesting to watch, they typically fail in some respect.

This season, the writers have relied too much on contrived CTU drama to generate the appearance of forward progress. The fact is, they don’t want to trigger the big surprise until episode 16 (the end of the “complication” phase) and they didn’t know what to do with the terrorists once the meltdown was averted. So while they were marking time with the terrorists, they had to make up something to shove into the episodes.

This episode actually manages to address the strategy of the terrorists, which is a better move than pointless battles with mercenaries. The central issue (rescuing Jack by making a trade) is still ridiculous; however, that was the result of the previous episode. With the situation already in place, the writers have to deal with it, and they do a fairly good job making it interesting. Marwan leads CTU on a string, and while CTU seems to know it (at least somewhat), they also realize that there’s not much they can do about it.

The strength of the episode is undermined, however, by the glacial pacing and the inane antics between Edgar and Chloe. Add to that the seemingly endless interruptions by Audrey (who clearly is ready to kick Jack to the curb but can’t bring herself to admit it), and it’s obvious that the writers were stringing out the story so that the exchange would take place at the very end. With the same basic problems still haunting the entire production at this point, it really comes down to the fact that there are more enjoyable scenes in this episode than the past few installments. It’s a matter of subjectivity, granted, but some people actually come across as intelligent despite the contrived nature of the story.

For instance, to ensure that Marwan’s plot culminates in episode 16, where the next big revelation was already long expected, there’s a mechanical failure that delays Anderson’s flight. This sets up the whole thought process behind the episode: if CTU had their act together, then they might have been able to stop whatever’s coming. This much is true, but the damage at CTU had already been done long before this point in the story. Driscoll’s abysmal management style made it impossible for anyone to pick up the pieces, even without the writers introducing cattiness at the very worst moment.

There’s an early scene between Tony and Michelle that really could have used some polish. For one, Michelle comes across as completely unreasonable, when this is not really the case. Michelle has good reason not to want Audrey to interfere; Audrey is currently the DOD representative, as Chloe later mentions, and there are major jurisdictional issues still lingering from Heller’s decision to give Tony command of CTU. And technically, Audrey has no “need to know” on Jack’s status. It’s entirely personal, and while Tony owes Audrey and Jack some small measure of gratitude for their support, he loses perspective.

The subsequent scene between Jack and Marwan is much better, if only because it highlights one of the major themes of the series. “24” has always been a running commentary on patriotism, positive and negative. Jack’s patriotism and belief in “The American Way” presents an ironic dichotomy: in the name of preserving the principles of idealistic freedom, Jack and his allies repeatedly commit horrific acts. One would like to believe that the writers had this firmly in mind when they had Jack debate with Marwan about the American spirit. How many Americans would knowingly accept the actions taken on their behalf?

The shell game between Marwan and CTU begins when the family of the pilot killed in the previous episode is discovered by local police, and Marwan must find a way to divert the attentions of CTU while Anderson struggles to get in the air. While Marwan hasn’t been all that smart in the past, this is an episode that demonstrates his cunning. After all, this is the man that apparently masterminded a long-term plot over several years. He’s not an idiot.

Marwan is well aware of the fact that Behrooz is in CTU custody, and that it would be of value to use Behrooz as a distraction. So he calls CTU and suggests a trade. Ultimately, Behrooz is unlikely to provide Marwan with anything of real advantage, other than the fact that CTU seems to care about his welfare. By placing Behrooz in an apparent importance, Marwan forces CTU to either turn their attention to what Behrooz might gain them, thus exposing their true colors, or to wring their hands over the decision to stick to principle and sacrifice Jack. In either case, Marwan gets to keep CTU’s attention on him and not on the police reports that could give CTU a lead on Anderson’s operation.

What the writers miss, in their desire to fill the time, is the rather obvious fact that CTU should be more than distracted by the hunt for Marwan, eliminating the need for a ridiculous subplot involving Edgar and Chloe. Chloe has certain reasons for her sense of entitlement, and perhaps Edgar has reasons to resent Chloe’s reinstatement. Edgar’s behavior is the hardest to understand, because it’s an abrupt shift from earlier in the season. Whatever the case, they all spend so much time bickering and lingering over other personal issues that one can’t help but wonder why they say they don’t have time to do their jobs.

Between Tony and Michelle, who seem to be working rather well together under the circumstances, the decision is made to get Medieval on Behrooz. While CTU has always been a little free and loose with the torture, this season has brought its use to a new height. Taken in context with Jack’s comments to Marwan, this is philosophically and psychologically disturbing. But it adds a certain layer of moral ambiguity to the “good guys” again, which was an important element of the stronger episodes this season.

Much of the episode is spent covering how Marwan’s gambit unfolds within CTU. Distraction after distraction gets in the way of noticing a detail that may or may not connect to the big picture, especially since the focus has been lost since the meltdowns were averted. Along the way, Chloe even gets to spell out Audrey’s current dilemma to the audience, all the while citing her blunt and insensitive manner. Truth be told, Chloe is hardly as abrasive as she was in the third season, and that softer side has endeared her to many fans who initially hated her guts. The attempt to use her previous mannerisms for the sake of exposition is incredibly forced.

Once Bill Buchanan arrives, the CTU response begins to pick up a bit of steam and gravitas. As unfortunate as it is, the writers seem to have decided that Michelle is not as strong a leader as she should be. Why this is the case is beyond explanation, especially since she was promoted to Division. (Of course, previous leaders from Division have been far from perfect, so perhaps it’s something in the water over there.)

The meeting with Buchanan, however, gives the team a chance to work out a strategy and attempt some kind of response. This is significant because it’s very easy to believe that the CTU personnel actually know how to do their jobs as experts on counter-terrorism, at least after seeing them working together in common purpose. This is necessary to demonstrate how clever Marwan is, since the best response is still playing right into his hands.

Could CTU have done anything differently? Not really. Besides not giving Marwan her name (a very dumb move), Michelle is completely dependent on whatever opportunity Marwan presents at this point. CTU has no other lead, and their last (foolish) attempt failed miserably. Using Behrooz is really the only option left, as Buchanan’s questions eventually revealed. As stated earlier, CTU’s hands were tied by earlier decisions; they played this scenario the only way they could, and for that matter, with a dispassionate use/abuse of a civilian in the process.

The abuse of Behrooz could actually become a plot point, if the writers recognize the opportunity. Behrooz may not have known much about Marwan, but he now has some minor knowledge of CTU and their methods. Ironically, Behrooz had issues with the terrorism at the beginning, but now he has personal examples of how the US government has lied and cheated him. Marwan could use Behrooz as an example; for that matter, Behrooz could offer himself as a loyal soldier for Marwan in some act of vengeance against Curtis or Jack. In other words, Behrooz and his experience could become an interesting commentary on how the methods of the United States sometimes fuel the fires of its enemies.

The end of the episode unfolds in predictable fashion. Jack is rescued, and his short imprisonment in Marwan’s lair gave him the opportunity to lead CTU right to the terrorists’ doorstep. Anderson finally gets in the air, and of course, the assumption is that he is planning a suicide run on Air Force One using a stealth fighter. The only doubt is whether or not Marwan’s distractions will be successful.

It would certainly make things more interesting if they were. As noted in the review for the previous episode, one thing that makes this season so interesting is the success of the terrorists. Allowing the black hats a measure of victory late in the third season gave that arc a massive jolt of much-needed consequences. The fourth season has shown the terrorists operating with much more success, constantly using CTU and other agencies against themselves. It would only make sense for Marwan to continue with his success. This would thrust the series even further into Tom Clancy territory.

