urbandruid

Well. That was, to say the least, interesting.

I think I'm going to like this season, despite the fact that they did something I really really wish they hadn't done. This episode had some really great lines ("You burned your house down"/"It wasn't a happy home", "How did you get this job?", and one of my personal favorites, "Last year sucked") and I love the idea for the non-evil version of SD-6, aka APO. Crazy Uncle Arvin is far too impressed with his own cleverness, but so what else is new? And he really is the guy you love to hate. Also? All black clothes should be the uniform for the whole group. Because it looks cool. Just saying...

I need to hit my S3 DVDs, see what I can read on those papers Syd found in the safe deposit box last year, 'cause I don't remember reading anything about Irina being dead. Mom and I thought it said something about Project Christmas, and Syd being active... Maybe that was in the other papers, the ones she saw but we didn't.

*sigh* Whatever.

I know Irina has a lot of motivation that's never been explained, and a lot of secrets, but I can't fathom a reason why she would take out a hit on Sydney. And I just can't conceive, with all the progress they made working together in S2 and the missing two years, of Jack killing her. I just can't. But I do believe that if she did in fact take out the hit, she's dead. She's got to be.

But like

dagnylilytable pointed out, from a meta perspective, it makes sense for her to be dead. JJ Abrams doesn't want to pay Lena Olin's salary, and we'd all lynch him if he recast. So that part, I understand. But part of the reason I was so excited about the start of season 4 was that there might be some chance, maybe not of seeing Irina again, but of hearing about her, what she's been up to, where she is... something. Anything.

And now, well... I guess not.

Although I honestly think that if Jack did kill her, there wouldn't have been a body to be found. Unless *ugh* he made sure there was so the crazy Japanese guy wouldn't bother carrying out the hit, because, you know, dead client... I do hate how much sense this is making.

I suppose part of my problem is that with no canon input but a few IMs in season 3, I've been running with my own ideas for

theatrical_muse and

irina_derevko. My Irina has a strange and complicated relationship with Jack, but I see them as having overcome a lot of their issues when they worked together to find out what happened to Syd in the missing two years. There is simply no way that my Irina would have taken out a hit on her daughter, and there is no way my Jack would have killed Irina.

But I have a theory. A theory based more on hope than facts, but I like it. My theory is that Irina isn't dead. I know, I know, talk about wishful thinking, but I think it's possible. I'm still convinced that Jack let her go in "A Dark Turn", that he knew what she was planning and he let her go. Faking her death worked for her once; it gave her thirty years to play with, once she got free of the KGB and the authorities in Mother Russia. I don't guess we'll ever see her again, but I like this theory and I'm keeping it for a while.

And as for

irina_derevko, I suppose I'll just carry on like I have been, because canon isn't doing anything for me. The Irina muse is sitting now in the back of my head as she usually does, muttering to herself a bit. I don't think being dead sits too well with her, and I can't blame her.

Lovely. Now the fic bunnies are biting, and I think if I accepted for a fic or two that she was in fact dead, I could do something interesting. Like Jack's POV when he kills her.

My, won't that be a cheerful read?

Okay, moving on. Did I hear wrong, or is Marshall's callsign "Merlin"? Because that's just priceless. I really can't believe they didn't bring him in from the beginning, though, because who was going to run tech ops for APO if not Marshall?

Also, I still can't see Vaughn as anything other than a wuss, and I find it slightly beyond belief that Sloane would hand-pick him to join the APO team. Sydney, Jack, and Dixon, yes. Nadia, yes. Vaughn? You've gotta be kidding. That seems like a total cop-out to me, just to have Syd and Vaughn working together again.

I feel sorry for Weiss, hanging out back at the old office with all the new people, thinking his friends suddenly aquired really boring jobs. And I can't believe he's actually dumb enough to buy the idea that Sydney is working at her SD-6 cover job for real. Weiss has always been the kind of "spy average" guy for Alias, but I think at some point he's almost going to have to find out about APO and join up. What the hell, everyone else is.

At least Lauren seems to be really dead, though. That's something, because if I had to put up with no Irina and Lauren crawling back to life, well... That'd suck, you know?

I'm almost sorry they killed off the Japanese hit man so soon, though. He'd have been an interesting villian to have around for a while. I guess they figure Crazy Uncle Arvin is enough, since no one ever knows what the hell he's up to.

It was nice, though, to have an episode when Rambaldi was only mentioned once, in passing. Rambalid amuses me now and then, but it gets old after a while.

And, of course, Nadia has vowed to kill Jack.

....Yeah. Nice knowing you, Nadia.

Hmm. Maybe they killed Katya, and Syd only thought it was Irina? Interesting that Katya didn't ID Irina's body, now that I think of it, considering I think Katya was in Russia last time we heard about her. Hmm...

I guess we'll see.

Oh, yes, and I'm still bored by Syd/Vaughn. *yawn.*

eta: If Irina wanted Sydney dead, isn't she perfectly capable of taking care of that herself? Because I think, Irina being Irina...she is.