Previously on Alias: There were some really bad accents during an otherwise fun Bahamian mission; there was a pizza party, and Weiss got his groove on with Nadia and Syd shoved pizza in Vaughn's face; there was a really super-important computer that got stolen by a chunky British guy; and there was botched retrieval attempt that ended up with Syd and Weiss kidnapped for, like, ten minutes. But don't worry! They got out alive (duh) and Weiss got himself a new job at the Apple Store alongside his lady love, Nadia. Oh, and Jack made the chunky Brit the convenient scapegoat for Irina's murder, making Syd angry, Nadia a murderer, and Jack scot-free. The man's a genius. A genius of SATAN.
We begin in Algeria. Colorful locals wander the crowded stalls of Backlot #82. Goats from the Animal Actors Union get pulled through, bleating their way to a SAG card. They pass a skinny tourist in shorts who's muttering, "I lost my bird." It should be noted that the skinny tourist is none other than Richard Speight, Jr. who won part of my heart in Band of Brothers as Sgt. Warren "Skip" Muck. Yes, the whole of my heart belonged to Damian Lewis because, seriously, Winters, man. Winters. But Muck snuck in there and nestled himself into a corner of my otherwise cold and frosty heart. He's also one of the computer guys in those funny IBM commercials that make me giggle. At any rate, Sgt. Muck is just standing in the middle of the stalls, muttering the bird phrase to various passersby. Weiss walks up and sneers, "It's 'I lost my canary.'" And try telling it to the woman upstairs." Hee. Not so good with the spy stuff, is my cute Sgt. Muck. Weiss totally rolls his eyes and sighs the sigh of "Jesus, what a loser" as Muck walks off in search of the woman.
He passes Vaughn, who's standing at the base of a staircase. Muck heads up and finds Sydney, sitting at a low table, enjoying a cup of tea. "I lost my canary," Muck correctly states. "You should have clipped its wings," Syd fires back. Code words accomplished, Muck starts chattering about how he's cold and isn't it cold in here and aren't you cold and it's probably nerves, et cetera. Nice touch, considering what happens to him in a minute here. Dix walks up and pours more tea for Syd and asks in Arabic if her friend would like anything. Syd says no and returns to Muck. He wants to see the money. Syd wants to see the weapon. Yeah, that's gonna be difficult, says Muck, because, um, see, he swallowed it. Syd just looks down at the table with an expression of, "Oh, for god's SAKE."
Downstairs, Vaughn's keeping his eyes peeled for baddies when a blonde woman appears in the distance. The Violins of Ex-Wives Who Might Not Be Dead start screeching over the scene. The woman, of course, isn't Moronen, but for a second there, Vaughn totally thought it was. Not-Moronen walks off, and Vaughn sees a guy entering the stalls whom he determines is a baddie of the first order. Syd gets Vaughn's message and she snaps at Muck, asking him if he followed their safety protocols. He's all, dude! I totally did! Syd's all, oh, save it pee-wee. You were followed. She spies another baddie and Dix spies a few more. Apparently, they're determining the badness of these guys by the fact that they're white…and in Algeria. Bad day to be a white guy in Algeria, I guess.
Syd grabs Muck and they hurry off, with the baddies following. Weiss pulls the getaway van around. Dix manages to stop a couple baddies all by himself. Syd and Muck keep moving. They pass the first baddie spotted by Vaughn and he pulls out a gun and points it at Muck. Vaughn slams him with an old heating pan or something and he goes down. Another baddie shows up and chucks himself at Muck, bringing both of them to the ground. Syd drops him easily with a tray and grabs Muck, who's now grunting that he can't make it out of the hall. Dix gets on comms and asks if anyone has a twenty on the last baddie. Nope. Syd keeps pulling Muck out and suddenly, the lower half of his left calf just…breaks off. It totally freaked me out when I first saw it. But, yeah, it just…breaks. Like it's made of…ice. Oooooooh.
