The Box, Part Two

Previously on Alias: Um, does ANYONE remember the last Alias? Because I sure as hell don't. Luckily, the powers that be provide us with a "previously" segment that's about twenty minutes longer than the show itself. Suffice it to say that Syd's in trouble, Vaughn's wrinkling his forehead, Will's still being a toolbox, and Spy Daddy's going to save Syd's ass just in time.

That being said

Picking up where we left off, Syd's hanging by her fingernails from an airshaft and one of Shovelhead's minions is hot on her trail. Syd's just about to drop to her doom when the minion shows up and turns out to bewait for itSpy Daddy! Shocker. Not. He whispers to her to just stay put, and she whispers back that he can't do this. He sits back on his haunches and a look of surprise comes over his face. "You're right! I most certainly DON'T have to do this. Save yourself, sweetheart! I'm goin' to Puerto Vallarta! Woo hoo!" Only it winds up sounding like, "Hold your fire! I'm coming through!" And then Spy Daddy once again bails Spy Barbie out by sacrificing himself to the Forehead God.

Down in SD-6 Hostage Central, Dixon quietly asks Marshall if he's okay. "Except for my head injury," he quips. Hee. His gaping head wound is quite the combo of Hershey's chocolate syrup and food coloring. Shovelhead enters and shoves Spy Daddy into a chair. He then asks Wicked Cool Asian Chick how long it's going to take to get into the vault. This again? Didn't they solve this problem during the last episode? Damn. I should probably go read my own bloody recap. WCAC says something that I can't understand because she's bending down to pick up her Wicked Cool Bag Of Tricks and thenOH GOD. Shovelhead's kissing her! Ew! EWWWWWWW! I hope she got more than scale for this role. Gack. Gaaaack. I think I'm gonna throw up. No, really. I think I'm gonna throw up.

I just threw up.

You should probably all know that I'm suffering from stomach flu at the moment. So, this recap may be just as peppered with vomit as my bathroom by the time this episode is over. Sorry to be gross but, well, QUENTIN TARANTINO JUST KISSED SOMEONE. So, you know, vomit runs a close second to that situation, let me tell you.

Okay, so, anyway, Shovelhead tells WCAC that he needs, like, awesome good news, baby. She runs off to git him some. Shovelhead announces to the room that he'll be in the conversation room. Just as long as you ain't kissin' anybody in the conversation room, we could give a rat's ASS where you are, you ugly mo-fo.

Back at "Let's Save Our Enemies" Headquarters, Syd explodes out of the airshaft and launches herself over to the detailed hand-drawn map of the explosives' locations. Of course, we're all idiots, so the LARGE RED X'S on the map mean nothing to us, and therefore, Spy Daddy must tell us in a rather somber voice-over that Syd must follow the map to the three locations where the three explosives are set. As Syd gathers up all her tools and equipment, Obi-Wan Spy Daddy tells her that she must deactivate all three C-4 packages before the vault door opens. "Good luck," he finishes. "Use the Force, Spy Barbie. Use the Force."

At the same time that Syd Skywalker is getting her act together, WCAC is arriving at the vault and unloading her Wicked Cool Bag Of Tricks. She sets up all sorts of hella cool devices and looks all intense. She's quite pretty, actually. I mean, in a "pretty if she never swaps spit with Shovelhead again" kind of way.

We return to The House Of Hostages. Dixon informs Spy Daddy that he thinks he can somehow get to his Palm Pilot and email Langley. How you gonna do that, Dixon? With your dick? YOUR HANDS ARE TIED. Whatever. Dixon and Spy Daddy go back and forth about whether emailing Langley is such a good idea. Spy Daddy finally demands that Dixon do nothing. For those of us that didn't watch the last show, or tape the last show and then watch it, or tape the last show and watch it again just before watching this one, or read the damn recap, Dixon repeats the entire "What's Up With McKenas Cole" scenario of the episode, JUST IN CASE WE'RE LOST HERE.

Dixon's all gung-ho about trying to thwart Shovelhead's plans to execute them all. Spy Daddy informs Dixon that Syd's in the ducts. Dixon's all, WHAT? Only without yelling. Picking up the reins of repetition from Dixon, Spy Daddy repeats the entire "C-4 In The Sublevels And Only Syd Can Save Us" scenario of the episode, JUST IN CASE WE HAVE NO COGNITIVE MEMORY.

