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Alias
Truth Takes Time
original air-date: 03-16-03
Be
kind. Rewind: During the last episode Vaughn was being
investigated for his unauthorized investigation into Irina's
past, a hypnotized Will gave Evil Francie satellite information
that sabotaged Jack's mission, and Spy Mommy herself embraced
the dark side when she joined forces with Sloane and handed
over part of the Rambaldi manuscript.
The previews
for this week's episode warned us all not to miss the first
90 seconds of the show, implying that something important
would take place in this time span. And they were right. Something
important did happen. A cheap storytelling trick was used
to get the viewer hooked for the next 58 minutes.
The opening
had Sydney and Irina chasing after each other through a tunnel.
They exchanged gunfire, and as Irina climbed to her escape,
Syd shot her.
Now here's
the trick. Just as Irina hits the dirt, the camera cuts to
Syd's face. We watch her climb out of the tunnel and then
see her stare mournfully at someone lying on the ground. She
bursts into tears and kneels down next to this person. And
then…we're all in Los Angeles five days earlier!
Obviously
this was done to build the suspense, to make you wonder is
Irina Derevko really dead? But this technique felt cheap and
clichéd because as any Alias fan knows, nothing
on this show is what it seems. With that as a given, most
everyone watching knew that the person Sydney was crying over
wasn't her mother. But, of course, we just had to find out
who it was now that they showed us the ending.
So, we
backtrack. Syd found out her mom betrayed them all, Vaughn
got the CIA's equivalent of a slap on the wrist for his little
"investigation" into Derevko, and Kendall was pissed
when Jack was given control of the mission to bring in the
Terrible Trio (Irina, Sark, and Sloane). It's easy to see
how this would frustrate Kendall.
So Jack
extracted the tracer that Marshall implanted in Irina's shoulder
and then injected her with an undetectable honing device of
his own. BIG DEAL. Despite the fact that he had the presence
of mind to do this, he still let her get away and this does
not warrant any congratulations if you ask me. And just when
did Jack inject her? It's implied that it was done while the
ex-husband and wife were making out in the last episode, but
wouldn't she have noticed?
Of course,
this would all make perfect sense if Spy Mommy and Daddy were
really working together to bring down Sloane without anyone
else's knowledge. Plus, the usually skeptical Jack saying
that Irina wanted to save Sydney's life when she lead Spy
Girl and her boyfriend (whose ass kicking courtesy of Sark
was the funniest part of the entire episode) out of the building
before the bomb went off, just tells us all that he knows
something we don't know. As if this is anything new.
Anyone
want to place bets on what that tie Evil Francie gave Vaughn
really is? A tracking device seems to be the most obvious
answer, but it may be something far more sinister (perhaps
a genetic poison like the one Marshall was talking about).
Any guesses?
The Emily-Sloane
stuff was supposed to be all warm and fuzzy, making us all
believe that Arvin actually has a heart somewhere inside that
chest of his, but this fan isn't buying it. Some will argue
that he was willing to give up his Rambaldi obsession for
his now cancer-free wife, but old habits die hard. Sloane
would have found a way to keep both of them if things had
turned out differently.
Which
brings us back to the beginning (or ending, whatever). Now,
since we were all good little boys and girls and waited patiently
to find out what happened, we got to see that our suspicions
were right on target. It was not Irina that Sydney was crying
over, but poor Emily, who was accidentally shot by Dixon while
attempting to take out Sloane (who ended up escaping with
Irina and Sark).
Now, it
seemed that Mrs. Sloane truly loved her husband, but whether
or not he loved her just as much is still unclear. Yes, it
looked like she was dead (looks can be deceiving, as we learned
the last time Emily turned up "dead"), but if he
really cared for her you'd think that he would have stayed
with her instead of hopping in that helicopter. So his life
was in danger…so, what? He said that he had no life without
his wife, but in the end his actions said the exact opposite.
Ron Rifkin, who's usually wonderful at playing the man we
all love to hate, just didn't seem up to snuff in this episode,
making it hard to believe that all Sloane really cared about
in this world was Emily.
In the
last few minutes, we see Syd and Vaughn lying in bed together.
They hear a beeping somewhere in the room. They discover that
it's being emitted by the earrings that Mommy Dearest wanted
Sydney to have. Being the smarty pants that they are, the
twosome figures out that the beeping is actually Morse code,
and the message that it spells out reads "Truth Takes
Time," which is the title and main message of this episode.
We can't
expect mind-blowing revelations every week, so we have to
settle for decent (despite some cheesy plot devices) installments
that keep the story moving forward. Even if it wasn't as exciting
as the previews made it out to be, "Truth Takes Time"
did what it was suppose to do; it let everyone know that there
are bigger, and hopefully better, things to come.
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