IRINA DEREVKO
“HAD THINGS…BEEN DIFFERENT” – EPISODE 4
Looking back is not what I said I’d do having seen the entire season, but I do want to make an observation. Things are said and done in this episode and as well as others that tie into the episodes beyond Phase One when JJ and his writers took a different tack. They are just little hints, a word or two here and there, but I visualize them to be capitalized on the writers’ story boards. They are meant for us to remember and wonder where we are being led…perhaps through a looking glass?
Enough about that! Now to Dead Drop.
Sydney returns safely from Siberia, having barely escaped being frozen to death. The information provided in the music box is being analyzed. Sydney tells Vaughn that her mother’s intel had proved once again helpful. Her father is still lobbying to have her taken away. However Kendall won’t accede to his demands. Sydney is upset and even Jack has to admit that Irina has kept Sydney out of harms way. Still he believes Irina has her own agenda and is using the agency and Sydney to pursue her goal. He also reminds her that “you’ve wanted a mother – your mother – all your life and now…here she is.”
We know that this is true. Through previous episodes we know Sydney has been looking for, hoping for her mother to return. Then, when she learned she had been a KGB agent and was still alive, she still wanted to see her. I know that I would, especially if the little girl memories of my mother were dancing in my head. Now she’s here. She is present in Sydney’s life. Jack’s fear is not unfounded given his experience of Irina/Laura. He has seen her only the one time since she was brought to the center. What did he think? Twenty-one years between his last contact with her as his wife and now, physically separated by glass, bars, and cell door.
Later in a conversation with Sydney he talks about the operations manual of Irina’s organization…The Bible. Anyone getting access to it can learn everything there is to running her cartel. Sark is after it, SD-6 wants it and the CIA wants it also. I am at a loss to understand why Irina would need this, since everything she tells the CIA about contacts, places etc. has been from her memory. If I were a crime boss with that kind of ability, I wouldn’t put anything down on paper. This is just an observation of what has happened so far.
Then Jack gives Sydney a CIA mission to override the SD-6 one she has yet to be briefed about. She knows he’s doing it so she won’t go to her mother to get more intel. Sydney, a little bit angry, says something to the affect that she is willing to squeeze her for everything she’s got in order “to get me the hell out of this life as soon as possible! Anything!” The look on her father’s face seems to reveal that if she leaves this world of spies—he’ll not be in the picture long, unless he goes too.
So Sydney in defiance goes to see Irina. When she tells her that Klaus Richter is in SD-6 custody, Irina looks unseeingly at her book. Sydney continues to say that she knows that the manual is her mother’s only leverage. Richter revealed he hid the map in the Fapsi Library in Moscow. Since they don’t know what he told Sark, SD-6 is sending her to Moscow to retrieve the map. She wants Irina to help her. Irina then asks about the earrings the CIA took away from her. Sydney says she will ask. Her mother then helps her by giving intel on the library. She ends the conversation with “be careful.” She is genuinely concerned. Keeping Sydney safe is of primary importance here for her. She may have another agenda, but she is after Sydney’s trust.
Trapped in the library, Sydney calls Vaughn to get the phone to her mother. He races to the cellblock. He bangs on the window for her attention. She proceeds to extricate Sydney through a secret passage just in time. She looks at Vaughn and says, “How do you thank the woman who killed your father?” He says, “You don’t!” This took a bit of chutzpah on her part and she got his answer right back. This is the first time we heard from her that she did, in fact, kill Vaughn’s father. I still take issue with the way the writers presented the fact. But I’ll leave for discussion another time.
Next Sydney who was asked to see Irina again by Vaughn brings the earrings. She tells her they were thoroughly checked. Irina looks at them lovingly, telling Sydney they had been a gift from her Mother when she graduated from the KGB academy. She was 21. Another sparse fact about Irina revealed. In a parallel between mother and daughter, both were the same age when they finished training. She is reaching out declaring that Sydney would have liked her grandmother “had things…been different.” Does Irina do this deliberately—yes, is she telling the truth—possibly? But it certainly has the desired effect on Sydney. Her life has been so destitute of family that the very idea she had a grandmother almost makes her want to cry.
Irina decodes the map, shows it to Sydney and declares the building is safe. Vaughn declares she has proved her value even though Jack once again warns them of her constant duplicity. Of course, we know so little about Jack’s marriage that even we can be excused if we don’t think he’s a little over the top with his feelings about his ex-wife. But we have to excuse him because he is desperate to keep Sydney safe from Irina.
The mission Vaughn and Sydney are sent on is a disaster, as the building has been wired with Semtex. Jack has sent a man who owes him a favor to do the job. If no one will believe him about Irina, then he’ll frame her. It works. Kendall orders her to be taken forthwith to Camp Harris for unrestricted interrogation. She is meditating when four U. S. Marshals burst into her cell, force her to stand as they tether her wrists to a leather belt and lead her away. She is completely at a loss. What happened?
As he watches the monitor upstairs, Jack may realize he is as guilty of duplicity as he accuses Irina of using. Sydney thanks him and tells him she’s sorry she was so stupid. Jack knows he used his fear of Sydney’s growing relationship with her mother to kill his ex-wife. “I’m afraid of losing my daughter,” he told the CIA psychologist. Now he has sealed Irina’s future. Torture and execution are her probable fate.
Really good for a bunch of random thoughts ;)
i remember this episode and i must say this column is very good, it ties it all together, great job