So Muck goes down, and Syd sees the damage and is seriously freaked out too. Muck is groaning and wheezing and there's no blood coming out of the remaining part of his leg and it's a really weird and disturbing image. Syd and Vaughn pick up what's left of Muck and drag him toward the van that Weiss has pulled around. Muck does not look well at all. Weiss flings the doors open and as Syd and Vaughn go to pull him into the van, the last baddie shows up and points his gun. Dix gets there a second too late, the bullet flies and…Muck shatters into a thousand frozen Mucksicle pieces. I watched on the TiVo slo-mo, y'all, and that effect is flawless. The Appleseed Gang seems to think so too, because they look around at each other with shared expressions of, "The fuck?"
And now is the time on Alias when we break out the glowsticks and spread glitter on our bodies and drop the E and dance to the extended remix of "Girls Behaving Badly In Excellent Wigs."
Apple Store. Vaughn enters from the secret passageway, looking, well, like shit, actually. Syd enters from a different secret passageway (how many are there?) and catches up with him, basically telling him he looks like, well, like shit. Vaughn's all, uh, thanks! Good morning to you too! Also, shut up! Syd expresses concern and asks him if he's okay. And can I just say that Jennifer Garner rocks a pair of glasses like nobody's business? The girl has Geek Glam down pat. Seriously. Vaughn just says he's fine and blames his downtrodden look on the Mucksicle episode.
Sloane's Laidback Office of West Elm Products. Sloane's telling the Gang, um, well, basically he's not telling them anything. He's telling us, the audience, why the Gang was in Algeria in the first place. Apparently, Muck was an expatriate who'd stolen a biological weapon called "Ice 5" from a Montenegrin arms dealer. He offered to sell it to the CIA for $10,000. That's kind of a small price for something that can shatter people from the inside out, I think. That's more of a million-dollar bargaining chip, I'd say. But whatever, Muck ignored protocol and was killed, as Jack kindly explains to those people who were out getting more margaritas and salsa and missed the first five minutes of the damn show.
Weiss quips that the guy wasn't just killed, he exploded like a frozen piñata. Sloane states that it's believed that Muck was killed by the Ice 5 he was transporting. No, really? Ya think? Maybe he was just really, really cold! Maybe he drank a Slushee too fast and he had a brain freeze that carried through the rest of his body! Like, DUH. "You're saying this stuff turned [Muck] into a human popsicle," says Syd, for those of us in the CHEAP SEATS who aren't, you know, WATCHING THE SHOW. Seriously. Did we need all of this explanation? We get it. It froze him. We're not blind, deaf and dumb, here. But, you know, if we were, we'd sure play a mean pinball.
Marshall gets up and geeks something about how the Ice 5 was contained in some metal container that was found amidst the Muckchunks. Marshall concludes that the container wasn't meant to be swallowed and probably started leaking as soon as it hit Muck's stomach. When he was tackled, there was a complete rupture and Muck was freeze-dried in seconds. Vaughn concludes that the mission was a complete bust. "So to speak," snarks Weiss. Heh. He's obviously enjoying his new role at the Apple Store as Wryly Funny Commentary Guy. Jack's not, though, because every time Weiss cracks a joke, Jack gets this pained expression on his face and probably wonders if he can kill a guy for badly-timed, ill-received humor.
Muck was working as a relief worker at a hospital in Montenegro. The CIA believes that Ice 5 is being secretly developed there by a man named Fintan Keene, a former member of the IRA who claims to have gone legitimate. "Seems to be all the rage among evil geniuses," snits Syd. Hee. Nice one. Sloane just ignores her and states that Fintan runs drugs and arms out of Montenegro, taking advantage of its political instability. The Appleseed Gang is being sent in to obtain a viable sample of Ice 5. Syd's going in as a relief worker, and Sloane wants everyone to understand that this isn't a tactical mission and that their only focus is to get the Ice 5 and get the hell out. The meeting adjourns.
