Now with added four hundred year old poetry...

Come live with me and be my Love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That hills and valleys, dale and field,
And all the craggy mountains yield.

There will we sit upon the rocks
And see the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.

There will I make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant posies,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroider'd all with leaves of myrtle.

A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty lambs we pull,
Fair lin�d slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold.

A belt of straw and ivy buds
With coral clasps and amber studs:
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me and be my Love.

Thy silver dishes for thy meat
As precious as the gods do eat,
Shall on an ivory table be
Prepared each day for thee and me.

The shepherd swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May-morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my Love.

-Christopher Marlowe's suspicious 'The passionate shepherd to his love'. I'm sorry, but if he wrote Shakespeare, I'm Joss Whedon.

If all the world and love were young,
And truth in every shepherd's tongue,
These pretty pleasures might me move
To live with thee and be thy love.

Time drives the flocks from field to fold
When rivers rage and rocks grow cold,
And Philomel becometh dumb;
The rest complains of cares to come.

The flowers do fade, and wanton fields
To wayward winter reckoning yields;
A honey tongue, a heart of gall,
Is fancy's spring, but sorrow's fall.

Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of roses,
Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies
Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten?
In folly ripe, in season rotten.

Thy belt of straw and ivy buds,
Thy coral clasps and amber studs,
All these in me no means can move
To come to thee and be thy love.

But could youth last and love still breed,
Had joys no date nor age no need,
Then these delights my mind might move
To live with thee and be thy love.

-Sir Walter Raleigh's withering rejoinder.

It's coming on christmas
They're cutting down trees
They're putting up reindeer
And singing songs of joy and peace
Oh I wish I had a river
I could skate away on
But it don't snow here
It stays pretty green
I'm going to make a lot of money
Then I'm going to quit this crazy scene
I wish I had a river
I could skate away on
I wish I had a river so long
I would teach my feet to fly
Oh I wish I had a river
I could skate away on
I made my baby cry

He tried hard to help me
You know, he put me at ease
And he loved me so naughty
Made me weak in the knees
Oh I wish I had a river
I could skate away on
I'm so hard to handle
I'm selfish and I'm sad
Now I've gone and lost the best baby
That I ever had
Oh I wish I had a river
I could skate away on
I wish I had a river so long
I would teach my feet to fly
Oh I wish I had a river
I made my baby say goodbye

-Joni Mitchell's lovely, painful 'River'. [Better played than read].

1.18- 'Masquerade'

Right, well I've probably already outlasted your patience with that little collection, but I never cared much for audience participation. I ought to disclaim right now that I find it hard to read 'Masquerade' as a word in any more than one way now, so if I start reviewing some West Coast American with a fixation with an androgynous sylph, it's entirely accidental. ;-)

These two episodes actually form a little mini-story all of their own, that of Hicks' and his relationship with Sydney. As a result, it's lucky that I've got the two together in one review, because there's the whole complex issue of an old relationship dealt with in shorthand in these two episodes, like a short story which could have been an epic. It pretty much works I think, although they could quite easily have expanded it, and hence our investment in Hicks' character, had they not been under obligation to tie the whole schematic up before the end Season madness. As it happens, it works beautifully as a parallel to the main story which is going on in backstage at a distance of twenty five years, that of Jack and Irina, and for which this surrogate story is a vessel for deeper contemplation of Jack's loss, bought to a sterlingly tragic if rather obvious end, (when I'm guessing plot-points ahead of time, it's an obvious twist.)

If the second episode resolves love, physical and emotional, into tragedy, the first episode is the necessary, slightly callow set-up, the Marlowe poem that inspires the Raleigh one. Incidentally, I love how versatile people were in the 16th century. Rambaldi, who's obviously based on Leonardo da Vinci. But also Raleigh who can scythe down an argument in poetry briefly and then head off back to the New World. Quite intoxicating. Then ducking forward a couple of hundred years we're in late 19th century Vienna, about to be rocked by the genuis of Mahler, but at the moment at a masked ball awaiting, Strauss', (J, I don't mind R) latest muzak.

