but darling, it's not like that
Mar. 8th, 2004 12:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bluelovesorangeThe subject line was originally going to be, "Esteban! In the car with the nun!" but as I doubt many of you were channel surfing between tonight's Alias and El Todo Poder (I'm going to have to get it on DVD, they bleeped out all the cursing, not that I would have understood it - but its just the principle of the thing) on univision - that probably would have made little to no sense.
My thoughts, speculations and observations of Blowback - spoilers obviously.
Disclaimer: I like Sark, I like Lauren, Jack is the best SpyDaddy ever, and Sloane is always ....oddly intriguing.
and boy, did they ever. The concept seemed intriguing when I read about it - but the editing and the execution of it....fell greatly below expectations. For one thing, I never felt like we had enough in terms of characterization/feelings/motives for the Sark and Lauren portion of the POV, or that it was *true* POV. Blowback looked like a blatant clip show, and instead of seeing significant change of viewpoints and re-interpretations of scenes, it was just filler moment after filler moment and then flash forward to a cameo by Sark and Lauren.
Also it really hammered in how much I dislike the Sydney/Vaughn endless melty eye telethon, and how antagonistic I am to both their characters now - I lost my interest for Sydney somewhere mid season two, and now I just tolerate her. And Vaughn....I don't get it. At all.
Now on the other hand - Sark, and Lauren, and Sark/Lauren?
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEP.
The first half of the episode seemed to drag on forever, but once we switched over to the Sark and Lauren show (hee), things really started to pick up in terms of action, if not characterization. Because...oh, hi, THE HOT.
Right now the shallowmeter is off the charts - Blowback just confirms my insane girlcrush on Melissa George, and when I saw her all wrapped up and sleepy and basically all bedhead sex - I may have made a sighing noise. But then, when she picks up the phone and it's Sark in bright daylight, and he's being incredibly flirty and charming?
Hose me down - and it's just a conversation! Previously, I had made the observation that Sark is really attracted to women who are powerful and/or twisted in some way - see his mentor/protege relationship with Irina, and his quiet history with Allison Doren, and the bemused admiration for Sydney in fleeting moments - power is what turns Sark on. That and the quest for knowledge to gain more power (see hilarious disturbed context with Sloane in Season 2 and all the BAD TOUCHING). But as we've seen so far in canon, all of Sark's relationships have been inherently unequal - in the end, Irina was all about Jack and Sydney, and Allison had her moment of weakness with Will and Francie's ghost - that transformation also transformed the relationship she had with Sark - and we saw this gentle, almost resigned side to him in the face of her distance (both physical and emotional). When they reunited, it was as if they were following the expected pattern because it was familiar to both of them, but I didn't see more than a bittersweet solace. They sure as hell weren't partners anymore - but associates doing the assignments. And only JJ knows if Allison is *really* dead - no body, after all and all that magic Rambaldi juice floating around....Now there's a triangle straight from hell.
*shudder*
Then there's Sark's rivalry/conflict with Sydney - his intrigue with her in terms of a formidable opponent, and a bemused respect for her abilities - but it's all been one-sided. The way Sydney is written and characterized now - she's become One True Love girl and Don't You Forget It. Vaughn is her lobster - to steal a phrase, and she's never strayed far from the Light - even when she was doing questionable things, it was because she was fighting the Evil SD-6 for the CIA, and time after time on the show, she's always been excused or there's been an out for her to do wrong. Sydney doesn't kill people in cold blood unless they're evil and deserve it, and while she uses her feminine power to charm and wile her way accordingly, she's never enjoyed it. She has a very strict code of honor and is rigidly defined by it - and while the Julia Thorne diversion was eye-opening and interesting...ultimately, Julia was just Sydney doing her job. I've been terribly spoiled by Joss Whedon in that even though the results are varying and sometimes, very very questionable, he's never been afraid to take the risks of taking his characters to their darkest, deepest places. I can think of no better example than Buffy - flawed but always loveable (to me), even when she was thoroughly unlikable. I could see her darkness even when it verged on becoming Darqueness, and I could understand her even when I wanted to slap her sometimes.
