"A Free Agent"

[rj_anderson]

I meant to post about this days ago, but it's been one of those weeks...

ALIAS was terrific last Sunday. I'm so glad to see that my treacherous fears about the show being dumbed down or turning into "The Syd & Vaughn Twoo Wuv 4 Eva" hour were misplaced.

Lots of good things have already been said in various forums about the twisty plot, snappy dialogue, great use of the ensemble cast, fabulous performance by Carl Lumbly, etc., and I agree heartily with all of them. So I'll just make a few silly comments and mild criticisms instead:

That ugly blue suit made ArmsDealer!Vaughn look like he was channelling Brad Pitt's character in Ocean's Eleven. So much so, in fact, that I kept wondering why he wasn't eating something in all his scenes... Now that would have been funny.

Marshall holding court with the CIA geeks -- too funny. And just perfect. Trust Marshall to land on his feet.

That line of Jack's about Kendall -- classic. But interestingly, it suggests that Jack has completely abandoned his previous attempt to keep Sydney away from Irina. And judging by Irina's offhand comment to Sydney about her success in bringing down SD-6, it sounds like SpyDaddy's been hanging around with SpyMommy rather a lot himself. Hmmm...

OK, when Jack went to look up the dead tech guy, was I the only one wondering what had happened to Jack's sense of smell? I mean, as soon as he entered that darkened room and I realized where he must be, my first thought was "Eww! The stench!" I'm really surprised the writers didn't put in a line about it, or at least have Jack make a face, or something. By rights he should have been able to follow his nose straight to the tech guy's corpse.

Oh. My. Word. That bald wig of Sloane's was so fake. You could see the line right across his forehead. I protested aloud that he looked like he needed a red rubber nose and extra-big shoes to go with it, and Keith (our friend and self-described Basement Troll) quipped, "Hey Sloane, do you do balloon animals?" Hee.

I hate to be in the minority (*waits while everybody who knows her falls down laughing and clutching their sides*) but personally, I liked and enjoyed Christian Slater's guest role in this ep a lot better than I did Ethan Hawke's appearance last week. For one thing, he didn't take over the whole show like Ethan's character did; and for another, Slater makes a surprisingly convincing (to me, anyway) math geek. Or maybe I've just got a weakness for floppy hair and glasses. WhatEVER. :)

And finally, the return of the cliffhangers! Yay! I missed them so...

Very much looking forward to the new ep in two weeks.

Comments

Ewww!

[avarill.livejournal.com]

I'm dreadfully late on this - but about Jack's sense of smell ...!! I was thinking the *exact* same thing watching that scene. Maybe the episode with Geiger affected Spydaddy's super spysenses. Remember back in Passage 1 and 2 he was able to telepathically sense ambushes before they happened?

Re: Ewww!

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

Super spysenses! I love it! *hoots with mirth*