Summary
Alex Rider episode 6 reveals the show’s big twist and builds to an exciting action set-piece, all while leaving plenty in the tank for the final two episodes.
This recap of Alex Rider season 1, episode 6 contains spoilers. You can check out our thoughts on the previous episode by clicking these words.
Check out our spoiler-free season review.
James is, apparently, the next victim of Point Blanc’s personality alterations, returning to the group a different person after having been led away by Eva in the tail end of the previous outing. This is where Alex Rider episode 6 opens up, and Alex begins to prepare for the worst. In the basement, he finds telling evidence of surgeries and experimentation that hint at dark things for the kids, including possible cloning.
While Tom finds himself in a difficult position with Parker, Alex uncovers more of the cloning scheme, happening upon students who have been captured and replaced with clones, including Stepan Serenkov, the son of the Russian oligarch who was assassinated along with Michael Roscoe. This, it turns out, is all part of Greif’s world-conquering plan Project Gemini.
Jack continues to meddle in affairs away from Point Blanc, as well she should, and she tips Mrs. Jones off to Tom’s disappearance. As revelations come thick and fast from within the academy, the stuff on the outside is a good tension-builder, especially as snowmobiles mobilize outside. It’s Crawley who eventually retrieves Tom, though Alex has already been compromised.
Despite being interrogated face-to-face by Greif, Alex remains tight-lipped as ever, calling back to his stubborn singing during his test capture in the second episode. Eventually, Kyra arrives to free him, and with all his cards on the table, they make their escape, crafting a makeshift snowboard (right out of the book) and racing down the mountain. Here, Alex Rider episode 6 delivers the biggest action set-piece of the season, and does an admirable job with it, as pursuing soldiers speed over the snow. It ends as such things tend to: With a tumble. But Alex is otherwise okay and is able to avoid detection, at least until he stumbles on to the main road and finds himself right in front of a truck.
While the clone plot was always going to be a tricky reveal, Alex Rider season 1, episode 6 mostly nails it, keeping the tone right, gradually building tension, and indulging itself in a great escape sequence to cap things off that will have probably been in the back of the mind of anyone who has read the book since the show began. With further developments still as wide open as ever, plus the obvious detail that Alex’s own experimentation must have produced his own clone, Alex Rider has plenty left in the tank for its final two episodes.
