Episode Report Card Manimal: C- | 1 USERS: B- YOU GRADE IT Let's do the plot twist AGAIN
By Manimal | Season 1 | Episode 4 | Aired on 2001.10.21
Previously: Sydney kisses Will. Francie thinks Charlie is cheating on her. Sydney meets an old enemy, Ana Espinosa. They're both in pursuit of some code written by some fifteenth-century genius.
Berlin. Football stadium. Lockbox. Ana and Sydney stare in horror as some sort of acid is triggered and starts eating away a piece of paper with various 1s and 0s written on it. It looks like someone from Mrs. Peterson's second-grade class wrote it on cheap Mead construction paper. Did the art department get no money? Couldn't this have been on some kind of parchment and written in an Italianate hand? The women stare at each other and then rush to memorize the code. This is just so thrilling, watching people mutter to themselves as they try to memorize something. I could get the same excitement from visiting a GRE study group and watching as they riffle through flashcards.
Acid. Paper dissolves. Sydney and Ana stare at each other. "Didja get it?" Sydney says. "Did you?" Ana says. Wow, it IS just like a GRE study group. They turn and run in opposite directions. Okay, I changed my mind: Sydney does run funny. In fact, as a dedicated non-runner myself, I can safely say that she runs like someone who hates running. She shouts the code to Vaughn back in LA as she runs. How can she be sure no one from SD-6 isn't nearby? She tells Vaughn she's giving SD-6 the wrong number. Vaughn tells her it's critical she give them the right code, and "that's an order." Sydney tells him they're having a talk when she gets back. Cut back and forth between K-Directorate and SD-6 vans as both spies spout off the code.
Los Angeles. Shores of Lake Overlap. Sydney and Vaughn warble a few bars of that old-time favorite, "You're Not The Boss Of Me." Vaughn points out that if she'd given SD-6 the wrong code, they'd know something was up. Like, duh. And didn't Sydney make this same point in the second episode when she called Marshall to help her disarm the nuke and Vaughn got all pissy about it? Did the continuity guys get fired or something? Sean/Weiss looks incredibly uncomfortable, like he's watching his friend's parents fight.
Welcome to Nonsensical Segues, Population: 1. Sydney mutters that she realized in Berlin that Ana hates SD-6 as much as she does. Vaughn points out the only thing worse than SD-6 having critical information is K-Directorate getting it first, and that Ana is still her enemy.