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Alias
The Two
original air-date: 09-28-03
Be
Kind. Rewind: You know the drill. Sloane assembled the
Rambaldi device. Syd and faux Francie fought. Syd woke
up in Hong Kong two years later with Vaughn married. Feel
free to insert frustrated expletives here.
It's been
a long summer. The waiting, the anticipation nearly did this
fan in. But, thank the TV gods above the day has finally arrived.
Alias is back and if the season premiere is any indicator,
this season looks to be one hell of a ride for both Sydney
and all her loyal viewers.
The episode
picks up right where The
Telling left off with Syd and Vaughn sitting in the
safe house in Hong Kong. Sydney can't believe her ears. Vaughn
explains that there was a fire at her apartment and that remains
with her DNA were found. In a flashback we see a devastated
Vaughn laying on the ground near what we assume were Sydney's
"remains". Vaughn also goes on to tell her that
he's a teacher now and that the CIA has sent him to bring
her back.
Sydney
paces the room for a bit and then she launches on Vaughn,
saying that he can't really be who he says he is and that
she wants to know who he's working for. Syd escapes and fights
off some guards only to be stabbed, whoops! I mean shot in
the back with a tranquilizer dart by Vaughn.
Syd then
wakes up in a hospital with Dixon by her side. He explains
that it really was Vaughn in Hong Kong and that he was telling
the truth. Sydney starts asking questions: Where's Will? Where's
her father? Dixon says that she must have a million questions
and she says she wishes she only had a million. Loved it,
great line in an episode that is filled with them.
Weiss
walks in, says hi to Sydney and takes his boss outside. Behind
the glass door, as Sydney watches, he tells Dixon that a CIA
asset named Kingsley is in danger of being intercepted by
a group called the Covenant. Dixon tells Weiss to get Kingsley
off the train at the next stop. Then he goes back into the
room and tells Sydney some devastating news: her father has
been in jail for almost a year.
Then we
switch gears. We see Kingsley on the train. Everything seems
to be fine until some guys with guns start shooting everyone
in sight. One Russian guy finally gets his hands on Kingsley
and asks him where the chip is. He says it's in his shoe,
but the chip is not a match for whatever he's looking for.
Russian guy kills Kingsley and, after rifling through his
pockets, finds the much sought after chip, which contains
the blueprints for a drone.
Syd wakes
up in her hospital bed, with Weiss by her side, and says that
she remembers where she's been.
 Dixon
brings Syd to the CIA headquarters where she runs into Marshall
who, being Marshall, thinks that Sydney doesn't remember him.
He speaks slowly and tells her about himself (he wrote her
a poem!) and she just hugs him and says that of course she
remembers him. Carrie Bowman is back and she has big news:
she's pregnant!
With Marshall's
baby!
But they're
not married, and it seems to be a sore issue for the couple.
Apparently, Marshall wants to get married, but Carrie has
issues with wedlock (maybe because it has the word lock in
it?) Anyway, this storyline has definite potential to be one
of the season's best, and funniest, subplots. It's going to
be a riot to see how Marshall handles the role of proud papa.
Next,
we meet Robert Lindsey. The NSC liaison is not only working
with the CIA to find out what this Covenant is up to, he's
also the guy that put Jack in jail. Wow, is it any wonder
that we hate him already? Sydney tells them that she remembers
the building they are going to raid. As a result, they want
to her to accompany Weiss on the mission to Paris. Syd agrees
to go, but only on one condition: they let her see her father.
And see
him she does. A bearded Jack Bristow greets his daughter,
with a glass wall between them, by saying "Sweetheart,
you look so beautiful." It was just such a loving scene,
and all of the emotions, all of the relief that a father would
feel after seeing his daughter for the first time in two years
is right there in Victor Garber's eyes. It is a complete injustice
that a man that can convey so much without using words could
be robbed of an Emmy win, but, hey, the Academy sucks so what
do you expect?
They
talk and Jack tells Sydney that he knew she was alive and
that she must continue the work that he started in trying
to find out what happened to her. He says that she needs to
get the CIA's trust back; that she needs to go to Paris.
Naturally,
things go badly in Paris. Members of the Covenant attack the
team. Only Syd and Weiss narrowly escape death, after which
Syd tells Weiss that she has never been to the building and
that she lip read the conversation that he had with Dixon
outside her hospital room to get the information she needed
to see her father. Now she needs some kind of leverage, something
to win back the CIA's trust and spring Jack from jail. She
needs a contact to find out who Russian Guy is and get the
chip back from him. Weiss says he has an idea, but that she
won't like it.
He tells
her to go visit Sloane in Zurich, who is now a CIA consultant
and working for an agency of the World Health Organization.
Apparently, he negotiated a pardon and does things like cancer
research now.
Syd goes,
and Sloane hands over the Intel, but she doesn't believe Arvin's
good guy act. When he asks her to remember that he loved her,
she slams him down on his desk and says she knows that he
had something to do with her disappearance. Sloane tells her
that everything has changed since she's been gone and that
the Rambaldi device delivered a message when he assembled
it; one word and that word was "peace." Apparently,
Sloane had an epiphany and realized all the wrong that he'd
done in his life.
Um, let
me take a moment to deliver my one word message concerning
Sloane's status: BULL. There's no way Sloane has stopped his
dastardly deeds, especially when he's running something connected
to medical research. Twenty bucks says it's all a front, but
only time will tell.
Spy Girl,
refusing to accept any more of Sloane's help, gets in touch
with one of her old contacts who tells her where Russian Guy
is. He says she'll need back up to go after him, but, in classic
Sydney style, she says that all she'll need is clothes. And,
in a smoking red dress, Syd takes out Russian Guy and gets
the chip back in record time.
 She
takes the chip to Dixon's office, where she tells Lindsey
that if he doesn't get her father out of jail then she will
destroy the chip with her handy dandy mini-blow torch. Lindsey
reluctantly agrees to this while a smiling Dixon looks on.
Right on, Sydney.
Vaughn
reappears and tells Syd that he wanted to see how she was.
In the best speech of the episode, Sydney completely tells
the Boy Scout off. If a single scene ever proved that Jennifer
Garner was worthy of all the praise that is bestowed upon
her, this is it. The raw emotion that Sydney feels just rolls
off of her in waves. Sydney's anger, her frustration is written
all over Garner's face and at that moment the audience can
feel all the pain, all the hurt she is experiencing from being
betrayed by the man that she loved. And even though Vaughn's
moving on can be seen as completely rational, you can't watch
that scene without feeling complete and utter sympathy for
Sydney. And, for that, Ms. Garner must be given all the credit.
In the
final scenes, Jack and Sydney are reunited, but with a frightening
revelation for Syd.
We didn't
get all the answers. Hell, we barely got any answers, but
that wasn't the point. It was about setting up a season that
is sure to be filled with twists and turns and a journey into
the past. This episode may not be the most exciting, but it
was solid, suspenseful and wonderfully written. There was
no Will, no Irina, and no Sark, but for once their absence
wasn't acutely felt.
Now more
than ever this show is about Sydney Bristow. J.J. Abrams isn't
going to let his heroine sit around and bemoan her loss; he's
going to let her kick everyone's ass while she searches for
the answer to where she's been for two years. One thing is
for sure: Spy Girl is back and she's mad as hell. Oh, what
fun this is going to be to watch.
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