ALIAS – Episode 22 – Sydney
Before the Flood
“She isn’t your sister anymore.”

WOW, WOW, and more WOW… So without further hesitation, we plunge headlong into the story…

We left off last week’s episode with the entire spy family jumping into Sovogda, a city in chaos, its citizens turned into animals by Yelena’s evil plans with Sloane assisting. The Mueller device built to Rambaldi’s specifications is hovering over the city poisoning its citizens who have been primed with additives to their drinking water by Sloane, as the head of Omifam.

Once on the ground Sydney leads the way through cluttered streets: cars and dead bodies. She tries to contact the DSR team and finally picks up a signal. Meanwhile Jack using the Comlink contacts Weiss, who is in charge at APO and Marshall. Weiss tells Jack the Russians won’t call off the air strike and they have two hours to shut the device down. After Jack checks out, Marshall tells Weiss there’s a possibility that he can shut down Milsat, the Russian satellite system,

In Yelena’s hideout below the Oransky Building over which hovers the deadly Red Ball she talks about the device to her henchman and Sloane. She tells him that Nadia will make them proud. (Sounded like she was planning to get her hands on the young woman, doesn’t it?)

Back a few kilometers in the city Sydney picks up the signal from a DSR team member. However, she finds only a severed forearm with the signal watch on it beeping. Suddenly they all hear a noise. Jack makes everyone stop.

“Show yourself,” he snaps, gun ready.

There he is—Burdine—the agent Sydney was with when she was about to join APO. He was the one whom she turned into a transvestite in order to escape from their pursuers. He seemed a bit of a twit. Anyway, he was with the DSR team who are now all dead except himself. Looking at the weapons they carry, he says that tranqs won’t be of any use. He leads them to a pack of automatic rifles and doles them out.

He tells them about the people and how they became like animals…killing and maiming others and when there no others left, turning on one another. “Once infected, there is no cure.”

The epicenter is over the Oransky Building in the distance. He says they won’t make from here without running into gangs. Sydney suggests the subway. He warns her that the tunnels are pitch-black because the electrical system is down. There is only one way in or out. As he leads them to the subway system, one of Yelena’s henchmen hovers near by and tells her:

“They’re here.” (I wonder if she expected Irina to be with them or did he know who she really was.)

Yelena tells Sloane the team is here. He says he’ll lead the assault team to ‘kill’ them.

“Nadia?”
“What about Nadia?” he says.
“Bring her back. Give her the option to join us.” She answers.
He looks at her, “I was going to.”

At APO Marshall and Weiss, decide the only way they can get an access code is to use what Jack would do…blackmail or torture. Struck by an idea, Marshall goes to Sloane’s office and they use the Blackwell Index to find the name of some high-ranking Russian official who might have the code.

Back on the street of Sovogda, Jack and Irina are talking about destiny, fate, fortune cookies, and horoscopes. Suddenly Irina hears a sound, turns to see a white horse slowly plodding along the street behind them.

“Jack, Rambaldi predicted when horses run through the streets and angels fall from the skies, the Chosen One and The Passenger will clash and only one of them will survive.”
She is scared.

“You really are through the looking glass, aren’t you?” He says. “When I see angels fall from the skies, I’ll start to believe,” he answers pragmatically with a touch of ‘you’ve got to be kidding’ look at her.

However, Irina has a dreadful feeling that this night one of her daughters will perish. As she says this, they reach the subway entrance. Burdine opens it, but as he pulls on the lock, he is stabbed with a long spike and he falls to the ground mortally wounded. Syd and Nadia shoot the man who bursts out of the door and charges them.

Down in the subway, each has a job to do: Jack is working on the batteries, Sydney and Nadia work on getting the tracks changed for a straight shot at the Oransky building; and Irina and Vaughn are cutting the brake fluid lines. They want no stopping until they reach the building.

The latter pair has an extremely interesting conversation. Irina tells Vaughn not to wait and he’s puzzled.

“I saw the ring.” She answers.

He responds reminding her, she killed his father and he doesn’t care if she approves or not. She grins and tells him in spite of it, she does approve.

