My Nikita love-fest continues with
Alex. Like Birkhoff, she’s a wonderful
character even apart from her excellent relationship with Nikita. While Nikita is a top-notch leading woman and
Birkhoff is an entertaining personal favorite, Alex is probably the most
intriguing character on the show. Her
intense backstory (chockfull of spoilers, by the way – consider yourself
warned) gives us a rich, complicated character just begging to be
explored. This is Alex.
Right
away in the pilot, we get tons of revelations about Alex and it only scratches
the surface. We see that, despite
Division’s interest in her as a capable murder, she couldn’t actually pull the
trigger in the crime she’s been imprisoned for.
Amanda’s sharp, probing assessment of her offers hints of her past. There’s the drug use, of course, but also her
roots; her flawless American accent only indicates how young she was when she
left Russia, and Amanda points out that a 13-year-old eastern European girl
with no family probably didn’t come to the States of her own free will. And finally, the pilot ends with the reveal
that, as a new recruit, Alex isn’t just our
eyes into Division – she’s Nikita’s as well, serving as Nikita’s mole on the
inside.
And
that’s just the beginning. More than a
trafficked orphan, more than an escaped sex slave, more than a recovering
addict, more than a spy infiltrating spies, the show is only getting started
with Alex. In the episodes to follow, it
slowly rolls out her history as the daughter of a ruthless Russian
industrialist, the presumed-dead heir to an empire built with unclean
hands. We learn of the death of her
family, including Division’s involvement in it, and how Nikita, in sparing Alex’s
life, inadvertently puts her on the path that leads to her exploitation, abuse,
and addiction. When Nikita reconnects
with Alex years later, it’s only to help her and atone for her (Nikita’s) own
mistakes in trying to help Alex the first time.
She doesn’t count on Alex’s resolution to avenge her family, her
insistence on helping Nikita take down Division.
With
such complex ground in which to cultivate a character, it’s no surprise that
Alex is as messed-up as she is incredible.
She’s a survivor with an enormous well of courage who takes on her
enemies and her demons with the same fierce determination. More than any member of team Nikita, she’s a
champion of the victimized – her past experiences make her especially attuned
to the suffering of others, and her guilt at getting out when others haven’t
fuels her need to rescue those who’ve been lost through the dark cracks of
society. When it comes to relationships,
she’s a mixed bag. Guarded doesn’t begin
to cover her default setting; she’s been hurt, used, and lied to, and she
doesn’t easily let people in. However,
once she does connect with someone,
it means the world to her, and even though she can’t necessarily articulate
that, she needs her few friends and confidantes so badly. Put these two facets together, and you get
someone who desperately needs the strong attachments she tentatively forms, but
who has so little trust in the idea of herself as worthy of love or friendship
that she’s vulnerable to emotional manipulation. She’s quick to pull away because it’s so easy
to convince her that she’ll be let down or betrayed, or that her loved ones
will discard her as soon as they’re no longer in need of her.
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