Hey there, everybody. I'm filling in for Regina this episode, because she's in Paris -- visiting the Louvre, walking along the Seine, eating baguettes and really smelly cheese, having a torrid affair with a French sailor, and doing all those things Quasimodo wanted to do if he could just get out of the bell tower. If I werrre in her skiiiiin, I'd cheerrriiiish eeeveryyyyy instant! Sorry, got a little carried away there.
Speaking of Disney adaptations, I caught the last half hour of their latest efforts just prior to Alias. I believe it was called Snow White on LSD. Really -- there were rainbow-colored dwarves named after days of the week, and bears trapped in snow globes, and Lana Lang, and a zombie Jesus, and animated lawn gnomes, and an apple-eating scene that looked like an attempt at lesbian seduction, and bears freed from snow globes licking their way through ice to get to Lana Lang. There wasn't a single second that made any sense at all. It was wonderful.
But anyway, on with the main event. Previously on Alias: Spy Barbie was taken into custody by the Department of Stupid Retards because she matched a prophecy, written five hundred years ago, that claims she will "render the greatest power unto utter desolation." Sounds like the Bush administration is trying to blame Sydney for the recession.
And now we're watching Starsky & Hutch. Sydney, wearing an awful wig that makes her look like Nina on 24 after having hot monkey sex with Kiefer, is high-tailing it in a sedan, trailed by four or five cop cars. They trap her on a pier. She sits there in her car, wearing ugly, red-tinted novelty shades, and stares off in the distance. She pulls off her glasses and stares some more. Then she stares. Some more staring. Then she slams on the gas and drives the car off the end of the pier, into the water. For some bizarre reason, you can hear a girl (not Sydney) screaming as the car goes over the edge, though there don't appear to be any witnesses other than the cops around. The car splashes into the water in slow motion and sinks.
Then we fade into a scene change of some fluorescent lights. Why do directors think we like looking at lights? We cut to Sydney, without any wig to speak of, staring. Some more. She's handcuffed to a chair in a conference room. A man in a suit comes in to offer her a vanilla milkshake. What a bizarre choice of refreshment. It's like he's treating her like a twelve-year-old who witnessed a murder, and he's trying to get her to talk. As he leaves, Sydney begs him to remind the others that she's being cooperative and she doesn't need restraints. He leaves, and she leans over to suck on the milkshake through a straw.
Cut to the CIA offices, where Vaughn is trying to beg some information off of Agent Weasel. Vaughn thinks Weasel must know something about what's happening to Sydney because he's the department liaison to the FBI. Weasel claims that he's not in the thick of things, because the last thing anybody would do would be to keep the liaison between the two agencies up to date on a problem that affects both agencies or anything. Agent Apologetic admits that the two of them don't have the best relationship, but promises to change and begs for the two of them to start over. Weasel shoots Vaughn a sarcastic hello and repeats that he doesn't know anything about Sydney before clomping off snippily. Agent Sean (or Weiss, or whatever his name is. To me, he's Agent Sean) is in the background, looking through some file. After Weasel leaves, Sean tells Vaughn that a friend has seen Weasel eating at the Webster Rotunda, and that the smarmy little prick has the table manners of a child. What a surprise. Vaughn asks Sean if he thinks the prophecy is for real. Sean doesn't believe it. He thinks it's ridiculous that Sydney could take down the world. Really, she can't even complete a mission without screwing something up. Unless she ends up destroying the world by accident while trying to steal some weapon plans from Iraq or something. Vaughn recaps that Sydney has the biological signs Rambaldi pointed to. He further exposits that an FBI tribunal is flying into D.C. to question Sydney.