“Like don’t betray your spouse…” he retorts.
“Yes, that would be one of them,” she says not blushing. She goes on to say he should tell Sydney the truth. She says some secrets between a man and his wife are all right; however, his activities are not. “If you don’t want to end up like Jack and me, tell Sydney the truth.”

In the control room Sydney and Nadia both have a feeling of something terrible is about to happen. Sydney tells her Vaughn asked her to marry him. Nadia is happy for her.

Sydney says, “Some brides want to kill their Maid-of-Honor, but I’m not.” They laugh.

Nadia discovers the tracks at either end of the subway cars have not been thrown so the subway can move. Sydney says she’ll take the front one and Nadia will go to the back.

After finding General Karpov and revealing what they know about him, Marshall and Weiss get the access code. Marshall downloads the Milsat network and is surprised by the fact someone is trying to upload a signal from Sovogda.

Jack is finished working on the batteries. Vaughn and Irina finish cutting through the brake fluid lines. The lights come on, go off, and then come back on and the car begins to move. Sydney joins them.

“Where’s Nadia?” Irina says.

Sydney runs to the rear of the car with Vaughn behind her. She sees Nadia running and horrible people are after her. Nadia hasn’t gotten back on board because she was struggling to throw the switch. From behind her, there is the sound of snarling, growling. She gets the switch thrown and starts forward. Sydney sees something behind her and screams for her.

“Stop the car?” Cries Sydney
“I can’t.” Jack yells.
“Stop the damn car,” she orders.

Nadia reaches for Sydney’s hand, but they miss and Nadia falls as the car picks up speed. We see a gang of people overwhelm Nadia and she is lost from sight. The others are horrified.

As the trains goes through the tunnel, Irina looks at a heartbroken Sydney. She says prophetically, “Your sister is alive.” The subway train finally stops at the Oransky Building. Sloane is waiting. Dead men lay about him. He’s killed them. He tells them what he did was to stop Yelena and starts giving orders. Jack steps up and slugs him, saying, “You are no longer in charge of this team.”

Using the Comlink, Sydney contacts Marshall and Weiss who tell her Yelena is trying to uplink to the Milsat... As soon as the Russians scramble their planes, the signal will be distributed world wide to all the cities whose water supplies Sloane contaminated. Irina says they have to get to the roof of the building and shut down the device. Sloane, now their prisoner, tells Irina that Yelena has been making fail safe connections.

“Take me to my sister,” she states with deadly intent.

Meanwhile, Nadia has escaped the mob (diligently using her automatic rifle). She is out on the street when she hears someone cry for help. A citizen says he has a broken leg, but when she goes to help, he pulls a gun. Alas…a Yelena henchman. Now a prisoner and tied to the chair, Nadia faces Yelena. Yelena looks at her and can see Irina’s eyes.

Yelena tells Nadia she never wanted to hurt her. She never wanted children until she saw Nadia and ever since then thought of Nadia as her own daughter. “Hate me or join me.”
“The only reason you want me, is you believe I’m the only one who can stop Sydney Bristow.”
Angrily, Yelena injects Nadia with tap water from the city’s supply.

Sydney will go to the roof and Irina will give her the directions from Yelena’s bunker. Vaughn wants to go with her, but Sydney tells him to help overpower Yelena’s men. However, she also says she will marry him and he puts the engagement ring on her finger.

At APO, Weiss tells Marshall he heard from a secret service buddy, who told him that the government was going underground. Marshall takes the opportunity to call home and tell Carrie he loves her and that he’ll be home soon.

The APO team invades Yelena’s hideout. Irina is in front of them and says, “Hello Sis!” She continues forward until they are face to face. Irina says, “I’ve want to do this ever since I was eleven.” She uses the butt of her gun to strike Yelena who falls to the ground.

Meanwhile Sydney is on the roof, astonished at the red ball. She finds the transmitter amid the many wires. Just then, she hears something and sees Nadia approach her. She looks manic, eyes red…Sydney backs away…but Nadia still comes for her. They fight and Sydney tries to keep her at bay. Jack wants to know what’s going on and she tells him Nadia is up there.

“You have to take her out,” orders Jack.
“No, Dad, she’s my sister,” cries Sydney, watching Nadia.
“Listen to me, she’s not your sister anymore,” adds Irina almost agonized by what she is saying.
“I know,” says Sydney.

