Previously on Alias: Once upon a time, Sydney Bristow was a grad student by day and a spy by night. Her mommy and daddy were spies too, but she didn't find that out until later. Her bestest friend was a guy named Willage who started out stupid, but got smarter (and hotter) later. Her roommate was a girl named Francie who used to just sit around going, "Sure I believe you got a black eye and a broken rib while on a banking junket! Wanna see my restaurant?" But then some evil bitch shot her, and she brainwashed Will into thinking they had sex, and she was much, much more interesting.
Sydney's soulmate was a man named Vaughn, and he loved her the most, but he was shot a bajillion times in the chest not too long ago, so that made Sydney sad. Being pregnant also made Sydney sad, but mostly because Vaughn wasn't around and she woke up on a freighter in the middle of the ocean. Sydney might have been even sadder if she'd known that her own mommy was responsible for her being on that freighter in the middle of the ocean, but she's too busy trying to not go into labor to notice the hot, salty tears of impending motherly betrayal slipping down her face.
Before Sydney wound up sailing the high seas, she had adventures with Rambaldi, the Alliance, SD-6, The Covenant, Prophet Five, and The Horizon. But all that matters now is that Prophet Five is the group that killed Sydney's boyfriend and The Horizon is something they want. Sydney has a sister, but she's in a coma, so fuck her. Sydney's daddy is about to be a grandpa, Sydney's mommy is pretty much a bad guy, and if you think Sydney's boyfriend is dead, well then, children, you really DO believe in fairytales.
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome back to Alias.
We begin where we left off, with Sydney discovering that she's on a freighter, cruising along in the middle of a vast ocean. Hi, Sydney! We missed you! Peyton runs up with her henchmen and pinpoints Sydney in the distance. A chase ensues. Sydney runs inside and discovers a radio room. She quickly dispatches the radio operator, kicking his ass to the ground. Pregnant women everywhere shout, "She kicked the shit out of someone? I can't even GET OFF THE SOFA, let alone KICK THE SHIT OUT OF SOMEONE. Pass the Ben and Jerry's, dammit." Syd gets to work on the radio equipment and attempts to make a distress call to her people. Suddenly, she has sharp abdominal pains. She pulls it together and continues the call. Peyton arrives and jiggles the door handle, trying to get in. She orders her henchman to shoot the handle off, and they enter, only to find no Sydney anywhere in sight. Peyton sees the radio equipment and figures out that Sydney's been making some long distance calls, and she's none too pleased about it.
Apple Store. Jack enters through the Secret Red Entrance of Redness. Hi, Jack! You rock! Sloane walks up and demands to know what Jack found out. Hi, Sloane! You're a twisted little fart! Jack says that he received confirmation that Prophet Five is the group that's holding Sydney, and so far the CIA hasn't received any demands or ransom note or anything. Jack orders Sloane to contact everyone he knows, official or otherwise. Sloane says he will, and leaves. And...scene.
Suddenly, Marshall shouts out for Jack. Hi, Marshall, you geek! Jack runs over, and Marshall tells him that he just recovered a field transmission from Sydney. They listen to the transmission, but as they do, it starts acting funky and then everything on his screen starts deleting. Marshall says it's as if someone's deleting the archive. Jack's all, what archive? What system are you logged onto? We don't find out right away, but whatever system it is, it has both Jack and Marshall gobsmacked. Back on the boat, Peyton's telling someone on a cell phone that she has everything under control. A bunch of Bulgarian henchmen go off to look for Sydney. She's hiding behind a large vent, so good luck with that, Bulgarians.
Conference Room of Endless Expositions. Jack enters and fills the troops in on Sydney's predicament. He then informs them that before Marshall could fully analyze Sydney's transmission, someone deleted it. Someone at Langley. Everyone at the table is like, "Mwuh?" Because this means that Prophet Five has managed to infiltrate the CIA. Jack goes on to say that the message was probably backed up to the Echelon server at Langley, but the only way to access that is from inside Langley itself, which means they'd have to break into the CIA. Jack declares that, as of this moment, all APO activities are to be strictly compartmentalized, even from the CIA itself. He understands that this would make everyone in the room a traitor to their country, and that if anyone would like to take a leave of absence, that's totally cool with him. No one says a word. "All right then," says Jack. "We're wheels up in an hour."
Hell YEAH we are.
