The Enemy Walks In

Regina: Okay. You ready?
Wendy Kroy: Remote? Check.
Regina: Disgusting snack food? Check.
Wendy Kroy: Stoli Vanilla and Coke? Check.
Regina: LOTS of Stoli Vanilla and Coke? Check. And hallelujah.
Wendy Kroy: Hallelujah and amen, sister.
Regina: Many, MANY packs of cigarettes? Check. And, in homage to Aaron...flick. Aaaaahhh.
Wendy Kroy: Your cabana boy standing at the ready and sporting a delightful pair of canary yellow Capri pants that hug and contour of his plush little bottom in a most happy way and, thankfully, nothing else.
Regina: And YOUR cabana boy, standing at the ready, and sporting a delightful pair of WHAT IN THE HELL HAVE YOU GOT HIM WEARING?
Wendy Kroy: What?
Regina: Is that a gold lam THONG he's wearing?
Wendy Kroy: Yeah. So?
Regina: SO? Dude, I'm trying to do a JOB here! And, seriously, thongs should be outlawed. For ALL sexes.
Wendy Kroy: Come on! Enrique has a fabulous butt! I just like him to show it off!
Regina: Oh, please. I think Viggo Mortensen has a fabulous butt; that doesn't mean I want to SEE BOTH SIDES OF IT SWELLING AROUND A PIECE OF GOLD LAM DENTAL FLOSS. IN MY LIVING ROOM.
Wendy Kroy: Oh, right. Like, if Viggo showed up, right here, right now, and he was wearing a gold lam thong, you wouldn't start drooling and jump him?
Regina: Hello? It's Viggo Mortensen, sister. He could be wearing a Hefty garbage bag, a pair of mismatched fishing boots and Batman mask and I'd jump him. But the thong? I'd probably scream first, rip it off him, and THEN jump him
Wendy Kroy: Okay, okay. We've established that you're not a fan of the thong. Fine.
Regina: I am not. And this is my house. Cover that heinie up, bitch.
Wendy Kroy:. God, you're testy.
Regina: You'd be testy too if you had to sit down and recap a show whose first twenty minutes REPEAT THE ENTIRE FIRST SEASON.
Wendy Kroy: Oh, calm down. That's why I'm here.
Regina: Why are you here again?
Wendy Kroy: To have fun.
Regina: This isn't FUN, Wendy.
Wendy Kroy: It is for me. Enrique! Bring Daddy a cocktail!
Regina: Oh, Jesus.

And thus it was that Wendy Kroy and I settled down to recap this, the premiere episode of the second season of the ass-kicking-est show around, Alias. The best part? Lena Olin. The worst part? The first fucking twenty minutes. Trust me on this.

Previously on Alias: There were twenty-two episodes. Sydney Bristow was a grad student recruited by the CIA but it was really SD-6 which was this totally evil secret agency run by this rodent of a man named Sloane and Sydney found out about it and turned rogue agent and wound up working for the CIA as a sort of double/triple agent, as it were, and so it is, and Syd's daddy is doing the same thing and then this hot CIA guy named Vaughn became her handler and Syd's idiot friends Will and Francie don't seem to realize that every time Syd gets a bruise or a cut or a limp, she didn't get them in a rambunctious company softball game, and then Will gets all Curious George on Sydney's ass and starts investigating her fianc's death and then gets his ass kidnapped by the Sadistic Tooth Fairy and Spy Daddy breaks him out and Syd breaks a big red ball and it splooshes out all over the place and Vaughn gets trapped and presumably dies and Sydney gets conked and winds up clamped to a chair and "The Man" walks up only "The Man" is not a man after all. The Man is The Mom.

Already knew all that? Yeah. SO DID WE. That's why we WATCHED THE FIRST TWENTY-TWO EPISODES. But, in an effort to bring everyone up to date who hasn't seen the show, it would seem that J.J. and crew decided to make my job easier by recapping the whole first season in the first twenty minutes of the episode. They cleverly wound it all around some therapy session with Syd and Dr. Nancy, but it still amounted to a flashback episode. If there weren't some seriously hilarious lines peppered throughout, I wouldn't even bother recapping it. I really wouldn't.

But I'm all about the funny. So I'll offer a truncated version of the first twenty minutes in order to bring you the funny. Laugh, dammit.

Sydney. Basement. Chair. Khasinau. We've seen it all before. Except, this time, when The Mom enters, she's not some silhouetted actress. She's Lena Olin. And she is GORGEOUS. Seriously. I wanna look like her when I'm forty-six. Hell, I wanna BE her when I'm forty-six. Anyway, Spy Mommy kinda cocks her head at Sydney and says something about Sydney knowing this day would come. "I could have prevented all this, of course," continues Spy Mommy. "You were so small when you were born. It would have been so easy."

