ALIAS – Episode 16 – SYDNEY
ANOTHER MR. SLOANE
“…why he wanted you to kill her.”

This episode opens in Krakow. A woman is talking on a cell phone obviously calling home before she boards a plane. She puts away the phone and begins to go through Security. The woman is stopped on the other side. Security asks her to open her suitcase, take off her shoes and they search them. One man finds a white teddy bear. The Security man and another in plain clothes lead her away and she complains loudly. She wants her shoes back. As they walk down a dark corridor, she steps in a puddle of water. The security man behind her takes her prisoner.

Meanwhile back in Los Angeles, Vaughn and Sydney confront Jack with the information they have learned. Vaughn tells Jack that he took the coil and then confronted Roberts who told him he worked for Sloane. Sydney’s information hits Jack like a ton of bricks. We see it mirrored in his face when she tells him that the money to pay for the hit on her life came from Sloane’s personal account. They want him to tell the Director. Jack says no, that he will take care of it.

He meets Sloane in the bathroom. He accuses Sloane of making it look like Irina had put a contract out on his daughter’s life.

“You can’t imagine what it was like to put a bullet into the woman I shared a relationship with…”

We can see Jack is in agony at the thought he killed his wife for something she did not go. He pulls his gun and points it at Arvin asking him for “one good reason why I shouldn’t do to you what I did to my wife.”

Shaken by the words and emotion in those words, Arvin keeps his voice low and calm. Jack says the only reason he can think of why he would do it was to put a wedge between him and Sydney. Arvin denies it reminding him that Sydney would not turn to him: that she had others to turn to first—Nadia, Vaughn, Weiss, Dixon—before she would even think about him. Sloane again tells Jack he didn’t do it, that someone is setting him up.

The scene switches back to Dr. Sinclair who is in a chair chained to a desk. The other Mr. Sloane (ably played by Joel Grey) shows the doctor parts of a Rambaldi diagram. He wants her to build it. She thinks he’s crazy, but he motions to someone to bring in a rolling tray. On it is a small, red ball suspended in a cradle and rotating. She is astounded. “You will build it,” says the other Sloane.

In LA, Roberts is brought to identify Sloane. He can’t because although they look alike, they don’t.

Back in Santiago, Chile, where Dr. Sinclair was brought from Krakow, she tells Sloane that she needs the transforming coil; that she cannot build the machine without it. Sloane tells her that the reason he picked her for the job was that it was well known she could solve problems that were seemingly unsolvable. (He said he hired her…of course!)
He leaves but tells Carter his second in command to ‘motivate her’.

In Los Angeles, Nadia confronts her father. He promised her he would not pursue Rambaldi. He told her in Sienna that he would give it all up for her. “What happened then won’t happen again,” he says.

Meanwhile in Santiago, Carter is torturing Dr. Sinclair.

Arvin calls a meeting at the same time. Vaughn is still skeptical that it is not him. Marshall is also upset, because he thinks Sloane should recuse himself from everything since it has to do with Rambaldi. Sloane is heading APO only if he stays clear of anything having to do with Rambaldi. Sloane says someone is setting him up to take a fall and he is going through with overseeing the action.

They plan to use Roberts to contact Carter. Roberts makes the call as the man is finished making Dr. Sinclair do what Sloane wants. Roberts tells him that he has the coil and that he will bring it, but the price is now $750,000 and that it has to be on neutral ground. The meet is set up at the Bonaventure Hotel in Los Angeles. The team is all there. Roberts goes to the bar for a drink. Sydney is there also. They talk and just then, a man joins them, taking the seat on the other side of Roberts. He scans the man for weapons. He finds none and tells Roberts they are going to meet up in the penthouse.

At the elevators, Sydney rushes up to give Roberts his ‘cell phone’, which is actually a mic. She follows them in the next one. As the elevators go up, she notices one is coming down. She gasps as she sees the man who resembles Sloane but is not. She calls in and states there’s something wrong. The elevator with Roberts, the scanning man, and the coil reaches the penthouse floor. There is an explosion and the elevator falls to the sub basement. There Carter pries open the door and takes the coil. Sydney is too late to stop him. Roberts and the man with him are dead.

Sydney goes to Sloane. He is staring at the picture of the other Mr. Sloane. She tells him that she saw him…and that everything he did mimicked Arvin.

“—and how did that make you feel?”
“Equally disturbing.” She answers.

Sloane asks her if the incident at the hotel reminded her of something and she says “yes, four years ago in Moscow when Karpachov was killed in the same manner. It was set up by Sark to get information from the Russian.

Sydney then tells him he has to get involved. They have to know why the other Mr. Sloane is doing this and who is he. Sloane asks her if she is actually asking him to become involved with Rambaldi again. She says ‘yes’. They have to know why he is impersonating him and why he has this affinity for all things Rambaldi.

