Episode Report Card Erin: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT If it ain't broke, Spy Daddy will BLOW IT UP.
By Erin | Season 2 | Episode 4 | Aired on 10.19.2002
Once outside, Syd rushes off, sticking the map into her coat. "I'm out and I've got the map," she informs Vaughn. "Copy that, Freelancer," says Vaughn, smiling. "See you at home." Did anyone else out there start picturing Syd walking into the apartment she shares with Vaughn, and he has a candlelit dinner, complete with roses and fine wine, just waiting for her? Yeah, that's what I thought. "See you at home." What-EVER. Vaughn gets off the phone and looks at Mama Hari. "How do you say 'thank you' to the woman who killed your father?" she husks. "You don't," he says, exiting.
Hell-Lay. We're hangin' at the Ops Center with the non-lovebirds. "Sark asked you to come work for him?" asks Vaughn. "Like it wasn't even a question," says Syd. "Like it was a done deal. Sark is like the good-looking kid in high school who knows how cute he is and won't take no for an answer." Okay, the powers that be are more than throwing the idea of a Sark and Sydney sandwich at us. And, like, considering that some of us out there actually think that Sark and Syd may be bro and sis, that is some seriously SICK throwing J.J. and Co. are partaking in. Incest is best? Not in MY universe. Ew.
Vaughn asks if SD-6 seemed suspicious about the map she provided. Nope. They're analyzing it as if it's the real thing. Vaughn tells her that they have a CIA tech trying to decode the real thing, and it's a bitch. The camera pulls back, and Syd and Vaughn are sitting directly across from each other, their knees practically touching. "Do you think Richter used cipher text only they could read?" she posits. "Maybe," says Vaughn, wondering if he were, ya know, to move his knee like this, he could, like, possibly touch -- oh, never mind. "You know, your mother might be able to help us with this." Syd's all, if you're making a big deal about me going to see my mother again, dude, we've been over this. I'm FINE with it. Just gimme the earrings she requested and I'll be off like a prom dress.
Mama Hari's Cell Of Clueless Daughters. Syd hands over the earrings, informing Mama Hari that they've been checked for hidden compartments and all the sharp edges have been dulled. Mama Hari looks at them lovingly and tells Syd she was twenty-one when she received the earrings as a gift. "After graduation from the academy, my mother --" she looks up at Sydney with a sudden realization. "Your grandmother. She put these in my hands. I cried. She said, 'Sweetheart, wear them well.' You would have liked her. Had things...been different." Syd looks vaguely misty-eyed at the realization that she has a grandmother she's never met, but she quickly reverts back to business-like behavior and passes the map through the security tray. "We need you to decode the map," she says, keeping her emotions in check.