ALIAS – Episode 18 – SYDNEY
MIRAGE
“You want me to be my mother.”

There were two distinct stories in this week’s Alias. The Hydrosec’s retrieval by the APO team and its disappearance was one. The other, Jack’s delusions as he gets closer to death because of the radiation poisoning and his rescue. This episode was special and I thought one of the best, if only because of the scenes near the end when Sydney becomes Laura, her mother, to get Jack to reveal the whereabouts of Dr. Liddell. As Laura, she learns how deeply her father feels about his daughter and his wife. It is the first time in her life that he dropped his guard so to speak and spoke from his heart.

Therefore, in this case I am deviating from my usual synopsis and writing the two stories as separate units.

I am also going to use “Sophia” when she is dealing one and one with Nadia and Weiss and “Yelena” when she is being her devastatingly evil Derevko self.


The first action takes place in Vienna where Kravic and his gang, along with Dixon are waiting for the Hydrosec to be delivered. Vaughn is at the bar and Sydney, disguised as a barmaid, is taking drinks to them. She delivers a gun under napkins she places when handing him his drink.

Meanwhile, Elena’s accomplice has followed them all to the same bar where he surreptitiously drops ‘mini-bombs’ in the place. The man delivering the Hydrosec is now inside. The last explosive is dropped in an empty glass Sydney is carrying on a tray. She tells Vaughn to get down as the explosives go off.

The APO team goes into action. However, Kravic finally gets a hold of the Hydrosec case and runs. Vaughn and Dixon go after him. They chase him down into the basement where he threatens to drop the Hydrosec into the water supply. Dixon lowers his gun as does Vaughn but then suddenly Dixon raises his gun and fires, catching Kravic off balance (he was looking at Vaughn) and kills him. The Hydrosec is not dropped.

Yelena’s accomplice notifies her that the team got lucky. She says to come home. When he does, she says Nadia always brings her APO laptop home with her. She asks if he thinks he can find the information.

Sophia, who had been thinking about going to a hotel, was now ensconced in Sydney and Nadia’s home. She phones Nadia to ask if she, Weiss, Sydney, and her boyfriend would let her cook dinner for them as a way of thanking them. Nadia checks with Weiss who will never turn down a meal.

The next night they arrive, although Sydney is not attending, as she wants to spend time with her father. (This is about the only time Jack is mentioned in the two separate story lines.) Sophia takes Nadia’s things and pausing at the door, tells Weiss that Nadia had told her many beautiful things about him.

Delighted, he looks at Nadia, and asks her what she said.

“She asked me if you were tall, dark, and handsome. I said you were tall…”

Inside the other room, Elena hands her associate the laptop, which he cracks open and starts downloading the material on the Hydrosec.

They enjoy dinner together and Weiss tastes new food: empanadas, which are small stuffed pastries with meat, rice and other delectable items. Nadia gets a phone call and goes into the next room. Sophia, while talking pleasantly to Weiss, puts her hand on a gun, which was in her purse next to her. However, Nadia returns. She did not run into anyone in the other room.

A couple of days later, Marshall tells Weiss and Nadia that he moved the Hydrosec as they ordered to the other less secure place. They are shocked. He says their section ordered it. Weiss tries to call the new location, but there is no answer.

At the Hydrosec’s hiding place, Elena and her accomplice kill four security men and enter the room where it is kept. He opens the safe as she stands guard. Weiss and Nadia find the dead guards and hurry to the ‘less secure’ room. They find the Hydrosec gone and Elena’s accomplice dead. Oh boy…


Part Two of Mirage deals with Jack and his delusions/hallucinations brought about by the radiation sickness.

When Sydney returns to APO, she learns her father has been missing for two days. She herself left several messages on his phone, but has received no call back. Worried she goes to his apartment. He asks her if he lives here and she asks back, “Where did you think he lived?”

Vaughn answers, “in a bunker.” (Very funny)

Picking the lock, she and Vaughn enter. He is not there. Vaughn finds a book where he is tracking his vital signs.

