He joined the show after a prosperous career on Buffy The Vampire Slayer
and its spin-off series Angel, and with an excellent debut on Alias with “Welcome
To Liberty Village”, writer Drew Goddard proved that he is ready to play
the spy game.
But with “Liberty Village”, the question has to
be asked – was it just a fluke? Beginners luck maybe? Far
from it, as “Tuesday” itself proves.
Marshall (Kevin Weisman) is delayed from
leaving home after Lil’ Mitch has a fever, and during an operation in Havana
Sydney (Jennifer Garner) is captured and Dixon (Carl Lumbly)
retrieves a booby-trapped hard disk. The end result is that Syd
is buried alive and Dixon is hospitalised after a deadly pathogen
is released inside APO, cutting the team off from the rest of
the world…and from Sydney.
Now while all of this is a lot of action,
you can’t help
but notice nothing much really happens in the episode. It’s
all run of the mill action. Run of the mill adventure. It’s
Tuesday – just another day for the APO team. Having said
that, the run of the mill feel to the episode is just as entertaining
as anything else the series has managed to produce (with perhaps
the exception of the classic Sydney/Irina moments in season two).
It was by far a Marshall episode, finally
providing Kevin Weisman with the much needed screen time and
development he so obviously
deserves. Sporting his usual tongue-in-cheek humour, this time
with a hint of James Bond, Weisman was able to achieve new levels
for his character in an absolutely unmissable fashion. Impersonating
Jack (Victor Garber) was a hilarious twist as was shooting the
man he was supposed to work with. However, the greatest development
for Marshall was the realisation that he is living the life of
Sydney in season 1 – Carrie (Amanda Foreman) has no idea
he’s still with the CIA, and with her previous NSA clearance
she certainly wouldn’t be pleased to know he was working
for Arvin Sloane.
Also noteworthy is Jennifer Garner’s performance as Syd
switches off her phone and is truly alone inside the buried coffin.
Other genre shows have tried similar ideas (Buffy, The X-Files)
but have all failed to achieve the level of terror such an occurrence
would cause. The scene was as suspenseful and heart-pumping as
any of Alias’ high profile missions and was carried out
solely on Garner’s acting skills and without the aid of
any of the shows trademark stunts.
The strongest aspect of “Liberty Village” was the
chemistry between Sydney and Vaughn (Michael Vartan), something
which has been lacking in the last few episodes. It was a small
blessing that Goddard and Breen Fraizer were able to recapture
some of that chemistry…in the train station no less. A
setting which will prove significant to long term Alias fans.
Unfortunately though, “Tuesday” lacked the building
tension over the issue of Vaughn’s father and the pact
between Jack and Sloane (Ron Rifkin) and the complex dynamic
between all of the APO team was a rare instance, as was the budding
romance between Weiss and Nadia.
But as far as stand-alone episodes go, “Tuesday” is
definitely one of the seasons better ones.
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