-As soon as I see Sydney with her mask on, I almost inevitably flash to the misogynistic, compelling piece in Hamlet where he accuses women of having one face and painting themselves another. Leaving aside the sexism for the moment, it's a thought true of so much of humankind. We play the characters we think we're wanted to be, or the character of a person we used to be. But how often when we speak are we saying precisely, honestly what we believe and wish to share. Sometimes, certainly. Oftentimes, definitely not. And one of the paper-cut irritatingpleasures of watching the Sydney and Hicks develop is the way they're guarded to the point of wearing one of those big black hats and standing on Horseguard's Parade. Everything they say to each other is encoded; as sincere as they feel they need to be. It is only when Hicks asks a question resounding right at the frequency of Sydney's thoughts on her mother that she honestly explains to him that she is not ready to talk about that to him. Almost as if, with talking no longer possible, communication has to come by other means, (see the 'Hush' gadget Marshall concocts), they end up entwined, burying the past in the sudden explosive moment. But, harshly, also creating an indelible past that they must subsequently live with.

-The episode starts with a thematic mislead. There is no teaser. Abrams through his writers says, 'OK, I'll be straight with you. The story is...'. But then, in classic 'Alias' deceit style, the rest of the episode has implications nixed and complications overloaded. Whereas Buffy was the Queen of subversion of hackneyed motif, 'Alias' has the lock on the three-pronged twist. The reaction to the reaction's reaction. The dart of the dragonfly over the face of the pond on an April morning, so speedy and accurate that your eye loses its intricate path for a second.

-As Sydney climbs Mount Sebassio, we see what Raleigh and Marlowe's contemporaries in Italy were doing, as we get some music which either is or is related to Palestrina. I love the sacred polyphony, so exotic compared to the clumsy big block chords of English renaissance music. Because of its uniqueness, and diplomacy, there's an unmistakable hint of Italian mysticism and spirituality about it, snugly befitting the sight for Syd's sore eyes as she sees what the supposed Lucifer never clapped eyes upon in Rambaldi's estimation. We're reminded of the probing, philosophical centre of the show. -And in a good week for classical music, we get Strauss, (the fin de siecle equivalent of that weird outdated techno thing that goes under most of Dixon and co's peregrinations), playing under Vienna.

-In order to calibrate a good love story, one needs some estimation of parental figures in the mix, and here the plot-line is made classically complicated by revelations pertaining to Jack and coming from Sloane. The Jack/Syd stuff in this episode is really good. I enjoy Jack's steely pretence of not being affected by the revelations of his wife who played him so badly. Furthermore the scene where Sydney declares her hand, that she has made Devlin order her father to see a counsellor, is eloquently handled. The nuance whereby Jack is worried about how close Sydney could get to his grief: that in being weak in front of her he'd somehow bait [bate?!] her opprobrium, professional and familial, is lovely. As is the really truthful fact that Sydney, as perceptive as ever, has realised Jack is not ready or willing to open up to her, and her two-steps-ahead action in making Jack speak.

-Meanwhile, Sloane continues to be ultra-slimy. Where we place the sizzlingly delivered, perfect as perfect can be line 'It was my pleasure to fill in for you, when you were indisposed', while he's talking to Jack about the period he was in solitary confinement, and Sloane was entrusted with Sydney's care, is anyone's guess. Does Sloane have a dreadful jealousy of Jack's fatherhood of Sydney, (is his fatherhood indeed biological?). Do we perceive it as a kind of macho oneupmanship? 'While you drank yourself half to death, I raised your daughter. I believe you are an inadequate father'. Does Sloane really love Sydney enough to be stung more than professionally were she revealed as a double agent? And most interestingly of all, in an episode where Jack cautions Sydney about not letting Sloane do a favour for her, since he'll ask for Neptune in return, are we to surmise that Sloane's required recompense for his help in supervising Sydney in her childhood was somehow taken out on Jack in an unpleasant way? I love watching Sloane. I could watch Ron Rifkin just playing him sitting in his office all day.

Jack and Sydney meet again, Jack this time giving the 'Ouch!' of a line: "What's happening between us [increased trust and affection?], is temporary". You can't but consider such words nails on a chalkboard. Yet in the meanwhile, Jack goes to see a psychologist who, in terms of mere reading of people is his equal. She tells Jack she thinks he's 'a Master', giving nothing away, but appearing stumbling enough in his constructions to give them credence. While we see a rather one-tone, shut-down Jack in this episode, this as everything else is deepened and complexified as we head into...