But with Sydney....I don't get that. S1-2, her mission was all about destroying SD-6 and possibly salvaging a life with her parents (honestly, the best relationship portrayed on Alias) and Vaughn was a footnote that suddenly blossomed into a bookmark and then a chapter, and then suddenly it became the book. Gone were the other interactions with the other characters, that anchored Sydney into something else besides Super Bad Ass Spy, the humanity in the mundane details. IMO, I think JJ put Sydney on too high a pedestal and is now afraid to take her off of it. Does it sound like I have a vendetta against *nice* characters? Heck, no - I adore Weiss, and as far as we've seen, he's terribly nice and possibly the most well-adjusted of them all. But Sydney's niceness to me, has always been...rather suffocating and static. The relationship and courtship and in this season, endless mooning over Vaughn sapped her of any real depth. Vaughn fares no better - I've been struggling with trying to find something, a characteristic - a clutch- anything! that could make me empathize or like or hell, CARE about him - (and while I think Michael Vartan is attractive, his Pretty is Not Enough, or nowhere in the league of David Ander's Pretty for me.) like what is his magic power that makes two beautiful women fall for him? It's been a bitch to write him in my Lauren fics, I'll tell you that - I started off this season being an impartial observer, but as the season went on - I kept on wanting to shovel him.
Tonight was no exception. Again, it was all about the lack of communication or the forced perception that Lauren is the Bad One and Syd is the Good One - don't expect me to cry you a fucking river, dude - maybe if you talked to your wife, like...ACTUALLY TALKED TO HER, we would have been spared your unnecessary angst over your dad's anniversary. Or hey...maybe one day you'd wake up and go, "Hey. My wife's kind of evil. Huh."
No doubt you'd just go back to sleep.
The anvil of comparisions - this is the other thing that really pissed me off about the episode besides execution - remember my whiny rant about why does it have to be better and not just DIFFERENT? Which feeds into why I like, nay, Love Lauren. Because of the untapped possibility she represents - the existence of another fleshed out female character that could challenge Sydney (because the only one we've really had was Irina.). Seeing how that we were robbed of a 'good' character doing that (because apparently only Syd can wear the martyr halo - sorry, that's my bitter speaking.), JJ set out to make Lauren a shadow figure...because the best friend didn't work out, it'd be more....PAINFUL and AGONIZING to have it be HER ONE TRUE LOVE's WIFE being EVIL! The problem with that is that it forever paints Lauren as a derivation of Sydney - and the visual cues really hammer that across. At this rate, Lauren is never going to gain a real character outside of being Evil/Obstacle to Sydney and Vaughn's happiness.
Sure, she's in this position of power - but she's still answering to a higher up, and her position is very shaky, now with Weiss and Jack giving her suspicious looks and all (oh, Syd's not who Lauren should worry about. It's her dad that'll do the damage.) And as much as I love my evil spy girl, she's being played - the entire cute evil flirting with Sark, while initially giving me a squee...it sort of seemed rather condescending on Sark's part. Like he was petting her on the head and going, "oh you're evil now and you're so cute" - that bemused tone seeping into his dealings with her in the early part of the episode. And let's not forget Lauren's vulnerability over Vaughn (WHY? WHY? SOMEONE EXPLAIN THIS TO ME) - she does have deep feelings for him, and if this is what JJ meant about Vaughn being in a Jack situation (to which someone sniped that Lauren isn't an Irina...dude, Vaughn ain't no Jack.) - all I can say is good grief. Everything seems to thread in parallels from that nucleus of emotion - Lauren's life being the shadow - being in love with a man she can't ever truly know and yet still having her own agenda and then not just killing her rival outright....
But back to Lauren functioning as the pawn - her partnership with Sark as it is now - that earlier attraction to power compels both of them to each other. Plus the entire physical attraction chemistry thing - they're both highly easy on the eyes, after all, and we all love to gawk at pretty people together. I never fooled myself into believing that theirs was anything but a partnership of convenience and necessity, never mind an equal one. It's just about seeing who holds the power at any given time - Lauren surprised Sark with her passion (and dude, how kinky is that car chases and nearly dying gets Lauren hot? What a whole new world that would have been if she pulled over in the first chase she had with Sydney and just laid one on her right there. And hee, she was driving to catch Sark that time....) My twinkie and I were talking about this ep earlier and we both came to the conclusion that theirs is a relationship made for hurt/comfort...as in they delight in hurting each other (Lauren witholds affection or anything that would make her 'vulnerable' to Sark's charms) (and surprisingly touchy feely bedtalk - really, that I liked watching. As they cut the damn shaving line that would have shed a little more humanity to his character - but no doubt they thought it was out of character.) and Sark in paying back her slight to his sexual ego, rubs in Lauren's emotional wounds over Vaughn - it's total hurt and cold comfort.