And we're back from commercial. Spy Barbie's just located the first C-4 charge. Yay for Spy Barbie! She picks it up and plops it in her bag andyeah, I know. She so doesn't. It's all bolted behind some heavy-ass door. But Spy Barbie's a big fan of MacGyver, so she knows just what to do. She rips a fire extinguisher off the wall and gets to work

just as we check back in with WCAC, who's closing in on the vault code. She nails two numbers and reports it to Shovelhead. Monkeyboy's hanging with Sloane at the moment, and he answers her walkie-talkie with a snappy, "Copy that, baby." EW. I'm gonna hurl. Wait, false alarm. Shovelhead puts a hand on Sloane's shoulder and says, "You know, as bad as you feel right now, with all that pain, that is just the puddin' to the pie." Shut up, Quentin. Go direct another poorly received film or something. Sloane, who currently has hot sauce running through his veins courtesy of the Needles o' Fire, just gives it to Shovelhead. "So easy for you to blame me, huh?" he says. "When you know the truth. You got your own men killed." He goes on to say something about how the helicopter waited for Shovelhead, and Shovelhead's all whiny about saving some guy named Whitney, and Sloane's all cool-as-a-cucumber about how saving Whitney pretty much guaranteed the deaths of Shovelhead's entire crew. "You led them to slaughter," Sloane finishes. Way to go all psychological on Shovelhead's ass, Sloaney! Uh-oh. Shovelhead's not at ALL pleased with Sloane's behavior. Looks like it's time for another "Aguja del Fuego."

Back in The Basement Of Convenient Plot Devices, Syd's using her MacGyver skills to freeze the bolts with the fire extinguisher fluid and then knock them off with the fire extinguisher itself. At the same time, Dixon's upstairs, attempting to nab his PDA. While The Fun-Lovin' Criminals are discussing the best way to prepare a rack of lamb for thirteen people without drying it out, Dixon manages to knock the PDA into his lap without them noticing. He turns it on and, using the strap of his bindings, enters a message to Langley. The message is perfectly spelled, with initial caps intact and absolutely perfect punctuation. Um, I can't type a sentence sitting at my computer, with BOTH my hands on the keyboard, without making at least one or two typing mistakes. And I'm not under the careful scrutiny of a bunch of lunkheads with guns. We're talking about a guy with his hands tied and no PDA pointer, IN A ROOM FULL OF KILLERS. Couldn't they just have had it be all caps or something? No punctuation? A couple of errant spaces? Come on! That would make at least a BIT more sense than this and I wouldn't be throwing dirty tissues at the screen and screaming, "LAME LAME LAME!"

Anyway. Syd's still going at the bolts. She runs out of fire extinguisher juice and scrambles to find something else to use. I'll be really honest here; I have no idea what the hell she does . She sort of kicks some bars out from somewhere, grabs 'em, and then cuts some wire on the ceiling. At that precise moment, the TV screens go out in the security room and, as unbelievable plot devices would have it, one of the FLCs just happens to be passing by and notices it. He informs Shovelhead of this new development, and Shovelhead tells him to go check it out. Syd's now wrapping the cut wire around the bars, and it turns out she's making some sort of makeshift power wrench or something. Doesn't she have a BAG FULL OF TOOLS? Wouldn't a WRENCH come in handy right about now?

Break time. Normally, this is the time of the recapping where I'd get some more ice, refill my glass with liquor and mixer, empty my ashtray, check my emails, surf for a few, and then reluctantly settle back down to business. What, you may ask, am I doing tonight? Throwing away mounds of disgusting tissues, disinfecting my water glass, disinfecting my keyboard and mouse, refilling my water glass, opening another box of tissues, staring at my computer in a hunger-induced haze, and reluctantly settling back down to business.

Kill me.

WCAC shoves Commander Stupid and Spy Barbie into an anteroom and orders Syd to tie up Vaughn. As much as the idea of engaging in a little S&M with Inspector McStupidpants melts Syd's butter, she's not all that fond of taking orders from women who are prettier than her, so she whips around and kicks some WCAC ass. After winding up with her gun, Vaughn orders Syd to tie WCAC up. Before she can accomplish this task, however, WCAC speaks up and announces that she's a British SIS agent and she's working undercover in Shovelhead's outfit in order to find out who "The Man" is. Vaughn wants to know what's in the vault. WCAC doesn't know anything except that whatever is in there has something to do with someone named "Rambaldi." Boy, that Rambaldi dude sure gets around.

