Episode Report Card Erin: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Who's a Bad Mama Jamma?
By Erin | Season 2 | Episode 1 | Aired on 09.28.2002
In a not-so-distant future flashback (really…I can't follow the time pattern until we get to the definitive present), Spy Daddy's telling Sloane that Sydney's extra code name, "Freelancer", was his idea because he didn't trust Sloane. And HOW doesn't this get him killed? Spy Daddy blah-blahs about Khasinau and Sydney and operations and Willage, Sloane wonders out loud why he didn't have Will killed ages ago. We're wondering that too. Yeah, he's cute but STILL.
Spy Daddy manages to convince Sloane not to kill Willage, even though Sloane just dropped his wife in order to gain entry into the Cool Kid Club that is the Alliance of Twelve. Yeah, a guy like Sloane would probably nod perceptibly at Spy Daddy's announcement that Willage should live, then he'd pick up the phone and have Willage accidentally "trip" over the side of a bridge. But this is Alias, not The Sopranos, so Sloane actually LISTENS to Spy Daddy.
Dixon enters the cell where Syd's being kept and apologizes for not listening to his heart in regard to Syd and her loyalty. It's a nice little moment because, basically, Syd's totally betraying Dixon and can't tell him the truth. Oh, and Jennifer Garner's highlights look FABULOUS.
After meeting with Dix, Syd storms into the Subbasement of Dreams and Desires and Vaughn's there! Oh, except for the part where he isn't and Agent Sean is there in his place. Aw, Agent Sean. I missed you and your yo-yo. Syd gets bejiggity on Agent Sean about Vaughn and Agent Sean just tells her to shut it and calm down. Syd does, and goes on to tell him about some new mission she's being sent on.
We go back in time, I GUESS, to the SD-6 meeting where Syd gets the assignment. It's a relatively lame one. Just plant a bug in the office of some guy named Jean-Marc. He's the key to finding Khasinau and Spy Mommy. Marshall's introduced for our weekly moment of comic relief. He has this weird one-sided imaginary call with his mother on some phone and blithers on about bugging and phones and wires and you just KNOW that all of Marshall's shit is improvised and that there's probably a hell of a lot of laughing on the set that I would KILL to see on some outtake reels at some point. Because, like, it's funny and all? But it's totally unnecessary and it makes me think that Kevin Weisman and J.J. Abrams went to grade school together or something.
Marshall goes on to say that the bug is actually in the wire itself. Like we care. Point? Syd has to jet over to Paris and plant the bug, at the same time planting a delay transmitter that Agent Sean will give her so that the CIA can listen in before SD-6 does. Whew. I'd forgotten how much gobbledy-gook is in these episodes. I need a break and it's only eighteen minutes in. Kill me. Kill me now.