Episode Report Card Erin: A | 1 USERS: B+ YOU GRADE IT Papa, can you hear me? No, seriously. PAPA?
By Erin | Season 4 | Episode 18 | Aired on 05.03.2005
Unfortunately, Jack isn't. He's concerned that he's going to miss Little Syd's birthday. Again. He seems totally broken up by this, actually. Sydrina tries to assure him that it's okay. That he'll explain it to her and she'll understand. "She's a child," says Jack, looking rather emotional. "She shouldn't need to understand that her father isn't home to celebrate her birthday." Syd's doing all she can to keep her emotions in check. "Laura," continues Jack, "the only memories I have of my father are of him leaving. I don't want it to be that way for her. She deserves better." Syd almost starts crying. Making a rather difficult choice, Syd obviously decides to act more like his wife than his daughter, and she moves close to him, saying, "The work you do is important." "Not as important as her," he says. "Or you." Yeah. It's another "awwwEWWWWawww" moment. Jack says that, when he gets back to Europe, he's going to give notice. He apologizes for not discussing it with her first. "No," she says, barely keeping it together. "That means more to me than you will ever know." He reaches out and kisses her hand, and yeah, it's kind of squicky, but it's also really dear, and Syd starts blubbering and…sniff. Sniffle. Shut UP.
Jack caresses his wife's hand for a second longer, then moves out of the kitchen. "We'll send in the med techs to sedate your father before he decides that it's time you two had another little Syd running around," says Sloane. Oh, okay. He doesn't say that. But he's THINKING it. Syd watches as her dad goes and sits next to Little Syd. "That's good," he says, smiling. "Can I join you?" "Uh-huh," she adorably answers. They begin their duet and Syd comes out and sees them together on the bench and her chin crumbles and…dammit! Where's the Kleenex? Before Syd can get super-weepy, however, the med techs come in and shoot Jack in the neck with a dart. The expression on his face as he looks back at Syd is heartbreaking; it's like, "Honey? How could you do this to me? Help me!" God, I love Victor Garber.
Helsinki. The real Dr. Liddell is sitting on a bench outside a building. Syd walks up and says his name. He gets up and starts to leave. "Jack Bristow needs your help," she says. He stops and turns and it's Michael McKean with a little age makeup on. We shoot over to Hell-Lay and the Apple Store, where Marshall's geeking his way through the halls. He catches up with Weiss and Nadia and says he was going to go do some more tests on the Hydrosec, but when he went to go get it out of cold storage, it wasn't there, but of course, you guys already knew that, and Nadia's all, uh, why would we know that? Marshall's all, uh, because your team requested that it be moved to a low-security unit offsite, and Nadia's all, what the fuck?