WCAC tries to convince them to let her go; otherwise Shovelhead will send someone looking for her and he'll know about Vaughn and Syd. Vaughn's not buying it. He's all brave now that he's got a gun in his hands that probably weighs more than he does. WCAC states that if they leave her there and Shovelhead finds her, she'll tell him there's only one rogue agent after his ass, thereby declaring her a member of the good guys. Syd's tired of listening to a woman with poutier lips than hers, so she gags her but good.

Sittin' on the dock of the bay of stupidity. Will's finally sobered up and made it down to the docks. We know this because of the establishing shot of a huge boat with the words "Alba Varden" written on the back. Heh. A couple of posters, including my close personal friend EgoShredder, pointed out that this is actually the evil South African's boat from Lethal Weapon II. I'm not sure if this is a clever Hollywood inside joke or if the producers just couldn't afford to go down to an actual dock, so they just swiped some left-over footage from that Richard Donner masterpiece. Anyway, Willage Idiot meanders over to a bank of lockers, which are surrounded by mysterious steaming pipes and creepy violin-packed music. In the time it takes a country to rebuild after a devastating earthquake, Willage Idiot manages to open the damn locker. It contains a single envelope, which he opens. Inside is a pathology report on McNeil's wife. He flips through it pretty fast, so I'm not sure if there's something we're supposed to see here. I mean, I see the picture of a dead woman, but no glaring notification of any wrongdoing. I mean, other than that, you know, she's dead and all. Apparently, Will sees something of relative importance because the music swells. We can only assume that, since it's on record that McNeil's wife killed herself, Willage Idiot finds an item amongst the papers that suggests otherwise. Whatever. The lame foray into Will's dumb-ass storyline has now ended.

Sub-Basement Of Extended Explosives Exposition. Spy Barbie and Vehement Vaughn are storming down a hallway as she tries to explain to him the location and set-up of the steel plates that lead to the explosives. Vaughn tries to give her his Binaca Blast, but she dismisses his help with, "I memorized the laser grid." Heh. Of course you did, Sydney. That way, Vaughn won't have to come up with a second Binaca Blast for you to use. Hooray for plot devices! They split up with a promise to meet in the room where old computers go to die after they've accomplished their tasks. "Maybe we can go to that hockey game," she says. "Maybe," says Vaughn. Oh, just shut up and DO IT ALREADY.

Weasel's Office Of Scuzziness And Ineptitude. Agent Sean enters and tells Weasel that he just found out Weasel took a call from Vaughn. "Yeah, now that you mention it," says Weasel, rolling his eyes. "A call he made to me!" spits Agent Sean. Weasel's all, whatever, dude. Agent Sean's all, what'd he say, you piss-ant! Weasel's all, he ordered another pizza, dude. Who cares? Agent Sean's all, did he confirm the attack? Weasel's all, do you like my new haircut? It's sort of a useless scene, is all I'm saying. It's pretty much just in there to indicate, yet again, what a king-sized weenie The Weasel is. Agent Sean storms off.

Aaaaaand we're back with the whole fire extinguisher/bolt thing again, only now it's both Vaughn and Syd who are going to town. Up in Sloane's office, Shovelhead's spittin' mad cuz all his peoples is gone missin'. He instructs one of his remaining minions to find the problem and fix it. Quentin Tarantino is about as threatening as a gerbil on steroids. Vaughn and Syd keep going at their respective metal plates. The FLC that Shovelhead sent out comes upon the WCAC and removes her gag, asking her how many good guys there are. "One," she says. "Only one." Guess she's one of the good guys after all.

Vaughn makes it into his explosives area. There's some attempt at suspense when Vaughn tries to remove his pin, but it's short-lived, since we all know he's going to remove it just fine. Over at Syd's metal plate, her progress is interrupted when she hears something and rightly assumes it's one of the FLCs. The FLC in question has his handy heart-monitor PDA all fired up and thinks he's located the good guy in a closed locker. He takes aim and fires a shitload of bullets into it. Opening the door, he finds that it's the FLC whose ass Sydney kicked ages ago. Shovelhead, who's heard the shots, asks what in the hell is going on. The FLC reports that the guy's dead. "Well, who the hell killed him?" asks Shovelhead. "I did," says the FLC. Sydney suddenly appears and starts kicking the shit out of the current FLC. Oddly enough, Shovelhead can hear the shit getting kicked out of the current FLC via the walkie-talkie, even though, if the shit were indeed getting kicked out of him, he sure as hell wouldn't have his finger on the "send" button.

