Hello, Midterms Week
As I always say, better late than never. And by “always,” I mean, “whenever it’s convenient” (and I’d probably switch some words around after a word substitution like that to make it grammatically correct, but that’s beside the point). Like right now.
After watching this ep, there’s a new fear I’ve never felt about the show. Long time fans would probably agree with me here in that the general motto for the show is “Nobody ever really dies on Alias.” Trouble is now the writers don’t have to worry about what to do for the duration of the show without certain characters, which means that even the plot can turn completely nuts without anyone having to deal with the long term repercussions. I’m excited yet really, really fearful at the same time.
That said, these next four episodes are going to be awesome. I know nothing about them other than a few behind the scenes pictures, a location name in the finale, and press releases, and that’s exactly how I’d like to keep it. Spoiler free is the way to be, as was proven with the Final Two Minute Twists of the last four seasons.
Next week: The return of the pretty. EEEE!
I can’t effing wait for the Alias finale, mostly because of the Finale Party that awaits. I am going to be watching the finale with S/V fic royalty. How awesome is that?! Even though I now know those authors beyond their stories, I can’t help but fangirl out just a leeetle bit.
Aaaaaand my embarrassment quota is fulfilled for the night.
***
On Friday, I took the night off and went with Susan, Bagel, Allisantos, and Thao to surprise abie8698 by going to watch the improv show at the Claremont Colleges for which Abie was the producer. (Because Scripps is one of the five Claremont schools, we even saw Jessica at the show, which was nice.) The show itself was abso-freakin’-lutely hilarious. The comedy group, Without A Box, was brilliant. I think I hurt something laughing so hard. Outstanding producing, Abie! I’m not totally sure what you did, but it’s you, so I automatically know you worked really hard on it.
And then there were my friends themselves, who make any time together an event. As usual, there was much laughing and joking for pretty much a solid seven hours. I still find it amazing that two years out of high school, we all still get along as well as we did before. Bagel even mentioned the idea of all of us moving in together after we graduate. That idea is still up in the air because we don’t know what we want to do next week, much less in two years, but it’s nice to have the option.
***
Our (and by “our,” I mean, “my roommates’ and my” because we thought it would be cute if we all took a class together) Asian Am Psych midterm was tonight. We figured it wouldn’t be too difficult, so we stayed up studying but not for too long. My midterm-taking strategy was akin to one I used last week when taking an online IQ quiz: you know you know your stuff, and the questions aren’t too hard, but you have to try your hardest to make educated guesses to keep from being the one person who bombed the GPA-boosting class.
Wednesday is my Film & Media 85C (New Technologies and Digital Culture) midterm. I should be worried about it, but I can’t find it in myself to stress about it just yet. It might have something to do with the professor being so utterly boring-although interesting-looking because I swear he looks just like Dwight from The Office-that he’s turned off all of my interest in the subject. I’ll be sure to stress tomorrow after I make a quick trip home for my mom’s birthday and then freak out over the Veronica Mars finale.
Until then, I’m off to be the good student I pretend to be. =)
ETA: Holy crap, Glarkware has a Dr. Acula shirt as one of their NON items. Scrubs love! And yes, this finding proves how much I'm studying right now.
- Nadia: NAAAAAAAAAAAAAADIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIAAAAAAAAAAAA! Yeah, that just needed to be said. I never loved the character, but I liked how she wanted so much to trust people, especially Sloane. I’ll miss that. Although it’s tragic that she had her life taken just when she got it back, at least she got to meet her niece and died knowing that she at least has Sydney and Jack who love her. But death by coffee table. How much does Nadia’s luck suck? People fall through glass on Alias all the time and are fine (e.g. Allison Doren through the table in the Best. Girlfight. EVAR. in ‘The Telling,’ Syd through the mirror in ‘The Telling,’ and Vaughn through the mirror in ‘Welcome to Liberty Village’). Also, I think Nadia's death reflects when Sloane fell through the glass floor in 'The Descent.' Interesting. Either way, I’ll miss you, Nadia. We hardly knew ye.
- BatshitCrazy!Sloane: Aww, nothing says, “Fatherly Love” like killing your daughter. Twice. Within two days. But seriously, I found Sloane’s transition into going Rambaldi crazy again a little sudden even though, arguably, it might have just been a slow burn that the audience wasn’t privy to, or he never stopped being crazy and just hid it really well. Unless, of course, he’s doing it to stop Prophet Five, which leads to his heroic death (pure spec on my part), but that would be such a rehash of last year when he worked with Elena and Clifford the Big Red Ball in Sevogda. I guess we’ll see. (BTW, never did I think I would ever memorize a Russian city name besides Moscow that easily.) Sloane better watch his back because Irina is going to be super pissed when she finds out he offed her daughter. That would be so fun to watch.
