Season three of 'Alias' is frustrating. It's not really surprising since it had so many things to fight against, including behind the scenes drama between actors, the showrunner mentally wandering off after writing the series into a massive second season cliffhanger, cast members being written out and a whole layer of the show going with them, new people being brought in at the acting, writing and directing levels, and a shuddering change of tone and disconnect that naturally came with putting a two year time lapse into the narrative coupled with amnesia!. It's amazing that it recovered at all!
'Remnants' is notable for bringing back a sense of what the show used to be, by temporarily returning ex-regular Will Tippin, as played by Bradley Cooper, and reinstalling a sense of fun that had been missing for quite a while. Yes, it was a fun episode! It doesn't matter that the previous episode's cliffhanger didn't work into this one very well. No, not at all. For a brief moment, things were okay with the series, which had been picking up anyway, but would forever be saddled with a bewildering number of reboots, retcons and reimaginings after the second season, and indeed after this very episode. It also became much more gruesome after the first season, which is never good.
Why is 'Remnants' a success? The return of Will allowed for Sydney Bristow to have a personal life once again, which has been missing, and for some resolution to Bradley Cooper's exit from the series. He got to have a ball as someone who's best friend had unexpectedly returned from the dead to surprise him out of his witness protection seclusion, and who eventually managed to get the ultimate revenge on the woman who had doppelgangered and murdered his girlfriend. Well, we never said this was a series based in reality, did we? His rock star accent was good, though, as was his always excellent chemistry with Jessica Garner. In fact, his arc allowed for some resolution to the extremely jarring beginning of the season and failed follow up to the seasonal cliffhanger. The other better aspects were Sydney being funkily and funnily undercover for the first time seemingly in ages, Sloane once again being his ultimately untrustworthy self, although it might have been better if he had been being honest for once, and the return of Rambaldi references. Ah, Rambaldi, the blessing and the curse of the series. If only that whole thread could have been resolved in a better way. If only they could have kept a throughline going without starting again every season. If only they hadn't thrown away the essential duality of the series as a whole. If only Sloane had made some sense. If only, if only...
It's a nice episode. What's coming next? Well, Sloane will be sneaky, and Jack will be ruthless before having his end of season cliffhanger in turn retconned into oblivion. For now, we have a great one-off moment in the middle of the run. Well done, Will Tippin, and bon voyage once again.
O.
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