The held breath is to see when it's all going to come apart - when Sark is going to out manipulate Lauren or she'll pull the table crashing down on his head - because I'm a fatalistic evil OTPer, it's going to fall apart. I just want that eventuality held off as long as possible and I don't want Lauren to die - nor Sark, and if they're still working together by the end of the season? I'll be rejoicing - because their chemistry and just the sheer escapist FUN they bring to the screen is something I've severely missed with Alias. I'd love to see Lauren become Sark's equal, but I don't have a very large hope for that - but....
shallow coming back...
if they have more hot sex in cars and hotel rooms and hell anywhere (THREE WEEKS for that barely two minutes? THREE FUCKING WEEKS WASTED.) I'd be very, very happy.
You know, because it's the little things.
Speaking of which - Heeee, Marshall and Mitchell. I wonder what his full name is. The hyphenate would be ghastly....
I was warned in advance for the Cleavage, but even so, I was not fully prepared for the reality of it. Holy crap, who knew Barnett was packing those underneath her sweaters? It was rather terrifying to see a real Jessica Rabbit...the proportions! It boggled my tiny mind!
I mean, Patricia Wettig is a lovely woman, but YEEEK.
And Sloane is creepy. Ron Rifkin is just...sublime. Really, the older characters just rock all the time.
Do I believe he had an affair with Irina? no. Do I believe that he thinks he believes it? God, with Sloane, you never do know what's up, do you?
Random other things that amused/annoyed me -
Syd in geek mode. Hi, gratuitous shout out to Jennifer Garner's physique.
The fact that they all are, with a few exceptions, really really crappy spies who know jack about things like 'stealth' and in Vaughn's case, 'self - preservation'. I'm really surprised he hasn't come closer to death than just the one virus and oh, okay, the contaminated swim.
Lauren, love....DON'T STAND IN ROTUNDAS OR CUL-DE-SACS OR WHATEVER THE HELL THE ARCHITECTURAL TERM IS IN THE FREAKING CIA OFFICE and chat with your evil partner in crime!
The fact that Lauren clocked Vaughn. That made me happy.
Fic, man...fic....
DUDE. how could i have forgotten the hilarious Product Placement? That was...I'm never buying a Ford vehicle.
*mutters incoherently*
My thoughts, speculations and observations of Blowback - spoilers obviously.
Disclaimer: I like Sark, I like Lauren, Jack is the best SpyDaddy ever, and Sloane is always ....oddly intriguing.
and boy, did they ever. The concept seemed intriguing when I read about it - but the editing and the execution of it....fell greatly below expectations. For one thing, I never felt like we had enough in terms of characterization/feelings/motives for the Sark and Lauren portion of the POV, or that it was *true* POV. Blowback looked like a blatant clip show, and instead of seeing significant change of viewpoints and re-interpretations of scenes, it was just filler moment after filler moment and then flash forward to a cameo by Sark and Lauren.
Also it really hammered in how much I dislike the Sydney/Vaughn endless melty eye telethon, and how antagonistic I am to both their characters now - I lost my interest for Sydney somewhere mid season two, and now I just tolerate her. And Vaughn....I don't get it. At all.
Now on the other hand - Sark, and Lauren, and Sark/Lauren?
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEP.
The first half of the episode seemed to drag on forever, but once we switched over to the Sark and Lauren show (hee), things really started to pick up in terms of action, if not characterization. Because...oh, hi, THE HOT.
Right now the shallowmeter is off the charts - Blowback just confirms my insane girlcrush on Melissa George, and when I saw her all wrapped up and sleepy and basically all bedhead sex - I may have made a sighing noise. But then, when she picks up the phone and it's Sark in bright daylight, and he's being incredibly flirty and charming?
Hose me down - and it's just a conversation! Previously, I had made the observation that Sark is really attracted to women who are powerful and/or twisted in some way - see his mentor/protege relationship with Irina, and his quiet history with Allison Doren, and the bemused admiration for Sydney in fleeting moments - power is what turns Sark on. That and the quest for knowledge to gain more power (see hilarious disturbed context with Sloane in Season 2 and all the BAD TOUCHING). But as we've seen so far in canon, all of Sark's relationships have been inherently unequal - in the end, Irina was all about Jack and Sydney, and Allison had her moment of weakness with Will and Francie's ghost - that transformation also transformed the relationship she had with Sark - and we saw this gentle, almost resigned side to him in the face of her distance (both physical and emotional). When they reunited, it was as if they were following the expected pattern because it was familiar to both of them, but I didn't see more than a bittersweet solace. They sure as hell weren't partners anymore - but associates doing the assignments. And only JJ knows if Allison is *really* dead - no body, after all and all that magic Rambaldi juice floating around....Now there's a triangle straight from hell.
