Color-Blind

S01E07

Cue generic alt-rock and some slo-mo scenes of happy, laughing multiethnic friends cooking and drinking wine in the kitchen, like some sort of upbeat Benetton ad before they got all weird and started doing ads of oil-covered ducks and bedside death rituals.

Alt-rock fades out as Sydney, in a new red outfit, answers the door. It's Will and Jennie. Will introduces them. Jennie is flustered, and hands over a bottle of Martinelli's cider, confessing that she got carded. Sydney is a little surprised. Will tells Sydney that she looks great. Sydney does a weird proprietary thing where she touches Will's waist and asks if that's the sweater she got him for Christmas. He says it is, but that's not the reason why he wore it. Jennie has a great reaction shot, as she looks a little jealous, clearly discomfited, and slightly weirded out at witnessing an intimate moment. She offers to chill the cider, and walks away. Sydney comments that she's cute. Will says that her parents are in Europe, so he brought her over. Sydney says, "So that's Jennie," meaningfully. Will says it's strictly business. Sydney gives him a look that says, "She's cute, but your ass is forever mine, bad-haircut boy."

Pump up the alt-rock. Cue slo-mo scenes of happy friends eating Thanksgiving dinner. Goddammit, now I'm hungry. I'm so susceptible -- like an advertiser's wet dream. The alt-rock dies down just in time for Will to ask Jennie if her parents are really away. Jennie looks guilty, then cracks up. She sounds about twelve.

Charlie knocks his fork against his glass and does some stuttering speech about how someone has to bang the glass, and this time it's him, and how he wanted all of them to be there for this moment. He says that "this thing" is burning a hole in his pocket, and then whips out yon velvet-covered box with yon sparkling diamond ring and proposes to Francie. Congratulations abound. As do acceptances.

Sydney hugs Francie just as someone knocks at the door. It's Sydney's dad! He's holding a newspaper. She says it's her neighbor's. There's a moment of silence. Sydney asks him in just as Jack tells Sydney that Shepard killed Danny, and he's assuming she knew that. Sydney says smartly that if she hadn't, she wants to thank him for breaking the news to her so gently. Wow, recapping a moment that's totally in the subjunctive is really difficult. But you guys get the gist. Jack says he's telling her because he doesn't want her to think it's his mission in life to keep things from her. She snips, "Then why do you?" He hands her the FBI report clearing him of all espionage charges, and adds that he was being investigated during the Cold War, when everyone was under suspicion. He says that her mother's death was his fault, since the FBI was chasing him, and that if he could give her back to Sydney, he would. Sydney doesn't take the letter, saying she doesn't need to see it. She asks him to come in again. He says he can't -- work. He congratulates her on her trip being completed successfully, and then exits, chased by a bear, or very much looking as if he is. Sydney looks after him. All in all, not a bad little scene.

Romania. Sydney. Big tank o' water and various electrodes wire her up. Didja see what they did there? With Sloane and the hot water and the cut to Sydney in hot water? Didja? Didja? Dr. Ratched tells her they know she works for "Ezz Dee Seeeex," and that they know her entire mission. Sydney blinks a lot. Dr. Ratched asks if she's succeeded in finding the location of Parkishoff's body. Sydney asks who he is. Dr. Ratched threatens her. Another goon starts cranking up the electroshock machine. Sydney starts yelling that she doesn't know where Parkishoff is buried. She's still yelling as she gets zapped. It is not pretty, kids.

Cut to a steaming wok in a dimly-lit Chinese restaurant. Jack is greeted by the generic Asian man of menacing situations, who tells him that his usual table is waiting for him. He leads him to a backroom, where Vaughn is waiting for him. Jack pulls a gun and has Vaughn pinned to a wall in about two seconds. Vaughn babbles like a brook: He's Sydney's handler and cleared the meeting with Jack so they could talk about her situation. Jack sneers, "Is this a special occasion?" Vaughn tells Jack that they think K-Directorate had an agent waiting for Sydney in the hospital. Jack says blandly that SD-6 had no confirmation of such a fact. Vaughn says that the CIA does, and that he wants to pull Sydney out of there. Jack takes a seat. He then tells Vaughn that he's a young upstart, because even a "minimal extraction" team can't guarantee Sydney's safety. They make Sydney sound like a rotten tooth. They argue back and forth over the merits of having her safe and unable to work as a double agent for a bit; then Jack points out that the thought of taking down SD-6 is the only thing that gets Sydney up in the morning, or did Vaughn think it was her secret meetings with him? It's amazing how Victor Garber can sneer without moving his lips. Vaughn, voice all but cracking, asks what his problem is. The Kettle Drums Of Doom play as Jack says that Vaughn pulling his files is a big problem for him. Vaughn tells Jack flatly that Sydney thought he was KGB, and what was Jack doing? "Checking up on me -- checking up on you." Man, was that a dumb line. Jack thinks so, too, because he says that the meeting is over and walks out.

