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4.17 A Clean Conscience

Doctor: "Clear your conscience, Jack."
Jack: "That would take another lifetime at least."

I'm in total denial. Jack is not dying, and that's all there is to it.

This episode was unsatisfying. Last week, Sloane went totally apeshit; and now he appears to be fine, and it's like nothing happened with the big red golf ball. I kept waiting for them to address Sloane's lapse and get back to Jack's health all through the Indonesian terrorist stuff. And that's not good.

The best part of the episode was Jack and Sloane finally telling their daughters the truth, that the notorious Auntie Yelena has been stalking them for decades... and bingo: we discover Sonia Braga is Yelena! Why didn't I see that coming? Now, see, this is why I love being spoiler-free, because if I'd known, the entire episode would have been a waste of time instead of just being a partial waste of time.

Yelena has been in play for awhile, too. She is Nadia's mother figure, for all intents and purposes. And it appears that she is rooting for Nadia, her "special one," in the upcoming theoretical Rambaldi-related Sydney vs. Nadia fight to the death. I bet Irina, if she's alive, would back Sydney. I wonder who Katya would root for?

I noticed that there was another riff on sacrifice; they practically quoted Mr. Spock's famous, "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few." It's not just Jack sacrificing himself by going into the reactor; here, Raimes chose to allow fifteen definite deaths in order to prevent hundreds of thousands of possible deaths. I always thought there was a fly in that logic ointment. Preventing both is the right answer, not one or the other.

And see, Jack isn't going to die. I simply won't have it.

Bits and pieces:

-- Capsules? Side effects and memory loss? I don't believe that the doctor is above board, old friend or no old friend. If he indeed is Jack's old friend.

-- I've been inconsistent in my spelling of third sister's name, Yelena/Elena. I'll go with the Y version from here on out.

-- Irina, Katya, Sophia, Yelena, Nadia... that's a lot of sensuous, three-syllable Russian-sounding feminine names ending in A, and all in just one family. "Sydney" just doesn't belong in there. And you can take that in more ways than one.

-- Yelena walked right into the CIA lion's den, just like Irina did.

-- I wish Jack actually would write his memoirs. Hey, I'd read them.

-- Dixon said, early on: "I didn't think the bullet was made that could take him [Raimes] down." At the end of the episode, Dixon had to shoot Raimes. Interesting irony. I really did think Raimes was dead at first, but it turned out like Sydney stabbing Vaughn in season three.

-- When Marshall found that info on Sophia Vargas, Sloane almost smiled at him. Was that a first?

-- I thought Vaughn would be the one to masquerade as Halsey because there was actually something of a resemblance. Except Vaughn is a lot cuter, and doesn't wear a ton of jewelry on his face.

-- Some of the cast referred to the villain Kradic as "kra-dik" and others referred to him as "kra-ditch." Oops.

-- There was a fun "Lost" crossover moment: in the opening airport scene, the loudspeaker said, "Oceanic Airlines nonstop flight to Sydney is now ready for boarding at gate 17." Plus there was a Hotel Ruisseau. :)

-- It sounds like Yelena killed the man who attacked the kids in "The Orphan."

-- Yelena: "Your father is a good man. I can tell." Yelena thinks Sloane is a good man? That alone should have told me what a talented liar she is.

-- During the earring-ripping scene, I kept thinking of this Buffy quote: "Ah, you just heard the horror stories. Wear hoops, they catch on something, rip your lobe off, lobes flying everywhere..."

-- Sydney: "What the hell are you thinking?" Sloane: "I'm sure you mean that in the most polite way."

-- This week's itinerary: Copenhagen, Amsterdam. And was Yelena calling from Lisbon?

-- This week's hot look: Not so much. I did like Dixon's undercover hat, though.

Bleah. One out of four spies,

Billie





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