Big ups to: the kids at the forums; Sars, for her amazing never-ending editing abilities; and Kellogg's, for making that new Special K With Red Berries, which single-handedly got me through this episode. You rock so hard the boat may tip over. ["You're welcome -- and thanks for the confirmation that that's a good cereal. I'd wondered about that. Now I will buy me some." -- Sars]
So, a couple of nights ago I had a dream where I was working in a sweatshop owned by J.J. Abrams. Our job was to stitch together coherent plots out of leftover Felicity storylines and pages randomly ripped out of Frederick Forsyth novels. The worst part is I had to pee, but J.J. Abrams, wearing tiny little granny glasses and high-gloss jack-boots, wouldn't let any of us go until we'd figured out a way for Sydney to wear a shiny pleather corset and rappel down the side of a building in the episode. It was terrible. The dream, too.
Now. On to this week's soggy mish-mash of Felicity the Spy. Watch out for those nuggets of nonsensical plot filler. Those suckers are a bitch to pass.
Previously: a terrorist named Jacquenod and some other guy whose name sounds like Mena Suvari plant a bomb inside Patel, the winner of the "Edgar Peace Prize." Sydney spies on them. They also edited this week's "Previously," so you don't hear one of the baddies say that they're planting "the equivalent of 300 pounds of TNT" inside Patel. You'll see why later.
Sao Paolo. Sydney. Bronzer. Gold Charo outfit. She's watching the surgery. Ah-nuld 2, the bodyguard from the last episode who recognized Sydney while she was wearing her I'm-a-refugee-from-a-Lucky-Charms-box outfit, drags her up by her hair. He says, "Recognize me now?" and cold-cocks her. Cut.
Ah-nuld 2 walks down the hall, dragging Sydney by the strap of her hideous gold tank top to a furnace room. Wouldn't that be hard on his shoulder, not to mention hers? Wouldn't he use a fireman's lift, since it's more efficient? Also, that tank top has to be made of molybdenum, since it hasn't ripped. He menaces her and asks who does Number Two work for. He says if she doesn't sing like a bird (or words to that effect), he's going to "throw her in the fire." He's choking her the entire time he's demanding that she talk. Isn't that just like a man? Sydney stabs him in the neck with a pen she snagged from his coat. She dispenses some more pain with a steel pole, and runs.
Hallway. Bad guys coming from both ends. Sydney ducks down a staircase and decides to play Chutes 'n' Ladders. She slides down a pipe and holds onto a thin metal rib as the baddies shoot down the pipe blindly. Even though the pipe is only a few feet in diameter and they have MULTIPLE GUNS and Sydney has no shelter, they manage to miss her, although they do shoot the ledge she's holding onto. She slides down just like it's Raging Waters.
Apparently all the pipes in this building lead straight to Fantasy Island, because when Sydney comes to, she's by this beautiful little pond with a Brazilian kid leaning over her. If a giant pipe leads out of a factory/building or whatever, wouldn't you expect that it would be there to drain off sewage or waste, and would thus probably go straight into some contaminated body of water? Although I guess it is leading us straight into this cockamamie plot, so same difference. Of course, Sydney speaks Portuguese. Hey -- could we get some subtitles, here?
Bus. Sydney. Cell phone. She calls Dixon and says that whatever she tells him, he has to believe her. Dixon tells her that the news agencies reported he had an arrhythmia. She fills him in on Patel with the bomb planted inside him, and says that since it's so small, it's on a wireless remote. Sydney tells Dixon to find Patel and meet her in back. Sydney hands the phone back to the kid, who's on the bus with her. She says thanks.
Dixon walks through the conference. He checks the time. Patel is due to speak in a few moments. He looks worried.
Conference. Protesters. Sydney weaves her way through the crowd. She walks up to an ambulance and feigns fainting. The driver gets out to help her. She sneaks around the other side of the truck and steals the ambulance.