Sloane goes to DSR with Dixon who watches him carefully. Sloane enters the holding place for the Rambaldi artifacts including the disturbing picture of Sydney. He sits down before the manuscript that Sydney found in Chile and begins to study it. Finally he says quietly “I know what he is doing. I know what he is doing.”

Meanwhile in LA, Sydney apologizes to Nadia and that his going to the DSR was important. Nadia is surprised and tells Sydney what basically happened to Sloane when they were in Sienna. She tells Sydney Sloane changed in front of her that he became obsessed with the Rambaldi antifact.

“He promised me that part of his life was over.”

OH, OH!

Sloane talks to the team. The other Sloane needs a lot of Xanthium 242 and has ordered same. However, Sloane put a hold on the order. He was going to pick it up himself. Nadia is worried. She go with him. Sloane says no because it is a simple meeting.

“I’ve proved myself. When I was at DSR, my thoughts were of you.”

The meeting takes place at a racetrack in Sicily (It’s Santa Anita). His friend gives him the product and they talk. Sloane is asked about Omnifan and what did he put into the food he distributed. Sloane doesn’t answer, but tells the man someone has been impersonating him. He wants the address where he sent the other orders

When he returns to Los Angeles, Sloane and Jack set up the action to raid the other Sloane’s headquarters. Sloane is going to go with them over the objections Dixon voices to Jack privately. (Does Jack have an ulterior motive?)

The team arrives at the Lab in Santiago. Vaughn drives up in a van with Dixon in the front seat. They tranq the guards. Dixon stays behind with the monitors. He will be able to give them directions. As they drive up, two guards come to the back of the truck to take the shipment, but they too are tranq’d. They split up with one team (Sydney and Sloane) going to the lab while the other team rescues Dr. Sinclair.

Sydney and Sloane are trying to get the password in order to enter the lab. Sloane says to try JACQUELYN. Sydney asks him if she is supposed to know who that is. Sloane does not answer. They enter the lab to see another GIANT red ball, just as the one Sydney destroyed in Taipei before meeting her mother. This time she again wants to destroy it. Then she gets a message from Vaughn. The other Sloane is escaping with Dr. Sinclair and are coming her way. She should intercept them. She hesitates, still wanting to destroy the circulating red ball.

Sloane stops her, saying, “Do you know the value of this?” He tells her to go.

At the same time, the other Sloane has notified Carter to get to the lab. When he enters, he also sees the red ball. As he comes closer, he sees a man standing in front of it. Sloane turns with a gun pointed at him. Sloane shoots him. He asks the man why he worked for Sloane and the man replies, “He promised me immortality.”

Enraged Sloane screams, “You bought the rumors.” He hits the man with a piece of metal and hits him repeatedly and again…”thee unworthy…” he chants.

Dr. Sinclair is rescued and Sydney hurries to return to the lab. At the same time, approaching from another direction is Nadia. She enters the lab to see her father and his face is streaked with blood.

REMARKS:

When I saw the elevator scene unfold I thought oh, oh, it’s A DARK TURN…I have to say that it was much more horrifying to see it done with the elevators on the Bonaventure and if you did not know, I live in Southern California and know the hotel.

Just a reminder to those of you reading this: Alias is filmed within a sixty-seventy mile radius from the studio, which is located in Burbank. They do no filming outside California. Exterior shots are done locally or taken from film already in their film files. So, if it says Santiago or Sicily it probably isn’t unless they have a stock shot available.

Did you catch what Jack said when he said…”what I did to my wife?” Not ex-wife, but wife! To all of you who are romantics, Jack did not have the marriage annulled nor did he file for divorce—at least that’s what I would think UNLESS writers slipped.

Speaking of Jack, we didn’t see much evidence of Jack’s deteriorating condition.


DISCUSS

Okay, how many believe that Sloane is now caught up in the Rambaldi flames again? Did he ever plan to keep his promise to Nadia? Did he set everything up? Is the other MR. Sloane his planned double?

Jack is clearly dying (given the promos we saw) so do any of you think you know what will happen to him? How will he be saved? Who will save him and you have several to pick from.

Will Sloane deceive Nadia—making her believe he is okay, even after bludgeoning Carter

I think the key to all of this is in the name jacquelyn

maybe jack has/had another family/daughter or has a sister
or maybe sydney has had a baby - hell maybe syd and nadia had their eggs combined to make a baby while syd was missing and this baby is jacquelyn and neither character knows about it .... daughter of rambaldi or something like that

or sloane and emily had a child that no one knew about

I think this jacquelyn or irina herself will help sydney and arvin to save jack

although it may be that we are left with a cliffhanger wherein we think jack is dead

Arvin could well be behind the whole arvin clone scenario but I think if he is it is not as conscious a decision as we would think- that instead when he is obsessed with rambaldi he does not act as emily's husband but as a man posessed

I think arvin wants to be a good dad to nadia but like jack- he does not always know how


bren