Alias 4.22: "Before the Flood"

Written by Josh Appelbaum and Andre Nemec
Directed by Lawrence Trilling

In which the team and Irina must race against time to prevent Yelena from completing her endgame and bringing about the end of the world…


Status Report

One of the biggest problems with ending a long-term plot arc is that it can be very straightforward, almost to the point of boredom. If the writers do their job correctly, then the various layers of the story are all established before the endgame is unleashed. As military experts across history have noted: most wars are won or lost long before they are fought. A successful endgame requires proper planning, the likes of which makes the battle itself a foregone conclusion.

In this case, the episodes leading into the finale set the stage well enough that the events of this episode don’t need to rehash too many of the previous details. At the same time, the availability of certain guest stars made it difficult to add depth to the story. Lena Olin was only available for two episodes, and that meant that “Search and Rescue” was going to be focused on Irina’s re-introduction more than anything else.

Of course, at the time, the writers and producers were under the impression that the finale would be 90 minutes. It was a later decision by the network to extend the finale for “Lost” (good move) and thus shorten the finale for “Alias” (bad move). The effects of this decision are all over the final product. Already dealing with a fairly basic story structure and the limitations created by Lena Olin’s availability, the producers had to take a story that was meant for 66 minutes (without commercials) and cut it down to 44 minutes.

As any fan of films on DVD can attest, adding just 5 or 10 minutes to a film can add layers of character development and smooth over abrupt bumps in the plot structure. From the “Lord of the Rings” perspective, adding another 30 minutes or so to “Fellowship of the Ring” made that film far better than the original theatrical release. So the loss of 1/3 of the running time for this episode is not some minor annoyance; it had a terrible effect on the flow of the story and the emotional depth of its key conflicts.

There is literally not one scene that isn’t cut down to the essentials; in fact, there’s not one scene that doesn’t directly serve the needs of the plot. The result is something that feels like a highlight reel, and that’s quite unfortunate. The writers spent a lot of time preparing the audience for an apparent resolution to the entire Rambaldi-related plot structure to this point, and it feels like they were only given the chance to show the Cliff Notes version of it. This is like a network deciding to air only the best plays of the Super Bowl instead of the entire game.

If there’s a specific sign of the editing process, beyond how quickly and abruptly the scenes cut away, it’s in the dialogue. Scenes are cut down to the bare essentials, with the characters only getting the chance to say what’s needed to follow the story. Anything remotely resembling character exploration is set aside to ensure that the story can be told. Clearly, the producers couldn’t take the finale and split it down the middle, airing the second half of the story as the fifth season premiere; that would have run afoul of the cost for Lena Olin’s presence (the numbers get complicated, to say the least). So the only option was to show as much as possible and hope it hangs together.

As a result, most of the characters end up saying stock phrases that show very little character nuance, and some scenes feel completely cobbled together. For instance, at one point, after Nadia is overrun by the infected Russians, Irina simply states that she’s still alive and everyone accepts it. What possible evidence made her draw that conclusion? Something was missing, but it probably would have taken too long to make the proper connection.

Equally cobbled together is the final battle between Sydney and Nadia beneath the Circumference. As predicted after “Echoes”, the circular part of the Eye of Rambaldi, over which the two sisters would battle, is not simply the Circumference itself but also the fate of the world. This is the culmination of four seasons of plotting and the entire point of the fourth season. So it’s a bit disappointing to see the emotional showdown between sisters reduced to Sydney doing a little begging and then kicking ass.

All of these issues would undermine a strong story, but when there are flaws, they are quickly exposed in the most unforgiving manner. The key problem with this episode is that it doesn’t quite deliver on what was promised when Nadia was originally brought onto the show. Part of that problem is that the writers of the third season came up with “The Passenger” long before they had any idea what the hell that was supposed to mean. They were originally going to place Lauren in that role somehow, but changed their minds. As such, the whole concept of warring sisters was a late addition that didn’t necessarily make sense.

The fourth season has done much to fix that problem by giving Sydney and Nadia a strong relationship. They band together quickly as sisters within a truly bizarre family, largely because they have very similar backgrounds. Yet their personalities and attitudes were often in opposition; Nadia was more willing to forgive and maintain hope, while Sydney was more often the bitter one, holding on to every grudge.

Over time, it seemed as though the main characters were being consciously split in terms of allegiance to Sydney and Nadia. The pact between Jack and Sloane, meant to protect both daughters, would be strained as one or the other of the sisters would need to be sent into harm’s way. Sloane’s true aims were always in question, and even Jack’s decisions were revealed as manipulated by an outside source. The disparate plot points all converged with Yelena and the revelation that she was behind nearly everything unexplained since the pilot episode. By then, of course, the split among the characters had evolved into something less easily recognized but equally intriguing.

