Alex Rider Retrospective - Season 1 Episodes 1-2

So you remember Stormbreaker?

I suspect some of you wish you could forget. I reviewed it twice (here and here) A movie that was intended to start a franchise but delivered its material in such a way that it became self-parody. It was over-the-top, ludicrous and diverged from its source material in frustrating ways but I still ended up kinda liking it.  

I’m not exactly surprised that the franchise it hoped to spawn didn’t materialise, its launch in America was badly managed by the Weinstein Company.

Enter Amazon to give the idea of an adaptation a second wind. They greenlit a series for their streaming service, starting this time with the second book in the series, Point Blanc, and incorporating elements of Stormbreaker into it rather than adapting Stormbreaker again, a wise decision, all things considered.

For reasons I don’t really understand whilst the series debuted on Amazon’s Prime Video it was later moved to the ad-enabled IMDb TV (now VeeTee), where its second season also debuted.

I have read the Point Blanc Novel but not recently, so I’ll be judging this show on its own merits, whilst making only vague reference to the book.

Lies

We open in New York City, a city famous for not having Alex Rider in it. A man of suspicious intent finds a back way into a Roscorp building (Norman Osborn should sue something) and uses a device in a server room to get a look at the layout of the building.

Upstairs, a kid named Parker is getting his tie sorted as his father asks what he’s planning before he leaves for other business. He’s off to an exhibition. His father offers him lunch and he agrees to it. The man from earlier traps the elevator on the top floor of the building. Parker’s father, who we find out here is called Michael finds a card from an institution named Point Blanc and decides to cancel all his appointments for the day. He calls Alan Blunt saying he’s concerned about Parker but fails to notice that when the elevator doors open, the elevator isn’t in it and falls to his death.

After some credits roll, we get an ad, and cut to London, a city famous for having Alex Rider in it and we’re introduced to the school and hallelujah, they’ve remembered that 14-year-olds wear school uniform in Britain. Alex and his best friend Tom are having some witty banter about a film project or something, Tom suggests filming some footage at a party, and peeks Alex’s interest by saying Ayisha would be there.

Tom gets his phone confiscated, and at day’s end hasn’t got it back for some reason. Said phone has the address for the party they want to go to, and it’s up to Alex to demonstrate his skills and get the phone back. Alex gets back into the building but a couple of seconds later, a couple of teachers arrive, with Tom forced to haggle a phone from a stranger to warn Alex that they’re coming. At the very least it helps Alex identify which the dozens of confiscated phones is his. Seriously, isn’t the rule usually collect them at the end of the day?

He gets the message and decides to run for it, which is dumb and gets him caught by the teachers. This gets him a stern talking to by his Uncle Ian and basically gets himself grounded for the weekend. We’re introduced to Jack Starbright, who’s seemingly a little less together than she was in the film, it was her job to buy food and she didn’t because she was busy doing stuff, got a takeaway and is intended to fake it like it was her own work, oh and she spent the whole budget and only has enough for half the week.

At dinner, Ian views news footage from the death of Michael, whose business empire is now in Parker’s hands. Alex remembers Parker from one video some time ago where his dad in the face with a cream cake. Turns out this prank had serious consequences for Parker who got sent off to a boarding school somewhere and came back like this. He doesn’t know where, but a quick Facebook search reveals that the facility was Point Blanc in the French Alps.

Ian has some choice words for Jack after the school tried to call her and she didn’t reply, turns out she was busy getting her graduation papers. Anyway, she was only intending to do this job part time whilst she got her degree and now she’s thinking about leaving.

Alex and Tom facetime, whilst the phone was confiscated, they did manage to get the address, somehow [why did they need the phone then?] and when Ian leaves on business, Alex’s seizes his opportunity and he and Tom head to the party.

Ian drives with a partner Martin Wilby, who explains a Russian Contact had requested to meet them in person, he had completely froze when the name Point Blanc was mentioned on the phone. They meet in some abandoned place in the middle of nowhere with zero surveillance. Ian and Martin arm themselves in case of unexpected trouble.