Dixon enters the room where Patel and his bodyguard are waiting. Dixon and the guard argue. Dixon then sucker-punches him. Patel is agitated. Dixon then apologizes, looking completely distressed, and punches him in the nose. Why doesn't Dixon get a show?
Building back entrance. Sydney pulls up. Dixon -- using a fireman's lift, I might add -- hauls Patel out of the building and throws him in the back of the ambulance.
Conference. They announce Patel. Ambulance. Dixon can't believe he punched Dhirin Patel, whom he worships, in the face. Sydney wants to know if he ID'd the trigger. Dixon says no. They exposition about how Dixon had basic medical training, but nothing to prep him for this. Sydney is whiny and irritating. My goodness, how I hate her. If hate were people, I'd be China.
Did I mention there's a big, throbbing heartbeat interweaving with the soundtrack? I would kill for some original music choices here. Maybe "Heart Attack" by Olivia Newton John. (They don't have to be good -- just original.)
Sydney and Dixon put Patel under. Jacquenod comes after them. Sydney starts driving as Dixon operates. Since the bomb's on remote, Sydney has to stay out of range. The few moments are filled with Jacquenod yelling, "Get me closer!" Sydney driving extremely rapidly through the streets of Sao Paolo, and Dixon cutting into Patel's chest. Did I mention that Patel starts coming to a couple of times?
Ambulance: chase, chase, chase. Jacquenod: "Get me closer!" Dixon: cut, cut, cut. Sydney: "Oh God!" Patel: "I have the worst insurance plan ever."
Just as the baddies get within range, Dixon rips the TNT out of Patel's chest and tosses it at the car. Of course, the car -- and only the car -- explodes. What happened to those 300 pounds of TNT, fellas?
"No way," Vaughn says. "Way!" says Sydney. More rowing on Lake Overlap: Vaughn asks if she fulfilled her countermission. Sydney says she was busy keeping Patel from blowing up. Uncomfortable silence. Out of nowhere, Vaughn gives Sydney her dad's CIA file, since she has a lot of questions about him. Why would he do that? Even on cop shows they always do that "I've left this file on my desk and now I'm going to the can" thing, and that's, like, just domestic cop stuff, not big-time spy stuff. Why would Vaughn let her take incredibly sensitive information out of the building? Michael Vartan really only has two facial expressions, and they're both getting on my nerves.
Credits. Blips.
University library. Sydney flips through her dad's file. Francie walks up. Sydney has to put the file away. Okay, just in case you turned spontaneously deaf or blind during the first four episodes of this crapfest, let's get this clear: Sydney is a SPY and has a SECRET LIFE that she must hide from THOSE THAT SHE LOVES. At this point, we're all beyond getting it. We've gotten it. We've had it firmly implanted in our neurons. I know the fact better than I know my Social Security number. Also, since when is Francie also a graduate student? Does this feel completely tacked on, or is it just me? Francie announces that she prepared the wrong chapter for class and that they're having a Halloween party.
Sydney and Francie walk as Sydney points out that she invited one of Charlie's friends in the hope of seeing Charlie again. Sydney stops as they see Will exiting a building, talking on his phone. Bradley Cooper's hair looks like a box of yellow marshmallow Peeps melted all over his head. Francie says maybe Will is there to talk about "the humiliating kiss." Sydney mutters at her not to call it that. Will walks up and says he's researching a story on the SATs. They tell Will about their party. Will asks if he has to dress up. Sydney: No. Francie: Yes. Will: That's confusing. Sydney's beeper goes off. Francie and Will joke about her time-consuming job. Ho ho ho, if only they knew! Maybe this show will end up like Bosom Buddies, where eventually the entire cast knew the main characters' "secret" and thus the whole premise of the show fizzled out like an old, bad Alka-Seltzer.
