The Safe House - Expositions

Understanding everything that's going on in Alias is not only impossible, it's absolutely beside the point. All that really matters is enjoying the ride.

Has incomprehension ever been so much fun?

As we tap dance a bit so as not to reveal anything essential from tonight's thrilling season finale, let's just say that the show that has mastered the art of the cliffhanger will leave you hanging on every riveting — and, it should be noted, ultraviolent — twist, up to the very last word uttered by its awesome heroine, Sydney Bristow (the marvelous Jennifer Garner).

Hitchcock coined the notion of the "MacGuffin" to shrug off all those pesky details around which his dazzling suspense revolved. Alias has created its own mind-boggling catalyst for action in the whatchamacallit known as the Rambaldi documents — ancient blueprints which all of the world's darkest powers want to get their hands on.

Sydney has been on the Rambaldi chase all season, servicing two masters as a double agent: the CIA (more or less the good guys) and SD-6, the nefarious shadow organization that recruited her and that she is secretly trying to destroy with the help of her father Jack (Victor Garber), also a double agent.

What has always distinguished Alias from being just another murky Robert Ludlum clone is the show's emotional subtext. Sydney is something of an orphan, having lost her mother — or so she thought — years ago and being subsequently estranged from her aloof father. She didn't even learn that Jack was playing the espionage game until her fiancé was murdered and she came under attack after telling him about SD-6.

More recently, father and daughter were stunned to discover that dear departed mom was in fact a notorious former KGB spy who most likely faked her own death. Don't you hate when that happens?

Syd has always tried to maintain a separate personal life, but that was shattered again when her best friend, reporter Will Tippin (Bradley Cooper), got too close to the truth about SD-6. When last we saw him, an assassin had infiltrated the CIA "safe" house — after this and Fox's 24, don't you think they should come up with a new name for these havens? — and had apparently shot the poor, baffled Will.

Meanwhile, SD-6 boss Arvin Sloane (Ron Rifkin, a fine actor who effortlessly reveals the humanity that lurks beneath villainy) is facing his own wrenching dilemma. His beloved wife (Amy Irving in an affecting cameo role), who's dying of cancer, has revealed she is aware of SD-6's existence, usually a fatal civilian no-no. Her life had been spared as long as she was dying, but Sloane just got the ironic "good news" that she's going into remission.

As if that weren't enough, Sydney's loyal SD-6 partner Dixon (the stolid Carl Lumbly) has begun to suspect that she's hiding something. What's great about the secrets of Alias is that he doesn't even know he's a bad guy.

Executive producer J.J. Abrams (Felicity), who wrote the season finale, masterfully juggles each of these elements in a dizzying climax of torture, betrayal, heroism and surprise. I'd be lying if I said I was never confused. But the truth? I was completely entertained.

— Matt Roush

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