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Alias
Episode 1.18, "Masquerade"
Written by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman
Directed by Craig Zisk
There's a lesson to be learned from this week's Alias, kids, and that lesson is this - never set your spaminator too high! "Exclusive" means "exclusive!" You might be missing out on earning millions of dollars stuffing envelopes, or seeing fake nudie pix of Buffy, or the opportunity to sleep with Peter Berg! Just keep that in mind, please.
To back up, this week's ep opens with Syd scaling a mountain (thus disproving the theory that she is the gal in the Rambaldi book). After that, she's all set to take a leave of absence from SD-6 to look for Mommy B., but she is warned off the quest by Daddy B., who gets all choked up and tells Syd that this quest will only bring her heartbreak. Whoa! Daddy B. got pretty emotional in this scene. It's nice to see him having a breakthrough. Anyway, since she's Sydney, she totally doesn't listen and ends up unwittingly enlisting the aid of Sloane, who creepily pats her on the arm and tells her he wants to help. Ew.
The rest of the ep has Daddy B. going to therapy, and Syd and Dixon off to retrieve some microchip, which apparently has information about The Man, Khasinau, who was (get this) Mommy B.'s KGB boss. You see how it all comes together? Anyway, Syd and Dix meet up with an undercover SD-6er, played by Peter Berg, who is an old flame of Syd's. There are more adventures involving Syd and Agent Peter Berg, but the most important thing is that Sydney gets laid. Go Sydney!
What's that, you say? You want to know why this week's lesson has to do with your spaminator? Oh, right. Well, apparently, when they were involved, Agent PB tried to get word to Sydney, asking her to run away with him. Only he sent it in an encrypted junk email, and her computer is set to filter out spam. And that's why they broke up. Sigh.
This ep is generally good and action-y, and there's decent chemistry between Syd and Agent PB. As a character, Agent PB is kind of annoying, all loose cannon-y and "Check me out! I purposefully lie on lie detector tests just to get a laugh!" But whatever. Methinks he's not long for this show, so what's the harm in letting Syd (finally) have a little fun? Interesting how she fake-casually uses this little fling to make Vaughn jealous. Vaughn, by the way, wears a leather jacket in this episode. Rowr.
Also good is the continuing evolution of Daddy B. Victor Garber is this show's secret weapon -- stoic and solid for the most part, but when he lets those fireworks fly, watch out. It should be pretty rockin' when they finally track down Mommy B., since the mere mention of her sends him into the biggest hissyfit this side of Kelly Osbourne detailing her enforced visit to the gynecologist.
In tertiary character news, Pill and Francie are paired up again, this time to discover a mysterious plane ticket to Italy in Sydney's coat pocket. Damn, that Sydney is a really good undercover agent, all leaving her shit around for anyone to find it! Don't they have, like, five million paper shredders at SD-6? Anyway, they are puzzled, and wonder what young missy could be up to. I have to say that putting Pill with Francie tends to minimize his irritating quotient quite substantially. Could it be that they're set to become an item? Come to think of it, Pill really needs someone like Francie, who will basically just tell him to shut up when the going gets tough.
And speaking of crazy, unfounded predictions, it's nearing the end of the season, so isn't it about time for 'em? This week, I predict that the Sloane-meister is Sydney's real father -- though I kind of hope that's not true, because Daddy B. doesn't really need anything else to mope about.
Anyway, a solid entry this week, spiced up all the more by some secret agent lovin'.
Episode Rating: 8 out of 10.
Sarah Kuhn shreds paper for the fun of it, but not in a tree-wasting way. Read more of her nerd-centric insights over at Entertainment Geekly.
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