Well, I guess Mama Bristow isn't about to win any "Mother of the Year" awards. Syd seems to think as much because she gets rather uppity with her mother. But, see, the only problem with this is that when you get uppity with Spy Mommy, you don't get your Shaun Cassidy albums taken away. You get shot. Spy Mommy asks Syd to spill the beans on who sent her. "Or what?" snips Syd. "I'm grounded?" Hee. Spy Mommy's not laughing, however. Bang!

Wendy Kroy: Okay, THAT was fantastic.
Regina: No argument here.
Wendy Kroy: My favorite line of the show. Hands down.
Regina: I might just have to agree with you.
Wendy Kroy: More vodka?
Regina: You need to ask?

Syd's down for the count, bleeding out her hole (heh heh) and wah-wahing about it. Spy Mommy stalks up on her three-inch heels and orders her daughter to think about it and she'll come on back and check on her in a bit. Oh, and does she want anything? You know, like milk and cookies? Or plasma? Spy Mommy hoofs it and Syd continues boo-hooing.

And now for something completely annoying.

Yes, Dr. Nancy's back. And she's leading us on a journey of self-discovery and tedious repetition. For our convenience and my sanity, I will heretofore refer to all useless regurgitation portions of this show as a DR. NANCY MOMENT IN WHICH WE DEAL WITH ____________. The blank will be filled in by whatever topic we already know everything about, i.e. Willage getting 'napped and beaten up. Okay? Okay.

So Syd's in Dr. Nancy's office, her arm all bandaged up. Or didn't you think that Syd made it out of Mommy's clutches? Dudes, it's called Alias, not Spy Mommy. So Dr. Nancy's trying to get all psychoanalytical on Syd's behind but Syd's more concerned with the search for Vaughn. The search for Vaughn that SHE wasn't invited to. She's all squirrelly about it and Dr. Nancy just wants to know how Syd escaped from Spy Mommy. Niiiiice, Dr. Nancy. Syd's just ripe for a little Freudian exploration and you're all, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. What about the ass-kicking?!"

Wendy Kroy: Yeah. What ABOUT the ass-kicking?
Regina: It's coming.
Wendy Kroy: I'm bored.
Regina: Just drink more.
Wendy Kroy: That'll make it less boring?
Regina: No. But it'll make your vision all blurry which will certainly make it LOOK more interesting.

Back in the Dungeon of Dastardly Deeds, Syd's still chained to the chair, bleeding out her hole (again, heh). Quicker than you can say, "Hey, that basement's full of lots of conveniently-left-behind tools and the walls seem to be completely sound-proof 'cuz Syd's making lots and LOTS of noise," Syd's managed to bust her way out of the chair, rigged up some tank to blast the door open, and leapt out of the room, all while gushing blood from her wound.

Wendy Kroy: Where IS everyone?
Regina: They're probably drinking, just like us.
Wendy Kroy: I mean, I know suspension of disbelief is a way of life with this show, and I really DIG that about it, but, um, WHAT? Her mother just shot her two seconds ago, she's BLEEDING, and yet she manages to clank her way out of that chair without a SINGLE PERSON ENTERING THE ROOM?
Regina: Shhh. Pass the Cheez-in-a-Kan.
Wendy Kroy: Why aren't YOU screaming at the screen like you usually do?
Regina: Mmmph. Cheez.
Wendy Kroy: REGINA! Sydney just picked up a WRENCH that someone LEFT BEHIND on a WELL-STOCKED worktable! SAY SOMETHING!

Sniping aside, Jennifer Garner rules in this scene, managing to convey pain and steely determination while kicking ass and taking names. Are you listening, Emmy Nomination Committee? PAY ATTENTION.

"And you did all this with a bullet in your shoulder?" balks Dr. Nancy. "Yes," says Sydney, whipping some nunchakus out of her pocket. "And you should see what I can do with my arm in a sling." Actually, she just says something about adrenaline. I'm pretty sure that, besides cluing newbies in on the premise of the show, Dr. Nancy's only other purpose here is to ask the questions that we the audience would ask of J.J. and Team. Because, yeah, she had a bullet in her shoulder and, yeah, we don't believe she could have done all that ass-kicking. Does it make us like the show any less? Hell NO.

Back in Taipei, Syd calls Spy Daddy, who promptly tells her that Vaughn ain't around and that she should get her ass on the getaway plane. Syd tells Daddy to stuff it and hoofs it over to the Red Ball Arena where Vaughn supposedly bought the farm. Willage, cooling his heels while icing his wounds, looks over at Spy Daddy and says, "Who's Vaughn?" This allows for a DR. NANCY MOMENT IN WHICH WE DEAL WITH VAUGHN AND HIS UNTIMELY NON-DEMISE AND WE ARE REMINDED HOW MUCH WE LOVE VAUGHN AND HOW AWESOME THESE ACTORS ARE.

