Alias 03/02/03 - "A Dark Turn" (1 Viewer)

[Patrick Sun]

IT...IS...ON...BAY-BEE!!!

The rest of the season is now set and it's going to kick some serious butt!

 

[Patrick Sun]

Spoilers below!

(Let's try to keep them under wraps until the West Coast has seen the episode).

(Spoilers now removied)

I was screaming at the TV for Jack to get a clue, but he got sucked into the trap big time! Now he's going to be on a real mission to hunt them all down one by one for the rest of his life if it kills him. Sydney will be devastated as well, but she'll bounce back.

I thought it was very strange that Irina was so "careless" in Bangkok, but it was to pump up Jack's ego with the "damsel in distress" angle. She has been playing them all this time. Excellent!

Can't believe Irina covered her tracks so well that even Vaughn couldn't dig up anything on her (and thus getting himself in trouble in the process).

The scenes with Will giving it all up under FakeFrancie's hypnotism were very creepy.

 

[RossTerry]

good episode

 

[Joseph S]

CREEEEEEEEPPPPPPPPPPYYYYYYY is right.

Wake up Will, you're a threat to national security! Jack seems to have become Dixon. Is he really that stupid or is he in on it? I think Rambaldi came up with a secret form of hypnotism, because Jack seemed completely under her spell. Nice to see Vaughn investigating only to miss everything. "The Man" is going to eliminate Sloane in the season finale this year.

Looks like we have repeats x 2. Next week is Dead Drop again. Who knows what is after that, proabably #5, and then the Oscars. They clearly didn't mention anything in two weeks, so my guess is we're going to wait until the last weekend of March for the next episode.

 

[Jeff Kleist]

Hopefully they'll shoot Will over this, or Francie will shoot him

Anything that results in Will's death is OK by me

 

[Doug R]

Will is the "Riley" of Alias. :frowning:

 

[Jeff Kleist]

Indeed he is Doug. A superflous character that doesn't fit in with the rest.

A bloody death will redeem him

 

[Jason Quillen]

Aww...Damn. There had been nothing but good episodes of Alias since that Ethan Hawke mess, but tonight was a total stupidity-fest.

The scene with Vaughn and Syd ice skating completely blew the "Vaughn's got a secret" story open the moment the investigator told Syd he was investigating Vaughn. It was painfully obvious that Vaughn was doing something about Syds mom.

Then, as if evil doppelganger Francie wasn't bad enough in the first place, she reveals she was indeed a part of Barnum & Baileys sideshow because of her profound hypnotism skills. Come on, this story is worse than Kim Bauer getting ensnared by a mountain lion and being tricked by freaky apocolypse hermit guy.

Then it all comes together - from the first camera shot of Jacks computer one can easily see the same satellite coordinates that Will just read to evil Francie. We already know that Evil Francie works for Sloane, so it was a safe beat that Spy Mom was outta there.

Add in the other badness - like Jacks sudden "my wife would never lie to me again" attitude, and the obvious scene with the limo going under the bridge and being switched (What, Jack's van didn't take the same road to get to the pier? They would have seen the limo). And the most ridiculous part of all - Jack and the CIA apparently letting his lying wife keep the priceless Rambaldi book (I guess she put it in the CIA's safe herself. Why would ANYONE at the CIA look at it anyway? Apparently everyone trusts her now). And where did all those pieces of paper she filled the Rambaldi binder with come from? Maybe the plane was a "post-it" transporter, and she just grabbed a handful? Or maybe the CIA lets her keep a pile of post-it's in her maximum security cell, just in case she needs to send Jack a little memo about how to read credit reports?

I'm not asking for every episode to be the best ever, but tonights episode fell apart in the first 10 min. But, Hopefully this episode will give them the setup they need to execute the final 5 (? +/-) episodes on the top of their game.

JQ

 

[John Thomas]

 

[Allen W]

A much better episode than last weeks. A bummer we won't see a new episode for a couple of weeks. I guess we will see Jack's rage for a few weeks. Jack fell for it all! I don't think Jack and Syndney would have any problem pulling the trigger themselves on Irina now.

Hopefully Will can redeem himself by being the first to expose the evil Francie. Syd sure hasn't figured it out yet.

 

[Michael Martin]

Irina really pulled it off - and I think her sleeping with Jack was just metaphorical icing on the cake: literally screwing him just before she and Sloane screwed the entire CIA. Talk about being cold-hearted....Hopefully we will see more of Ass-Kicking Jack (tm) I've liked the few times we see Jack let his control go and really see his training and experience show.

I think the reason Vaughn didn't find anything is because there wasn't anything to find. Sloane and Irina knew that if she was found out to have had ANY contact with her sources, her cover was blown.

I'm voting for Evil Francie and Will to bite it by season's end, if only to give their spy game a needed edge of danger and consequences.

Who knew Richard Lewis could play creepy government guy so well?