Raging Electroshock Waters, Romania. Subtitles! Yay, subtitles! Dr. Ratched tells the goon to kill Sydney, since Shepard told her nothing. Sydney, sounding very stuffed-up, says that torture won't work on Shepard, since FTL trained him to forget everything he did. She then does a little Exposition Boogie, which is very game of her, considering she's been zapped by God knows how many volts. Anyways: Dr. Ratched works for K-Directorate, since Sydney can identify his Georgian accent, and she knows he's posing as a doctor to get Shepard's info. She says that she get can the info more accurately than he can. Dr. Ratched points out that Shepard already attacked her. Sydney spouts some psychobabble about "sealing his transference" and that working to her advantage, and either the good Doctor is as bored as I am, or he just wants her to shut up, because he agrees to let Sydney take another shot. Why didn't Sydney just say, "He's violent, and if you let me live, I'll take the risk of him attacking me to get your info"? Freshman Psych 101 doesn't exactly make for scintillating dialogue, and I have a hard time believing that an agent would buy whatever it was she was spouting off.

Dr. Ratched promises that if Sydney gets the info, she might just get to live out the rest of her life in a Chechen internment camp. And that she has until lockdown that night. Words to warm any woman's heart.

Shepard works at a lonely little garden patch housed in the open space between the institution's buildings. Sydney enters, wearing yet another boucle sweater from the Anthropologie catalog, one that I am sad to say that I think I own. It might be the same sweater; it looks different in the light, though. Shepard tells her to stay away from him. She says she wants to help him. He tells her he doesn't want her help. She says she knows what's happening to him. He says he's sure she does, since she's one of them. He approaches her, and she backs off. He says he's seen her somewhere else before. Sydney says he hasn't, then says she's about to tell him the truth, so he has to listen. Shepard turns around quickly. Sydney looks really scared, maybe because she senses that his acting chops are like a thousand times better than hers. I'm scared, too. She tells him they're going to be killed unless he escapes with her. Shepard tells her she does have a problem, since he'd rather die than live the way he is now. Sydney releases the breath she was holding while Dr. Ratched watches menacingly from above.

Credits.

Goon has Sydney in hand as he walks her down the hall. Sydney turns and watches as two orderlies unlatch the main door with a double-lock system; both orderlies have to insert two different keys at the same time. The goon leads her down the hall and into another room, where Shepard is drawing. Sydney approaches. Shepard is painting a desolate little landscape with a twisted tree and a yellow sky. Sydney comments on the sky color. Shepard tells her to get away, already. Sydney persists. Shepard tells her to piss off. Sydney deduces that he "can't see colors." Shepard asks who she is, if she's not one of the people who did this to him. Sydney tells him that she'll tell him what he needs to know, but he needs to help her escape. She fills him in on the dual-key lock. Shepard refuses to go. Sydney points out that they're both dead. Shepard points out that she wants him to believe her, but she ain't tellin' him doodly-squat. Man. I don't find John Hannah attractive, but a Scottish accent really goes a long way.

Sydney looks around frantically and shushes him. Then she tells him the story of Martin Shepard: The Littlest Programmed Assassin. Shepard, understandably, freaks out. Sydney tells him that when he carries out orders, he only sees things in black-and-white to distance himself, but now that he's starting to see things in color, he's healing. She's all up in his face. Shepard hollers, "Guard!" and gets pulled away from her yammering. The goon announces menacingly, "Lockdown." Sydney tells the goon that she has the info Dr. Ratched wants.

