An Overview of Season Three, and Some Other Thoughts…

 First off I want to congratulate myself, after realizing that finishing the series by the end of the year wasn’t going to happen, I at least wanted to finish season three by the end of it. So I am happy that I was able to finally get through what I knew from the beginning would be the hardest season for me to recap.  I mentioned it during some of the season two recaps, but getting into the lives of these two characters as much as I do in this blog, is incredibly emotionally draining.  And with all the ups and downs that Sydney and Vaughn had to endure during this season, it was very draining.  I hadn’t thought about it before now, but that may have added to why it took me four and a half months to go through the season.  It seems like a lifetime ago that I was able to do a recap in a single night, let alone two to four as I was doing in the beginning.   Looking towards season four, I expect that I will have some episodes that will drain me, and believe it or not I enjoy those episodes the most, and there will be some that I will be able to get out in a single night again.  But for now let’s look at how season three overall affected the relationship.

Out of any season, this season took the biggest toll on Sydney and Vaughn.   With its events, how could it not?  The season begins with Sydney finding out that the last two years of her life she doesn’t remember anything, and her life that she does remember has been turned upside down.   The love of her life is now married to another woman, her father is in prison, her best friend who she thought died shortly before she lost her memory is still alive but in witness protection, and she is in a foreign country.  We see her struggle with all of these factors and personally the fact that she isn’t perfect and that she does break down is what makes me love her even more.  For Vaughn the season begins with him seeing the one person that means more than anything else in his life back from the dead.  You can see that he is so relieved to finally see her again and know that she is alive.  But he knows that he also has to deliver the bad news that she has been dead, and that he moved on.  So all in all, the season opened to absolutely horrific circumstances for Sydney and Vaughn personally and even worse for their relationship.  Going from being a perfect couple, almost engaged even, (yes, I still believe that Vaughn was planning on proposing) to having it end without the permission of either of them.  Not to mention the fact that for Sydney, she still feels like they were together the day before.

As the season progresses, they start to rebuild their relationship that they had in the beginning, but unfortunately, it’s not that easy.  It’s made clear early on that they are both still madly in love with each other, but Vaughn is stuck loving two women, although in different ways.  Starting out as partners on missions again is very awkward for them in the beginning, but when they aren’t thinking that they are stuck in an awkward position and are focused on the mission; their subconscious actions show us that they still have each other as priorities in their respective lives.  For instance, being back with Sydney, Vaughn will instinctively go to put his hand on the small of Sydney’s back, then remembers that he doesn’t have that right anymore and pulls back. He pulls back in the first few episodes, but towards the middle he doesn’t stop himself anymore.  It’s a little different with Sydney, she’s always been more careful about showing her emotions at the wrong time.  She shows regret in blowing up at Vaughn, and then shows her love to Vaughn by respecting his choice to move on.  Even if she doesn’t like it, she tries as hard as she can to be polite to Lauren and not interfere with their relationship.

