Alias Season Finale/ MI: III

J.J. Abrams' Alias, which has had a decent run of five seasons, finished up with its last episode ever tonight. A relatively recent convert, I ended up devouring seasons 1-4 in a quick succession, checking them out through Netflix. Seasons 1-2 were exemplary and groundbreaking. The characters were strongly defined and complex, two features that rarely go together in network television. Season 3 was mezzo-mezzo... Not as well-defined, a bit scattershot in quality, but still fun. Season 4, creatively, was nothing short of a train wreck. Still, the first two seasons were so good, I'll always look back fondly on Sydney, Jack, Marshall, and the other rich characters created by J. J. Abrams.

It was with a high degree of curiosity mixed with nostalgia that I tuned into tonight's season finale. Would the Rambaldi mystery finally be unraveled? Would we some closure regarding Sydney's ties with her mother? Would Quentin Tarantino make a surprise appearance? Ummmm, that would be kinda, sorta, and absolutely not. Now I have a high degree of sympathy for long-running shows trying to create a pitch-perfect season finale to end on. It's damn near impossible to craft something that is going to please everyone. Still, even with the diminished expectations, I have to confess, the very last episode of Alias doesn't have much to recommend it.

Perhaps it's best if I describe what made the first two seasons of Alias so wonderful. Alias started out as the story of Sydney Bristow, a college student with college friends and college-type problems, who, oh yeah, just happened to work as a secret agent for a shadowy (are there any other kind) government agency known as SD-6. After her boyfriend proposes to her, she feels like she has to reveal the true nature of her work... SD-6, very sensitive to such breaches of information, has him killed. Sydney's father, the distant and cagey Jack, reveals to Sydney that SD-6 is not only a shadowy covert agency, but that they are not OUR shadowy covert agency. Sydney has been working for a nameless enemy. The setup for the 1st and part of the 2nd season showcases Sydney working as a double-agent, pretending to work for SD-6, then reporting back with inside info for the CIA. All the while trying to maintain a life of normalcy with her friends, who are unaware of her super-spy status.

If Alias was simply a spy show (and indeed, it eventually became one), it would have still been fun, but there would have been little emotional pull. What made the early Alias special was watching Syd try desperately to hang onto her normal life, and try to make sense of her dysfunctional mom and pop, Irina and Jack. The Alias writers and Jennifer Garner managed to convey the emotional sacrifices that involve constantly lying to everyone around you. It's something that network tv rarely attempts, let alone in the context of a spy show.

The season finale was pretty much a joyless affair that paid little attention to such things. In fact, it had that last day of school type feel. They're all there, it's been fun, but man, when will that bell ring and let us out? (SPOILER ALERT) Not having watched any of the other episodes from season five, I found it to be an odd mismatch of new characters (some guy played by Baltazar Getty--who dies much like Terry O'Quinn did in the X-Files movie) and old plotlines that are marked only by their staleness. Marshall gets some nice scenes to shine, but Dixon and Vaughn are completely marginalized. In a painful scene Syd and Vaughn kiss and it's incredibly apparent that there is absolutely no chemistry left between them. They're not even trying. Of course, this probably has a lot to do with the fact that Jennifer Garner and Michael Vartan had been an item in real life, for awhile. Now... well, I felt awkward for watching. Jack is killed and while, admittably, it's a fine send-off, it was also completely unnecessary. (Again, I think there is some rule that in season finales some key character has to buy it. This is a complete mistake, as the potential for an Alias movie is there, but who wants to see that without Jack?) Perennial favorite baddie Sark is back, and completely wasted much like Krycek in the X-Files. Oh, and in another X-files-esque moment, Sydney actually asks Vaughn "how can you say that after everything you've seen"... in response to Vaughn's disbelief in Rambaldi lore.

Actually, it's quite easy to disbelieve that anything could make sense when Rambaldi is concerned. I don't think it was ever supposed to make sense... They just needed stuff for Sydney to go find. Still, the writers keep bringing it up as if to say, no really, we've got a plan. Well, the most I could get out of this last episode was that the ultimate Rambaldi device was a kind of immortality device. Very anti-climatic and it does nothing to explain all the funky prophecy crap that they've been throwing in over the years.

As I watched the credits, I scanned for J.J. Abrams name, or at least the names of some of his better writing partners, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman. No such luck, except Abrams did have a producing credit. Where were these guys? Directing and writing Mission: Impossible III, of course. One of the most recurrent accolades of Alias was that it was like watching a great spy movie every week. It made perfect sense to co-opt their talents for the service of a big budget franchise.

So how'd they do? Great, it turns out. MI:III plays out exactly how you would expect it would: like a top-notch episode of Alias. The opening scene is vintage Alias. We see Tom Cruise and someone he loves tied up, facing the villain who is prepared to torture them both to get what he wants. And just as the bad guy gets ready to do something reallllly horrible, the camera cuts away to opening credits and the Mission Impossible theme music. Then, we flashback to the events that led us up to that moment.

But it's not only a matter of narrative style that unites MI: III with Alias. Thematically too, J.J. and crew, revist the idea of a secret agent having a normal home life. Ethan Hunt, in the space between part 2 and 3, has managed to settle down and is on the verge of getting hitched. Of course, his new bride-to-be and his new circle of friends and family have NO idea he is a super-spy. Sound familiar? Or familial, to be more specific. These humanizing elements which made Alias stand out work wonders for the Mission Impossible franchise, making Ethan much more relatable (and watchable). We care about this guy. Like we cared about Syd. The action is top-notch, hellzapoppin' fun, too... We would expect no less from J.J. Abrams. But it's the humanity transfusion that makes MI: III worth watching. I only wish Alias could have held onto it for a little while longer.