Dear JJ Abrams: Bite me. Sincerely, Did I Mention The Bite Me?
Dear Michael Vartan: Now that you're free to go anywhere and do anything, call me! You'd love Charleston in the winter. I promise. I'm in the book. Byeeeee! Yours in a heartbeat, Erin.
Dear Alias Viewers: I just want you to know that I would most likely still watch this show even if I weren't getting paid to, but I cannot promise you that I wouldn't be doing my taxes during it or, you know, waxing my dog or something. And I might have the Zeppelin box set blaring at top volume on my headphones. As the DVD extras from LOTR: Return of the King play on my flat-panel desktop screen. BUT I WOULD STILL BE WATCHING ALIAS. Maybe. If I were really, really drunk. And possibly in a coma. With one eye propped open with double-sided sticky tape. Sincerely, Your Irritated Recapper.
Previously on Alias: Lena Olin dropped by long enough to make us all, whether we're straight or gay, male or female, want to make out with her; Clifford the Big Red Ball harmlessly dropped down on a fictional Russian city; Nadia got big red eyeballs and became evil and then her daddy shot her; Vaughn proposed to Sydney and they ran off to Santa Barbara, only to have Vaughn inform his beloved that his name wasn't actually Vaughn, so she might want to wait on sending out those wedding invitations. Then, WHAM BAM THANK YOU MA'AM, a car came out of nowhere and sideswiped them, leaving us all to scratch our heads and go, "Uh, the fuck?" for most of the summer. Except for that part of the summer where everyone freaked out that Michael Vartan was leaving the show. During that part, we all just drank heavily and thought of bunnies.
We pick up precisely where we left off, with Vaughn spilling the name situation. It should be noted that this scene looks quite a bit different than the scene they shot at the end of last season. Namely because Garner's usually chiseled jaw has been softened by some lovely little baby hormones. Oh, and her boobs are ginormous. Also, the scenery running alongside the car is different too. I burned my TiVo in effigy at the end of last season, though, so I don't have the final episode to compare this against. It just looks…wrong. Thankfully, I am distracted by the beauty of Michael Vartan. God, he's pretty. I am going to miss the pretty. Pretty, pretty, pretty. So, SLAM! And we're suddenly in Season Five. The car is wrecked off the road, right to a…cornfield? I haven't lived in California since I was ten, but I'm fairly certain that the road to Santa Barbara doesn't fly by any farms. In fact, according to my atlas, Highway 101 runs right along the coast. Oh, this doesn't bode well for the rest of the season; the opening scene takes place to a cornfield because…Syd needs to get away and a cornfield is the best solution? I think it would do all of us a favor if I started drinking now and just didn't stop until May.
When the smoke clears, Vaughn has a few cuts on his head and Syd is entirely unharmed except for a little cut above her right eyebrow. Because THAT makes about as much sense as the damn cornfield. Syd wakes up, slowly looks at her boyfriend, says, "Vaughn?" and then passes out. Seconds later, she's awakened by beeps and voices and it would appear that EMTs have shown up to the Cornfield of Convenience in order to take care of them. Vaughn's out of the car already on a gurney and Syd's calling after him. An EMT tells her they're going to take care of her. Well, if by "take care of" you mean "pull out the biggest damn syringe I've ever seen and attempt to fill it with liquid the color of lemon-lime Gatorade." Syd sees the EMT filling the syringe because he actually TURNS toward her in order to fill it, because he's not only a bad guy, he's a DUMB BAD GUY. Proving my point, the EMT says, again, RIGHT IN FRONT OF SYD, "The girl's alive. We'll take care of her." Lord. This is about as bad as the opener of Season Three when Syd's all bunged up in the hospital bed and Dix and Weiss decide they need to discuss super-secret information and can't do it in front of her and then they go outside the room, stop in front of a window, turn TOWARD Syd and then GO AHEAD AND DISCUSS THE INFO. All I'm saying is, if I were a bad guy about to stick a super-spy like Syd in the arm with some knockout drugs, I'd make damn sure I didn't telegraph that info to her right before I was going to do it.
