Agent's Recap:
Though a few things in the episode were a little loose (such as Syd escaping from the ice cold Siberian water without any sign of hypothermia), I enjoyed it very much. I think that this episode signaled that Alias is really back. It was much strogner than the first three episodes of the season, and it certainly had all the elements: angst, comedy, action, etc.
Another thing that made this episode great is the fantastic acting from every cast member. I mean, it wasn't that hard for Merrin Dungey to do good acting because she says like, two lines, other than sitting there and eating some generic cereal called Raisin Crunchies with Syd.
For specifics, let's start with Lena Olin. Wow. Really. Wow. Lena Olin...she was, to put it mildly, completely and utterly amazing. I swear, at the end of the episode, when she's getting taken away, I was thisclose to crying. All three members of the Bristow clan were amazing. Lena, Victor, Jennifer...they have such a great chemistry with each other, as well as the rest of the cast members. Victor did a breathtaking performance. I could totally feel his frustration, and I think that the point of him setting Irina up was so the audience could hate him for awhile. And I really did. I hated him. I wished that he would just throw himself off a cliff for what he did. And that is the exact reason why Victor Garber is such a wonderful actor. Jennifer...well, you know. She does an amazing job each episode, and she only gets better each week. She radiates on the screen, and I love the way she handled the build-up of the trust in Irina, to the complete downfall. Beautiful work.
Moving on, Michael Vartan didn't do so bad himself, did he? I love the way Vaughn was trying to keep his cool while Syd was talking about Psycho!Mommy. You could just feel that he absolutely, 100% did not want to talk about Irina, but he did, for Sydney's sake. Another example of this would be later in the episode, when he runs to Irina's cell so he can get directions to get Sydney out of danger in Moscow. He dropped feelings of hatred, and faced her because Sydney was in trouble. I think that was a very courageous gesture, and I hope Sydney appreciated it. I also like the fact that JJ has finally decided back Vaughn's spine. The, "How do you say 'thank you' to the woman who killed your father?" was, in my opinion, much more harsh than her, "You look just like him," comment, and Vaughn kept calm and replied, "You don't," in a strong, firm voice. Wonderful.
Marshall was hilarious, as always! Oh, how I love his little quips. David Anders, once again, is the ultimate bad boy. He's awesome as Sark. Will...well, he's will. Props to the writers for naming a real site, though. But that SD-6 girl at the NA meeting was freakin' annoying, and she was trying to trick Will! Poor Will. You know, he's actually becoming tolerable. Likable, even.
All in all, the episode evens out to be perfection with rough edges. A few alterations in the episode here and there would have helped, but it was a fantastic episode, and the best one of the season so far.
Grade: A
Random Thoughts:
Was I the only one who was yelling, "No, Syd! She wasn't lying!"?
Another thing that was off? Sark punched Vaughn. Sark punched Vaughn. Is it just me, or does that just seem wrong? Of course, this was redeemed when Vaughn covered Syd when the house exploded.
Why, Jack, why? You lied to Sydney, you made her cry, and you almost made me cry. Now matter how bad Irina may be, it was so sad that she was getting taken away after she was set-up. She had actually been trying to help, and I thought it seemed genuine. It's just not right.
I loved the Syd/Jack hug, but there was a whole lot of anger on my part. This is because of the expression on Jack's face. It's a face of a guilty...kind of a guilty pleasure. Like he knew what he did was wrong, but he was totally fine with it. And that just made me all the more pissed off.