Los Angeles. The Fanciest Newsroom In The Entire World. Jennie delivers a memo to Will from Legal. "It's about reporters quoting other reporters." "What's it say?" asks Will. Jennie breathes in his ear, "Cut it out." Yick. Yick on both of them. She calls out, "Happy Thanksgiving!" off-camera.

Will looks up in time to see another reporter looking at a screen with a story about Kate Jones/Eloise Kurtz on it. It's also got a huge picture of her on it. Okay. I vowed to myself that I would not nitpick over every little thing, since sometimes the writers have to resort to these devices for the sake of expediency, and this is a small thing, but this really bothered me for some reason. There's no way that a major metropolitan newspaper would waste precious column inches running a photo of some gunshot victim unless she were famous or possibly the victim of a serial killer or some gangland slaying they could milk. The headline reads, "Woman Found Shot in Echo Park."

Will. Coffee room. Will's editor. He's badgering her to him run his story, which now involves two murders -- Daniel Hecht and Eloise Kurtz -- and they were related. La Editress points out that he's going to look like worse than a crackpot if he goes around spouting conspiracy theories without any proof. Obviously La Editress went to journalism school. Obviously Will did not. She tells him he might as well publish his own homepage. She agrees to look at his notes, and says that she's simply telling him to develop the story more thoroughly and she'll take it more seriously. I like La Editress. Will looks frustrated, and a little disbelieving.

Romanian Mental Asylum. Shepard is dreaming. His restive sleep is intercut with scenes of his dream. The dream consists of lots of black-and-white shots of the back of Danny's head, and then a big close-up of a photo of Sydney with a banner reading, "Happy Birthday, Sydney" in the background. Shepard wakes up, muttering, "Oh my God."

Stairwell. A goon leads Sydney down. Sydney chatters nervously about his tattoo and how she almost got one herself. She pretends to stumble a little, and then straight-arms him across his throat. They fight. He tumbles down the stairs. She grabs his keys.

Sydney, wearing a janitorial outfit of coveralls and cap that makes her look like an extra from Newsies, makes her way down to the main entrance. A long-haired goon eyes her suspiciously but moves on. She pretends to mop and waits for the hall to clear. She attempts to open the dual-key lock, using a mop handle to turn one of them. A goon and Dr. Ratched catch her at the last minute and taser-gun her. Man. Did they get a bulk deal on taser guns for this episode?

Hallway. Goon and Dr. Ratched walk a jittery Sydney down the hall. Shepard springs out of a doorway as they pass and knocks Dr. Ratched to the floor. Sydney kicks the crap out of the other goon. Dr. Ratched is bloody but unbowed, and starts to get up. Sydney tasers him, whispering, "Hurts, doesn't it?"

Shepard tells her that she was right; he doesn't want to die in the hospital. Sydney searches Dr. Ratched for the keys and asks how Shepard got out of his room. Shepard is quite proud -- he pretended to swallow his tongue, and when the attendant came in, Shepard grabbed his keys.

Generic chase music mates with generic techno as Sydney and Shepard try the dual-key lock. Shepard freaks out. Sydney tells him they'll get out, and it's going to be okay, and that she wouldn't help him get out if she thought he'd killed someone. What? That makes no sense! He's an assassin! They both know he's an assassin. Oh, Christ. Anyways. Shepard swallows, looks fearful, and says, "Unless you're planning on killing me." Sydney looks puzzled and asks why she would do that. Then, in the worst job of music editing ever -- and I mean, ever, only to be topped by tapes I made as a kid when my family was stink-ass poor and I had to hold up the tape machine to the radio -- the generic techno/action music changes to the opening chords of a great Pretenders song as Sydney and Shepard turn the lock. It's truly bizarre. Did no one listen to how bad it sounded?

The song carries over as Sydney and Shepard steal a car and escape, and the scene cuts to SD-6 and to Marshall, listening to abovementioned song so loudly that it's seeping through his headphones. Sloane enters. Marshall whips his headphones off, and the music is even louder. Sloane looks indulgent. Marshall says, "Whoa, company," and immediately offers Sloane a seat in his blow-up plastic chair. He mumbles something about plastic furniture being good for him, since he has a mild case of scoliosis and the air "ergonomically" hugs him. Marshall offers to blow up the plastic sofa if Sloane wants to stretch out. Sloane looks askance at the plastic furniture and says he'll stand.

