The Safe house has promo pictures up for the finale! We get more HOCKEY!

Just click on the image to enlarge it!

The Telling~Promo Pics

I know! I loved the pictures!

Thanks to The Safe House and Alias Underground for the following:

Irina is working at a computer in Sloane's warehouse in Zurich. Sloane enters, having come back from his "metaphysical journey." He is confident and silent and is freaking Irina out. He touches her neck, and she's not sure if he's going to try to kill her or seduce her. Sloane says that he was told that she would betray him -- and that she told him that. Irina doesn't know what the hell he's talking about. He puts his hand around her neck and says that she can redeem herself by being a part of what he has planned. He says he believes in free will, and that he would've killed her before. He urges her to take advantage of the opportunity he's giving her. In L.A., Vaughn tries to comfort a dejected Syd. "She" (probably Irina) offered to help Will, but Syd turned her down; now she wishes she had listened. Vaughn says they couldn't have trusted a word she said; Syd agrees, but maybe they could have played her. Syd says she keeps checking her voice mail to see if Will left her a message telling them where he is. She says that he told her she destroyed his life.

Marshall talks to Weiss about his sushi date with Carrie. It was great, until he had to drop her off. When it came time to kiss her, he started sweating, "freak-show bad." He tells Weiss he needs help "with the ladies." As Weiss is counseling him, Marshall's computer beeps. Weiss starts talking about what his near-death experience taught him, but Marshall jumps up and runs off. He tells Syd and Vaughn that her mother is sending them intel on their top-secret local server. Syd realizes it's a "second chance." She approaches Kendall with the information -- the DNA string of the other person who was doubled. She wants to bring Will in as soon as they find him to see if his matches.

Syd and Vaughn go to a club in Sweden. Vaughn tells Syd that her dad is going to be OK. Syd brings up them taking a vacation when all this is over. Vaughn says they have to stop talking about it and just book the hotel. Syd agrees and says they need to start thinking more positively. He says they're going to Santa Barbara. They spot Sark, talking to a man in a suit. Syd is amazed that her mother was telling the truth. Syd and Vaughn approach him and pull their guns. Sark reaches into his coat, but Vaughn slams his head on a table and takes Sark's gun. "See, when I have a gun trained on you, I don't just pull the trigger," Vaughn snarks. Sark says thank you. Vaughn slams his head on the table again and says, "You're welcome." Hee. Syd says that if he doesn't tell them where Sloane and Jack are, she'll torture him forever. Sark says his loyalties are flexible, and they're in Mexico City.

From: USAToday

Wild 'Alias' finale leaves us hanging

By Robert Bianco, USA TODAY

Always leave 'em wanting more.

No show is more faithful to that old show-business bromide than Alias, one of TV's best serials — and certainly its most breathless. Over the past two seasons, Alias' clever creator, J.J. Abrams, has written his heroine into a dizzying array of inescapable corners, only to pull her out at the last moment and spin her off into some new peril and direction.

Prepare to be spun again, in an unflaggingly entertaining two-hour season finale that once again launches the show into uncharted territory. In true serial fashion, secrets are revealed and mysteries are solved (though not all of either), and old dangers lead to shocking and unanticipated complications.

Does it all make sense? To the extent anything on Alias makes sense, yes. This is, after all, a show that asks you to believe in the existence of a 15th-century seer who invented a nuclear device while predicting Hiroshima. Let's just say Sunday's twists are more satisfying and convincing than David Carradine's cameo last week as a Lost Horizon monk.

The early focus is on Will (Bradley Cooper), who is suspected of being a spy, thanks to the work of a genetically altered "double," Francie (Merrin Dungey). The plot expands to reunite Jack (Victor Garber) with Sloane (Ron Rifkin), and Irina (Lena Olin) with her daughter, Sydney (Jennifer Garner).

As always with Alias, some of the twists are a bit hard to follow, and many of them seem designed simply to get Garner into yet another out-there outfit. Not since Charlie's Angels has a series been as amusingly upfront about the market value of its star's feminine allure. And few stars have ever complied with as much style and humor as Garner.

Still, the key to Alias' success is that while the plots are bizarre, the characters basically are not. Alias isn't camp; the emotions and performances are meant to ring true — as you'll see in the outstanding performances this week from Cooper and Carl Lumbly. But the entire cast works as one to invest these stories with depth, from the delightful Garner to the invaluable Garber to the charismatic Michael Vartan.