We cut to said tribunal members striding down a hallway to meet with Sydney. The main inquisitor is played by Terry "Hey, It's That Shadowy Government Figure!" O'Quinn. They've made him shave off his mustache and his hair so that he doesn't look so much like the four totally different (or were they?) shady characters he's played in three Chris Carter series. The other two members of the tribunal don't get so much as a single line between them during the whole episode, so it's really more of a unibunal. They enter the conference room, and Terry introduces himself as Special Officer Kendall. He introduces the other two, but nobody cares. He tells Sydney that she's being held under National Security Directive 81A (known in government circles as the "Fuck the Constitution" directive), and that they can bring charges up against her. If she doesn't cooperate, or if she demands a lawyer, she might never hear freedom ring ever again. Sydney says she has nothing to hide. Kendall starts by asking Sydney her name and how she got involved with the CIA. Sydney doesn't realize that this is going to be a clip show because she's been in custody, and asks if they don't have a file on her already. Kendall says he does, but they need some sort of contrived way to segue into the clips, so just talk already. Sydney got involved with the CIA from her work with SD-6. How did she get involved with them? Previously on Alias: Sydney was a grad student, and one day, some man just came right on up to her out of the blue and asked her if she wanted to be a spy. You know, I only got people asking me if I wanted to be saved and feel the love of Jesus, or asking me to help free Tibet. She thought the idea was ridiculous, but began to wonder if she could actually become a spy. She says that she hated her classes, wasn't talking to her father, her mother was dead, and she had no social life. So she joined. Wasn't this a storyline in Doonesbury?
Kendall confirms that she joined SD-6, but Sydney explains that they tricked her into believing they were actually CIA. She had her evaluation phase as an office assistant at Credit Dauphine. After six months there, they told her she was ready for her spy training. Over the course of eight months, Sydney learned all there is to know about spying. Oh, okay. So that's why they had to make Sydney a genius. It's the only way anybody would swallow that horse pill. Eventually she found out about SD-6 and was lead to believe it was the "black ops" division of the CIA, performing highly classified missions of which even congressional oversight committees had no knowledge. Kendall is skeptical that Sydney didn't find this suspect. She claims they were very believable. Jennifer Garner has this look of resignation on her face like, "I didn't write this. Just go with it, okay?" SD-6 took Sydney to their secret headquarters beneath the building and brought her into the spy fold. She thought she was being "patriotic" by joining them. Heh. There she met Arvin Sloane for the first time. She sits and stares at Kendall and asks what will happen if she needs to go to the bathroom. Kendall says it would be arranged.
Cut to a warehouse, where Agent Anxious is having a secret meeting with Spy Daddy. Neither of them has had any luck finding details about Sydney's predicament. Jack is concerned, because Sloane wants to have a meeting with Sydney on Tuesday (and since we don't know what day it is, I have no idea how far away that is). Vaughn hopes the FBI doesn't take the prophecy as seriously as DSR did last episode, but Spy Daddy says that, "in the current climate," the FBI is being very careful and looking hard at anybody another agency tags as a possible threat. Yeah, but…okay, okay. I'll just go with it. Vaughn asks if Sydney's cover could be blown with SD-6. You'd think that giant forehead would house a larger brain. Duh. Barbie in chains means no speakie with bad man, Vaughn. Jack tells Vaughn that Directive 81A allows the government to imprison Sydney forever and ever with no trial. I want to know what that directive actually says.
Credits. When I was asked to guest recap this show, I had planned an elaborate anecdote explaining that the font they use for the show is called "Top Secret," and how it's this cheesy, cheap font that I used to use all the time at my college newspaper, but Glark had to step all over my story by posting that information on the message boards. Damn you, Glark! Damn yoooooouuu!
Back at the Federal Bureau of Recapping, Kendall asks Sydney to describe her role at SD-6. She tells him she started with deskwork and moved to reconnaissance. Kendall remarks AGAIN that she thought she was working with the CIA. OKAY, I KNOW! Kendall has this annoying tendency to recap things AGAIN right after Sydney recaps them. Sydney tells him that only a handful of folks at SD-6 are even aware that they're actually not CIA. Kendall asks why she's still in school. Sydney says she wants to become a teacher, and didn't want to give up grad school. Of course, she just said less than ten minutes ago that she was unhappy with grad school and pretty much became a spy because of that. Now her school situation makes even less sense than it did before. Not that it ever made much. Kendall asks Sydney about Danny and what happened to him. Previously on Alias: Danny sang badly and asked Sydney to marry him. She decided to tell him she was a spy. SD-6 had Danny killed while she was away on a mission. Sydney reacted as though she had drunk some rancid milk.