Marshall says he's scanned the system, and it's virus free. Sloane lies to him and tells him that the virus was a drill, and that he's the only one who caught it, and good job. Marshall points out that the leak was transmitted over an unsecured connection. Sloane tells him that Security was watching it the entire time. Something in Sloane's bearing says that he's not so happy that Marshall freaked out and cut the switch so soon.

Romania. Forest. To differentiate from the L.A. sets, they have owls hooting in the background instead of crickets. Sydney pulls up a loose section of the floor and yanks out a Nokia phone. She dials a special code, only to get hooked up to her father. Sydney asks where Vaughn is. Jack says he had the number forwarded. Man. Whatever long-distance plan the CIA has, I want it. He asks if Shepard's with her. She glances at Shepard, who, in his ever-present hooded sweatshirt, is huddled morosely by the fire. She says yes. Jack tells her where to go to pick up a flight out of the country.

Sydney sits with Shepard by the fire. It's all very romantic, except for the fact that Sydney's telling Shepard about needing the DNA of a dead man to break some FTL code. Poor John Hannah gets a miserable speech about how he came to realize he was an assassin, the crowning touch being a line that says, "I feel like I've been stolen…from myself." Poor, poor John Hannah. It's lucky that he's a good actor and has an extremely charming Scottish accent. He manages to sell it. At the end of his pleading speech, he slips up and asks Sydney to help him -- by name. Sydney, remarkably quick on the uptake for once, asks him how he knows her name. He confesses that he was the one to kill Danny, and we see it play out in black-and-white: There's Danny, in his charming apartment, running water for a bath. Manchurian Candidate-esque music plays as Shepard creeps up behind him and shoots him point-blank.

Back to Romania. Shepard apologizes. Sydney's face -- sigh -- crumples and she runs outside, arms flapping, nose running, eyes tearing. She looks like a duck having hysterics. Also, enough with the cryin' already! I feel like the producers randomly filmed a handful of scenes of Sydney crying in the woods, just in case.

Romania. Owls hooting. Shepard curled up fetally by the fire. Sydney enters. She haltingly tells him the WHOLE GODDAMNED STORY of her life: Man you were ordered to kill was my fiancé, I told him about my life as a spy "because he was the one part of my life I couldn't stand to be a lie." Couldn't she have just shown him the exposition montage? Then she tells him that the man who programmed him was named McCullough. Then she admits that she knew all along that she was putting Danny in danger, since SD-6 never lied to her about what would happen if she told him the truth. Argh. Then. Why. DID SHE DO IT? Sydney then confesses that she's a double agent for the CIA. Shepard asks if finding Parkishoff's body will help with her ultimate mission in bringing down SD-6. She says yes. He tells her he left Parkishoff's body buried in the marshland on the Louisiana-Texas border. This is all fascinating, but I believe I have some mold cultures I'm growing that need watching.

Los Angeles. SD-6. Sydney is holding her head as if she's got a bad headache as she fills Sloane in on some of the facts. She tells him that she helped Shepard escape in exchange for Parkishoff's body. Then she tells him that Shepard's training was breaking, and he couldn't stand the thought of what he'd done, and killed himself as they were crossing into Bulgaria. Sloane murmurs that if there's some off-chance that he did survive, he's sure they'll hear of it soon. Man, is Sydney clueless! I would be packing my bags and flying to Madagascar just at the tone of Sloane's voice. You know he thinks she's as phony as a three-dollar bill.

Vaughn. Warehouse. Sydney tells him the same story, but then abruptly stops at the suicide part, and reveals that she can't stand to lie to one more person. Well, it sure seems like she's made a bad career choice, then, huh? Vaughn tells her that there are people who will want Shepard found. Sydney says that Shepard is as much a victim of SD-6 as she is. Right. Except for the part about "being a victim," since the whole fallacy of the show is that Sydney had a choice, both upon being recruited and when she found out the truth. She also had a choice in telling her fiancé. Apparently she doesn't have a choice in being a self-centered bratling. Sydney tells Vaughn where Shepard buried Parkishoff's body.