The point, of course, was to give Nadia a support system, to make her comfortable enough to ignore Sydney’s warnings. It was reasonable to predict, after Nadia found her every assumption ripped apart when Sophia/Yelena betrayed her and Sloane seemingly abandoned her for Rambaldi, that she would start to fall apart psychologically. Jack and Sydney then revealed their own deceptions, and even after Irina returned to help the two sisters defeat Yelena, Irina’s history with Sydney (problematic as it was) had to be hard to reconcile. In essence, Nadia had every reason to feel betrayed by everything in her life, her good nature and forgiveness proven foolish.

All of this could have served as the logical underpinning for a dark turn in her character. As written, the writers have Nadia battle Sydney while under the influence of the Mueller device; her own volition is completely meaningless. Sydney isn’t fighting her sister so much as an automaton with Nadia’s face. It’s not the culmination of a long-term psychological breakdown, but rather, a plot convenience designed to achieve the goal of a showdown in the shortest time possible.

The circumstances of the battle between sisters fits the prophecies of Rambaldi, but it seems to have been modified to allow for the shortened time frame created by Lena Olin’s availability. Nadia becomes, in essence, the “living embodiment” of Rambaldi’s devices, and Sydney saves the world by destroying Rambaldi’s endgame (thus essentially resolving the situation created by her fulfillment of the original Chosen One prophecy).

But the prophecy states that one of the sisters will perish at the hands of the other, and that doesn’t happen. Even if one interprets Nadia’s infection as a kind of “death”, Sydney wasn’t the one who made that happen. Yelena infected Nadia. More to the point, Nadia was closer to killing Sydney than the other way around, and Sloane intervened. It really shouldn’t have been that simple to derail something that had been predicted and staged over the course of centuries!

Some have suggested that Sydney and Nadia weren’t, in fact, the Chosen One and The Passenger, but rather, Irina and Yelena were. After all, the two sisters did end up doing final battle over the fate of the world, and Irina killed Yelena. Irina was also originally thought to be the Chosen One in the Page 47 prophecy. But the writers also firmly established that Nadia was The Passenger, so that kind of fit would be a disastrous ret-con with no real value. It would be easier to have Nadia die and then be resuscitated, thus fulfilling the prophecy but allowing Nadia to live on, ala Buffy at the end of the first season of that series.

But it didn’t have to happen the way it was written. Nadia could have been left behind by the others in a way that unintentionally made her feel abandoned. This could have been the final straw; imagine a pitched battle against the infected Russians, sending her into a primal survival mode and psychologically broken. Such a situation could have realistically given Yelena the chance to convince Nadia that she was, in fact, the only one she could trust, given their history.

That would have placed Nadia in the right position to oppose Sydney’s efforts to derail Yelena’s plans, thus setting up a real battle between the two sisters of equal ability. It would have fit everything established during the rest of the season, and it would have forced Sloane to expose his true intentions earlier, perhaps in some attempt to stop Nadia. Nadia herself could have wounded Sloane, leaving him alive to survive the apocalypse but unable to stop Yelena in the process.

Granted, this would have resulted, most likely, in Nadia’s death. But it wouldn’t have to be the case. After Irina and Yelena have their little showdown, Irina could have gone to the roof to help Sydney disarm the Mueller device, and thus she could have been the one to stop Nadia, even at the cost of her own life. Imagine how being the true cause of Irina’s death would have affected Nadia; it could, under those hypothetical circumstances, forced her to see where her assumptions have taken her, thus “breaking the spell”.

Instead, while the Rambaldi prophecy may ultimately prove fulfilled, it’s not as well-structured an ending as it could have been. Perhaps some of the cut material would make it seem a bit less contrived and ill-considered. It’s equally possible that the writers conceived of this ending as a way to wrap up the major plot threads should this be the final season. It’s quite possible that this is not the end of the Rambaldi mythology at all, but rather, just the end of Yelena’s part in it.

After all, there are some aspects of the Rambaldi mythology that haven’t been explained. The first is the most obvious: Yelena’s Covenant was under the belief that Sydney was supposed to bear the genetic descendent of Rambaldi as the Chosen One. Was that truly derailed? Perhaps Yelena thought it was, but then, her endgame was to wipe out humanity and start things over in the Rambaldi image. It’s possible that this aspect of the mythology was never taken off the table.

There’s also the small matter of the Sphere of Life and the assembly of the Rambaldi artifact itself. The Sphere of Life was supposed to house the consciousness, essence, and soul of Rambaldi. How does that fit with a really big version of the Circumference? The fact is that it simply doesn’t. The Nightingale coil fits as a power source, and the ability of the Nightingale coil to alter things on a genetic level fits the concept of the “infected”. But there’s nothing to suggest that the Sphere of Life was a part of the Mueller device or Yelena’s scheme to reboot the species.

What does make sense, from Yelena’s point of view, is wiping out the bulk of the violent humanity, and then making sure that the survivors are laced with the compliance drug from Rambaldi’s orchid. Who better to rule over this new humanity than Rambaldi himself? And that means having a body to infuse his “consciousness, essence, and soul” into, which the plot from “Full Disclosure” would adequately explain.