SD-6, The Land That Windows Forgot. Sydney, now wearing her usual black microfiber bank ensemble, sits and looks blank as Sloane fills them in on their mission. The Ansel (or Hansel?) Corporation makes ibuprofen and other drugstore-type stuff. Would the Alias writers really name the business the Hansel Corporation? Is this a Zoolander shout-out? (He pronounces "Hansel" as "HAN-sell," rather than "Hansel and Gretel.") God, I hope so. I would suddenly have much more respect for them. They have economic ties going back to the Third Reich, "although they don't put that in the annual stock report," quips Sloane. He brings up a photo of a young Kevin Sorbo in a blond wig. Oh -- it's Yeron Schiller, one of HAN-sell's leading biotech engineers. He has access to HAN-sell's vaccine against biological weapons, and wants to trade it for passage to the US. Dixon points out that he lives in Berlin, and could take a cab to the airport. Aww, Dixon! Give him more lines.
Sloane says that the problem isn't Germany, it's HAN-sell, which keeps all top employees under close surveillance. Apparently the Kevin-Sorbo-in-a-blond-wig photo is the last one available of Schiller, from his university days, but they do have a computer-aged photo of what he'd probably look like today. Hopefully not like an old Kevin Sorbo in a blond wig.
Marshall's turn. Marshall looks as nervous as a seventh grader on the debate team. He says, "Hello, everyone. Hope everyone's planning on having an enjoyable All Hallow's Eve." Sloane cuts him off with a single word: "Marshall." Couldn't you see Sloane running the Mafia or something? Why is he even dicking around with this low-level secret-agent stuff? Marshall stops. He's practically jigging with excitement. He says that what he's got is so cool that they'll all be saying, "Whoa, Marshall." Dixon and Sydney mentally eye-roll, but kindly. Marshall whips out a business card with a tiny transmitter that basically overrides the computer system's firewall so Schiller can send the info to a Canadian server.
Dixon runs up to Sydney after the meeting and says that he and the wife and the crumbsnatchers will be at her Halloween party. Uh. Would a secret agent really invite her partner to a party to mix with her civilian life?
Spy Daddy interrupts their conversation and asks for a minute alone with Sydney. He makes some more excuses about how busy he is and how they shouldn't plan on hanging out soon, as he is so busy. It's clear that he's lying. Sydney says she wasn't planning on making any more attempts. Sydney's face crumbles. Well...the face attempts to crumble. Mostly she just gets pouty. It's like she's completely wooden behind the eyes: no flicker or change of expression.
The Security-Guardless Building Of Covert CIA Meetings. Nighttime. Sydney parks and enters a labyrinth of halls, cages, tunnels, et cetera. Vaughn's there. He fills her in on her countermission: to get the real Schiller to the CIA while Kelvin, the CIA's stand-in (who knows Spy Daddy) will sub as Schiller at SD-6 and feed them false info. Ah. This sounds like a dumb plan. Apparently the vaccine's incredibly effective, and the CIA's afraid SD-6 would sell it to some radical leader who would only use it to protect his own. Which I'm sure the US would never, ever, ever do.
Kelvin leaves. Sydney asks Vaughn how she's supposed to pull off a double switch in front of Dixon. She wants to tell Dixon what's going on. Vaughn says nein, nein! Sydney says he doesn't know Dixon. He also points out that she can't volunteer Dixon for double agent-hood if he doesn't ask for it, and does Sydney really want to put everything Dixon has at risk and make that decision for him. That must be a rhetorical question. She had no qualms about putting her strictly-there-for-plot-purposes fiancé in danger. Of course, at this point it's pretty clear that Sydney couldn't find a prayer in the Bible, let alone a reasonable thought process.
Berlin. Sydney walks wearing a black leather trenchcoat, black leather bitch-boots, black hip-to-be-square glasses, and her head in a sleek-yet-spiky-do. I expected Mike Myers as Dieter to start dancing behind her. I can't wait for the Aleutian-themed episode of Alias, where Sydney gets to wear an enormous fur parka and carry a spear, or the Native American episode, where she'll wear a giant feather headdress, or the episode where she goes underground as a rebbe, just like Barbra did in Yentl.