1.19- 'The Snowman'

The snowman, someone who you invest all your hope in for a short period of time, and then melts away on a Spring breath. The seasonal lover, neglected for long Seasons only to be dressed up in a scarf every so often. Apparently fashioned out of material as cold as ice, but with a chirpy smile that betrays an intention of humanity. And hence, we have the classical form of drama in this episode. They're not all in one location, so lacking the classical unities but that's besides the point. I suddenly have a vision of a pitching meeting where someone says, 'What network TV is lacking is the Classical Unities. We aim to bring them back in our new show, 24.' Hmmm. Anyhow, we start this episode with sex and we end it with death, a kind of crazed romantic death. Alias isn't positioned in the right place to go into the realms of sadomasochistic relationships or anything, but there's an odd resonance by which the final fight and Hicks' death is consensual: Sydney decides she can't face Tuvalu, and so her paramour goes into the situation where he knows he may have to fight her. He went to his own death because Sydney couldn't come live with him and be his love.

The complexity of Sydney's decision not to leave though is complex and satisfing. A lot of times, at least in the early scenes dealing with the proposal, she's more like Joni Mitchell. She's just so tired of the entire raison d'etre of the show and hence her life: the constant scurrilous lies, the scrambling about to make dozens of people smile, that eventually the hope of a river she can skate away on, with her own Snowman, seems delicious. Yet it's unobtainable, because, as Raleigh realises, neither Tuvalu nore the English countryside are rural idylls. Raleigh uses the harshness of the Seasons and the physical elements to characterise what it is to live in a 'simple' life with someone; emotions amplified to Heathcliffian levels, and no escape valve in mindless ephemera. Sydney realises that despite feeling 'weak at the knees' during the little fling, so long after a lack of consummation they both devoutly wished for, there is little truth in this shepherd's tongue. Hicks, like Marlowe, doesn't quite realise the falseness he's peddling, (not 'pedalling', please). But what Sydney would miss would be the things that currently define her life, that give her arrow a point. Her friends at El Cadiz. Her 'temporary' relationship with her father. And her ongoing quest to find her the truth about her Mother.

And Vaughn. Though Vaughn's a little more complex in this episode, playing the anti-Hicks. The two are set up as obvious parallels, a device sealed when, expecting a return phone call, Syd instead merely gets 'Joey's pizza' as the call from Vaughn. While Vaughn has always symbolised, and comes to do so even more solidly in this episode, Sydney's fascination with the Game of spying, with its intricacies and deceits, with what a clever human mind can accomplish to baffle its rival, Hicks is the other side; the disillusioned veteran who knows for certain there's more to life. Bristow is too young for Hicks to win out yet- if he had, we'd be in Buffy season six already.

-Oh Jack, you're not as inhuman as we thought. Not that he was fooling anyone in the audience, I don't expect, but watch him looking at Irina Derevko and feeling sick at heart. The section where he calls him a fool is in that same pantheon of painful moments as Walsh's castigation of Giles in 'A New Man'. Whereas he shows herup very quickly, this plot-line has a lot longer to run. And meanwhile, Jack gives in and goes back to his psychiatrist's chair.

-What's with the ludicrous Brando impersonation? I have the Godfather undertones already thank you, I don't need some shadowy impostor to remind me.

-The way Sydney balks while giving just a touch of her fact away in the story she spins to the, (charming though underused in these episodes) Francie and Will, is again an example of how she tries to give an emotional truth when she can't give a factual one. But the conclusion that this continual prevarication almost kills her ratchets up the suspense in the, will she go Pacific, plot-line.

-Notice all the kitchen imagery in this episode. There's an interesting conversation going on somewhere in the midsts of the thrashing, clashing plot-lines about the domesticity of people, their creativity, and what goes on when we leave the comfort of a feeling of Home behind.

-And so, (a touch cartoonishly, since he appears to shed not one drop of blood from the wound), we end with the Snowman lying on the floor, killed by Sydney. To what extent is this a re-enactment of the Jac/Irina story from years earlier. The key to interpreting it is that, (in a more subtle version of the superlative 'I Only Have Eyes For You', there's a gender reversal- Sydney here is Jack, Hicks is Derevko. In this moder day shadow of the old history, Hicks loves Sydney, and tries to stop her from coming to their duel, but eventually accepts it and fights to win. Do we draw any conclusions from Hicks' motivations about just how evil and heartless Derevko really was? And seeing Sydney compared to her father, do we gain some sympathy from understanding what he went throught? For me, certainly, though at the end of this story, Jack kills Irina, whereas in real life, Irina paralysed Jack's life after faking her own death.

Complex and interesting stuff as ever.

Last three reviews coming soon, at least two tomorrow.

Thanks for reading.

TCH