And now is the time on Alias when we put on our dancing shoes once again and dance, dance, DANCE!
After the break, we return to the Floating Boat of Baby-Carrying Spies right as Sydney comes upon Peyton in a hallway. This time, though, Sydney's got a gun pointed at Peyton's head. Peyton gets snotty with Sydney, saying, "A woman in your condition...shouldn't you be resting?" "Thanks," snits Syd. "I don't plan on staying long." Heh. Syd pats Peyton down as Peyton informs her that the message she sent didn't go through. Syd's all, yeah, whatever; pull this leg and it plays "Baa Baa Black Sheep." Peyton's all, no, really, dude. Your message was intercepted at Langley. Syd's all, you're bluffing. Peyton's all, fine, whatever, you're not getting off this ship. Syd looks like she's unsure whether or not Peyton's bullshitting.
CIA Headquarters. We catch up with a tour that's making its way across the CIA seal. Included in her group are none other than Dixon and Marshall, both looking extremely ridiculous in their disguises. Particularly since Marshall's looks like a nerdier version of JJ Abrams. As they walk off with their tour group, Getty enters and informs Jack over comms that he's heading to payroll. Rachel enters at the same time and heads through security, telling the guard that she has a job interview. The guard tells her that she can't take her camera phone inside and he confiscates it, saying she can pick it up from the security office when she leaves. Rachel pretends to be disappointed and then walks off as the guard hands the tray with her phone in it to another guard, who takes it into the security office. Part A of the plan seems to be in place, apparently.
Getty makes his way to payroll and comes upon a terse woman at a computer. He tells her that there's a problem with his paychecks, and she tells him that it appears that he's no longer an employee, and the records show that someone's been cashing his checks, and it's probably his wife. Getty gently tells her to check her file again, because she's mistaken. She does, and she quickly realizes that his wife is dead. I mean, we don't hear her say that, nor do we see what's on her screen, but she gets that whole, "Ohhhhh. OH! I am so...I am so sorry!" attitude that people get when they're being dickheads to someone before they realize that that person has either lost a loved one, or has a terminal disease.
Back with Rachel's camera phone. It apparently comes with some extras other than voicemail and call waiting, because a little mini-laser shoots up out of the phone and aims at a wall across the way. The security guards are too busy watching porn on one of their monitors to notice the little laser show going on behind them. Jack gets on the horn and tells Getty to get a move on because they're locking into the server. Getty prods the payroll lady, and she heads off to find her supervisor. The second she leaves, Getty sits at her computer and hacks into what looks like the building's access control system.
Rachel makes her way to her assignment and tells Dix her location. He tells her that he's going to need "item number two," and she pulls out a lipstick, puts some on, then passes it to him behind his back as she walks by. Back with Getty, he quickly clears Rachel's passage to the Echelon server room. He tells Jack that Rachel's good to go, and that his work is done. Jack tells him to meet them at the rendezvous point, but instead of leaving, Getty gets back on the computer and unlocks the doors to the witness relocation record room. Wha?
Getty heads to the record room, almost running into Rachel on the way there. Once inside, he sits at a computer and goes to work. Rachel makes it to the Echelon room which, while unlocked, still has guards outside. Rachel tells this to Jack and Jack tells Dixon and Marshall that they're up. The tour guide has brought them to a large sculpture that's actually a code and Marshall geekily exclaims, "I got it!" Then he walks up and begins to describe how he's solved the code. While all eyes are on him, Dix sprays something from Rachel's lipstick tube up at a sensor. In the security room, a big "Anthrax" warning goes off and the guards jump into action, setting off an alarm. Marshall pretends to freak out, and Dix steps up. "Take it down a notch, Hamlet," he whispers. Hee.
The building begins evacuating as Rachel enters the Echelon room. Jack gives her the server number where Syd's transmission is stored. Meanwhile, Getty looks up a file with a picture of a dead woman in it. He brings up a picture of the suspect, a guy named Allen Korman, and tries to find out where he's currently located. A request for an encryption key comes up, and Getty shoves a little USB-type-looking thing into the keyboard. Rachel finds the server and discovers that the archive has been purged. The only way to possibly find Syd's message on the server is to remove the hard drive, but that's patched to the security system, so if Rachel removes it, the alarm goes off. Jack orders her to pull the hard drive. Sloane pipes up that they'll never be able to get her out. Jack just snaps that Rachel should pull the drive, and he'll be sure to get her out. Rachel pulls it and, sure enough, the alarms start going off. Rachel goes to the door and it's locked. Getty discovers his door is locked as well. Looks like Langley's in full lockdown.
