A lot of games are being played: Irina, Jack, Ariana and Sark... B)

IRINA DEREVKO
ABDUCTION – EPISODE 10
“Get your head into the game.”

There are three powerful scenes in this episode involving Irina and Sydney and Irina and Jack.

The first scene involves Irina and Sydney. There are six guards on the roof guarding Derevko. She has been give two days a week out in the fresh air for fifteen minutes. Sydney comes out, looking around at the guards. I’m sure she wondered why it took so many to guard one woman. Irina watches Sydney approach, then thanks her for arranging with Kendall for the time.

“We appreciated your help in Kashmir.” Responds Sydney with a smile.

Irina comes closer. “I need you to understand…I was eighteen when the KGB recruited me. For a woman to be asked to serve her country, it was a future. It meant…empowerment, independence. I was a fool to think that any ideology could come before my daughter.”

They each have tears in their eyes. Sydney turns to leave when Irina cries, “Sydney?”

Sydney turns and they hug. It is the first time they touch other than just in passing. How much did Irina want to do this? Her longing to hold her little girl, now a grown woman, must have caused her much heartache. Sydney must have felt something of the same. To hold her mother tight as she had never had the chance to do since she was six.

Suddenly, the marshals make them stand apart shattering the moment. Both back up and raise their hands. Irina stands in the center almost cowering. However, she had the encounter she has wanted for a long time.

There is a strange eerie quality to Irina’s confession to Sydney. Sydney, herself, was recruited at the age of nineteen by Arvin Sloane. She too was told she would be serving her country, although she knows now that was a lie. However, it was true for Irina. She became a KGB spy, an “illegal.” Now she is a prisoner of the country she spied on for her country who distrusted her return so much they put her in prison. What a twisted chain of events. However, as we know, our story is not over yet.

The story centers on a terminal, which can be used to get into Echelon, an intelligence satellite belonging to the U. S. government. Sydney is sent to Paris with Sark to rob Cuvee’s men of the terminal. Since they are traveling separately, Sydney’s counter mission is to delete the program. It will seem as though Cuvee bad installed a fail-safe.

She poses as a road inspector on an overpass overlooking the street where Sark has located the caravan moving the terminal. The banter between the two takes on an interesting mode, as Sark comments:

“You’re surprisingly adept at keeping your curiosity in check.”
“Don’t flatter yourself.” She says.
“I’m referring to the fact that your mother and I worked together…before she went into hiding. I learned a lot from her. In some ways, I think of her as a mother myself.”
“Listen to me,” says Sydney, while working the computer, “You and I have nothing in common. We’re not friends, we’re not going to become friends, and you certainly won’t bait me with stories about a woman I never knew.”
“I don’t get any consideration at all for the fact that I didn’t tell Sloane you conspired to kill him?”
“We’ve covered this. You can’t expose me without exposing yourself. Now I’m almost into the city’s traffic control network. GET YOUR HEAD INTO THE GAME.”

That was a cool scene. There seems to be a lot of games going on right now, because at the same time, Jack enters the cellblock to see Irina. She walks over and asks him about his wounds. He ignores the question stating she had a chance to betray them, but didn’t.

“I don’t imagine that means you’ve decided to trust me.”

There’s the “trust me” and no, he doesn’t. However, he tells her since their previous dealings would indicate a long-term strategy that for now her behavior is predictable. She looks at him quizzically. “Previous dealings?” She stares at him and asks if that meant their marriage.

“You know, technically, we may still be husband and wife.” She smiles. He does not and hits her with a cold stare. “I’m sorry,” she says, meaning it.

He wants her to confess why she turned herself in. What is her goal? If she does, he’ll arrange for her to live in a safe house on Puget Sound under guard, but then the “illusion of freedom is better than none at all.” He leaves her with time to think about the offer.