As interesting as the probable consequences might be in terms of Anderson’s operation and Behrooz’s loyalties, there’s not very much to the episode. Marwan is very clever, using a simple misdirection to throw CTU off its game, but too much time is spent rehashing details and bringing the audience up to speed for this to work on its own. As with many of the recent episodes, there’s the feeling that the writers are marking time until the events coming in the next episode. The result is another hour filled with transitional elements that don’t move fast enough to measure up to the strengths of the “meltdown” plot thread.


Final Analysis

Overall, this episode is another in a series of transitional episodes that seem to be marking time until the explosive events of episode 16. There are some interesting possibilities laced within this episode, especially concerning Marwan’s ultimate goal and the effect of this episode’s events on Behrooz, but the pacing is incredibly slow and there are many scenes that just fall flat. Things are looking up for the next episode, so hopefully this is the last of the mid-season slump.

Writing: 1/2
Acting: 2/2
Direction: 2/2
Style: 0/4

Final Rating: 5/10

Season Average (as of 4.15): 6.7

Roswell 2.14: "How the Other Half Lives"

Written by Jason Katims, Ronald Moore, Gretchen Berg, Aaron Harberts, and Breen Frazier
Directed by Paul Shapiro

In which Michael and Maria outmaneuver Laurie’s relatives, while the threat of the gandarium comes to a head when Grant makes one last attempt to infect Laurie…


Status Report

Upon watching this episode, several things become apparent. The first is that this was originally meant to be the final episode of the second season, since the writers originally had no expectation that the series would continue past the 13-episode order granted at the end of the first season. There’s a sense of attempting closure on some of the character arcs that hadn’t been fully addressed already.

It’s equally clear that the writers found it much harder to make revisions to this episode once the rest of the second season was greenlit. Earlier episodes of the “Hybrid Chronicles” were changed here and there to alleviate the impression that this was the end of an era. But there’s precious little of that in this episode. The focus is wrapping up everything possible in as little time as possible.

Unlike the previous two episodes, which were the middle act to this mini-arc and therefore could avoid the problem of plot holes more easily, this episode needs to pull all the pieces together and give them relevance. As flawed as they were, the episodes in the first half of the season began with a simple but satisfying philosophical concept: destiny vs. free will. Max, Michael, and Isabel were warring against the demands of their alien heritage while struggling to find their place in the human world.

Coming into the “Hybrid Chronicles”, Max had been forced to deal with Antar politics and his role as deposed king, and he ultimately chose to stay on Earth and fight another day. Isabel also come to the conclusion that she is not Vilandra and is not destined to betray her brother against her will. Somehow, those moments of semi-clarity allowed Max and Isabel to set their internal conflicts aside. And since Max and Liz came to a certain point where they can be friends again, there’s not much movement in that regard, either.

That leaves Michael and Maria. These episodes have been focused on Michael in a major way, which is somewhat odd, since initially he had very little to do with Laurie’s story. But of all the characters, he needed to find a connection to humanity and a reason for staying on Earth. Maria was part of that, but in this episode, Laurie’s genetic connection to him gives him something more tangible.

With a bit of hand-waving and glossing over, the whole gandarium issue is resolved in a rather lame and unsatisfying way. Even this plot thread was obviously never meant to extend beyond this episode, meant more as a plot device for exploring how deeply connected the hybrids are to the humans in their world than a plot element in and of themselves. Indeed, this highlights the main problem with the science fiction elements this season: too often, they were simply a quick and dirty source of conflicts that were never taken far enough to have deep meaning or consequence.

This is ironic, since Jason Katims’ usual weakness is building up consequences and situations that are almost impossible for the characters to survive in a realistic fashion. Several of the first season episodes had disappointing fourth acts because some plot contrivance saved the characters. The difference was that the consequences were more direct to the everyday lives of the hybrids and their relationships, and thus important to the audience. Beyond the excellent exploration of Valenti’s downfall (the details of which don’t mesh with how his evasiveness is treated in this episode) and Liz’s emotional upheaval in “The End of the World”, the consequences have been too broad, and often deferred to another world, safely off-screen. There’s nothing to give the audience a reason to personalize the consequences.

This being the final episode of the “Hybrid Chronicles” mini-arc, it’s time to revisit the many open questions raised in the previous three episodes:

Did Grant really abduct Laurie? (Answered.)
Why was Laurie abducted and placed in the ground? (Effectively answered.)
What is the connection between Isabel and Laurie?
What did Isabel see when she touched Laurie? (Effectively answered.)
How did Dan know so much about Valenti’s activities?
Was Dan there specifically to look into Max’s connection to Valenti?
Will Valenti lose his job while trying to protect the hybrids? (Answered!)
What will happen to Kyle?
Will Liz become attracted to Sean, and will she toss him aside for Max, as her dream suggests?
Is Agent Duff really there just to investigate Laurie’s disappearance? (Apparently answered.)
Does Laurie really have paranoid schizophrenia?
Why was her file at the psychiatric hospital empty? (Directly contradicted.)
How are Michael and Laurie’s grandfather connected? (Answered.)
How did Laurie know about aliens being involved in her abduction?
What is the crystal, and why does it seem to be alive? (Answered.)
Why was the crystal placed in the same spot that Laurie was buried? (Answered.)
Why wasn’t the crystal at the crime scene when Laurie was found? (Effectively answered.)
Why did Grant abduct Laurie and place her in the ground?
Will Duff get Valenti his job back?
Why didn’t the gandarium attack Max?
Why didn’t the gandarium attack Valenti?
Why are the gandarium dangerous to Earth?
Why didn’t anyone worry about gandarium “infection” immediately after the crash?
Why is “infection” dangerous to the hybrids?

This episode explains more fully why Grant abducted Laurie and placed her in the ground. As stated rather obliquely in the episode, the same genetic “flaw” that made Laurie’s family ideal as a source of human DNA for the hybrids also made her the perfect catalyst to mutate the gandarium from a safe, crystalline form to a highly lethal infectious form. Grant, “possessed” by the gandarium “queen”, wanted to use Laurie to make this change. This makes a certain amount of sense, though there are some major problems with this concept. (This also explains why Laurie was buried in that particular spot.)

But while this explains the connection between Michael and Laurie, since Laurie’s grandfather had the same genetic flaw and was therefore chosen by Max’s people as a source of human DNA, it doesn’t explain why Isabel felt a connection to Laurie in “To Serve and Protect”. That connection was important, because otherwise, there’s no reason for anyone to know that Laurie is in danger. The episode suggests, very indirectly, that Isabel’s human DNA might come from someone else in Laurie’s family, but it’s not really addressed and that’s a major assumption.

Also dropped from the early part of the mini-arc is the suggestion that Dan knew far more about Valenti’s activities and the situation in Roswell than ultimately revealed. Since Dan is replaced by Agent Duff as the person hounding Valenti in the story, this is completely dropped. One could connect Dan to the information that the revived Special Unit has at the end of the third season, but again, that’s not something explained in the episodes themselves. But given all the questions about Max Evans, Dan’s suspicions and their sudden absence are a plot hole.

In “To Serve and Protect”, Kyle was rather worried about the psychical or mental changes that would come, now that everyone knows the healing thing changes people. In “We are Family”, Kyle came to the realization that Tess is now a part of his world, and he can’t divorce himself from the aliens completely. By the end of this episode, he seems more at peace with the idea of being part of the gang, even if it’s reluctant. But his central issue is left open for the future.

The Liz/Sean thing is revealed as a complete waste of time, since Sean never really gels as a true threat to the relationship between Liz and Max. Of course, in the long run, this is a step in the right direction, since the two of them have been apart for some time but remain friends. This is an unstable situation, and Sean’s presence helped to show how Liz is still in Max’s orbit, even when alternatives exist.