"Dear person beating up my men," says Shovelhead over the intercom, which, of course, would reach all the way down to the sub-basement level. "I assume that you're an employee here. I am now standing in Sloane's tastefully minimalistic [sic] office. And if you are not here, standing in front of me, in the twenty seconds, I am gonna start executing your friends. Starting with the man that I assume to be your partner. Mr. Jack Bristow." Sydney looks pained. Vaughn, who has now made it to the rendezvous point, looks pained. Jack, who is sitting in the office with Shovelhead, looks like he just wants a piece of chocolate cream pie and a nice cup of coffee.

Mmmmchocolate cream pie. Whoops. Excuse me one moment

I am going to MURDER the human being who gave me this goddamn virus. Right. Anyway. Back to the recap. Vigorous Vaughn figures out how to hook up the monitors down in the room where old computers go to die. As he does so, Sydney makes her appearance in Sloane's office as Shovelhead requested. Now, here's where, if I were Shovelhead, I'd just fill Sydney full of lead and be done with it. But, as we all know, any decent Hollywood villain needs his audience, so Shovelhead leaves her be. He just can't believe that this little girl with the bee-stung lips and perky nipples is the bad-ass that's been killing all his men. Vaughn sees all this from his monitor and takes off down the hallway in order to save his would-be girlfriend. Shovelhead tells one of his remaining FLCs to tie her up good and tight. "If she moves a muscle," he instructs as he leaves, "drill her!" Ew.

Halls of Potential Government Screw-Ups. Agent Sean's picking up the mantle of Head Agent Bad-Ass and barking out orders to a couple of agents. He gets a call from Vaughn. "Talk to me," barks Agent Sean. I just love it when Agent Sean gets screen time, especially when he's all commanding like this. I'll admit it: I likes me some commanding men. Vaughn fills him in on the whole C-4 thing and how he's not sure if Sydney got the final trigger. He can't get to it because, since they split the locator map in half and went their separate ways, he has no idea where it is. He gives Agent Sean the rest of the story, including Syd's capture, and Agent Sean says he's on it and gets off the phone, ready to get down to bidness.

Unfortunately, The Weasel shows up to break his momentum. "What in the hell is going on?" whines Weasel. Agent Sean gets all up in his face. "If I find out that you screwed Vaughn," says Agent Sean, "you do understand that your ass is mine." Heh. "I'm not scared of you," says Weasel, lying through his pointy little teeth. "Yeah? Well, you should start being scared of me," says Agent Sean, leaving Weasel to stew in his own pickling brine.

Shovelhead's walking through the hallways and suddenly stops, a scummy smile appearing on his face. He returns to where Syd's tied up. He goes off on this custom-made Tarantino-penned speech about a killer's signature. Shut up, Quentin. Your name is QUENTIN. Shut up. Turns out that Shovelhead's all about champagne. He pops his cork (heh) and slugs straight from the bottle. Sydney just watches him. He offers her a sip and, when she ignores him, he pulls her head back and pours some down her throat. I'm not sure where this is going, but I'm pretty sure that it's pure Tarantino and therefore totally useless.

Turns out that Shovelhead and Syd have met before. Yawn. Shovelhead's all, I met you in the coffee room, you were wearing pigtails, I asked you out, you dissed me, I probably said something inappropriate, you told me that if I ever talked to you again, you'd break my kneecaps. "Which just made me love you," he says, smiling. Gah. Is this really necessary? We get it, okay? He's a lovelorn loser who wants to do Sydney and make her bark like a dog. Gross. I will include this little tidbit, because it made me laugh out loud. "You didn't want to kiss me," he says. "Remember?" "No, I do not," says Syd calmly. "But I can see not wanting to kiss you." Bwa ha ha!