Kendall asks Sydney whether she thought that response was a little extreme for a government agency. Yeah, just because they're considering imprisoning her for life without the benefit of a trial due to a prophecy written in a book five hundred years ago, there's no reason to think that they would do something drastic like murder somebody. Sydney is indignant at the suggestion that she knew what SD-6 was all along. Really, if she did, would she have told her fiancé about it? Kendall wants to know how Sydney found out what SD-6 really was. Previously on Alias: Sydney tried to cut her ties with SD-6, but they came after her and tried to kill her. She beat up some gunmen in a parking garage and was rescued by her (Spy) Daddy, and that's when she discovered that he was working for SD-6 as well. He explained to her that SD-6 is actually a branch of the Alliance, an organization created by a bunch of spies who had gone freelance and were evil information brokers, an enemy of the United States, freedom, and cute little puppies.
Back at the CIA offices, Agent Anxious approaches Sean about something he had said earlier about the Weasel. He wants to make sure that Sean said the Weasel used to eat lunch at the Webster Rotunda. Sean's sure. Vaughn explains that you can't be there unless you're a ranking FBI official. They both look shocked. These people are intelligence experts? Agent Affronted chases down the Weasel in the bathroom to harangue him about this detail. The Weasel points out that his past history with the FBI is in his résumé and is hardly a big secret. I think it shows how utterly unlikable Haladki is that his co-workers in the CIA can't even be bothered to find out about his life or history. Anyway, because of Weasel's past, Vaughn is just certain that the Weasel MUST know where Sydney is and what's going on. Weasel defends his anti-Sydney position by explaining that, so far, all forty-seven of Rambaldi's predictions have come true. In fact, the Weasel won $3,500 at the track last weekend from prediction number twelve. Weasel worries that Rambaldi could be right about Sydney, and won't give up any info.
Back at the unibunal, Kendall asks Sydney what SD-6 told her its mission was. She says the company line is some folderol about finding and researching information vital to the safety of the United States. He asks what the acronym SD-6 stands for. Oh God, it's French. Regina, where are you? I rewound many times, but couldn't make out the words. I took Spanish in high school. The acronym stands for two French words that mean "the section that doesn't exist," coined by Alain Cristophe, one of the founders of the Alliance. She explains the Alliance to Kendall: it's made up of twelve people (well, eleven now, thanks to Uncle Arvin) who head a private company. They trade intelligence, secrets, technology, or whatever spy stuff is requested to the highest bidder. It's a form of organized crime, she says. Kendall asks for an example. She describes three large-scale "accidents" in India, Japan, and Germany where many people were killed. She says they weren't actually accidents at all. They were caused by SD-6 in order to get revenge, or to help allies, or to distract authorities so local SD groups could infiltrate places to get information. They're bad, evil people. They park in handicapped spaces. They sneak into public restrooms and pee all over the toilet seats. They drop fluffy kittens into French fryers. They're really bad. After what they did to Danny, Sydney wanted revenge.