"A lockdown?" a male voice snaps into his phone. "Thirty seconds ago I got a call about an evacuation due to an anthrax attack." The man steps into the light, and it's none other than Agent Sean! Hi, Agent Sean! Agent Sean is ripping someone a new asshole on the other end of his cell phone. He gets off and turns to the guy to his right, stating that he can't believe it, but he's going to have to cancel his Pilates class. Again. Hee! His phone rings and it's Jack, telling Weiss that Sydney's in trouble and he needs Weiss's help. Weiss barely even hesitates. "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever you need." Aw. Boyfriend Weiss! So helpful in a pinch!
Getty gets on the horn to Dix and asks what the hell is going on. Dix tells him about the lockdown and asks if he's at the rendezvous. Getty's all, uh...not really. I kind of took a detour over here by witness protection. Dix tells him to hold his position and he'll see what he can do. Just then, Weiss rushes in and eyeballs them. Marshall's like, um, is he here to arrest us? He looks like he's here to arrest us. Hold me. Weiss, however, just greets Dixon as Ambassador Rutland and Marshall as Mr. Cornish. He weaves some lie about them having a meeting up on the hill and then spirits them off, away from the guards and chaos. Weiss tells them that Jack filled him in, what do they need from him? Dix apprises him of Getty's and Rachel's situations. Weiss hands Dix something that should be good to get him into WITSEC and states that he and Marshall will handle Rachel. Everyone scatters.
In the Echelon room, guards are entering as Rachel looks scared. In the WITSEC room, Dixon's entering as Getty manufactures a lame lie. Dix is all, dude? What the? Getty's all, I got lost. These government buildings are BIG. Do you have a Tic Tac? Dix either buys this or doesn't have time to question it, because he just tells Getty to get a move on and leaves. Getty grabs his little USB doodad and follows Dix out the door. Elsewhere in the building, Weiss and Marshall hack into the security camera feed and find Rachel. Weiss gets on comms and guides Rachel away from the approaching guards รก la The Matrix while Marshall tries to figure out how to unlock the door so that Rachel can escape. Weiss tells Rachel to, on his signal, run toward the doors at the end of the room as fast as she can; they'll have the doors open by the time she gets there. If they don't, she can just slam into them like a schnauzer after a chew toy. Marshall says, "Got it!" Weiss says, "Go!" Rachel says, "WHAM!" Well, really, her body says, "OUCH!" and the still-locked-doors say, "WHAM!" Because Marshall's forgotten to hit "enter." So Rachel's just smacked right into them. Hee hee hee. Marshall hits enter, Rachel escapes, and the doors shut behind her, locking the guards inside. Marshall and Weiss breathe a sigh of relief and get the hell out of Dodge.
The crew meets up beneath the building, and everyone gets up to speed on the hard-drive/Sydney-message issue. Weiss tells them to head down to the end of the corridor in order to exit; he heads upstairs to wipe the surveillance feeds. He stops them and asks if they hear anything about Sydney, to let him know. "Oh, and time?" he says. "Just call." Ha! Love him.
Good Ship Baby Pop. Syd shoves Peyton into a room when she hears Bulgarian voices in the distance. Suddenly, Syd doubles over in pain. She's not looking all that well. Syd puts her hand out for balance and sees a file beneath it that has her name on it. She hits the lights and discovers that they're in some sort of makeshift hospital room. There are sonograms of the Spy Fetus up on the wall. Syd demands that Peyton tell her what the hell's going on. "You have until three," she says, gasping. "One...two...th--" Peyton grabs the gun out of her hand and Syd promptly falls straight to the ground.
It's time for yet another commercial break! Shut up, American Inventor.
When we return, Sydney's flat out on a gurney, and someone's taking a sonogram of the Spy Fetus. Something is DEFINITELY wrong with that fetus, because it has red and green lights where its heart should be. It's so lit up, it should be a disco, is what I'm saying. Sydney starts struggling and realizes that she's strapped down to the gurney. A man with a foreign accent rushes over and tells her not to move, and that the doctor is coming. Syd asks if something's wrong with her baby. Hell YEAH, there's something wrong with your baby! It's sucking on a thumb made of NEON.
