There's that old saying that there's no such thing as a selfless good deed, and it's something that Enlightened keeps bouncing back to. Amy is a character whose entire mission in life is to give and give, so infuriated by modern society that she feels it is her duty to help those without her good fortune. But as we're getting to know her, it's becoming more and more clear that there's a wall preventing Amy from becoming entirely selfless, as her old belief system can't help but creep out every once in a while. Just look at her timid embrace of a homeless woman this week, hugging her only because it's the sort of thing you should do in those circumstances. The woman leaves some kind of stain on Amy's arm and, soon after, she briefly washes her arm during a trip to the bathroom. It's such a subtle gesture, probably entirely unconscious, but something that says so much about Amy as a person.
A lot of stock is put in a pilot, primarily because it's supposed to be the very best depiction of a show's premise, something that inspires confidence at the network and within everybody watching at home. At the same time, a great pilot can grab an audience's attention so successfully that further viewing should be guaranteed. But it's also a little fraudulent: second episodes are far more indicative of where a series is going, and what we can expect week to week. With all that in mind, it's disappointing that 666 Park Avenue followed up its unoriginal but arguably fun pilot with something so... basic?
You just knew that the time would eventually come when Dawson's existence would somehow intersect with Joey and Pacey's relationship. There would be tension, harsh words, some kind of break-up, and everything will go back to that boring middleground. But this is also a series that's expressing a surprising amount of growth this season. For the first time in its four years on the air, Dawson's Creek is exploring maturity, and depicting those familiar themes (jealousy, heartbreak, romance) but through the prism of senior year. These kids are growing up, and refusing to settle on their old routines.
Dawson's film aspirations have fallen away in the last year, and he struggles to explain why. But it's all part of maturing. His work in season two was hackneyed and shallow, and deciding to abandon it entirely is a natural reaction to dismal failure, especially when you're sixteen and your romantic life generally takes precedence. But Kiss Kiss Bang Bang puts him back on the straight and narrow, his college applications forcing him to ask himself why exactly he's drawn to filmmaking. It's an essential part of understanding what drives you, and this episode does a great job of exploring that.
It doesn't quite stick an aggressive pause on the show's propulsion, but Masquerade does initially come off as a little jarring, as it so swiftly returns to the safe Alias equilibrium that had previously been put on the backburner. This is mostly a result of Peter Berg's Hicks character, a remnant from Sydney's past. The two of them were SD-6 agents around the same time, discreetly fell in love, and were torn apart by job promotions and various miscommunications. Hicks represents both Syd's pre-pilot past as well as her potentially romantic future and it's obviously an important story to tell -- her first nervous footsteps into post-Danny sexuality. But it doesn't have as much emotional pull as it probably could have done, and I'm not sure whose fault that is.
Over the years, Alias' issues as a series were frequently the fault of ABC. They wanted the show to evolve, and supported major changes in the show's second season, but they also wanted the show to revert back to what it used to be soon after, and that back and forth did nothing but harm the show in the long run. Whether it entirely killed it is a whole separate discussion. But Q & A, as dull an episode as it sometimes is, at least reminds you of a time in which ABC had so much faith in Alias that they demanded an episode like this one, to hopefully open up the Sydney Bristow universe to new viewers -- fearing they'd been driven away by the various hiatuses and the quickly elaborate storytelling.
One of Mike White's greatest strengths is his ability to expose the hidden vulnerabilities that make us who we are, and how we only really express them in secret. It's something that kept reappearing throughout this second episode, which opened with Amy fantasizing about a conversation with her management, one full of environmentally-friendly buzz words ('sustainable', 'renewable', 'compostable') and 'up with people' enthusiasm, culminating in her message having a real effect, not only on Abaddonn itself but her bosses as people, too. Only the really important word there is 'fantasizing', because it's one of those things that just wouldn't happen. It's the next big journey for Amy, slowly realizing that her dreams and ambitions aren't going to be fulfilled overnight.
Do you remember being read fairytales as a kid and thinking that the leads were always kind of lame and uninteresting? And that the villains were so majestic and cool that you sort of wished you were spending time with them instead? Sleeping Beauty? Pfft. Gimme some Maleficent action! It's a similar feeling to 666 Park Avenue, ABC's spooky new horror series, where the villains not only steal the show, but are so head-and-shoulders above the rest of the cast in terms of mystery and entertainment value that you wish they had more to do. Which isn't to say this is a weak pilot, but says a lot about the burgeoning 'campy-slasher' sub-genre, where the helpless protagonists are shuffled around between the far more exciting bad guys, who chew the scenery like their lives depend on it.