Syd wises up quickly and before the EMT can stick her, she slams his hand down so that he administers the dosage to his right thigh instead of her right arm. Jennifer Garner and the Cardigan of Baby Concealage run off in an attempt at escape, but she kind of dumbly runs right into the fake ambulance and the fake EMTs all start shooting at her, like, way to keep her ALIVE, dudes. Syd runs off to the Cornfield of Convenience with fake EMTs chasing after her. Chase, chase, chase, shoot, shoot, shoot, violins, violins, violins. Yes, it's just about that interesting. Syd disturbs what looks like a flock of white doves, even though it really should be crows, which, did a band of one-armed kindergarteners write this episode or what, and whatever, this tips off the fake EMTers and they run after her and somehow she makes it to the edge of the cornfield undetected and she sneaks up on a couple of them and takes 'em out with a few shots. Nice. I can see we're not going with the "Sydney doesn't shoot people, they fall on their guns" mode of storytelling this season. Thank God.
So, Syd gets to the edge of the Cornfield of Convenience and sees her honey being carted onto a genuine Black Helicopter of the Men in Black variety. She gets a good look at the pilot, who happens to be David Marshall Grant from one of the best shows-you-love-to-hate, thirtysomething. He flies off with Vaughn in the back, and Syd wanders into the Cornfield of Convenience to see if there's a baseball diamond and a few old ghostly players to play some ball with.
St. Holy Mother of Lost Causes Hospital. Syd's being attended to by what looks like a military doctor. She's fine. Shocker. He leaves, and Syd puts her engagement ring back on. Some shadowy federal-government-looking dude enters and introduces himself as "Gordon Dean" from the Office of Special Investigations. He starts asking Syd a bunch of questions that aren't really important, seeing as they essentially establish that Syd and Vaughn were going to Santa Barbara, they got hit halfway through, and no, Vaughn didn't seem anxious or upset about anything before the trip. Syd's decidedly pissy with Gordo. Gordo bitches at her that marital privilege doesn't trump matters of national security. Syd's all, uh, yeah-huh. Whatever. Can I start drinking now? Gordo's all, not yet. First I have to insult the integrity of your fiancé and say that he may or may not have been abducted. Syd's all, please, whatever, he's hot and he's not a criminal. NOW GET ME A MARGARITA.
Just then, Spy Daddy enters and brings the conversation to a screeching halt, which is really his specialty, come to think of it. He basically tells Gordo to shove off and Gordo leaves. Syd's all, daddy hold me! Or, you know, she just gruffs, "Dad --" and Jack cuts her off to say that he spent a year in prison when Irina defected because the authorities thought he collaborated with her and he'd hate to see the same thing happen to Syd so, like, cough it up already, little girl! He tells her that they have to go over her story and that Vaughn is currently under investigation as a double agent and the crash may have been an extraction. And on that note, we head on over to the Shadowy Government Bunker of Soon-To-Be-Dead Hotties. David Marshall Grant, or DMG as I like to call him, enters and there's Vaughn, looking as handsome as ever, if not a wee bit shaken up. "We've been hearing about you for some time," says DMG, pulling over a chair and taking a seat. "It's nice to finally meet you, Mr. Michaux." D'oh!
And now is the time on -- hang on. What the? There's no…can there be no music? No music on the Alias? I don't. There isn't. Who the. What. I. Hold me.
I blame JJ.
Hell-Lay. Syd's riding along on the Subway Car of Clandestine Covert Operations as she sketches an incredibly detailed portrait of the helicopter pilot. Syd apparently spent the summer hiatus attending the School of the Arts Institute because the picture is good enough to land her a job as a damn forensic artist. Man. She's proficient in every language, knows every last martial art, including some that haven't even been invented yet, she has a photographic and phonographic memory, AND she can draw? I bet she bakes a mean soufflé, too. Wouldn't it have been funnier to have her sketching something that looked like a four-year-old drew it? "I think he had hair…and a nose…and possibly the legs of a…giraffe? I dunno. Gimme the pink crayon, I wanna add a tree made of cotton candy."
Syd enters the super-secret domain of the Apple Store. Aw, I missed the Apple Store! Also? Nice way to keep Jennifer Garner in a series of close-ups, y'all. Girl's not even three months at this point, though, so I think you're being a bit paranoid. As Syd heads to her desk, she sees Gordo chatting with Jack in the distance. We then switch back over to Vaughn, who's in the process of being grilled by DMG. All Vaughn wants to know is where Sydney is. DMG doesn't really answer the question, instead commenting that Vaughn's left shoulder is dislocated and that a package arrived for him. What, while he was being crashed into? And they saved it for him? They're so thoughtful.
