In the twentieth episode of the second season of Alias<\/i>, EVERYTHING IS SAD. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch Alias<\/i>.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
Trigger Warning: For discussion of grief, suicide<\/b>.<\/p>\n
There have been a lot of episodes this season with parallel storylines in them, and it really is<\/i> one of my favorite things in episodic television. This time around, Alias<\/i> focuses on loss and grief in two very<\/i> different people, one whom it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pretty much impossible to feel any sympathy for at all.<\/p>\n
Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s start with Sloane and the Rambaldi arc, since there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s less of it than there is of Dixon. Look, I am just lost<\/i> at this point. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get how Rambaldi could have known any of what he knows, and I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t understand how his artifacts fit into a greater picture. And perhaps that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the point! It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s easy to take my confusion and project it on Sloane\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s character, who feels like his obsession with Rambaldi isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t worth it anymore.<\/p>\n
It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s telling, of course, that after murdering countless people and ruining more lives than he can remember, it takes the murder of his wife for Sloane to finally question the path he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s taken. Thirty years, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all. And he didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t doubt himself once<\/i> during all of this? OKAY, DUDE, WHATEVER. Again, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hard to actually<\/i> relate to him after he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s caused such misery in others. But while Dixon is spiraling downwards from the murder of his wife, Sloane is making a journey of his own out of grief, too. That journey takes him to Nepal, where he tracks down someone named Conrad in a monastery. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s almost comical that some mystical dude named CONRAD is the only white person in a monastery in Nepal. LIKE\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 YOU\u00e2\u20ac\u2122RE BARELY TRYING, ALIAS<\/i>. Of course, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a part of me that feels as if Arvin would<\/i> be the kind of person who would change the trajectory of their life because<\/i> another white dude told him to. RIGHT. THIS IS SO REALISTIC.<\/p>\n
The issue here, though, is that the writers deliberately keep us ignorant of the context that we need to fully understand Sloane\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s journey and his current predicament. All we know is that thirty years prior, Conrad showed Sloan something<\/i> that convinced him to abandon the CIA, join SD-6, and pursue the Rambaldi artifacts. Now, in the aftermath of his wife\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s death, he questions this path\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 only to be shown a manuscript that Conrad hid THIS WHOLE TIME that reveals Sloane\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s next step.<\/p>\n
Some questions, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all.<\/p>\n
This show is a lot.<\/p>\n
Dixon<\/b><\/p>\n
Admittedly, this was hard to watch. I still feel better about Diane\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s death, and this doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t necessarily change it. At the same time, I was glad that Carl Lumbly finally got something meatier and more complicated to work with for his character. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the focus of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Countdown,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d from his struggle after Diane\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s wake to his overreaction on the job to that RIDICULOUS CONFRONTATION AT THE END. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an impressive portrayal on the part of Lumbly\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s part, and he throws himself into this character. Which is one of the reasons that this is a challenge to witness! I could feel Dixon\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s grief throughout \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Countdown,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and I ached as he made poorer and poorer decisions. The man needed help, and while I could tell that he wanted it, he also<\/i> needed to do whatever he could to bring Sloane to justice himself<\/i>.<\/p>\n
And it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s that last point that brings him to such a destructive place. Sloane took away Dixon\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s wife. His best friend. His support system. His family. Without this anchor, he is adrift, and the writing and<\/i> acting truly give us a sense of that, that Dixon literally doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know how to live a life without Diane. Thus, he toys with suicide; he lashes out violently towards anyone who might know where Sloane is; he lies to the CIA and compels Sydney to do so as well. IT\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S A MESS, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an understandable<\/i> one.<\/p>\n
I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m glad that Dixon chose to live. I really am. I think I would have been inconsolable otherwise. (Seriously, that would have been dark as HELL, as well as unfortunate for other reasons.) But I also want more depth given to him. Where does he go after this? Will we see his kids again? We aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t given a sliver of a possible storyline after this, you know?<\/p>\n
The video for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Countdown\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 twentieth episode of the second season of Alias, EVERYTHING IS SAD. 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-6767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alias","tag-mark-watches-alias"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6767"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6767\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}