Naturally, this high-class serial ends with a cliffhanger, and as hangers go, it's a beaut. From here, there's no telling where the show is headed — or how it got there. You'll just have to return in September.

Which is the entire point of leaving you wanting more.

TV Review

Alias

ABC, Sunday, 9 p.m. ET/PT

****(out of four)

Random eppy thoughts:
Poor Weiss Spilling his heart out with advice to Marshall and Marshall takes off!
"I shouldn't be yelling this." No kidding, Will!
HOCKEY!
That's what was in that damn letter Sark gave Sloane! About time we find out!
Sark's girlfriend is "Francie"
"Please." That confused Jack! Go Marshall!
Will and Weiss finally meet! Nice. These guys could have a very cool relationship. Wacky. I hope
JJ goes with it!
"We're friends." Sloane.
"Everyone's blonde here."
Slammin'-Sark's-Face-Into-The-Table Vaughn! YEAH BABY!
Weiss in the field! Love that! Need to see more of that!
SYDNEY'S THE PROPHECY? She provided she wasn't!
The look on Will's face when he realizes that "Francie" is the Second Double...amazing! Go Bradley!
"Francie" did like Will!
Will in the bathtub! Deja vu!
Holy Fight scene with Francie and Sydney! They totally trashed the house!

OMFG!
They are taking it away from us! I was wondering when this was going to happen! But I didn't see that coming! He's fuckin' married? Vaughn...I have to kick your ass! And if it's fuckin' Alice, I'm going to hurt someone! OMG! I am honestly going to cry!

Must of been the part I missed.
What was in the letter? And how did we find out about it?

Syd is the Prophecy? Said who? And why? I'm confused.

I have a really big feeling that the end with the CIA/and Vaughn and Syd has something to do with the Rambaldi device. I bet Sloane set it off.

Hmmmmm...

Great cliffhanger!
I would of never seen that one coming.

Yup...what SilverMoon said!

That's what I'm sayin, cause my have to go into Spyworld and kill her off who wants to come

From tvguide.com:

The roller-coaster ride of Alias

By Matt Roush

Flash back to Super Bowl Sunday, when (after an unconscionable post-game delay) ABC's marvelously entertaining spy thriller Alias rewrote its own rulebook in a jaw-dropping episode of unexpected twists. SD-6 and the Alliance were eradicated, a takedown engineered by the evil Sloane, now on the loose. Sydney and Vaughn were no longer undercover and were now able to go under the covers. And in the biggest shocker, Syd's best friend Francie was murdered by a genetically altered "double," becoming the ultimate mole.

I didn't think anything could equal that audacious hour of entertainment. But then came Sunday night's breathlessly exciting and emotionally shattering two-hour cliffhanger. Once again, Alias has recklessly reinvented itself, jumping two years into the future and leaving us with so many questions it may take all of next season to answer them.

Even then, I doubt I'll understand it all. Like I care. When has utter confusion ever been this much fun?

But first, the strength of these last two back-to-back episodes. It was a terrific showcase for Bradley Cooper as Will, protesting his innocence after being framed by "evil Francie" as the genetic double. Carl Lumbly also shone as Dixon interrogated Will, his angry suspicions intensified by his grieving for his slain wife.

Later, in a scene of utter terror, Will realizes Francie's deception just as she goes in for the kill. Merrin Dungey, so underused when the nice Francie was alive, was astonishing in her lethal ruthlessness. Her expression of anguish when she stabbed Will — seemingly fatally, but apparently not so — and gave him a kiss of death was just remarkable. (How chilling for her to dump his body in the same bathtub where Syd discovered her dead fiancé in the series pilot.)

And this was just the prelude to Sydney finding out the truth about Francie. Big applause for Jennifer Garner's subdued and complex reaction as she digested the impact of Will's phone-message warning while sitting right next to her nemesis. The bone-crunching battle between Syd and evil Francie was of Buffy proportions, literally bringing the house down around them at times. When Syd finally blew holes in this fiend, I was too exhausted to cheer.

Finally, the perplexing end. Syd collapses post-fight and awakens, mystified, in Hong Kong. She makes contact with the CIA and is directed to a safe house, where Vaughn eventually arrives — wearing a wedding ring! And telling her that she was presumed dead and had been missing for nearly two years! Hello? And what's with Syd's tummy scar?