Wendy's right, of course. The most important part IS coming up. Khasinau gets a phone call and some other doctor without morals wheels a gurney around and, as the gurney comes to its resting place, we see that Vaughn, in a drug-induced stupor, is lolling around on the gurney. Did we mention that Vaughn is SHIRTLESS? And HAS A TATTOO? And is SHIRTLESS?

Sigh. It's a good thing they go to commercial here because both Wendy and I need to take cold showers.

Cap Ferrat, France. Sydney, sporting a kicky blonde wig and some seriously gross sunglasses, drops out of the sky via her snazzy black parachute and makes sure to mention that her shoulder hurts, lest we think she has super-human powers of recuperation. She unzips her black jumpsuit with a sexy flourish to reveal what appears to be an over-decorated negligee. But it looks good on her.

Syd enters the party and comments on the tastiness of the hors d'oeuvres to Dixon, who comments that she can always snag him a few of the tastiest. Aw, witty spy banter. How I missed it so. Syd enters the seemingly guard-free office and sets up the SD-6 bug and then the CIA delay, picking up the phone to clue in the CIA surveillance team. They're good to go. Delay's working. Syd exits and sees some big goon-y guy walking toward some door. She recognizes him from the Red Ball Arena and immediately tails him.

Dr. Giggle's Office. Khasinau's sponging iodine onto Vaughn's upper right chest. Hee. Vaughn's chest. Hee. Michael Vartan's too yummy. He really is.

Wendy Kroy: Don't get too comfortable with that lust there, sister. Vaughn's mine.
Regina: I beg your pardon? You have Will. You're all about the Will.
Wendy Kroy: It's a woman's prerogative to change her mind.
Regina: For the nine BILLIONTH time, you are not a woman and you can't have Vaughn. His girly little ass is mine.
Wendy Kroy: As if.
Regina:Wanna fight for him?
Wendy Kroy: You bet your sweet -- wait.
Regina: What?
Wendy Kroy: I'm remembering that time we fought over Johnny Depp in Chocolat.
Regina: Yeah? So?
Wendy Kroy: I still have the scar.
Regina: Heh.
Wendy Kroy: Never mind. You can have Vaughn.
Regina: Thank you. Guess those brass knuckles I carry around in case of an emergency came in handy, huh?
Wendy Kroy: Don't remind me. And pass the absinthe. The vodka isn't working for me anymore.

Syd slams the needle into Vaughn's chest, because that's where you slam a needle full of adrenaline if your patient isn't dead, you have no medical training, none of your writing staff have medical training, none of your writing staff have bothered to, like, CONSULT anyone with medical training, and all of your writing staff have seen Pulp Fiction over one hundred times. Vaughn wakes up mighty quick and Sydney gets him the hell outta there.

Forest of Friends Who Should Be Lovers. Vaughn's covering up his nakedness with a stolen waiter's jacket. Yeah, we don't know where it came from either. I think J.J. was just teasing us with Shirtless!Vaughn!. Sneaky bugger. Vaughn winces when he touches his chest (so would I, honey, so would I) and tells Syd that the needle hurt. She's all gooey and apologetic and he's all googly and amused and MAKE OUT ALREADY.

Vaughn asks where they are and Syd tells him that they're in France. "France? Really? France," he blithers. Hee. He's damn cute. Syd tells him she has to make tracks before Dixon wonders where she is. "You can get back to Los Angeles, right?" she asks. He nods and then absolutely beams at her in the most adorable way. She's all, what was that for? He's all, you saved my life, gurgle gurgle gurgle. She's all, I'll see you in L.A., you delicious slice of beef. He's all, okay, my goddess. And then they just look at each other for a second and, yeah, my knees went all fluttery. They're sooooo in luuuuurrrvvvve. Sigh. Squeak. Squibble. Syd hauls ass outta there and Vaughn hoofs it off to the nearest CIA-funded pay phone.

Regina: Oh, for fuck's sake.
Wendy Kroy: What?
Regina: We're back with fucking Dr. Nancy again. Jesus. She gets more airtime than Dr. Phil.
Wendy Kroy: Totally. I mean, I loved thirtysomething and everything but, dude? Enough with the shrink.
Regina: I mean, seriously. What is UP with this? What, was Patty getting a little antsy around the house so Ken decided to throw her a bone? I mean, JESUS.
Wendy Kroy: Sydney sees her shrink more than I see my shrink. And I see my shrink TOO MUCH.
Regina: I am SO done with this plot device. Pass the corn nuts and the angel dust. Mommy needs a diversion.