Vaughn opens up the package; it's a tape recorder playing "La Cucaracha." Hee. "Catchy but dated," snits Vaughn. Heh. DMG opens up the battery area, pulls out a battery, unscrews the coppertop, and lo and behold, there's some sort of hidden message inside. Vaughn unrolls it and it's a bunch of numbers. "We know what this is about," snaps DMG. "We know who sent it. What we don't know is where is Leeman?" He actually says "Layman," but considering that everyone else in the episode seems to be saying "Leeman," I'm going to go with that, seeing as my living room TV is busted and this piece of crap Panasonic doesn't have closed captioning. But I'm not bitter.
Vaughn's all, who? DMG's all, maybe some ass-kicking will jog your memory. Vaughn just sighs resignedly and waits for one of the henchman to beat him up. It's actually really funny because Michael Vartan does this kind of shrug and a big huge sigh as if to say, "Yeah, right, go ahead and kick my ass. I'm leaving the show and I don't care and I don't have to do this shit anymore until, of course, I get cast as the James Bond. What? It could happen." Back at the Apple Store, Weiss is working the phones, trying to find out where his non-gay platonic boyfriend went. Sydney walks over and starts asking Weiss why Vaughn was assigned to be her handler that day she walked into the CIA. Weiss said Vaughn asked to be her handler but he doesn't think that fact makes Vaughn disloyal. Syd agrees.
Back with the Pain Brigade, Vaughn's facedown on the table as DMG keeps asking him questions. "Just tell us what we want to know," says DMG in a bored voice. "I'm tired of playing these games." "Quitter," Vaughn twits him. Hee. I like my Vaughn sassy. DMG wisely ascertains that Vaughn's not going to spill, so he moves the focus to Sydney, whom he pretends is down the hallway. He tells the henchman to go grab her finger, the one with the pretty ring on it. Vaughn suddenly snaps to and offers to decipher the message.
Apple Store. Gordo's standing over Marshall (Hi, Marshall!) as he appears to be rifling through Vaughn's file history on his computer. "Can you speed it up, Mr. Blinkman?" asks Gordo. Heh. Marshall's all, dude. It's FLINKMAN. With an F. And don't make me hack into the CIA database and turn you into a transvestite, man. Because I will TOTALLY do it. There's some back and forth between them, stern and annoyed on Gordo's part, geeky and loyal to Vaughn on Marshall's, and then the scene ends and we head back over to Syd, who's feeling tired all of a sudden and kind of craves chocolate-covered pickles…
Syd's scoping the database for a match to that incredible likeness she scratched out on her sketchpad between the Willow and 7th Street stops. Dix comes over to chat. Syd wonders aloud if she was wrong about Vaughn. Dix brings up that night on the pier so long ago when Syd begged Dixon to believe that she was a good guy. "If I had to do it over again," he says, "I'd give you the benefit of the doubt." Aw. That's because you're a nice guy, Dixon. And because they had nothing else for you to do in this episode, so you're basically done now, dude. Pick up your check at the front desk and say hi to the kids!
Pain Brigade. Vaughn has a pencil and a piece of paper, so he's ready to start working on the code. He requests that someone set his dislocated shoulder so that he can start writing. DMG walks over and sets it, thereby giving Vaughn the opportunity to kick his ass. Oh, and the henchman's ass too. Damn, I love it when Vaughn gets to be a bad-ass. The henchman spills that Sydney got away and Vaughn leaves the room via a panel in the ceiling. He easily escapes and finds the nearest pay phone and calls Syd. She takes the phone into the bathroom and speaks to Vaughn in hushed tones. He tells her that he needs his father's watch, the one that he gave her so long ago. That…didn't she give it back to him? And why wasn't he wearing it? Didn't it play a part in Season Three with the Blonde Whose Name We Do Not Speak? I…never mind. I'm sending out for more vodka.
Vaughn tells Syd to deliver the watch to a dead drop they're both familiar with. Syd's not sure and says she needs to think about it. She leaves the bathroom and Gordo and Jack are standing right outside, which is really rather creepy, actually. Like, "Hi! What're you doin'? How'd everything go in there?" Ew. Gordo demands to know where Vaughn is and Syd badly lies that she has no idea what he's talking about. Jack tries to convince her to spill the goods. "He's in Mexico City," she grits. The boys head off to find Vaughn.
