Alias 5.14: "I See Dead People"

Written by Josh Appelbaum and Andi Bushell
Directed by Robert Williams

In which a discovery in Rene’s body forces Sydney to meet with Vaughn, but circumstances pull him out of hiding when Anna comes calling, while Sloane struggles with Nadia’s death…


Status Report

“Alias” has been on the upswing ever since the network wisely stopped meddling after all but ruining the series through idiotic mandates on content, switching around the order of episodes, and cutting the number of episodes with little or no advance warning. The result, as discussed before, has been a need to keep the story moving forward, even if it takes some plot contrivance to pull it off.

This episode isn’t as structured as the previous installment, but it does serve to keep the pacing brisk. Sloane reveals that he has his own game afoot, all designed (or so one would think) to keep his options open and restore control over the culmination of the Rambaldi endgame. His decision to keep the hidden message from Prophet 5 is hardly a shock, especially since they can’t seem to make progress without him.

What is a little surprising is his decision to get Sark involved, which has some interesting implications. Sark has flexible loyalties, to be sure, but he also has a tendency to work with Irina towards her particular goals. “Maternal Instincts” demonstrated that Irina was not above using Prophet 5 to achieve her own endgame, and she is in possession of the all-important “Horizon”. That said, if Sloane knows this, and also has the hidden message from Page 47 decoded, why not cut Prophet 5 out of the picture and strike a deal with Irina?

Even though the Sydney/Vaughn plot thread was fairly predictable, it does throw some assumptions and speculation out the window. So Anna will not be the one referenced in the Page 47 prophecy, since she’s now dead. Sydney, however, is taking her place within Prophet 5, which is a nice twist. Will Sloane recognize the difference? And if not, will she be forced to go along with Sloane’s gambit to discover what the Rambaldi endgame is, thus effectively slipping into a role that she would otherwise seek to avoid?

Though the idea of having children implanted with those rather large computer chips doesn’t quite hold water (wouldn’t they have shown up in medical tests long before now?), it does provide another nice layer of symmetry. Vaughn and Rene were both pawns in the previous generation’s quest to control the Rambaldi legacy, just like Sydney and Nadia.

Vaughn’s father was a member of the Magnific Order of Rambaldi, which is supposed to be protecting Rambaldi’s legacy across the centuries. Was Vaughn’s father working to derail Prophet 5 because they were seeking to pervert Rambaldi’s endgame to their own purposes? That would fit the overall mythology well enough, since most of the members of the Order (with the glaring exception of Anna) seemed to work against the goals of Sloane and Yelena Derevko.

Presumably, the Order would then be happy to help in the efforts to stop Sloane and Irina, if they are allies again and the Order isn’t working with Irina in the first place. Sydney is now, for good or ill, in a position to fulfill prophecy. With only three episodes left, there’s not a lot of time for the truth to be revealed. That also includes this business with Tom and Rachel, who seem to be sidelined from the rest of the action. One can only hope that “The Cardinal” ties into the Rambaldi endgame sooner rather than later.

It wasn’t a perfect episode, however. While most of the action and Vaughn’s return made sense within the context of the plot threads, it still required a bit of hand-waving. Once again, it seems odd that a computer chip of that size would go undetected for so long, especially given the medical tests required for entry into the CIA. It’s hard to believe that Sydney would survive that crash with relatively minor injuries. And it seems odd that Nadia’s death didn’t strike Sydney and Jack harder than it did. (And where was Weiss, for that matter?)

The most annoying moment, however, had to be the fight between Anna and Vaughn. Vaughn is recovering (somehow) from being riddled with gunfire. Despite many months of recovery, he’s still barely comfortable in his own skin. Yet he fights toe to toe with Anna, who has fought Sydney for minutes at a time when Sydney was in her best condition. How the hell does that work? Even accounting for the possibility that Anna was thrown off by Sydney’s body type, it doesn’t make a bit of sense.

It’s hard to imagine that the entire series can be wrapped up in three episodes, but at this point, the fans have to take what they can get. The producers (and JJ, for that matter) have all expressed their full support and pleasure with the end of the series, but what else are they going to say? It’s all too easy to believe that the network has irreversibly compromised the integrity of the story. Still, a definitive ending is better than leaving the series with a cliffhanger.


Final Analysis

Overall, this episode continued with the spirited final arc for the series, though as usual, the compressed nature of the story does force certain logic problems along the way. The writers continue to offer a number of surprises, and while there might be too much left to explain to provide a solid ending, at least the producers are giving it their all!

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

Final Rating: 8/10

(Season 5 Average: 7.0)