Up above, Nadia chokes Sydney, who breaks away and then Nadia fires, creasing Sydney’s head. Below they see Sloane is gone. His destination is the roof where he shoots Nadia who had taken a chain and was strangling Sydney with it. Vaughn rushes to the roof. Sydney stares at Sloane who says, “I had no choice.”

Sydney and Irina communicate. Irina wants to her to locate the master circuit wire leading to the coil. Sydney tells her mother that there are two wires leading to the transformer. Irina says there should be a black and a yellow one. Sydney tells her no, that they blue and white.

Irina turns to Yelena who is tied to the chair. She wants to know which one is the right one.

Yelena snarls, “However you plan to torture me, I will hold out until the uplink is accomplished.”
Irina smiles, “I’m not going to torture you, but I’m going,” she looked at Jack, “let him do it.

Jack walks to the chest where the syringe with tap water rests. He picks it up and pulls in the tap water.

“One thing you should know about Jack is that he hates being anyone’s puppet.” Irina continues reminding Yelena he had been tricked into killing ‘her’.

“It’s made me re-evaluate certain parts of my life.” He says smiling. “I’m trying to have more fun. There’s a fifty-fifty chance Sydney will cut the right wire, but I don’t care.”
Jack inserts the needle into Yelena’s neck. She is panicking. “It will give me pleasure to see you turn into an animal.”

“How do I know you won’t do it?”

“You don’t!” He responds and pulls on the syringe as some of her blood mixes with the tap water.

“The white one,” she screams, “tell her to cut the white one.”

Irina steps forward, aims, and pulls the trigger pumping a bullet into Yelena’s brain. “It’s the blue one. Cut the Blue One. And Sydney, you have only fifteen seconds…”

Sydney cuts the blue line, hesitates, looking up and then starts to run. She has fifteen seconds. Vaughn has Nadia in his arms running for the elevator with Sloane. As they drop down they can hear the water pouring over the building. When the elevator stops, they hurry toward the bunker and inside, Irina slams the door shut, locking it. They hear and feel the tremendous crashing and cascading water striking the bunker door, but it holds. They are safe.

Meanwhile at APO Weiss keeps calling for “Raptor” or “Phoenix”, but not getting an answer. Marshall stares at the satellite images and the building is gone.

Vaughn calls for a medical evacuation and helicopter to extract them. They are up on the street.

Irina turns to Jack, knowing that her future will be prison when they get back. She looks at him

”On foot, I think you can get to the border by daybreak.” He looks at her with a small amount of fondness.

“What will you tell agency?”

“That no one can hold onto Irina Derevko for too long.” He has a slight grin on his face.
She stares at him for a moment, maybe a tear or two escapes, and then she moves forward to kiss him. (Damn five second kissing!)

Turning she goes to Sydney who was watching with tears in her own eyes. Irina tells her that three years ago when she told Sydney that she was the Chosen One to save the world that she must have been confused. Tonight however she did it. She kisses Sydney on the forehead. “I’m proud of you.”

Irina takes a few steps more and again addresses her eldest daughter. “Sydney, you may not see me on your wedding day, but I’ll see you.” She disappears, alone, up the dark street and out of sight.

At APO, Sloane is in a cell waiting for something. Sydney appears at his cell door and tells him they are working hard to find an antidote for Nadia who is now sedated. The cell door opens and Sydney says she believes that he was trying to do the right thing at last. She has arranged for him to see Nadia.

Vaughn and Sydney are traveling to Santa Barbara, talking about getting married on the beach. Sydney says they could do it now without family or friends. Vaughn agrees, loving it, but he has something to confess.

“Are you a bad guy?” Sydney asks teasingly.

He doesn’t answer and she is suddenly afraid. “First of all, it was no accident that I was the one who met you when you to the CIA,” he says, “and my name isn’t Michael Vaughn…”

A car slams viciously into the driver’s side.

REMARKS:

I did not see that ending coming at all. This was one great season-ending episode. It has taken me two days to recover and watch it several times in order to be ready to write the column.

Kudos to JJ Abrams for writing a splendid episode AND a giant hug to Lena Olin for succumbing to his pleadings and to the wishes of her millions of fans worldwide.

