Alias' New Members Revealed
Rachel Nichols, whose butt-kicking agent, Rachel Gibson, will become the youngest member of the Alias team in the fall, will tread Sydney Bristow's path, executive producer Jeff Pinkner told TV Guide Online. "She joins the team early in the season, but they don't actively set out to recruit her," Pinkner told the site. "And if I were to tell you much more, it would give away the fun of meeting her character." But introducing Nichols (The Inside) will "show how you [create] a superagent like Sydney Bristow [Jennifer Garner]," Pinkner said. "She doesn't have the skills Sydney has, but she will need to acquire them over the course of the season."
Nichols is one of three new characters signing onto Alias. French actress Élodie Bouchez will play a cohort from Vaughn's shady past. "She and Vaughn share a history," Pinkner said. "And in our season finale we started to tease the audience with what that history is and what secrets Vaughn has been keeping from Sydney. We knew there would be another player in that story, and [Bouchez] plays that role."
Balthazar Getty joins the show as Thomas Grace, a rough APO agent.
The new season picks up immediately after the car crash of last season's finale. The question of Vaughn's true identity and what else he was going to tell Syd "will be answered in the first episode—or most of it will be," Pinkner said. "The consequences reveal a new enemy who is far more pervasive and dangerous and mysterious than any we have fought before."