This episode would seem to suggest that Laurie doesn’t have paranoid schizophrenia, since Pinecrest was holding her under orders from Bobby and Meredith, who were raiding her inheritance. If that’s the case, then her apparent memory problems could have been a result of being given anti-psychotic medication when she didn’t really need it, mixed with the unique genetic “flaw” that might have amplified the effects.

This episode does explain why Laurie would be convinced that aliens were involved in her abduction. Beyond the effects of any medication in her system, she was close to her grandfather, and he was convinced that he was being repeatedly abducted by aliens. In fact, it would appear he was, because Max’s people would have been experimenting with the hybridization at some point. This also indirectly addresses an earlier dangling plot thread. After all, some previous connection between Earth and Antar had to exist; this episode suggests that it was a rare genetic flaw that allowed the hybridization to work, and humanity’s gene pool happens to contain that flaw.

The dynamic between Duff and Valenti is hard to understand in this episode. In the past, Valenti’s inability to explain his actions had led to serious repercussions. Valenti is even more vague at times in this episode, and yet Duff trusts him enough to listen to him and follow his lead. Perhaps this is a reaction to the fact that he was right about Grant in the previous episode; if so, it doesn’t quite add up.

The resolution of this plot thread is major evidence that this was originally conceived as the end of the series. Valenti’s future is never addressed, largely because it was never going to be an issue. Duff’s report and her career aren’t an issue, because the threat she represents is essentially removed from the equation, never to be seen again. (Some of what she uncovers eventually gets to the revived Special Unit in the third season.)

While the “genetic flaw” explains why Valenti was safe, and the fact that gandarium is only “programmed” to attack humans explains why the hybrids were safe and Earth was in danger, it’s not at all clear why the gandarium would have been on the ship that crashed and why the infection of Earth is a danger to the hybrids, as Larek said it was. If the gandarium was used to adapt the human cells in a way that would allow them to bind with alien cells, then they would have been needed to create the hybrids; having them on the ship wouldn’t serve a purpose. And even if the gandarium was dangerous to humanity, and the hybrids couldn’t heal those infected, what danger would that pose, beyond leaving the hybrids completely exposed on a barren world?

The presence of the gandarium and the complete lack of attention to its spread throughout Earth’s ecosystem is left unexplained, and this once again highlights the problem of writing posed by the shifting support of the network. Had the series ended with this episode, the glaring plot hole might not have been such a big deal; after all, there would be no future exploration of the concept. But with the series continuing and few changes made to the story, this becomes a massive plot hole.

This mini-arc is a perfect example of the writing struggles encountered in the second season. While the writers had found it impossible to maintain a long-term plot outline when network support was minimal at best, they struggled with the dual requirement of adding science fiction elements while leaving the plot threads open to future exploration. Fundamental questions remained unanswered, and ultimately, the audience begins to believe that the writers don’t know where they’re going. This episode in particular wraps up what should have been tight and compelling arc with a disappointing and inconsistent finale.

This episode was also written and re-written by nearly everyone on the writing staff. Writing by committee rarely works for an episode, and it certainly doesn’t work with the final chapter of any story. The complicated revision history of the script tells the story of how network interference kept changing the rules of the game. Once the writers became aware that the season was extended, however, a more consistent approach was implemented. The network would derail those plans again, of course, as would be the case with every apparent finale for the rest of the series’ run.


Memorable Quotes

BOBBY: “Mr. Guerin! You and your accomplice with the…lips…are trespassing!”

KYLE: “See, I guess what I have a problem with is that suddenly I’m a member of this club I never wanted to join.”
ALEX: “Yeah.”
KYLE: “And it turns out this club bears a striking resemblance to a chain gang…”

ALEX: “Think about it…we not only met aliens, but they killed us. How many people can say that?”
KYLE: “You’re getting delirious, is that it?”


Final Analysis

Overall, this episode is a disappointing conclusion to a disappointing story arc. What started as an intriguing exploration of the effect of the aliens on the humans helping them turned into a poorly explained and inconsistent “alien invasion” story. While Michael’s exploration of his human ancestry works well in theory, the execution was not as strong as it might have been in the first season. Like the arc it completes, this episode is a perfect example of the writing struggles of the second season.

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

Final Rating: 5/10

Alias 4.12: "The Orphan"

Written by Jeffrey Bell and Monica Breen
Directed by Ken Olin

In which Nadia finds herself facing her difficult past when a mission puts her face to face with an old criminal partner in Argentina, while Vaughn continues to hunt for his father’s legacy…


Status Report

Thus far, Nadia has been an enigma. Her life was more or less described in a few short sentences at the end of the third season, and since then, her motivations have been difficult to ascertain. Despite being on the receiving end of her father’s Rambaldi-driven plans, she was willing to forgive him and move on. Sydney has always had a difficulty with Nadia’s almost casual dismissal of Sloane’s past wrongdoings, but this episode places Nadia’s life in context.

As it turns out, Sydney and Nadia are mirror images of one another in more ways than already covered. Even their past histories have significant parallels. Where Sydney grew up with a false sense of security with a distant and aloof father figure, Nadia had only whatever security she could create for herself on the streets.

Both Sydney and Nadia found themselves father figures in their deceptive bosses: Sloane in Sydney’s case, and Roberto in Nadia’s case. At some point, probably very close in terms of the series continuity, Sydney and Nadia were faced with the truth about the men to whom they had given allegiance. Sydney became a CIA agent to destroy Sloane, but in the end, she couldn’t simply kill him and exorcise those demons. Nadia killed Roberto, and then became a true agent for Argentine Intelligence.

In both cases, the young women appeared to have natural talents. While it’s clear that those talents were taken advantage of in Sydney’s case (when her father gave her the subconscious Project: Christmas training), it’s not as clear whether or not Nadia was given similar training. The woman who ran the orphanage in Argentina was tasked with Nadia’s protection; it’s certainly hinted that this “protection” was more than just a question of a roof and three squares a day.

Now, some years after the events that defined their lives, both women are in a similar position. But where Sydney has never really had the chance to take her vengeance for the deaths of so many loved ones, all under Sloane’s watch, Nadia took her vengeance and has serious issues of guilt for doing so. The result is an odd opposition between the two women in terms of the fathers in their lives.

Sydney trusts her father, even though she knows that his past contains at least the same level of morally questionable activity as Sloane’s resume. Sloane, of course, she cannot forgive. Sydney has every reason to consider herself on the moral high ground compared to Sloane, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that Sydney doesn’t currently act out of positive emotions. Sydney’s entire life, since learning the truth about Sloane and SD-6, has been dominated by psychologically damaging and emotionally crushing negativity and hate. Without the balance of friends and family, Sydney teeters on the edge, kept from stepping over the edge by her sense of right and wrong.

Nadia, on the other hand, doesn’t necessarily trust her father, because of his past history and her own experience with Roberto. But because she regrets killing Roberto, after everything he represented in her life, she wants to give Sloane the benefit of the doubt. She never had an aloof father in the picture; she was essentially alone. Though she received the satisfaction of killing the man who betrayed her trust, she wants to find a better way of living. So in terms of her new life, Nadia finds promise: a potential family, friends, and something close to a normal life.

The plot structure for the season continues to evolve towards a possible meltdown for Sydney. For one thing, there’s the alliance between Jack and Sloane, which may or may not also involve her mother Irina. It’s quite possible, given the many hints this season thus far, that Irina is alive but undercover as “Sentinel”. Considering that Sydney was the one who had to bury her mother, and that she was ready to disown her father for apparently assassinating Irina in the first place, a betrayal of such scale could easily send Sydney over the edge.

