Season 5 React: The Horizon

[bianconiglio]

I mostly enjoy "Alias," but I do not like torture scenes, and this was especially bad.

I think what you are saying is that they were merely using torture as a plot device to get into Sydney's head. That is true. But I wish they would have come up with another way that would not have been so dangerous to a pregnant woman and her baby.

Ok. Now we can argue! Extreme has been always a part of Alias. Some people are not disgusted by that ('cause they consider - me too - only an "exterior style part" of the program, as "pulp" can be considered an "exterior style part" on Tarantino's movies), some people are disgusted by that, as they don't consider the "exterior style part" of the show. I can understand it. But try to go on with it. Try to live on with it. 'cause I'm sure, that you really love Alias, under many others point of view. And I suggest you (modestly, as a simple chat) to consider the dialogues, the force of intense bond through Syd and Vaughn and the great acting of Garner (one of the best of her) and Vartan (who surprised me in this ep!). Don't care about tortures.
And tortures are anyway the strongest opportunity to deal with suffering and exalt courage and made us feeling angsty and fearful, to give us more concentration. I don't know. But I obviously hate torture in real life. This is a plague of this society as the death penalty. But in a movie or a tv show, they have competely an other meaning.

 

[Ophelia]

We just see things differently. I love Jack, and I like most of the other characters, but I don't really care all that much about Syd and Vaugh's relationship. I like other aspects of the show. Different people are offended by different things on TV, and I don't like torture scenes. And since this entire episode had so much of that, I just didn't like it. There were other "Alias" episodes I liked much better.

I think what you are saying now is that they used torture to makes things more intense. That is true. But I also think that they could have done the same thing in a gentler way and gotten the same results, and explored Sydney and Vaughn's relationship. They could have at least left out the taser!

 

[bianconiglio]

Oh, Ok! I can understand your point of view. I have to admit: me too... I have my taboos. For example I never liked a lot the violence with how daddy Jack executed some people, like Simon Walker orthe CIA agent in the last episode of the first season. I mean: they weren't good guys... but you know... he could do it in a different way... less "decisive". Also I've never understood why aunt Katya was trying to kill Syd in the last episode of the first season. And I've never understood how Jack forgot the betrayal of Irna with Sloane in that easy way... these are things I could not give a great explanation. ^_^

 

[boyscout4747]

FINALLY. I don't understand the Alias writers/producers anymore. We go from the terrible self-contained pointless last week, to the almost pitchperfect completely jaw dropping this episode.

Who else was totally bored by the beginning? For the last time: IF YOU AREN'T GOING TO *DO SOMETHING* WITH THE SCENE THE SECOND TIME YOU SHOW IT, DON'T DO THE WHOLE 3 DAYS BEFORE THING!

I loved Peyton in Chinatown or whatever. Again. FINALLY A NEW SET PIECE! GOD.....but awesome stuff there.

OK now for the flashback scenes:
-The proposal scene. That was shot SO WELL! It was bright and gritty and I loved how in the beginning Vaughn kept cutting in and out. Cool stuff.

-Their final scene. YES THEY BROUGHT BACK THE LIQUID! "I gave this to you and then you crashed..." "I don't wanna say goodbye again!" Just so heartfelt. Hmmm Vaughn kept mentioning that he needed to "go away". Not die...."go away". Hmmmmm

-The North Korea jailcell. Bad makeup. VERY BAD makeup. Very fake, but still a really twisted scene. I love how Syd was "fighting the system". She made Vaughn go away, but he "came back" through the radio. LMAO When Syd screamed "Vaughn!?" it sounded so much like Jenna's "Mom?!" from 13 Going On 30. I was CRACKING up!

-The pier scene. AWWWWWW! Great foreshadowing for the map scene. Really creepy. And I love how they twisted the throwing in the ocean twice. Cool stuff.

