Alias - 01/18/04
 

"Crossings"

A woman (Isabella Rossellini) asks Jack to assassinate Sloane in exchange for saving Sydney and Vaughn from a North Korean firing squad.

Cast: Jennifer Garner, Victor Garber, Ron Rifkin, Michael Vartan, Carl Lumbly, Kevin Weisman, David Anders , Greg Grunberg, Isabella Rossellini, Griffin Dunne, Byron Chung, Leo Lee, Arnold Vosloo, C.W. Pyun, Francois Chau, Emma Bering, Randall Park, John D. Kim.
Director(s): Ken Olin.
Producer(s): JJ Abrams, John Eisendrath, Ken Olin.
Writer(s): Josh Appelbaum, Andre Nemec.

the kiss at the end was weird.


Arena (sp?) deceives Jack
Syd deceives Sloan and SD-6
Vaugn's wife deceives him...


do the writers have issues with deceitful women?

This was another great episode and I was grinning from ear to ear after Irina's sister, Katya (Isabella Rossellini), skewered the Korean's hands when he initially denied her request, while Jack kicked ass in the background. I miss Lena Olin, but Rossellini did a great job as her sister and I enjoyed her little send-off to Jack at the end. Is she doing any more eps this season?

Lauren is still alive - I wonder how long this will last, or will she just go on the run back to the Covenant when she gets busted?

I loved it when Sark was being bitching about the ineffeciency of the Covenant to his handler and reminding him who is bankrolling the whole affair. He is such a good bad guy.

I liked Vaughn's tribute to MacGuyver when he and Sydney fired up the old army truck.

Isabella was cool.

Still have a problem with Lauren.

Don't they realize there'd be more drama if it was a "loved" character..? So they made Lauren a bad guy. Since I already hated her, it really didn't change my opinion of her..

Oh well. Perhaps there'll be another reboot during Feb sweeps..

:thumbsup: @ Arnold Vosloo (Sark's handler)

Hope he lasts for a few episodes... :)

As usual, Alias delivers the goods. :D

Isabella was and is totally believable and megacool as a member of that nutty family.

Katya, indeed :hump: (Loved the kiss at the end.)

Ditto on the cheer for Arnold Vosloo. He always adds a little something to anything he's in.

Maybe they should've made Marshall the assassin? :lol:

I love this show so much, it sends me into the week feeling happy. I sure how it stays on a few more years.

Sunday is simply the best night of tv, the only important night for hours at a time we even have anymore.

An early start with 60 minutes, the Simpsons (good one or not so good, no big deal), ALIAS (wow!), a break for some oxygen, food and the bathroom soon to be occupied by the Sopranos I think, followed by Sex and the City and Curb Your Enthusiasm.

It puts me in such a good mood, I don't mind having to go to work on Monday.

Is Isabella going to play a big part in this season? She was terrific as always and looking great as always. Since Jack can't kiss Sydney like that (which must suck), then that's not too shabby as second prize.

I will miss Alias while it's gone. As far as I know, no new episodes until mid february or so.

I liked that they put the Irina character indirectly back in the story. It makes you realize how many parties are going after more or less the same thing. CIA, Covenant, Sloane, Sark, Derevko family, Kendall's group...On the other hand what I don't like about American TV: According to a rumor I read, Lena Olin won't show up anymore (and therefore Irina Derevko won't show up anymore) because she wants too much money.

I find it a little interesting in how Alias has come full circle in some respect as it was a show about Sydney playing a double agent, having to figure out how to betray those she's come to be friendly with, and then we have Lauren doing the exact same thing, but from different organizations. So now, everytime Lauren shows up, you wondering how she'll get herself out of the sticky and precarious situation she's been in all this time (2 years). Now, it's Lauren who's doing the sneaky things that we applauded Sydney for doing and getting away with, and now we have to always see how Lauren will sabotage the CIA from within without getting caught or compromised.

While we get the intro to Katya as a no-nonsense, dangerous, but passionate player in the mix, the episode felt like it was just marking time because the iminent danger to Vaughn and Sydney never felt all that dangerous, which undermined the tension for me.