At the same time, Vaughn's in some random locker room. He unlocks a locker and opens it. The watch isn't there. The Langley boys make tracks to some storage facility in Mexico City and start setting off timed bombs in order to gain access. BOOM! Vaughn turns his head, to make us think the explosion came from outside where he is, but it totally didn't. The Langley boys run inside and...Syd enters the building where Vaughn actually is and holds up the watch. "Looking for this?" she asks smartly. Back in the blown storage facility, the Langley boys look around like their cheese has been left out in the wind, which it most certainly has. "I want the truth," says Syd. "Start with your name." "André Michaux," he says. "I'll tell you the rest on the way." We get a final shot of Gordo, looking terribly pissed off; then we get a shot of Syd and Vaughn walking down a busy street, holding hands. There's a shot of a dome in the background, but I have no idea where in the hell they're supposed to be, nor do I care. I think it's because I've switched from vodka to fermented Amazonian rubber tree sap. Mmmm. Tasty.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard the Exposition Train. Your destination today is Cracked-Out Plot Development City in the lovely state of Who Writes This Shit Anyway And Could They Maybe Get Their Hands On A Copy of At Least ONE Of The Season's DVDs. There will be continuous beverage service and at least one stop in Who Are They Kidding With This Crapville. Hang on tight, it's going to be a bumpy ride. Vomit bags, of course, will be supplied free of charge.
Deep breath. Before Vaughn's father was in the CIA, he was involved in a project called Prophet Five and his name was Michaux. This project was something that people had gone to great lengths to cover up and Vaughn only found out about it when some French chick came to see him seven years ago. Vaughn's father, apparently, was originally a mathematician before he joined the CIA. Vaughn sucks up a nice big shot of exposition and says something about how the day that Sydney came to the CIA six years ago, she mentioned something about a device invented by someone named Mueller. This struck a chord with Vaughn, because he had been told that Mueller was the man who originated the Prophet Five project. I went back and read the recap of the first episode of this entire series just to check and see if Syd actually mentioned Mueller in front of Vaughn and, shocker, she didn't. But the episode WAS all about the Mueller device, so we can maybe let that one slide a bit.
Vaughn blah-blahs some more about his dad and how whatever the Mueller Prophet Five project was, his dad was running away from it. He changed his name and changed Vaughn's name, even though Vaughn was only 18 months old at the time and, like, not really telling people his family secrets at that point. "This man we're going to meet, Leeman," he says, "Renée and I have been looking for him for years. We believe he worked with our fathers." At the mention of a woman's name, Syd's all, uh, what's with the piece on the side, homie? Vaughn's all, her name's Renée Rienne. Syd's all, oh, wait just one minute! Before she can say what's on her mind, the elevator stops abruptly and then starts up again, moving erratically to the chosen floor. The door opens up and someone flashes a flashlight in their eyes. Leeman, for that is who is holding the amazing glowing stick of light that shineth in their eyes, demands the watch, and after Vaughn tosses it over, he states that Vaughn was supposed to come alone. Vaughn's all, whatever, dude. What time is it? Because I DON'T KNOW ANYMORE. Syd and Vaughn follow Leeman deeper into the building.
Apple Store. Gordo's giving Jack a ration of shit about the missing Vaughn situation. Jack's all, I don't know where he is, dude, so sell your Gestapo tactics down the river. Gordo's all, oh, yeah? Then I'm classifying him as a fugitive and Syd as an accomplice and…and…neener neener! Jack just looks at him and grits, "Maybe you should try Mexico City." Heh. Gordo bitches ineffectively at Jack about apprehending the kids and then leaves. Marshall walks in and geeks that Gordo's not gonna find Sydney and Vaughn, not from what he gave him. Jack's all, the huh? Marshall's all, dude, I encrypted Vaughn's files 4,096 bit and it'll take 'em years to decipher it. Nice one, little geeky man! Jack demands the originals of the files and Marshall does his bidding.
Leeman's Lair. Leeman flicks a light on and tells Vaughn that his father did everything he could to protect him from this. Leeman starts to tell his story as we buy a ticket for the return journey on the Exposition Express. Leeman was a Pentagon cryptologist who specialized in patterns. In 1972, he was recruited, along with others, by a private firm. They were given one page of a book known as The Fifth Prophet. It was a fifteenth-century text that had supposedly been written in an unbreakable code. The group of scientists was finally successful in breaking the code, revealing that the document had something to do with advanced genetics a hundred years ahead of its time. Then, one by one, everyone involved with the project started mysteriously dying. So Leeman followed Michaux's advice and disappeared.