- Page 47: I love that everyone spent the week saying, “That’s not the original Page 47. What the hell, Prop Department?”
- Renee: Her death was a total shock because of Nadia’s. Well played, writers. Well played. I’ll admit that I never totally loved Renee. Losing your favorite characters and getting a bunch of new ones you know you’ll never love as much as your old favorites because it’s the last season would do that to you. But she died thinking one of the few people she trusted betrayed her. That’s just not right, yo.
- Ana!Syd: (I’m still working on a good nickname for that.) Who said you can’t tell the difference between Syd and Ana!Syd (or is it Syd!Ana?)? Have we learned nothing from Whoren? It’s all in the eyeliner. Anyway, I didn’t think I would like this plot, but it’s been surprisingly interesting on an acting level. I could only imagine how interesting it was for JG to play Sydney as Ana. It’s similar to Merrin Dungey playing Francie as Allison Doren, but Ana is an already established character. The viewers know Ana's character (generally, at least, because Ana is anything but predictable), so JG will have to play the same character she’s played for five years with an undercurrent of another character’s mannerisms.
- Isabelle…?: Because I watched ‘There’s Only One Sydney Bristow’ about a dozen times more than I care to admit, I noticed that ‘30 Seconds’ Isabelle isn’t the same baby as the one in the previous ep. She was still utterly precious, though. I laughed a little too much when the baby's head dropped forward when Nadia was holding her, and both Nadia and Syd kind of exclaimed while trying to make it seem like they were laughing. [ETA: Chad Darnell confirmed that I'm not going crazy, and it really was a different Isabelle because the original Isabelle babies had a doctor's appointment that day. I shouldn't find that cute, but I do.]
After watching this ep, there’s a new fear I’ve never felt about the show. Long time fans would probably agree with me here in that the general motto for the show is “Nobody ever really dies on Alias.” Trouble is now the writers don’t have to worry about what to do for the duration of the show without certain characters, which means that even the plot can turn completely nuts without anyone having to deal with the long term repercussions. I’m excited yet really, really fearful at the same time.
That said, these next four episodes are going to be awesome. I know nothing about them other than a few behind the scenes pictures, a location name in the finale, and press releases, and that’s exactly how I’d like to keep it. Spoiler free is the way to be, as was proven with the Final Two Minute Twists of the last four seasons.
Next week: The return of the pretty. EEEE!
I can’t effing wait for the Alias finale, mostly because of the Finale Party that awaits. I am going to be watching the finale with S/V fic royalty. How awesome is that?! Even though I now know those authors beyond their stories, I can’t help but fangirl out just a leeetle bit.
Aaaaaand my embarrassment quota is fulfilled for the night.
***
On Friday, I took the night off and went with Susan, Bagel, Allisantos, and Thao to surprise abie8698 by going to watch the improv show at the Claremont Colleges for which Abie was the producer. (Because Scripps is one of the five Claremont schools, we even saw Jessica at the show, which was nice.) The show itself was abso-freakin’-lutely hilarious. The comedy group, Without A Box, was brilliant. I think I hurt something laughing so hard. Outstanding producing, Abie! I’m not totally sure what you did, but it’s you, so I automatically know you worked really hard on it.
And then there were my friends themselves, who make any time together an event. As usual, there was much laughing and joking for pretty much a solid seven hours. I still find it amazing that two years out of high school, we all still get along as well as we did before. Bagel even mentioned the idea of all of us moving in together after we graduate. That idea is still up in the air because we don’t know what we want to do next week, much less in two years, but it’s nice to have the option.
***
Our (and by “our,” I mean, “my roommates’ and my” because we thought it would be cute if we all took a class together) Asian Am Psych midterm was tonight. We figured it wouldn’t be too difficult, so we stayed up studying but not for too long. My midterm-taking strategy was akin to one I used last week when taking an online IQ quiz: you know you know your stuff, and the questions aren’t too hard, but you have to try your hardest to make educated guesses to keep from being the one person who bombed the GPA-boosting class.
Wednesday is my Film & Media 85C (New Technologies and Digital Culture) midterm. I should be worried about it, but I can’t find it in myself to stress about it just yet. It might have something to do with the professor being so utterly boring-although interesting-looking because I swear he looks just like Dwight from The Office-that he’s turned off all of my interest in the subject. I’ll be sure to stress tomorrow after I make a quick trip home for my mom’s birthday and then freak out over the Veronica Mars finale.
Until then, I’m off to be the good student I pretend to be. =)
ETA: Holy crap, Glarkware has a Dr. Acula shirt as one of their NON items. Scrubs love! And yes, this finding proves how much I'm studying right now.