Previously on Alias: Syd had a sister, until that evil bad Sloane-man took her. And Vaughn was shirtless. That is all.
Kyoto, Japan. Home of the Geisha. And teahouses. And little umbrellas with bases made of tightly rolled newspaper. And some other stuff. Like a slightly comatose Spy Skipper and the Daddy who's torturing her. Nadia's in the chair where we left her at the end of the last episode, only now she's not writhing in pain; she's scrawling something onto parchment with an ink pen. And Sloane is watching her. And totally squicking me out. Back at Oops Center, Syd's informing Jack, Dix, and Marshall that they have no leads on Sloane or Nadia's whereabouts. Huh. That's funny. Because, if I'm not mistaken, Syd and Jack and Sloane managed to locate Nadia in Chechnya with an ancient brainwave reader and a big ol' satellite in the sky designed specifically for the purpose of, um, reading brainwaves. Where's your ancient brainwave reader NOW, huh? Whip that baby out and about twenty minutes of this mess just disappears! Poof! Like most of my brain cells on ANY GIVEN SUNDAY NIGHT.
Dix asks if Syd's been in contact with Argentine intelligence, and a voice that sounds vaguely like Sydney speaking from the bottom of a phone booth that's been dropped into Lake Pontchartrain says that she has, but they could only provide the CIA with background. It's a seriously phoned-in voice-over, dudes. The difference between her voice in the voice-over and her voice immediately after, spoken onscreen, is totally noticeable. And a prime indicator that this episode can only get more irritating.
Syd blah blahs about how Nadia was recruited six years ago, trained in language and trade craft, and the assignment in Chechnya was her first field assignment. Prior to her recruitment, she was confined to an orphanage in Buenos Aires. So what? We're supposed to feel sorry for her because she's an orphan? Well, boo-fuckin'-hoo, okay? Annie was an orphan, and you didn't see HER crying about it! Especially after that fat bald guy gave her all those clothes and that nice big 'fro. Syd's Pontchartrain doppelganger speaks up again and voice-overs that whole thing about the Rambaldi elixir making Nadia channel the daffy old inventor, you know, in case we missed last week's episode AND the previouslys, and we see Nadia, still in her chair of coma-ness, channeling the dead guy and scrawling some weird language onto the parchment. She stops and passes out.
Her creepier-than-ever father walks over, removes the pen from her hand, and slides the paper from the writing table. "This is his endgame," says Pontchartrain Doppelganger. "We have to believe that he will kill Nadia to achieve it." Sloane takes the piece of paper to a wall across the room and pins it into place. As the camera slides back, we see that whatever Nadia's writing is actually forming a pattern that is revealed as the Rambaldi eye. Wow. She's not only channeling Rambaldi, she's channeling the guy in our studio department who makes all those lame banners out of 11 x 17 paper that he then has to tape together so that they'll make sense, and then he hangs them up on the wall of the conference room and no one even notices them because we're too busy drinking all the free beer and talking about how much we hate the new girl. Man. Nadia's obviously got a lot of other people in there with her and Rambaldi. And some of them are really big geeks.
Conference Room of Endless Expositions. Dix prays that they'll get to Nadia before Sloane up and kills her. But he also wants Syd to be prepared for every outcome. Primarily that one outcome wherein Nadia's already dead. Syd claims she knows that Nadia's still alive. Which, of course, she is, because we're watching her right now. Sloane goes to grab another jug of Green Goo and brings it back over to Nadia's side. She's awake now, and as soon as she sees the Goo, she starts to cry and beg and plead. Sloane just says that he doesn't want to hurt her. The fact that he's wrapping a rubber strap around her upper arm in order to make the veins pop out kind of negates that statement but, you know, whatever. Then Sloane totally loses me here when he goes off on some fucking Tangent-with-a-capital-"T" and starts yammering on about Abraham and his child and it really doesn't fucking matter because Sloane's a really bad dude and something about an angel or something. Yeah. If you conspiracy theorists out there feel like analyzing this scene and figuring out what it means, by all means, go right ahead. I'll be over here in the corner chewing broken glass.
What's the point of the story? Abraham had to make a terrible choice. Sloane obviously sees himself as Abraham, and having to sacrifice his daughter in order to get him some Rambaldi intel is Sloane's terrible choice. Meanwhile, Sloane's so busy blabbing stories no one gives a shit about that he doesn't notice Nadia grab the stylus she was writing with earlier. She tearfully says something about how Sloane's a man of faith and how she understands this. Sloane's egocentric enough to totally buy this, and apparently his egocentricity turns him completely blind as well, because he doesn't even see Nadia using the stylus to unlock her right handcuff. Sloane goes to inject her with the Green Goo; Nadia escapes from her shackle, grabs the needle, and stabs Sloane in the chest. "How do YOU like it?" she screams as Sloane groans and falls over. Heh. That's right up there with "One in five, you little bitch!"
Nadia quickly escapes her other handcuff, grabs the IV pole, and shatters the remaining jars of Green Goo, thereby eliminating Sloane's entire supply. Sloane recovers and uses a stun gun to subdue his daughter. Then he gets on the horn to someone and tells them that his stash of Green Goo has been compromised and he needs more, pronto. He offers some bald nefarious-looking fellow $5 mil to retrieve some bottles from a bunker somewhere and deliver them in 24 hours. Baldy McUnderworld just responds that he'll put a team together. And then he hangs up the phone and immediately calls Sark, who seems to be just chilling out in some dimly-lit Mafia location while Moronen looks on blankly. I really don't know. Sark just tells Baldy that whatever Sloane's offering, Sark will pay him double to let Sark in on the action.