Congratulations to the production staff who put together two great episodes: Search and Rescue and Before the Flood. Kudos to special effects and the film editor. Splendid cut and splicing was done.

By the way, the spy family: Mom, Dad, two sisters, and fiancé. Now the family that fights together…stays together?

The guy they killed at the subway entrance was really padded as Sydney and Nadia fired multi-rounds into him.

Oh, my God is Jack’s call name RAPTOR… How perfect! I love it.

When they shot the exterior scenes in the city and on the roof, I was pleased to see everything and everyone was infused with a red glow. Three cheers to the production staff and cameraman.

It was funny when Burdine reacted to Irina’s name…like what the hell is she doing here?

Speaking of Irina Derevko…she is far too prophetic NOT to be back next season, if not full time, at least as an occasional guest star.

This was the first time I liked Michael Vaughn. He was wonderful. Good for the writers giving Vartan some wonderful lines.


DISCUSS:

“You really are through the looking glass, aren’t you?” Oh my, so many references in this series to Alice in Wonderland and it’s still a mystery. Any more ideas as to where the series is headed?

Irina says prophetically, “Your sister is alive.” Why not “my daughter”? I found it curiouser and curiouser (quote from Alice in Wonderland) that Irina’s interaction with Nadia was a bit standoffish. It was Sloane, who showed the love. Was it because Irina knew Sydney better? How did she KNOW Nadia was alive? I mean we saw her overwhelmed by the mob.

Oh oh, what does Irina know about Vaughn that no one else does? I’ve always believed that there was someone in the CIA that kept Irina informed about Sydney’s whereabouts. I’ve also maintained that she kept tabs on her daughter as she grew up. Was Vaughn a double agent? Maybe he did not know he worked for her, but thought it was for someone else. Remember the sleaze-bag in Season One, Hadlaki? He worked for Khasinau.

If his name isn’t Michael Vaughn…what about the stuff that he says happened to his dad…that Irina Derevko killed him? What was the hunt for his father all about?

And where is Irina headed. Jack told her she could make the border by daybreak? What border? Isn’t she Russian? Why not stay in the country of your birth? She has to make it through the military cordon thrown around the city also. She is Irina Derevko after all.

I do love this show. :wub: I'm looking forward to the next season. :reallyexcited:

I am still tryihng otwrap my head around all of it

I thought the last episoide was fantiastic and S5 could start tomorrow and it would not be soon enough

I found Irina to be up and down - on the plane with her girls she was so emotional and yet she did not mention Katya and she was cold when talking about Nadia not being "your sister anymore" - I mean i know she was infected and all but it was

wow go lena - becasue you know there is so much more to discover

I thought Jack was great

and Vaughn now that is going to drive me nuts all summer

I did however have sloane pegged correctly - that he was smokescreening to unearth yelena

My vacation in Asia started and I left BC on May 25th ... just before the finale aired on the east coast. Alias airs in India ... but they were in Season 2 when I left in August - it just finished before I left and are at least now two seasons behind. I couldn't find Alias at all in Kazakhstan.

I didn't see the episode so I can't comment on Irina very much.

As for Sloane, I saw episode 21 before I left, and was kind of surprised to see him with Yelena. I suspected that he didn't have loyalties to her ... and hoped that he was trying to fulfil his promise to Nadia. Both the passenger and the chosen one survived ... apparently because Sloane shot Nadia .... I sure hope that Yelena died until JJ has some plans for bringing her back although I'd rather not see her again. I mean, we have enough to wonder about given that we have no idea who 'Vaughn' is.

Irina seems to know more about Vaughn that any of the rest do. Who IS he if he isn't who he said he was in the first four seasons? Vaughn could have worked for her, Sloane, Yelena, or another figure not yet on the scene. This makes him more likable ... I mean gives something interesting to think about given that Jennifer Garner is pregnant in RL and that may carry on into the show and the Bristow family life is never idyllic.

“I’ve want to do this ever since I was eleven.” I wish I could have been here to see that part in May .... fight scenes with Irina ... I sure hope that Lena Olin makes at least supporting appearances ... instead of someone like Jack or Sydney mentioning Irina in passing.