Kendall asks if that's when she turned to the CIA. Not yet. She had to get SD-6's trust back first. Previously on Alias: A Lola-wigged Sydney brought a device created by Rambaldi to Sloane in order to prove her loyalty. Then she turned to the CIA and met Agent Hunky Giant Forehead Man. She thought it would be easy to take down SD-6, but when Vaughn showed her a huge map of all their connections, she realized she'd be in for the long haul. Soon after that, she discovered that Spy Daddy was doing the exact same thing, serving as a double agent for the CIA within SD-6. Kendall thinks this is all so very convenient. He's just not willing to go with it. He wants to know why Spy Daddy would recruit Sydney into this. She explains that it was Sloane who was responsible. The Bristows were actually friends with the Sloanes before the whole spy thing came up. Kendall asks why Sloane wanted her. Sydney doesn't know. The two of them argue about whether or not Spy Daddy was actually the one who brought her in. Sydney gets pissy and defensive. She throws a big huge tantrum about how she's being cooperative, but they're questioning her honor and loyalty. She rants that they're holding her because of some old prophecy found in a book that they wouldn't even know about if Sydney hadn't recovered it for them. Kendall doesn't know how to handle a hissyfit, so he calls a break. Sydney doesn't want to stop, and keeps yelling that she wants to finish the questions so she can go, but the tribunal ignores her and leaves.
Back at the CIA offices, Sean plays with a yo-yo as Agent Anxious reads through the prophecy again. Your tax dollars at work, Americans. It turns out that there are parts of the prophecy they didn't reveal last episode. How conveeeenient. Vaughn wonders what the heck "vulgar costs" are (I think it's the money you put in strippers' g-strings), and reads this other part: "This woman, without pretense, will have had her effect, never having seen the beauty of my sky behind Mount [something Italian that sounds like 'Sebacio']. Perhaps a single glance would have quelled her fire." Sigh. Pause. Google. "Mountains in Italy." Okay, none of the lists I found have anything remotely close to Sebacio. I think they made it up, just to screw with me. Well, fine, it's Mount Sebacio. Sean tells Vaughn to shut up because "the yo-yo is sleeping." "The Yo-Yo Is Sleeping" is my favorite anti-war folk song. Vaughn comments that Rambaldi was born near Mount Sebacio; then he seems to come to some sort of realization, and rushes off.
Back at the Warehouse of Secret Collaboration, Agent Anxious and Spy Daddy meet up again. Spy Daddy says that SD-6 is still unaware of Sydney's disappearance. Vaughn shows him the prophecy and says that if the FBI takes all parts of the prophecy seriously, that means the woman in the prophecy will never see that mountain. Vaughn's grand idea? Grab Sydney and fly her out to Italy to see Mount Sebacio. They're going to try to trick a prophecy. Well, okay, they're actually just going to try to prove to the FBI that she's not the person in the prophecy, but still. And how convenient that Rambaldi decided to ramble on like a moron for no apparent reason. I bet Vaughn is pissed that he didn't say, "If only she had slept with that large-foreheaded man she worked with…" Vaughn says that Devlin has tried to throw his weight around on Sydney's behalf, but was stonewalled. Jack concludes that they're going to have to "extract" Sydney in order get her to Italy. Jack says they still have the problem of not knowing where Sydney is. Vaughn tells him all about the Weasel, still convinced that Haladki knows Sydney's whereabouts. Spy Daddy says, "I'll talk to him." Did anybody else feel a tingle? Vaughn insists that the Weasel isn't talking, but Spy Daddy purrs, "He'll talk to me." I definitely felt a tingle.
After the commercials, the inquisition of Sydney continues. Kendall asks Sydney what she knows about her mother. Sydney says she thought Mom was a loving, wonderful person, but she was very wrong. Previously on Alias: Sydney uncovered some secret messages in Cyrillic in some books her father owned. She suspected that her father was a collaborator with the KGB. However, it turned out that the orders within those codes weren't for Jack; they were for Sydney's mom, who was a traitor working for the Russians. Kendall repeats this fifteen times, just for clarity. So he's recapping the recap that Sydney just recapped from an episode that we've already recapped. And I'm recapping that. Swell. He asks how Spy Momsky died. Mom was driving, trying to escape an FBI agent. There was an accident and the car went into a river. After Mom was gone, Spy Daddy hired a nanny to care for Sydney.
