ALIAS – Episode 6 - Sydney
Nocturne
“We both know I’ll betray you.”

I love this season so far. The new look they have given Sydney is smashing. She looks so mature and in charge of herself.

I think the most powerful scene comes at the last between Dixon and Sloane…but more about that later.

Do we think Irina is dead? The woman keeps popping up in every single episode. As if the fans could ever forget her. In this episode, Sydney hallucinates seeing her father planning to kill her “like her mother.”

On with the story: A teacher of English at the University of Amsterdam kills herself in front of another student after seeing the same man at both ends of the corridor. Later we learn she was a CIA employee along with her husband, Jason Cahill.

The scene shifts to the hockey rink (probably the most action it’s gotten with the hockey season in the shambles it is) where Vaughn is teaching Sydney how to flip the puck into the net. They talk about fear and Sydney’s insistence they take things slow. Their cells ring. APO wants them to report.

There they learn about the death of Nancy Cahill and the disappearance of her husband a CIA operative. It seems their assignment was to look at emerging drugs. Sloane hands out assignments: Sydney and Jack are to go to Amsterdam to search the Cahills’ digs. Vaughn and Nadia are to retrace Jason’s last days. Dix on and Weiss also have to trace Nancy’s last days.

In Amsterdam, Jack and Sydney enter the Cahills’ apartment. There are no lights and no light bulbs. Jack finds a laptop and Sydney opens a locked door and goes up a small staircase. In the room, she is scanning some very weird pictures hanging around a room when she is attacked and bitten. Jack kills the man who it turns out is Jason Cahill, obviously gone mad.

Back in LA, Sydney has a MRI by the doctors, who give her a clean bill of health. Her blood and scans are clear. Jack knows Jason had a severe care of paranoia. APO believes he was under the influence of an unknown drug. Langley wants to know more about the drug.

Jack tells Sloane Sydney has not slept for thirty-six hours and he’s sending her home to rest. Sydney cannot. She’s restless. In the bathroom, she looks for a thermometer. Then she thinks she sees a bug in the sink. Hearing sounds from the front of the apartment, she comes out to see Nadia and Weiss enter.

Sydney, smiling, asks Weiss if he staying the night and Nadia says ‘no’. He is disappointed. Ah young love. Incidentally, Sydney glances at the thermometer in her hand and its registers 111 degrees and climbing!

The next day Sydney stands in front of the drawings where there are crazy words and sentences. Vaughn interrupts her saying that they must have been trying to reconstruct their last days.

In the briefing room, Sloane tells them that there is a contact of Jason’s called The Count, who may know something. He wants Sydney, Jack, and Vaughn to go. Dixon speaks up saying he thinks it is too soon for her to go back into the field. Sloane dismisses the others and asks Dixon to stay.

Sloane tells Dixon, “You do your job and I’ll do mine.”

Nadia knows about Syd’s temperature which registered 111 degrees plus. She wants Sydney to decline the mission until the doctors know why. Sydney tells her she’s feeling fine and objects to Nadia’s interfering. Vaughn wants to know if they are talking girl talk and Nadia say its people talk. As Sydney walks away, Nadia calls “be safe.”

In Bucharest, Jack and Vaughn stare at Sydney who has just dropped a cup of coffee on herself. She hallucinates seeing a tarantula in the cup. She does explain to them that it was hotter than she thought.

In disguise, Sydney goes into the nightclub to contact the Count. Her story is that Jason was sick and wanted her to get the information. Jack and Vaughn are to keep her in sight.
The Count makes her meet him in the balcony and on the way, Sydney again hallucinates Vaughn kissing a blond floozy.

In the balcony, the Count accosts her wanting to know what happened to Jason.
He tries to get away after finding a gun on her. Vaughn and Jack take The Count prisoner after he tries to escape. They want him to tell them all about Jason and the drugs.

Marshall calls Syd’s cell and tells Sydney that the drug she suspects she has in her system that after an incubation period, it can permanently alter the brain. Jack and Vaughn get Jason to talk as Sydney reveals she is one of ‘them’. He says he was the one who wanted the meet with Jason because he found out that one batch of the Nocturne was deadly. It could be absorbed through the skin.

Jack is reading about the drug, called Nocturne. He doesn’t know Sydney is seeing ‘things’ as her mind is being effected. Sydney even imagines The Count killing himself. Even Jack while talking to her says weird things such as “I’m going to kill you like your mother” one minute and then something else the next.
She even sees Sloane evolve from her father and he says, “We both know I’ll betray you and the people you care most deeply about, they’ll die.”

Weiss and Nadia learn who made the drug and where the lab is located. Jack tells Sloane he’s going to Prague to find the lab and the antidote. He knows there has to be one. It was too dangerous not for its inventor to have one on hand. Before Vaughn leaves, Sydney thinks Jack is talking to Vaughn about Sydney, saying, “Sydney’s as trustworthy as her mother. I’m going to kill her like Irina.”

Sydney and Jack wait in the van while Vaughn is sent to find the antidote, which he does. She is having more hallucinations and asks Jack to tie her up. As she sits waiting, Jack tells her…

“You can’t imagine how I hate it when you talk. The reason I killed your mother is that I have a desperate need to make her voice stop ringing in my ears. What torments me now is that every time I look at you, I see your mother’s face.”


She thinks she’s going to retaliate and in a moment of sanity, tells him to tie her up. He does so with duct tape. (Bad Jack…tying her hands in front of her.) Sydney is a superbly trained agent…still there wouldn’t have been more action if he had. She asks him for a hug and when he does, in her paranoia, Sydney head butts him. She takes a knife she previously hid up her sleeve and cuts herself loose. She also takes his gun.