HAN-sell corporation. Sydney. Atrocious, and I mean incredibly stinky, German accent. The techno is giving me acid reflux. The few minutes are run-of-the-mill espionage crap: Sydney finds Schiller and they download all the info, while Dixon implants some sort of gas bomb (no, not that kind -- that would be funny, at least) that'll knock everyone else out for two minutes. More bad German. No subtitles, of course. Gas-masked, Sydney and Schiller run for it. Sydney tells Dixon that someone's following her, and they take an alternate route through the parking garage. Schiller gets hauled into the CIA van and Kelvin walks out with Sydney, where they walk into Dixon's getaway truck.
Los Angeles. Sydney's Apartment Of Refuge For Angry Girlfriends. Francie and Will decorate the place for the party. Will complains about Francie's assiduous preparations. Apparently Francie is a party planner, so that's what she does: plans parties assiduously. She points out that Will hasn't babbled like a brook about his job. Will confesses that he's been investigating Danny's death again and that "Kate Jones" was booked to fly with him. Francie refrains from smacking him upside the head, but just tells him he's a moron, and to imagine how angry Sydney will be when she finds out, and to stop before she does. Will looks guilty. Also, like he's wearing a lot of taupe eyeliner.
CIA Safehouse Of Fools. Schiller is complaining. He wants to see Sloane. Vaughn says he's not there and demands the password to the web site. Schiller says the agreement is that he only talks to Sloane. Okay, how dumb is Vaughn? Why the hell would he expect that Schiller would just cough up the info he wants after he's been kidnapped by what he thinks is a renegade group of spies? Vaughn should be demoted.
Pan to a two-way window. Sean/Weiss and Felishitty -- oops, I mean, "Sydney" are filming the interview. In his ineffectual, increasingly high-pitched tenor, Vaughn says that he swears Sloane has nothing to do with the CIA. Michael Vartan cannot play a heavy. He has about as much authority as a hall monitor. Yes, he's cute. But he's also...a little bland. He's the foxy TA you had in your "Intro to Great Western Lit" class freshman year, or the soulful, sensitive coffee shop guy who always looked a little too deeply into your eyes when he handed you your mocha half-caf. But that's all he is! He's just cute. He's not great as eye candy, either. He's not exactly a rich, nougat-y piece of Toblerone. He's more like that lint-and-loose-tobacco covered Brach's Peppermint at the bottom of your purse. Also: he's kind of...fluffy. He's even a little...Ken doll. Let's face it: in Celebrity Prison, James Caan would make Michael Vartan his bitch on day one. Unless something extraordinary happens, in a year or two, Vartan will be as obsolete as those Richard Grieco issues of Tiger Beat we all had. Yes, you too. Shut up. You did so.
Oh. Back to the recap. The camera pans over the "big guest star," who is Kevin Mitnick, celebrity hacker. You see him for all of three seconds. Whoop-dee-doo. That is such a lame guest star. Who gives a shit? Bring back the Golden Days of television, when you had guest stars like Charo, and Shirley Jones. Now that was quality, kids.
Schiller -- who is one smart snickerdoodle -- points out to Vaughn that he has no idea if Sloane is the fraud, and that for all he knows it could be Vaughn himself. Vaughn concedes that he's right. You know what I want for Christmas? An actor with a wee bit of gravitas and maybe a few more facial expressions. Pretty will get you so far, and then it gets you bored.
Vaughn enters the secret room. He wants to get a plane to take Schiller to Langley, VA to prove that they're CIA. Shouldn't the nimrod have thought of that before he formulated this plan? Mitnick/CIA drone tells him, "Hey, Vaughn, we're in."
The few minutes are boring. Basically: Kelvin is giving SD-6 access to a fake web site with just enough real info to fool them. Once SD-6 downloads all the info, it'll give the CIA access to their computer systems and their entire network. Sydney is forced to do a few steps of the Exposition Foxtrot to get all this across. You know, I'm not really a technology guru, but isn't it practically impossible for even the best hacker to get in and out of a system without leaving a few fingerprints? And if a huge, monolithic organization like the CIA is doing it, they're going to be a lot less agile and invisible than one drunk fifteen-year-old in Massachusetts who's fucking with their firewalls. And if someone as Luddite-ish as me knows this, wouldn't the frickin' CIA?