So even if Yelena is dead and the threat of the end of the world is over, Rambaldi doesn’t have to be. In fact, it shouldn’t be. The world population has been laced with the pacification formula, so someone could still step in and complete Sloane’s work, just without the taste for Armageddon. That someone could also want to take custody of Sydney and implant a Rambaldi child in her womb, so that Rambaldi can be reborn using the device created using the Sphere of Life. And if all of those things are still on the table, then the final showdown between Sydney and Nadia may still be a future event.

For all that, it’s still impressive that the writers were able to pull the Rambaldi mythology into a logical context, given the challenges presented by the third season’s lack of focus. It’s simply a matter of sitting down, figuring out which elements are still not covered, and using them as pieces of the puzzle for the fifth (and likely final) season. If Jen Garner is indeed pregnant, that actually works well in terms of addressing the remaining elements of the Rambaldi endgame. The writers would have enough time to give Nadia a more satisfying reason for opposing Sydney.

While the final scene does provide an easy way to keep Sydney off her feet in the early episodes of the fifth season (and also how someone could implant an embryo without her knowledge), the revelation about Vaughn seems to be tacked on to the series mythology. Whatever Vaughn’s true identity might be, it’s something that only Irina has managed to uncover, and it’s not something that Irina considers threatening to her daughter.

One possibility is that Vaughn is a descendent of Rambaldi and that he discovered this some time ago, all without anyone knowing. This would be impressive, since Vaughn’s covert activities in the past have never been that well executed. Was his original assignment to Sydney contrived without his knowledge, or was he “in on it”? For this to be a minor issue, it would have to be the former; Sydney would never be able to trust Vaughn if he’s been lying to her from the start.

In terms of when Vaughn would have found out, it makes sense that it would have happened while he was running around trying to find out about his father and his connection to everything. Vaughn didn’t know about the Rambaldi connection at the end of the third season, so it had to happen after that point. For that matter, Irina would have been aware of Vaughn’s manipulation by Yelena, and thus would have discovered what none of the others at APO could have known.

But what would that mean? An obvious thought would be that Vaughn was manipulated to be with Sydney as a failsafe for introducing Rambaldi DNA to the Chosen One. Thus some might interpret his relationship with Sydney as a negative thing, ignoring the fact that he had little choice in how he was maneuvered. Sydney herself might find herself conflicted between her love for Vaughn and the knowledge that being with him was, from a certain point of view, imposed.

Remarkably, despite the many things going against it, this finale was a far more satisfying ending than the third season finale. It was probably on par with the second season finale. It may not have been as strong as it could have been, but at least initially, it was satisfying and completely not what anyone was expecting at the beginning of the season. And frankly, that’s why it works, despite its flaws.

What JJ Abrams wanted to accomplish with this season was rather plain: recast the third season in a better light while also bringing the series back to the tortured family dynamic that ruled the series in its earlier days. To do that (and hopefully bring in new viewers), he hired writers from Joss Whedon’s Mutant Enerny production company, writers who knew how to start a season with stand-alone episodes and end it with a heavily serialized yet highly consistent plot arc.

The early episodes were exactly what the network wanted: often stand-alone, almost interchangeable (they took that to an extreme). JJ got what he wanted: a chance to establish the psychology of the characters and their inter-relationships so that the rest of the season would work far better. While a few of those episodes were weak, much of the problem was related to the network’s level of interference.

Around the middle of the season, things changed. The plot arc, right on time, kicked in. And suddenly it wasn’t just closer to the way “Alias” should be; it was better than most of the third season. More than that, the writers were taking on the mistakes of the past with a dedication to make things right, not unlike the writers of “Angel” had done at the end of the fourth season of that series. While there were still some plot holes, they were smaller than the ones that were replaced. For the fans that stuck with the series through the somewhat perplexing and annoyingly standard early episodes of the season, it was quite the thrill ride.

As already mentioned, the writers aren’t done yet. They can’t simply ignore the remaining issues and act like everything has been resolved. Yelena’s plan was not Rambaldi’s plan, and that should be recognized. Nor should Sloane’s effort to find redemption be ignored. Sloane is easily one of the best characters on television right now, and while he was a great villain for so long, he is equally compelling as a man fighting his own demons. With Nadia out of commission, Sloane’s fight to keep away from Rambaldi should take the forefront again, especially if Sydney ends up being under the Rambaldi microscope once again.

Ultimately, the second half of the season made this season at least as compelling, by the final few weeks, as the second season. It wasn’t as consistently good, thanks to the early meddling by the network, but it was definitely more focused and plotted out than the third season. If this season did much to redeem the third season and its weak points, then the fifth season must also deal with the issues that couldn’t be covered or don’t quite fit. Whatever the case, that final scene ought to give the fans plenty to take about until the fall!


Final Analysis

Overall, this episode faced a lot of challenges, and the writers did a good job with what they were given. The final product, forced into a shorter running time than anticipated, felt like a highlight reel, and the result was sometimes simplistic in terms of dialogue and execution. That said, it was great to see a number of plot and character threads come together, and that final scene opens the door for an interesting fifth season.

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

Final Rating: 7/10

Season 4 Final Average: 7.7