Alias (TV Series) Truth Takes Time (2003) User Reviews

Breathless

[gridoon2024 · 7/10 · 12 November 2009]

Turns out Irina did not QUITE deceive Jack 100%. Because, although he did remove that tracking device from her shoulder in Panama, he did insert another (passive) one, which will give out a signal after 12 hours. Based on that signal, the CIA locates Irina (along with Sark) in Stuttgart, but they manage to escape AND hold on to a disk with a copied genetic database. However, the CIA receives help from another source....Emily Sloane, Arvin's wife, who, tired of his lies, walks in a company building in Florence, Italy and agrees to tell Sydney where they can find her husband if they promise her that the prosecution will not ask for the death penalty. "Truth Takes Time" opens with a bang (an almost shocking flash-forward that deliberately misleads the viewer) and barely lets you take a breath as the CIA is hunting down three intelligent and skilled targets. Seeing Irina in Sydney-type action is great. And seeing Sloane genuinely prepared to abandon his lifetime obsession with Rambaldi in order to be with Emily was also quite unexpected. However, I have to subtract one point for the ease with which Sloane and co. escape from their hunters, especially the second time. When Sydney got close to him in Switzerland, he held her hostage and threatened to blow up an entire city block if he was not allowed to leave. But here, not only does Dixon miss a perfectly good shot at Sloane, but for some reason he does not even attempt a second one. And why didn't the CIA bring a chopper to this operation, like it had done for so many others? I realize the need to keep the bad guys at large, I'm only saying that they could have found a more convincing way to do it. *** out of 4.

A tragic end

[Tweekums · 8/10 · 13 April 2012]

With the shock betrayal by Irina Derevko at the end of the previous episode it looked as if Sydney's mother had got away; what we didn't know is that when Jack removed the tracker from her he also implanted a passive device that would not be found in a scan and will remain undetectable till they are activated twelve hours later. When it activates the CIA trace her to a facility in Germany where she and Sark are stealing a genetic database. They manage to get there but Irina and Sark escape after a brief shootout. Realising they have been tracked Irina alerts Sloane who tells his wife they must leave their new house; she has had enough of his lies though and decides so go to the CIA and help them catch him on condition that he isn't given the death penalty.

This was a fine episode where Ron Rifkin put in one of his best performances to date as he decides that he will sacrifice his thirty year obsession with Rambaldi if that is what it takes to keep Emily. Amy Irving also did a fine job as Emily; especially in the scene where she learns Sloane is willing to give everything up for her. This isn't the most action packed episode but what there is is pretty good and the ending, which I won't spoil, has a real emotional punch.