Shovelhead goes on to tell Syd that Sloane's a scumbag (no, really?) and that he'll disappoint her. Then he says that it was good to see her again and that, even though she didn't want to kiss him, when he took a hit off the champagne, he majorly backwashed into it. Oh, for fuck's sake. It's a good thing I had the foresight to bring a bucket in here with me, because I don't think I could have made it to the bathroom in time for this particular horking session.

Welcome, again, to the pointlessness that is Will's storyline. Willage Idiot pays a visit to McNeil's daughter. He hands over the envelope and tells her to give it to her dad. He tells her not to look inside because the pictures are pretty disturbing. Then he tells her to get out of town like she said she would. Then he leaves. The whole scene takes about five seconds and only serves to interrupt the general action of the entire episode.

Oh, Lord. Shovelhead's back again. He enters the Torture Room and starts expounding again about his bad times in Russia. God, isn't this OVER yet? Even Sloane's bored with this by now. Shovelhead's talking about how it only took three needles to make one of his compatriots scream. "How many did you take?" gasps Sloane. Heh. Even when he's being tortured, Sloane's still da man. Shovelhead sticks a needle directly into Sloane's neck, saying he wants to hear Sloane scream just the way his compatriot did. "Scream for me," says Shovelhead, obviously enjoying himself and forgetting all about his real purpose here. You know, THE VAULT? Like, I get that he's all mad at Sloane for abandoning him and everything but, um, his girlfriend's already got seven out of the twelve code numbers so, like, give it a rest already, okay?

Instead of obliging Quarantino (tm tobecontinued) with the required scream, Sloane just calmly turns and looks at him. "They broke you, didn't they?" quietly asks Sloane. "They made you beg." "Don't you wish," says Quarantino, with a hint of panic. "'Please sir, I can't take anymore,'" says Sloane, smiling. "Isn't that what you said to them?" WCAC enters and tells Shovelhead that there's only one code number remaining, and that it's time to make tracks. Shovelhead ignores her, because he's in the middle of being completely belittled and baited by a skewered Sloane. Here's a quick scene breakdown:

WCAC: Let's go!
Sloane: Crybaby!
Shovelhead: Shut up!
WCAC: LET'S GO!
Sloane: Pussy boy!
Shovelhead: SHUT UP!
WCAC: SHOVELHEAD! COME ON! TIME'S A-WASTIN'!
Sloane: Awwwpoor wittle putty tat!
Shovelhead: THAT IS NOT WHAT HAPPENED! I'M NOT LISTENING! I'M NOT LISTENING! LA LA LA LA LA!
WCAC: COME ON!
Sloane: Rock-a-bye baby, on the treetop. When the wind blows --
Shovelhead: SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!
WCAC: SHOVELHEAD!
Shovelhead: SHUT UP!

And then Shovelhead turns and drills her.

No, not like that! He pumps her full of lead! End of British SIS Agent/Wicked Cool Asian Chick/Shovelhead's Girlfriend. I mean, she's wearing a bulletproof vest and all, but she looks pretty damn dead to me. Shovelhead kneels to her, touches her gingerly, straightens his tie, and then announces that he's going to the vault.

Okay. Remember when Syd had to lower herself into Marshall's office to pick up the scrambler device and accidentally picked up an earring? Well, you didn't think that wasn't going to come into play at some point, right? Right. Here's the earring's shining moment. Syd's tied up on the floor across from Marshall. He's looking over at her and notices that the earring is sitting on the floor to her hip amidst all her discarded tools. Yes, it's pretty stupid that all her tools and shit are on the floor to her, when it was very clear that one of the FLCs spilled her stuff all over the desk in Sloane's office, but this show's not about being smart, now is it? So, Marshall spies the earring and tries to capture Syd's attention in order to direct her toward the earring. He succeeds, and Syd looks down at the earring.

Down in the vault, Shovelhead's made a decision. He gets on the walkie-talkie and tells the remaining two FLCs to kill 'em all. At this point, it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever that Shovelhead hasn't just shot Sloane in the head, but then this show's not about making sense, now is it? Braidy FLC and Billy Idol FLC ready their guns for a little SD-6 massacre and yell at the agents to get themselves up against the wall. Right. Because they couldn't just open fire. They have to have an orderly little group to spray with bullets. What. Ever.