I do love the importance of their dreams though.  It is through their dreams that we can see their true feelings and fears.  We see early on that Vaughn while in the hospital wants nothing more than to wake up with Sydney by his side waiting for him to wake up and being there with him.  As he wakes up in his dream he looks around and looks upset until he sees Sydney asleep on a chair next to his bed.  He wakes her up and she comes over.  He asks where he is and she tells him he is home.  Above anything else in his life this makes more sense than anything else.  He is there with Sydney by his side so he is home.  For Vaughn it doesn’t matter that Sydney stabbed him and was the one to put him in the hospital, he knows that it was the only way that she could save his life.  In the dream Sydney begins to cry and ask that he’s okay, and telling him that she was so afraid that she had lost him.  I believe that her saying this is echoing his feelings when she died along with what he wanted to say to her when he went to Hong Kong to pick her up.  He had thought that he had lost her and was relieved beyond measure that she was okay, even if he had to suffer through two years of pain and grief.  In the dream when she says this Vaughn puts his hand up to her face and caresses it in his hand.  I find it interesting that in his dream, knowing how sick he could possibly be, he dreams of comforting Sydney.  Then she tells him that when she left him, thinking that she may not see him again made her realize how much she misses him, and he tells her that he misses her too.  I’ve said it before in the episode that this takes place, but they see each other all the time at work and on missions.  It’s not that they miss each other, but they miss who they were able to be with each other before.  They miss the connection that they used to have together.  It was even stated in the episode before this one, when Vaughn asks Sydney about Julia, and he tells her that he knows that they aren’t where they used to be, but even before they were a couple they never kept secrets.  He also misses being the person that he used to be rather than the impersonation of someone happy that he’s been playing since he decided to move on after her death.  He ends up kissing her in the dream, so we know that he also wants to be with her rather than Lauren.  But after the kiss, Sydney sits up and stabs him again and asks him how he could do this to her.  Vaughn’s subconscious is reminding him that he did move on too quickly, and that he should’ve waited for her.  He feels like he deserves whatever punishment he gets from Sydney now that he has other priorities.  We then see him wake up, and you can tell that he is realizing all of these things and trying to process them.  When he looks over and sees that it is Lauren waiting by his bed, and not Sydney you can see his disappointment.

On the other side of things we look at the first part of Sydney’s dream when she goes in for the memory recovery.  Her first dream is being back to at the last night that she remembers.  But she still has all of these new memories with her as well of what did happen while she was presumed dead.  She wakes up in the ambulance and Vaughn is there with her and he is excited to see her wake up.  Sydney remembering that Vaughn is married is confused to see Vaughn with her and is trying to make sense of the situation.   Her first instinct is not to accept that the past few months were a bad dream and needs to make sure that this moment is real.  She also has to ask where she is, and the EMT answers her questions, letting her believe that she really is back to that night when she fought Allison.  Vaughn tells her the basics of what happened to Will as well as Francie not being Francie but really Allison.  Sydney is getting anxious being in this situation; she wants answers and doesn’t want to lie down as the EMT keeps insisting on.  Sydney asks Vaughn about the Covenant, and he tells her that they are showing as a possible emerging threat.  She also asks about Sloane being pardoned, and this confuses Vaughn.  So in Sydney’s dream she has to make sure that all of the things about her new life that upset her at work aren’t real and wants that reassurance before she can move on to checking on why Vaughn is with her.  Once she has confirmed that aspect of her life isn’t as screwed up as she thought it was she looks down and sees Vaughn holding on to her hand with both of his hands.  She looks at it for a moment and then makes the statement that he’s not wearing a wedding ring, and he tells her that he thought that they would go to Santa Barbara first and see how things go. (This is her dream; she doesn’t know that he was planning on proposing there.)  With the first statement that she makes about him not being married, he plays it off as a joke, but then when she sits up and asks him to confirm that he’s not married, still joking but softer he tells her that she really must have hit her head hard.  She then tells him that she thought that he had given up on them, and she is almost in tears with that acknowledgment.   This is big because while she did say it to him in the first episode of the season, she has known that he really didn’t give up on her, just had to move on to survive.  But we are all a little petty and it’s still in the back of her head as being true.  But then he tells her what she has wanted him to say since she turned up in Hong Kong, “Syd, when I walked into your apartment and I saw you lying there, I thought, God, don’t let me miss a chance to tell her how much I love her.”  This statement makes everything that is wrong in her life seem to melt away and she is okay.  She kisses him and tells him that she loves him too.  But as she comes away from the kiss she sees that she is kissing Sloane and not Vaughn.  Then later when she wakes up and finds Vaughn next to her bed and still believes it’s a dream and ends up kissing him.  Telling him sorry, but I just can’t help it, I miss you so much.   Seeing how conflicted Vaughn is with wanting to kiss her back, yet also wanting to be a loyal husband is such a heartbreaking moment for both of them when they semi acknowledge how much they both still want to be together.