Vaughn wants to know why, after all this time, Leeman's contacted him. Why, because there wouldn't have been a plot if he hadn't, Vaughn. Duh. Whatever, Leeman's tracked down the book and he wants Vaughn and Syd to steal it and bring it to him. Leeman warns them that the people who have the book are really bad people and they'll stop at nothing to take Vaughn out once they discover he's onto them. This doesn't scare Vaughn, and he just tells Leeman that he'll contact him once they have the book.
Cape Town, South Africa. Vaughn and Syd exit a car, Vaughn looking über-handsome in a creamy white suit and Syd sporting a long blonde wig and another Sweater of Baby Concealage over one arm. Heh. That should be the drinking game this season: Spot the Baby Concealer. Vaughn and Syd come upon a butler requesting an invitation. They perform a little one-act play known as "We Don't Care How Stupid This Scene Is As Long As Michael Vartan Keeps Speaking French" and manage to get past the butler without an invitation. They enter a lovely house and immediately Vaughn grabs a champagne flute and fills it with something from a flask. While he distracts a waiter, Syd drops the filled glass onto his tray and the tampered glass shortly heads out to the general party population. Some random dude picks up the glass and starts drinking as Vaughn and Syd start waltzing on the lawn. She's stunned that he's waltzing. He says he's been practicing for their wedding. When? They were just engaged, like, two weeks ago. Or is it two years ago? I stopped counting when Syd disappeared for two years and no one bothered to update the time clock. I mean, really.
Anyway, Vaughn tells her he's been practicing with Weiss. Hee. Now THAT'S something I'd like to see on the DVD extras. Champagne guy finally drops from whatever was in the glass, and Syd and Vaughn split up to get what they came for. Vaughn heads into an office inside the house and immediately finds the safe. His phone rings and it's Syd, in another room somewhere, and she's looking at the junction box. Unfortunately, it's been customized, so Syd gets off the phone with Vaughn and calls Dixon, enlisting his help in finding the service records for the junction box. I think. I don't know. I need more yak hair and papaya juice. Dix quickly locates them and tells Syd how to modify the box.
However, at that same moment, a blonde chippie walks in with an open bottle of champagne. She obviously lives there. Vaughn puts on a rather terrible Afrikaner accent and pretends to be admiring the collection of dead animal heads on the wall. Blonde Chippie buys it, because she's a drunk ho, and Vaughn seems to be getting away with the act. Back with Syd, Dix orders her to cut a wire. She does. Blonde Chippie starts hitting on Vaughn hard. He finally pushes her off and offends her enough that she leaves. Syd resets the junction box and calls Vaughn. He gets into the safe and starts looking for what he needs. Just then, Blonde Chippie comes back and sees him with his hands in the cookie jar. She pulls the alarm, Vaughn grabs a leather-bound book, and he and Syd get the hell out of there. Syd's phone rings as she runs to meet Vaughn and she's all, "I'm heading to the extraction point!" Her doctor's all, "Uh, I'm fine and how are you?" Hee. Syd's all, oh. Hi. Doc. Whassup. I'm kinda in the middle of something. Of course, I probably shouldn't have given my WORK PHONE NUMBER to my DOCTOR, but that's not important right now.
Vaughn and Syd meet up at the edge of the property, which overlooks a cliff. Vaughn's wearing a parachute. "We have to go," he says, as a hundred guests who are more interested in free champagne and caviar blithely ignore the parachuting couple on the lawn. "The doctor called," says Syd, looking stunned as she shuts her phone. "I'm pregnant." No, really? But you hide it so well! "WHAT?" says Vaughn. Just then, a guard shouts out at them and they dive off the cliff, as any young couple who's just discovered they're in the family way would do. Vaughn pulls the 'chute and they careen off into the distance to figure out whether they should get their baby a teething ring or a bazooka for its first birthday.
