YMMV / Alex Rider (2020)

• Complete Monster:
  • Season 1: Dr. Hugo Greif was in the past a research scientist in the field of cloning, before vanishing and showing up many years later. Greif admired several dictators, especially Adolf Hitler, and would found the Point Blanc academy with the intention of taking over the entire world. To do so, Greif would market his academy as a place for troubled teens, only grabbing the children of rich influential industrialists and replacing them with clones of himself surgically altered to look like the teens, killing the parents so they could never discover the swap. Greif locked the teens inside a basement in the academy and had them tortured for information that the clones could use, with many of them going insane as a result, with Greif planning to kill all of the teens once they were no longer useful to him. Greif's final plan was to wipe out 99% of the entire human population so only the strong could survive to curb overpopulation and create a "better" world for him to rule over.
  • Season 3: Julia Rothman presents herself as a polite, wealthy art patron, when in truth she's the effective leader of Scorpia. After having Scorpia back the dangerous plots of Dr. Greif and Damian Cray, Julia decides that Scorpia should carry out its own plan to assert their dominance. To this end, Julia devises Operation Invisible Sword, a way of covertly killing anyone in the world they desire. She then gives the UK deliberately unreasonable demands while threatening to kill hundreds of thousands of people if they aren't met, killing a football team as a demonstration. After this, Julia tries to kill everyone in the city of Bath to plunge Britain into chaos as an example to the world so she can threaten other countries with the same fate. Julia also takes an interest in Alex Rider, convincing him to join Scorpia like his father and that the Department had murdered him, when in truth Julia had him killed herself for being a mole from the Department, and she only wants to bring Alex in as revenge against his father and see the look on his face when she kills him.
• Evil Is Cool: Yassen Gregorivich has an expanded role in the adaptation of Point Blanc in the first season, and Thomas Levin delivers a highlight performance with his own subplot throughout the season. Being a scarily competent pragmatic assassin with serious Villain Respect for the Riders, being Scorpia’s primary representative in their Early-Bird Cameo, and saving Alex’s life by shooting his duplicate will do that.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • An extremely popular Fandom-Specific Plot for the original Alex Rider book series involved Yassen becoming an Evil Mentor to Alex, which, thanks to him being Spared by the Adaptation, is what happens in Season 3.
  • The first cinematic role of Kevin McNally, who plays Max Grendel in Season 3, was a bit part in The Spy Who Loved Me.
• Paranoia Fuel:
  • Ian Rider's death. From Alex's point of view, his only living relative has just suddenly died, and he's clearly being lied to about how it happened. When he investigates, he finds that his uncle has been lying to him all his life.
  • The Greif clones, on soooo many fronts.
    • So you send your rebellious son to a special boarding school to straighten him out. Now he's back, but he seems... different. Well, that's what you wanted, right? His tastes are different. Well, tastes change, don't they? He's perfectly cordial and polite, but he speaks to you like a stranger. It's nothing you can explain, even to yourself, but he seems like a stranger.
    • After Alex survives the explosion that kills Eva Stellenbosch, he's rescued and taken home, but is acting strangely; he's cold and distant towards Jack and Tom. Probably PTSD, right? Cut to the ruins of Point Blanc, where another Alex emerges from the rubble. Wait... did they rescue the right Alex?!
    • The first half of the final episode, where the duplicate is working to destroy Alex's life. He's wandering through Alex's house, wearing his clothes, talking to his loved ones who have no idea who he is. He easily lures Tom away somewhere to attack him and take him hostage.
• Retroactive Recognition: Charithra Chandran, who plays Sabina Pleasance in Season 2, would gain a much more prominent role a year later as Edwina Sharma in Bridgerton.
• Unexpected Character: Razim is name-dropped on two separate occasions in the opening episode of Season 3, whereas in the books he didn't make his debut until Scorpia Rising, where he served as the Big Bad. Although given that this season is confirmed to be the final one, this is more of a Mythology Gag than anything else.
• Win Back the Crowd: After the failure of the 2006 movie, the 2020 TV series is praised by reviewers and book fans for being a faithful take on the novels and making them feel updated with the Darker and Edgier tone. Even the author himself much preferred the TV series.

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