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theladyroseDue to the fact that Giacchino's obviously not the only one whose music is used for Alias now despite having sole credit, it's getting even more difficult to analyze the music. Especially since I can't really take notes as Ellie immediately deleted the episode after viewing. Needless to say this review will have a little less score analysis than usual.
Have the episode titles this season hit rock bottom? "There's Only One Sydney Bristow" was pretty bad, but this one is just...ick. It's like Die Another Day as the title for the 20th Bond movie.
This isn't to say that I disliked this episode. Actually, I was surprised by how much I liked this one especially after last week's. This could be because Vaughn is actually doing real life stuff again and that Sydney Clone/Anna Espinosa died à la Lauren. Thank God. Haven't we had enough genetic doubles in the series already?!
Due to the fact that I can't really think coherently right now (damn stomachaches) I'll list out some general observations/comments:
-The evil eyeliner of doom has returned! Thre's a nice parallel with season 3's finale "Legacy" as fake Sydney always wears too much eyeliner. Bwahahaha. Maybe that's how Vaughn unconsciously figured out that Sydclone was fake?
-As for Anna Espionsa/fake Syd being killed: didn't the shot pattern look a lot like how Freplica was killed in the season 2 finale "The Telling" except that Sydclone/Anna wasn't shot in the shoulder? And to a lesser extent Sydclone/Anna's death looked a little like Lauren's deah.
-Another parallel to "Legacy": the S/V kiss after the villainess was killed. The shots of the actors' faces looked freakishly similar to me.
-Rachel: Isn't it ironic that she's confiding about her feelings of betrayal to Tom Grace, who's also manipulating her? When will she stop being so naive?!
-Sloane: I still don't think he's evil. I never thought he was; I truly believe he's a "meglomania with benign intentions." I suspet that he's buying time at Prophet Five to scheme up a revenge plan on the people who unintentionally caused Nadia's death. We know that he knows what's encoded in Page 47 but he's continuing to hide it from Peyton et al.
-Nadia: I'm really glad that Mia Maestro's still on the show, although the whole echoey voice effect is a little gimmicky. It was weird hearing Nadia being so sarcastic and cutting to Sloane (the old Nadia would NEVER have been so hurtful to her father even after all of the terrible things Sloane has done to her), but then again she's representing Sloane's doubts and fears and merry psychological issues here. But I'm seriously confused as to how the Prophecy might be fulfilled now since both the Passenger and SydClone are dead.
I expected Syd to be more weepy/openly pissed off about Sloane killing Nadia at the funeral, though. She seemed eerily calm, but perhaps that hints at future confrontation to come.
-Sark: I so *knew* that the bookseller was contacting Sark even before we saw him near the end of the eppy in the cathedral. Not just because David Anders's name was in the credits, but because there were traces of Sark's motif playing in the background during the call. And this is why it pays to pay attention to the sore.
-Anna: I was pleasantly surprised tosee that she was a badass SydClone who was a much more convincing impersonator than I thought; it almost reminded me of Sydney as Julia Thorne in season 3 when Syd can't remember the Julia identity at first. Her conversation with Sloane was absolutely priceless. You could tell that she inadvertently tipped off Vaughn, though, by spacing out about the baby's name and by kissing him in Nepal. I'd imagine that kissing style would immediately tip off any lover, but it would also have been an immediate giveaway if she didn't kiss him. And I love Vaughn's send off just before he beats her up!
Thankfully she's dead now, though. The genetic doubles plotline is starting to get really tired and Anna's just not interesting enough to hang around for the last two episodes. What I really want is to see some Sydney and Sloane confrontation.
-Marshall: He's had less and less interesting moments lately, but I really loved the coffee improvisation. Yay for a short return of tech geekiness!
-Vaughn's father's bunker: Did it remind you of another control room from a previous episode with more stuff on the walls, perhaps Elena Derevko's from the season 4 finale? It looked sort of familiar to me...
More analysis to come, possibly.