*shudder*
Then there's Sark's rivalry/conflict with Sydney - his intrigue with her in terms of a formidable opponent, and a bemused respect for her abilities - but it's all been one-sided. The way Sydney is written and characterized now - she's become One True Love girl and Don't You Forget It. Vaughn is her lobster - to steal a phrase, and she's never strayed far from the Light - even when she was doing questionable things, it was because she was fighting the Evil SD-6 for the CIA, and time after time on the show, she's always been excused or there's been an out for her to do wrong. Sydney doesn't kill people in cold blood unless they're evil and deserve it, and while she uses her feminine power to charm and wile her way accordingly, she's never enjoyed it. She has a very strict code of honor and is rigidly defined by it - and while the Julia Thorne diversion was eye-opening and interesting...ultimately, Julia was just Sydney doing her job. I've been terribly spoiled by Joss Whedon in that even though the results are varying and sometimes, very very questionable, he's never been afraid to take the risks of taking his characters to their darkest, deepest places. I can think of no better example than Buffy - flawed but always loveable (to me), even when she was thoroughly unlikable. I could see her darkness even when it verged on becoming Darqueness, and I could understand her even when I wanted to slap her sometimes.
But with Sydney....I don't get that. S1-2, her mission was all about destroying SD-6 and possibly salvaging a life with her parents (honestly, the best relationship portrayed on Alias) and Vaughn was a footnote that suddenly blossomed into a bookmark and then a chapter, and then suddenly it became the book. Gone were the other interactions with the other characters, that anchored Sydney into something else besides Super Bad Ass Spy, the humanity in the mundane details. IMO, I think JJ put Sydney on too high a pedestal and is now afraid to take her off of it. Does it sound like I have a vendetta against *nice* characters? Heck, no - I adore Weiss, and as far as we've seen, he's terribly nice and possibly the most well-adjusted of them all. But Sydney's niceness to me, has always been...rather suffocating and static. The relationship and courtship and in this season, endless mooning over Vaughn sapped her of any real depth. Vaughn fares no better - I've been struggling with trying to find something, a characteristic - a clutch- anything! that could make me empathize or like or hell, CARE about him - (and while I think Michael Vartan is attractive, his Pretty is Not Enough, or nowhere in the league of David Ander's Pretty for me.) like what is his magic power that makes two beautiful women fall for him? It's been a bitch to write him in my Lauren fics, I'll tell you that - I started off this season being an impartial observer, but as the season went on - I kept on wanting to shovel him.
Tonight was no exception. Again, it was all about the lack of communication or the forced perception that Lauren is the Bad One and Syd is the Good One - don't expect me to cry you a fucking river, dude - maybe if you talked to your wife, like...ACTUALLY TALKED TO HER, we would have been spared your unnecessary angst over your dad's anniversary. Or hey...maybe one day you'd wake up and go, "Hey. My wife's kind of evil. Huh."
No doubt you'd just go back to sleep.
The anvil of comparisions - this is the other thing that really pissed me off about the episode besides execution - remember my whiny rant about why does it have to be better and not just DIFFERENT? Which feeds into why I like, nay, Love Lauren. Because of the untapped possibility she represents - the existence of another fleshed out female character that could challenge Sydney (because the only one we've really had was Irina.). Seeing how that we were robbed of a 'good' character doing that (because apparently only Syd can wear the martyr halo - sorry, that's my bitter speaking.), JJ set out to make Lauren a shadow figure...because the best friend didn't work out, it'd be more....PAINFUL and AGONIZING to have it be HER ONE TRUE LOVE's WIFE being EVIL! The problem with that is that it forever paints Lauren as a derivation of Sydney - and the visual cues really hammer that across. At this rate, Lauren is never going to gain a real character outside of being Evil/Obstacle to Sydney and Vaughn's happiness.
