4.7- 'Detente'

They're really going with the French-sounding episode titles this year. This was a very fun episode, and managed to put forward quite a few interesting character revelations. Its greatest achievement might be that, written by new producers and women Schapher and Breen, this manages to be the first genuinely feminist Alias in living memory. Not only do we have Syd and Nadia considered as the best women for the original job, we also get the apparent trophy wife turning out to be another empowered agent. And whilst Syd and Nadia make complicated and right decisions during their mission, this doesn't mean they don't have fun showing how their intuition can be put into practice. If I had a daughter, I would be very wary indeed of showing her 'Phase One', but I'd be delighted to show her 'Detente'.

Also, this episode seemed to print out the list of things I wanted more of, and cross them off one by one. More Dixon, check. More Sloane, check. More use of the Nadia/Sydney relationship, check. All it needed was a cricket match rather than a football match and I'd be suspicious.

-Irkutsk. Sometimes when I play Risk, I ignore tactical advantage and just keep Irkutsk, for I love the name so.

-Sydney returns to Nadia disconcertingly Home ASloane. This is precisely the kind of situation that I felt was such ballast for the Season Four balloon, and which has been almost contrarily avoided until this episode. For here, one cannot begrudge Nadia, (or even Sloane), in their desire to work each other out personally in Sydney's absence. Similarly, one cannot but sympathise with Syd for her reluctance to have El Weaselos Diablos in her front room, supping 'n' sipping. The delight here is that Nadia and Sydney manage to work out their issues with each other's rights calmly and sensibly, rather than having a dramatic stand-off just to raise the drama a few notches.

-Marshall's not really developing as a character this Season- they've turned him back into the stock Joke Character, which is absolutely fine if a bit unambitious. But counting the comedy lines, I rated three good ones here- "It's a really depressing take on progress", the eternal nuclear bomb as ultimate human achievement paradox- "It's my current life dream"- a good delineation of Weiss and Marshall, and- "Will you marry me Mr Bristow?"- a interesting ad-lib that takes on an odd, quirky resonance when thinking about Irina.

-'I don't put it away or compartmentalise it. I transmute it.' Carl Lumbly just has this massive great face, and each of the panels of it seems to almost gleam with dignity whenever he launches into one of these speeches that the Alias writers are sometimes giving him. I would quite have liked to see him do the second mission with Vaughn, for a change, but I understand the plotting of Nadia and Syd being used. Here, the conversation about Diane is quite resonant- you ask yourself about how the dead person, if they were to return, would remember you, and you deepest fear is that their prime memory would be how you failed to save them. Of course, Diane would more likely remember Dixon as a brave man. All of which brings up the interesting question of his continuing single parenthood, which was rather eloquently considered in one of the best episodes of late last Season, where the children were kidnapped. I'd like to see another real character study episode on Dixon, as opposed to his moments of wisdom, but if I keep getting scenes as good as the ones in the last two episodes, I shan't be too disappointed.

-The question remains as to just how Nadia does know so much about football, though I suppose the point is that with her South American origin she is likely to be a fan of the real football game. (Though, completely off-topic, the New England Patriots' Super Bowl victory, giving a historic cross-sport double to Boston, was an excellent game).

-You can only gleefully delight in Syd and Nadia's complete dissection of the Slovak's wife by the items left in her room. I could be completely wrong here, of course, but when was the last time a woman wrote an Alias episode, has there even been an episode by a woman before? It's certainly an unusual occurence.

-Jack's delightful admission of the week- 'The nuance of Fatherhood may elude me, but..'. You got it, stone-face. He does go on to give Sloane some good advice.

-A lovely moment of sorority is where the two share air whilst diving. The whole scene is rather redolent of Sydney going into the harbour in 'Q + A', and thereby working out that her mother is not dead- and obviously Irina is the link that binds Nadia and Sydney together, so the texture is spot on.

-There's a really big, gaping plot-hole in the third act here- which is that if Sloane wanted someone he could have trust him, it would surely be significantly more logical to call on his daughter than on Sydney to do the deal, while Syd, presumably considered the superior agent, could do the spy action fun of taking care of all the other people on the boat. Perhaps there's a suggestion that Sloane doesn't want Nadia to hear him speaking like this, and so sacrifices his relationship with Sydney in order to maintain the one with Nadia, but I don't really buy it.

-And so Syd does what she needs to do with the man, but then shores up her case by giving a withering summary of Sloane's inhumanity to men: 'Sloane didn't show enough mercy to kill him'. It works rather as Vaughn's monologue in 'Ice' did, both achieving the necessary result for the operation and serving a wider emotional purpose. I like these double speeches- suggesting the double life and double agent duality used so strongly in Season One, and relevant again in a Season that is all about the interesting twonesses- Nadia and Syd as the two sisters- Weiss and Vaughn as the two boy-friends, Sloane and Jack as the two ambiguous father figures, Angels and Devils, intention and action, facade and underbelly.

-I liked the thoughts on Nadia's aloneness, and the fact that she had no ties to the world as a considered strength of hers- that she couldn't be threatened through family or friends or offspring. What Sydney makes her doubt is that paradigm- because Sydney manages, in Dixon's word, to transmute inner strength from outer relationships, and is buffered by her family and friends against times of difficulty. A Spy!Family. That sure as hell wasn't in the guide book.

-Nice to see a closure of the episode that isn't jarringly on Vaughn and Syd for once. The Syd/Sloane scene here is the directly relevant one. Sloane was playing a particularly dangerous game if her was gambling that Syd's relationship with Nadia would be the one that would keep her working in APO, and given his pre-emption of Syd's decision, only to be told that she is staying, despite her misgivings about him and her inability to forgive him for what he did to Francie and Danny, suggest that he actually had a plan if Syd were to leave. But also, considering his face after she tells him she will be in tomorrow, he is most satisfied with the unexpected bonus he has accrued.

So an episode that manipulated me by doing all the things I most wanted- but did them pretty well and enjoyably.