The Alex Rider season is ending! This is our penultimate review. After our analysis yesterday, Alex Rider 1×07 “The One About Alex Rider Part I” is an episode that raises the level even more. Many secrets are discovered, some plots find their end and others have only just begun. And the end … is like a circle.
Here we go!
Finally, The Gemini Project comes to light in full. It seemed that we knew everything but it is even worse than we were led to believe. Synonyms for horrible? Add the synonyms for horrifying. Dr. (we really have to stop calling him that) Grief cloned himself and then operated the clones to be exactly the same as the Point Blanc students. Thus, he can be in all positions of power in all areas.
And yes, I almost threw up writing it. Because it is disgusting and machiavellian and all the adjectives you can think of. This guy is rubbish. From an evil genius point of view, we assume it’s a brilliant plan but it’s so … chilling and creepy that we are left speechless.
At first, everything seemed to indicate that Alex was dead – and we were almost hoarse from screaming until we found out it was an MI6 hoax – and Kyra’s reaction to this is very important to us. She was really upset, Alex’s death hurt her in an unexpected way. They haven’t known each other too long but they have lived through horrible things together and she feels a pinch in her heart that tells her that Alex is more important than she allows herself to admit.
Because Alex is important… and we believe that Kyra is afraid of being carried away by what she feels because in that moment when she thinks she has lost him she realizes the truth. When she finds out that he’s alive the first thing she feels is joy, but fear makes its appearance as well and, although she already knows what she feels or what she is beginning to feel … she doesn’t dare to do anything with it either. Because she is afraid of what might go wrong. And we can’t ship them more!
As this happens, Alex struggles to return to Point Blanc and participate in the rescue mission for Kyra and the others. Mrs. Jones disagrees. She wants him to breathe for a minute after everything that has happened and she is right but she doesn’t know Alex if she thinks he is going to stay put. And we love him for it. He wants to see this through, he’s not going to let it be, not with Kyra and his friends locked up and in danger in there.
Alex started out as a normal teenager but will end the season as an agent. And don’t think we forgot that Alex was freaking out knowing that Kyra was still in danger at Point Blanc. He also has feelings for her. He’s afraid of what he feels and tries to deny it. Also, they both feel that this is not the time to start something with everything they are going through. Kyra is now an orphan because her parents were murdered and Alex has yet to come to terms with the murder of his uncle and the mystery that surrounds it … and both must overcome everything they have been through at Point Blanc.
The MI6 mission brings with it the reunion between Alex and his kidnapper. How could it be otherwise, the tension is palpable in the air. Alex hates him for what he did to him. He tortured him, it’s not like they can be soulmates all of a sudden. As for the kidnapper … he was following orders but regrets doing so. He knows that it was cruel and that it was not the right thing to do and he just wants Alex to know that he respects him and that, despite everything, he is not his enemy.
And we like this. You can tell that Alex has earned his respect and admiration. When he carried out those orders, he saw him only as a teenager who was in a world he shouldn’t be in. But now, despite Alex’s age, he sees and respects him as an agent, as he does with any agent, and for that reason, he apologizes. And they can work together.
Grief and his minions’ plan was simple and cruel. Kill them all and start over somewhere else where no one would know them. However, MI6 and Alex achieve their goal and, after a fight that we love, the second in command dies, they catch Grief and all his clones. The royal students are finally safe and free thanks to Alex, Kyra and the others. At last all the bad guys start to get what they deserve. Now, Point Blanc is past … but it is time to deal with the consequences.
After everything he’s been through, Alex is no longer the same. He feel a whirlwind of emotions. On the one hand, he feels relieved and invincible, he got it, but on the other hand, he feels … empty, broken. He finished the mission but the price he had to pay was very high. He lost his innocence, he has seen and suffered things that no one his age should see and suffer and his family, Tom and Jack, have been through hell.
Alex has grown up, we believe that he has become who he really is, who he should be but growing up hurts and at the moment he has no idea who he is because he can no longer be a normal teenager, but is he an MI6 agent? And then there is guilt. Alex wanted to protect Jack and Tom from the beginning and feels like he has failed them … even if he hasn’t. There are too many feelings at once.
All this makes his attitude change. When he’s finally home, Jack hugs him, but after a little while, just long enough for her to feel him and calm down, he pushes her away … and doesn’t speak. Neither Jack nor Tom can get him to do it. He is only lost in his thoughts, consumed by emptiness, by guilt, trying to assimilate everything and feel like before, normal … but without knowing what is normal.
Once Dr. Grief is in the hands of MI6, it is time for questions. Alan wants to know who killed Ian Rider and wants to make a deal with him. We get it, we really understand that Alan wants to know exactly what happened, but offer that garbage a deal? That is hard for us to understand because we want him to rot in a remote part of the world but we understand why Alan does it.
When it seemed that everything was solved, another surprise awaited us: Alex’s clone. Who we are going to call Evil Alex for reasons … the fact is that he has escaped from MI6 surveillance and is now determined to go after Alex. So problems accumulate for him … and worry us. What will happen now?
Thus, with much intrigue, they leave us until episode 8, the season finale, which we will review tomorrow.
In conclusion, for a few episodes the show raised the level and this episode goes up one more notch. There is a lot of action, a masterful direction in terms of shots, for example, the moment in which Alex, finally free, looks at the camera and contemplates Point Blanc is perfect.
In addition, we have very good times, secrets revealed, stories end … but new ones also begin. Now that Point Blanc is past, Alex has to assimilate everything that happened there, as well as Kyra, Tom, Jack and everyone else, plus Yassen and what happened with Ian is still to be resolved.
In this episode, one of the main plots ends … but there’re many things to solve. And the end…the end of Point Blanc is brilliant, like a perfect circle that closes.
Agree? Disagree? Don’t hesitate to share it with us in the comments below!
Alex Rider is available to streaming on IMDb TV.