Meanwhile, Dr. Liddell tells Jack that he discovered a treatment for radiation sickness, but it was only used on rats. One day he over medicated the rats. Some survived. One lived four years (long for a rat), but 84 percent of the others died within a week. This medication is extremely dangerous. Jack says he has contacts.
He goes to one of them and picks up the medication. The man warns him it is dangerous to give very much at a time. The man thinks Jack is going to use it to torture someone. He returns to Dr. Liddell, who tells him to get ready. They put restraints on him as a precaution since sometimes people get convulsions.

Sydney finds Marshall to ask about her father. She says he has to be sick and Marshall tells her what happened at the Nuclear Plant. He tells her there is no treatment and he’s been hunting through all medical journals. Sydney is horrified and hurries to see Arvin.

Sydney tells Sloane, “We have to find my father.”

The APO team discusses Jack and the fact he is missing. Marshall says no hospital has reported anyone with the illness protocol that Jack has. They start tracking. Marshall finds out that Jack used an ATM. Using traffic control film, they locate the area Jack was last seen. Marshall tells Sydney the car is somewhere on Pierpont.

Sydney tells Marshall, “Remind me to kiss you.” He appropriately blushes.

Syd and Vaughn locate the car in the seedy part of town. They enter the building. There are a number of men around in various drugged states. One, in fact, is wearing Jack’s jacket. They find Jack on a cot giving himself an injection. He goes into convulsions. Sydney dials APO asking for medical evacuation.

Back at the APO infirmary, Jack is undergoing treatment to remove the poison he injected into himself. However, he has just 72 hours left to live. Vaughn tells Sloane that Jack mentioned Dr. Liddell had been treating him. Arvin is surprised, but calls the team into the conference room, to show them a picture of Atticus Liddell, a man Jack hid from the Russian Secret Service. During the cold war, he developed a radical treatment for radiation sickness. He went to Russia to help when one of the reactors went down. However, the Russians thought he was a spy. Therefore, Jack hid him and knowing Jack, no one knows where Liddell is. Jack’s handler has been dead eight years.

Sydney goes to see Jack who has begun to come out of it. She calls him Dad, and he turns to see her. He apologizes. He is not sure why he is in the hospital. Calling her Laura, h tells her that he promised to pick up Sydney after her dance lesson and asks her to do it. He falls back onto the pillow as Sydney stares at him.

Talking with Sloane, she tells him what happened. “He called you Laura, not Irina?”

Sloane says Jacks is too far gone to tell them where he hid Liddell. They are going to have to recreate their home in 1981 and she will play Laura. They hire a little girl to play Sydney. Sydney staring at herself in the mirror sees Irina, as she must have been at the age of thirty. It is unsettling for her to be playing her mother.

She tells Vaughn, “I don’t know how I’m going to do this.” She tells Vaughn that she does not remember her parents as they were then. She doesn’t know how her father and mother interacted.

Vaughn says, “It’s just a job. It is just another alias like all the others.” However, it really isn’t, not for her, not now. She believes he killed her mother.

She walks onto the set looking at the recreation of her home when she was a little girl. Arvin enters and faces her, almost shocked by her appearance, knowing what Laura looked like and seeing the recreation in the person of her daughter. There is a green bowl on the dining table and he moves it as Sydney remembers, “It was on the coffee table.”

They bring in Jack, placing him on the sofa in a relaxed position. He is injected with a stimulant. Sydney walks to the kitchen. Vaughn tells her to begin. She picks up a bag of groceries and shuts the door to the porch beyond loudly. Jack who has been waking up and looking around confused and like “what the hell?”

“Jack,” calls Laura.

He looks at her in surprise and puzzlement. “Sydney?”

She quickly improvises, “She’s upstairs.” He relaxes and smiles.

Jack enters the kitchen saying “How can you be so perfect—the perfect wife, the perfect mother…” (You can almost see the wheels turning in Sydney’s mind.)

Back at APO, Arvin tells Vaughn to make the call.