This episode also happens to elaborate on the mystery of Vaughn’s father, who as mentioned in the third season, was hunted down by Irina for nabbing Nadia, presumably for the Magnific Order of Rambaldi. It’s clear that the writers intend to tell the “real” story now, thus placing the earlier references to Vaughn’s father and his death within the realm of “cover story”. That doesn’t always work, but the fact that Vaughn’s father was connected to Nadia, and not necessarily in a good way, will likely have major implications as the season marches on.

For one thing, Vaughn is going to find himself caught between the world of the Rambaldi prophecies (as followed by the Order and supposedly his father) and Sydney. If Sydney already feels betrayed by her father in terms of his alliance with Sloane, and she looks to Vaughn for some kind of emotional anchorage, it’s not clear if he would be there for her. On the one hand, if he were to reject his father, it would place him closer to Sydney. But if not, and his loyalties are torn, Sydney could feel even more isolated. That would not do Sydney’s mental health much good.

This episode was all about the flashbacks, the common thread for every little thing, so the success or failure of the episode is largely dependent on how those flashbacks were handled. Usually subtitles are a challenge for the audience, since it takes a certain amount of investment in the story for someone to take the time to read half the dialogue. It’s just so easy these days to change the channel to something requiring little or no thought. Thankfully, the black/white style of the flashbacks lent the story more gravitas.

The result was something like an Argentine version of “La Femme Nikita”. While this could seem highly derivative, it’s really more of a symptom of the world in which these characters live. Recruitment is going to take place in rather predictable ways, and Sydney’s initial contact by SD-6 was purposefully against cliché. If Nadia is Sydney’s opposite but equal, wouldn’t her story start off in a far more predictable manner?

The fact is that Mia Maestro is capable of pulling off a full range of alternative personalities, and thus the younger and more naïve Nadia is entirely convincing when set against the older and wiser version working at APO. In both cases, Mia’s incredible beauty shines. The scene at the café with Cesar in the second half of the episode, when she lets her hair down, is like watching a vision. What’s more amazing is that this Latin goddess still looks, in most cases, like Irina Derevko.

This episode was written by a combination of existing “Alias” writers and new arrivals from “Angel”. The mixture is incredibly strong in almost every possible area. Marshall always has personality, but sometimes, it feels like Wiseman is doing all the work, considering some of the dialogue he’s forced to regurgitate. This time around, it’s clear that the writers were working to give him something to work with, and it was most appreciated.

Unlike last episode, which focused mostly on a stand-alone mission for Sydney with little or no character development in the process, this episode uses the time needed to flesh out Vaughn’s plot thread to explore Nadia’s psychology. Considering that this series often involves the complex questions surrounding hidden motives, the psychology of the main characters is a necessary component. If Nadia’s decisions become important later in the season (and of course, they will), then understanding where she comes from is key to understanding those decisions in the future.

As the second half of the season begins, the plot is definitely moving forward, and the network reshuffling of episodes is at a relative end as more serialized plot elements creep back into the woodwork. Looking back on the first half of the season, the weaknesses seem rather apparent. Where the episodes were directly related to the season arc, the writing was almost uniformly strong. The stand-alone episodes were more mixed, with success and failure depending on how well those episodes delved into the psychology of the characters. Episodes like “Nocturne” and “The Road Home” failed because they avoided a true exploration of the characters at the center of the story. Episodes like this one succeed because they provide the context necessary for the arc-driven episodes to have proper scope.


Final Analysis

Overall, this episode was a nice departure from the norm, using a unique flashback format to give Nadia’s past history the scope necessary to understand her motivations. The writers continue to paint Nadia as Sydney’s equal but opposite number, which will likely be important as the season unfolds. Vaughn’s plot thread, in the meantime, continues to be intriguing and foreboding.

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

Final Rating: 8/10

Season Average (as of 4.12): 7.4

Angel 1.11: "Somnambulist"

Written by Tim Minear
Directed by Winrich Kolbe

In which Angel’s world is shattered yet again when a familiar face from the past arrives for a little murder spree, forcing him to reveal his true nature to someone close to him…


Status Report

The transition from Doyle to Wesley was not a smooth one, even if the writing staff did everything possible to make it happen. The previous episode was an obvious attempt to insert Wesley into the mix, and it suffered because Wesley had to have a distinct beginning to his long and arduous character arc. Once the writers realized what they could do with Wesley, and how he could become vital to Angel’s world, there was a greater sense of how to incorporate Wesley’s past into each episode.

This episode is an interesting case because it was planned very early in the series as a follow-up to “Lonely Hearts”, paying off the fact that Kate and Angel were getting chummy. The audience had every reason to see Kate as a potential replacement for Buffy, given that Angel and Kate had much they could offer one another. The writers, of course, saw that as an opportunity to create conflict, by taking the already trust-challenged Kate and ripping away her ability to believe in Angel.

But the episode was originally blocked out by the writing staff when Doyle was still supposed to be on the series. The abrupt timetable of Doyle’s departure forced the writers to rewrite this episode with Wesley in mind. Rather than weakening the story, it actually resulted in a much better source of exposition. Wesley, after all, had every reason to know all the reasons why Angel might have gone bad, thus creating a new source of conflict. This episode makes the case for a new cast dynamic more than “Parting Gifts” ever could.

Episodes exploring Angel’s past were a staple of the first two seasons, because they were necessary for the purposes of fleshing out the character in terms of where he was and where he was going. His deeds as Angelus were more or less revealed in the second season of “Buffy”, but the depth of his depravity and his demonic “family” were still obscured. With the first season all about establishing his search for personal redemption and his place in the scheme of things, this episode demonstrates how Angel’s past will always have an effect on his future.

This episode also establishes something of a psychic connection between vampire parent and vampire child. This was hinted in a very indirect way in the second season of “Buffy”, when one of Angelus’ victims managed to taunt Buffy with information a new vampire wouldn’t have. The reverse takes place here: Angel begins to dream the activities of one of his “children”. This is an interesting exploration of the vampire mythology, but it’s also something that the writers would quickly abandon. (Note that it doesn’t really work in terms of Darla, Spike, or Dru).

There’s enough time, however, for the writers to avoid one major pitfall: shoving Wesley into the group too quickly. At the beginning, Wesley is still semi-autonomous, even though everyone is more or less thinking in terms of a group dynamic. Angel isn’t all that surprised to see him, but he’s still running with the “rogue demon hunter” persona. If the episode had started with Wesley a full member of the team, then it would have been a bit too pat.

When Angel discovers that Kate is investigating a series of murders that just happen to coincide with his dreams, the story begins to take shape. The early suggestion that Angel might be the killer without realizing it is a nice enough hook, but it’s also somewhat pedestrian. It would be easy to dismiss this episode based on the first act alone. Things don’t really get interesting until much further into the story, when these supposed nightmares escalate into a situation that alters Angel’s status quo.

This episode is not just a highlight in terms of Angel, but also a strong Kate episode. The writers have done much to establish Kate’s professional credentials and psychological hang-ups, and both play a role in this episode. Kate’s profile is at least half right, which is impressive, given that she’s missing some rather crucial information about the nature of the crimes and the universe in which it takes place. This informs Kate’s reaction when she learns the truth about Angel and Los Angeles.

Wesley’s history with the Watchers becomes an easy source of exposition. When the episode was originally written with Doyle in the mix, the writers found it difficult to find a reasonable source of information. Doyle wouldn’t know the details about Angel’s past, after all, and had Angel brought it up without some initial independent background discussion, it wouldn’t have been as natural a scene as it was.