Whatever. Sydney "Jughead" Bristow compliments the plan. It was Vaughn's. Jennifer Garner should protest to the hair and make-up people, because when she wears her hair slicked behind her ears, she looks like a loving cup. I can't go one more recap without mentioning the fact that almost every actor on this show is a charter member of the Happy McForehead Club. Jennifer Garner may in fact be close to knocking Helen Hunt off her throne as Queen Forehead of Hollywood (although Mena Suvari is definitely one to watch in this race, too). You could show Lawrence of Arabia on that noggin. Not to mention that Michael Vartan and Bradley Cooper aren't exactly slowpokes themselves in the Giant Forehead race. And Victor Garber...man, don't get me started. If any of these kids mated with the Beek, it would produce a forehead that could possibly Take Over America. Or at the very least a forehead that one could show IMAX movies on. Also -- did I mention her ears? The opposite of tiny.
SD-6. Kelvin drinks a glass of water. Marshall decodes the web site and gets excited. Sloane tells him to tell Analysis. I have a hard time believing -- well, frankly I can't believe one thing about this show: not the character development, the plots, the pacing, or the structure, but I especially have a hard time believing that a) the writers have set up Marshall as being beyond brilliant and he can't see a decoy web site and b) SD-6 would only have Marshall working on this.
Kettle Drums of Doom pound as Sloane walks in and quizzes Kelvin-as-Schiller. Sloane asks him to confirm the location of the plant that's building the inhaler -- then Kelvin-as-Schiller will get his dough. K-as-S has to all but pick his jaw up off the ground, and then does the worst job of covering up since I got caught driving my parents' car at age fourteen and I said that I had a "foot injury" and had to get to the hospital since no one was home to take me. He stutters that he wasn't privy to that information and that he has to think about it. Sloane tells him to think about it, and, in fact, to think about everything. For a minute I thought someone had given Ron Rifkin special-effects contact lenses to make his eyes go all flat, black, and lizard-y, and then I realized it was all Ron Rifkin. K-as-S looks like he's soiled himself.
Sloane walks up to Dixon's desk and asks if Sydney's change of route when she was leading Schiller out of the building was discussed beforehand. Dixon says she thought someone was following her, and flatly denies that Sydney could do anything wrong, despite the fact that Sloane is radiating such waves of menace that the cheap paint is peeling off of SD-6's walls. I love Dixon. He is my married, CIA-agent-with-a-double-life boyfriend. Sloane says, "I see," and walks away.
Sydney's Apartment Of Halloween Fun That Only Thinly Disguises Her Life Filled With Menace, Danger, And Wigs. She's dressed as Alice in Wonderland, and I have to give her props for not going the Ho-lloween route as so many women do. You know what I mean. This year I wanted to go as Devo, and not one of my girlfriends would go along with me, since they were all too busy dressing up as sexy nurses, hookers, Catholic schoolgirls, can-can dancers, meter maids, and what have you.
Sydney "'Tis a Far, Far Better Thing I Do" Bristow answers the door: it's Dixon and his gorgeous wife and extremely cute crumbsnatchers. Dixon -- who isn't in costume, and boo hiss on that -- immediately takes Sydney aside and says, "Syd. We've been working together a lot of years. I trust you. I trust you, and I love you." He tells her Sloane thinks K-as-S is a plant, and wants to know why Sydney changed the escape route. He asks her if there's something he should know. Sydney purses her lips, wrinkles her billboard-enormous forehead, and says no. Dixon looks relieved, but you can tell he doesn't quite buy it. Dixon fills her in on the interrogation, and points out that K-as-S has everything to lose by not telling them the location of the plant, and that it makes no sense that he would hold out. He says that K-as-S is in trouble, and that Sydney is, too. Did no one tell her that this was all a close-up? Since when is shifting your eyeballs left, then right, then up, and then down considered an acting technique? I think her blush emoted more in this scene than she did.