Sure, she's in this position of power - but she's still answering to a higher up, and her position is very shaky, now with Weiss and Jack giving her suspicious looks and all (oh, Syd's not who Lauren should worry about. It's her dad that'll do the damage.) And as much as I love my evil spy girl, she's being played - the entire cute evil flirting with Sark, while initially giving me a squee...it sort of seemed rather condescending on Sark's part. Like he was petting her on the head and going, "oh you're evil now and you're so cute" - that bemused tone seeping into his dealings with her in the early part of the episode. And let's not forget Lauren's vulnerability over Vaughn (WHY? WHY? SOMEONE EXPLAIN THIS TO ME) - she does have deep feelings for him, and if this is what JJ meant about Vaughn being in a Jack situation (to which someone sniped that Lauren isn't an Irina...dude, Vaughn ain't no Jack.) - all I can say is good grief. Everything seems to thread in parallels from that nucleus of emotion - Lauren's life being the shadow - being in love with a man she can't ever truly know and yet still having her own agenda and then not just killing her rival outright....
But back to Lauren functioning as the pawn - her partnership with Sark as it is now - that earlier attraction to power compels both of them to each other. Plus the entire physical attraction chemistry thing - they're both highly easy on the eyes, after all, and we all love to gawk at pretty people together. I never fooled myself into believing that theirs was anything but a partnership of convenience and necessity, never mind an equal one. It's just about seeing who holds the power at any given time - Lauren surprised Sark with her passion (and dude, how kinky is that car chases and nearly dying gets Lauren hot? What a whole new world that would have been if she pulled over in the first chase she had with Sydney and just laid one on her right there. And hee, she was driving to catch Sark that time....) My twinkie and I were talking about this ep earlier and we both came to the conclusion that theirs is a relationship made for hurt/comfort...as in they delight in hurting each other (Lauren witholds affection or anything that would make her 'vulnerable' to Sark's charms) (and surprisingly touchy feely bedtalk - really, that I liked watching. As they cut the damn shaving line that would have shed a little more humanity to his character - but no doubt they thought it was out of character.) and Sark in paying back her slight to his sexual ego, rubs in Lauren's emotional wounds over Vaughn - it's total hurt and cold comfort.
The held breath is to see when it's all going to come apart - when Sark is going to out manipulate Lauren or she'll pull the table crashing down on his head - because I'm a fatalistic evil OTPer, it's going to fall apart. I just want that eventuality held off as long as possible and I don't want Lauren to die - nor Sark, and if they're still working together by the end of the season? I'll be rejoicing - because their chemistry and just the sheer escapist FUN they bring to the screen is something I've severely missed with Alias. I'd love to see Lauren become Sark's equal, but I don't have a very large hope for that - but....
shallow coming back...
if they have more hot sex in cars and hotel rooms and hell anywhere (THREE WEEKS for that barely two minutes? THREE FUCKING WEEKS WASTED.) I'd be very, very happy.
You know, because it's the little things.
Speaking of which - Heeee, Marshall and Mitchell. I wonder what his full name is. The hyphenate would be ghastly....
I was warned in advance for the Cleavage, but even so, I was not fully prepared for the reality of it. Holy crap, who knew Barnett was packing those underneath her sweaters? It was rather terrifying to see a real Jessica Rabbit...the proportions! It boggled my tiny mind!
I mean, Patricia Wettig is a lovely woman, but YEEEK.
And Sloane is creepy. Ron Rifkin is just...sublime. Really, the older characters just rock all the time.
Do I believe he had an affair with Irina? no. Do I believe that he thinks he believes it? God, with Sloane, you never do know what's up, do you?
Random other things that amused/annoyed me -
Syd in geek mode. Hi, gratuitous shout out to Jennifer Garner's physique.
The fact that they all are, with a few exceptions, really really crappy spies who know jack about things like 'stealth' and in Vaughn's case, 'self - preservation'. I'm really surprised he hasn't come closer to death than just the one virus and oh, okay, the contaminated swim.
Lauren, love....DON'T STAND IN ROTUNDAS OR CUL-DE-SACS OR WHATEVER THE HELL THE ARCHITECTURAL TERM IS IN THE FREAKING CIA OFFICE and chat with your evil partner in crime!
The fact that Lauren clocked Vaughn. That made me happy.
Fic, man...fic....
DUDE. how could i have forgotten the hilarious Product Placement? That was...I'm never buying a Ford vehicle.
*mutters incoherently*
