ALIAS – Episode 12 – SYDNEY
The Orphan
“She works with me.”

So says Nadia during the episode this week. First, let me apologize. I’m late with my column again, but there were so many interruptions and problems after getting back from vacation that I’m just now getting around to it. Therefore, I’m going to deviate from my usual format and go with Nadia’s back-story in front of everything else that happened.

We meet Nadia first 1992 in the San Marcos Orphanage. A ‘sexual predator’ is abducting an orphan and Nadia saves her. In the chaos, Nadia escapes from the place. We next see her as a teenager working with her accomplice (or vice-versa) robbing a store. She is nearly caught by the storekeeper. She and Cesar Marquez, two teenagers, living on the streets by their wits, are happy dividing the money. However, they are cornered by a cop. Cesar is knocked out and Nadia is beaten severely after she attacks the cop.

She is now in jail. Brought to an interrogation room, she meets another ‘cop’ named Roberto Fox who works for the government. He recruits her to the unnamed organization, but which is Argentine Intelligence. She is perfect because no one knows who she is even though she has committed 130 crimes and the only thing tying her to those is her fingerprints.

The orphanage director, Sophia Vargas, comes to the jail and Nadia says she is sorry she didn’t come back. The director says it wasn’t her fault that she should have protected her. Nadia tells her the man offered her a job. The woman says she should take the job because “this is not where you were meant to be.” She will get a fresh start in life.

Nadia begins training. She is learning how to make a bomb when Marquez arrives. He too has joined the agency. She is happy as they train together even while stick training when he takes her down.

She is assigned her first mission with Diego, another young agent. She is beautiful as Fox observes when she enters his office dressed fit to kill. Robert kisses her. She is to meet Diego who will have a disk with information on it.

When she gets to the restaurant, she finds Diego dying from a stab wound in the abdomen. He gives her the disk, but also reveals that Robert is really a traitor and has had them steal secrets so he can sell them. She returns to Robert’s office and angry about his traitorous act, she kills him. It happens quickly.

Got the players? Cesar Marquez, her boyfriend, and street companion who was recruited. Roberto Fox, the supposed intelligence agent, who was also a spy and stole information from his government for money. All of it jells as the missions unfold.

Now to the current events:
Nadia is out running and when she arrives home, Sydney wants to know what is bothering her. She relates that in her own life, when she has a problem, she goes running and Nadia has been twice in a day. Just then, Vaughn calls her and Nadia goes to her room to shower.

Sydney meets Vaughn who shows her the notebook that he found at the bus station. (Thank goodness) He tells her can’t find any information on his Dad’s assignments. He is very curious because his father was supposed to have been killed in 1979 and now it looks like he was alive in 1982. Sydney states she’ll make a request for the missing files.

Their mission is a ‘snatch and grab op’ to retrieve amplifying glass that increases the power of laser pulse by at least ten times. The Jakarta faction is after it and a man identified as Cesar Marquez is going to try to steal it from the technical lab in Minsk, which is a city in Belarus. Sydney is backed up by Dixon, Nadia, and Weiss.

Marshall catches Vaughn at his computer. He gives Vaughn some access codes Sydney wanted him to have to the CIA mission archives. Marshall wonders what he’s doing and
When Vaughn says it is nothing.

Marshal responds, “You’re lying to me.”
Vaughn, realizing he cannot get away with everything, especially if Marshall is suspicious, says, “We should have lunch sometime.”

Marshall, of course, is flabbergasted and flattered. So is the audience. We all stand and cheer for the little guy.

In Minsk, at a party, Sydney armed with a Marshall-PDA, gets near the man who was the architect who built the laboratory building and she gets his signature, which leads to Marshall accessing the plans of the building. Marshall tells Sydney the technical lab with the amplifying glass in on the 15th floor. Nadia is behind her floating among the guests and once Sydney knows where, she lifts a badge-key. She hands it to Weiss who passes it to Sydney.

Suddenly Nadia sees Cesar, who is older, but evidently not ready to party as he has brought four of his men with him. Sydney completes her assignment when Nadia tells her Marquez is present. Sydney announces she is going after the piece of amplifying glass. No one seems to heed Nadia’s warning about Marquez that he is not casing the place, but is ready to take action.