If the exposition was rewritten so that Wesley could deliver it more smoothly, then the following scene and act break were probably right out of the original version of the story. Angel needs to be chained to the bed in order to reveal the truth about the killings, so that he can realize the source of his killing dreams. Never mind that the morning paper wouldn’t be able to report on a pre-dawn killing; it’s a plot convenience meant to move the story forward to bigger and better things.

After some hand-waving about the “psychic connection” between Angel and Penn, the drama gets very uncomfortable as Angel attempts to help Kate hunt down his old apprentice. It’s painful to watch Angel dance around his source of information, knowing exactly what Penn’s rationale must be. No matter how strong he thinks Kate might be (and no matter how much he associates her with Buffy; note how she pulls out that cross necklace so subtly), he understands that the lack of full disclosure could get her killed. And since she trusts him, it makes her moment of revelation that much harder.

The dragnet for Penn comes together relatively quickly, which allows the episode to move into the meat of the angst quickly and methodically. Some consider Kate’s decision to track Penn down in the abandoned building on her own as a plot contrivance; in actuality, it’s a subtle reminder that Kate tends to isolate herself from her co-workers, and that she only really trusts herself (and for the moment, Angel).

When Penn tosses Kate across the room, she’s dazed and confused. In a nice touch, her observation skills aren’t swept under the rug; if anything, she understands that listening and comprehending what’s happening between Angel and Penn is critical to her survival and solving the case. As soon as she realizes that she’s not in immediate danger and has a moment, she calls for assistance. Everything established about Kate becomes important in one momentous scene.

Facing down Angel in the moments after, Kate throws up a wall of disbelief and doesn’t want to face the truth. But almost immediately, she turns to historical research, looking for patterns. She finds previous murder sprees connected to “vampires” and puts the pieces together. And then she looks into bookstores with an old and musty esoteric air, where information usually confined to Watcher’s diaries. In other words, just like Buffy and Giles, she only finds the information on Angelus when she has a distinct reason to look in the places where such information would be; otherwise, it’s not something would be easy to find.

If there is a plot contrivance, it’s the thought that Cordy would be so easily fooled into giving Penn information on Kate. She’s smart enough to use the window blinds as a natural weapon, but not smart enough to find out from Angel what “Apt Pupil Boy” looks like? And then there’s the whole “steak/stake” thing, which didn’t fit at all. One could say that Cordy only thought about the blinds because she was previously thinking of ways to defend herself against Angel, but that’s a stretch. It’s a poorly conceived scene overall, especially since Wesley is placed in the role of buffoon yet again.

Angel understands that he needs Kate, but now that she knows the truth about him, her trust is in tatters. For someone who already has issues with trust, this is a doozy. Kate quickly gets the information she needs to deal with vampires, and thus to keep Angel out of her apartment (a plot point that is rather unfortunate in the future). This is important because it establishes, rather quickly, that Kate is preparing to handle herself in Angel’s world, but also that the broken trust will not make them the allies they were.

One interesting angle to “Angel” has always been the clear difference between Angel and Angelus. The darker Angel gets, the more Angelus influences his thinking, the more devious becomes. If Penn is trying to emulate Angelus with his simple misdirection, then Angel must struggle to compensate. Despite what Angel says to Penn, it’s not clear whether he was able to work out Penn’s true plan, or if he simply arrived to get Kate’s help at the right time.

The final battle between Angel and Penn is remarkably brutal, displaying some of the best fight choreography of the series to date. For all that, it’s still hard to believe that Kate, a normal human, could drive that blunt piece of wood through Angel’s gut and into Penn’s heart. For one thing, the angle’s wrong. Second, the wood is too uneven to ensure that Angel’s heart wouldn’t also be nicked. Finally, as noted, Kate is a normal human; even Slayers find that kind of thing tough (or Buffy did in the third season of her series).

The final conversation between Angel and Cordy sounds like it was originally written for Angel and Doyle. With minimal changes to the original version, the scene now speaks to the growing friendship and trust between Angel and Cordelia. Given how Angel has just lost two allies in the space of a few weeks, and the fact that Wesley is still not quite integrated into the dynamic, Cordy is really Angel’s last strong connection to humanity. It demonstrates very well how both have changed over the years, especially Cordelia. Gaining the visions was a key moment in Cordelia’s overall character arc, tragic as it is.

Coming at the very center of the season and delivering another major blow to Angel’s world, this episode is a nice recovery from the accelerated removal of Glenn Quinn from the series. The writers find a way to include Wesley in an organic and logical manner while still easing him into full membership in Angel’s world. The unexpected tension and animosity between Kate and Angel is a welcome development, especially since it is only the first step in a long conflict between them.

The production values in this episode are also very high. David’s Irish accent notwithstanding, it’s always fun to see the years of Angelus. Angelus has a psychological edge as a villain that cannot be beaten, and it’s interesting to see how lesser minds try to emulate his sinister genius. The fight sequences are also brought to another level in this episode; they are the precursor to the stylized sequences that would dominate the action set pieces in future seasons.

Perhaps most impressively, the writers took an episode that was clearly meant to be a big moment in the season as envisioned before Doyle’s departure and re-crafted it into one of the best of the season. Usually, when an episode needs to be hastily re-written, the results are uneven. In this case, the revision resulted in a number of improvements, and the season was all the better for it.


Memorable Quotes

WESLEY: “It’s about to speak.”
CORDELIA: “Nobody likes a smart-ass rogue demon hunter…”

ANGEL: “Who were you talking to?”
CORDELIA: “Nobody. And Wesley.”

CORDELIA: “No! I don’t care how many files you have on all the horrible things he did back in the powdered wig days! He is good now, and he’s my friend. And nothing you or anyone else can say will make me turn on a friend!”
ANGEL: “Cordelia…he’s right.”
CORDELIA: “You’ll stake him and I’ll cut his head off!”

CORDELIA: “My glamorous LA life…I get to make the coffee, and chain the boss to the bed…”

ANGEL: “You missed.”
KATE: “No I didn’t.”

ANGEL: “If the day ever comes that I-”
CORDELIA: “Oh, I’ll kill you dead!”
ANGEL: “Thanks.”
CORDELIA: “What are friends for?”


Final Analysis

Overall, this episode is one of the best of the season, bringing the action to a completely new level, while also delivering on another major plot twist. Kate’s reaction to Angel’s true nature is perfectly in character, and while many of Cordy’s scenes were clearly rewritten from old material for Doyle, it works as strong character development. Wesley also continues his slow but steady introduction to the gang, which is most welcome.

Writing: 2/2
Acting: 2/2
Direction: 2/2
Style: 3/4

Final Rating: 9/10

24 4.14: "Day 4: 8PM - 9PM"

Written by Howard Gordon and Evan Katz
Directed by Tim Iacofano

In which Jack decides to use Dina’s relationship to Marwan as a means of gaining access to the terrorists, but when things go wrong, Jack ends up in a precarious position…


Status Report

Ever since the end of the nuclear meltdown threat, the writers have been in a skid, unable to make a smooth transition into the terrorist threat that will define the second half of the season. Unfortunate as it is, this is what happens when the writers are forced to make up the plot threads as they go along and the lead time suddenly disappears. As long as there’s a semblance of a plot outline (the nuclear deadline), they were able to keep their heads above water. Now, the surf is choppy, the sharks are circling, and the writers are barely treading water.

The beginning of the episode is a great example of how far the writers have strayed from the path blazed in the first half of the season. An amazing amount of time is spent recapping the last episode, with a major emphasis on the PSA-style inclusion of patriotic Arab-Americans. The focus then shifts to Jack’s emotional response to Paul’s medical situation and Audrey’s response. This gets rather ridiculous, especially when Jack seems to get all choked up. This is a guy who reacted far less when Claudia, the woman he supposedly loved in the third season, died helping him escape the Salazars. Is his reaction more for himself, and the relationship he knows will end now?