Kendall changes the subject to ask Syd how the double agent system works. Sydney offers up an example. Previously on Alias: SD-6 gives Sydney a mission. Sloane outlines the details, and Marshall handles the tech. We get a fun montage of Marshall showing off a phone with sensors in it, some very powerful drug, super-spy photo sunglasses, and a purse that hides a parabolic microphone. The purse works as a disguise, because the thing is so HIDEOUS that you can't look directly at it. There should be a law against gluing seashells to handbags. After she gets her mission from Sloane, Syd contacts the CIA to see what they want her to do. She meets with Vaughn to get her counter-mission, along with a healthy dose of sexual tension. Kendall asks for an example of a mission. Previously on Alias: Sydney and Dixon went to Moscow to get some computer discs. The CIA wanted copies. Dixon was disguised as an African national. Sydney was disguised as a cheap whore. Dixon got the discs from some men, and under the guise of a spilled drink, he secretly passed them along to Sydney. When Sydney got back to Los Angeles, she secretly slipped them to Vaughn when he passed by her dressed as a maintenance worker. He made copies, then secretly returned the originals to Sydney as she and Dixon were leaving the airport. They had to do all of this without Dixon noticing, lest she blow her SD-6 cover.
Kendall asks about Dixon, and Sydney confirms that Dixon doesn't know that SD-6 is evil and not affiliated with the CIA. Kendall asks if there have ever been any problems with Dixon because of the secret. Previously on Alias: Sydney and Dixon were sent to retrieve some vaccines from a plant in Berlin, and then destroy the empty building. Sydney ran in to grab the vials as Dixon set up the explosives. Dixon didn't know that there was a CIA team lurking in the building, and Sydney had a rendezvous with them to pass along some of the vaccines. She ran off to disarm the bomb so that the CIA men didn't get killed. She ran back and detached the detonator, then returned to Dixon's side away from the building. He pressed the button, but nothing happened, just as Sydney planned. However, because Dixon is actually competent, he had a back-up detonator for just this eventuality. The building -- and the CIA agents within -- went boom. Oopsie. Sydney made her rancid-milk face. Back at the unibunal, Sydney asks for a break. She looks rather haggard.
In the CIA parking lot, the Weasel heads out to his car. As he starts pressing his little keyless combination buttons to open the door, Jack grabs him from behind, spins him around, pushes him up against a car, and holds a gun up to his head. Whee! Jack heard from a friend that Haladki was interested in making a positive change in his life, and wants to tell him about an important opportunity to become less of an assface. Jack wants to know where Sydney is. The Weasel folds faster than Dick Cheney at a meeting with Big Oil and spits out the location of the FBI building. But that's not enough. Spy Daddy knows they're not going to keep her there overnight, and wants to know what their plan is. Weasel tells him that they're going to transfer Sydney to a nearby safe house at 5:30. Spy Daddy warns Weasel that if he tells anybody about this little meeting, "[he'll] never wear a hat again." Daddy walks off. The Weasel looks like a big pussy. I need a cigarette.
After the commercials, Kendall asks Sydney for a list of everybody who knows about her spy games. She says only the CIA and her dad know. Actually, after the last episode, it looks like all sorts of government folks know. It might have even been in a departmental newsletter or two. Sydney said she didn't want to tell anybody else because of what happened to Danny. Previously on Alias: Will was an idiot. Some things don't change. Will pestered Sydney because he thought the bank (where Sydney tells them she works) was too demanding of her time or something. Sydney semi-slipped and told him, "If you knew what I dealt with every day, you might thank me for doing my job so well." Will didn't understand what she was talking about. Sydney dropped the subject and ran off. Kendall concludes that Sydney has a hard time keeping a secret. Sydney insists that she doesn't, and then her pants burst into flame. It's not that she's good at keeping secrets; it's just that everybody around her is really dumb. She whines that she hates lying to her friends and getting jet-lag from flying all over the world to help Sloane, whom she says she wants dead.
