Regina: Look. I'm not saying I don't like the show anymore. I'm just saying I was slightly underwhelmed by this season.
Wendy Kroy: [silence]
Regina: So, what? You're not going to be talking to me during this entire episode?
Wendy Kroy: [silence]
Regina: Okay. Fine. Then I'm to drink all the vodka, smoke all the cigarettes, eat all the snacks, and you don't get to fondle Julio.
Wendy Kroy: [muttered under breath] You bitch.
Regina: I can see we're getting off to a lovely start. If you're not going to talk, make yourself useful and fire up the fountain filled with Stoli. There's no way in hell I'm starting this thing sober.
Previously on Alias: The show aired on Sundays; had lots of breaks in between; often made no sense; had great actors, fun plotlines, hot guys, and cool chicks; and Jack Bristow was not an evil Machiavellian control freak who had basically orchestrated his daughter's destiny from the moment she was born.
Or something like that.
In case you've forgotten, in the episodes, Jack handed Vaughn the key to his Warehouse of How to Forget Your Wife Duped You paraphernalia, and Vaughn paid it a visit. Katya, Irina's sister, showed up long enough to save Syd's ass and pretend to be a good guy. That'll be important here in a bit. Sark tortured Vaughn, who, thankfully, remained shirtless for much of the episode. And Nadia, Syd's sister, can channel Rambaldi. We know this because Syd repeats that entire storyline toward the end of the previouslys. God. It's only the previouslys and I'm already annoyed. Syd saves Nadia, and that's where we pick up.
Well, at least, that would be where we picked up if we weren't following a rather silent Sydney on her way into Oops Center. Syd passes a receptionist as the Techno Beats of Isn't That Black Eyeliner I See? thrum across the soundtrack. Syd drops a coffee container into a garbage can, and the receptionist buzzes her in. Once inside, Syd kind of touches her eye weirdly, probably to make sure the black eyeliner is still in place, then places a card in a reader as a red light scans her retinas. She gains entrance to another hall, drops something else in another garbage can, approaches another card reader, enters the card, and a little tube pops out. Syd places a plastic sleeve around it, sprays some Binaca Breath Disguiser into her mouth, puts her lips around the plastic sleeve and blows, thereby gaining entrance to Oops Center. Yeah. If you didn't already know this was Moronen disguised as Syd, that little trick with the Binaca blast should have clued you in.
So, of course, Moronen/Syd gets into Oops Center and starts leaving little bombs -- erm, "phones" -- in strategic places around the office. She drops one final phone onto the in tray on her desk and stalks off. Marshall passes, saying "hi," but Moronen/Syd doesn't respond because voice-disguising vocal chord chips are way out of the realm of reality, much as incredibly life-like facial masks are. This show involves some hilariously whacked-out technology, I know, but borrowing the masks from Mission: Impossible for the season finale? Weak, dudes. Weak.
Dixon's Office Of Let's Waste Some More of the Viewers' Precious Time. Marshall enters and, for those of us in the cheap seats, reminds everyone that he's working on a way to figure out the location of the Rambaldi thingy they were all discussing at the end of the last episode. Marshall suggests that perhaps Rambaldi was treating himself to the occasional dip in the wacky weed, because the algorithms that Marshall's trying to decipher are some seriously weird shit, dudes. Dixon is not amused. Neither am I, really, but I'll always have a soft spot for Marshall. Dix informs Marshall that what they're looking for at the location would appear to be Rambaldi himself, which would be weird, considering he's dead. Or actually Jack Bristow. I'm just guessing here. There's more blathering from Marshall and somehow it comes out that he'll have the problem solved in eight hours, and then Marshall finally gets the hint that Dix doesn't want him around, and leaves.
Meanwhile, Moronen/Syd makes it into the room where Marshall's solving the location problem, and she parks it and informs someone over comm that she's patching into the feed. She does this in her own voice, by the way, which is really odd considering that it's coming out of Syd's mouth. And Syd's teeth are nowhere NEAR as protruded as they need to be in order to make Moronen's voice coming out of Syd's mouth make ANY sense. So, yeah, whatever; Sark's the one Moronen's talking to, and he's out in his car, harboring masturbatory fantasies about Moronen in her Syd disguise. Can anyone else out there see his right hand? All hands on deck, Sarkie. I have no interest in seeing you get familiar with Lil Sarkie, okay?