Party. Generic alterna-rock "grooves" in the background. A guy takes off his Richard Nixon mask to talk to Francie. It's Will. He launches into some monologue about how candy corn is disgusting because it's like marzipan, and if it's a choice between candy corn and dirt, he'd be all over the dirty. I love marzipan. It tastes nothing like candy corn, which tastes like gelatin, sugar, and glue boiled together, and is mysteriously not inedible. Also, it's fun to stick it over your canines and pretend you're a vampire.
Francie is glum. Will deduces that it's because Charlie's friend came to the party without him, and that Francie needs to talk to Charlie instead of playing these hide-and-seek games and to not do what he did with Sydney, which was to deny his feelings and wait. That's pretty good advice. Will gets a call on his cell phone. It's Kate Jones. He asks her if she knew Daniel Hecht. She says she did, and very well.
CIA. The Worst Little Safehouse In Barstow, Or Whatever Other Backwater California Suburb It's In. Sydney bursts in and apprises Vaughn of everything Dixon just told her. Vaughn and Sydney both keep their eyes open really, really wide. I think it's to denote shock, but mostly it looks like they just started wearing contact lenses. Vaughn asks, "What are we going to do?" Sydney points out that if they can't get the info to K-as-S, she'll really be up the old fecal creek without a paddle. At this point I'm starting to think you shouldn't trust Vaughn with power locks and windows, let alone top-secret sensitive government missions.
Cast-Off Slow-Motion Music From Star Wars plays as Sydney walks in to talk to Schiller. We cut to Sydney talking to her dad and filling him in, and telling Spy Daddy the "intell" they need to get to K-as-S so he won't be killed. Conveniently, Sloane called Spy Daddy in for this "difficult situation." Scenes of Spy Daddy being called into Sloane's office and interrogating Schiller are intercut with the above. Spy Daddy roughs up K-as-S so he can get close enough to mutter the information to him. Cut to Sydney as she tells Schiller the whole sob story of SD-6: Not Really The CIA and Doomed Danny eating it (although she conveniently leaves out the part about her endangering his life and him being a moron) and how another innocent man is going to die if she doesn't get the plant location. Somehow, Schiller is so moved that he tells her the location of the plant. This would've been a lot more interesting if Sydney had been forced to get a little medieval on his ass. You know: ambiguity, character development, et cetera. Helloooo...? (Crickets chirp.) Also, slightly more logical. After all, Schiller knew enough not to trust Vaughn, but instead he's going to spill his guts because someone pleads prettily for the info? Whatever. WHAT. Ever. Cut to Spy Daddy beating up K-as-S. As he breaks his arm, K-as-S wails, "Badenweiller! The plant is located in Badenweiller!"
SD-6: Where men are men and sheep are nervous. More pointless slo-mo. Sydney VO tells us that they're being sent to Badenweiller to fetch the inhaler prototypes and then destroy the factory. Would Sloane really do this? He seems too smart to trust her with something this important. Unless he's setting her up. She blathers on and on about how she doesn't know how much longer she can lead this life of ambiguity, and that increasingly she wants to leap across the table and "use the skills [she's] learned at SD-6 against him." I didn't know gross incompetence was a skill you could learn -- I thought, like greatness, some are just born with it. SVO asks what her countermission is.
Gas station. Sydney pulls up in her annoying SUV. Vaughn is there. They pump gas (not a euphemism -- they're both pumping gas). Sydney says, "He practically apologized." Vaughn is astonished. At least that's what I think he is. His two facial expressions are getting very creased from overuse. Sydney tells him that Sloane says the factory could fall into the hands of neo-Nazi terrorists; Vaughn says that's BS, and that Sloane wants the prototype so he doesn't have to go through the five years it took HAN-sell Corp to go from formula to prototype. Vaughn gives her the counter: while Dixon sets the explosives, Sydney will steal the prototypes and get them to the CIA ops already in the building. They'll switch the inhaler so that she takes a fake back to SD-6. Then she'll disarm the explosives, giving the CIA a few minutes to search the building. Sydney says that by the time Dixon's figured out the explosive won't charge, security will be on their way while the CIA will have gotten their files. Whoa. Whoa! Doesn't this sound like a terrible idea? I mean, I'm strictly an armchair spy myself, but even I can see that this plan wouldn't stand up in a gust of strong wind. Isn't Dixon already suspicious? And Sydney's not exactly on great footing herself, either, what with all the mishaps and screw-ups she's had at SD-6. Does Vaughn have a special Book of Short-Sighted and Half-Baked Plans he uses to flesh out these missions?
