Alias 12/9 (1 Viewer)

[Joel C]

I forgot to tape Alias tonight! If anyone would be willing to work out mailing me a tape, I'd be eternally grateful. I can pay for postage and even return the tape if you'd like.

Thanks!

 

[Patrick Sun]

No help on the tape, but my comments are spoilerized:

Pretty good episode, with the paranoia level on "high".

Will's so unintentionally funny in some respects with that bug he found.

I knew Sloan's communicade was bait for the CIA. Good thing Jack caught wind of it and did the research.

Sidney's goose looks to be cooked, but someway she'll get out of it.

Perhaps Dixon might be able to be turned later, since he owes his life to the real CIA.

 

[Joseph S]

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!
I've got finals on the 20th and the monday prior. Next week's episode looks to be fantastic.
How exactly did she catch herself on the ladder and how will they get her out of this one?? I would think she's getting out of SD-6, but that can't happen because she would lose all contacts at home and school. They aren't about to off 80% of the cast. You'll see next Sunday, I'll find out a week from Friday. :frowning:
However, I'm really about ready to fire the remote through the TV the next time they show one of those spoilers going to commercial break. It is a terrible decision ABC has made on that one. Having 3 overlapping bugs on the screen is a tad much too.

 

[Jason Quillen]

Yeah, I wasnt happy with the way they wraped up the falling off the ladder thing. If I remember correctly she had climbed a decent height, and when she fell it looked like a ways down. Then it showed her stretched out over the rocks, I mean come on - the girl would have have broken something, the way she landed it should have been her back.

Then the k-direc. girl doesnt even think to close the lid of the hole? I realize Syd's gotta live but there were just too many things wrong in the beginning of the episode.

The rest of the episode was quite good though. I knew the hit was bait for the CIA, but I never saw the twist at the end coming, with the interception of the CIAs frequency.

Looks like the shits gonna hit the fan next sunday, and it looks like Will may see some action!



JQ

 

[Michael Reuben]

Jason --

Then it showed her stretched out over the rocks, I mean come on - the girl would have have broken something, the way she landed it should have been her back.

M.

 

[Jason Quillen]

Oh, well then there you go. That makes a lot more sense then what I had originally thought.

JQ

 

[Craig P]

So much for my theory "the hit's on Dad." :p)

Confusion: was the report of the intercept made to Sloan, Dreyer, or both? I'm thinking both, but I'm too lazy to go back and check my tape.

Speculation: Is it SD-6 proper, or just Sydney's father who's working with Will here? I'm leaning toward the latter, based on the mini-snippet of revelation in the preview for next week. Which, incidentally, I thought the one for this week was really well done in terms of how what they gave away related to the episode itself.

As regards the mini-teasers before commercials, since I was watching on tape (which I will be recording over tomorrow afternoon and night with other stuff, so I can't make it available to the OP, sorry), I just fast-advanced past them. Comparable to my usual strategy of muting them. So still, while I find them annoying, they're not the end of the world.

 

[Joel C]

Well, if no one can send over a tape, can someone post a detailed synopsis? I don't want to wait a week for mightybigtv to get it done!

Thanks. I'm so pissed at myself, this has been my most enjoyed show since Buffy got so depressing (not that I don't still respect Buffy's risk taking more).

 

[Craig P]

Synopsis - wait until you're sure you won't be able to get a tape before reading this:

After recapping the previous episode's events, we find that Sydney has survived her fall, though it's not clear whether she miraculously landed at the bottom without breaking anything or somehow caught on the ladder on the way down (the latter seems to be the accepted choice). Upon arriving at the surface, she finds bloody footprints leading away and Dixon shot in the chest. He's only semi-conscious, but seems somewhat aware as she calls CIA for a helicopter rescue (repeating her code name, "freelancer"). She tells Sloan she drove him into town, and Sloan medevacs him to an SD-6 hospital in L.A., where he's unconscious. Sydney is afraid he'll remember her calling the CIA.

Dreyer reports to Sloan that he believes Sydney is the double agent. Sloan is skeptical, because her test shows no spikes (i.e., she didn't fail) -- apparently, she beat the test itself but not the man's instincts. He says it's too flat. He demands Sloan order her killed or he'll take independent action. Sloan briefs Sydney on her next assignment, which will be to retrieve a bank account number from a hard drive in Italy, then drop the result in a park. We see Sloan order a communique to SD-4, ordering her assassination at the drop.

Vaughn intercepts the assassination order, and orders an extraction. Sydney's father hears about this, does some investigation of his own, and goes to operations. He tells Vaughn to call off the extraction, as it wasn't actually sent to anybody but the CIA hook in SD-6's servers. Vaughn thinks this is too big of a risk with Sydney's life, but finally acquiesces. Bristow turns out to be right, and Sydney has apparently passed Sloan's test. Sloan reports this to Dreyer, who is not pleased but has no argument.

Dixon wakes up, and claims to remember nothing of Sydney calling in for help for him.

The bank account retrieval was because a gentleman (whose name I don't recall) pulled an ostensible robbery of a bank, but actually had two operatives transfer funds from a frozen account there to another account (which Sydney was to retrieve). He previously had business with SD-6. Sloan claims that he may set up shop in the middle east with the money and will be a danger, they don't want to bring him in but do want to cripple him. Vaughn tells Sydney that actually, he had been the buyer of the nuclear device from a previous episode that Sydney had disabled. Since he thought only SD-6 knew about this, he then double-crossed SD-6 on a deal for Stingers, taking the money and running without delivering the goods, so this is actually revenge. The CIA wants to get the account number and trace where SD-6 takes the money.