Plus, we were also left hanging regarding the whereabouts of Sloane and Irina (whose grand exit down the side of a building was spectacular), the nature of the finally assembled Rambaldi device, and the fates of Jack, Will, Dixon, even Marshall and his new NSA pal (Felicity's Amanda Foreman). What in the world happened during those two years?

It's going to be a fun summer, sorting this one out and waiting for whatever surprises J.J. Abrams has for us in the fall. I'm betting they'll be doozies.

From Alias Media and Media Life Magazine

Rating the season finales, tops to flops

Best: ABC's 'Alias' and WB's 'Dawson's Creek'

By Dan Jewel

Finale season is high-pressure time for network executives. Viewers expect months-long storylines to be neatly wrapped up, but also demand a shock or two — if not an outright cliffhanger — to lure them back in the fall.

If that's not enough, shows are desperate to score eyeballs simply because it's May sweeps.

But this season a surprising number of the top TV shows threw together lackluster last episodes.

“CSI” hinted for weeks that one of its team would die; the goner turned out to be a peripheral character.

“CSI: Miami” stretched its finale out to 75 minutes, forcing us to hear more of David Caruso's breathless pontificating than usual, but it was otherwise like any other week.

“Without a Trace” had one of its characters caught in a hostage situation, a tried and true sweeps stunt. The two-parter was typically taut, but it could have aired any time during the season.

But these are episodic shows, not serials. More disappointing was the finale of “24.”

Last year, the Fox freshman provided the most shocking moment of any finale — the murder of the hero's pregnant wife (by the hero's former lover). This year, it ended with a surprise assassination attempt (which may or may not have been successful) on the president. On this show, that's about as shocking as a commercial break.

More to the point, last year's ending altered everything. This year's ending only sets us up to expect more of the same come fall.

The assassination attempt does leave us with one unintentional hope: President Palmer might be out of commission next year. He's been insufferable lately; in the finale, he ascended from president to God, implausibly forgiving those who had tried to oust him from power. He also descended to idiocy, telling the American people at a news conference, “We are all safe,” the very day a nuclear bomb had gone off on U.S. soil.

But enough of the disappointments. The best finale of the season, for the second year running, belonged to ABC's spy series “Alias.”

(The “Six Feet Under” finale is still to come — but hey, it's not TV, it's HBO, as they say, so it doesn't really count.)

Supersized to two hours that never dragged, “Alias” wrapped up loose ends, left others hanging, and featured a deliriously over-the-top fight scene between Sydney and Francie — the evil double who killed and replaced her best friend — that shattered more glass than an “American Idol” audition.

It also ended with a true cliffhanger (albeit one a bit out of left field): Sydney regains consciousness, post-fight, to find herself in Hong Kong. She's been missing for two years. Her beau and fellow CIA agent has gotten married. Cue “Twilight Zone” theme.

This May also saw the demise of the two long-running teen shows that made the WB. “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” which moved to UPN two seasons ago, had slumped rather severely in the months leading up to its series finale, but it managed to redeem itself somewhat.

Over the last several seasons, Buffy had become weary and depressed, desperate to pass the gift — and burden — of slayerdom onto someone else, which could only happen upon her death. In the finale, the rules were changed, creating an army of slayers to share the burden. The final shot — a close-up of Buffy's face as she smiled her first genuine smile in a long, long time — was the perfect one to go out on.

But an hour couldn't possibly do justice to seven intricately plotted seasons, and the episode felt rushed and small-scale. It was impossible not to think how it paled in comparison to the other series finale, the last episode on the WB, when Buffy sacrificed herself for her sister. That had the weight and emotional resonance the series deserved. This left viewers wanting more.

In contrast, “Dawson's Creek” managed to go out with its most intelligent, witty and emotionally wrenching episode since, well, ever. (It was popular once, but it was never actually good.)

Set five years in the future, it killed off one of its original quartet (as opposed to “Buffy,” which kept its founding foursome intact). And it let Joey, the crush of Capeside, make the risky and right choice between her two on-again, off-again loves.

Picking her passion for Pacey over her soulmate — and sentimental favorite — Dawson sent a message: At long last, “Dawson's Creek” really had grown up.