Vaughn asks if she's all right. She asks him about Case 332L, which was missing from her father's file. Vaughn whips out expression 2a.1.1.03 -- mildly perturbed -- and says that he looked for those missing files, but that there was no record of it anywhere. He also points out that Calder, one of the agents on the case, was from the FBI, not the CIA. Sydney expositions that the FBI wouldn't be involved unless they suspected her dad of selling secrets.
Will's Newsroom Of No Return. He's on the phone -- big surprise. He fakes a cell phone call breaking up. Puh-leeze. That's as old as the "my email wasn't working" trick. Plus, everyone knows you have to crumple paper into the receiver to make it really sound good. Duh. Just then, his Cell Phone Of Contrivance rings. It's some informant telling him that Kate Jones was recently on a flight heading to Sao Paolo.
You've Been Badenweiller, But It Feels So Good! Sydney and Dixon break into the factory. Sydney's gone to a salon for a blow-out and some make-up application. Is there some rule that she can't fight evil unless she's first tamed frizzies and flyaways?
Sydney watches Dixon, worried, as he sets the explosives. Sydney goes for the inhaler. More funny, floppy running. Someone get the girl a track coach -- she looks like she's running laps at the local junior high.
Will. Kate Jones -- some tall blondie -- walks up to him.
Badenweiller. Sydney climbs, sneaks, and finally struts until she gets to the lab and steals the inhaler prototypes.
Will. He asks "Kate Jones" what her relationship with Daniel Hecht was. She pauses, then says, "Daniel and I were having an affair." Will gulps, but you can totally tell he's like, "Score!"
Sydney. More bad running. CIA ops. They swap the inhalers. The lead CIA op tells her that Vaughn's talked about her -- that he likes her. Sydney looks pleased. My God, it is junior high. What's -- he's going to tell her to meet Vaughn behind the lockers after peewee football? Sydney's hair is really, really shiny in this scene. Spying: it's all about luster and bounce, folks.
Will. Kate Jones. Blah blah blah twisted ankle blee blee Danny was the doctor on call at University Hospital blibeedeeblah Danny asked me out.
Sydney. She disarms the explosive. Outside, Dixon peers at his watch and waits for her anxiously. The CIA ops start poking around in a CIA-ish manner -- arrogantly but sort of cluelessly -- while Sydney finishes up.
Will. Kate Jones. Yap yap wanted to go to Hong Kong together yip yip yap but then he broke it off yappity yap and that's how it ended. Will then busts out his bad move: that he had someone trace her credit card and then her Social Security number, and "Kate Jones? You died in 1973." Kate's face collapses and she says, "I have to go." Will shouts, "Who the hell are you?" Why the heck doesn't he run after her? What kind of reporter is he?
Badenweiller. Sydney's outside with Dixon. Dixon triggers the bomb, but nothing happens. Sydney tells him there's no time and they have to go, but Dixon whips out the secondary detonator. Dixon was so an Eagle Scout. He says he set up a second explosive, so that Peru didn't happen all over again. Sydney is aghast. Cut to the CIA, as they finish up. Cut to the outside, as the building explodes. Sydney opens her mouth really, really wide. Either she's shocked or she's getting her teeth cleaned. She keeps staring at the burning building as Dixon yells at her that they have to leave, and now. Dixon so knows what's up. Good move, Clueless.
week: Daddy does a bad, bad thing. Sydney does gymnastics.