Irina and Jack still married? What a turn of events. No one expected that. Hadn’t he annulled the marriage, or had her declared dead or divorced her? After all, he could have done it sometime during the past twenty years. Maybe he did. Irina’s smile after her observation had been rude, or ironic, or revealing to her about him. She was genuinely sorry after being on the hard end of one of his cold stares. She should be. However, will she say yes to his question?

Meanwhile there is a new menace on the horizon. Ariana Kane has been sent by the Alliance to find out what happened to the bearer bonds that they had given Arvin to give to the blackmailer. (Sub-plot during Passage I and II) She was here at SD-6 to see if anyone working there had been responsible. Of course, Jack ends up as the target. Jack is as always, cold, concise and not pleasant to her. I equated it to being a cop and having the Internal Affairs Division question my honesty.

Later Sydney and Marshall are briefed on a mission to London. There they are to get into a secure server and delete the files that were the back up to the Echelon terminal. When Sydney tells Vaughn, he tells her they’ll have to intercept Marshall and pull him out of SD-6. That in Sydney’s mind would be terrible for him since he has worked for only SD-6 believing he was one of the “good guys.” He’s such a lovable guy; Sydney thinks it would be very hard on him. However, he has a photographic memory and they can’t let him go back to SD-6.

The mission goes off successfully and Sydney leaves Marshall reluctantly at the airport, fully expecting not to see him for a long time.

Ariana Kane is talking to Sloane. She does not like Jack Bristow and reminds Arvin that The Alliance is not the U. S. Government. She is adamant about Jack. Everyone she has interviewed about being possible suspects is afraid of Sloane. Only Jack Bristow has no fear of him and she ends stating:

“-- Who I promise you, is hiding something.”

The scene cuts away to Irina’s cell where she is waiting as Jack approaches. He wants to know about his offer. Will she take it? She shakes her head no, saying she has nothing to confess; that the only reason she is in the cell is to make up for her mistakes.

“If that’s the truth, why didn’t you simply refuse the offer?”

She tells him that she had thought to lie in order to get out of the cell. Then Jack tells her that their marriage contract is still valid until it is annulled.

“Technically, we are still married.”
“Jack,” she says quietly, “thus far, I’ve agreed to be debriefed only by Sydney. From now on, I’m willing to talk to you too.”

He turns from her with a strange look on his face and she looks after him with a slight smile on hers. What does this mean, this encounter? They are still married! Why didn’t Jack get an annulment? To those of us who are romantics, it means he may never have given up hope she would return to him. What did that mean to Irina Derevko? One or both of two things: he still loved her and maybe she him or she was going to reel him in as she had Sydney into her web…OR perhaps some of both.

I'm really enjoying these interchanges which you have woven into your article. It helps me better remember what is being discussed. That was a fairly funny one up there!

Another great column, keep up te smashing work for season3!

Yeah...if Irina isn't back full time, I'll post a regular episode review. B)

I don't know what I'll do without Irina. I know she isn't verything, but I think she is a big part of it. I think she rocks...everything she does has a purpose, nothing is done needlessly.

I think Irina is at something much deeper than any of us know. :ph43r: She is ruthless, but IMO she does love her daughter and Jack, too. :wub:
Still we'd like to know what the writers are thinking. However we may never know!
B)

Oh yes, I won't argue that she loves Syd and Jack, but ultimately, I wonder if she would give herself for them, if she loves them that much. I don't really think so.

I would love to finally find out what her motives are. It's driving me crazy! I want to know what she is up to!!!

K. Ackles Posted on Aug 9 2003, 06:41 AM

And that's why some of us write fiction - we fantasize and go in the direction we want her or any character to go.

B)

Well, some of us just try and be funny, and some of us don't play with big characters, and some of us will DIE if JJ doesn't tell us what she is up to!!!

Don't die. Alias needs everyone of it's fans!! Besides you write some funny stuff and I want to see where you are taking All Dressed Up and No Place to Go.... B)

OOO nice info lenafan haha It look me forever to read but totally worth it