Kendall asks how often SD-6 sends Sydney on missions, triggering a musical montage to some awful song by Smash Mouth, a band that I utterly despise, so we're going to speed through this part. Previously on Alias: Sydney ran down hallways. Sydney slid down elevator shafts. Sydney punched and kicked people. Sydney drove an ambulance away from an exploding car. Sydney punched and kicked people. Sydney wore ridiculous outfits and wigs that caused her to stand out in a crowd, not blend in. Sydney punched and kicked people. Sydney rappelled through walls. Sydney parachuted. Sydney spent a quiet evening watching old '40s musicals on AMC. No wait, my mistake -- Sydney punched and kicked people. Back with Kendall, Sydney simply responds, "I keep busy."
Kendall asks Sydney what SD-6's goals are. She tells him that they're all about the Rambaldi these days. Kendall asks for details about Rambaldi. Sydney explains that Milo Rambaldi was Pope Alexander VI's chief architect, an artist, and an inventor. He was so forward-thinking in his ideas that he was executed as a heretic. We're treated to a five-hundred-year-old flashback of Rambaldi at work, just to add some variety to the clips. Now people are recognizing his genius, so the entire intelligence community -- CIA, SD-6, GRU, K-Directorate, among others -- are on a scavenger hunt to recover his works. Sydney explains that people believe Rambaldi had a master plan. Previously on Alias: Sydney and Dixon uncovered a secret vault in Argentina, where she found Rambaldi's book. In the book, Rambaldi describes some sort of construction. Nobody has figured out what it is, but Sydney says all the agencies are worried that the other agencies are going to figure it out first.
Kendall says he only has one more question. Thank god. The flashbacks are making me dizzy. He asks Sydney whether or not she believes that Rambaldi was a prophet. Sydney doesn't answer, but tosses the question right back at him. Then she looks worried and asks, "You're not going to let me go, are you?" Kendall just responds that they're done for the day. Jennifer Garner does a good job expressing fear. She's not so good with grief or anger. But she's good at fear.
Sydney is escorted out in cuffs by three guards. They make their way outside. Suddenly a silver van comes zooming up to the door. Three men in ski masks and large guns jump out and force the FBI men to drop to the ground. I can't believe that these guys are so worried that they have Sydney in chains, but were totally surprised by this turn of events. It bothers me that the dramatic tension of this show revolves mostly around whether or not people are going to behave stupidly in any given situation. The men load Sydney into the van and drive off as the FBI guys call in the van's plates.
Inside the van, two of the men take off their masks to reveal themselves to be Agent Amorous and Sean. See, since they wore those masks, the FBI can't possibly figure out that her friends from her office would come rescue her, even though they've been trying through other channels to free her already and do this sort of thing for a living. Sydney's all surprised. Vaughn tells her that they're going to prove that the prophecy isn't about her. The driver, still masked, tells Sydney that they'll explain it all on the way. Sydney's recognizes the voice as Spy Daddy's, and acts all surprised that he would help rescue her.
After some commercials, Spy Daddy drives the van inside the warehouse. Vaughn and Jack take turns explaining why they're sending Sydney to Italy. Sydney is pissed, though, because now she's certain that the FBI is going to think she's guilty of something. She says fleeing the country will prove that she's trying to act in opposition to the American government. Jack said he had no other choice; he had to protect her cover. Sydney whines that she's a fugitive from justice. Uh, no. You're on the run from some overly credulous government organizations that place greater weight on a five-hundred-year-old book of prophecies than a two-hundred-year-old document detailing people's rights as American citizens. Jack explains that once she sees the mountains, the CIA will reveal what they did to the relevant agencies, and then they'll have no choice but to drop the issue. Sydney's cover will be preserved, and all will be happiness and joy. But Sydney worries that the prophecy may actually be about her. Spy Daddy points out that if that's the case, then everything's predestined anyway, and nothing they do matters. Of course, if that's the case, then nothing the FBI does matters either, and they can't stop the prophecy from coming true by imprisoning Sydney. Sean points out the police sirens and tells them all they have to move. Vaughn locks Sydney in the trunk of a sedan and drives it out of the warehouse.