And now it's time for The Sloane and Jack Show! Sloane's in a cell, reading up on the latest cures for Big Red Eye Disease. Jack enters, and Sloane immediately asks after his daughter. She's not on the show anymore, Sloane, REMEMBER? Jack says there's no change and Sloane tries to convince Jack to let him out of there. He tries to make the most out of his five minutes of screen time by gritting his way through a speech explaining Nadia's condition and how he's responsible for it. It's a valiant effort, but I'm still kind of bored. Sloane finally realizes that Jack didn't come there to be yelled at about Sloane's daughter issues. Jack asks Sloane if he's aware of the off-book trips Vaughn took to Marseille while Sloane was head of APO. Sloane says he didn't task Vaughn with the trips and then asks what in the hell this is all about.
Jack hands Sloane a file. He looks over it, mumbling words like "Istanbul" and "Get on with it already." I can't tell. Damned closed captioning. Suddenly, he looks up and asks if Jack is familiar with "Le Corbeau," a.k.a. "The Raven." Jack is. "Renée Rienne," he grits. Sloane rattles off Renée's résumé, the highlights of which include the assassination of the Turkish prime minister and a couple of CIA operatives. Vaughn's movements track with hers. Sloane tells Jack to tell his daughter about Vaughn's extracurricular activities, then retreats to the corner of his cell to start paging through Diseases of the Fictional Kind, Volume Three.
Apple Store. Gordo's walking around like he owns the place. He heads over to some blonde woman who's decrypting Marshall's encrypted Vaughn file. We know she's not Moronen because she doesn't have a super-assy accent. The new blonde woman, an actress named Rachel Nichols, whose résumé is a total mystery to me, is the latest addition to the cast, and she seems to be something of a computer geek. Uh-oh. Watch out, Marshall. Rachel informs Gordo that Vaughn used one of his many aliases when he passed through Italian customs last night. Smart move, Vaughn. Oh, why do I even bother? Dude's about to be dead. Gordo declares that Rachel is a genius, and she finally turns so we can look at her face. Nope. Still don't know who in the hell she is.
Somewhere in Italy. Vaughn and Syd pull up on the Disney back lot and park the car. Syd says they're early and then they sit there in silence for a minute, ignoring the rather large elephant in the room. Finally, Syd can't stand it anymore, so she brings it up: the baby. And, you know, I totally don't believe those "Garner got Vaughn kicked off the show" rumors at all because, look, if you and your ex broke up and you had to see them around the office every day and then they got married and were going to have a baby and you had to hear all about it everywhere you went, wouldn't YOU want to get the hell out of that job? I mean, I worked with my last two boyfriends and one of them is married (to a crazy lady) and the other one is getting married (good luck to her -- he's the crazy one) and I can tell you right now, my ass would be so far gone from that job if we still worked together. And we didn't even have to kiss and pretend to be a couple. A couple expecting a baby. All I'm saying is, if the dude wanted off the show, I'd totally understand. Regardless if that was the reason or not. (Or maybe he just thought it was gonna suck this season and got out while he could. Heh. Maybe that's it. More Tahitian swamp water with a dash of tarantula eye juice? Why, yes. Thank you. Don't mind if I do.)
Syd asks Vaughn how he feels. Vaughn asks her if she wants the truth and she says she does. He starts off saying that he didn't think this was what he wanted, that bringing a baby into this world, into their world, with all the crazy shit they do, it's probably not the best idea. He wanted to be settled and safe before they had a baby. Syd takes this in and looks out the window, all, yeah, uh-huh, I totally agree. Except for how I don't. But then Vaughn says something about how he looks at her and all he can think about is what their kid will look like and how he can't wait to meet this new little person and, basically, he smiles his beautiful smile and they both decide to keep little Cletus Cheeto Federboob the Third. There is only one word to describe this entire scene: Awkward.