The phone rings. Laura asks him to get that. On the other end is Vaughn who, acting as Jack’s handler, tells him that Liddell is in extreme danger and needs to come out (Russia) now. He wants to know if Jack has arranged to extract him. Jack is once again puzzled…as though he still isn’t sure that what he sees or hears is real.

The APO team is watching. Arvin orders them to send in the girl... Moments later, “Sydney” enters from the hallway and asks him if it’s all right if she plays the piano. Jack is hooked and believes what he is seeing is real. He gives instructions in code to his ‘handler’. Marshall knows what to do.

Jack hangs up the phone and walks to the kitchen as Laura is putting away the groceries. He explains he has to be away. She asks where and he says Finland. Bingo – the country he hid Dr. Liddell in. Marshall immediately starts tracking old files for information. Jack goes on to tell Laura that he has to be away the following week and he’ll miss Sydney’s birthday again. Laura says Sydney will understand too. Jack shakes his head. He tells her about his own father leaving and he doesn’t want that to be that way for her. He wants to be with Sydney and her.

He has decided to talk to his supervisor when he returns and will quit. “Nothing is more important to me as Sydney…and you.”

Sydney as she listens to her father talk is undergoing emotional trauma as he speaks. She finally says quietly, “That means more to me than you’ll ever know.”

Jack smiles, returns to watch Sydney at the piano. He sits down and they play the tune together. Laura watches almost wanting to cry as the medic enters from the rear and gives Jack an injection. As he goes under, he looks at Sydney as though ‘betrayed?’

End of delusion, but it does result in Sydney going to Finland and finding Dr. Liddell who joins her when she tells him what has happened.

When they arrive, she takes him to see Jack, telling him she brought an old friend to see him.

Jack says, “am I cured?”

Liddell responds, “not yet, but I’m going to make you better.”

REMARKS:

First of all, kudos again to a new writer, Steven Kane, who wrote the episode. He did a masterful job, especially in the scenes with Sydney and Jack. My lips were quivering and my eyes tearing.

Jennifer looked like a young Lena Olin might with her hair long and styled that way. I was impressed and I’m sure the rest of the audience were also. I think that made is so much more believable.

The picture of Sydney on the end table in Jack’s apartment was really Jennifer Garner from her high-school days as a member of the band.

Note to spoilers—Dr. Death didn’t turn out to be the bad guy after all.

Did any of you notice the cat dish at Jack’s apartment? Sydney went over to see it. Now I know some might think it was a bird dish (?)…but, being a cat owner myself, it seemed there was dry food in and around the bowl.


DISCUSS:

Fans, remember the capsule Jack found in his palm? Was it real? On the other hand, was he in a delusional state. He was in his office when he found it and had a conversation with Sydney at the time. Do you think he was operating on two levels?

Will Sophia/Yelena leave or disappear from the house? She has the Hydrosec now. If you were she, would you leave or stay?

Is Sloane on the up and up? Is he now a good guy? Why or why not do you believe this?

Will Nadia realize where the information about the Hydrosec and its subsequent removal to a low-level safe hiding place came from? What will she do?

Do you think Sydney will meet Yelena, her oldest Aunt soon?

No spoilers please. I dislike them immensely.

this eppy was by far one of my favourites

jack as a human being

talking about dance lessons and how much he loves his girls and :wub:

I think sydney and yelena will eventaully battle and that nadia will be involved

I think weiss is going to be upset that he ate emapanadas and now his connection to free home made dinner will be gone - y'know weiss he will make a wisecrack

( maybe we should call them weisscracks LOL)

I think arvin's contact's comment from a a couple weeks ago re - what did you put in the food- will come to bear impact on our characters

I think sydney and jack will be a little closer now and he will reveal that either he has not killed hermother and it was all a set up

or that he will be just a mystified as anyone else when she makes herself known

what the hell does yelena want is my big query these days

brenda_wood posted:

She's after the Rambaldi grand prize and she needs Nadia who is also "the passenger" to get it. That's why I think Yelena put the hit on Sydney, who is "the chosen one" and she will (according to the Prophecy) do battle to save the world.
Is it the hydrosec that is the awful reason the world will be in danger?

B)