Back at the CIA office, Agent Weasel is spilling the beans about his encounter with Jack over the phone, presumably to somebody at the FBI. The person on the other end tells him about Sydney's escape. Back in the Spymobile, Sydney is changing clothes in the trunk. Somehow she and Agent Amorous are talking to each other with the help of speakers or something. Sydney asks Vaughn if he ever considered that Rambaldi could be right about Sydney. Agent Amorous says he never did, because he believes in her. He makes a lame joke about not putting just anybody in his trunk. He must have put at least a few other people in his trunk if he felt the need to install speakers. Back at the office, Weasel continues to rat his co-workers out by giving out details about which vehicles have been signed out. Some people have suggested that it was stupid of them to use CIA vehicles, but I think the whole point of those cars is that nobody outside the agency knows the details about them. Weasel's totally betraying the agency here, and I don't think even his co-workers expected that. Of course, they're idiots for not thinking that the FBI would suspect them first anyway. But it sounds like the FBI are also idiots and indeed did not suspect them first. Who did they think it was?
Agent Amorous drives the car up to some other warehouse, where another car is waiting. Sydney gets out of the trunk to show us that she's wearing that awful wig from the beginning of the show, and a hideous blue sweatsuit that Grandma might wear when she goes mall-walking. She's going to Italy, not Yuma. Vaughn tells her to take the car to where a jet is waiting to take her to Italy. He tells her to be careful. She tells him to be careful, too. They share a Meaningful Look; then she runs to the car and takes off.
She drives for a while until a police car comes zooming by in the other direction. Sydney tries to keep a low profile, but the minute the car passes her, it makes a tire-screeching U-turn to chase after her. And so we return to the chase scene at the beginning, and now the show has resorted to recapping this very episode. Chasing. Chasing. But now we get a cut to Willage Idiot and Francie watching the chase on television and munching on popcorn. Neither of them seems at all concerned that Sydney went off to make a phone call the night before and has been gone ever since. What good friends. I can see why Sydney wouldn't want them to get killed or anything.
Chasing. Chasing. Dock. Trapped. Staring. Staring. Will and Francie continue to watch. Will says that this is the part where the guy gives up, just so he can be wrong as usual, even with very little camera time this episode. Staring. Driving. Falling. Splashing. Will and Francie are shocked. Sydney just sits there in the car for a while, wearing a slack-jawed expression, as she slowly sinks under the water. She holds her breath as the water covers her. The cops up above all look off the edge of the dock in surprise. When the car hits bottom, Sydney unbuckles her seat belt, rolls down the window, and swims out. She swims over to the rear tire on the driver's side, pulls off the hubcap for some unknown reason, and somehow manages to suck air from the tire valve. Eww. Now that must taste rancid. I hope nobody's had to use a can of Fix-A-Flat on that tire recently. I imagine that would certainly alter Sydney's perceptions for some time. The cops stare down at the water to see if Sydney has managed to escape alive. Sydney continues to suck tire.
Night falls. A phone rings. The phone belongs to Spy Daddy, and it's dear, drenched Sydney calling to say that she needs to see him, now. Spy Daddy drives to some dock location, where Sydney is wrapped up in a blanket she must have stored up her ass or something, sitting by a pay phone. Jack asks her what happened. How could he not know what happened to Sydney? These are the worst intelligence agents on earth. He tells Sydney that she needs to get to Italy. Sydney knows, but she needs to tell him something first. As she was hanging out under the sea, sucking rubber, she came to the realization that Spy Momsky could have done the very same thing when her car crashed. She points out that Mom was evil and horrible and stuff, and furthermore may have the same biological signs that Rambaldi pointed out in his prophecy. It could be referring to her. Sydney concludes, "Mom's alive. I know it!" Jack's face has no expression. This could make for one awkward family reunion.