Wendy Kroy: Well, I certainly do!
Regina: It speaks!
Wendy Kroy: Oh, I'll speak up in favor of Sark jerk--
Regina: Don't.
Wendy Kroy: What?
Regina: Justdon't.
Wendy Kroy: [seething silence]
Regina: That's better.
“ Syd darts her auntie and Katya drops. Jeez. Syd's quickly running out of decent family members. ”
Vaughn runs out into the Staircase of the Seventh Ring of Hell. Really. It's the staircase that's been used in at least two episodes per season since Season One. Is there some significance to this staircase being used over and over and over again? Or is there only one staircase they can use? Like, is it pertinent and full of portent? Or is this just simple economics? I need to know. So, whatever, the building's in lockdown. Agents are heading up to where the elevator dudes are locked in, and Vaughn slides down a fire extinguisher hose to the bottom of the staircase. His punctured lung is doing remarkably well, by the way. Thank you for asking! Vaughn peeks out behind the building and sees a bunch of agents outside. He gets on the walkie and pretends he's an agent himself and says, "Vaughn's going out the main entrance. All agents to the front NOW!" The agents outside run off and Vaughn easily escapes. And apparently climbs the ladder to the fifth dimension or something, because in about ten minutes he's going to be in Palermo. I wish I were kidding.
Speaking of Palermo, Syd's still there, but now it's night. This adds some credence to the idea that there was a time lapse between the time that Vaughn escaped from the hospital and this particular moment in time, but the amount of credence it lends couldn't fill a demitasse cup with a hole in it, so, really, let's not go there. Syd's just meditating or something when someone approaches her from behind and puts a gun to her head. Syd's her mother's daughter, however, and she quickly nabs the gun before the shooter can get busy. Syd gets up and is face-to-face with Auntie Katya. Katya lies that she thought Syd was a Covenant guard, so she was about to shoot her. Yeah. Covenant guards often hang out behind boulders with no weapons. Katya blah blahs some more about the Covenant and how she's infiltrating the camp, same as Syd, but it's really all bullshit because we all know now that she's a baddie so can we just get on with it already? Syd asks if Moronen's around. Katya says she was, but she drove away about an hour ago. Must've been while Syd was contemplating her navel. Syd just says they'll wait until she gets back before they make their move, and hands Katya her gun. Katya recommends that they take cover, and asks if Syd's alone. Of course she is, Katya. Duh. Syd turns to look away, and Katya brings her gun up again, andclick. Nothing happens. Syd holds up the clip. Um. I'm no expert here, but isn't the clip kind of, I don't know, heavy? Like, if you had a clip in your gun and someone took your gun away and removed the clip and handed it back to you, wouldn't you notice it? I justsigh. Katya says, "How did you know?" "I didn't," says Syd. "But now I do." Syd darts her auntie and Katya drops. Jeez. Syd's quickly running out of decent family members.
“ I should warn you in advance that the fight you're about to see is a pale, pale imitation of the Best Girlfight Ever. They'll never top it. No matter how hard they try. ”
Syd quickly darts the entire rest of the camp before Moronen returns. Syd takes cover and watches as Moronen gets out of her jeep and talks to some archeologist or something. Syd takes a scope out of her bag, attaches it to her gun, gets Moronen in her sights, and attempts to shoot her. Too bad she shoots the archeologist instead. Worst. Spy. Ever. Moronen runs off. Back in Hell-Lay, we check in at the safe house again, where the CIA agents assigned to protect Nadia are ordering up some Chinese food. Mmmmdim sum. They call out to Nadia to see if she wants any. She doesn't answer. The boys quickly figure out that she's gone. Seconds later, Nadia's walking down a street with a fetching scarf draped around her neck. Sloane's waiting for her. Mia Maestro's really lovely. I hope she gets more to do season.
