I feel like my patience with Alias is slowly starting to be rewarded. Three moments from tonight's show worth mentioning:
I'm willing to forgive them for not making Arvin Clone Sloane's brother. I've got my suspicions about how this particular subplot will unfold, but for the moment, I'm just willing to ride out the fact that we have a villain now who is as villainous as Sloane himself was in Seasons 1 & 2 (and literally so).
The scene where they all spill their codenames for the dopplesloaner was a hoot. Arvin Clone. Marvin Sloane. Etc. High. Larious.
Finally, in what was for me maybe the best scene of the entire season, Ron Rifkin was capital-b Brilliant tonight at the tail end of the episode. They telegraphed the ending of the episode way too much--and in that sense, they're still dumbing it down too much for my tastes--but Rifkin carried off Sloane's transformation really well. He just goes bonkers. And I don't know that there's been a more chilling moment this season than watching Sloane speak calmly to Nadia with blood all over his face. Creepy. Gruesome. Genius.
Ok. Amidst all of this goodness, we have:
The colossal xanthium-powered dodgeball, which Syd wants to blow up, and Sloane clearly covets.
Jack, slowly dying from radiation poisoning.
Maybe they'll fool me here, but it did seem pretty obvious which way the plot will turn next week. And that's why they gave Carter (couldn't they have given Paul Ben-Victor a couple of episodes before knocking him off?) the lines that they did.
What we don't know, though, is exactly where Arvin Clone fits into things. And that's where I'll hang my hope for the next few eps. Oh, and Jacquelyn. That's the Alias I know and love, where they just keep dropping clues, all of which eventually make sense, but do so really unpredictably.
Oh, and ABC? Don't you dare run one of those damn fake, montage episodes where you "explain" the show for a week. Please please please please. How utterly sad is it that we've gotten to the point where shows with plots that last longer than one or two shows now have to be explained? At least when they did montage episodes on sitcoms, they were montaging funny moments. This is just dumb, and it's an insult to those of us who actually watch your shows. I mean, really. How many people have trouble following Desperate Housewives? Really.
That is all.