 

[Patrick Sun]

You have to wonder how long did Sloane know that both Jack and Sydney were double-agents?

I agree on the stupidity part for this "evacuation" of Irina.

Why would the CIA let Irina have the Rambaldi documents inside her cell after they returned?

Why only use a copter to follow the limo? Sloppy CIA coverage for such a big score (Sloane). I also knew as soon as the limo disappeared that the limo switch was on.

Anyhow, you have give the writers credit for trying to misread the viewers with the Vaughn subplot as the major shocker and then slip Irina out by the end of the episode.

So Irina has pulled the rug out from under Jack twice now. If I were Kendall, Jack would need to be removed from any mission that went after Irina and Sloane because he just ain't objective enough. But that won't happen.

If I were Jack, I'd be pretty f-ing mad for getting played by Irina. I knew Irina had been playing them from the get-go. She even gave Jack the reason why she turned (the Rambaldi artifacts gave her a mission in life). Nothing else much matters to her, not even her daughter.

 

[PhilipG]

I'm going to be the one person in this thread who's still unconvinced that Irena is really evil.

Vaughn (says he) found no evidence. Irena said what she had to say to Sloane, and of course he believed her. The fact is that Jack's plan backfired, and she merely went to her plan B. If she'd intended to defect with Sark, she would have gone into the limo immediately, and not taken the guards with her. By the way, Sloane probably would have known Irena was held by the CIA from Evil Francie and Zombified Will.

Irina did not need to be locked up for x months just to get Jack's help to get a Rambaldi book for Sloane. She also did not go to great lengths to gain Syd's trust to suddenly throw that out of the window. So there's more to it than that... Should make for a good last few episodes.

 

[Michael Reuben]

Anyhow, you have give the writers credit for trying to misread the viewers with the Vaughn subplot as the major shocker and then slip Irina out by the end of the episode.

But of course the network sabotaged that with promos showing Jack and Irina on a mission with a voiceover that said, "And one of them isn't coming back!"

I long ago concluded that Irina was in league with Sloane. What else could Sark have been brokering when he forged some sort of alliance with Sloane last season? Both Irina and Sloane are obsessed with Rambaldi; we first saw them as competitors and currently they have an alliance to pursue their mutual obsession. It won't last, though.

I'm still waiting for a return to "The Prophecy".

M.

 

[John_VI]

Don't know what to make of this episode. There was some obvious cheese (the limo switch was really lame, and why have only one helicopter in pursuit). But I'm not at all sure that Vaughn is telling Syd the truth about his investigation. And Jack getting "played" by irina was classic. As they were making google-eyes at each other I was yelling at the TV, "DON'T FALL FOR IT, JACK!!!" Sucker!!!

Will is such a putz. Evil Francie needs to give him a double-tap to the head, only to then have Syd return the favor. And who will get the honor of offing Sloan? My bet would be Irina, just before Jack is ready to pull the trigger on her. Maybe this will all be wrapped up in the season finale?

Anyone else think that the Rimbaldi document that Irina gave to Sloan might be a fake, and that Irina may still have her own agenda? After all, Sark is her guy, and the two of them could be setting up Sloan. Hell, maybe Emily will bust a cap on her hubby!

 

[John_VI]

Okay, the Emily thing is a waaaaay long shot, but it would be interesting.

My one major disappointment of the episode? No gratuitous underware shot of Syd!! I would love to see Syd go undercover (or rather "un"cover) as a stripper. Yeah, yeah, I'm a letch. So?! LOL!!!

 

[Michael Martin]

Will is such a putz. Evil Francie needs to give him a double-tap to the head, only to then have Syd return the favor.

My previous post already gives my feelings on this - have them both offed by season's end.

 

[Jason Seaver]

I'm going to be the one person in this thread who's still unconvinced that Irena is really evil.

Oh, she's evil. But I'm not convinced she's just evil. I think it's quite possible that she might be growing a conscience, or at least starting to care about Sydney, in spite of herself.

 

[Patrick Sun]

BTW, loved the way Irina dispatched the 3 guys within 5 seconds in Bangkok, SpyMommy is one deadly woman.

I also wouldn't be surprised if Irina and Sark are conning Sloane as well. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" sort of mutual cooperation.

I did have my fill of the moist eyes moments in this episode, though, between Sydney and Irina.

The thing that confused me was when Will woke up, I thought FFrancie was still in bed, and then they cut to Will coming out of the bedroom, and Vaughn is sitting at the counter reading, and Vaughn tells Will that Sydney's gone to work, and that Franice left 20 minutes ago.

 

[Craig P]

Irina did not need to be locked up for x months just to get Jack's help to get a Rambaldi book for Sloane.

That was my first thought. Then I thought about it some more, and I realized that the work Irina did to bring down the Alliance had to be done from the inside, which could mean that this Rambaldi book was just a convenient opportunity to get extracted and take something of value with her. This is, incidentally, the first time she's been out and about since the Alliance went down.