Call Backs are the Bag

I love me some Alias callbacks! I love when the writers mirror a situation, a sentence, a scene with one from the past. One of my favorite things about writing the episode recaps is being able to point out call backs and pick them apart for meaning.

The first scene- Sydney is home alone after Danny's funeral. She is listening to him on the answering machine. JJ Abrams said that he always want to shoot a scene like this. The scene is later revisited in season 5 in a different form- Vaughn's voice on a mission recording. The moments are very simple- very sad, yet seem to hold hope and faith. Sydney erased Danny's voice and replaced it with her own- moving on, being strong, but still remembering him with a "thank you." In the later scene, Sydney wants their baby to know her father's voice. It was a definite red flag for me that Vaughn was still alive and that Sydney wanted Isabelle to recognize her father's voice.

In the next scene- Syd has just made her way to the parking garage. This is right before the big garage fight scene, when Sloane's containment teams comes after her. The scene on the right is Sydney after her first ultrasound. She gets into her car in the parking garage and stares at the photo of her unborn baby. I was half expecting a SWAT team to enter and take her in- but it didn't. So how is it a call back? It's merely the angle in which the scene was shot. The car is probably parked in the same parking garage and Sydney, really is in the same position in both. Alone. She has just lost Danny and later, she is alone and pregnant. There is almost a scene of loss- a loss of direction.

What are some of your favorite call backs? Send them my way- with pictures of both scenes. www.alias-media.com is great for this!