Episode Report Card Erin: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Truly, Madly, Deeply
By Erin | Season 2 | Episode 18 | Aired on 03.15.2003
Syd's relatively pissed off, and Vaughn suggests that maybe Syd shouldn't be part of the Irina hunt. "No one should have to hunt down their own mother, no matter what the circumstances are," he says. "She was never my mother," says Syd, setting her jaw. "You wanna believe that?" says Valiant Vaughn. That's it. He's touched the Pissy Nerve. Syd gets all huffy and says in this petulant voice, "Don't do this to me again. Don't condescend." Hee. She's totally cheesed off at her boyfriend. Two more minutes of this and he's sleeping on the sofa. At his apartment. Without a blanket. FOR THE REST OF HIS LIFE.
Vaughn's oblivious, however, to the impending threat on his sex life, and keeps at her about cornering her mother and not being able to pull the trigger, concluding that hesitating could cost Syd her life. "I won't hesitate," she says, taking aim at the target. Okay, that was totally supposed be all tough and shit, but the punctuation of the "I won't hesitate" with a rain of gunfire kind of lost its power when Syd had to spend thirty seconds putting on the protective eyewear and headphones. Like, I get that in the real world, you HAVE to wear that shit; it's a requirement. I get that. But I probably would have giggled myself silly if Syd had just looked at Vaughn, spat out the dialogue, and gone to fucking TOWN on the target. But this is Alias, not Lethal Weapon, so I'll back off the desire for unrealistic elements that's plaguing me at the moment.
After the break, we're treated to a Spanky and Alfalfa face-off, complete with projectile spitting and bursting blood vessels. Kendall's all, yeah, so I let you run with the whole "trust Irina" plan, right? And now I find out that you didn't really believe that shit yourself? Because, like, if you really trusted her, you sure as HELL wouldn't have slipped her the passive transmitter (HEE!) without notifying me of your actions! "It was my call to let her out and I stand by that decision," Kendall snaps, "but you blindsided me, you son of a bitch! And your pretense of an apology doesn't do either of us any good." Oh, Kendall. Go find a desk and start pushing some number two pencils around. You're all wrapped up here.
During Kendall's little spit-a-thon, Jack regards him calmly and ignores the wall of saliva that's coming at him from Kendall's frothing mouth. Once Director Desk Job's finished his impassioned speech, Jack just goes, yeah, see, you forced my little girl to deal directly with her sociopathic bitch of a mother. Kendall's all, I totally stand by that call! I knew what I was doing! And it was fun! Jack's all, yeah, whatever, Captain File Clerk. I'm not looking to oust you, you paranoid FREAK. As soon as I can guarantee that Irina's out of the picture and can't harm my baby anymore, you can have your TITLE back. And he slams all this emphasis on the "title" as if to say, "Oh, sure, you'll be the 'director' again, my friend. In name only. Get used to the pencils and the spreading ass. You won't be leaving your desk for quite some time."