ALIAS - Reprisal

Yeah, I split it up...deal with it.

So the beginning of the last episodes of Alias...ever...starts with the heartwarming reminiscent scenes taking you back through the life of Sydney Bristow asking, "don't you want to see how it ends?" After seeing it, I can firmly say...nope. Didn't really want to. Thanks JJ...taking a moment to be completely serious...I respect you and your amazing abilities, but this bastardization of a great show was unforgivable. So...

We start with a Sydney monologue with a backdrop of Prophet 5. This is my first issue. Am I really supposed to get all emotional over Prophet 5, a storyline shoved down my throat only nine months ago?? Nope. And they could have even done some deep metaphorical comparison to how P5 represents the entire world of organized crime, but they don't even go that far. All we get is some stupid "I've lived with secrets" crap. Do you really? YOU'RE A SPY for cryin' out loud. And that's even made ridiculous by the fact that she doesn't even give up the spy trade at the end.

I did enjoy the missions across the world, particularly Sydney in Sydney...clever. And I love when Marshall goes on missions. What I also love is that months after JG had the baby, in a world of personal trainers and chefs where celebrities drop weight at unGodly rates, she's still chubby. Nice to see that some of them are human. I digress...real quick about world missions, how stupid is Sydney? Sure it made for a real cool stunt, but like Sydney Bristow would have really left the chick she just knocked out naked in the kitchen for someone to find.

As much as Irina's character went completely off the map at the end (I've talked about it before and I will again later), after much thought, I'm gonna go ahead and say that I think Sark stayed alright. I assume some actual thought went into that because if there's a spinoff it will most likely be Sark-centric. I want to talk about this more in the second half, but I bring it up here because of one thing he said, and that was, "you're like me, you have excellent self-preservational instincts." And I think, as a whole, that pretty much wraps Sark up. He says a couple more things later on, but I'll get there in 'All The Time In The World."

So remember that time when Tom died and Rachel was sad?? Was anyone else? Nope. I sure wasn't. Again, who the hell cares about Tom. No one. And he didn't even die heroically. He could have gotten out, he just chose to sit there. So he committed suicide and we closed the book on the most pointless storyline on Alias. You could have killed him the second Vartan signed on again and we would have all been just fine.

I absolutely loved that Marshall stood his ground with Sloane when he was captured. It was lovely seeing Marshall talk about something other than techie crap, and gave KW a chance to act his ass off. (Which he did) He and Sloane played so well off each other and, as usual, RR used it to unveil layers in his character too. Not that he ever had any trouble with that. Nadia's useless appearance put a damper on things though. I always wonder how those conversations go in the writing room. Like, 'hey, lets have Nadia be Sloane's conscience! Great idea! So...lunch??'

As far as mythology goes...I'm conflicted about this Mt. Subasio thing. I always appreciate a good callback, but is hinging the entire basis of the show's mythology on it a good thing or a bad thing? The whole reason Sydney and the entire US Government, namely the DSR, doesn't or didn't, think that she was the Chosen One, was because she went to Mt. Subasio. Now, it turns out that she didn't actually go to where Rambaldi meant by "behind". So what I'm taking from this is that all thoughts that she might not be the Chosen One are gone...but with the Covenant Rambaldi baby and the Sloane obsession and the giant red ball and the fight in Savogda...is there really anyone who hasn't been assuming since season two that yeah, she's the damn Chosen One? Stop beating us over the head with it already.

So I'll end Part I backing up to what I can safely call the asshole statement of the century, solidified not only by what was said, but by WHO said it. Jack Bristow, you've got to be kidding me. "Part of me wanted to believe that he was still the friend I trusted with my daughter all those years ago. Clearly I was wrong." YA THINK?