Victor Garber just can't seem to play a guy with a normal life. Maybe it has something to do with the Credit Dauphine bank. It always seems to play a part in his character's lives going sideways.

   For a start, consider his character on Alias, Jack Bristow. Now buckle up because this gets pretty layered. Jack Bristow and his daughter Sydney both supposedly worked at an L.A. bank called Credit Dauphine. But in point of fact, Credit Dauphine is just a front. They are both really working for a covert branch of the CIA housed under the Credit Dauphine bank. But wait! See, even though everyone working there believes they are working for the CIA, they are actually being tricked! Everyone is actually working for a group posing as the CIA but who are actually some really bad people. Jack and Sydney both discover the truth and go to work as double agents for the real CIA inside the fake CIA. So, to sum up... they are working for the CIA but pretending to work for the fake CIA while pretending to work for Credit Dauphine. It's enough to make your ears bleed. Yet Alias made it all seem to make simple, fun sense right off the bat. In fact when they simplified the premise it wasn't nearly as fun.

   You'd think after all that craziness, Garber might want to settle into playing a guy living a simpler life. But oh no. Victor Garber went on to play Jordan Wethersby, the head partner of a cutthroat San Francisco law firm. So far so good. One of his toughest, most ruthless lawyers was Eli Stone. Eli was a shark among sharks. Until Eli discovered he had a brain tumor, a brain tumor that caused him to have visions. He'd start seeing things that weren't there. Quite often they came in the form of elaborate musical numbers. Not a good thing for a lawyer. More surprisingly, Eli discovered that the things he saw in his visions actually predicted future events. Eli started to see the visions as coming from God and started to believe maybe being a total shyster wasn't such a good idea. Maybe he should be working to actually HELP people in need, people pointed out to him by his visions. Since having a tumor and visions wasn't going to exactly inspire confidence in his colleagues, for as long as possible Eli kept that stuff hush hush. But he did go from being a shark working for big money to the office outcast working pro bono cases. His coworkers got really annoyed with him. But the more good he did, the more some of his colleagues came to admire him. By the time the truth of his tumor and his visions came out, some of them didn't even think he was crazy. They might not fully embrace the ideas he was really having visions from God but they didn't dismiss the idea either.

   Among those who Eli inspired was Garber's Jordan Wethersby. At the start of the show he was possibly the biggest corporate shark in the firm. He was all about the money and the kill. But Eli's turn from the dark side inspired Jordan to remember that when he and his two partners founded their firm, they did so with the intent of actually doing good, of helping people. By the end of the first season he had changed so much that the other partners in the firm tried to get him removed as head partner. At that point Eli was predicting a huge earthquake and was trying desperately to prevent deaths, including convincing local officials to close the Golden Gate Bridge. The vote to remove Jordan from power was taken and he lost, based largely in his belief in Eli's visions. At that exact moment, the quake hit. Windows shattered sending glass all over the room. The bridge buckled as Eli predicted. Jordan asked for a revote. In the end, it turned out the firm's offices were actually officially in Jordan's name. He owned them. He got to keep the firm but his partners and most of the lawyers left to set up a new firm.

   I'm getting back to Credit Dauphine, really. It's just that this is another complicated show not so easily summed up. At the end of the first season Eli had had enough of his visions and had dangerous surgery to have his tumor removed. It worked. Only now that Eli had rid himself of both the tumor and the visions, his brother, Doctor Nathan Stone discovered he had developed a tumor in his brain and was having visions. His first vision was of a crane breaking and crashing down onto a bank. Meanwhile, Jordan had discovered that due to his past dubious legal work, some of their clients were about to make some ill-gotten financial gains. He headed down to a meeting at a local bank to confront them. Hey! Guess what bank. Yep, the local branch of Credit Dauphine, the same institution from Alias. Of course while he was in the bank a great big crane fell on the damn place trapping him in the rubble. Wow, who'd have seen that coming. Oh... right. Nathan even had info about where Jordan was trapped. And it seemed rescue personnel were not only digging for him in the wrong place, they were in fact digging in an area that would cause Jordan to be crushed and killed. But getting anyone to listen was a tough sell. Eli was supposedly cured of his visions! What's he gonna say, my brother has them now? They'd never believe it and even if they did it would ruin Nathan's life by making HIM vision-boy to everyone else. In the end Eli, of course, does get them to dig in the right spot. He also has a conversation with someone who might be an angel (and was for sure Sigourney Weaver) and voluntarily takes back his tumor and the visions. Instantly his brother is cured and Eli is... Is uncured a word?

   I do have to wonder though... they saved Jordan Wethersby from the bank being crushed. But... is it possible that down below Jack Bristow lay crushed and dying? Okay, no emails. I know, I know. Wrong branch and Jack Bristow eventually stopped "working" for Credit Dauphine so that really doesn't make sense. Just a bit of creative license, okay?

Other Alias Crossover Links
Alias and Lost

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Buy these shows on Amazon.com and support this site at the same time! The crossover connection mentioned in this article takes place in the first episode of the Eli Stone Season 2 DVD set.





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