Alias (TV Series) Blowback (2004) User Reviews

Rewind

[gridoon2024 · 7/10 · 14 December 2009]

This episode employs a gimmick that is simultaneously cool and pointless: after about 20 minutes of straightforward action (with Sydney and Vaughn trying to download data that will pinpoint the location of a next-generation bomb), the story rewinds back to the beginning (for a moment, I thought there was a problem with my DVD!) and tells the same story from a different perspective - Lauren's. Now, if this was the first episode that revealed that Lauren is working for the Covenant, this would be a fantastic twist. But it isn't - we've known the truth about Lauren for three episodes already. Therefore, "her side of the story" may be fun to watch, mostly thanks to Melissa George milking the "bad girl" role for all it's worth (love her disapproving nod at a guard right before she shoots him!) and her chemistry with David Anders' equally twisted Sark, but these scenes don't really reveal anything that the viewer hadn't already known or guessed. There is one car chase, however, that is simply smashing (no pun intended). Meanwhile, Sloane confides his secret to the CIA psychiatrist, and I expected something more definite than a mere possibility. But, like many times before, Ron Rifkin's acting is so good that any moment Sloane is on the screen is a benefit to the show. *** out of 4.

Different perspectives

[Tweekums · 8/10 · 10 July 2010]

This episode starts with Vaughn in bed with his wife talking about his broken watch, this should be a relatively unimportant scene except for the fact that about twenty minutes into the episode the story returns to this point. The first time round we see Vaughn and Sydney being sent on a mission to retrieve computer data from a server in Vancouver, while there it becomes apparent that there is also a Covenant operative there too who is also trying to steal the data as well as corrupt the data the CIA is downloading. After a car chase through the multi-storey car park the Covenant operative manages to escape. Mitchell manages to decrypt the data and Sydney and Vaughn find themselves on their way to Lisbon to retrieve a 'pulse bomb', here they are ambushed by a team from the Covenant. The story then returns to the beginning and we see the events again, this time from Lauren's perspective. We learn that in both locations Sydney and Vaughn's operations were countered by Lauren and Sark. When the two stories catch up with each other it looks like Lauren is about to be exposed when Vaughn catches her and demands that she removes her mask, luckily for her just as she is about to remove it Sark captures Sydney and tells Vaughm to drop his gun if he really loves her; it was hard to tell if Lauren was relieved or furious when he complied.

This was a pretty exciting episode and I liked the idea of showing the operation from both sides... although like the previous reviewer I feared something was wrong with my DVD when we returned to the bedroom scene. As is often the case when the bad guys are given a large amount of the screen time they steal the show; David Anders is always good as Sark and Melissa George was great as Lauren, I loved how she was so annoyed that her husband still had feelings for Sydney yet at the same time she was sleeping with Sark.