{"id":6831,"date":"2018-05-14T13:00:40","date_gmt":"2018-05-14T20:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/?p=6831"},"modified":"2018-05-01T06:59:25","modified_gmt":"2018-05-01T13:59:25","slug":"mark-watches-alias-s04e22-before-the-flood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/2018\/05\/mark-watches-alias-s04e22-before-the-flood\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Watches ‘Alias’: S04E22 – Before The Flood"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the twenty-second and final episode of the fourth season of Alias<\/i>, I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t forgive any of you for this. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch Alias<\/i>.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve all gone too far. WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME.<\/p>\n

Before the Flood<\/b><\/p>\n

Just purely on the basis of this being a finale and a thriller, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Before The Flood\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is one HELL of an episode. More so than ever before, the show leans into its science fiction influence and does not care just how fucking weird this all gets. Some of it falls apart under examination\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll get to that\u00e2\u20ac\u201dbut the bulk of this is thrilling and anxiety-inducing and just the sort of thing I was hoping for at the end of this season. I just wanted them to go big<\/i>. If Rambaldi\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s prophecy was supposed to be this all-encompassing, frightening thing, then it better feel like it.<\/p>\n

So bravo on that opening. Parachuting in amidst that horrifying Mueller device was epic in scope. Seeing just how bad Sovogda has suffered since Elena experimented on them made this even more beautiful. The Mueller device\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s reddish glow adds an otherworldliness to all of the scenes outdoors, and it casts a horrible pall on the story. If this device, coupled with the infection spread through the water, can make people turn to a homicidal rage, then that red is apt and appropriate.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

While the show turns to something akin to a zombie apocalypse, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so much done to set up the emotional beats later in the episode. Before the flood hits, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the unending dread that Sydney and Nadia feel growing in them, hinting at the horrible fight that they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll have during the episode\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s climax. Brodien, the man who appeared in this season\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s opener, returns again, only to predict his own terrible death at the hands of an infected citizen. Sydney tells Vaughn that she will marry him just before she heads to the roof, and I WAS FULL OF EMOTION. Irina finally gets her big confrontation with her sister, who faked her death and then held her prisoner for EIGHTEEN MONTHS, and the show doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t hold back on this, either. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s such a satisfying conclusion to this specific arc, especially since there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s absolutely nothing<\/i> redemptive in Elena.<\/p>\n

Well, satisfying for Irina, I should say. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m actually a big fan of unequivocally evil characters. I love ambiguous ones, or ones who believe they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re the hero, or ones that are accidentally<\/i> heroes. I LOVE MANY TYPES OF VILLAINS. And while there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an element to Elena\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s vindictiveness that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s kinda satisfying, I kept waiting for something more from her story. In the end, she activated Rambaldi\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s endgame\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 just because. She just wanted the world to be purged of the majority of its inhabitants. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s it! She had no other reason for doing it. If we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d seen a bit more into this desire of hers, I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think I would have felt as I did about this, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s still just\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 odd. It feels hollow, especially after she did so much to manipulate the people around her. All of it was just to\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 what? Commit genocide?<\/p>\n

It seems like such a weird explanation for someone to turn on the person who is most like their own daughter. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so heartbreaking to watch Nadia get betrayed so harshly by Elena, only for her to infect her at the end in the hopes that she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll stop Sydney and the apocalypse will rain down on the world. LIke, not that this would have necessarily made what she did better, but she didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even want Nadia to be in the new world left behind! She flat-out didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t care if she survived!!! WHAT THE FUCK.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

After The Flood<\/b><\/p>\n

I truly can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t believe I get to type this: Arvin Sloane didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t betray the team. ARVIN SLOANE ACTUALLY LIVED UP TO HIS PROMISE. Look, even when he shot Nadia to save Sydney\u00e2\u20ac\u201dWHICH WAS DEEPLY HEARTBREAKING FOR ME\u00e2\u20ac\u201dI still expected some last-minute fake out. I expected the show to reveal that he had an ulterior motive. THIS IS WHAT ARVIN SLOANE DOES. But he didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t this time<\/i>. He actually wanted to clean up the mess he had made, or at least make an attempt at that. I just\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 holy shit, is this real? Did I imagine this? DID ARVIN SLOANE DO AN ACTUAL GOOD THING? I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know what that means for the future, though. Is he going to make a real effort to change in season five? What does that kind of path look like for someone like Arvin Sloane, who has caused so much suffering in the world?<\/p>\n

I suppose the same question applies to Irina Derevko. She has done monstrous things, but she also<\/i> doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t betray the team. In a moment of affection and respect, Jack lets her escape. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s such an emotional scene, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, especially since Sydney doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even know when she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll see her mother again. Plus, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve had such a bizarre journey, and I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t stop thinking of how far the two of them had come. What about her<\/i> future, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all? How does Irina fit into the remainder of this show? I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know!!! There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so much potential for both her AND Arvin to change and grow, but I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know that I should expect that.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Hell, I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know what to expect from season five in general. There are three major things I need addressed at this point:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Nadia getting cured. I feel like that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be addressed sooner rather than later. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m also curious to see if Nadia will feel guilt over this as well. She was so certain she wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t turn on Sydney, and instead, she was forced<\/i> to.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. Dixon. The more I think about it, the more angry I am that he wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t in the finale FOR EVEN A SECOND. No one even mentions him! And this particular story was<\/i> important to his character. The Rambaldi nonsense affected his life, and yet he doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t participate in the resolution of it. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s bogus, and I really hate it.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. who in the fuck is Michael Vaughn WHO THE FUCK THOUGHT THIS ENDING WAS OKAY<\/i><\/b><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    SERIOUSLY!!! WHAT THE FUCK!!! VAUGHN ISN\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T<\/i> VAUGHN??? AND HE WAS SET UP TO MEET SYDNEY FROM THE START? HOW DID IRINA KNOW ABOUT THIS??? HAVE THERE BEEN CLUES THE ENTIRE TIME THAT I MISSED? WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS SHOW?<\/p>\n

    The video for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Before The Flood\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 twenty-second and final episode of the fourth season of Alias, I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t forgive any of you for this. 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-6831","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\/6831","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=6831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6831\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}