-The warehouse scene. OMG ONE OF THE BEST SCENES OF THE NIGHT! I totally symathize with Syd. She hates how her life has drawn her and Vaughn apart. She doesn't wanna have to save the world. She wants Vaughn to herself. Jennifer Garner....here's your Emmy!

-The Blood Drivemobile scene! YAY YAY YAY YAY YAY! OK again, much better acted this time around! And they went back! THEY"RE GOING BACK! The writers said that the entire Alias universe would be coming full circle! Well so far they aren't lying! WHAT IS THE NAME ON THERE?! She lied and told the bad guys the other one.

OMG Best kept secret on television. I just ate my words that ABC can't keep a secret. KNowing them, I was actually expecting the promo for this episode to end something like, 'And someone from the past comes back and changes Sydney Bristow's life forever. Lena Olin guest stars on an all new Alias." But they had SUCH A GREAT reveal! The reflection in the glass! AHHHHHH!

Jack/Renee are so bad a** together. And Jack found his balls! He's been ballless ever since Irina left. And lone behold, she comes back and he's got them again! WOOT!

An almost perfect episode.

Irina was endangering both Sydney and her unborn child. There is no excuse for it. You just don't write a scenario like that and expect that some viewers won't be offended. I was one of them.

Irina was NOT endangering both Sydney and her unborn child. Wasn't there a SPECIFIC scene where Irina asked the doctor to confirm that this wouldn't hurt the baby?

I don't understand how that could have been taken as a threat to the baby, if they said SPECIFICALLY that it wouldn't.

I don't even count it as torture. Sydney was reunited with Vaughn in her memories. Oh what excrutiating and degrading torture. LMAO

 

[AntiAliased]

I thought "Horizon" was just sick and disgusting. I realize that I am in the minority here, but did it not bother anyone that we're supposed to consider watching a pregnant woman being kidnapped, drugged, and tortured -- by her own mother, no less -- to be entertaining? I was absolutely revolted by it. I gave it a one.

Don't you think "sick and disgusting" is a bit of an overreaction? Tortured is really a longshot here, the rather small shock she recieved from the pen was meant to stimulate the mind, not to inflict pain. Her tears were of an emotional nature, if this was truly a torture scene there would be no need for the "memory machine", they could have just pulled out a wrench or something and...I don't know start breaking something to get the information. As far as the drugs were concerned I thought it was made pretty clear that the "cocktail" wouldn't harm the child. That was also reinterated by the baby room that was setup, Although I found the "memory machine" scenes to be a little boring and unecessary they were not the graphic depictions words like "sick and disgusting" make them out to be. Nothing against you Ophelia but don't you think you came down a little hard on Alias...rating it a one?...that's rough. Come on ...Come on! ...please? :blink:

 

[Ophelia]

I understand that people were just thrilled to have Vaughn back. That's fine. But I view what was done to Sydney as torture, and her own mother was just sitting there watching it. Not only that, she arranged it. Now what mother worthy of the name does that? You don't hurt your child just to get something you want. It's that simple. I also don't buy that it was impossible that what this so-called doctor, who apparently never heard of the Hippocratic Oath (they seem to be quite prevalent in the "Alias" universe), was doing would hurt the baby. Zapping Sydney with that taser did inflict pain; Sydney jerked back every time. It could very easily affect the baby's heart. And there are no drugs that I know of that don't cross the placenta into the baby. Why do you think that pregnant women don't even take aspirin without checking with their doctor first, and don't drink alcohol? And Irina never once asked about how this would affect Sydney. And worse, Irina apparently plans to take the child from Sydney once it's born, for her own purposes, whatever those are. How selfish and cruel is that? That's where I get off calling this episode sick and disgusting. It left a very bad taste in my mouth.

It's all a matter of perception, like humor. Some people will think a particular joke is funny, others won't. Some people will like a particular "Alias" episode, others won't.

 

[aliasairanna]

FINALLY. I don't understand the Alias writers/producers anymore. We go from the terrible self-contained pointless last week, to the almost pitchperfect completely jaw dropping this episode.

