Episode Report Card Erin: C- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT "André"? Seriously? That's the best you could do?
By Erin | Season 5 | Episode 1 | Aired on 09.28.2005
Vaughn and Syd meet up at the edge of the property, which overlooks a cliff. Vaughn's wearing a parachute. "We have to go," he says, as a hundred guests who are more interested in free champagne and caviar blithely ignore the parachuting couple on the lawn. "The doctor called," says Syd, looking stunned as she shuts her phone. "I'm pregnant." No, really? But you hide it so well! "WHAT?" says Vaughn. Just then, a guard shouts out at them and they dive off the cliff, as any young couple who's just discovered they're in the family way would do. Vaughn pulls the 'chute and they careen off into the distance to figure out whether they should get their baby a teething ring or a bazooka for its first birthday.
And now it's time for The Sloane and Jack Show! Sloane's in a cell, reading up on the latest cures for Big Red Eye Disease. Jack enters, and Sloane immediately asks after his daughter. She's not on the show anymore, Sloane, REMEMBER? Jack says there's no change and Sloane tries to convince Jack to let him out of there. He tries to make the most out of his five minutes of screen time by gritting his way through a speech explaining Nadia's condition and how he's responsible for it. It's a valiant effort, but I'm still kind of bored. Sloane finally realizes that Jack didn't come there to be yelled at about Sloane's daughter issues. Jack asks Sloane if he's aware of the off-book trips Vaughn took to Marseille while Sloane was head of APO. Sloane says he didn't task Vaughn with the trips and then asks what in the hell this is all about.
Jack hands Sloane a file. He looks over it, mumbling words like "Istanbul" and "Get on with it already." I can't tell. Damned closed captioning. Suddenly, he looks up and asks if Jack is familiar with "Le Corbeau," a.k.a. "The Raven." Jack is. "Renée Rienne," he grits. Sloane rattles off Renée's résumé, the highlights of which include the assassination of the Turkish prime minister and a couple of CIA operatives. Vaughn's movements track with hers. Sloane tells Jack to tell his daughter about Vaughn's extracurricular activities, then retreats to the corner of his cell to start paging through Diseases of the Fictional Kind, Volume Three.
Apple Store. Gordo's walking around like he owns the place. He heads over to some blonde woman who's decrypting Marshall's encrypted Vaughn file. We know she's not Moronen because she doesn't have a super-assy accent. The new blonde woman, an actress named Rachel Nichols, whose résumé is a total mystery to me, is the latest addition to the cast, and she seems to be something of a computer geek. Uh-oh. Watch out, Marshall. Rachel informs Gordo that Vaughn used one of his many aliases when he passed through Italian customs last night. Smart move, Vaughn. Oh, why do I even bother? Dude's about to be dead. Gordo declares that Rachel is a genius, and she finally turns so we can look at her face. Nope. Still don't know who in the hell she is.