Mark Watches ‘Alias’: S03E19 – Hourglass

In the nineteenth episode of the third season of Alias, the team tries to manipulate the manipulators. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Alias.

I’m still waiting for THE big confrontation between Vaughn and Lauren, and I am certain it’s going to hurt to watch. Throughout “Hourglass,” Vaughn is a portrait of contained anger. He is brimming with it, and at any given moment, he’s seconds away from letting it overflow. But he can’t. No, he’s got to play the dutiful, loving husband, and he’s got to do it in a way so that his wife doesn’t suspect that he has now turned on her. It’s incredible to watch, but it’s also frustrating. Obviously, I want him to cut ties with Lauren so that he and Sydney can finally go get that cup of coffee, but he can’t. AND IT HURTS. Watching him interact with her is unbearable, but it’s necessary.

So, aside from the unending tension that we get from this plot, “Hourglass” weaves in a number of longstanding plot arcs from past seasons, and it all combines to give us another breathless and shocking episode of Alias. This was like… finale-worthy, y’all. AND YET IT’S NOT THE FINALE. How? I’m frightened, y’all, there’s going to be so much more, isn’t there?

Let’s jump into the Passenger, then, before I talk about Arvin Sloane and Jack. Y’all, the answer was RIGHT THERE in front of me, but I never considered that Sloane and Irina had had a child. (Remember when I thought it implied that somehow, Sydney was Sloane’s child? EW, I’M SO GLAD THAT THEORY WAS PROVEN TO BE GARBAGE.) For some reason, Sydney’s half-sister is the Passenger, and she’s been protected since birth. But why? What is it about her that makes her so important to Rambaldi and Rambaldi’s followers? At this point, the mystery really only needs this one final piece, and I’m hoping it’ll give me some sort of closure. Why? Why all of this production? Why so many pieces of this nightmarish machine? Could all of this possibly be worth it for anyone?

Clearly, people think so. David Carradine’s character (whose name I can’t remember) devoted his life to protecting the passenger. So did that man in the mansion. (Was he monitoring her??? I didn’t comment on it in the review, but WOW, that gave me major LOST vibes.) She is apparently the final step in this whole Rambaldi plot, and she’s even the means by which we learn that Arvin Sloane did lie about the Telling. He got so much more than the word, “Peace.”

I suppose, then, that this confirms that Sloane really did change his focus after being a mega-villain in seasons one and two. Y’all… it’s very hard for me to rectify my image of this character with this reality. I still don’t trust him, and I will certainly roll my eyes at the notion that it took him having a daughter for him to give up being evil. He’s like those dudes who are like, “I was a huge misogynist until I had a daughter!” Like… that is what it took for you to care about other people? OKAY. NICE TRY, ARVIN SLOANE.

Yet… shit, y’all. He looked SO UPSET throughout this episode, and I don’t know if that was genuine grief and devastation, or if he was merely reacting to his impending death. WHICH WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT RIGHT NOW. Holy shit, I expected Jack to maybe pull everything back just to help Sydney with the Hourglass, and then Marcus was saying goodbye and they were strapping Arvin into that chair and HOW THE FUCK WAS ANY OF THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENING? And then he flatlined and I was in shock. I was so surprised by that plot twist that I just… stopped believing it happened. It was a trick, right? EXCEPT THERE WERE MULTIPLE WITNESSES. MULTIPLE PEOPLE WHO DEFINITELY WERE NOT IN ON SOME ULTERIOR PLAN ALL WATCHED HIM DIE.

I just have to appreciate this on two levels:

1. Jack just killed a second person, only to revive them after death, and I will never doubt the lengths that this motherfucker will go.
2. HE DID THIS IN THE SAME WAY THAT ARVIN SLOANE “POISONED” HIS WIFE, AND I DIDN’T EVEN NOTICE IT. Oh my god!!!!!!!!!! THE TERRIBLE POETRY OF IT ALL.

This is building up to something terrible, isn’t it? How long can the CIA keep their secret from Lauren? Her mother probably spoiled it, so what now? Will they continue trying to fool one another? Will this escalate even FURTHER than it already has? HELP ME.

The video for “Hourglass” can be downloaded here for $0.99.

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