It turns out that the account number wasn't on the hard drive. The account number is in a safe deposit box in Geneva. Sydney is given a microphone by the CIA to capture her reading of the account number. She talks her way in, knocks out the executive who takes her into the vault, burns into the safe deposit box, narrowly escapes discovery by a guard, and walks out. But there's a catch - the tech guy at SD-6 discovered a transmission at the same time Sydney relayed the account number to her partner (not Dixon, 'cause he's still laid up). Dreyer at least, and maybe Sloan, get this report. The action to be taken is not clear. Sydney is captured by indeterminate men at the end of the episode, after leaving the aforementioned visit to Dixon after he wakes up.

Meanwhile, as Will's friend looks at the bug, he discovers it's still on. Will pleads with the person on the other end to talk to him, giving his cell phone number. Not getting a response, then he shows the bug to Sydney's roommate. Immediately, he gets a call, telling him to stop talking about the bug and claim the call was a wrong number. The next day, he gets another call, and is eventually led to cell phone in the glove box of a car. He's asked if he's "ready." The caller refuses to say whether he will be endangered. Will says, "I'm ready."

I think that's all of the important plot points.

Here's what I remember of the teaser for next week:

Sloan says, "Someone's working against us." Will says, "What the heck is SD-6." Somebody puts a gun to Will's head. General action with Sydney. All in all, very non-committal. Gotta give them credit for not spoiling these things too much.

Hope I didn't miss anything.

 

[Craig P]

More synopsis stuff:

Before sending her to Italy (the party, where Sydney retrieves the hard drive info and is ostensibly to be killed), Sloan calls her in to talk. She gets the sense that he's saying goodbye, whether that's because he thinks she'll fail his test and get extracted or because he wants to give an extra oomph to the idea he's ordering her killed isn't clear. Anyway, we're told that he's known Jack Bristow since 1971, before she was born. He considers her a daughter, which was also presumably why he pulled her in. He claims to have argued with Security Section against killing Danny, which Sydney disbelieves. She makes no attempt to show any sort of reconciliation with him.

One more thing... Dreyer seems to think Sydney is a mole for K-Directorate, since he particularly notes her failure to recover the Rambaldi journal in Argentina.

 

[Jay H]

Close the lid? they also didn't bother to shoot Dixon in the head, don't you always shoot once in the head to finish somebody off, Shouldn't you expect a person to be wearing a vest? Anyway, and they didn't bother to take Dixon's radio either... if they didn't skeedadle out of there, or it's a decent FRS radio, they could of heard Sydney's comm. attempt to reach Dixon....
About the fall, maybe she's Inspector Gadget and has an emergency suit in her shirt??
Oh gee, I posted a big black box!
Jay

 

[Danny R]

don't you always shoot once in the head to finish somebody off?

"Three in the head, know they're dead". - Morgan Freeman in Nurse Betty.

 

[Jon Mercer]

I was wondering if
Dixon's gunshot was a cover for him being a double agent for K-dirctorite, weather self inflected or not be it was life threatening enough to scare Sidney but then again he didn't die. How else would K-directorite know where the journal would be located?

But then again I could be wrong.

 

[Jon Mercer]

the rest of my post got cut!

It was supposed to say:

How else would K-directorite know where to find the journal, and why else would Dixon not wear his vest, and lastly it would explain the sappy "I respect you and what you do" speech from last episode (maybe Dixon thought he might die from having to get shot)


but once again, I could be wrong

 

[Michael Reuben]

Jay H --

Regarding the fall, see my spoiler-protected post above.

M.

 

[Danny R]

Yes, K-directorate definately has a mole in either SD-6 or the CIA. There is no other way they could have been at the journal site.

 

[Patrick Sun]

Wouldn't it be funny if the SD-6 was Marshall(?) the geek boy who has the hots for Sidey.

If Jack turns out to be the guy leading Will on this spy hunt, I think that would be just as funny, especially with that menacing voice modulator used to contact Will.

 

[DaveF]

[Menacing Voice] "Stop talking about the bug, and tell her it's a wrong number."
Another predictably slow, uneventful, Alias :p)
They just keep jerking me around with mis-direction, and then when I expect mis-direction, they play it straight! Arrgghhh!!

 

[Randy Tennison]

I am truly enjoying this show. Action, mystery, and eye candy!

I agree that Dixon must be a mole for K-Directorate. Everytime he is there, K is there. When he's not there (like at the bank), no problems.

The whole "Run, Sydney!" over the radio was very reminiscant of the Mission Impossible movie, with Jim being "killed" on video. I didn't buy it!

 

[Paul P]

One more thing:

Dreyer got a call right after sydney was grabbed. The voice said "We have her." Click. Dial tone. So clearly SD-6 has her, right? And what if the phone call to Will is from the geek guy? And what about the new guy on the team? Bygones. Always have to wait until next week.


Have they been starting the show a few minutes early in everyone's viewing area? I set my VCR to tape it, but missed the opening because they started early!