The thing that I find interesting about both of their individual dreams is that they initially dream about the one thing that they want more than anything at the time, which is to be with each other once again.  But both of them end their ideal moment with a horrifying ending, or you could even say they go from their best dream to their worst nightmare.  For Vaughn it is the possibility that Sydney will never forgive him for moving on when he thought that she was dead.  He fears that now that Sydney is back in his life, he will lose her because of the choices that he has made.  This fear ends up driving him to have a fierce need to protect her against Lauren and other obstacles in other episodes.  For Sydney, she is already living her worst nightmare and having to see Sloane guide her to where she needs to go reminds her that the life that she wants with Vaughn isn’t happening, as well as reminding her that she once again has to work with the man that has taken so much from her. 

Wow, I really can’t shut up about some topics, I’m sorry.  But I really do find that those two moments are pivotal in what they each were feeling at the beginning of the season.  As the season progressed their friendship did begin to come back, although it was still strained.  Especially after what happened in North Korea, with Vaughn admitting that in his life only Sydney really matters, but then after not being killed having to go back to Lauren took their already strained relationship to a new level.  It was very clear that they wanted to be with each other, Vaughn just needed to figure out how to break the news to Lauren.  For Sydney, although she understood the circumstances, still had a hard time coping.  But she still shows her love for Vaughn where she can, including noticing that it was the anniversary of Vaughn’s father’s death.  This showed Vaughn once again why Sydney is a better match for him than Lauren.  Although by the time they figured out that Lauren was Covenant, I think Sydney had reached a point where she wasn’t sure if she could trust that Vaughn would come back to her after being hurt so many times by his need to be a gentleman regarding the Lauren situation.  She knows that she still loves him and considers him her soul mate, but she has to learn how to trust again.  For Vaughn he develops such a hatred of Lauren that it envelops him completely.  So while they fought Lauren for each other in the final episode of the season, as well as coming together for that fantastic kiss and if only for a moment going back to the way things were.  Their relationship will never be the same, although it doesn’t mean the end for them either.  They both just have to work a few things out before they can really be together again.  It is at this spot emotionally where they will start out when we begin season four.

I’ve mentioned this many times, but as much as I hated season three the first time I watched it.  I couldn’t wait for Lauren to be dead and out of the way.  I have truly learned to love this season.  Watching Vaughn protect Sydney at all costs, including upsetting his wife by doing it, and watching them struggle through what they both want verses what they can have, as well as what their personal values dictate is appropriate to do.  Sydney and Vaughn share some of the most moving moments together as they get to know each other again and return to their unspoken pact of always protecting each other and having each other’s back.  Plus the added sexual tension that is so abundant in this season makes it fantastic!

Plus I can’t forget about all the theories that I had while so engrossed in this season.  I still believe that my theory about Home for Vaughn is true.  For Vaughn home isn’t a place, it’s a state of mind.  I watched very carefully to make sure of this, but Vaughn only said I love you to Lauren one time, and that was in the third episode.  Also he never even uttered the word home to her; he would always refer to where they lived as the house.  His home is wherever Sydney is.  This theory is only one among the many other episode interruptions that I made for my random thoughts.  But in case you missed them, here they are…

Home as Vaughn views it...

http://romancingalias.blogspot.com/2013/08/home-as-vaughn-views-it.html

The Missing Two Years and How They Affected Sydney & Vaughn ... http://romancingalias.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-missing-two-years-how-they-affected.html

Vaughn's Personal Battle - Lauren vs. Sydney... 

http://romancingalias.blogspot.com/2013/09/vaughns-personal-battle-lauren-vs-sydney.html

Why Vaughn Doesn't Want to Admit that Lauren is Covenant...

http://romancingalias.blogspot.com/2013/10/why-vaughn-doesnt-want-to-admit-laurens.html

In an attempt to keep this post semi short, I know it’s already longer than I had planned, instead of going over my favorite moments, I thought that it may be easier to just put the clips of those moments all together in one video.  So here are some of my favorite season three moments… The first one I don't know if you can call it a favorite, but since I love to cry, I do call it a favorite moment, just because it breaks my heart every time.