Sloane informs his daughter that the Covenant solved the equation, so the Rambaldi artifact may already be compromised. Nadia sort of smugly announces that she totally altered the equation because she didn't want to give Sloane what he was looking for. "Which means the Covenant has the wrong coordinates," says Sloane. And Indy and Sallah turn to each other in glee and say, "They're digging in the wrong place!" Oh, please. You thought it too. I realize that, in my top ten movies of all time, Raiders of the Lost Ark is number one and will remain so until I die, but I can't be the only one who thought that. "We should go," says Nadia. "We have a long journey ahead of us." Sloane looks at his daughter with gleaming pride and says, "Come." They are going to be a really bad influence on each other.
Palermo. Syd's stalking around with her gun, looking for Moronen. I should warn you in advance that the fight you're about to see is a pale, pale imitation of the Best Girlfight Ever. They'll never top it. No matter how hard they try. Moronen comes up from behind and wraps a scarf around Syd's throat. "Guess who?" she asks. Well, considering that the archeologist is deader than a doornail, I'd think that this situation doesn't really require a lot of guessing, dumbass. There's throwing. And kicking. And flinging. To their credit, it appears that Jennifer and Melissa did quite a lot of their own fighting. Still doesn't make it better than the Best Girlfight Ever. And that's okay. Because that fight rules and always will.
Wendy Kroy: There will never be any fight greater than the Best Girlfight Ever.
Regina: Not even in The Matrix movies?
Wendy Kroy: Girl, please. Did you SEE Reloaded?
Regina: I did. Andyeah.
Wendy Kroy: Yeah.
Regina: There is not enough Keanu beauty in the world to eradicate that monstrosity from my mind.
Wendy Kroy: Amen.
“ She starts getting emotional as she goes through the rest of the document, none of which we see. Which, of course, means that the writers can come up with a whole slew of sick shit for which Jack can be responsible year. Nice. ”
Vaughn asks Syd what that whole number thing was about. Syd just says she doesn't know, and leans in for a distraction kiss. Vaughn is easily distracted. Oh, and the kiss is really good. Or maybe I'm just that desperate.
Wittenburg. Syd's in an elevator with some guy, and she's wearing a really hot red wig and some glasses. She gets out of the elevator and is escorted to a safety deposit box room by some old guy. He shows her to her box, and Syd passes by box number 1062. Old Guy leaves, and Syd immediately gets out her ACME Safety Deposit Box Crack Kit. She pulls out a Home Depot Safety Deposit Box Lock-Freezing Mister and sprays it into the locks of 1062, freezing them or something. She easily tweaks the locks off and pulls the box out. Inside is a specially locked folder of some sort. Syd pulls out the handy Menard's Locked Folder Deciphering Wand and easily unlocks the folder. Inside is a top-secret folder. Inside that top-secret folder is another folder. And inside that folder is a black document with the CIA seal on it. Good god. This is like those damn Russian nesting dolls. Soon Syd will just get down to a single piece of paper that'll say "get more shoes" or something.
Syd pulls out the inner document and then grabs her pocket black document reader and goes to town. First thing we see: TOP SECRET. Second thing: PROJECT SAB47. Third thing: INITIATED 17 APRIL 1975. That's Sydney's birth date, in case you didn't now. Fourth thing: PROJECT: ACTIVE. Fifth thing: SENIOR PROJECT MANAGER: JACK BRISTOW. Get it? Syd's actually a top secret CIA project, and her dad's been in charge of this "project" since the beginning. Syd suddenly realizes that her father, once again, is not who she thought he was. She starts getting emotional as she goes through the rest of the document, none of which we see. Which, of course, means that the writers can come up with a whole slew of sick shit for which Jack can be responsible year. Nice.
A shadow appears in the doorway, watching Syd as she blinks back tears. As she reaches the end of the document, her emotions get the better of her and she starts crying in earnest. "Sydney," says Jack from his post at the door. She looks up. "You were never supposed to have found this," he grits. She stares. He stares. She stares. Andscene.
Wendy Kroy: What justwhat?
Regina: Jack's a bad man.
Wendy Kroy: Remember last year? When we had two finales in a row? And they both RULED?
Regina: I remember.
Wendy Kroy: I miss that.
Regina: I miss that too.
Wendy Kroy: Hold me.
Regina: Hold yourself.
Wendy Kroy: [enraged silence]
Regina: Aaaand we're back where we started. Thank you and goodnight.