Spoilers ahoy.

I’m rewatching Alias on Disney+, a television show boxset I devoured years ago while lying in a dark room with my little sister. I was a teenager and recovering from very bad sunburn following a week in Madrid. The locals in the suburb called me ‘ghost’ as I was so pale. I also lost a stone or more in a week because when the host family asked me what I ate I JOKED ‘potatoes’ and all I was given for a week was potatoes. Even breakfast, every day, was a potato omelette. At the moment, I get very sick every time I have chips, so spuds are a metaphor in my life for many things.

Rewatching Alias is great. The wigs are horrendous, Jennifer Garner’s noughties lip fillers have me going ‘why not’, and I totally hate the romance in it. As a teen, double agent Sydney and her suited CIA handler Vaughn were one of my billion endgames. Now I’m like VAUGHN YOU ARE HER MANAGER AND YOU ARE CLEARLY EMOTIONALLY CHEATING ON YOUR PARTNER STOP THIS. And I’m just on season 1. I’ve yet to reach the episodes where the fucker marries very soon after Sydney goes missing/is presumed dead and Sydney gets to deliver the ‘I would’ve waited speech’. Vaughn doesn’t even deserve that speech. He deserves nothing but contempt. Especially when compared to the journalist Will who is Sydney’s friend, in love with her, and Bradley Cooper. I like Bradley Cooper. Watching season 1 with the benefit of a few more years is eye-opening. That guy who is investigating your fiancé’s death when no one else seems to care? The guy who sneaks you a fake passport and credit card in the pilot no questions asked? Who buys you sandwiches? If you must choose a man to date, make it the guy who will try looking for you when you go missing.

Anyway, Will and Sydney deserved better and I highly recommend rewatching something that lit up your small world when you were a teenager. My brain is fizzy in a great way from it.

P.S. I’m mostly doing paid subscriber posts because the past year and now are very mentally taxing/heavy. I’ll be doing the occasional free post for the rest of the year.