As Marshall moves over against the wall, he says something to Syd about "last July" and indicates the earring. Syd finally gets it, scrambles to get the earring, and grabs it just as Billy Idol FLC picks her up and throws her over to the rest of the group. Syd drops the earring after apparently triggering something on it, and it blows up in the FLCs faces. Syd and Dixon must have attended the same Working Without Hands seminar, because she manages to take out Braidy FLC with a few choice kicks. Dixon finishes the Braidy job with a few more handless kicks, and Syd turns her attentions to Billy Idol FLC. She nearly downs him, but he proves not so easy to fell. He grabs his gun and is just about to give her a bullet to the gullet when Dixon drops him with a single shot from Braidy's gun. Nice work, Handless Spies!

When the smoke clears, Syd unties Spy Daddy and asks him if he shut off the fail-safe. Unfortunately, only Sloane can do that. Syd announces that she's going to the vault, and Dixon says he's coming with her. "Dixon, you just had surgery!" she yells. "I'll meet you there!" he says, ignoring her.

Spy Daddy enters Sloane's Boudoir Of Beastly Pain. Spy Daddy tries to remove Sloane from his straps and tells Sloane that they have to deactivate the fail-safe. Sloane won't let anyone into the vault. Spy Daddy tells him that Sydney's on it. Sloane's all, Sydney's here? Spy Daddy's all, dude! Work with me here! How do I deactivate the fail-safe? Sloane tells him they can override it via a keypad in his office, but it's biometric. "It won't deactivate without my fingerprint," Sloane says. You see where this is going, don't you? Yeah, me too. Where's that bucket?

Spy Daddy keeps trying to get Sloane out of the steel arm bands, but Sloane's all, dude. It's gonna take you hours to get my hands outta here. "You could take my fingerprint," says Sloane reluctantly. Spy Daddy just kind of looks at him. "Jack!" says Sloane. "Take my right index fingerprint! Just take it!" Spy Daddy ties a makeshift tourniquet around Sloane's arm, grabs the cutters, and looks Sloane in the face. "Right. Index," says Sloane. Yeah. Ron Rifkin's kinda sexy right here. Sick, but true. Spy Daddy slides the cutters around Sloane's right index finger, takes one last look at Sloane's face, and cuts. EW! And there's even the sound of bone crunching! Gack! Sloane looks like someone justwell, he looks like someone just cut off his right index finger. Bucket, please.

Meanwhile, Back at the Batcaveer, I mean, "vault." Shovelhead's watching as the code breaker finds the final number. He gives his lips an extra coating of Chapstick. Ha. That's so funny. Not. Along with the sunglasses-indoors thing and the penchant-for-champagne thing, it would seem the final indicator that Shovelhead is indeed a quirky villain, this cute little "must not have chapped lips" thing. Look. It's Quentin Tarantino, okay? We're lucky he didn't pull out a can of oxygen and start singing "Blue Velvet."

So, anyway, the final number locks into place, and Shovelhead gets ready to enter the vault. Too bad Dixon shows up to try to kick his ass. Shovelhead neatly disposes of Dixon with a roundhouse kick to the gut. Syd shows up. "Lookin' for me?" says Shovelhead in all his "I'm a quippy villain" glory. Syd launches herself at him, but Quarantino's been practicing his Tae-Bo, so a fight ensues. It goes on for way too long, with Quarantino adding his "I gots yer kicks, I gots yer moves" remarks, and finally ends with Syd out for the count on the floor. Shovelhead turns once again to the vault.

Then Spy Daddy races into Sloane's office and types some stuff into the computer. He looks down at this clean white towel and opens it, briefly revealing Sloane's SEVERED FINGER. Hork. Same time, different location, Shovelhead pulls out some sort of hand drill. Couldn't he just, I don't know, OPEN THE VAULT NOW? What the hell good was the code? Oh, man, whatever. Let's just wrap it up already. To paraphrase Bull Durham, "Don't think, Regina. Just recap."

Spy Daddy puts Sloane's finger (ew!) onto the keypad. Shovelhead moves to the vault door. Sloane's identity is verified. Shovelhead. Moves. To. The. Vault. Door. The fail-safe is deactivated. Spy Daddy breathes a sigh of immense relief. Shovelhead makes it into the vault and uses the hand drill device on some door inside the vault. Fine. So that's what the hand drill was for. Whatever. Inside the door is a small silver box with the Rambaldi "eye" symbol engraved on it. Shovelhead runs out of the vault past a waking Sydney.