Tom tries to endear himself with some chick with talk about x-men, always a winner, and Alex is appropriately awkward with Ayisha. Oh and there’s alcohol at this party, which can only lead to trouble. Also, the X-men are currently an Island nation who’s main enemies are a robot from the future and also flowers or something, but mostly their own internal politics, real grit right there. He calls it a metaphor for LGBTQ, which is kinda accurate, the X-men were intentionally an allegory for racism, and they certainly incorporated that aspect into the films [“have you ever tried, not being a mutant” springs to mind] but I digress, this gets him puked on, though not for the reasons you might expect. He’s having better luck than Alex.

In the creepy garage Ian finds Yassan Gregorovich, and Ian already knew it was him behind the incident in New York. Martin as it turns out is a double-agent and sold him out. Ian gets a bullet to the head and another to the stomach, although Yassan is somewhat apologetic about it. He then shoots Martin in the shoulder so it looks less suspicious when he calls it in.

Alex rides home, looking rather happy in spite of the fact I don’t think he enjoyed himself much at the party. His smile soon fades however when he sees the police sirens in front of his house. He’s told his father died in a car accident, that he was over the speed limit at the time and it was bad enough that seeing his body would not be the best idea.

MI6 are looking over the crime scene, it was a clean shot with a 9mm round and whilst the head of this operations, Alan Blunt wants to talk to Martin, he tasks Mrs Jones, his deputy to speak to Alex. Alex is immediately suspicious about the circumstances of his death, as his Uncle does not break the speed limit. He also mentions that Point Blanc was the last thing his uncle said to him.

Martin’s cover story is immediately debunked by Blunt, but Martin plays a clever game, saying it was Ian who called him so it was Ian who was lying. It’s suspicious, but with nothing concrete to go on, his job’s safe, for the moment.

Alex’s suspicions are worsened as he rings up all the local hospitals and none have any record of admitting him, even to the mortuary. And Tom’s arrival is timely as Ian still had his phone, which still had the find my phone app on so they can trace the car, back the industrial warehouse area. This was the last location the phone recorded before its battery died.

Blunt and Mrs Jones discuss Point Blanc, replaying the voicemail left for Blunt in the opening scene and a Russian man whose children also attended Point Blanc, the business card for the institute was found at the homes of both men. Alex and Tom head to the warehouse but find it crawling with suits. Time for Alex to put his skills to use again, recording footage of the suits dealing with Ian’s car, he’s spotted but Alex is able to beat the guy unconscious, only stopping there because Tom holds him back.

Alex sees cars leaving the place and decides to follow them on his bike. He follows them into a heavily fortified car park, unfortunately the driver of the car spots him

“I know Krav Maga”
“Well, I know shooting people in the head”

Gotta admit; that made me chuckle. Blunt is impressed and decides that they need someone like Alex to proceed with their investigation, so they reveal the truth to him. Of course, Alex is less than impressed with them, being the emotionally unstable teenager, blaming them for Ian’s death. He tells them to piss off and walks away, but Blunt tells him to pick up the phone in the morning if he changes his mind. Mrs Jones is not exactly thrilled with this idea.

After the next ad plays, we cut back to Alex’s house, and time for the rude awakening as immigration arrive saying that Jack’s visa is fake and immediately afterwards Child Protective Services arrive to relocate him. OK, they kinda missed something obvious here, Jack’s visa was presumably an educational one, and now she’s graduated it no longer applies, they could’ve used a legal loophole there without making up any bs about it being fake.

Anyway, Alex picks up the phone and says he was already planning to take the mission, and now they’ve shown him they’re a bunch of manipulative arses. He gets them all to back off and then heads with Mr Blunt into the awaiting car, without being able to Jack what the hell he’s doing, despite her concerns.

And that was Lies, a pretty solid start to the season, establishing an interesting tone aimed clearly at an older audience than the film, even daring to show a little bit of blood. There are some minor issues that I hinted at during the review, but overall, a solid opening.

