Thursday, December 29, 2005

Time Telling

You can set your heart by that watch- Vaughn did and both the watch and his heart stopped on October 1st, the day he met Sydney. The watch would grow to symbolize not only Vaughn’s connection to his father, but his love for Sydney. On the anniversary of Bill Vaughn’s death, Vaughn wakes early and looks at the watch. Lauren asks what time it is and Vaughn replies, “I don’t know, it’s broken.” I was saddened and slightly livid when Lauren later has the watch fixed as an apology for forgetting the anniversary.

This season, the watch is Vaughn’s proof to Lehman. After the car crash and Vaughn’s escape from Curtis, he calls Sydney and asks her to bring his father’s watch to him. Lehman asks to see the watch in order to identify Vaughn as Bill Vaughn’s son. After Vaughn’s death we see Sydney wearing the watch, but not her engagement ring. I suppose the watch is more of a symbol of their commitment and more of a reminder of her past with Vaughn. Why do you suppose the watch was used in the first place, aside from it being a fabulous pick-up line? Why do you suppose the writers chose to use Bill Vaughn’s watch as Lehman’s proof? Do you think it was an object of convenience? Do you think the watch could hold the answers to P5, Bill Vaughn and Vaughn’s death?

7 comments:

Girlscout said...

I have the same questions Jenn. Is it a communication device, did all the P5 people have one? Did Vaughn no all along that the watch had somthing to do with P5 or did Lehamn just know that Bill Vaughn had a watch like that? More than likely the watch as a part in all this.

Girlscout said...

Murdoch was the man who Bill Vaughn supposivdly shot in the back. He was the dude in the wheel chair. We aren't sure if he was an Elena plant or not. But yes, why would he remember the watch?

As for communication, I thought perhaps the device would be undetectable. Remember Alias, they can do whatevre they want. And if it is communicating, maybe it's Sydney's way of staying in touch with Vaughn in hiding? It's a cute idea!

SKlaft said...

I wonder if it is just coincidence that all the north-american leader of the Covenant had "special watches" that identified them. Sark and Lauren murdered them and took their watches as leverage for a promotion. This, (annoyingly) brings me back to the continued mystery of Mckinas Cole's freedom, but I digress.

I do not know what to make of this similarity, but it certainly should not go overlooked.
-R.

Paul Kremer said...

Actually, GS, I think we can be fairly sure that Murdoch WAS an Elena plant.

I just watched this episode a few days ago, and Murdoch claims to have been on a mission with Bill Vaughn in 1982. Remember, the journal was fake. That same book that led Vaughn to Elena was the one that led to Murdoch. How could he not be a plant, claiming to be on a mission with a man that died 3 years before the mission supposedly happened?

Elena was trying to make Vaughn believe his father was still alive, and that he was a "bad guy" (remember Roberts saying those exact words). Elena needed to prime Vaughn to believe the possibility that his father was a bad guy before springing on him the job she needed him to do. Had he come across the idea his dad was a bad guy at the very moment he was needed to steal the Rambaldi instruction manual, he may rejected the idea outright?

What are your thoughts? :)

the cloned corpse of marcus tal said...

Ok this has lots of speculation:


I bet this has occured to you lot b4, but don't you think JJ knew from the word go who Rambaldi really is instead of making it up as he goes along? Remember the 1st season flashback to Rambadli in the past.. we never see his face. If we did we would recognise him. I believe this narrows everything down to Jack, Marshall or MV.

I bet this is all horribly wrong.

Also I have a suspicion/feeling that the DSR are the real baddies and that perhaps P5/the true Alliance (of sorts), although not saints, could be much mooted but never really explored ' good followers of Rambaldi'. We know they exist despite all the bad ones like the Covenenant whom we have encountered previously. Perhaps they are trying to keep stuff out of the DSR's hands...

This could reinforce a fanciful suspicion of mine that APO is the SD-6 indirectly of the DSR.

Also: has anyone ever thought that MILO RAMBALDI might not have originally been a specific person but an anacronym of sorts of the names of 12 people/who Irina was meant to have killed etc who worked on P5.

However, for obvious plot reasons somebody had to assume this identity via time travel or some elaborate hoax. Perhaps hidden in Rambaldi's work is a cry for help from the present/future hidden in the texts of the past = he real endgame of sorts.

BV's advanced physics+ DSR's project Blackhole+Horizon= some sort of time travel experiment to my mind. Perhaps Marshall's genius is the missing piece in the jigsaw. I've always felt the s2 episode where Slone was quite prepared to let Marshall die when he was abducted would be significantly ironic in the long term.

I also can't help but feel that as each season has a big bad (ala Buffy) short of it being Rambaldi (which I doubt) it has to be somebody we've already met like Kendall, Katya, or Sloane. We can discount Irina and Jack for obvious reasons.

I also want to know what was the point of Jack getting radiation poisoning, geting cured and having some explicit reference made to his obscure genetic mutation? ! What was that all about?

Anonymous said...

The cloned corpse of marcus tal:
Uhm, because Jack wanted to save Sydney's life perhaps? ;)

the cloned corpse of marcus tal said...

Andreas, I don't doubt his motives! ;)

Its the bit about Jack's mutation. Why even mention it ? Is another of those daft plot holes? Probably!

Who knows!