Tony and Michelle manage to extract, in a matter of seconds, a name from Paul’s encrypted printout: Joseph Fayed. Instead of sending someone to take Fayed into custody, Jack suggests using Dina as an undercover operative. While Jack has a point (Dina demonstrated earlier in the season that the terrorists are unlikely to be taken alive), Tony has a better one. Time might be running out, but if something goes wrong with Fayed, they still have the printout and Dina, never mind whatever McClennan-Forster employees they can manage to apprehend.

Meanwhile, Marwan’s plot with Mitch Anderson straggles along. Making it very clear that the operation is meant to be perceived as long-term, an Air Force pilot about to go on duty is held up by his girlfriend after nice bout of energetic sex. Marwan’s people, of course, have the pilot’s family at gunpoint. Anderson shows up and takes custody of the pilot. The plot ticks off another minor advancement.

Jack comes up with the brilliant plan of posing as a hostage so that Dina can gain access to Fayed and therefore Marwan. Jack is apparently forgetting that the terrorists already have plenty of reasons to question Dina’s loyalty, given that they had ordered Dina’s husband to kill her and their son. But since that would generate a good argument against this plot twist, that information is overlooked. Dina agrees to help in exchange for a new life with her son, which pretty much seals her fate.

While the rest of the CTU team is briefed on Jack’s incredibly bad idea, Tony comes to the sudden realization that Edgar is having problems concentrating on the job. The reason, of course, is his mother’s suicide during the meltdown. Never mind that his abilities weren’t in question in the meantime; this is the excuse used to bring back Chloe, who gets to show Michelle more than a little attitude. All of a sudden, CTU looks an awfully lot like it did in the third season. Go figure!

Just to ramp up Jack’s relationship drama a little more, he refuses to let Audrey know that he’s getting involved in a potentially deadly situation. Tony doesn’t understand it, and it makes Jack look like he’s doing something terrible in the process. But the fact remains that this is what Jack has done several times this season already. Audrey already knows that Jack puts his life on the line, and that it’s his choice. Telling Audrey that he’s going on a dangerous mission would be manipulative at best.

Chloe’s return, of course, undermines Edgar’s confidence and attitude, right at the very moment that it shouldn’t be questioned. Meanwhile, Dina asks to see her son before the mission, and the scene is requisitely melodramatic. At this point, the morgue personnel are preparing for another impending arrival. With CTU operatives crawling all over the neighborhood, Dina takes Jack to Fayed at gunpoint. Sure, Fayed contacts Marwan, but the signal is scrambled. This should be the first sign for CTU that the plan is going to go badly.

While Anderson uses the pilot to gain access to an Air Force base, slowly but surely advancing Marwan’s agenda, another subplot continues in its entirely predictable course. With Paul facing paralysis or even death, Audrey suddenly realizes how much she really cares for her husband. In other words, Jack is screwed. Since Heller doesn’t like relationship issues to get in the way of the job (unless they fall under his favor), Jack is probably not going to last long on Heller’s staff after the day is done.

Marwan is no idiot; if he were stupid as CTU thinks he is, he wouldn’t have been able to mastermind a long-term terrorist operation. So of course he finds a place where he can swap Jack and Dina into a different vehicle while out of surveillance range. CTU should have seen it coming, but then, the little plot twist at the end couldn’t take place. It’s far too easy for Marwan to get his way.

With CTU rocked back on their heels, scrambling for Marwan’s trail, Jack and Dina are taken to an unknown location. Marwan, of course, knows that Dina is working for the enemy, and he tests her in the most efficient manner possible. The result: Dina is killed off-screen as Jack is dragged away, now a prisoner of the terrorists with little hope of rescue.

At the same time, Anderson gains access, using the dead pilot’s extracted thumb, to a fighter jet. Here’s where the writers tease the audience with a rather interesting Clancy-esque possibility: is Anderson gaining access to the fighter jet so he can shoot down Air Force One, where the President and much of the Cabinet has been since the beginning of the terrorist threat? Even if that plot is ultimately unsuccessful, it would be a major plot and would work well with respect to the rest of the season.

Once again, the writers seem to be struggling to find ways to get from point A to point B in each episode. In this case, it’s a question of getting Jack from the McClennan-Forster siege and into the hands of the terrorists. Anderson has to get onto the Air Force base. Everything in between is rather contrived, especially the logic for letting Dina take Jack “hostage” in the first place. The whole operation was ill-conceived and Michelle ought to have been more insistent in her command style as the AIC.

Similarly, there was no reason for Michelle to bring Chloe back into CTU under the pretext that Edgar was unreliable. Since his mother’s suicide, Edgar has been forced to stop several nuclear meltdowns, aid in the operation to help Jack and Paul get out of the EMP zone alive, and deal with more than a few changes in authority under incredibly uncomfortable circumstances. In every case, he’s kept his focus. So what possible reason could Tony have to question Edgar’s concentration?

The answer is that the fans were begging for Chloe to be written back into the story, because she was one of the few highlights of the early slump this season. Much like the PSA-style scripting in the previous episode, this smacks of creating drama for the sake of pleasing the fans. Michelle’s return had a strong rationale, even if Driscoll’s exit took place for the wrong reasons. Chloe’s return was simply contrived.

Many of the earlier episodes had similar weaknesses, but there were elements that kept the story from losing momentum. There were layers to the characterization of the Araz family and the CTU/Heller alliance that forced the audience into uncomfortable psychological territory. Nothing has replaced that dynamic, and the story suffers as a whole. There are no grey areas right now, and that only helps to reveal the lack of depth in the recent episodes.

The season is rapidly approaching the end of the “complication” phase, when there would typically be a major event to transition the story into the “resolution” phase of the arc. Within the next few episodes, Marwan’s plan will likely come to fruition. Hopefully, when this happens, it will give the writers more inspiration. If future episodes cover as little ground as this one, it won’t be pretty.


Final Analysis

Overall, this episode continued the remarkable downturn in the quality of the season. The writers are still struggling with how to handle the transition between terrorist plots, and the result is an episode where very little happens. Many of the plot points are incredibly contrived, and none of the nuanced characterization of the first half of the season remains. If the writers don’t get things turned around soon, the season could fall apart completely.

Writing: 0/2
Acting: 2/2
Direction: 2/2
Style: 0/4

Final Rating: 4/10

Season Average (as of 4.13): 6.9

X-Files 4.22: "Elegy"

Written by John Shiban
Directed by Jim Charleston

In which Mulder and Scully investigate the sighting of a ghostly apparition at a bowling alley, and Scully ultimately discovers that her fight against cancer might be coming to a close…


Status Report

Sometime it can be hard to overcome a tarnished reputation as a writer, especially in television. Fans and detractors form an opinion, and that becomes more meaningful than the actual quality of each new project. Howard Gordon, for instance, has accumulated a certain reputation since his time on “X-Files”, and whenever his joint projects veer into his previous areas of weakness, it’s easy enough to point fingers.

By the end of the series, John Shiban was one of a handful of writers with a reputation for failure. Indeed, many of his episodes failed to rise to the level of quality that the fans had come to expect. Yet it’s interesting to note that his episodes weren’t always a train wreck, and after he left “X-Files” at the end of its run, he wrote one of the few good episodes of the second season of “Enterprise”.

For Shiban, it’s a question of approach. When the events and characters external to Mulder and Scully take center stage in a Shiban episode, the results are mixed at best and disastrous at worst. However, in an episode where Mulder and Scully are central to the story, the results are typically much better. This episode runs contrary to bad expectations, and that is a very good thing.