The second video is of some of the great moments that they shared.  They aren't perfect moments, but they are wonderful examples of how Sydney and Vaughn progressed through the season.

Before I end this post there are just a few things that I wanted to touch on, mostly just small observations, or questions that came up during the season, as well as questions that I have seen others post, that I will attempt to answer, even if it may not be completely correct.

• Today Yesterday being Kevin Weisman’s birthday, I think it’s proper to have a shout out to him, and since the writers generally matched up the characters birthday with the actors, I think it’s safe to assume that it is also Marshall’s birthday.  So Happy Birthday Marshall & Kevin!
  
• On the note of Marshall, I made a realization the other day.  Maybe you had already made the observation, and I am slow on the uptake, but Carrie and Marshall have their first non-work related conversation when Marshall sees Carrie crying and asks her if she is okay.  She was only crying because the music she was listening to, Joni Mitchell made her cry.  I find it very cute that they named their first child after that encounter.  I wonder if they were to have had a girl if they would’ve named her Joni. 
•  Q: What role in the Covenant does Katya Derevko play? 
• A: I honestly don’t have an answer to this question, and when I try to answer it, I only seem to come up with more questions, which I’ve listed below.  I will watch her few episodes in season four very carefully looking for an answer. 
•  I know she doesn’t want harm done to Sydney if it can be avoided, but why does she tries to kill her in the final episode of the season?  She appears to help the CIA on multiple occasions, yet in the final episode she shows her true form as being Covenant, was she placed so that she could act as a mole in certain circumstances guiding the CIA where the Covenant wanted them to go? At one point claim that she was trying to protect Irina’s child, when speaking of the passenger; does this mean that the Passenger more important than the Chosen One for Rambaldi followers?  Also how does Lauren know that Katya is Covenant?  How did Katya know where Vaughn had taken Lauren to, when he was planning his torture session with her? 
•  Q: Knowing that the cliffhanger in season three is Sydney finding out that Jack had requested to kill Irina because a hit had been placed on Sydney’s life by Irina, since Lauren knew about it, when did Jack actually kill Irina? 
• A: I touched on this during the episode breakdown for when I thought it must have happened.  But in case you missed that one, I talked about it in Legacy, 3;21, but I have to believe that it happened sometime between Hourglass and Blood Ties.
• Q: Why did Sloane think at one point that Sydney was his?
• A: I have to say that the only logical answer to this is that Sloane and Irina had an affair on two separate occasions.  The first time being around the time that Irina conceived Sydney, then the second time shortly before she disappeared in 1981 when Sydney was six years old.
• Q: How did Bill Vaughn rescue Nadia from the KGB if she was born in 1981 or 1982 when he supposedly died in 1979?
• A: He didn't.  I will go into this aspect more during season four, but I strongly believe that Brill was working with the Covenant or at least Elena when he told Vaughn what he knew about the passenger. You can also see my post on the episode Legacy and I have gone into more depth on this.
• Q: How is Nadia a bio-weapon?
• A: Keep in mind that from the beginning all the sci-fi stuff never interested me.  I have and always will be into this show for the characters.  But here is what I think concerning this.  Rambaldi is the one who referred to her as a bio-weapon.  Maybe he didn't have the correct terminology for what she really is.  I don't even know how to describe her.  But essentially she is a conduit to a stored memory.  That memory gives us the coordinates to the Sphere of Life.  The Sphere of Life with the Horizon which is introduced in season five somehow work together to create eternal life.

That's all for now, I do have a small project that is also Alias related, but I want to work on before I begin season four.  So it may be awhile before I am back, but I don't think it will take me too long.  If by some weird chance you want to reach me, or ask what I think about a topic, you can post a comment on any post and I will quickly reply.  You can also email me at AliasPsy47@gmail.com  You can also see me on Tumblr (http://aliaspsy.tumblr.com/) and Pinterest (http://www.pinterest.com/bliss2262/alias-love/).