"Alias" Endgame (2003)

Director:

Perry Lang

Writers:

J.J. Abrams (creator)
Sean Gerace (writer)

TV Series:

"Alias" (2001)

Original Air Date:

30 March 2003 (Season 2, Episode 19)

Genre:

Action | Adventure | Drama | Mystery | Thriller

Plot:

When the CIA intercepts a secret message, Sydney discovers that the life of Neil Caplan, the mathematician still held captive by Sloane and Irina...

Plot Keywords:

Heroine | CIA | Double Agent | College | Fight

Cast

Jennifer Garner	...	Sydney Bristow
Ron Rifkin	...	Arvin Sloane
Michael Vartan	...	Michael Vaughn
Bradley Cooper	...	Will Tippin
Merrin Dungey	...	Francie Calfo
Carl Lumbly	...	Marcus Dixon
Kevin Weisman	...	Marshall Flinkman
David Anders	...	Julian Sark
Lena Olin	...	Irina Derevko
Victor Garber	...	Jack Bristow
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Sean Casey	...	Sedan Agent
Yvonne Farrow	...	Diane Dixon
Greg Grunberg	...	Eric Weiss
Eve Kagan	...	Sorority Girl #1
Jess King	...	Cell Block Guard
Tracy Middendorf	...	Elsa Caplan
Yasen Peyankov	...	Morgan Nickovich
Stacey Scowley	...	Sorority Girl #2
Christian Slater	...	Neil Caplan
Justin Wade	...	Drug Store Employee
Arthur Young	...	Aaron Caplan

Certification:

Netherlands:12

Company:

Bad Robot

Goofs:

Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Will sees a satellite photo in his mind (under hypnosis) and reads off the code in the lower right corner to "Francie"; what he says has an extra digit, missing from the picture. A version of the satellite image seen in a later scene corrects this mistake, matching what Will says earlier.

Quotes:

Jack Bristow: Yes, Vaughn briefed me. Elsa Caplan shouldn't be processed as a walk-in, she's an SVR agent.
Sydney Bristow: Which means we can classify her as a defector.
Jack Bristow: Or we can arraign her and try her for espionage. Until we make that determination, I'm holding her here.

Sloane's revenge

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

By investigating the phone records of the still-kidnapped mathematician Neil Caplan (Christian Slater, this time given more to do than on his first appearance on the show a few episodes back), Sydney comes across a name that forces his wife Elsa to confess that she is an undercover Russian agent who was ordered to seduce and marry Neil to keep an eye on his research. However, she proclaims that she truly loves him (and their son) now, and tells Sydney that a cyanide capsule will be activated inside his bloodstream within the next few hours. Jack is suspicious of Elsa and refuses to let Sydney on a mission to rescue Neil, but she sneaks away from CIA surveillance and takes on the mission herself (later to be assisted by Vaughn). Meanwhile, Sloane finds out who fired the bullet that killed Emily, and plans a horrifying revenge. "Alias" has always been a tech-heavy series, but this episode in particular is full of futuristic little gadgets, from a device that sends a recorded message that only one person can hear to another device that is planted in a cell phone and hacks into restricted CIA archives through long distances and seemingly harmless websites! Despite all that, the most memorable part of "Endgame" is the ending, or to be more accurate the endings: first an optimistic one, showing how two people's honest love can overcome the deceptions and hidden agendas of the past, and then a pessimistic one, perhaps the most shocking event in the show's history so far (along with that of "Phase One"), because it happens to a person that we never dreamed would have this fate. *** out of 4.