After establishing that Scully’s life is in the balance, thanks to the cancer caused by the removal of the control implant placed in her neck by the conspiracy, the writers took forever to return to that fertile character ground. This episode brings it back in a major way while exploring an interesting concept: ghostly visitations that presage one’s own imminent demise. Not only does this mesh with the overall spiritual concepts within the mythology, but it provides a wonderful vehicle for Gillian to express Scully’s deep-seated fears.

The concept is that someone near death is “attuned” to the impending deaths of others, so that they are more likely to see a death premonition for someone else. Strictly speaking, this doesn’t fit the mythology very well, especially if the series is viewed as a whole. After all, Scully saw her father’s death apparition in “Beyond the Sea”, and her life was not waning at that point. Nor was it in danger in “This is Not Happening”.

So while it makes sense that Mulder interprets the phenomenon in this episode in terms of his own limited point of view, delving into folklore and barely deviating from there, the reality must be more complex. The mythology incorporates a conception of the spiritual that sets the body and soul/mind as distinct; the soul/mind uses the body as a medium of physical interaction on this particular plane of existence. Death is a transitional state from this perspective; as such, the manner of death can leave the soul/mind in any number of different psychological states, from serene to severely fragmented.

The key is that the transition involves psychological states, which are indicative of the specific state of the soul/mind at any given time. It has been shown in previous episodes that “past life regression” is actually “resonance” with the memories of someone who once lived, imprinted into the fabric of the universe itself within quantum states. (OK, maybe not “shown”, but it’s a rational and scientific explanation!). Psychic connections and visions are “resonance” among the living.

In this episode, a specific type of “psychic resonance” is explored: a link between those making the transition at death and those among the living who are psychologically in a similar state of being. The living may not even be aware that they are within this state. Those within transition would acquire a much more complete view of the universe, especially in terms of time, and they could be aware of those about to die and want to help them prepare. The trick, of course, is that they would still be trying to communicate as they did when alive, since they wouldn’t be aware of the full implications of their own death and their new state of non-corporeal reality.

Since this would only happen under certain specific circumstances, possibly requiring someone or something to link individuals together in a commonality, the fact that this particular phenomenon never comes up again would be consistent with the mythology. Not only that, but it explains how Scully can see something that only those close to death can see, when the universe as a whole is rather well aware of the fact that she’s not supposed to die. (The mythology, of course, has already established a “higher power” guiding and aiding Mulder and Scully towards their destined roles.)

The central connection in this situation is Harold, whose heightened awareness of those recently murdered has placed them all in association. Everyone who dies in this episode (or sees a ghost of one about to die) is someone important in Harold’s life, with one major exception. Scully is the one outlier, the person who wasn’t connected to Harold until the case was initiated. Even Mulder, with his keen and personal interest, doesn’t “resonate” with Harold enough to see anything unusual. Of course, that’s partially to keep the episode consistent.

If that had been the extent of the episode, then it would have been quite fascinating. However, it was complicated (and somewhat derailed) by attaching a serial killer element to the overall concept. Not only were people close to Harold dying (people he had reason to fixate upon) but Nurse Innes was so bent on destroying his happiness that she was adding to the intensity of the connection. How “she is me” connected to Innes’ motivation was very confusing, and only made semi-logical by the fact that Innes was drugged out of her mind.

The highlight of the episode, however, is the intense focus on Scully throughout the story. The episode’s place in the timeline is rather crucial, coming on the heels of an episode where Scully’s absence was directly related to her health. This must take place sometime in the early to mid-summer months, weather notwithstanding, because “Zero Sum” takes place in April 1997 and “Gethsemane” takes place in October 1997. Given how long Scully was expected to survive, things should be going very wrong right around June-July.

Scully starts off in a relatively good place, psychologically. She’s joking with Mulder about how well he ought to know her, and her light-hearted teasing is something that Mulder clearly cherishes. It’s business as usual as Scully tries to keep her expression even while Mulder makes himself look rather foolish in the middle of the briefing room, and she even gets to poke a few holes in Mulder’s hopes at the psychiatric hospital. All in all, it’s a typical case.

In an interesting scene, Mulder’s profiling expertise takes a backseat to Scully’s own analysis. It’s clear that he has his own ideas, but he lets her go ahead and offer her opinion on the psychology. That’s not something he would normally do, and while he uses it as a means of working out his own theory, it’s almost as if he’s trying to make her feel like she’s making a real contribution, knowing that it’s very important to her to feel that way.

The normalcy of the case (again, in relative terms) is completely shattered when Scully’s nose starts to bleed, and moments later, she sees a vision of someone about to die. Having already heard Mulder’s explanation for what’s happening, and aware of the implication for her own fate, she is stunned and horrified. She seems to overlook the fact that she also saw her father mouthing words to her in “Beyond the Sea”, and considering how similar that was, it’s odd for her to miss that. At the same time, her repressed reaction to her own mortality is crashing down around her.

This all leads to another session with Counselor Kosseff, a character that should have been used more often over the course of the series. In this case, Scully is forced to consider her reasons for staying on the job. As one would expect after “Never Again”, it has everything to do with Mulder. In keeping with her fascination and attraction to men of personal authority and passion, Scully relies on Mulder’s single-minded focus to drive her own life forward. She basks in the praise that she receives for validating his trust in her. Simply the fact that Scully accepts and even believes Mulder’s theory, despite her skeptical front, demonstrates how vital Mulder and his crusade have become in her world.

Unaware of Scully’s vision, Mulder attempts to take care of the case without her, and finds it impossible. It’s not just that he needs the analysis done; he needs Scully to do it, because then he won’t have to explain what he’s trying to find. His news and interpretation of that news underscores every fear running through her mind, but she finds it much easier to let Mulder focus on Harold’s visions than her own. It’s not a question of trust; if Mulder believes, then she can’t deny it herself.

By the end of the episode, Scully is forced to admit what she’s seen, and though she tries to deny her belief, she ultimately cannot, especially from herself. Some have interpreted Mulder’s response as self-centered, but in his own way, he’s upset because she’s not letting him be there for her. He’s helpless in every other respect. By denying her belief in his theories, by hiding things from him, she’s isolating herself from him, and that leaves him even more helpless. Like the closest of couples, emotionally, it’s that inability to change fate that leaves both of them psychologically devastated.

For Scully, this is very important, because she’s forced to come to terms with her likely death. It’s not an easy realization. For Mulder, however, it’s another step towards his personal crisis of faith. Cancer Man has stripped away his ability to trust in Skinner, and now he sees Scully slipping out of his life. As the season grinds to a close, nearly everything else in Mulder’s life will be placed into question. As “Herrenvolk” made perfectly clear, without Scully, Mulder is in danger of losing faith in himself and his cause. Scully was the one that kept him on the path, when everything else seemed out of reach. Now, Mulder is losing even that.

By focusing on what Mulder and Scully are hiding from each other and themselves as Scully’s health becomes more and more of an issue, John Shiban produces one of his best episodes. It apparently required a lot of rewriting in the development stage, which means that the rest of the writing staff helped him along. However it happened, this episode is an important and oddly satisfying step towards the massive events at the end of the season.


Memorable Quotes

MULDER: “What is that look, Scully?”
SCULLY: “I would have thought that after three years, you’d know exactly what that look was…”

CHUCK: “Oh, that was me! I did it! I admit it, I did it. I’m just a human being, after all!”
ALPERT: “Chuck! Tell the truth.”
CHUCK: “No, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it…I lied. I lied, but I’m just a human being…”

SCULLY: “I saw a woman who had recently been murdered. I saw her. It appeared as if she was trying to tell me something.”
KOSSEFF: “Do you know what?”
SCULLY: “No.”
KOSSEFF: “Are you sure?”