Apple Store. Marshall and Getty hack into the hard drive and discover that whoever wiped the drive used a secure deletion program which basically overwrites whatever is on the drive with tons of extraneous data and noise. Marshall can't get to the original data without an electron microscope and two weeks, apparently. Dix and Rachel rush up with a transcript of something that makes Marshall think that whoever authorized the deletion of Sydney's transmission had Alpha Black clearance. This means that whoever authorized the deletion is one of the highest of the high muckety-mucks at the CIA.
Marshall says that only seven people in the entire agency have Alpha Black clearance. And those same seven people were all assigned a modified version of a secure cell phone. Each of the phones broadcasts a unique device ID; fortunately, Marshall managed to match one of the cell phone IDs to the deletion authorization. He says that if Jack manages to get within fifty feet of the phone in question, Marshall might be able to scan it and see if it matches. Dix suggests surveilling all the guys, but Jack thinks that'll take too long. "I have an idea," he says. Oh, I BET you do.
Washington, D.C. Awesome Jack and his Awesome Briefcase of Awesomeness head toward a secure conference room. The guards outside let him in, and Jack slickly (and awesomely) futzes with the door, for reasons which will become clear momentarily. Waiting for him in the room are the seven high muckety-mucks, including Jack's old buddy Devlin. They engage in some small talk, then Jack flicks a switch on his briefcase, bringing up the scanner back at APO. Some big Fatty McFatterton over on the right asks Jack why he called this meeting. Jack says that he didn't call them together for an ops meeting; he called them together because they all have Alpha Black clearance. He then exposits for a bit about Prophet Five and how someone at the CIA is in collusion with them. Someone with Alpha Black clearance.
Both Fatty McFatterton and Devlin balk at what Jack is insinuating. Marshall gets a signal match as Jack says, "One of you is working for Prophet Five, and we have your number." "That's enough!" says Devlin, getting up. "This meeting's over." Marshall dials the criminal's number, and Fatty McFatterton's phone rings. Jack pulls his gun and shoots him in the gut. Awesome. Jack leaps over and grabs the guy by the neck and demands to know where Sydney is. "Do yourself a favor," he says as Devlin looks like he's going to intervene, "stand back." Heh. Jack asks again where Sydney is, and Fatty just says he doesn't know what the hell Jack's talking about. "Wrong answer," snits Jack, shooting him in the shoulder. Ouch!
One of the seven guys hits the alarm button, and the guards come running. But Jack has wisely (and awesomely) sealed the doors. "Where is she?" Jack asks again. "You're crazy!" sputters Fatty. Jack hits him in the nose with the butt of his gun. Ha! Fatty? When Jack asks you a question about his little girl, YOU ANSWER THE QUESTION. Fatty sputters some more and then finally gasps, "The Athena...cargo ship..." "Where is the ship?" asks Jack. "North Atlantic," says Fatty. The guards bust through the glass with a chair, and Jack gets taken into custody. "Did you get that?" Jack asks Dix over comms. "We got it, Jack," says Dixon. "We're on it." Jack gets dragged off to the Temporary Holding Cells of Vengeful Daddies.
Back with the Storyline I Could Care Less About. I like Balthazar Getty and everything, but...yawn. So, Getty puts his USB thingy or whatever into Marshall's computer and brings up the WITSEC file. Since Marshall announced back when they were discussing the hard drive problem that he'd developed a program that can decrypt anything less than 512-bit encryption in nothing flat, I guess Getty figures that he can easily get the access key for Korman's location file. And he does. He finds out Korman's location, and that's the last we hear of this lame storyline for a bit.
Floating Uterus at Sea. The foreign dude who left before returns to Syd's bedside. He picks up a syringe filled with a milky substance. Syd demands to know what it is, and he tells her it's something to make her relax. Hey, you know what would make her relax? TELLING HER WHAT'S GOING ON. But, you know, keep using your Amazing Relaxation Solution of Two-Percent Milk, dude. Back at APO, Marshall, Sloane, and Rachel are trying to locate Syd's boat. Unfortunately, the Atlantic? She's a pretty big ocean. Rachel suggests something about patching into a radar feed, and Marshall does so. Within seconds, Sloane's located the boat. He calls Dixon and tells him that Marshall's uploading the coordinates to the onboard GPS, and that he and Getty are clear to go. They head out on a helicopter.
