Ignoring the (excellent) previous episode's cliffhanger(s), "The Road Home" gives Sydney yet another standalone mission: to recover a weapon that can select its targets biometrically. Meanwhile, Jack goes after the man who is now in possession of the weapon, an old friend, or enemy, or both. And Vaughn continues his quest to discover the truth about his father. As you can see, the narrative is split into three parts, and only one of them really tells us something we didn't already know: in addition to possibly being alive and for some reason now trying to contact his son for the first time after 25 years, Vaughn's father might also have been a really bad man who would shoot his special forces comrades in the back. Apart from that particular bit of information, we see Sydney being tough but compassionate (when an innocent civilian is mistaken for her CIA partner by the bad guys, she goes out of her way to rescue him), and Jack being morally shady: nothing new here. And that supposedly super-advanced next-generation weapon is not really so advanced, if you can fool it as simply as Sydney does. *** out of 4.
3 Reviews
Jack is a stone-cold killer
Tweekums7 September 2010
Warning: Spoilers
When Sydney meets a man in Paris to acquire a computer chip; the meeting goes badly when the man is shot, Sydney gets the chip however when the assailant kills himself rather than being taken alive as his employer, Sasha Korjev, would harm his family otherwise. Back at APO they learn that the chip is part of a new weapon which can target a person based on their biometric data. Sydney is tasked with going to Austria, where the weapon is being developed, things get a little complicated when she takes a pass card off an innocent worker and after using it his employers assume he is her accomplice. She feels obliged to extract him and he ends up with her for the rest of the mission. Jack meanwhile decides to go after Sasha Korjev and when he catches up with him he deals with him in the way you'd expect from Jack. The third plot involved Vaughn investigating a lead about his father which suggested that he has not a man to be trusted.
I rather enjoyed this episode even if the Vaughn sub-plot was one too many. As always Victor Garber was great as Jack; hardly breaking a sweat as he garrotted a man who had just proudly announced he was to become a father, he may be one of the good guys but he is also a stone-cold killer. The main story was fun even if the weapon was rather silly; the guns on the model helicopter must have been firing the smallest calibre of bullet imaginable; still in a show like Alias on has to suspend ones disbelief on a regular basis.
I rather enjoyed this episode even if the Vaughn sub-plot was one too many. As always Victor Garber was great as Jack; hardly breaking a sweat as he garrotted a man who had just proudly announced he was to become a father, he may be one of the good guys but he is also a stone-cold killer. The main story was fun even if the weapon was rather silly; the guns on the model helicopter must have been firing the smallest calibre of bullet imaginable; still in a show like Alias on has to suspend ones disbelief on a regular basis.
3 Inefficient Plots !
elshikh46 November 2007
Warning: Spoilers
I think that (Alias), or whatever any action show, can be a success when the episode just focuses on one main mission. I even hate any sitcom that has 2 separate plots in 1 episode. Now, this episode of (Alias) has not 2, but 3 plots in what's supposed to be 45 minutes of good thriller / action / sci-fi. However, I believe that we mustn't be that rigid, because art hasn't been ruled by some few rules all the time. Therefore, you have for instance one of the greatest action movies ever (The Empire Strikes Back - 1980) written in 2 parallel plots. So it's not about the formula; it's about how it's done.
Here, the episode looked so short, simply because we've been seeing short of everything. There was that line with (Sydney) and that innocent waiter who got involved against his well in the spying business, so (Sydney) must defend him, as she was the one who pushed him into this hell accidentally. Then there was this weird line about (Jack), as we meet his darkest side while he was in Madagascar slaying some traitorous related to first line. And the third one is about (Vaughn)'s hunting for the truth about his late mysterious father!
So, I think this is the matter of not finding any powerful enough idea to make the 45 minutes by its own. Or maybe there wasn't that strong plot which could pull all of these lines together with more good action too. Because whatever the condition of these too many plots, you'll sense that the whole thing is disjointed, and - as in here - you won't fight the feeling that somebody disassembled the 45 minutes for you!
