Mark Watches ‘Alias’: S01E15 – Page 47

In the fifteenth episode of the first season of Alias, you are all evil, and you all orchestrated this. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Alias. 

Why? Why are y’all doing this to me? DON’T I MEAN ANYTHING TO YOU?

Francie

Well, it’s official; Charlie is probably gone. It’s possible that he may come back into the narrative, but “Page 47” definitively shows us that Francie has broken things off with her fiancé. I cant believe it took until this episode for me to realize that BOTH FRANCIE AND SYDNEY LOST THEIR FIANCÉS. It was right there! It’s in the goddamn opening credits! Oh gods, it was just so sad, y’all, to see how both of these women had their lives upset by the actions of others. Granted, Sydney’s case is a little extreme, but the writers brilliantly pair these two to provide one another some comfort. I absolutely loved that scene where they both removed their engagement rings. In it, they get to bond over something traumatic, and it helped them grow closer. WHICH WAS GREAT TO SEE AFTER THEIR CONFRONTATION IN “The Coup.”

I have a lot of feelings about Francie. And I’m glad that of her and Charlie, she’s the one to stick around.

Will

I feel like the show is quietly giving us a parallel between Will and Sydney, in the sense that both of them with a moral predicament that involves risky behavior. Will’s experience investigating SD-6 has tumultuous at best, but here, Jack is forced to escalate matters when Sloane discovers that Will’s been visiting McNeil in prison. That escalation is also Jack’s attempt to stop Sloane from having Will assassinated. So, Will experiences the physical cost of this act. He’s beat up, and Jack threatens his friends and family. Is he like Sydney? Does he accept that the threat is real and go along with what’s asked of him? This is the first time that he does, because up to this point, he’d pursued what he thought was right. But what if that pursuit endangered other people? Was it worth it? It’s not like Will hadn’t had to answer that question before. He was worried that his initial investigation of Danny would hurt Sydney, and then he became convinced that McNeil’s daughter was at risk.

In the end, he chooses to drop the story. (And Jenny, which was SO FRUSTRATING TO WATCH. Will did not treat her well at ALL.) Does that make him a coward or unlike Sydney?

No, I wouldn’t say so. Sydney has lines she doesn’t want to cross, and we’ve also seen her act to save her friends and family, even if there’s a big-picture problem that she could solve. I don’t blame Will for reacting as he does to a group as powerful and scary as SD-6! He just chose to protect his loved ones differently. What this means for his sotry is still unknown, as I can’t guess what role he’ll play outside of tracking down Danny’s murderer. WE’LL SEE.

I’M ON A BOAT

I just want to say that I love how absurd the boat heist is. She didn’t just take the Rambaldi papers. SHE STOLE SARK’S ENTIRE BOAT, TOO. BLESS HER FOREVER.

Dinner

Y’all, I admire and respect how deeply principled Sydney is. When asked to bug Sloane’s home by USING HIS WIFE’S POOR HEALTH TO GET INSIDE, Sydney immediately rejected it. It’s so thrilling to me that we’re getting a spy character who isn’t willing to do absolutely anything to achiever her goals. Rather, Sydney constantly wrestles with her morality. In this case, she finds it abhorrent to use Emily’s cancer in order to gain entrance to the Sloane household. And it’s clear that when she does end up there, she really does care about this woman. (I do hope she’s as innocent as Sydney claims she is, or else this is gonna get AWKWARD.) I LOVE THAT SHE HAS STANDARDS, OKAY. It makes her a much more interesting character!

And then this goddamn show has to stage that UN-FUCKING-BELIEVABLE heist IN SLOANE’S HOUSE, and I hate everything. ALL OF IT. Because it’s too good! It was too suspenseful! And just having Sydney sneak around Sloane’s office wasn’t enough. There just had to be that conversation about evil bosses, because WHY DON’T WE PAINT A PARALLEL BETWEEN SLOANE AND A MAN CURRENTLY IN JAIL? (Which… I dunno, I did feel a bit weird about the parallel, given that I would consider Jack and Sydney to be far more privileged than the man in Will’s story. It felt a little uncomfortable to use something that’s absolutely real to paint a portrait of Sloane where he’s a “slave driver.”)

Rambaldi

How

HOW

H O W.

WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHOW!!!!!! HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE AT ALL!!!!!!!!!!

The video for “Page 47” can be downloaded here for $0.99.

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About Mark Oshiro

Perpetually unprepared since '09.
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