From The Boston Phoenix-
Beauty and the Feast
Nigella Lawson’s sensuous kitchen; plus grand finales from Alias and The Guardian
by Joyce Millman
THE TRADITIONAL TV SEASON has just ended in the usual blaze of cliffhangers, stunts, and final chapters. Some thoughts on two of the more memorable season enders:
Alias (ABC, May 4). The taut and stylish girl-spy show audaciously transformed its original premise midway through this season (its second), with heroine Sydney Bristow (Jennifer Garner) leading a CIA special-ops team in destroying " SD-6, " the nefarious rogue spy organization that had been masquerading as a covert wing of the CIA. Gone was the thorny double-agent stuff that had apparently confused some viewers; Sydney was now just a CIA agent, not a CIA mole within SD-6. And she and her CIA handler, Michael Vaughn (Michael Vartan), were now free to do something sexier than make goo-goo eyes at one another (not that there are many things sexier than their smoldering passion held in check).
The streamlining of Alias could have meant the dumbing-down of one of the most brain-teasing shows on TV. It didn't. Alias version 2.0 capitalized on the post–September 11 world order with a couple of plausibly vicious terrorist acts (a scene of a CIA agent turned into a human bomb still gives me the willies). And an X-Files-y plot concerning evil clones could have turned irredeemably dippy, but it didn't. Instead, it echoed Invasion of the Body Snatchers, that great pop-cultural metaphor for the Red Scare of the 1950s, with Sydney not knowing whether her best friends Will (Bradley Cooper) and Francie (Merrin Dungey) are really Will and Francie or terrorists wearing their bodies like costumes.
In the Alias season finale, creator/writer J.J. Abrams pulled off another stunning transformation while remaining true to the show's two main themes: divided loyalties and conflicted female desires. Sydney's parents are both spies — dad Jack (Victor Garber) is a CIA good guy and mom Irina (Lena Olin) a duplicitous ex-KGB bad girl. But nothing on Alias is ever black or white, so all season, Sydney has been pulled between her parents, who may not be what they seem. The finale seemed to imply that Jack has gone over to the dark side with his old SD-6 colleague, Sloane (Ron Rifkin); Irina, meanwhile, may be in the midst of a staggering quadruple cross and actually be on Sydney's side.
At least that's what I think is happening. It was hard to focus on the finer points given that the homestretch of the show featured the most spectacular girlfight in prime-time history between Sydney and the evil Francie clone, as well as an indelible moment where Olin dangled by a rope from a skyscraper like Bruce Willis in Die Hard, machine-gun-blasting her way into the building through a plate-glass window. Olin always looks a little crazed with pleasure when she's called upon to do the tough stuff, and this scene was her most pleasure-crazy yet. In Irina, who is definitely up to something yet seems to be taking great pains to protect her daughter, Olin has created a character who is at once ferociously ambitious and ferociously maternal. She's the ultimate working mother.
Beauty and the Feast
Nigella Lawson’s sensuous kitchen; plus grand finales from Alias and The Guardian
by Joyce Millman
THE TRADITIONAL TV SEASON has just ended in the usual blaze of cliffhangers, stunts, and final chapters. Some thoughts on two of the more memorable season enders:
Alias (ABC, May 4). The taut and stylish girl-spy show audaciously transformed its original premise midway through this season (its second), with heroine Sydney Bristow (Jennifer Garner) leading a CIA special-ops team in destroying " SD-6, " the nefarious rogue spy organization that had been masquerading as a covert wing of the CIA. Gone was the thorny double-agent stuff that had apparently confused some viewers; Sydney was now just a CIA agent, not a CIA mole within SD-6. And she and her CIA handler, Michael Vaughn (Michael Vartan), were now free to do something sexier than make goo-goo eyes at one another (not that there are many things sexier than their smoldering passion held in check).
The streamlining of Alias could have meant the dumbing-down of one of the most brain-teasing shows on TV. It didn't. Alias version 2.0 capitalized on the post–September 11 world order with a couple of plausibly vicious terrorist acts (a scene of a CIA agent turned into a human bomb still gives me the willies). And an X-Files-y plot concerning evil clones could have turned irredeemably dippy, but it didn't. Instead, it echoed Invasion of the Body Snatchers, that great pop-cultural metaphor for the Red Scare of the 1950s, with Sydney not knowing whether her best friends Will (Bradley Cooper) and Francie (Merrin Dungey) are really Will and Francie or terrorists wearing their bodies like costumes.
In the Alias season finale, creator/writer J.J. Abrams pulled off another stunning transformation while remaining true to the show's two main themes: divided loyalties and conflicted female desires. Sydney's parents are both spies — dad Jack (Victor Garber) is a CIA good guy and mom Irina (Lena Olin) a duplicitous ex-KGB bad girl. But nothing on Alias is ever black or white, so all season, Sydney has been pulled between her parents, who may not be what they seem. The finale seemed to imply that Jack has gone over to the dark side with his old SD-6 colleague, Sloane (Ron Rifkin); Irina, meanwhile, may be in the midst of a staggering quadruple cross and actually be on Sydney's side.
At least that's what I think is happening. It was hard to focus on the finer points given that the homestretch of the show featured the most spectacular girlfight in prime-time history between Sydney and the evil Francie clone, as well as an indelible moment where Olin dangled by a rope from a skyscraper like Bruce Willis in Die Hard, machine-gun-blasting her way into the building through a plate-glass window. Olin always looks a little crazed with pleasure when she's called upon to do the tough stuff, and this scene was her most pleasure-crazy yet. In Irina, who is definitely up to something yet seems to be taking great pains to protect her daughter, Olin has created a character who is at once ferociously ambitious and ferociously maternal. She's the ultimate working mother.
:angry: Lena Rox tho!! She was great in the finale and she kicks major @$$ -All hail the queen!!!!