Vaughn confesses that he was worried. Sydney mistakes his meaning. Vaughn corrects her, and says that he was worried -- about her. He tells her he contacted her father, and that her father knows Vaughn pulled his file. Sydney blinks, then shakes it off. Vaughn's beeper goes off, and he says something about their SD-6 computer virus being a gold mine. He tells Sydney to go home and get some rest, and to have a happy Thanksgiving. Sydney's eyes widen and she mutters, "Oh, God."

Someone's apartment. I think it's Francie's, since it's noticeably bare of tchotchkes, but it's hard to say since Sydney opens the door. The air is filled with smoke. Sydney says, "Francie?" and Francie is irate, asking if Sydney was ever going to call her back. They play The Bickersons some more, and Sydney asks about the oven fire, pointing out that Francie just moved in. Ah hah! Francie says that she fricasseed the turkey. Sydney starts to laugh. Francie asks if she's okay. Sydney hugs her and says she's glad to be home. Francie is weirded out, and says, "Okay, but the turkey's really burning."

SD-6. Spy meeting, but it's just Sloane and Sydney. Hey, where the heck is Dixon? Is he on leave? What happened? Sloane's telling Sydney that they decoded the FTL messages with Parkishoff's DNA, and that the Rambaldi artifact is somewhere in Tunisia. Sydney assumes that's where her mission is, but Sloane says nay, that they sent an advance team there and the site had already been evacuated. Sloane tells her that FTL obviously doesn't know what they're sitting on, since they sent the artifact to Oxford to be analyzed and it's a huge risk to involve civilians in such an operation. He slides something across the table to Sydney and tells her that there's a reception at the university and that she's going in as a scout for the Marissa Foundation, looking for grant candidates, and to be on her guard, since FTL will be heavily alerted to any espionage attempts.

Newsroom Of No News Is Will's Fault. Will is talking to La Editress. La Editress tells him that she reviewed his notes; there was much more substance than she believed, and they can run the story. Will hems and haws and says that now he actually doesn't want to run the story, since Sydney asked him to drop the investigation. La Editress is justifiably peeved, and points out that it's now a legitimate piece, and if he doesn't do it, she'll pass his notes along to someone else. She also accuses him of being on dope, which made me giggle. Random drug accusations always make me giggle, except when they're leveled at me in an airport setting. She tells him not to chicken out on her now and shoves his file at him. God. Will is an idiot.

Warehouse of CIA-ish goings-on. Vaughn and Sydney, sitting on a box. Actually, it's just Sydney on the box. Vaughn tells Sydney that they want photos of the Rambaldi device, and that they'll plant a mini-camera in the Bible in Sydney's hotel room, and that Ana Espinosa was seen leaving the psychiatric hospital after Sydney and Shepard escaped. He actually says it much more succinctly than that. Generic romantic alt-rock cues as Sydney gets up to leave. Vaughn asks how her Thanksgiving was. Sydney says it was good, and that her friend got engaged. She asks how his was. He says he spent it with his mom. She asks about Alice. Vaughn says that they broke up. They exchange hopeful, tremulous looks. Sydney goes to leave, and Vaughn checks the pathway first. It's all in slo-mo. Christ. I know people are rooting for it, but I really could not care less if Sydney and Vaughn get together. It's like watching cottage cheese have sex with another equally white, bland dairy product.

Alt-rock plays as Sydney enters her apartment, talking on the cell phone. It sounds like Natalie Merchant on a weird day, or a Natalie Merchant imitator. It sure does play loudly and continuously throughout the scenes. Sydney goes through her mail, and spies a postcard. It's got the landscape that Shepard was seen drawing earlier, but this time with a blue sky. The back says, "Blue skies again. I owe you," and is unsigned. Sydney smiles.

Alt-rock dies down as Sloane talks to Alain about his suspicion of a mole. Sydney walks through SD-6 in slo-mo and approaches her dad. Back to Sloane. Alain says that they may have more than one mole. Sloane says that if that's true, McCullough will draw them both out.

Sydney pauses behind her dad's desk and hesitates. She hands him a nice Tupperware container filled with Thanksgiving leftovers. Jack looks up and gives her the barest of smiles, which coming from him seems like cartwheels and huzzahs. Sydney smiles back. It's very sweet.

Sloane, phone. Alain says that whoever the moles are, they need to be made examples of, and Sloane scarily says that he is Taking Care Of It.

episode: Will potentially gets offed. Oh, don't tease me like that, ABC.