I know this is long overdue, but hindsight will do that to you. Does anyone else think that this episode was incredibly random? I mean, I was thinking about how they took down the Alliance, and I couldn't remember exactly what went into the discovery of the codes. So I looked up a transcript and it is just so... deus ex machina. I know it was Sloane's master plot, but... even so, it feels rushed to me.
What led up to it?
1. Sark mentions Server 47.
2. Sydney mentions it to her father.
3. The CIA finds the plane, just like that. All that goes into it is Vaughn saying 'We found Server 47'. The hell?
4. Conveniently the plane is guarded by Jabba the Hut and Syd fits into Leia's bikini.
5. The server apparently doesn't require passwords or fingerprints or identification of any kind to be hacked into.
Granted, after that it gets more emotional and complicated, but seriously... they're asking me to suspend the disbelief so high. I gave it an 'Ok', because it was good in theory, it just should have been... bigger. I mean, it's the realisation of Jack and Sydney's work. It was Sydney avenging Danny's murder. And it was almost completely out of the blue, rushed, and ultimately overshadowed by the Syd/Vaughn relationship.
Which, by the way, was ALSO weird in this episode. (I am in full rant-mode. I apologise). I don't know... I know that his speech in the Ops Centre was preceeded by their date-thing, but it still felt a little out of character for him to be so vocal. Couldn't he have waited until after the important, in the interest of the safety of the public/nation/world/universe briefing? At least then he would be trying to catch her before she left to go into more danger. But it was fine, I guess. That was just me nit-picking. He could have had any number of motivations.
But the recruits from Langley? FedExed over by Exposition Inc? I think they could have at least whacked us over the head with a mallet rather than the fricking Eiffel Tower. Does the CIA really want a dozen green-at-the-gills agents to be privy to such a sensitive, long-term project? Seems a little... fishy...
Plus, this episode marked the beginning of a sudden increase in the number of Skank!SpyBarbie missions. People think she's sexy. We get that. But she was smart too. Remember Color Blind? No skanking! Good spying! Smart, cool show! Sydney didn't really seduce people into giving up information before. She'd be attractive, but that wasn't the entire point of the mission.
I realise that I have gone into nit-pick mode also. My main point was this: Phase One; good in theory, rushed in execution. And the audience is only as smart as you allow them to be. In this we were treated like twelve year olds. The show was hard to follow if you hadn't seen it from the start but still... we could have handled being treated as though we were sixteen at least.
Whew, sorry. Needed to vent.