Coffee Corner of Murdering Ex-Husbands. Vaughn's pouring himself a nice hot cup of Guilty Conscience when Jack arrives and sort of sneers, "Something on your mind, Agent Vaughn?" "No, not really," says Vaughn. "Yeah, kind of," says Vaughn's three-day-old stubble and red-rimmed eyes. Jack just takes a long drag off his coffee and stares at Vaughn over the rim of the cup and I just fall out laughing. And then I rewind and play it again. And fall out again. And again. His eyes are just like, "Yeah. Tell it to someone who hasn't killed his ex-wife, dude. Bring it." Vaughn gets the message from Jack's expression and fesses up that he hasn't been sleeping well. "It's [Moronen], isn't it?" asks Jack. Sometimes he sees her, or thinks he sees her, says Vaughn. Well, actually, he definitely thought he saw her in the market in Algeria. "Does that ever happen to you?" Vaughn asks. "Do I ever have visions of [Moronen]?" says Jack. Hee. "I don't know that many men who've killed the woman they were married to," Vaughn snaps with a steely expression, "I was just wondering if that's what happens." Hee hee. "It did," says Jack. "Now it doesn't." Hee hee hee. This whole scene kicked ass. Yay, Jeff Bell! Bring on the Snarky Jack and the Steely Vaughn! Yay!
Ovary Electric. Syd's packing for her trip. She tells Nadia that she's taking the last of the toothpaste and Nadia says it's no prob 'cuz she's going to the store later. Syd says that she's totally excited that she's not the only one going to the store anymore. Yeah, Syd, I used to get excited about that too when I first had roommates. And then they started leaving their dirty bean soup pots on the stove for three days and used my shower scrunchie to wash their pits and that love affair ended pretty damn fast. I imagine you'll go through the same thing, only your problem will be that Nadia rigs your bed to explode and screws your boyfriend while you lie there in little bloody pieces. Or something like that.
So, whatever, the lovefest continues as Nadia spies some pictures of Syd's just conveniently lying around. Included among the photos are some shots of what we're supposed to think is Irina, but is really Mia Maestro done up to look like she's from the sixties or something. It's really weak, actually, because it would totally be easy to nab old pictures of Lena Olin and doctor 'em up to look like they were old photos of Irina, but methinks that Lena Olin's too busy making Swedish meatballs for Lasse Hallström and their kids to respond to phone calls from the Bad Robot legal department asking for pictures from her grade school days. Like, they can make a guy's leg shatter, but they can't doctor up a photo to look like Lena Olin? I don't think so. I think Lena Olin's all, "Who called? Abrams who? Alias what? Yeah, I got a pie in the oven and I have to read the script for the sequel to Darkness, Darkness II: What Were We Thinking? I'm too busy. Tell him to get his own damn pictures." And that's my reasoning behind Mia Maestro standing in for Irina. (Of course, this doesn't really excuse the fact that someone who knows their way around Photoshop could have taken pictures of both Maestro and Garner and morphed them into a reasonable facsimile of what their mother might look like, but I've already talked about this too much and nobody cares about this shit as much as I do, so, really, I'll stop now. Really.)
Right. So, in one of the pictures that Nadia finds, there's a shot of "Irina" holding a baby. Nadia asks if the baby is Syd. Syd doesn't know who the baby is. Or maybe Syd just doesn't know what a baby looks like. Is that it? Syd doesn't know what babies are? Those Project Christmas kids are weird. Nadia says she's never seen pictures of her mother like this. You know, not killing people and actually having some semblance of a soul. The doorbell rings and Syd runs off to meet Vaughn, leaving Nadia to look at the picture of herself with a baby and wonder why her mother just looks like her in a bad sixties bouffant wig.
