Laurel’s a striking character – somewhere in between the Lara Croft and Selina Kyle of the Aliasverse – and the close relationship she still enjoys with her mother makes her something of a rarity, given the ‘verse’s predilection towards dysfunctional and broken families, professional or relative. Points for referencing events from
Walker without us having to actually have read them, even if the ‘just one last score’ motif spells trouble a mile away!
The cons on display are a little mismatched – Carolynne’s coughing trick is a painfully obvious one, but the rapid doublecross that follows is the kind of thing we like. Good con stories throw the unexpected at us, whether the characters are several steps ahead all along or not (as in any episode of
Leverage). But Laurel talking to Carolynne whilst still standing
right in front of Reynolds, no matter how whispered, is a bit clunky, and Tony still needs to work on his quips – ‘too much vodka’? Roger Moore could have gotten away with that, maybe! And wouldn’t it get confusing if both Laurel
and Carolynne are using the codename ‘Nightingale’ for each other?
The scenes at the casino pop well enough, with Archer’s betrayal, Reynolds’ double agent-ism and Carolynne’s murder all strong steps along the path of PLOT. However, the more we veer off into Tomb Raider territory with Archer’s quest in the desert, the less this feels like anything other than a
DSR offshoot – I know the MZP Aliasverse is all about this kind of contrast, the myths of old colliding with cutting edge spy-fi, but I can’t help but think Laurel would have been more striking with a story crafted around her own world. You could swap her out in this with anybody from Project Black Hole and things wouldn’t feel any different. It’s like the character’s leaning more towards a Selina Kyle meets Sydney Bristow vibe, but the plot’s trying to haul her back towards Croft Manor and she’s not fitting in as a result.
The jet fighter dogfight is proper Video Game Logic – single-seater jets tends not to have a secondary gunner like an old WWI biplane, making the whole thing feel like I should be reading this while shaking a PS3 controller around. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if
Just Cause 2 and
Uncharted 2 were influences on this, and the leap from the exploding plane and improbable ‘fall to the ground and not spatter to mush’ is straight out of
Quantum of Solace too.
The scenes at the camp are where this really starts to lurch further into Indiana Jones Land, with the promise to heal the injured Reynolds very much a lift from both
The Last Crusade and even the first
Tomb Raider movie – when Archer takes the old cup from his backpack, drinks and then dies moments later, I was half expecting him to casually remark it was the Holy Grail! It’s a shame – his early statement of using the Waters to transform arid desert into fertile land was an unusual plan, one a villain such as he could easily have turned to unimaginable profit, so to see him fall back on the old immortality gambit is rather disappointing. That, and the fact the whole thing gets wrapped up in two pages flat makes this all feel tragically anti-climactic. Plus – and this is probably just me – I got a real
Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah vibe from the valley springing to life when that bird showed up…
There are things to like here – rugged antihero Reynolds doesn’t get a lot to do but he’s a good foil for her, Carolynne is a fabulous character with just the right twinkle in her eyes, and the barking Zakovina is a memorable if slightly too OTT villainess. The other main issue, apart from the muddled focus for what Laurel is supposed to be as a character, is that she’s a victim of circumstance throughout this. She rarely gets to take any kind of initiative in events, and for someone so versed in the art of the con it would have been nicer to see her have a plan to outfox the antagonists gradually reveal itself rather than see her bounce from reaction to reaction.
Lively and entertaining, but unfortunately not as smart as it needed to be. Rather than the ‘enthusiasm over logic’ approach favoured by
Alias (and, arguably,
The DSR), this needed to be a degree more intelligent – mind games, shifting loyalties, improvisation, and most importantly the characters always being several steps ahead of the audience, without us ever twigging they know what they’re doing until the right moment. That’s what makes a good con story – this was just an extended
DSR episode with more focus on nicking stuff, and as such doesn’t have enough of its own identity despite the strong central characters. You’re pushing Laurel to be Lara Croft, but that doesn’t feel like what she’s
supposed to be. She’d be more at home somewhere around Sophie and Parker from
Leverage blended together – more Selina Kyle, really. She even has her own Bruce Wayne in the form of Alec Walker, after all! So an unfocused identity and a very predictable story give a great central character very little room to shine – disappointing, I’m afraid.