Other music notes:
-During the funeral Nadia's theme from season 4 returns mixed with...well, it's a sort of additional motif that I loosely call "season 5 {family} angst" that started playing during some of Nadia's season 5 scenes andother angsty Bristow/Santos/Derevko/Sloane family moments. The Irina motif from which Nadia's theme was initially derived was played down but still somewhat detectable. I suspect that Irina will return sometime within the next two episodes because she HAS to find out about what happened to her daughter. And does't Irina still have the Horizon?
-There's a cool fusion of Sloane's theme, the Page 47 theme and Peyton's motif in the beginning of the ep when Peyton is first checking up on Sloane's progress. I don't remember hearing the Prophecy motif in there, too, though. Yes, the Prophecy and Page 47 have different associated musical cues. I don't know how to back this up but I suspect the music hints that Sloane is using Page 47 to unleash some terrible destruction on Prophet Five. I'm not quite sure exactly how Page 47 and the Prophecy are linked together but I don't think it will lead to the fiery vision predicted by the Prophecy.
-Aww, we get tonal resolution once Sydney and Vaughn are finally reunited. It's cute. First there's a variation on the "season 5 Sydney angsting about missing Vaughn" theme crossed with "Almost Two Years" (the season 3&4 love theme), and when Sydney leaves Vaughn to pretend that she's Anna/Sydclone there's an unusually lush strings orchestration of the original Sydney and Vaughn theme from seasons 1 and 2. It's even richer than the version heard during the Vertigo homage kiss in "Aftermath Class" from seasons 2's "Phase One." I suspect that Giacchino didn't arrange that particular cue.
-The non leitmotivic cues in Alias lately have been pretty forgettable. I hate to say this but I've been disappointed in Giacchino; he's so busy with M:I III and Lost and all of his other projects that he's not been doing so much for Alias and has obviously offshored his work to others (Chris Tilton at least). I have nothing against nice melodic orchestral cues for the emotional moments (they're effective but not as great as some of the earlier thematic versions), but I miss the awesome techno-inspired fight music from seasons 1 and 2. Even Giacchino's orchestral mission and action cues from season 4 still had that unique Alias style that's just been lost as the music focuses more on the emotional drama. There just isn't enough balance for these past few episodes, so the suspense isn't as great as it used tobe for me.
Have the episode titles this season hit rock bottom? "There's Only One Sydney Bristow" was pretty bad, but this one is just...ick. It's like Die Another Day as the title for the 20th Bond movie.
This isn't to say that I disliked this episode. Actually, I was surprised by how much I liked this one especially after last week's. This could be because Vaughn is actually doing real life stuff again and that Sydney Clone/Anna Espinosa died à la Lauren. Thank God. Haven't we had enough genetic doubles in the series already?!
Due to the fact that I can't really think coherently right now (damn stomachaches) I'll list out some general observations/comments:
-The evil eyeliner of doom has returned! Thre's a nice parallel with season 3's finale "Legacy" as fake Sydney always wears too much eyeliner. Bwahahaha. Maybe that's how Vaughn unconsciously figured out that Sydclone was fake?
-As for Anna Espionsa/fake Syd being killed: didn't the shot pattern look a lot like how Freplica was killed in the season 2 finale "The Telling" except that Sydclone/Anna wasn't shot in the shoulder? And to a lesser extent Sydclone/Anna's death looked a little like Lauren's deah.
-Another parallel to "Legacy": the S/V kiss after the villainess was killed. The shots of the actors' faces looked freakishly similar to me.
-Rachel: Isn't it ironic that she's confiding about her feelings of betrayal to Tom Grace, who's also manipulating her? When will she stop being so naive?!
-Sloane: I still don't think he's evil. I never thought he was; I truly believe he's a "meglomania with benign intentions." I suspet that he's buying time at Prophet Five to scheme up a revenge plan on the people who unintentionally caused Nadia's death. We know that he knows what's encoded in Page 47 but he's continuing to hide it from Peyton et al.