Leeman shows up and Vaughn kisses Syd and tells her to start thinking of names. I'd go with Michael André Vaughn Michaux the Second if I were her, since her honey's about to be deader than a doornail and that would be a nice way to honor him. ["I'll throw my hat in the ring with 'Plot D. Vice.'" -- Sars] Vaughn gets out of the car and goes to meet Leeman. Syd stays where she is. Vaughn hands Leeman the book and asks if he can decode it. Leeman says he can, but it'll take awhile. When he's done, he'll contact Vaughn. At that moment, a bunch of black cars come screeching up and…um, run? Anyone? Bueller? They just stand there like a couple of morons. Gordo gets out of one of the cars and moves toward them as a couple of other cars screech up. NOW Leeman finally decides to run, but it's too late and Gordo shoots him dead. Vaughn just…stands there. Then DMG gets out of another car as some henchman shoots the already downed Leeman about seven times in the back. Um, dude? I hate to break this to you, but he's not GOING ANYWHERE. Syd's running toward Vaughn as DMG lifts his machine gun and shoots Vaughn, point-blank, what appears to be fifty thousand times. There's blood and everything coming out of Vaughn's chest. Gordo reaches over and takes the Prophet Five book from beneath Leeman's body and then everyone gets into their cars and leaves. P.S. In the future, Prophet Five Bad Guys, I'd suggest you try to make these deaths seem a bit more…natural? Gunning people down in broad daylight isn't really the best way to keep your shit secret, you know.
Syd runs over to Vaughn and, I shit you not, he's still alive. Leeman got shot seven times in the back and the dude's deader than a doornail. Vaughn got shot a bajillion times in the chest and…he lives? The hell? Syd scrambles to help him, and I keep thinking I'm going to see a bulletproof vest in there somewhere but…no. Oh, and if you really want someone dead, Prophet Five Bad Guys, might I suggest, I don't know, maybe a DIRECT HIT TO THE HEAD? That's what makes me think they set this all up to look like a real hit that's actually fake. I mean, come on, Jack shot Irina IN THE HEAD and they still managed to bring her back. This is just too fucked up for words. In more than one sense.
We return from the break to a hospital room, where Vaughn's having a million imaginary bullets pulled from his chest. That's probably an alien's body under there or something. They had it shipped in from Nevada. Jack shows up, and Syd tells him that Vaughn's still in surgery and no one's told her anything about his condition. Jack just looks at her and then launches into his version of "I told you so." He's basically like, uh, way to run off to help your total criminal of a fiancé, honey. He tells her about Renée Rienne and she's all, dude. Way ahead of you. Already know that. Jack's all, uh, then, what're we talkin' here? Why'd you risk your life for a guy who was working with a known criminal? And that's the precise moment that Syd decides to tell her father that he's going to be a grandpa, even though she's not really answering the question. I mean, Syd went off to help Vaughn before she found out she was pregnant, so…I think I need to grab yet another delicious bat guano and river rat martini. Excuse me.
There's a beautiful moment that Victor Garber has where his face goes from "Dammit, Sydney!" to "Oh, honey!" in about two seconds flat. Syd swears she'll explain everything to him. The doctor exits the operating room and informs Syd that Vaughn's in recovery, but he sustained extensive organ damage. Syd wants to see him and the doctor says she can wait in his room until he wakes up. Then he walks off to write an email to Ripley's Believe or Not: "Dear Sirs: I never believed in miracles until the day a man who'd been shot four gazillion times in the chest got wheeled into my operating room AND HE WAS STILL ALIVE."
Jack turns to his daughter and declares that he's going to do everything he can to help her and Vaughn. Syd just kind of nods at him and walks off, and again, there's this great moment where Jack's face is like, "Honey? Where ya goin'? Need a hug? Oh, never mind. Moment of opportunity missed. God, I'm a cold-hearted jackass." His phone rings. It's Dix. Gordo wasn't Special Investigations at all; he went off the grid two years ago. How the fuck did that guy get through the door at APO, then? What, they don't do extensive background checks on people who come knocking at their door about potential double agents? The fuck?
Syd goes to see Vaughn and, in yet another glaring lapse of reality, he's actually awake. And coherent. And I'll tell you one thing: my father went through six hours of surgery for esophageal cancer and when he came out of it, he was awake, all right. He was also on morphine, terrified, flailing, and kept trying to show us his catheter. And he was like that FOR THREE DAYS. And, yes, it was funny. But it was only funny on the fourth day, when I convinced him that I was a Puerto Rican waitress and he was on leave and his glass of water was actually a cerveza muy fría. But I have a note for the writers: don't try to tell me that someone with severe organ damage just leaves the operating room and is in a regular room fifteen minutes later without a billion tubes coming out of their body and not knowing where they are, okay? A little reality check here woulda been nice, buds.
