Episode Report Card Manimal: B | 1 USERS: A YOU GRADE IT Spirit
By Manimal | Season 1 | Episode 10 | Aired on 12.15.2001
Close-up of the gift as Will leaves. Cut to Will and Francie in the kitchen. Will mentions the gift Sydney received. Francie blows it off, but said she heard about Will and the Cheerleader. Will says that she's not a cheerleader anymore, and that the relationship doesn't mean anything. Double gack. Also: um, the word "relationship" and the phrase "doesn't mean anything" kind of fall into the realm of oxymoron. Great. So now Will is schtupping naïve nineteen-year-olds. I am now officially cursing Will: he should get hard-ons and no one should notice.
Sydney's bedroom. She opens Vaughn's gift. It's an ornate silver frame. Very appropriate -- not too personal, not too presumptuous. Sydney whips out her hatbox of memories and finds a photo of her and her mom. Right behind it is a photo of her and her dad -- she's sitting on her dad's shoulders, and it's cute as all heck. I've often wondered how they do those photos -- do they Photoshop the whole thing, or does the actor have to bring in an old one, or both?
Vaughn and Sydney. Sydney tells Vaughn about finding the photo, and tells some story about asking her dad if Santa Claus was real, and that he always answered flatly and factually, "Yes, of course he's real." I can see Jack doing that. I think that shows what a good actor Victor Garber is, when you can project that far onto a character. Sydney says that the way he answered always tipped her off to the fact that he was lying, which is why she always asked again. Sydney says that he was the same way when she asked him about Russek. Sydney says looking at that photo of Russek made her realize that her father sacrificed him just to save her, and that he wasn't the guilty one; she was. Vaughn points out that Russek was one of the founding members of SD-6 and did tons of bad things, and funded lots and lots of operations that worked against the U.S. government, not to mention missions like the one that killed her fiancé. Yow. Low blow. Sydney swallows. Vaughn says Russek got what he deserved. Sydney says that if Vaughn knew so much about Russek, he also knew that he wasn't K-Directorate and was sacrificed to save her. She says that's a choice her father can't be allowed to make. Vaughn asks what she would've done if it had been Sydney's daughter, or son, or Danny. They both go silent. I can't believe I'm saying this, but they both have a point. Vaughn massages his many forehead creases; I wonder if they're also members of SAG, since they seem to do as much work, if not more, than he does. Sydney looks pouty.