Montenegro. Syd starts her job as a relief worker at the hospital. Kelly MacDonald, of Trainspotting fame, is basically in charge of the place. They rush through the halls, with Kelly giving Syd the rundown on what they do there, and Syd says that it sounds overwhelming. "Nothing a bit of Bushmills and a few Hail Marys wouldn't cure," quips Kelly. She's Irish, get it? And we likes our whiskey and our cushy religion. The girls pass Dix as he's standing at a counter, pretending to fill out some paperwork. He tells Vaughn over comms that Phoenix is in play and worries that she's not wearing a transmitter. Vaughn reassures him that as soon as she gets the place to trust her, she'll toss on a transmitter. "Besides," he says with a smile, "it'll give you a chance to brush up on some of your old-school tricks." Hee. "Hey, a little respect for your elders," retorts Dix. Hee hee.
Later on, in Kelly's office, she's on the phone negotiating supplies with someone as Syd listens and gets a good look at the office. Kelly's Belfast accent is better than I originally thought when I watched it on Wednesday night. At first I thought she was just barely disguising her Scottish brogue, but then I remembered that on Wednesday night, I'd had approximately four Grapetinis at China Grill and couldn't hear my OWN accent, let alone anyone else's. Anyway, Kelly gets off the phone and it's pretty clear that she recognizes that Syd's verrrry new at this whole hospital thing. As they speed down another hallway, Syd comically tries to put the surgical gloves on and I'm fairly certain she's doing it on purpose so Kelly will continue to think she's sort of a 'tard. Like, the more helpless and hapless Syd is, the less likely Kelly is to think that Syd's a government agent in search of a biological weapon, you know?
The girls head into a hospital room and take a look at a guy with psoriatic arthropathy. I looked it up, but the explanation is so long and involved that I'll just say: it sucks. Kelly informs Syd that the old guy needs to be greased from head to toe and then hands Syd a big jar of goo and tells her to go to it. Heh. Syd sucks it up and moves toward her patient to commence the greasing up. Over at the Apple Store, Marshall's blathering on about the Ice 5 container to Nadia. He also shows Nadia some pictures of baby Mitchell and blathers some more about how Mitchell eats things like little plastic cars and has to be taken to the hospital all the time. Nadia just says he's beautiful and Weiss enters, saying that Nadia's immune to Marshall's cute baby story charm. Nadia's not sure. Weiss wants to know if Marshall has any weaponizing theories about Ice 5. There's some general geek-flirt going on between Nadia and Marshall that Weiss totally picks up on. But really, there are only two things we're supposed to get from this scene. One: the CIA is going to nab the Ice 5 sample and then try to sell it on the open market in order to determine what kind of weapon it's supposed to be and who's shopping for designer weapons. And two: Marshall's not supposed to be flirting with Nadia. As Weiss leaves, he stops at the door and mouths, "You're married," to Marshall, who then gets this hilarious guilty look on his face.
Back in Montenegro, Syd's going through cabinets and supply cases looking for the Ice 5, but she's having no luck. She pulls out her lock pick and goes to work on a locked door, but the door behind her opens up and she has to toss the pick into a wastebasket and pick up a box and pretend to be looking for syringes or something. Good thing she has excellent reflexes, because it's Kelly at the door and she's all, "Wot are yew doin' in heeyah?" Syd calmly says the thing about the syringes and says that they're almost out and she was looking for a purchase order. Kelly doesn't have time to critique this answer because, at that moment, we hear the sound of someone shouting from the hall. Kelly runs out to handle it and Syd goes with her. A soldier on a gurney is shrieking and crying and it's probably because the left side of his face has been frozen. Oh, and his arm has been snapped clean off, just like Muck's leg. In Montenegrin, a soldier explains that the injured man was in a jeep accident and that he was carrying "the container." Kelly shuts him up but quick and gets the injured soldier to the Secret Lab of Icy Experiments. She runs her key card through a key pad and enters a code, which Syd sees. Syd goes to follow everyone into the Secret Lab of Icy Experiments, but Kelly won't have that and she dismisses Syd to continue her fake syringe search.