Jack enters the room and hilariously says, "Hi." Like, the word itself isn't funny, but his delivery totally is. He informs them of Gordo's status as a ghost and that he was well-placed and well-connected. Syd asks what they're gonna do. They're gonna pretend Vaughn dies and send him into one of Jack's Bunkers of Deep Thought and keep him safe until this shit is over, that's what. Over at the Apple Store, Marshall and Weiss are working on some scheme and Marshall says he just broke about thirty international laws. Weiss assures him that even if he gets caught, he'll be going to Camp Cupcake, not Fox River Penitentiary. They walk over to Dix as Dix tells Jack over speakerphone that his Italian contact secured passports for them and they'll coordinate transport as soon as Vaughn is stable.
Dix asks what the outlook is for Vaughn, and Jack says they'll know more in the twenty-four to forty-eight hours. Weiss tells Jack that he has the blueprints of the Cape Town villa in front of him and it should be no problem getting in, but they'll need two teams. I have no idea what's going on. Marshall's checked the Pentagon archives for Prophet Five but hasn't found anything. Jack says to keep looking and to go back at least ten years. He turns and looks at Sydney, tending to Vaughn in the room across the hall.
"I've always liked Owen," says Sydney. Me too, Sydney. In fact, I like him so much, I'll see anything he's in. Even shit like Starsky and Hutch. For so strong is my love for the Owen. Oh, wait. You're talking about the Spy Baby? "Owen"? There's only one person "Owen" works for, Syd, and that's the tall blond drink of water down Texas way. On everyone else, it sounds like something you cough up in the back of your throat. Vaughn agrees with me. He thinks it sounds like something you name a gerbil. Hee. Syd suggests "Clementine," because she's obviously high. I mean, what? "Clementine"? What about "NADIA"? You know, your dear departed comatose sister? Or, perhaps, the name of Michael's father? I mean, his real name? Syd suggests "Isabelle" and Vaughn smiles. "Isabelle Vaughn," he rasps. "Isabelle Bristow Vaughn." Well, technically, it'd be Isabelle Bristow Vaughn Michaux, I think. But go on.
Syd starts to cry, holding his hand as he tires. She tells him to close his eyes and she'll be right there. "Syd," he says, "I love you." "I love you too," she says, kissing him on the lips and then on the forehead. She goes to the window. And Vaughn crashes. As Jack watches outside, the doctors go to work on Vaughn and rush Syd out of the room and all I can say is that if this is a fake death, it's a damn good one. The doctors work on Vaughn as Sydney watches and we slam to black.
When we return, Vaughn is flat out on the hospital bed and Sarah McLachlan's singing about dirty little secrets and really, it's never a good sign when Sarah McLachlan's singing because her songs go really, really well with death. Two rather impersonal doctors enter and throw the blanket up over Vaughn's face and pull him out of the room. Syd just looks floored. Vaughn's body passes by Jack. He has almost no expression. Syd walks up to him and grimaces; she doesn't look nearly as wrecked as I thought she'd be. But I guess when you've discovered one fiancé dead in your bathtub, watching another one die of heart failure as a result of billions of bullets doesn't really faze you much, huh?
At the funeral, everyone looks stone-faced. Jack, Dix, Marshall, and Weiss are among the pallbearers and they carry Vaughn's body out to the hearse. Syd stands on the steps, looking every inch the grieving widow. I have to admit to a couple of well-dropped tears during this second viewing, mostly due to that bitch McLachlan. Stop singing about angels and drinking, dammit! As Syd watches the remaining men in her life place Vaughn's casket in the hearse, she gets a look on her face that I can only call "steely resolve." Jack turns back and looks at his daughter and recognizes that look. Because damned if it isn't his own standard steely expression looking right back at him.
London. 4 Months Later. Élodie Bouchez, looking even weirder than usual in a big red fright wig, is tending bar in a seedy pub. Syd enters, wearing a wig that's possibly even uglier than Élodie's. Syd parks it at the bar and Élodie asks what she needs. "You're a hard person to find," says Syd. "But if I can do it, so can they." Élodie says she has no idea what Syd's talking about. "I know who you are, Renee," says Sydney. Élodie's reaching for her hidden gun when Sydney says that this is about Michael Vaughn. "You're Sydney," says Élodie. "You should have walked away." "You don't know me very well," says Sydney. You can say that again. Also? Good thing that bar was there to hide your big belly or else we'd think you were pregnant or something.
week on Alias: Syd goes on a bad guy hunt and takes out her pregnancy hormones on DMG.