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Entertainment Weekly
September 12, 2003
Returning Shows: Alias
by Dan Snierson
"Where the hell was I the last two years? What the hell did you do to
me?"
Jennifer Garner (a.k.a. CIA superspy Sydney Bristow) is whispering
these words to Ron Rifkin (inscrutable baddie Arvin Sloane) on a
Burbank soundstage. Our spook has just awoken from a very long
mysterious nap. And she's pissed. Which may explain why she's got a
letter opener against throat. And if we reveal any more, we'll lose a
finger.
"How many cliff-size hangers have we seen?" says Garner with a
chuckle as the camera reloads. "This one flips everything and sets up
100 more flips
It's such a mind trip." She scrunches up her face. "I
mean, what's J.J.'s deal?"
J.J.'s deal and by that we mean J.J. Abrams, Alias creator/exec
producer is that once again he's tossed the guidebook to ABC's
complex spy drama off the roof an 88-story building. "Creating this
show is like being Sydney," he opines. "You keep finding yourself in
these incredibly crazy circumstances and you have to as creative as
you find your way out."
Mission accomplished. After unleashing a polarizing post-Super Bowl
episode that abruptly altered the show's course, Abrams dropped
another what-the-hell??? whopper for the second-season finale: Sydney
passed out after a duel to the death with her roomie's evil double
(who had knifed Syd's pal Will) and regained consciousness in Hong
Kong, where her CIA handler/boyfriend, Vaughn (Michael Vartan),
informed her she'd been presumed dead for two years and that he, umm
yeah, married someone else. "If you gasped when you saw it, imagine what a
sucker punch it was to those of us who spent the last two years
earning this relationship," says Garner; who, incidentally, earned
her own real-life relationship with costar Vartan. "Of course, J.J.
has thought it through 150,000 steps further than any of us have."
Try telling that to fans who felt Vaughn gave up too easily on
Sydney and let Vartan know it all summer. (In his defense, we'll
learn that Miss Bristow's remains were ID'd two years prior.) "Girls
were like, `How could you?'" says the actor. "It got to the point
where I thought of having a T-shirt made that said: The DNA matched!"
To those wondering if Sydney's time twist means that Alias which
saw its numbers drop last season is still searching for direction,
Abrams insists he has a plan. "I've seen stories of people who are in
comas and they wake up," he says, "but I've never seen one where
someone wakes up and literally where they've been is a mystery."
While we'll learn about at least one place Sydney's been in bed
with Mulholland Drive's Justin Theroux her future is no more stable
than her past. Vaughn's wife, Lauren (Melissa George), is a National
Security Council Agent assigned to Sydney's division (It's going to
be incredibly awkward," says Vartan); an ominous organization called
the Covenant (led by Djimon Hounsou) emerges; Sloane has turned over
a new leaf (or has he?); and Irina (Lena Olin) resurfaces, along with
Will (who survived and is now in the Witness Protection Program) and
Evil Francie ("There will be a rematch," hints Abrams. But Sydney's
greatest danger could come courtesy of Garner herself. "I'm in the
market for a big stunt," she says. "I want to hang from the bottom of
a helicopter and just freak out. Let's kick it up a notch!" Fans
and paramedics are standing by.
© Entertainment Weekly and Time Inc.
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