Leaving the lab, Vaughn hears Sydney call for help. He runs out into the street to see Sydney standing over her father, sobbing and crying out that she may have killed him.
Vaughn rushes to Jack and suddenly, Sydney is holding a gun on Vaughn.

She tells him, “I’m scared you are going to betray me again like you did with Lauren.”

They have a terrific fight. Sydney is better than Vaughn is, but before she do any real damage, Jack, who wasn’t dead, grabs her. Vaughn says he has the antidote and gives her a shot.

Back at APO, Dixon and Sloane have a confrontation after Sloane admits to a “tactical error.”

Then Dixon delivers a scathing speech: “I’ve asked myself countless times why I didn’t see the true nature of SD-6. For a while, I punished myself over it. Finally, I realized my only failure was that of imagination. Despite all the evil I encountered I never imagined a person could exist…someone thoroughly toxic…as yourself. I won’t make that mistake again. You want us to believe you have reformed…that for the love of your daughter you are listening to the better angels of your nature.

“Arvin lets be honest. You don’t have any and on that inevitable day when your true motive reveals itself, I promise you, I’ll be there. I’ll be waiting.”

After Dixon leaves, we can see a sly look come over Sloane’s face. I knew the bastard wasn’t being on the up and up! Actually, I know Sydney doesn’t believe it either. (He had Danny killed and Francine too.)

In the hospital Sydney and Vaughn talk. She kisses him and he leaves. She has a strange look on her face, just as she did during APO.


REMARKS:

Only in the sixth episode and we’re given hints about the future. In her hallucinations, we hear Sydney’s beliefs as to why Jack killed (?) Irina. Does she also believe that whenever he looks at her he sees Irina?

Sloane’s look as Dixon derides his ‘goodness’. If that wasn’t evil, I’ll eat my hat! If I were Dixon, I’d watch my back.

She hears Sloane tell her that he’ll betray her again one day.

I have to say I like Vaughn more and more. He is much more mature also than in previous seasons. I am guessing the killing of Lauren would do that.

The above leads to these DISCUSSIONS:

The hallucinations Sydney experienced especially what Jack said and Sloane also…are they real to her in the darkest part of her mind.

What about her reticence with Vaughn? Is she right? Should they go slow? Why does a certain look come over her face after she is with him? There have been times when she doesn’t seem ‘happy’, although I’m not sure that is the word to use.

Should Dixon ‘watch his back’? Is there the possibility Sloane will want to get rid of a man who has figured him out?

What about the rest of the team? They seem to be reacting rather benignly toward Sloane. Are they accepting him at face value? Jack seems to continue to be Arvin’s friend, even though he had an affair with Irina when she was Laura.

Here’s an interesting questions…like a poll. Did Arvin seduce Laura? Did Laura seduce Arvin? Did Arvin blackmail Laura into having an affair with him? Which of the two wanted the child? Was there a purpose?

I do beleive that sydney is harbouring some fear that she may not even be able to consciously identify
fear of vaughn and of her father

somehow they will leave her or betray her

I think it is easy with sloane because Syd knows he is evil and it makes sense to hate him

marshall is all good so it is easy to like /love him

those others fall deeper and and deeper into sydneys personal world and how she really interprets actions past present and future will no doubt teach her what her heart is really thinking

I think some of the tactcial error JJ made last year were alluding to something

the whole katya saying 5 years instead of the 10 we were told was gospel etc- makes me suspect jack or arvin or both somehow knew Laura was not what she seemed and in fact this could have been a rambaldi obsession or an act of blackmail but I think yelena will have a lot to tell us about the past the hints are dropped that she will be discussd or revealed to us this year-

also we know nothing of jacks family life and he is onscreen each week and we know a lot of irina life and the derevkos are never on screen so I am starting to think there is a reason for this and perhaps it will be revealed that jack and arvin are brothers or sloane has a son or a brother that will somehow tie him through blood to a major character

dixon is figuring it out and he or his kids will somehow suffer for that maybe soon maybe not but it will develop- maybe dixon will be forced to keep some of sloanes secrets

vaughn is more mature this season but it seems fixed somehow not as genuine as the way he was in S1 and S2- I have a feeling things may not go as planned in that romance department but then again what do i know?

brenda

But then what do any of us know. Everything is conjecture on our part. I really like Vaughn better this season than ever before. He seems more mature, more concerned. I think Sydney is not too sure though about their relationship.

B)

great column, I didn't get to watch the episode, so it's great to learn what happened from your writing.

anyhow, can't really seem to answer the questions, since I didn't watch it.

thanks for the pm, can't wait for the next column and episode!

Good report on this episode, lenafan.

I think Sydney's hallucinations represent some burried sub-conscious fears that she has about Vaughn and Jack. She didn't readily trust Sloane prior to this episode where she was bitten. I think the drug was playing on her paranoia.

Hmm, now on to Sydney and Vaughn. I think she is hestiant because of his relationship with Lauren. I also like him better in Season 4 than than in the previous three seasons.

Dixon doesn't have enough evidence about Sloane's plans. I'm not sure if Sloane would go after Dixon at this point ... but he might in the future if he senses Dixon getting closer to foiling his plans.


I think that some APO members like Nadia, Weiss, Marshall are soft on Sloane. Jack is playing the act of an 'old friend,' but part of me thinks that there might be more going on than is being revealed by JJ at this point relating to Jack.

Now about the Sloane/'Laura' affair that happened years ago:
I don't think that Sloane romantically seduced Irina while she was Laura. Out of the three scenarios I think one involving blackmail seems like the more acceptable one for me. Who wanted the child? I'm not sure .... possibly either. I'm not sure about the 'purpose' part.