Trying to keep my mind off America, so 'Alias' reviews come a bit early today. Also, don't have much to recommend 'The Passage, Part Two', and want to get my dislike out the way nice and quickly.

2.9- 'The Passage, Part Two'

This is the worst Alias episode I've ever seen. I'm sure it had intentions of doing something interesting or new, but it turns out that the plot-line for this two parter is mostly used up in the first half, and so this is desperately, desperately thin on interest. Pedestrian plotting, characters not even managing to say much interesting while they're pointlessly complicatedly flitting around India and Kashmir.

So what can be salvaged from the wreck?

-The toaster scene was interesting. I liked the fact that Jack didn't immediately back off on the recounting of the story between him and his wife. It would have been easy enough for the plotters to have him barring Irina from telling the story altogether. As it runs, it adds an element more humanity to Jack, which always helps in my opinion. I personally had some problem believing they could look back on a later soured marriage with such nostalgia and camaraderie, but I have a suspicion that this is because I had a hundred fantasies of such moments between my parents when I was young, and slowly learnt to dismiss them as naive.

-More TouchyFeelyJack, as we learn that he 'always brags about' Sydney from the Indian colleague.

-Even more, when he admits his vulnerabilities and his blind spot concerning Irina, and admits to Sydney that 'I needed to hear it', the it being that Irina could be trusted on this issue.

-Meanwhile, Sloane cleverly circumvents the threats by showing trust in the Alliance as he tells them of his bullying by his wife's captors. And Marshall makes a device that goes wrong.

-A lot of the comments on the back of my envelope this time have question marks after them, which mean bafflement, usually. Here I've got 'Vaughn?'. What was the resonance of him swooping in to Kashmir, if any? It just seemed like a convenient plot device. 'A flower?'. Thoughts, as always, of Keat's urn here, the eternal flowering of the bud, but never to decay. But how's that supposed to fit the story? And 'Vaughn's Offer?' Are the tickets for mini-golf he doesn't join in, or something else? It was all frankly baffling. At one moment, Sydney looks on at the apparent, (but obviously false, hence the Twist doesn't work), betrayal of her father by Irina. She looked so uncomprehending, I thought for a moment that the screen had caught my glazed over reflection.

Least said, soonest mended.

2.10- 'The Abduction'

As Giles might say, I suppose the words 'A much better episode' are a tad redundant at this juncture. This isn't statospheric, but it kept me thinking, for which it deserves at least an average amount of credit.

For example, we start on that rather lovely shot of Irina watching the fly in her Lecterian cave. This aspect of the predator adds a nice touch of foreboding to the episode in which she otherwise seems to be on best behaviour- making concessions to Jack and even hugging Sydney.

-More Will/Vaughn stuff in this episode. Am I the only person for whom this unremarkable friendship means a lot? It also acts as a kind of canvas for suggesting all manner of ideas for the murky Sloane/Jack relationship, so crossy and doublecrossy. Here, Will manages to get within a mouse's tail of becoming a fullypaid up member of the CIA. I'm not really anxious about him going into the secret service or otherwise, I'd just like him to salvage some self-respect after his life was wrecked through no fault of his own besides curiosity.

-The Francie issue is paid off and resolved nicely here. We get Will bringing it up, Sydney explaining how she has come to see deceit as a kind of love, (sad, but since sincerity has caused her so much pain, true), and then the surprise party at the end which means that Francie's doubts are temporarily allayed. It has to be said that with the double-whammy of a surprise party and secret ops to keep from her, she is more likely to notice their sneakiness. The rest of the time, Will and Syd must go by the maxim that even Superman and Batman sometimes want to talk about angling.

-Teeteringly simplistic revelation as Irina claims to Syd 'I was a fool to think that any ideology could live up to my daughter'. Hmmm. Well, the right ideology ought to incorporate your love for your daughter, and you're well clever enough to appreciate this. I don't trust this still, insidious predator as far as I can ogle her.

-Talking of which: how come the show's suddenly become a walking Oedipus complex for me? All these incredibly beautiful older women keep showing up. This week, Faye Dunaway, who is absolutely mesmeric as Bonnie in one of the first great counterculture films. I looked it up, and it turns out she was 61 when she filmed this episode. Grief. Her scenes with Jack fizzle really nicely, partly because she's a great actress, and partly because the whole 'game theory' conceit, the idea that Jack has nothing to gain from a game where his opponent is aware of his strategy in deceiving her for his own ends, is nice. It's quite a complicated idea that the reason Jack should tell the truth is that in doing so he gives the impression of truthfulness for the games in which his strategy of deceit then becomes harder to elicit, and someone's obviously been thinking carefully. Unfortunately, the resolution later where Jack's answers are 'too perfect' doesn't fit into this idea at all. It would have been more satisfying and coherent to go with the psychological verity that 'They're all afraid of you. Except Jack Bristow.' And leave it at that.

-Marshall asks for photos from Paris, but later in the episode gets to go on his own mission. This was largely well handled, without giving any great roundedness to Marshall's character, (I don't expect him to be a great physical specimen of spyliness, but something instead of sci-fi paranoia and immaturity would have been nice). It's fun as long as you don't take it too seriously, and I shall be interested to see what the next few episodes do for him, as he is tortured.

-Lengthiest. Teaser. Ever. Clocking in at 17 minutes. You may as well dispense with the, (in any case dull) title sequence if you have to push it that far back.

-I liked the multiple choice question Will gives as an example, since it seems chock-full of foreshadowing as to a situation Sydney's bound to get into at some point in the future. There'll be some point at which she'll have to at least metaphorically kill her father's mother's or own best interests.

-We were both disillusioned with the American government, claims Jack Bristow, which again raises questions about the nature of his double agentness. Just who planted Jack inside SD-6?

-Thank God for the British anti-gun laws. A very stern, slightly less amused than intended-by-writers, hear, hear.

And then finally we get the moment where we see Syd looking at the same situation she was in at the time of the pilot, about to be taken to CIA to be told that Sloane isn't Santa Claus after all. It's a little heavy-handed, but Marshall's I've never been prouder to be one of the good guys almost had me.

I don't think it's happened yet. It hasn't happened yet, has it?

TCH