Maybe they discovered that the main story about the poor young waiter, and the killer small helicopter, is too short to make the episode full of good action, so they occupied us with other stories. But, to tell you the truth, that was distraction more than good innovation like what (The Empire Strikes Back) did. For little instance, I didn't understand the storyline of (Jack) who went to assassin someone who was about to be a father? I'm still saying: Huh?!!
Therefore, if you asked me what had stay in my mind after that one? Well, my answer might be: the hot chase of the lethal helicopter at the end as honestly the only coherent sequence!
And just look at the episode's finale as a scene that had (Sydney) who was so desirous to have dinner with her father (Jack) after a long day of hard work and, as you know, a long time of hard relationship too. This scene was the same finale of (Blowback), the 14th episode of the third season, when (Jack) invited (Sydney) for a dinner in some restaurant, that he used to invite her to it back in her childhood, saying to the astonished (Sydney): "I do eat, you know!", I think it's the running out of ideas.. again!
Remember also the last scene between (Sydney) and the nice waiter when he turned his head to her and said: "I must kill you!", I thought that this was one of (Alias)'s good surprises as a blow-my-mind exciting twist, but unfortunately it wasn't. It turned out to be a joke, whereas he was envying here as someone who has all of this spectacular time which WE in this episode, in particular, didn't have a lot of it!
PS: In the cliffhanger of the previous episode (The Index), we knew that there was a cryptic partnership between (Sloane) and (Jack) concerning some secrets about some code, and in this next one, we had nothing at all about it. That would make me as others: unsatisfied.
Here, the episode looked so short, simply because we've been seeing short of everything. There was that line with (Sydney) and that innocent waiter who got involved against his well in the spying business, so (Sydney) must defend him, as she was the one who pushed him into this hell accidentally. Then there was this weird line about (Jack), as we meet his darkest side while he was in Madagascar slaying some traitorous related to first line. And the third one is about (Vaughn)'s hunting for the truth about his late mysterious father!
So, I think this is the matter of not finding any powerful enough idea to make the 45 minutes by its own. Or maybe there wasn't that strong plot which could pull all of these lines together with more good action too. Because whatever the condition of these too many plots, you'll sense that the whole thing is disjointed, and - as in here - you won't fight the feeling that somebody disassembled the 45 minutes for you!
Maybe they discovered that the main story about the poor young waiter, and the killer small helicopter, is too short to make the episode full of good action, so they occupied us with other stories. But, to tell you the truth, that was distraction more than good innovation like what (The Empire Strikes Back) did. For little instance, I didn't understand the storyline of (Jack) who went to assassin someone who was about to be a father? I'm still saying: Huh?!!
Therefore, if you asked me what had stay in my mind after that one? Well, my answer might be: the hot chase of the lethal helicopter at the end as honestly the only coherent sequence!
And just look at the episode's finale as a scene that had (Sydney) who was so desirous to have dinner with her father (Jack) after a long day of hard work and, as you know, a long time of hard relationship too. This scene was the same finale of (Blowback), the 14th episode of the third season, when (Jack) invited (Sydney) for a dinner in some restaurant, that he used to invite her to it back in her childhood, saying to the astonished (Sydney): "I do eat, you know!", I think it's the running out of ideas.. again!
Remember also the last scene between (Sydney) and the nice waiter when he turned his head to her and said: "I must kill you!", I thought that this was one of (Alias)'s good surprises as a blow-my-mind exciting twist, but unfortunately it wasn't. It turned out to be a joke, whereas he was envying here as someone who has all of this spectacular time which WE in this episode, in particular, didn't have a lot of it!
PS: In the cliffhanger of the previous episode (The Index), we knew that there was a cryptic partnership between (Sloane) and (Jack) concerning some secrets about some code, and in this next one, we had nothing at all about it. That would make me as others: unsatisfied.
See also
Awards | FAQ | User Ratings | External Reviews | Metacritic Reviews