Who else was totally bored by the beginning? For the last time: IF YOU AREN'T GOING TO *DO SOMETHING* WITH THE SCENE THE SECOND TIME YOU SHOW IT, DON'T DO THE WHOLE 3 DAYS BEFORE THING!

I loved Peyton in Chinatown or whatever. Again. FINALLY A NEW SET PIECE! GOD.....but awesome stuff there.

OK now for the flashback scenes:
-The proposal scene. That was shot SO WELL! It was bright and gritty and I loved how in the beginning Vaughn kept cutting in and out. Cool stuff.

-Their final scene. YES THEY BROUGHT BACK THE LIQUID! "I gave this to you and then you crashed..." "I don't wanna say goodbye again!" Just so heartfelt. Hmmm Vaughn kept mentioning that he needed to "go away". Not die...."go away". Hmmmmm

-The North Korea jailcell. Bad makeup. VERY BAD makeup. Very fake, but still a really twisted scene. I love how Syd was "fighting the system". She made Vaughn go away, but he "came back" through the radio. LMAO When Syd screamed "Vaughn!?" it sounded so much like Jenna's "Mom?!" from 13 Going On 30. I was CRACKING up!

-The pier scene. AWWWWWW! Great foreshadowing for the map scene. Really creepy. And I love how they twisted the throwing in the ocean twice. Cool stuff.

-The warehouse scene. OMG ONE OF THE BEST SCENES OF THE NIGHT! I totally symathize with Syd. She hates how her life has drawn her and Vaughn apart. She doesn't wanna have to save the world. She wants Vaughn to herself. Jennifer Garner....here's your Emmy!

-The Blood Drivemobile scene! YAY YAY YAY YAY YAY! OK again, much better acted this time around! And they went back! THEY"RE GOING BACK! The writers said that the entire Alias universe would be coming full circle! Well so far they aren't lying! WHAT IS THE NAME ON THERE?! She lied and told the bad guys the other one.

OMG Best kept secret on television. I just ate my words that ABC can't keep a secret. KNowing them, I was actually expecting the promo for this episode to end something like, 'And someone from the past comes back and changes Sydney Bristow's life forever. Lena Olin guest stars on an all new Alias." But they had SUCH A GREAT reveal! The reflection in the glass! AHHHHHH!

Jack/Renee are so bad a** together. And Jack found his balls! He's been ballless ever since Irina left. And lone behold, she comes back and he's got them again! WOOT!

An almost perfect episode.
Irina was NOT endangering both Sydney and her unborn child. Wasn't there a SPECIFIC scene where Irina asked the doctor to confirm that this wouldn't hurt the baby?

I don't understand how that could have been taken as a threat to the baby, if they said SPECIFICALLY that it wouldn't.

I don't even count it as torture. Sydney was reunited with Vaughn in her memories. Oh what excrutiating and degrading torture. LMAO

I TOTALLY AGREE!! I was psyced to see IRINA...especially considering she wasn't hurting SYDNEY..
Does anyone know when the show is supposed to come back???

xO aRiaNNa
http://www.myspace.com/ariannavartan

 

[ipopy]

I mostly enjoy "Alias," but I do not like torture scenes, and this was especially bad.

I think what you are saying is that they were merely using torture as a plot device to get into Sydney's head. That is true. But I wish they would have come up with another way that would not have been so dangerous to a pregnant woman and her baby.

I agree. There were other avenues they could have taken to retrieve Syd's memories. This isn't the first time they had to retrieve memories from her - they did it in the episode "Conscious" and they didn't have to resort to torture to do it.

~ipopy

 

[AntiAliased]

I agree. There were other avenues they could have taken to retrieve Syd's memories. This isn't the first time they had to retrieve memories from her - they did it in the episode "Conscious" and they didn't have to resort to torture to do it.

