{"id":6752,"date":"2018-02-20T13:00:17","date_gmt":"2018-02-20T21:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/?p=6752"},"modified":"2018-02-12T18:34:30","modified_gmt":"2018-02-13T02:34:30","slug":"mark-watches-alias-s02e09-passage-part-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/2018\/02\/mark-watches-alias-s02e09-passage-part-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Watches ‘Alias’: S02E09 – Passage, Part II"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the ninth episode of the second season of Alias<\/i>, Sydney and Jack must trust Irina to help them escape a botched mission. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch Alias<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Trigger Warning: For discussion of racism, specifically brownface<\/b>.<\/p>\n

Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s start with the negative because\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 LORD.<\/p>\n

Disguises<\/b><\/p>\n

So\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 were people calling this shit out when Alias<\/i> was airing? I never entertain the misconception that people in fandom had no problem with shit when it was unfolding in real time. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s this ridiculous notion that people have only now<\/i> noticed racism or misogyny or homophobia, that these are modern inventions, that there was some golden age of television or books or film where nothing was \u00e2\u20ac\u0153problematic\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or bigoted. I understand that there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s obviously a different dynamic at hand when you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re watching an older show or reading an older book through a modern lens.<\/p>\n

Still, I suspect someone<\/i> had to have called foul about this show\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s third attempt to make the white characters look non-white. I wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t like this in any context I can think of, yet I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t deny that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s made worse<\/i> because the show is so deliberately white already<\/i>. The only two black characters are barely seen anymore in this season. I feel like Dixon has been absent more times than we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen him, and Francie didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even speak in her appearance here. Non-white bodies exist for exoticism or shock value. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re rarely given names or speaking lines, and in this two-parter, one of them is murdered so that we understand how bad the PRF is. (Did we need that? No.) Thus, when these characters are made up to look vaguely brown, it feels like a slap in the face. The show can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t seem to write convincing and meaningful non-white characters, but these three white<\/i> characters can be dressed up in this terrible brownface. (This is largely a moot point because the real issue is so much worse, but: THEIR BROWNFACE ISN\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T EVEN GOOD. They all still looked like white people wearing brownface! There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no way people believed they were native citizens!)<\/p>\n

I suspect this is not the last time we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to see this, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all.<\/p>\n

Escape<\/b><\/p>\n

Once \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Passage, Part II\u00e2\u20ac\u009d got away from this embarrassing misstep, I did find myself enjoying the conclusion to this two-parter a great deal. Look, stick a bunch of people who have major issues with one another in a high-stress scenario, let all their emotional baggage spill out dramatically, and I AM ABSOLUTELY HERE FOR IT. This episode delivers on all fronts, including<\/i> Vaughn getting approval to extract Sydney and her mother and father himself. WHICH IS A VERY ROMANTIC DEMONSTRATION, I MIGHT ADD. But the root of the tension here is still<\/i> the difficult act of trusting Irina.<\/p>\n

Look, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so hard<\/i> to do. Like I said in the last review, the best I can offer is worrying. I would love to be able to throw myself into accepting the growing relationship between Irina and Sydney, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a test of my cynicism. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Passage\u00e2\u20ac\u009d moves me a little closer to believing Irina and believing that she turned herself in to begin the process of redeeming herself. At the same time, the pieces fit so well, and it makes me suspicious. Her old KGB boss just happened<\/i> to be at this facility? She just had<\/i> to shoot Sydney in the shoulder in the season opener in order to convince someone that she would betray her daughter? Either she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s telling the truth or this is all a cover for her real purpose, and I know simplifying it to a binary isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t smart. BUT I DON\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T SEE A MIDDLE GROUND WITH HER. I really don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t!<\/p>\n

I suppose what makes this harder is that her emotional responses towards Sydney and Jack feel so real<\/i>. That bit where Jack and Irina reminisced over the burnt toaster was genuine\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 or at least I think<\/i> it was. I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t quite tell! The problem is that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hard to enjoy any of this knowing just how badly Irina deceived everyone in her life. Even that little bit of nostalgia is colored by the reality that shortly after that memory, Irina faked her death and abandoned her family, leaving them distraught and destroyed.<\/p>\n

So maybe she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s really back. Maybe she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s really trying. But when you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been abandoned before, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hard not to fear that same thing all over again.<\/p>\n

The video for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Passage, 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":"