Alias: A Free Agent!

Mia Maestro Gets Her 30 Seconds Of Fame!

An original review of "30 Seconds".

Holy shit! I can't believe that happened!!

Since the beginning of the season, I have been waiting for the day that Mia Maestro would be returning to Alias to reprise her role of Nadia Santos. The actress brought so much grace to the role and made season four one of the most enjoyable seasons to watch. Her scenes with Greg Grunberg were brilliantly done, and in all honesty I found myself favouring their relationship over the Syd-Vaughn one.

When the announcement was made that Jennifer Garner would be doing less action-based acting due to her pregnancy, I had hoped Maestro would be able to take hold of the torch and keep the Alias flame alight for a while. God knows she’s more than capable of it. Her wonderful smiles, the elegance and style she brought to the series, all of it was a joy to behold and in my mind she will be the greatest achievement of the Alias casting crew.

So as you can imagine, after Sloane finally got his hands on the cure for her Rambaldi coma last week, I was thrilled and could not wait until the actress once again entered the APO ranks. It was to be an episode to remember.

And that’s how it started. As Nadia held little baby Isabelle in the hospital gardens with Sydney, it was one of the few joyful scenes the series would ever produce and was enough to melt even the coldest hearts. Even with the tension between Nadia and her father. Her mission with Jack as the played eye-spy showed promise that the character would become more than just Syd’s nanny. She was an action-gal and always will be. I even had hopes that the writers would do something with the hints dropped at the tail end of last season. You know, Irina’s little hints that perhaps Sloane was not really the father of the second Derevko child? Even Jack’s response was a little curious and made me wonder if it was at all possible Nadia was more Bristow than Sloane.

But then the bastards cast her aside! They killed her, and robbed us all of Mia Maestro’s brilliance! In her final moments, the performance between Maestro and Ron Rifkin was absolutely marvellous. The level of writing from Alison Schapker and Monica Breen was great, and Frederick E.O. Toye gave his usual 110% with the directing. It was perhaps the most intensive scene the series has put out for a while and I loved every second of it…that is, until Sloane got to her! Why would the writers go to all the trouble to bring her back from beyond just to take her away again?!

And with the added development that Anna Espinosa (Gina Torres) has used the Helix protocol to take on the form of Sydney Bristow, it looked as if Nadia would have another chance to play a key role in the series. Remember the prophecy from last season? The Passenger and The Chosen One will fight and only one will survive. We all thought that applied to the Zombie-fest on the Sovogda rooftop last May, but could it be that Nadia was destined to do battle with Espinosa rather than Syd? It would have been a brilliant match to see, but I guess it just wasn’t meant to be.

The only good thing to come from the whole development is sending Sloane to the dark side and into the hands of Prophet Five. I’m sure once he is reunited with Irina we’ll be seeing something similar to that of the second season.

And if that wasn’t a big enough kick in the nuts, they had to go ahead and do the same to Renee Rienne. Just when I was beginning to like her. I must admit, I wasn’t much of a fan of Elodie Bouchez at the beginning of the season. To me, she was underused and was never really given anything real to do in the series. I’m sure Bouchez could have dazzled the entire fanbase if given half a chance, but the scripting just didn’t cut it. But by “Horizon”, what we did get of her was decent writing and she seemed to be fitting in well with each member of the cast.

Then the bastards killed her too! At the end as Sydney gazed down on her little lifeless body, and as Jack stood over my poor little Nadia, I felt a pang of regret that we won’t be seeing more of these characters. I know what you are thinking: this is Alias, people come back from the grave on a regular basis. But both of these exits had a sense of finality to them. Some people might think another resurrection would destroy every thread of credibility the series has left, but if somehow Nadia does come back, if Sloane wakes up and finds her in the shower alive and well, I’ll be a happy man. I suppose after revealing that Vaughn isn’t quite as dead as we thought the suits thought it best to make sure that Alias was still capable of rattling a few cages.

They’ve definitely rattled mine!

Although the whole Page 47 story and the Da Vinci Code moments were pretty much kept on the back burner, the sheer scope of this episode is unquestionable, once again throwing that old wrench into the machinery when you least expect it. Had it not been for the fact that it was Maestro’s last episode, I would say it was my favourite. But with rumours hinting that more characters are set to go before Alias’ final curtain, there might be more shocks in store. And I’m almost afraid to watch.

This review was written by the webmaster of A Free Agent, Alan Stanley Blair. In addition to running this site, he is also a writer for SyFy Portal.com where he regularly reviews other genre-based shows. Please submit any feedback on these reviews to alias@alanistic.co.uk. For other reviews from the fifth season, please visit Season 5 Deciphered.

Special Note: I hope this review doesn't offend anyone, but with the developments that took place in the episode more colourful english was required.

Alias: A Free Agent has not been approved or authorised by Touchstone.