Episode Report Card Manimal: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Reckoning
By Manimal | Season 1 | Episode 6 | Aired on 11.17.2001
Sydney rushes home, rips open an old hatbox of clips, notes, photos, etc., and pulls out one about her mother's death. There are two mug shots: one of her mother, and the other of the "postal worker" who caused her death. Except that the "postal worker" in the photo is Calder. Whoa! That was surprising! That was actually surprising! I'm totally beside myself! I've also used up my lifetime supply of exclamation points!
Sydney. Vaughn. Some warehouse somewhere in L.A. Sydney expositions left, then right, then left again: all these years she thought a postal worker fell asleep behind the wheel, and her dad swerved to miss him, and the car went off the bridge. But her dad survived? How? Anyway, she says that, for years, she thought Calder was that man, but now she knows he was hunting her father for KGB ties. Vaughn isn't too worried, though; to him the whole story's still only worth two forehead creases. Sydney speculates that Calder was probably chasing them, and that if her father hadn't been a double agent, her mother would actually be alive. She pauses, apologizes for spilling her guts, and says (again) that she has no one else to talk to about this. Vaughn tells her it's okay. She then says she wants to report her father -- that maybe the missing pages in his file mean that maybe he's still working for the KGB. Uh oh. Vaughn breaks out a few new forehead creases. He tells her she is loco en de cabeza (basically), and that she needs to keep her eyes on the prize -- taking down SD-6 -- and Jack is the man who's helping them do that. Sydney verges on a freak-out. Thank God they're bypassing their usual trip to Lake Overlap; you can actually hear the dialogue. It's not exactly Ibsen, but it's nice to hear what's going on for once.
Sydney: Blah blah blah it's the right thing to do.
Vaughn: No, no, no, eyes on the prize.
Sydney: Blah blah blah this is just unacceptable, sometimes we have to do the right thing.
Vaughn: Bummer for you if your dad's selling secrets.
Sydney: [seething anger]
Vaughn: Give me a couple of days to find out what's going on.
UCLA. Or USC. Frankly, it could be Cal State Dominguez Hills; I'm not sure, since they've never given the university a name. The campus is beautiful, and I have a sneaking suspicion it's UCLA. Francie and Charlie are talking on a bench. Francie is taking the "best defense = offense" strategy, and telling Charlie that she's always supported him, and that she can't believe he's been sneaking behind her back and lying to her after all they've been through. Charlie cuts her off mid-spew and tells her he wants to be a singer. Whaa--? Exsqueeze me? Where the hell did this come from? Oh, well. It's better than having Charlie be cheating, couch-potato slime, I guess. Francie is dumbstruck. Charlie reveals that Rachel is his pianist (wocka wocka wocka); that the night Francie saw them, they were meeting to rehearse; and that their first gig is this Friday. He says that his being a lawyer has been his and his family's goal forever, and the thought that he really wanted to sing -- dammit, to sing! -- is just too scary to admit.