Back with the Uterus at Sea, Sydney overhears female voices talking about her dizziness and difficulty breathing. A woman in a doctor's coat approaches, and it turns out to be Syd's actual OB/GYN from Syd's one doctor's appointment ages ago. "You bitch," says Sydney. "What did you do to me?" "My job as your doctor, Sydney," the doctor responds. "Nothing more." The doctor tells her to relax and then picks up a big-ass syringe. Syd starts to struggle, and the doctor tells her that she has to sit still, because she's about to draw amniotic fluid and that's a delicate procedure. "You go to hell!" says Syd, trying to get out of her bindings. The foreign guy holds her down as the doctor draws the fluid. A spot of blood appears in the fluid, and the doctor orders the foreign guy to prep the room because they need to begin right away.
Apple Store. Sloane gets on the horn and asks Dixon what their status is. Dix says they're almost there. Meanwhile, Peyton's on the phone with someone, saying, "You're sure she gave us the wrong information?" Ah-ha. So the person on the other end of the phone has figured out that Syd lied about that whole Horizon thing. The person also seems to have knowledge of Dixon and Getty's impending arrival, because Peyton's suddenly all, who? What? When? How far? Dammit! Peyton busts into the operating room and tells the doctor that she has forty minutes to do whatever it is she's about to do. The foreign guy puts a mask over Sydney's face and she goes to sleep.
Dix and Getty arrive and bust a move to the interior of the ship. There's no armed welcoming committee, which sets off Dix's alarms. The ship appears to be totally abandoned. They finally come upon Sydney's operating room. She appears to be fine, and her pregnant belly is still intact. She asks if the baby's okay, and Dix just tells her, "It's going to be okay, Syd." So that's a no, then? Dix and Getty put Syd onto the medical helicopter, and she flies off into the dark.
Apple Store. Sloane's on the phone with Angus, who's chastising him for making a grave error. Apparently, Angus didn't like it so much when Sloane gave his team the whereabouts of the Athena and, in the future, Angus would really like it if Sloane ran everything past HIM first before taking any action. You know, if he values his daughter's life. "As far as you're concerned," says Angus, "we own you. Is that clear?" Sloane says it's crystal and looks sick to his stomach.
Elsewhere, Marshall geeks up to Rachel and blathers something at her about the decryption program he wrote and how somebody accessed the program when he was out of his office. He goes on to say that he found out that Getty accessed the WITSEC room at Langley, and then he hands Rachel the folder with the pictures of Getty's dead wife and that dude, Korman. Marshall surmises that Korman's who Getty is looking for.
Sure enough, in a dimly lit parking garage somewhere else on the planet, Getty's sitting in his car, waiting for Korman to make an appearance. His phone rings and it's Rachel. Getty wisely decides not to pick up. Korman shows up and walks over to his car. Before he can get in, Getty walks over to him. In German, Korman asks how Getty found him. "Peter," he says, "I'm sorry." Peter? No, no, no, Korman; it's BALTHAZAR. Well, really, it's "Thomas," but who likes "Balthazar" better? That's what I thought. Korman blathers about being under orders and how Getty has to believe him. Getty says that's not why he's here; he needs to get a message to The Cardinal. Oh, for the love of...another "the?" Jesus.
Army Hospital. Jack approaches a room as his attending guard takes a position outside. He enters, and Syd nervously looks at him, saying they won't tell her anything, that they just keep taking tests. Jack tells her that there was a crisis with her pregnancy, but that the baby's fine. He says that she was suffering from placental abruption, and that the doctor on the boat actually corrected the problem and saved her, and the baby's, life. It sure didn't look that way to me. "Why?" asks Syd. "Why would they do that?" Jack doesn't know what it means, but he promises to get to the bottom of it. Syd starts to cry, and Jack tries to comfort her. "When I was on the ship," she starts, "they tried to extract information from me...they--" "Shhh," says Jack. "Not here." Wise move, dude. Jack's guard enters and says that it's time. Syd looks at her dad like, dude? What's going on here? Jack just assures her that it's nothing but a small matter he needs to attend to. He kisses her on the forehead and leaves.
on Alias: The Alias Extravabonanganza Continues!