In the fourteenth episode of the third season of Alias, LAUREN AND ARVIN ARE REAL FUCKED UP. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Alias.Â
HELP ME, THIS IS JUST SO FUCKED UP!!!
Arvin
Look, let me just start here because I just have to yell forever and ever. I CAN’T BELIEVE HOW MUCH THIS TWIST EXPLAINS TWO AND A HALF SEASONS WORTH OF HORRIFIC BEHAVIOR. This entire time, Arvin has been tormented by his betrayal of Jack Bristow, BUT HE ALSO ISN’T SURE WHETHER OR NOT HIM SLEEPING WITH IRINA MEANS HE IS
SYDNEY’S
ACTUAL
FATHER
I hate typing that I DESPERATELY DO NOT WANT THIS TO BE TRUE. I hate the idea that he has anything more to do with Sydney than he already does, but y’all. This is like the keystone of Arvin Sloane’s characterization. It’s the big thing I was missing this whole time, and I DIDN’T EVEN KNOW I WAS MISSING IT. And look, it’s hard to introduce shit like this in a serialized narrative and have it make sense. We’ve all watched shows, read books, or devoured comics that suddenly changed a part of the story that we had accepted as true or gotten used to. (Hell, I know of a few moments in other J.J. Abrams properties. I SHALL GLARE AT YOU, LOST.)
This reveal doesn’t make Sloane more sympathetic of a character. It doesn’t excuse his behavior. If anything, I feel worse about him. I trust him even less than I did, WHICH WAS NONE. IT WAS NONE AT ALL. So now I have negative trust for him? Something like that!
The point being: my gods, y’all, he is continuously the worst. I really, really hope this isn’t true, DON’T RUIN ME MORE THAN YOU ALREADY HAVE, ALIAS.
Duplicity
For the record, I did enjoy this episode, and from a character standpoint, “Blowback†does wonders to truly reveal Lauren Reed to the audience, to give us a better idea of what she’s been doing during season three. It’s like we’ve been given a rubric: How did she deceive the CIA and Vaughn all these months? What does she do when she’s away from home, when she isn’t with Vaughn, when she’s plotting with the Covenant?
With a slight nod to Rashomon, “Blowback†gives us a frustrating set of cat-and-mouse chases that demonstrate how Lauren is able to thwart her opponents, who make up all her coworkers and her husband. Of course, there’s an extra punch in the gut because we see how hard she’s playing into her competitive relationship with Sydney. YOU ARE LITERALLY CHEATING ON YOUR HUSBAND WITH HIS CURRENT #1 ENEMY. Yet Lauren is so good at maintaining this lie that she actually calls Vaughn while in bed with Sark. It’s truly evil, y’all. Well… actually there’s a far worse moment in this episode than that. Her execution of the man at the storage facility is downright demonic, and I don’t see her ever coming back from that. Granted, she’s done a lot of awful things prior to this, but that showed how willing she was to be completely cruel without any remorse. And for what?
That is the one part of this that’s been left out, though. Why? Why is Lauren so committed to the Covenant? Why was she willing to go under deep cover to such extreme lengths? She is literally undermining Vaughn and then, hours later, comforting him over his failure even though she’s responsible for it!!! That is cold. And she’s got to have a motivation for it! I imagine we won’t get that until Vaughn discovers the truth about who he is married to. I honestly thought it was going to happen in this episode! Regardless: she’s on borrowed time. I’M FREAKING OUT.
The video for “Blowback†can be downloaded here for $0.99.
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