Suddenly Marquez’s men fire their weapons over the crowd, all of whom panic and run. Cesar goes to find the glass. Sydney has already found it and has it when Martinez catches her. She gives it to him with his gun to her head. He threatens her with a gun wanting to know who she works for when Nadia who followed and is standing in the doorway, announces,

“She’s works with me.”

Marquez is stunned. However, he orders the two tied up and leaves with the glass. When they get home to APO, Nadia tells Sloane and Sydney about her relationship to Marquez. Nadia says she will get the glass back. Sydney tells Sloane they should use what Nadia knows about Cesar Marquez.

“You of all people should appreciate that!”

Sydney and Vaughn talk about the records. He can’t figure them out. Sydney looks at some of what he wrote and begins to translate it. She says it’s been encrypted. He’s astounded as she writes out the formula for translating it. Seems that dear old Dad taught this to her via crossword puzzles. “It was the least of my childhood dysfunctions.” She is off to Buenas Aires and ends the meeting with a kiss.

In Buenas Aires, Nadia has a meet with Cesar. Weiss and Sydney are listening to her as she and Cesar talk. She tries to strike up a deal, saying that she and Sydney had gotten to it first. He seems to agree, for old time’s sake, but he wants her listening device. She pulls it out of her hair and they elude Sydney and Weiss who are chasing after them when they lose contact. The last thing they heard was that the amplifying glass was in his office. Sydney calls Sloan who informs her that he chased down information that Marquez owned several pieces of property including that formerly owned by Robert Fox.

Meanwhile Vaughn has files, which give him a piece of information.

Cesar brings Nadia to the warehouse, which was the old training facility run by Robert Fox. In fact, it is Fox’s old office. She knows she has been tricked. Cesar accuses her of being the one who killed Fox. That even though people suspected him, he knew it had to be her. She and Cesar get into a fight, she, of course, prevails, taking him prisoner just as Sydney and Weiss arrive.

Meanwhile acting on information he received, Vaughn is now in Lisbon. When he knocks on the door and Sophia Vargas opens it. There she tells Vaughn about his father. She remembers him bringing Nadia, telling her she was in danger. He stayed a few days and then one morning he was gone. Vaughn asks her if she remembers anything else about his father. She says that Nightingale…she was on the phone and something in his (BV) voice said it was important to him. Vaughn wants to know did she know what it meant, but she doesn’t. Then she asks a question, “How is Nadia?” Vaughn answers, “She’s good.” The woman says nothing, but there is an odd look on her face.

REMARKS:

I thought it was a wonderful episode in that we are seeing Nadia during her ‘formative’ years. What happened to her seemed familiar to me. I think the writer of this episode loved La Femme Nikita (both the television show AND the movie, the original one, done in France). I have a DVD of the original and it was good.

The original version was French with subtitles. The American version was with Bridget Fonda, no subtitles, but with a slightly different ending if I remember correctly.

I don’t if any of you saw what I did and maybe I didn’t, but I would swear that Weiss played one of the men who killed Diego. Everything and I mean with beard it looked like Greg Gunderson or maybe his brother.

I enjoyed seeing Sonia Braga as the director of the orphanage. She is a fine actor, but I remember her playing a teacher in the Cosby Show several years back and she was funny, but then no one was un-funny on that show.

We didn’t see much of Jack or Sloane this episode. However, Sydney did get off a zinger at Sloane regarding his using people in the past.

The episode takes place in 1992, which means Nadia was 15 when she escaped (?) the orphanage.


DISCUSS:

Nightingale? We know that it’s a title of an upcoming episode. I realize many of you remember Black Sparrow. Therefore, do we have someone connected to the Derevko family? Could it be Irina’s code name with the KGB? Perhaps it is Elena Derevko. What do you think?

Who is Sophia Vargas? Is she just the director of the Orphanage? On the other hand, is she somehow connected with Friends of Rambaldi (FOR)? Bill Vaughn was. Why the odd look on her face when Vaughn said, “She’s good?”

good questions

I need to think about some of those before posting my theories

I am looking at nadias age in all of htis and trying ot figure out her timeline

If she was 5 in 1992 then she was born in 1987

so how does that fit with 1982 and kashmir and jack??

Brenda