Nikita: "Alexandra" Review

Man I love this show. I sound like a broken record, but seriously, this was another awesome episode, coming off the heels of last week's awesome episode. As we learned last week with the underlying theme of Division agents-as-prostitutes, Nikita isn't afraid to touch on disturbing themes. This week was no different - along with an exciting team-up between Nikita and Michael and some information-rich flashbacks, we saw Alex live through a nightmare as she was captured by her former pimp, locked in an animal cage and hooked on drugs again. "Alexandra" was yet another example of solid storytelling that filled in a lot of the blanks in Alex's history, but opened up an entire new avenue for where the story could go in the future.

I'm beginning to believe the creators of Nikita are telepathic. Every time I have a burning question about the show, they seem to come up with an answer in the very next episode. One of my biggest questions in the first half of the season was how they were going to get Nikita and Alex working together on a mission, when Alex was trapped inside Division and Nikita was Enemy #1. They solved the question early on in "Kill Jill" as the two covertly worked in tandem to ruin Division's plans. Now that Alex is an agent, their partnership is a little easier to maintain.

Naturally, my next question was: how will they manage to get Nikita and Michael together on a mission, when their relationship is rocky at best. Everyone knows Michael is furious with Nikita for botching his assassination attempt of Kaseem, the arms dealer who killed his family. I commend the writers for coming up with a plausible solution. With Alex as their shared objective (Nikita lied and told him her objective was a piece of tech), the fans were treated to an all-star team-up of the former master and pupil, going to town on a bunch of Russian mobsters. Their brief truce also allowed the two to clear the air about Kaseem, with Nikita vowing to help Michael in the future. It was a great example of how layered and complicated the relationships are on this show, and how much history the writers have packed into just a handful of episodes. Of course as cool as it was to see Nikita and Michael kicking ass together, it was no comparison to what Alex endured in this episode.

A few weeks ago, we learned that Alex wasn't just any drug-addicted sex-slave turned assassin. She was a drug-addicted sex-slave turned assassin whose father was a rich and powerful man in Russia. "Alexandra" gave us even more insight into her past. Alex had expressed concern to Amanda that her mission -- to steal a cellphone from a Mark Zuckerberg-like nerdy tycoon in a nightclub -- might tempt her to go back to her days of being a junkie (please disregard that she went clubbing with Nathan two episodes ago). As it turns out, her fears were warranted. Outside the club, she was kidnapped by Vlad, her former pimp.

- The CW

As a drugged out Alex lay imprisoned in a cage, she listened to Vlad tell the story of Princess Anastasia, the real-life daughter of the last Russian tsar, who was thought to have survived after her family was killed during the Bolshevik revolution. He connected the story to the present day, when he revealed that he knew Alex's true identity: Alexandra Udinov, heir to the powerful (and not-quite squeaky clean) Zetrov corporation, whose family was killed when the new bosses hired Division to take out her father and assume control. Vlad was going to sell her back to Zetrov and make a tidy profit. And then Nikita and Michael showed up and all hell broke loose. I am thrilled about this latest development. Not only was there some Russian history going on, but there's now a Batman Begins vibe too. After Percy and Division are destroyed, Alex has an entire Russian empire to take back. And if you think about it, a powerful, billion-dollar Russian corporation like Zetrov might have a connection to Gogol, which means Nikita has a good excuse to come along for the ride. Let's just say things just got a little more interesting.

I thought "Alexandra" was a another example of impressive storytelling. Nikita always manages to blend the correct mix of mythology, espionage and straight-ahead action to keep things moving forward. I loved the little touch of Nikita swiping the video camera under Michael's nose at the end, but I don't know what to make of her expression when she watched Alex pump two bullets into a helpless Vlad at point-blank range. Maybe she's satisfied that Alex has what it takes to go through with the mission to bring down Division. Or maybe she knows something darker is lying right under the surface.

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