~ipopy

You guys really see it as torture? I saw it more as mental anguish then anything. You get out of someone's car and the static zaps you, you jump back right. It doesn't hurt (it shouldn't) but whatever like Ophelia said everybody don't like the same things. Not trying to make you like it just wondering is all

PS I did really like Conscious better...it was just so haunting like I would assume the mind would be. This just seemed too...lucid.

 

[Aliasaholic47]

BEST SEASON 5 EPISODE!!!! BY FAR

POSSIBLY ONE OF THE BEST ALIAS EPISODES EVER!!!!!

 

[bennifer part II]

i agree that perhaps a lot of fans did rate this a 5 bc our beloved michael was in it, but him aside, it was still a good episode bc it reminded us of how alias can be great. that was 5 seasons rolled into one episode. for me, it wasn't great bc michael was in it, it was great because finally i was shocked this season. it wasnt hum drum. i mean, i literally jumped when i saw irinas reflection. that's the kind of reaction i used to get watching every episode of alias, but not lately. im glad to see it can still happen. michael is a reason it was a 5 for me, but he wasn't the ONLY reason. the memories, her mom, spy daddy being a bad ass, and the shocker of syd being on some ship in the middle of no where also helped. its unfair to say that ppl only gave this episode a 5 because of michael vartan. he was a big part of alias, but he wasn't the only thing that made the show great. this episode showed a lot of great things about alias (and we have to give props that michael vartan was one of those).

about this torture business... u are entitled to your opinion, but let's look back at other torture scenes/death, shall we. you have danny getting murdered in his bath tub, blood everywhere. real francie gets a bullet in her head. evil francie gets her neck sliced by will. syd as julia thorne getting tortured by every possible way. sark plugging up vaughn and shocking him nearly to death. syd in season 2 while undercover at the mental institute. the list goes on and on and on and on. torture/violence/gruel, is everyday on alias.

we all know irina is no mom of the year. truth takes time and she always has sydney's best interest at heart... we just don't know what the end game is. for all we know, some bad guys may need that name to do something far worse, and irina is trying to be ahead of the game.

if sydney looks back, she may even be slightly happy (in a twisted way) she got to jog and alter those memo ries. what's a little shock for temporary mental bliss?

 

[bianconiglio]

about this torture business... u are entitled to your opinion, but let's look back at other torture scenes/death, shall we. you have danny getting murdered in his bath tub, blood everywhere. real francie gets a bullet in her head. evil francie gets her neck sliced by will. syd as julia thorne getting tortured by every possible way. sark plugging up vaughn and shocking him nearly to death. syd in season 2 while undercover at the mental institute. the list goes on and on and on and on. torture/violence/gruel, is everyday on alias.

Yes. It's just a part of it. And I think that who is going to watch Alias, knows how to deal with it. Alias is extreme since the beginning. The first scene of Alias: Syd was under torture!!!
I mean: if you watch "A Clockwork Orange" by Kubrick, what do you see? Only violence? Is that the real meaning of the movie? I really don't think that...

 

[AntiAliased]

about this torture business... u are entitled to your opinion, but let's look back at other torture scenes/death, shall we. you have danny getting murdered in his bath tub, blood everywhere. real francie gets a bullet in her head. evil francie gets her neck sliced by will. syd as julia thorne getting tortured by every possible way. sark plugging up vaughn and shocking him nearly to death. syd in season 2 while undercover at the mental institute. the list goes on and on and on and on. torture/violence/gruel, is everyday on alias.

if sydney looks back, she may even be slightly happy (in a twisted way) she got to jog and alter those memo ries. what's a little shock for temporary mental bliss?

I don't think it was so much the "torture" than it was the fact that she was pregnant while it was going on that made people uncomfortable.

And let's remember Sydney gave Irina the wrong name so we don't know whats gonna happen now

 

[bianconiglio]

Yes... We don't know...