Out in the garage, Shovelhead comes upon his van, only to discover that the Russian FLC is dead. No matter. He'll drive it himself! He peels out and comes upon Agent Sean, Virtuous Vaughn, and several other CIA do-gooders. They shoot the hell out of his van. The van stops, and Shovelhead escapes out the back door and runs away. And Quentin? Stop with the running. You look like a wildebeest that needs to go on Weight Watchers. Syd shows up and mercifully puts an end to his pathetic jogging spree by going WWF on his fatso ass. Quarantino goes down, and Syd hovers over him. "I think you're right," she says, breathing heavily. "Takin' a punch is somethin' I gotta learn how to do." And then she does a little dance on his face with her size sevens.

Prince Valiant Vaughn runs up and asks what's happening upstairs. Syd tells him that everything's taken care of and that they got lucky. He then asks if she's okay, and she assures him that she is. Agent Sean walks up and hands Vaughn the box that Shovelhead took from the vault. Vaughn opens it, and inside is a teeny bottle of what appears to be perfume. Syd wonders if that's what it is. "Whatever this is," says Vaughn, "we have it now, and they don't. Because of you." "Not just me," argues Syd. "Because of you," repeats Vaughn intensely. "Then it better be good perfume," quips Syd. "I'm not kidding," says Vaughn, with the first appearance of forehead wrinkles since the episode began. "Think about it. What you do. Hockey can wait. I don't think what you're doing here can." Awww. That's so sweet! Vaughn's willing to postpone an extended hockey/nookie session with Syd so that she can continue her acts of valor! What an upstanding young CIA drone he is! DO HER ALREADY. God. You can serve your country and still get laid, you know. Clinton did it all the time. Wellmaybe he's not a good example. Forget I said anything.

Cue The Music Of Tears And Reconciliation.

To the poignant strains of "Songbird" by Fleetwood Mac, Sydney slowly enters the offices of SD-6. Various agents are being given medical attention; others are trying to put the office back together. Sloane leans against the wall, watching the slo-mo actions of his agents, and he has this almost resignedly beatific expression on his face. He watches his employees embrace each other. Sydney walks up to Dixon and hugs him. She turns and sees Sloane watching her. She makes her way over to him.

"Are you all right?" she asks, and you can tell she's really concerned, even though she hates Sloane and everything he stands for. "None of us are," he responds. "What happened here tonightthisthis is unacceptable. People who did thiswe're going to find them. Retrieve what they've taken. Even then, this has changed everything." It's really a lovely moment, and both Rifkin and Garner handle it beautifully. Yes, I agree with some of the posters that it's definitely an allusion to the events of September 11th, but it's still relatively dignified. Let's just say it brought more than one tear to my eye, and that's really saying something.

Marshall appears just in time to provide some comic relief. "Sir," he stammers, "I have the digit right here and the medics are on their way." "Thanks, Marshall," Sloane says quietly. Marshall looks over at Syd. "Hey," he says, "Sloane gave me the finger." Hee. Hee hee. Even Sloane smiles at that one. Marshall walks off just as some guy walks up and takes Sloane away for finger reattachment.

Spy Daddy walks up to Dixon and asks if he's okay. "I sent the email to Langley," says Dixon. "But I guess it didn't get through." Aw, poor Dixon. Langley loves you, boyfriend! Have faith! Spy Daddy tells him he did a good job and then turns his attention to his daughter. They run to each other through a field of daisies and embrace. Okay, so they just walk across the office and face each other. "This morning," says Spy Daddy, "before all thisyou wanted to talk to Sloane. What'd you tell him?" "I told him that I'd see him tomorrow," says Syd. They look at each other for a moment, and then Syd softly says, "Thank you." Spy Daddy, looking like he sort of wants to hug her, but doesn't really know how, just gently puts his hand on her upper arm. Sydney smiles and looks down at the floor. Spy Daddy walks off, leaving Syd to listen to the remaining few notes of "Songbird" all by herself.

Sniffle.

time on Alias: Vaughn makes the confession that he'd like to be with Syd in public. No, not like that! Get your minds out of the gutter. Willage Idiot continues his quest for ultimate stupidity. Syd dons a hideous outfit made of Reynolds Wrap and runs into Francie and Charlie while on assignment in Vegas. Oh, the suspense! Yawn.