-Nadia: I'm really glad that Mia Maestro's still on the show, although the whole echoey voice effect is a little gimmicky. It was weird hearing Nadia being so sarcastic and cutting to Sloane (the old Nadia would NEVER have been so hurtful to her father even after all of the terrible things Sloane has done to her), but then again she's representing Sloane's doubts and fears and merry psychological issues here. But I'm seriously confused as to how the Prophecy might be fulfilled now since both the Passenger and SydClone are dead.
I expected Syd to be more weepy/openly pissed off about Sloane killing Nadia at the funeral, though. She seemed eerily calm, but perhaps that hints at future confrontation to come.
-Sark: I so *knew* that the bookseller was contacting Sark even before we saw him near the end of the eppy in the cathedral. Not just because David Anders's name was in the credits, but because there were traces of Sark's motif playing in the background during the call. And this is why it pays to pay attention to the sore.
-Anna: I was pleasantly surprised tosee that she was a badass SydClone who was a much more convincing impersonator than I thought; it almost reminded me of Sydney as Julia Thorne in season 3 when Syd can't remember the Julia identity at first. Her conversation with Sloane was absolutely priceless. You could tell that she inadvertently tipped off Vaughn, though, by spacing out about the baby's name and by kissing him in Nepal. I'd imagine that kissing style would immediately tip off any lover, but it would also have been an immediate giveaway if she didn't kiss him. And I love Vaughn's send off just before he beats her up!
Thankfully she's dead now, though. The genetic doubles plotline is starting to get really tired and Anna's just not interesting enough to hang around for the last two episodes. What I really want is to see some Sydney and Sloane confrontation.
-Marshall: He's had less and less interesting moments lately, but I really loved the coffee improvisation. Yay for a short return of tech geekiness!
-Vaughn's father's bunker: Did it remind you of another control room from a previous episode with more stuff on the walls, perhaps Elena Derevko's from the season 4 finale? It looked sort of familiar to me...
More analysis to come, possibly.
Other music notes:
-During the funeral Nadia's theme from season 4 returns mixed with...well, it's a sort of additional motif that I loosely call "season 5 {family} angst" that started playing during some of Nadia's season 5 scenes andother angsty Bristow/Santos/Derevko/Sloane family moments. The Irina motif from which Nadia's theme was initially derived was played down but still somewhat detectable. I suspect that Irina will return sometime within the next two episodes because she HAS to find out about what happened to her daughter. And does't Irina still have the Horizon?
-There's a cool fusion of Sloane's theme, the Page 47 theme and Peyton's motif in the beginning of the ep when Peyton is first checking up on Sloane's progress. I don't remember hearing the Prophecy motif in there, too, though. Yes, the Prophecy and Page 47 have different associated musical cues. I don't know how to back this up but I suspect the music hints that Sloane is using Page 47 to unleash some terrible destruction on Prophet Five. I'm not quite sure exactly how Page 47 and the Prophecy are linked together but I don't think it will lead to the fiery vision predicted by the Prophecy.
-Aww, we get tonal resolution once Sydney and Vaughn are finally reunited. It's cute. First there's a variation on the "season 5 Sydney angsting about missing Vaughn" theme crossed with "Almost Two Years" (the season 3&4 love theme), and when Sydney leaves Vaughn to pretend that she's Anna/Sydclone there's an unusually lush strings orchestration of the original Sydney and Vaughn theme from seasons 1 and 2. It's even richer than the version heard during the Vertigo homage kiss in "Aftermath Class" from seasons 2's "Phase One." I suspect that Giacchino didn't arrange that particular cue.
-The non leitmotivic cues in Alias lately have been pretty forgettable. I hate to say this but I've been disappointed in Giacchino; he's so busy with M:I III and Lost and all of his other projects that he's not been doing so much for Alias and has obviously offshored his work to others (Chris Tilton at least). I have nothing against nice melodic orchestral cues for the emotional moments (they're effective but not as great as some of the earlier thematic versions), but I miss the awesome techno-inspired fight music from seasons 1 and 2. Even Giacchino's orchestral mission and action cues from season 4 still had that unique Alias style that's just been lost as the music focuses more on the emotional drama. There just isn't enough balance for these past few episodes, so the suspense isn't as great as it used tobe for me.