 

[undercover_spy]

Refering to the whole torture thing going on in Alias. I didn't think that it was really that bad, and we have to remember that this is a show. In real life maybe this "torture" would be harmful to the baby, but according to the doctor on this show it is not. So what is there to worry about? For all we know Irina might be trying to help Sydney? You never know what is going on in Irina's mind; that is what makes her such an awesome and interesting character. Sydney got right up, and didn't seem to be in physical pain after all of the shocks.

I thought the way that they retreieved all of the S/V memories was very cool! Everything that happened really made you think about the next episode, and that is why I love Alias. The one thing that I find interesting is the first scene of the episode. The one where Vaughn walks in the house, and Sydney wants a bath. This must have been an important moment for Sdyney if she is remembering it, but I don't undertsand, unless this particualr scene actually happened. Everything else that they showed (ware-house, peir, ambulance, Korea, plane...) were events that actually took place in Sydney's life; this was the only one that we have never seen before, which makes me think that maybe this really has taken place, but we just haven't been exposed to it yet . Who knows? (THIS IS WHAT I LOVE ABOUT ALIAS: SPECULATION!)

~Andrea

 

[Alias_Gay]

I gave it a five and not because of Michael Vaughn ... this episode was great in all ways possible, and IF it were because of Vaughn being in it, then I think we would have seen more of that in the reaction thread ... but people are voting 5 because of the story line, because of the freaking shock with Irina, and the cliffhanger of the season (where is the boat headed) ... and the plot twists ... who doesn't like it that way ...

Coming into season 5 with pregnant Syd, we all knew the child would be in danger ... Syd is the CHOSEN ONE ... Rambaldi followers want that baby ... and we knew the writers were going into that direction ...

and Irina, yes it was a freaking shock to me ... did you know she would be shown as Syd's kidnapper??? NO ... no spoilers had come out about that scene ... did the promo's say it was her? NO ... the promo's merely stated "someone from Sydney's past would be her captor" ... this gives us a lot of people that has been part of Sydney's past ... and I am sure no one was thinking that Irina could be that person ...

 

[Alias=Life]

Yeah, I'm a real sucker for spoilers, and I never heard one thing about Lena Olin returning (even if the fotage was from season 2.) I'm going to start going spoiler free, because that shock was just amazing, and just so much better when I didn't know about it

 

[Platinum Brunette]

Yeah, I'm a real sucker for spoilers, and I never heard one thing about Lena Olin returning (even if the fotage was from season 2.) I'm going to start going spoiler free, because that shock was just amazing, and just so much better when I didn't know about it

That huge shock prompted me to go spoiler free too! It reminded me of how incredibly amazing it is to be that surprised! So far? I've been 5 days spoiler-free. So maybe that doesn't sound that great...but for a girl who used to look at them all the freaking time, I'd said it's pretty darn good.

 

[AntiAliased]

That huge shock prompted me to go spoiler free too! It reminded me of how incredibly amazing it is to be that surprised! So far? I've been 5 days spoiler-free. So maybe that doesn't sound that great...but for a girl who used to look at them all the freaking time, I'd said it's pretty darn good.

I wish someone could help me through this, I'm all about spoliers and I don't want to be any more :cries:
HELP ME! someone!

 

[Dead-Drop]

I gave it a 5. I haven't been so shocked since the early seasons. It was Irina! C'mon, how many actually saw that coming? I thought it was Vaughn behind the mirror as soon as the voice asked if the baby would be okay. Irina didn't even enter my head.

As for the torture... they made sure to say the baby wouldn't be harmed, and if anything it didn't look like torture to me in the same sense as we've seen before. It seemed more like memory regression or hypnosis... like when Syd underwent the procedure to retrieve her missing two years. In this instance, she was drugged, and a sharp electric current was applied to stimulate her.

Oh, and Vaughn can't be dead. Irina has to be a key player in Prophet 5. She's never been a lacky in these kinda organisations! She must've known about their intention for Vaughn, so why would she push him to propose to Syd if he was intended to be executed??? That'd hurt Syd too much.