Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Three's a Crowd

Tomorrow night will be the first hour of our three hour countdown to the end of Alias. I will be enjoying the hour at Hillary and Danny’s, along with Iceberg, Starbucks Mom, and Super Syd the SpyBaby, as we whip up a little din-din and settle in for our favorite show. I am sure we all have been circling around the endless possibilities for the finale and are all together anxious, overwhelmed, excited and saddened. It will be hard to say goodbye to characters we know so well- but what about the characters we don’t?

Rachel, Grace and Kelly Peyton hit the scene just as ABC announced the series cancellation. Their characters are hardly developed- do to lack of time and the obvious need to tie up loose ends pertaining to the original cast.

We know Grace is knee-deep in some sort of unbeknownst plan. He speaks several foreign languages, including German (Korman-Hamburg-Bunker), he has gained access to Witness Protection files and he knows the protocol for contacting the Cardinal. What is Grace up to? Is his wife really dead? How does he know the Cardinal?

Rachel- This girl has had her world turned upside! After learning that her employer was actually a terrorist- Rachel is whisked into the world of APO. Her family is placed in Witness Protection, she nearly gets herself killed on a mission and she accidentally sleeps with a bad guy. Poor thing. But aside from breaking algorithmic codes in her head, what has Rachel been up to? Not a whole lot. She’s got her suspicions about Grace, but what role will she play in the thwarting of P5?

Now, I love me some Kelly Peyton. I seriously believe that if Amy Acker had been brought on board way back in season 4, we would have a real baddie on our hands. She’s manipulative, cunning, but with the innocence of the girl next door. She has maneuvered her way around P5 quite nicely, and I guarantee we will be seeing some hand to hand combat as Syd/Ana/Syd jumps blindly into what seems to be a P5 trap. I think Peyton knows it’s not really Ana. I think everyone in P5 knows. I can’t wait to see how this plays out- but where did Peyton come from? What will be her role in the P5 endgame? Is she merely a pawn?

What do you think? Do you think perhaps the writers were thinking of more seasons when they brought in these characters? Do you think the cancellation put the X on the development? Who do you like? Who do you hate? What do you see for their future in the next 3 eppies?

9 comments:

SRM said...

Earlier in the season the writers definitely focused on growing Rachel's character, I think they were probably planning on more seasons (or a least a full season) to use her and the other 2 you mentioned.

I've become more and more interested in Grace over the last few eppies, I'm very curious why he faked not knowing other languages before when he's obviously quite fluent. I still think what he's up to is actually good and they're just trying to make him look guilty, but he could be the mole we've been looking for.

Someone said this before and I agree that Kelly is pretty one dimensional. I've found her to be a pretty boring character actually, but I was curious from the last episode what sacrifices she's made to follow Rambaldi. I'm hoping we find out more about that comment she made.

SKlaft said...

I had my deepest suspicions about Rachel. The parallels between her entrance into APO and Sydney's background were way too glaring, and I thought for sure someone was manipulating Sydney's sympathies. Then the bomb dropped and it seemed like they decided not to take her that direction due to a lack of time. Now I rather like her. She a brilliant code-breaker, and certainly enthusiastic, but she's also no superhero, bumbling around, smacking into locked doors. I dare say, she is the one with whom we, the common folks, can most directly identify.

I liked Grace from the beginning. He's always a bit of mystery to him since Sydney looked at his confidential files. He was backgrounded for a while, but the scene when he was teaching Rachel how to be viscious in a fight really hooked me. Here was no boyscout. Plus, his dry sense of humor is much like my own. He may be a mole, but I can't help but think it is for a good reason or for some benevolent secret group or person. I still think he is loyal to his country. (BTW - he may not have 'pretended' to not have known the language when they were in Prague. Maybe he speaks German, but not Chek. I'm sure there are a lot of agents that know some languages, and not others.)

Payton? Eh, I can take her or leave her. I thought the scene where she was talking to the Chinese lady about eating noodles was interesting. It showed her more personable side, yet the whole time we know she is a piranha all dressed up like Nemo. She can catch you off guard, like several other of our favorite badies, by disarming you. It is too bad we can't see a bit more of her charm.

-R.

SRM said...

Re: Peyton "she is a piranha all dressed up like Nemo" lol robby :)

When Syd and Grace are on the mission that eventually captures Rachel, doesn't he say something like "I'm not too good with languages" when they're in the van? My memory's a bit fuzzy...

a bit OT but prompted by Liz's comment, I saw the tail end of Prison Break last night when I was waiting for 24 to come on and saw Patricia Wettig's (Dr. Barnett) character sworn in as President, she's stepping up in the world! ;-)

Anonymous said...

I really like Grace and hope he's a good guy. Rachel has grown on me - at first she seemed kinda "vanilla" but I like her more ever since she returned from her encounter with Sark. Peyton is just evil - I think the show could totally do without her, with it being cancelled and the season shortened we would have been just fine without another baddie. We've never learned where she came from or how she has so much knowledge of everything from the Horizon to Ana Espinosa to P5? What's her connection to it all? However, she's the only new baddie who has survived so far this season and so she's the only link to Gordon Dean & co. They haven't really ever connected the 12 who let Sloane see their faces with Peyton and her goons and they've moved the Peyton/Irina connection to the background since Vancouver so we have yet to see how it all fits together with P5, Rambaldi, Sloane, Irina, Sark, Peyton, Renée...

SKlaft said...

It may have been that second clang of the shuvel up-side Dean's block that made me fall in love with Rachel.

:D

-R.

uncle111 said...

Someone over at http://groups.google.com/group/2541-Zephyr-Avenue
posted the following poll:

On the eve of the end let's see what we're all thinking on this:

Is Rambaldi alive now?

Is Rambaldi good(defined as pro-Sydney's happiness) or bad(defined as anti-Syd)?

Is Jack Rambaldi's servant or is he anti-Rambaldi?

Is Irina Rambaldi's servant or is she anti-Rambaldi?

Will we recognize Rambaldi's identity if he is alive today?

What was Rambaldi's ultimate goal?

Looks fun, but do I really want to commit to an answer?

uncle111 said...

"Just had a thought, what if the Cardinal is Rambaldi?"

That one has been kicked around. Rambaldi secreted away from his faked execution and hidden in the Vatican where he eventually became it's secret protectorate or a church official. Tom is part of the group that protects him, and Jack has joined them, at least in part, to protect Sydney. Sloane would be high in the Rambaldi cult group who have perverted Rambaldi's ideas.

uncle111 said...

lhaaheim- it may have been on another site. Could have been ABC's site or Zephyr Avenue.

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