{"id":6724,"date":"2018-01-24T13:00:56","date_gmt":"2018-01-24T21:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/?p=6724"},"modified":"2018-01-16T18:59:44","modified_gmt":"2018-01-17T02:59:44","slug":"mark-watches-alias-s01e13-the-box-part-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/2018\/01\/mark-watches-alias-s01e13-the-box-part-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Watches ‘Alias’: S01E13 – The Box, Part II"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the thirteenth episode of the first season of Alias<\/i>, This Show Is Too Much. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch Alias<\/i>.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

Magical perfume? Male competitiveness as a flaw? Dixon composing an email in Microsoft Word on his phone? MORE DOUBLE AGENTS? What doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t<\/i> this episode have???<\/p>\n

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m really, really happy with this episode, especially since it is An Experience. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not that there isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t character development here\u00e2\u20ac\u201dI\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m gonna argue that Sydney\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s final decision is important, and Vaughn and Will both get significant emotional growth\u00e2\u20ac\u201dbut this is SUCH AN INTENSE THRILLER.<\/p>\n

But it works! It works so well! Why?<\/p>\n

\n
My single favorite moment here belongs to Dixon. I know I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m making fun of MICROSOFT WORD, but I do love this! It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just so FUNNY to me that he wrote his message in Word and probably exported it and THEN sent it, and LOOK. I now have this entire headcanon that Dixon is disgustingly qualified in the field, but he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s one of those office mates who is horrific<\/i> at office protocol. He forwards all emails. He always hits reply all. He CCs people and refuses to learn what BCC is. His email signature is an ATTACHMENT. He will send 8 million emails for every little thing rather than just stand up and ask a question. Which makes his scene even funnier if you imagine that Jack looks at Dixon to discourage him not because it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll get sent to the CIA, but because Jack knows<\/i> he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to compose the whole email in Word and attach it.<\/li>\n
THERE\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S YOUR FANFIC PROMPT, RUN WITH IT.<\/li>\n
But Dixon\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s role is significant because there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a threat that hangs over this whole thing: Coles discovered the big secret of SD-6. And while the show didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t necessarily threaten to have Cole tell the others, Dixon acts to provide a much more believable problem. Dixon is just SO CONVINCED he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s doing good that he ultimately doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t believe there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something wrong in contacting the CIA. But Jack\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s worry isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t necessarily that the CIA will become involved; I saw his panic as a need to contain the SD-6 agents within SD-6 until the right time. When that time is\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s complicated! Obviously, I am risky and don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t care and what him to know NOW, but in the midst of such a chaotic situation, I got why<\/i> Jack didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want this to happen.<\/li>\n
And look, I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to ignore the C4 problem, because that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s clearly the bigger issue here. And if the CIA got involved and arrived on site, it might have ended terribly for everyone. Jack wanted Sydney to have the time to disable all the C4 blocks before the vault opened.<\/li>\n
Which is actually a fascinating bit of pragmatism because usually, Sloane and SD-6 are, in general, less caring of people dying for their cause. But in this case, protecting what Coles was after in the fault was LESS important than saving SD-6. FOR ONCE.<\/li>\n
And then we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got Vaughn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s war with his co-worker, who takes his petty need to be promoted over Vaughn to new heights by NOT CALLING IN AN EXTRACTION TEAM. I just?!?!?!? He clearly didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think that one through at all!<\/i> He honestly believed that by letting Sydney and Vaughn possibly die<\/i>, his superiors would think he was better suited for the job.<\/li>\n
THE DESIGNS FOR THOSE C4 DETONATORS. See, Alias<\/i> is also fun because of how literal the translation of some tropes are. It is a show that comments on some of the more pervasive tropes and archetypes we see in the spy genre, and yet it has no problem replicating some of those tropes with no subversion whatsoever. AND THOSE SCENES WITH THE DETONATOR CRYSTALS BEING REMOVED WERE SO PAINFUL.<\/li>\n
The British SIS officer under cover!!! WHAT THE HELL, THAT WAS SUCH A SHOCKER. That moment immediately introduced a new variable into this nightmare, and it also dangled a carrot in front of the viewer: that undercover agent was close to learning the identity of the new player who operates under the name, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Name.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/li>\n
(Though I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m disappointed she was killed. There aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t many non-white characters on this show, and there was a lot of potential in her character. She could have come back!)<\/li>\n
Which brings me to Coles. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think he makes sense as a person, but that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s kind of the point. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s like the script was written specifically<\/i> for Tarantino, and they told him to perform as if he was barely a different character than himself. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s petty, bizarre, uncomfortable, uncaring, and chaotic. He is consumed<\/i> by his need for revenge, so much so that when he kills his girlfriend, he doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even seem bothered by her. And because he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s such an agent of chaos, it makes the story feel uneven in a thrilling way. We can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t guess what he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll do next. We can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t anticipate his next move because he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so all over the place.<\/li>\n
I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t actually like him, for the record. Tarantino unsettles me. But he achieves what this story needs, so there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s that!<\/li>\n
Which leaves me with the Thing: Sloane orders Jack to take his fingerprint. I can still barely believe this actually happened, and y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 WHAT THE FUCK. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s one of those things that shows threaten, and then some last-minute save stops them from actually carrying out said threat. NOT ALIAS<\/i>, WHICH FEATURES JACK CUTTING OFF SLOANE\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S FINGER AND USING IT TO STOP THE FAILSAFE. HELP ME. I WON\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T RECOVER. Shit, will Sloane???? GOOD GOD.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Outside of this, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s really only one other plot given any screen time. I shall repeat two things I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve said before: 1) WILL, STOP GOING PLACES ALONE, OH MY GOD. and 2) I still don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t trust the person giving Will all this information. Why go through all of this? Why manipulate him to this point if they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re actually trying<\/i> to help him? I still think there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an ulterior motivation at work, and it frightens me to admit that. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122M WORRIED, WILL.<\/p>\n
The video for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Box, Part II\u00e2\u20ac\u009d can be downloaded here for $0.99<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n
– My YA contemporary debut, ANGER IS A GIFT<\/a>, is now available for pre-order!\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong>If you’d like to stay up-to-date on all announcements regarding my books, sign up for my newsletter<\/a>! DO IT.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In the thirteenth episode of the first season of Alias, This Show Is Too Much. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch Alias.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[681],"tags":[682],"class_list":["post-6724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alias","tag-mark-watches-alias"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6724"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6724\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}