Rating 8/10

Interrogation

Alex gets debriefed on the situation with Point Blanc, their plan is to have Alex go undercover at the school, as it’s the only way to get intel from there without getting everyone killed. They have some evidence linking the two deaths I mentioned but no idea on the how or why, same with Ian Rider’s death. Still, it’s back to regular school the next day, dodging questions from Jack and conspiracy theories from Tom. Not being able to tell him everything sucks for Alex as he now has to go back on everything he suspects and pretend he believes is a crash, which Tom will of course see right through.

If there’s any positives, it’s that Ayisha comes up to give her condolences. Turns out the gun was manufactured in Korea; they think someone came for the North Korea defector that Ian once helped. Mrs Jones thinks the story may be too credible. Mr Blunt is busy meeting with an old friend to help arrange Alex’s cover story.

Alex is pulled out of class by a Mr Daniels from the Greif Counselling Service, he was apparently referred to by the police but it’s pretty soon after the door is closed, he reveals alternate intentions, he apparently works for another government department who wants Mr Blunt’s department shut down.

Alex decides not to answer his questions and is saved by Tom’s timely arrival but is warned of other interested parties who he should be wary of. Tom took immediate notice to his shoes and how they seem abnormally polished for someone of his standing. Tom calls for Mr Daniels and hears a completely different voice answer the phone.

Mrs Jones is assigned by Blunt to be Alex’s handler as he goes through the mission. She continues to voice her disapproval

On his way home he’s knocked out and shoved into a van by mysterious individuals. His face half covered in blood he’s interrogated by the leader of this gang, Wolf. He wants to know who his uncle worked for. Alex was supposed to be watching a movie marathon with Tom but when he didn’t show, Tom calls Jack and now they’re both worried.

Alex continues to not answer any questions and asks for water, still refusing to answer questions he’s strapped into a chair and subjected to bright lights and loud noises. Alex responds by singing his own song. Jack’s concerns as heightened as the police ignore her. She forces Tom to give her the password to his computer and reviews the footage recorded on the phone of the agents taking away Ian’s car.

Wolf then tries to use Jack and Tom as leverage against Alex. Alex convinces Wolf to show him the paper-clipped file, gets himself back in the chair with the music. Jack has managed to peace it together and has a confrontation with Mrs Jones, but she is also unaware of where Alex is.

Wolf changes the torture from loud music to water. Much of Wolf’s pack, if you will, are against continuing the torture but before they can shut it off, Alex is gone, having used the paper clip from earlier to escape the cuffs. Because of the water his body temperature is low enough that thermal imaging can’t find him. Alex tries to make a run for it, but he has no idea where he is and him getting hot from the exercise is enough to get him visible to thermals.

He heads to the top of the hill to get visibility and spots a car coming, and it turns out to be Mr so called Daniels. When Alex refuses his help, the floodlights shine and he’s surrounded, with Mr Daniels also drawing a gun on him. Alex has long worked out that this was an exercise to test his ability to cope under interrogation, which he passed.

Jack tells Alex that they’re going to walk whilst patching him up but Alex is ready to defy her on that, Wolf isn’t any more impressed than the rest of his squad about doing this to a child, but Mrs Jones, who was earlier furious that she was the last to know about this training mission, refuses to tell him anything. Yassan meets up with Martin, who is not aware of what they’re doing with Alex, having been out of commission with his injury. Martin tells Yassan that they believed the NK cover story, but promises to tell him if Point Blanc comes up in conversation.

Alex will be posing as Alex Friend, son of the Billionaire David Friend that Blunt spoke to earlier. They’ve created a cover-story about him being involved in some poisoning prank to explain him being entered into the facility and will shortly be relocated to the Friend Mansion in order to deepen his cover.

We cut to the Point Blanc facility where Eva Stellenbosch and Dr Greif, the principal antagonists of the season are conversing, Eva believes that 2 murders in such a short span means they’ll be more easily detected. Greif counters that they always planned for one more and this one is perfect, whilst on the desk we see the file for Alex Friend.

So that was Interrogation, a very different interpretation of Alex’s training, it may verge a little far for some but I like how Alex reacted. In fact, most characters acting like rational human beings is somewhat of a staple thus-far, still it’s a slow build and we have only a marginal amount of the book’s plot done so far.

Rating 8/10