Alias 03/02/03 - "A Dark Turn"
 

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

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

Spoilers below!

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

(Spoilers now removed)

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.

Good episode.

I figured that was coming since the super bowl ep and once Jack took out the tracking device I knew that was coming. That's one thing I didn't like, for someone who was so against Irina and said she wasn't trustworthy he sure caved pretty quickly and easily. I was waiting for Vaughn to come out with all this info on how she's working against them and have Jack and Syd's reactions at the same time.

One good thing about this is we should get Jack in :johnwoo: mode for the rest of the season.

The Francie and Will scenes were rather creepy, though any scene with Francie lately has been that way.

ARGH!!! Now we need to wait for not just 1, but 2 weeks for a new episode! Curse you J.J.!!! :) The only consolation is that next week they are replaying the Super Bowl episode, so at least it's a good episode. The rest of the season should be much more interesting. I'm glad to see that Irena is gonna (hopefully) get some more air time. She is definitely an underused character.

So what exactly did she accomplish by turning herself in? And anything that did work out favorably for her surely couldn't have been planned from the beginning, so why did she turn herself in in the first place?

I was thinking the same thing. I'm thinking she had this planned with Sloane from the beginning. While she was in there she helped bring down the Alliance as well as getting the Rimbaldi manuscript. So those were her obvious goals. I think they needed somebody within the CIA to do this and she was the perfect one out of the three to go inside with her ties to Jack and Syd. Then again I could be wrong and they couls explain it in the next episode:D

But like I said, these things worked in her favor, but I don't see how it could have been planned from the beginning. I felt the same way about Sloane's "plan" to bring down SD-6. All Sloane did that we know of is leave that message on the computer about Syd working for the CIA, and have Stark hint about the extra server that led Syd to taking them down. Hardly seems like a plan, more of a nudge in the right direction.

Although I'm really not complaning. Alias and 24 are two of my favorite new shows, and with so much going off the air this season (Buffy, Farscape, Oz), I'm really glad they both got renewed for a third season.

She couldn't have gotten the manuscript without turning her self in, IMO.

Anyhoo, big episode. We all knew Irina would turn evil again, and wham. I'm such a spoiler slut, so I knew what was going to happen before the episode ended, but still.

People were just total idiots this episode. So much betrayal, and everybody just fell for it. Jack was just a huge idiot. Damn, you, FakeFrancie. At least you just sort of stalked people before, but now you are actually helping out.

At least the product placements this week were more subtle. I noticed the nods to Lincoln and Nokia. Better than the Ford Focus show.

Yeah, that's what I was trying to say but didn't word it right. I think Irena's job was to get on the inside of the CIA and do what she could there since the CIA was the only group that could bring down the Alliance. Sloane did what he could on the outside to put events in motion.

I seriously hate the damn nokia ringtone with a passion!!

I have that ringtone. I don't know why I'm rather fond of it, but then again, nobody calls me. So that works out well. :o

I'm hoping there is a twist to the twist. With the scene between Irina and Sydney, I'm hoping Irina isn't all pure evil and stuff. I'd miss having her be all nice and stuff.

Dixon was once again absent. Sad. :(

Sydney's life sucks. I know Jennifer Garner is great at crying, but they never give Syd a break.

Her mom turns evil again, her dad's completely and totally screwed, her boyfriend's in serious government trouble, one of her best friends is an evil clone and the other is brainwashed.

Makes for great TV, though.

Everytime the CIA needed something to help destroy the Alliance, it was always Irina who gave them the crucial bit of intel that propelled the CIA through. Irina had to give herself up to be that close to the CIA, and be able to give them just enough to use them because destroying the Alliance was beneficial to both the CIA and Sloane/Sark/Irina. It was a diabolical plan. Great TV!

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.

<BLOCKQUOTE> • Quoth Patman •<HR SIZE=1>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.<HR SIZE=1></BLOCKQUOTE>

You have to be sensitive of the position poor Kendall is in, though. I mean, the entire CIA is only made up of 8 agents total. It must be a logistics nightmare.

das

Yeah, yeah, and why does Captain Kirk always beam down with the landing party. ;)

Great episode. Actually, all of the episodes since the Reboot have been pretty awesome. I was one of the show's biggest fans the first season, and I have to admit I was getting a little bored with the whole "spy/counterspy" SD-6 thing. So when the post-Super Bowl episode aired, my jaw hit the floor. I have been jacked ever since.

Every time we get to the point where it seems like, "well, that's it, we can't possibly go any further" the show seems to crank it up a notch. Can't wait to see what this new Rimbaldi device will do. One question about this episode -- Sloane knew which satelite to knock out (the one in Panama) via Will's hypnotic mind-f'ing. Whose idea was it to have the meet in Panama? I thought the location of the meeting was Jack's idea... was it Sloane via Sark's email that suggested it? Just wondering...

Great episode. Man I know Jack must be feeling like stir-fried sh*t right about now. He got totally played yet again. You've got to admire how Irina, Sloan, and Stark totally covered their tracks so all Vaughn's work yielded nothing. If/When they bring him up on charges the fact that he didn't predict her going AWOL is going to be a sticking point. And poor Will, I hope he is at least having the best sex of his life to makeup for the creepy hypnosis situation. 2 weeks until a new episode? Ugh!

My impression was that Will's not getting any action from fake Francie, but is just being hyptonized to think that he is. Ouch.

I did freak out when they showed him revealing everything to Francie in his dream.

I wonder who's really in charge... Irina or Sloane. That has the makings of a power struggle right there. And I think Irina does have genuine feelings for her daughter... you can look at her farewell speech to Sydney as her way of saying goodbye. Obviously Sloane has feelings for Sydney. Wonder how Jack's gonna react if the rumors are true, since he revealed that Sydney's really the only difference between him and Sloane and Irina...

You got to wonder why they didn't just replace Will instead of Francie, if that's who they are using for info.

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.

Yeah, I thought the same thing. I guess Will took a shower or something.

I thought the same thing, but then realized that Will had woken up when it was dark, and when he came out of the room it was morning. So I figured he woke up in the middle of the night and then went back to sleep.

But, it was an awkward cut.

Am I the only one who thinks that Jack may actually be working with Irina and playing us all? I mean the guy's brains took a backseat to whoopie, and that is very unlike him, regardless of how hot SpyMomski is. It's way too simple for her to be working with Sloane. I think she's going to bring him down either way.

Ultimately, the woman is looking after numero uno.

Didn't Rimbaldi predict that Irina would cause of the end of the world? Is this why Irina has been so obsessed with Rimbaldi? I was kind of sorry to see Irina con Jack (even though you knew it was coming), but this should really set up some great future episodes.

I agree there's more going on with that. Who knows, maybe Jack and Irina have an agreement and Irina really isn't on Sloane's side after all. You never can tell where people's loyalty lies in this show.

Somehow I can't see Jack (in the throes of lovemaking) asking Irina "Who's your daddy?" :D