Apple Store. Nadia's putting together the list of potential Ice 5 buyers at her non-Mac-but-totally-looks-like-a-Mac computer. Jack walks up and tells her to eliminate a couple of buyers from her list because Ice 5 is out of their league. Before he walks off, Nadia shows him the picture of "Irina" and the baby. He's all, where did you get this? Nadia's all, um, from your daughter? Remember? You gave them to her when she asked for pictures of her mother? I was hoping you could tell me who the baby is? Jack's all, no. Now fuck off. Before Nadia can kick him in the shin, Weiss shows up and says they got the uplink from Montenegro.
Everyone heads over to the Conference Room of Endless Expositions so that Vaughn can tell them about the frozen soldier dude and Kelly MacDonald. It's here that we finally find out Kelly's character's name, but I've been calling her Kelly for so long that I'm just going to keep doing that, seeing as the name that appears now isn't her character's real name anyway. That okay with you? I thought it might be. So, Vaughn doesn't know yet if Kelly's in league with Fintan or not, but she definitely recognized the effects of Ice 5. Dix pipes up that there's a strong military presence at the hospital, but they should be able to handle it. Weiss runs in, having done a search on Kelly's name, and tells everyone that she's clean, and Nadia pipes up that Kelly might be taking care of Fintan's men in exchange for hospital donations. Vaughn finishes up by saying that they have the access code to the Secret Lab of Icy Experiments; they just need to get the card off Kelly.
And that's when we switch to Dixon kicking the shit out of Vaughn. Hee. Dix whaps him in the face and Vaughn spins around, gritting his teeth. "Come on, man, it's gotta look real!" spits Vaughn. "Do it again!" Dix is all, dude. I hit you. Vaughn spits, "Yeah, like a girl. Just hit me again. COME ON." Hee hee hee. Dix hits him again, but it's pretty obvious that A) this is about more than just the upcoming mission, B) Vaughn's feeling some sort of survivor's/murderer's guilt over Moronen and believes he needs to be punished, and C) Dix is NOT enjoying this at all. Vaughn gets up again, only to goad Dix, yet again, into whapping the hell outta him. Finally, it must be enough, because we return to Hospital Montenegro, where Syd is botching her attempts to heal Vaughn on a gurney in the hall. Kelly comes upon them and quickly intervenes with a "Sorry, Father." That's right, kids. Vaughn's dressed up as A PRIEST. A hot priest, I don't mind saying. Hell, if my priests had looked like that growing up, I'd still be going to church. Like, every day, if possible. And I'd even dress up. And wear perfume. And believe in God and everything!
So, yeah, Father Hottie McSexy is sitting there all tough and bleeding and Kelly goes to take care of him. Syd distracts her for a moment so Father Hottie McSexy can steal Kelly's key card, but Kelly quickly sends Syd packing. It looks as if Vaughn managed to slip the key card to Syd while I wasn't looking, because in the scene, Syd has the card and passes it off to Dixon. Back with Father Hottie McSexy, Kelly mentions that he smells like Glenlivet and then brings him into her office to finish up his care. Or to defrock him. One or the other. Elsewhere, Dix sneaks into a room, opens up his tool kit and gets to work on the key card. He makes a quick copy and we switch back to the latest episode of The Thorn Birds in Montenegro, already in progress.
Kelly and Father Hottie McSexy discuss how she's never known a priest who's been in a bar fight before, and Father Hottie McSexy tells her that he's new at the local church and sometimes he hears confession every weekday from four to six at Tavern Nikolai. (It should be noted that I typed "sex" instead of "six" because hot priests make me forget how to type.) They introduce themselves and a friendship is born. Vaughn asks her how long its been since she's been to confession and Kelly kind of pulls back. "I'm not sure how I'm supposed to feel," she says, smiling. "About what?" he asks. "A flirty priest," she quips. Hee. He assures her that his intentions are honorable. "Mostly," he finishes with a gentle smile. Oh, rrrrowr. Vartan's hot, but Vartan as the flirty priest with a past? SMOKIN'.