MULDER: “You can believe what you want to believe, Scully, but you can’t hide the truth from me, because if you do, then you’re working against me…and yourself. I know what you’re afraid of. I’m afraid of the same thing.”


Final Analysis

Overall, this episode is a surprisingly strong exploration of Mulder and Scully’s reaction to Scully’s medical condition. Gillian perfectly communicates the spectrum of emotions that Scully tries to hide, especially when she has a paranormal experience of her own. Even Mulder’s complex reaction to Scully’s downturn is explored with confidence. The process of getting to this episode was not easy, but it certainly was worth the final outcome.

Writing: 2/2
Acting: 2/2
Direction: 2/2
Style: 3/4

Final Rating: 9/10

Alias 4.11: "The Road Home"

Written by Josh Appelbaum and Andre Nemec
Directed by Maryann Brandon

In which Sydney is forced to look after a civilian who is endangered by her actions during an op in Austria, while Jack deals with an old associate and Vaughn tracks down more on his father…


Status Report

After making a great deal of progress over the span of the last three episodes, the writers return to the stand-alone episode structure that plagued the early part of the season. In this case, there are three plot threads in question. The man plot is the most disposable, suffering from an overall lack of chemistry between Garner and the guest star. The first subplot, involving a seek and destroy mission for Jack, is a great piece of character exploration. The second subplot actually resonates well with the first, as Vaughn follows up on his father’s trail from the previous episode.

It’s rather clear that the episodes are being aired in the correct order now, which is an improvement. This was necessitated by Vaughn’s subplot; otherwise, this episode could have taken place anywhere in the current continuity. Despite being important to the season arc, this subplot consists of perhaps three or four short scenes. Of course, those scenes are very revealing.

For one thing, Vaughn has only confided in Weiss regarding his father’s possible emergence from a supposed death. This is very interesting in terms of the trust between Sydney and Vaughn. After all, Sydney has already been in this position with her mother in the first season, and as eventually revealed, Irina’s return had massive effects on everyone around Sydney. Irina was at the center of almost everything that happened with Jack, Sloane, and Sydney over the past 30+ years. For Vaughn to discover the possibility of something so similar in his own life, knowing that his father was involved with the Magnific Order of Rambaldi, is a huge development. Keeping that from Sydney is hard to reconcile.

Equally as important is the parallel between Vaughn’s father and Jack. If the re-emergence of Vaughn’s father is an echo of Irina’s past history, then the casual violence of Vaughn’s father is an echo of Jack’s compartmentalized personality. Jack’s past has never been hidden away, and he has always been willing to kill when necessary. It’s simply that his actions have typically been portrayed in a more flattering light.

There’s little doubt that Jack needs to do the job correctly, if only for Sydney’s sake, and he does display an internal regret (something played with enormous subtlety by Victor Garber). But he also doesn’t hesitate, despite that regret, because he believes in the rationale of his mission. No doubt, Vaughn’s father felt exactly the same way in the Falklands. For that matter, Sloane shares this same motivational fervor. All three men are cut from the same cloth, and if past continuity means anything, it all revolves around Rambaldi.

Jack’s assassination technique in this episode is so personal, almost clinical, that it makes it very hard to accept. It’s an indirect means of reminding the audience that Jack is more than capable of planning and executing plans that are morally debatable, thus connecting with the idea that he has made a deal with his own personal devil, Sloane.

It’s interesting, in light of the emerging plot arc this season, that the original ending of the third season involved Sydney’s discovery of evidence that Jack had been implicated in Irina’s endgame all along. JJ Abrams made a very quick decision to pull back that reveal, perhaps aware of the fact that the third season hadn’t earned that moment; nothing to that point had suggested such a character turn for Jack. The resolution of the final scene was disappointing, but thus far, the writers are putting together a consistent and strong case for a side to Jack that has been hinted but never fully revealed. Even if Jack doesn’t betray Sydney when all is said and done, the writers are doing a much better job of establishing Jack’s dark side.

Unfortunately, these two subplots were far better than the “A” story, which felt like a joke gone horribly, horribly wrong. Had “Alias” ever been the kind of series where the occasional light-hearted approach was possible (the tone requires a rather portentous consistency), this would have been a good candidate for a humorous approach. After all, the guest star looked like a poor man’s David Arquette, and he pretty much attempted the same kind of performance.

It wasn’t nearly so convincing. The idea was that Sydney was dealing with a complete rube, and that plays on certain archetypical portrayals of each side of the relationship. Sam’s role is meant to be semi-tragic, but the portrayal is never convincing enough to make the audience give a damn whether he lives or dies. That’s not the reaction the writers were trying to elicit.

On the other side of the equation, Sydney’s archetypical role would be the sympathetic but tough seasoned agent. Granted, the “Alias” take on this is that she’s an incredibly hot sympathetic but tough seasoned agent, which goes a long way towards making the cliché less boring than it could have been. But her dialogue throughout is just a bit off, or so it seems from the final product. One gets the feeling that if the chemistry between the two had existed, the lines would have sounded better coming out of her mouth.

It certainly doesn’t help that in some of her scenes, that upper New York accent completely disappears. Not that it was vital to the plot or anything, but when she goes from generic American accent to Rochester in a matter of three or four words, Sam acts like there was never a difference. And in the real world, accents are far more obvious to people, especially when they get more or less distinct and thick with every passing phrase. Usually Garner does a consistent job with accents and languages, so that was an odd lapse.

The plot structure for this part of the episode was alarmingly predictable. It was obvious, as soon as Sydney called for extraction, that the CIA operative in the region would be working for the bad guys. As delightfully brutal as Sydney’s solution to the problem might have been (the wide shot is particularly effective here), Sam’s reaction is simply not strong enough, and Sydney isn’t nearly as convincing as she needs to be. It’s like the scene was written ten minutes before it was filmed, and there was no time to polish the dialogue and pacing.

The worst part of the episode, however, was the final act. While a self-correcting assassination drone with biometric targeting sensors is a great idea, it’s rather inconvenient for the writers. So while the sensors are apparently very well designed, the targeting system leaves much to be desired. In several scenes, the chopper had a direct line of fire on Sydney and missed wide to both sides!

The resolution to the problem, where Sydney uses the villain as a shield so the sensors will assume that she was the one, in fact, drilled into mince meat, makes no sense at all. For one thing, if the targeting sensors are locked on her vital signs, why would the presence of blood suddenly convince the computer program that Sydney was dead? It should have still been locked on her vitals! And the type of weapon should have been sufficient to rip through the dead guy right into Sydney, especially given the number of rounds slicing through the same part of his gut.

With a complete lack of chemistry and the inability of the series to take a more humorous angle on the subject, the entire episode falls flat. Since it occasionally skips over to a more interesting or unnerving subplot, it’s not as dreadfully dull and pointless as “Nocturne”. It strays closer to the overdone themes of “Welcome to Liberty Village”, which at least managed to use the cliché at the heart of its plot to explore character issues. Sydney’s little trek through Austria with Sam doesn’t really say much about her that hasn’t been said before.


Final Analysis

Overall, this episode was a letdown after a strong run of continuity-laden episodes. While the subplots worked well in terms of the season arc and character development, the main story was a bad cliché with little relevance to anything substantial. The resolution of the main plot was poorly conceived, and there was no chemistry where chemistry was essential. Definitely one of the more bland and average episodes of the series.

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

Final Rating: 5/10

Season Average (as of 4.10): 7.3