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Alias
Legacy
original air-date: 05-02-04
Be
Kind. Rewind:
Sark and Lauren tortured Vaughn, Vaughn’s dad was
a follower of Rambaldi, and Sloane took Syd’s sister
and started drugging her so that she’d deliver Rambadli’s
ultimate message.
If "Legacy"
taught me one thing, it’s this: be careful what you
wish for. For the last few weeks, I’ve been complaining
that Vaughn needs to let some of his anger regarding the
whole Lauren situation out there in the open. Well, thank
the TV gods, he finally did. But, one has to wonder if this
little wish of mine came with a price, such as overall quality
of the other parts of the episode.
Don’t
get me wrong; overall I liked this episode. However, there
were certain aspects of it that really didn’t work
and basically just made me cringe… namely the whole
Jack and Katya thing, but we’ll get to that later.
First
of all, Vaughn finally letting out some of that frustration
was a fairly good thing. His bitching that the CIA wasn’t
doing enough at the beginning of the episode was annoying,
but it eventually got better. Vaughn teeters between letting
the CIA handle the capture of Lauren through the proper
channels and taking matters into his own hands.
This
is expected; Vaughn is a good guy after all and he is bound
to have some moral reservations about simply trying to exact
his own revenge. The instances where he and Sydney have
their little chats about what’s going on are pretty
bland. Vaughn says that his anger scares him, but what he
really needs to do is tell Sydney that after everything
he’s been through he deserves to be a little pissed
off.
Besides,
it’s not like Spy Girl hasn’t been there. Of
all people, she should understand the desire to get back
at someone and lay off on the whole “doing what’s
right” thing a bit. Besides, Mr. Sit and Spin scientist
had that whole acid getting poured on him deal coming to
him and seeing Vaughn, someone who this guy hadn’t
even done anything to, be the one pouring it all over him
was extremely satisfying because it just proves that Vaughn
has finally lost it, the way he should have weeks ago.
But if we really want to talk about someone
who truly understands what Vaughn is going through, then
let’s talk about Jack. Realizing that Vaughn’s
rage is so much more powerful than anyone else can comprehend,
Jack gives Vaughn the key to his storage facility where
all his toys of revenge and destruction are kept so he can
“get some closure.” Jack gets it, even if Vaughn
doesn’t at first and it is so very great to see an
extremely pissed off Boy Scout in the hanger holding a rifle
at the end of the episode. Next time he sees Lauren, he’ll
be prepared.
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Learning
some more about Nadia was satisfying. So far, it seems that
she is simply an innocent victim of circumstances beyond
her control, but on this show, we all know that that can
change rather quickly. Whether or not she is bound to fight
and kill Sydney, like Vaughn said in the last episode remains
to be seen. But, it sure is interesting that this little
tidbit that seemed so important in the last episode wasn’t
even mentioned this week.
Whatever this message of Rambaldi’s
is, it’s important enough for almost everyone to be
involved with it in some way or another. However, Sloane
wasn’t willing to make the ultimate sacrifice, possibly
killing his daughter, to learn this precious secret. The
writers are always doing this with Sloane, throwing in something
endearing like this about his character to make us not hate
him so much, but it really doesn’t track and he’ll
most likely do something in the season finale that will
reaffirm viewers’ belief that he’s a bastard.
It’s happened too many times before for me to think
otherwise and though the writers do it to try to show us
that no character is ever truly good or evil, this ping-pong
with Sloane’s nature is just a little less than believable
at times.
Now Jack, there is a guy whose emotions
are believable. We know that he’s a son of a bitch,
but we also know that the same passion that fuels his anger
also makes him fiercely protective of the things that he
cares about, such as Sydney. This might make Jack seem predictable
in some respects, but really you never know what he’s
going to do, like mack it with his ex-wife’s sister.
This
part of the plot made me wish, more than ever before, that
Lena Olin were still around. Olin and Garber had chemistry,
something that cannot be said when he’s acting with
Rossellini. The relationship between the two of them is
odd to begin with, considering she works for the Russians
and is Sydney’s aunt, and for the life of me I can’t
understand why the writers felt the need to put in the lines,
“I find you sexy, Jack. Deal with it.” It was
just bad writing and a terrible attempt at seduction on
the part of Rossellini.
One
would think that after a disaster like that, Jack would
stay as far away from her as possible. Yet, at the end of
the episode he’s at her door kissing her. To borrow
a line from Jennifer Garner’s new movie 13 Going
On 30, all I can say about that is “Ew, gross.”
Hopefully, Jack is using her in some way, because this whole
thing is painful to watch and a needless plot point if it
doesn’t led to something.
Besides
that whole terribly frightening aspect, "Legacy"
was a good episode that leads up to what looks to be an
interesting end to the season. Now, all we have to do is
wait a whole three weeks for the finale.
Why
are you punishing us ABC? Why?
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