Dix finishes up the key card and passes it to Syd as Kelly and Father Hottie McSexy continue flirting. Kelly comments that she was sent here for her sins, and a deep Belfast voice says, "It's not that bad." Enter Fintan Keene, former IRA member and current Irish baddie. Kelly looks decidedly upset by Fintan's appearance and demands to know what he's doing there. Vaughn watches the unfolding scene with a vertical furrow grinding itself between his brows. He wonders aloud if they're married and Fintan just cryptically answers that the "good book" would frown upon that. Over at the Secret Lab of Icy Experiments, Syd gains entrance and quickly makes her way into the lab.
Fintan claims that, even though he's agreed to never show up at the hospital, he wanted to stop by and check on the guy who had the accident earlier. Kelly's very nervous around Fintan and pretty much just wants him to leave. "You should be nicer to your big brother," says Fintan, making the "good book" comment actually make sense now. Fintan goes off to the Secret Lab of Icy Experiments just as Syd makes her way into the inner lab itself. She locates the Ice 5 samples as Fintan clears the outer security door. Syd drops a few samples into a case. Just then, the inner security door beeps and Fintan enters. Syd hides successfully as Fintan and his troops pass by, with Fintan saying something about putting the injured soldier in a separate room, away from all the guinea pigs. Ew. Syd hears this and looks up at a couple of silver tanks with Cyrillic writing on the outside. Then she gets up and peeks through some blinds and sees a couple of medics spraying something on a man as he screams and his skin starts to turn to ice. Oh, major ew.
Syd quickly gets on the phone to the Apple Store and tells them that not only is Fintan developing Ice 5, he's testing it on humans and she saw a room full of test subjects to prove it. Sloane says he's more concerned about the pressurized canisters Syd saw; it means Fintan's found a way to make Ice 5 airborne. Dix uploads the pictures Syd took inside the lab, and Jack surmises that if Ice 5 is released into a city, the damage could be in the tens of thousands. There are fourteen tanks in the lab, and Nadia and Weiss found a buyer in Damascus who wants the stuff in less than forty-eight hours. Syd wants to take Fintan down. Jack agrees, but doesn't think they can do it with their small team. Vaughn thinks they can accomplish it through Kelly. Turns out Kelly is former IRA, just like her bro, and they were both involved in a couple of bombings, one of which killed a father and his two boys. Sounds like Kelly's conflicted. She also has a problem with her brother; she's caught between being loyal to family and loyal to the rest of the human race. Syd thinks they can turn her. Dix thinks she's the only one who can get Fintan alone. "Have you determined how to approach [Kelly]?" asks Sloane. "Yeah," says Vaughn. "In confession."
Fade into Mazzy Star singing "Fade Into You" which, as nice a song as it was several years ago, totally makes no sense being in this scene. Because, hello? Is Montenegro twelve years behind in the music or what? I don't think so. Nice song, just a distracting place to put it, is all I'm sayin'. So, Father Hottie McSexy is hearing confessions at Tavern Nikolai. His confessional is currently vacant. Enter Kelly. She shyly makes her way over to the "confessional" and sits. Father Hottie McSexy orders her a drink. They toast each other. Syd and Dix listen to the conversation from the Appleseed Van. Vaughn gently brings Kelly around to talking about her brother and how she feels trapped by him. Kelly says something about how it's complicated and "love the sinner, hate the sin" and a long time ago, Fintan saved her and she owes him but he scares her and Fintan's done some awful things and they both have and she could always leave but Vaughn doesn't know her brother and it's a really nice scene and Vaughn looks hot, but let's just cut to the part where Michael Vartan kicks the ASS out of some dialogue here, shall we?
