Fly Superspy

Although keeping track of Julie's many love affairs and schemes may be difficult, untangling the seemingly shifting motivations of Alias' Irina Derevko (Lena Olin), mother of spy gal Sydney Bristow (Jennifer Garner), is near impossible. In the early days of the show, Syd thought her mom--sweet, all-American Laura Bristow--was dead. Slowly, the truth was revealed: "Laura" was a cover for duplicitous--and still alive--Irina Derevko (Olin), a KGB spy assigned to get close to Syd's CIA agent father, Jack (Victor Garber). Over the course of the series, Irina has seemed to play both sides, attempting to reconcile with Sydney in one moment and apparently trying to kill her in the next. Olin breathes kinetic, powerful life into this character at every turn: She's completely believable as caring mother and scheming superspy. The show's second season featured many loving close-ups on her expressive, lived-in face, and it's easy to see why: Entire stories and character arcs played out there.

Swedish-born Olin was already an internationally known actor pre-Alias, with acclaimed performances in films such as The Unbearable Lightness of Being, husband Lasse Hallstrom's Chocolat, and Enemies: A Love Story, which garnered her an Oscar nomination. But I can't help but feel that the role of Irina ignites a special fire in Olin: She crackles and glows onscreen as she kicks ass, delves into Irina's shadowy motivations, and displays astonishing familial chemistry with Garner and Garber. Her presence was so powerful, so iconic, that the show couldn't help but suffer a bit when she departed at the end of the second season. Still, plenty of references to Olin's alter ego kept her alive offscreen, and at the end of the most recent season the actor made a triumphant return to the show. Watching Olin stride purposefully through the series inspired a thrill that I haven't quite felt since she left Alias. Olin isn't merely magnificent; she inspires everyone else on the show to rise to the occasion, making the entire series that much more urgent in its world of undercover agents and devious double-crosses, that much more touching in its fractured family dynamics. I can only hope and pray that she'll continue making very welcome Alias appearances.