Episode Report Card Manimal: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Reckoning
By Manimal | Season 1 | Episode 6 | Aired on 11.17.2001
Will. Hallway of the fanciest non-existent newspaper ever in the greater Southern California area. He's on his ever-present cell phone and telling someone (presumably Francie or Sydney) that he wouldn't miss Charlie's debut for the world. Will walks to his desk. Jennie, his very personal assistant, is sitting there. Will tells her to get out of his chair. Bwa! Ever since Clueless, I'm a sucker for people being told to get out of chairs. If Will calls someone a "chucklehead," I will retract every mean statement I've ever made about him. Except this: he needs a new hairstyle. Jennie snarks that Will was talking to Sydney. Will tells Jennie to stop it. She tells him he has a message from the DMV, and that they've tracked down the fake Kate Jones via her license plate. Jennie -- who's apparently been hooked on phonics -- reads, "Eloise Kurtz," over his shoulder. Will tells her he plans to make a visit.
SD-6. The scary white-and-red room of identification. Sydney walks in, wearing boring black microfiber separates and some very, very tall black strappy shoes. Sloane follows her and congratulates Sydney on the Badenweiler mission. Sydney uncomfortably says that Dixon should get the credit for that. Oh. My. GOD. Was that subtlety?! Was that a bit of self-referential narrative that managed to make its point subtly, and to not to drill the concept of her double life into my head like a broken bit on a dentist's drill? Sweet Jesus McGillicuddy.
The Conference Room of Spies. Sloane tells Sydney that her pops -- Jack Bristow -- will no longer have his cover as a businessman at Jennings Aerospace, since his assignment there is complete. From now on, he'll be known as a portfolio manager at Credit Dauphine, since he'll be able to plan missions from a closer position at SD-6. Jennifer Garner has the funniest facial expression here: she's obviously taken by surprise, but tries to cover it up with a saccharine "Gee! That's keen!" look. Spy Daddy starts talking. I'm going to give up the name and just call him Jack, since it looks like he's garnering a big part of the upcoming storylines here. So: FTL abandoned their base at Rabat (the name of a fabulous shoe store in San Francisco, also, by the way), and that while the heavy equipment like the T-47s were moved, the recovery team managed to find an incredibly annoying cache of birthday cards. Except he doesn't say the words "incredibly annoying." Or "birthday cards," either, actually. He tosses one to Sydney. It's got a giant yellow happy face. It opens to reveal the words "Happy Birthday" and the single most annoying bit of tuneage since "The Macarena," only nowhere near as memorable. Jack says that FTL also abandoned their facilities at Kenilworth, and that while doing a sweep there, they recovered -- you guessed it -- a birthday card. Marshall is eating what I thought was an overcooked cranberry scone, and he's practically making out with the damn thing. Jack tosses the card to Dixon. Dixon asks whether the ink's encoded. Marshall, his mouth full, says that was his first thought, and then halts himself abruptly. He offers a bite of his fritter to the table at large. Damn. Marshall looked like he was having a great time with that fritter, and because I am an advertiser's wet dream, I had to halt the recap writing at this point and go hunt down a fritter, which, in my neighborhood of pan-Asian-fusion bistros, gyms, and gay porn, was not an easy task. Sloane cuts Jack off. He says that Analysis found a code buried in the music, and that they haven't deciphered it.