In the van, Syd correctly states that Vaughn can do it: he can turn Kelly away from the Dark Side. At the table, Vaughn says that he knows what it's like to feel trapped, to have a past you despise, that you can't escape. "We all have secrets, Kelly," he says. "I was married -- for a short time." "That being your secret?" she asks. Syd listens, her face a mask of curiosity and, yeah, not a little bit of pain. "That being part of it," says Vaughn. "The woman I was married to betrayed me. She betrayed a lot of people. And when I found out what she'd done, I let my hate for her consume me and I began to wish the woman I loved was dead." At that moment, they switch to Sydney, who realizes that when he says "woman I loved," he's not talking about her; he's talking about Moronen. Oh, man. "I woke up every day," he continues, "imagining how I'd do it. What was the best way. What was the most efficient way. I mean, it's all I wanted." Kelly watches him carefully. "That woman was evil and deserved to be punished, so I killed her and although that woman was the worst kind of evil, I also know that killing her was wrong. I don't sleep much. I -- I mean, I can't close my eyes without -- without seeing it. That -- that moment. That look on her face. She won't leave me. She won't."
We switch to Syd right then and she's totally bowled over by this speech of Vaughn's. As are we all. Because y'all? Vartan rocked the house on it. Rocked. The. House. I couldn't take my eyes off him during it, and not just because he's Father Hottie McSexy. He nails every last possible emotion he could have during it and it is awesome. Syd thinks so too because she's totally crying right now. Dix kind of looks at her like, damn. Sorry you had to hear that. Back with Kelly and Vaughn, she says, "Forgiveness is a tricky thing, isn't it? Even God can't do it if you won't let Him." She goes on to say that she can't say no to Fintan and that this is her shame and it's the one thing she can't forgive herself for. She wishes there were a way out. Vaughn tells her that there are other ways to get out from underneath her brother's thumb. "I know it doesn't feel like it, but you can leave," he says with a hint of desperation in his voice. Kelly's all, what're you talking about? Vaughn says they should leave tonight. Kelly just looks at him like he's wearing false eyelashes and a mermaid costume.
Sloane's Office of Inappropriate Touching. Nadia enters and hands him freight manifests from their contact in Damascus. Sloane asks her what else she has in her hands. It's the picture, of course. She hands it to him and asks who the baby was. Sloane looks at it fondly and smiles, but he doesn't know who the hell the baby is. She walks off, still in the dark. Sloane looks after her, with a look of the slightest regret.
Montenegro. Vaughn and Kelly enter the dark hospital, and Kelly asks him if he's S.A.S. or MI-5. Yeah. Because those guys all have American accents. Vaughn just says he can make her brother go away, and then he tries to impress upon her the seriousness of what Fintan's involved in and that now she's party to everything he's doing. If she doesn't stop Fintan, thousands of people will die, and she doesn't want that on her conscience, does she? "Help me, and I swear I will protect you," he says, just as a gun appears behind his head. "I can't wait to hear the details," quips Fintan as Kelly just looks at them with a pained expression.
When we return from break, Fintan's strapped Vaughn to a gurney and is incredulously wondering aloud if Vaughn really thought Kelly would betray her own brother. Vaughn makes a smartass remark, and Fintan proves what a big strong man he is when he whacks a defenseless man across the face. Kelly just watches from the background. Fintan picks up a syringe and says that Ice 5 in its liquid form is too unstable and too hard to mass-produce. He's made people drink it, breathe it, eat it on food, you name it. The one thing he hasn't tried is injecting it right into someone's brain. And guess who he wants to try that on? That's right. Father Hottie McSexy. And he wants Kelly to do the honors because it's her fault Vaughn's here. Way to rationalize yourself out of freezing someone's brain, dude.