Is it me, or does Katya remind you of James Spader (on "The Practice" nowadays).

I did like the nod to MacGuyver from Vaughn's kickstarting the vehicle.

Jack: his attraction to Russian women is going to get him in plenty of trouble. :)

Hey, wasn't Sark's handler in "The Mummy"?

It was quite nice to see The Mummy as Sark's handler in this ep. Sark bitching about the use of his money was too funny. His character is great. Also, did we actually get to hear a glimmer of David Ander's real accent when they were in North Korea?

The scene in the restaurant with Katya and Jack was priceless. You can never forget that SpyDaddy will kick major a$$ all over the place.

I agree that the kiss with Vaughn and Sydney was a bit much. Of course Vaughn had no problem forgetting the whole thing once they get back to LA. I've never felt one way or another about Lauren as a character but for some reason Vaughn's just starting to annoy me.

As soon as I saw him, I remembered how John Hannah had been in the first season, playing the guy who had been programmed into a killer and had killed Syd's fiance.

Now all they need are cameos from Brendan Frasier and Rachel Weitz and they'll have the Mummy gang!

I was wondering the same thing and I just checked IMDB and it says he was born in Oregon in 1981. So it's probably a safe assumption that he was actually using his own accent. Damn, I can't believe the guy is only 22 years old.

I still can't believe Lauren is a straight-up bad guy, there must be something afoot with her. I swear I remember reading an interview with the actress before the season started where she said .

IR skewering the guys hands was great. Who does Lena Olin think she is? Also :thumbsup: to Syd for calling Vaughn a "jerk" and for punching Griffin Dunne.

Dixon: "The government's official position on Sydney and Vaughn is to disavow."
Jack blinks, then turns around and leaves.

Loved that...



Also, why do you suppose the sniper didn't just pick off Syd and Vaughn right there, before they even got on the plane?

So, no one else is seeing SpyMommy's sister as actually being SpyMommy? We've had body doubling once, why can't we have it again? It would be a good way to keep the character of SpyMommy on the show without having to pay Lena Olin the big bucks.

That's the first thing I thought after seeing that kiss, at least.

Well, Sloane seemed to recognize the voice of Katya on the phone, which might rule out Irina undergoing gene therapy or plastic surgery to become Katya. But this is Alias, so anything is pretty much possible.

I knew he looked familiar. I just couldn't place where I had seen him before.

Good episode as usual this week. I wonder if the Covenant defectant told Vaughn about Lauren.

Now that Irina's name is back in the mix I hope she returns to the screen soon. I miss her, she was/is such a good character.

Good episode. I too thought Sark's handler looked familar but couldnt remember where I had seen him before. Sark just has to be one of my favorite charactors on tv. Really, Alias is the only show I make sure I watch anymore.

come march, sunday night, might be the night for tv. since reportingly, Karen Sisco is coming back then on sunday nights at either 8 or 10. I know 10-8 is going on hiatas, and don't know about the practace. and also, curb and sex. come on at the same time as alias.

My only thought was they wanted to make it look like an accident. Of course, in reality the Covenant wouldn't care what the CIA thought, but that's another story. I think the real reason is if the sniper had shot Vaughn and Syd, they'd be, well, dead. And we can't have that. ;)

Perhaps there was only time to get off one sure shot, and that had to be Sark's dad. By the time he was shot, Syd had already gones into protective mode, which is a harder shot, plus the time element of having to escape from the rooftop made the window for more shootings problematic.

Maybe the Covenant want Syd to stay alive so she can witness her own impending death. It's their sadistic way of letting her know of her death by the Covenant. Of course, they didn't count on Syd and Vaughn being more resourceful and were able to land the plane.

Wait... You are talking about the shooting of the Russian guy. I think this discussion is why, since two shots were used to hit the pilot and copilot, couldn't two shots of the poison dart thingies have been used to just kill Syd and Vaughan right then?

Correct, we were talking about last night's episode, not the shooting of Lazaray last week.

I would hope the Covenant would assume Syd and/or Vaughn would be able to fly a plane, they are CIA superspies after all.