And Kelly, who apparently has a piece of angel food cake where her spine should be, just steps up, takes the syringe, and moves toward Vaughn. As Kelly gets up the nerve to stick Vaughn with the needle, he tries to fast-talk his way out of deep freeze, saying he could have helped her, she hates what Fintan does, she wants out of this, he can still help her, et cetera. Fintan just orders her to stick the needle in Vaughn's eye. Kelly blubbers and blabbles, but in the end, she actually looks like she's going to go through with it. Luckily, Syd enters and knocks Kelly down before she can ruin Vaughn's pretty green eyes. Fintan makes a leap for Syd and…then they fight. Syd finally takes Fintan down with a swipe from an OR light, and then she does this hilariously unnecessary roll across the gurney that is SO Starsky. It totally is. And it's awesome and cheesy at the same time. Or maybe it's awesome because it's cheesy. I don't know.
So Syd starts to free Vaughn as Fintan slowly regains consciousness and grabs the fallen Ice 5 syringe. He moves toward Syd with the syringe, lunges, she parries, and they circle each other as Vaughn continues freeing himself from his straps. Kelly comes to and, just as Vaughn frees himself, there's a movement in the corner of Fintan's eye and he, thinking it's Vaughn, whips around and stabs…Kelly in the stomach with the Ice 5. Vaughn catches her as Syd takes this opportunity to drop Fintan with a roundhouse kick to the head. She turns to see Vaughn holding a dying Kelly on the ground. She's turning all frosty gray and shit. She sputters "I forgive you" to Vaughn and then freeze-dries from the inside out. Vaughn looks up at Sydney and we finally leave Freeze-Dried Kelly and her Brother of Doom behind.
Apple Store. Nadia's cleaning up some of her father's dirty work (I'm guessing here) when Jack walks up and tells her that Fintan's in custody, Ice 5 was acquired, and the whole team made it out safely. Nadia's glad to hear it. Then Jack asks to see the "Irina" photo again. He then feeds Nadia some booshit story about how Irina told him years ago that the picture was of her and her niece and that holding the baby filled her with a longing and a hope to have children of her own. "The day," says Jack, "I asked Irina to marry me. I wanted my child to be loved like the baby in this photograph." Nadia looks at Jack, finally seeing a softness to the man who's usually harder than the spine on a stegosaurus. And then Jack goes and ruins the moment by saying, "Of course, her story could have been a total fabrication. Another one of her countless lies designed to draw me in." He pauses and the softness returns. "But…I choose to believe it was the truth. When we had Sydney, Irina held her in this exact same way. And I can only imagine that she did the same with you." Nadia gets tears in her eyes, and Jack conjures up his version of a smile. "So, for me," he continues, "I choose to believe. But then, I suppose, each of us needs to find our own sense of closure." Apparently, Jack finds his sense of closure with a weapon of some kind, but, you know, to each his own. Jack goes off in search of his moral fortitude as Nadia looks closely at the picture again and the camera gets reaaaaallly close up and tries to make us forget that it's Mia Maestro in the picture. Because it isn't! It totally isn't!
On the Plane of Sexy Snooziness, Dixon's dozing in the front as Vaughn and Syd snuggle up in the back. Vaughn has his eyes closed and Syd suddenly reaches out and takes his hand. He rubs his eyes and then holds her hand in his. "Listening to you," Syd says, "talk to that woman…" "I know," says Vaughn sleepily. "I just wanted you to know you can talk to me whenever you want," says Syd. Vaughn thanks her and then settles back into his seat. "When we get back," Syd says tentatively, "maybe you should spend the night." But Vaughn's out cold. It would seem that, with Kelly's forgiveness, he can finally sleep. Yeah, I don't really know what Kelly forgiving him has to do with him getting forgiveness for Moronen's death, but he sure does look purdy when he sleeps, don't he?
week: Vaughn and Syd have to pretend they're married in order to bring down some suburban spies and, apparently, it's supposed to bring them CLOSER. THAN EVER. BEFORE. But, considering that they've already slept together, Syd just invited him to sleep over, and all they do is keep saving each other's asses, I really don't know how much closer they can get.