IRINA DEREVKO
Endgame – Episode 19
Sacrifice, Cyanide and Death
When I watched this episode again, I realized it was a violent one – hence the subtitle. Irina was not in the last half, but was prominent in the first, as we will see.
Emily is being taken to a funeral home in a coffin while Sydney and Dixon watch. Dixon is having a hard time thinking about the actual shooting. Sydney tells him she would have probably done the same thing. She would have taken the shot.
The scene shifts to Sloane’s current hideout. Irina is talking to him, trying to get him to think about changing plans. She is afraid that the CIA may be now aware of what they were after. She did drop the disk and Sydney picked it up. Arvin professes not to be interested in the database. He just wants to know who killed Emily. Irina reminds him however,
“We both had to make sacrifices, Arvin. You won’t know for yourself if you stop now. We’re so close to knowing what Rambaldi knew.”
“I wish I had never heard that man’s name.” Sloane answers.
Irina then puts her hand over his. He looks at it without feeling.
Ah, so now we know something about Irina. What did she sacrifice? There are two answers, both of which might be right. Twenty years ago, she ran. She left Jack and Sydney because she was discovered to be a KGB agent. More recently, she left them again after gaining Sydney’s trust. We know Jack was sure she had another agenda in mind when she walked in to CIA headquarters, giving herself up. Still their romantic evening in Panama was something she had done because she wanted to assuage Jack’s suspicions, or, because she really wanted to be with him once more.
I really believe she did want him. It was obvious during Passage I and II she still had feelings for Jack. The two kisses at the railroad station, which I believe was an impulse on her part. Then, they’re reminiscing about the toaster while riding in a boxcar toward Kashmir. There was still feeling for each other during that scene. Even Sydney could sense it. Both parents had to be aching with each vocalized memory.
The story continues with Sydney telling her father that she feels the debriefing of Elsa Caplan did not seem complete and Jack tells her to go ahead and see if she can get anything more. Elsa won’t cooperate especially after Sydney tells her she could have regression therapy that would release information, which would help the CIA locate her husband.
Now we’re back at someplace in a warehouse where Neil Caplan is being held. Irina wants him to decrypt the information. He refuses saying he hasn’t heard about his family. Irina, lying, tells him they let his wife and son go -- that his family is safe at home. She hands him a cell phone and has him call his wife. He can only hear, however. He hears Elsa’s voice. Irina tells him he has something to live for.
Now Sydney does what she’s paid to do, be smart and discover that there were three phone calls to the Caplan home, spaced four months apart and lasting only a minute. She assumes they were for Caplan. She goes to see Elsa the next day. She tells Caplan’s wife that it’s possible he’s working for the SVR. She also reveals the CIA had intercepted a fax from the man they believe is his handler and that it had only one word on it – Razvyaska, which translates to Endgame.
“Neil’s going to die.” Elsa says.
“Elsa, we don’t know that.”
“No, I do.” Says Elsa.
A look of comprehension crosses Sydney’s face. “Not you.”
Elsa tells Sydney about her being sent to seduce and marry Neil Caplan by the SVR. The fax with the word “Endgame” means Neil’s cyanide capsule will be activated to kill him in 48 hours. Sydney knows she’s not authorized to tell her this.
Elsa answers, “I just committed treason against my government because I want to get him back. I’m telling you because I love him.”
Oh, oh, shades of history! Elsa is taken to JTF where Jack is not as believing as Sydney (with good reason). Sydney, however, knows Elsa isn’t lying. This is her woman’s intuition she’s going with. Jack is not convinced.
“Why would she lie?”
“That’s precisely the question.”
“She turned herself in!”
“She’s not the first!”
However, there’s a difference. Irina Derevko was already wanted as a spy and assassin. Elsa Caplan has no such history. Jack is still blinded and angry. So Sydney knows she has to get the locator codes before she can get to Caplan and take out the capsule. The code is with someone in Russia. She’s going to Moscow.
Meanwhile Irina is pushing Caplan to get the encryption code faster. He’s angry and when she gets too close to him, he grabs her, throwing her to the desk and puts the chain that connects his handcuffs around her throat, choking her. Suddenly a shot is fired and Caplan lets Irina go, grabbing for his thigh where Sloane has just shot him. He threatens Caplan, not caring. It is Irina who stops him, saying, “We still need him.” So even though still feeling the effects of the choking, she manages to stop Sloane from shooting him. She wants the codes, probably more than Sloane at this point.
One of the funniest sets of scenes takes place in a drug store where Sydney goes after seeing that the CIA is tailing her probably on her father’s orders. Taking some ordinary items off the shelf, she transforms herself from deadly agent to giggling sorority sister, a Sigma Gamma. She leaves with the five sisters, having been offered a chance to eat lunch with them and the Pi Delts. The agent out front had no clue. She escapes further surveillance
Sydney is off to Moscow to meet with a contact to buy a tracking device, the latest SVR issue…a locator. She finds the contact in a cowboy bar, but has to prove herself by riding a bucking bronco (electric of course). Having done that with flair, she returns and gets the locator for fifty thousand US dollars.
In a very dramatic scene in LA, Jack faces Elsa challenging her love for her husband. It’s a good one on one: Jack believes she’s lying just as his “Laura” did for ten years. Elsa has recognized him as Sydney’s father and says, “I am not Irina Derevko!” He threatens her with never seeing her son again.
She shouts, “Don’t you dare take my son away from me. Don’t you take my son away!”
Jack leaves somewhat stunned.
Dirty work is now being accomplished. Francie cons Will into turning on his computer after modifying his cell phone at home before he leaves. She hacks into the CIA and downloads the feed from Tuscany the day Emily Sloane was killed. Looks as if Sloane is going to find out who killed Emily. He does and then asks her to do something else for him.
Meanwhile Sydney meets Vaughn in Spain at the warehouse where Neil Caplan is being held prisoner. He’s inside with Sark watching him as they enter. In a brief conversation, we learn something more about the mysterious Brit or is he? We learn he was sent to school in England at a very young age. The upshot of the conversation is that Caplan now believes Sark will kill him when he is finished.
However, Sydney and Vaughn run into guards disposing of one with rifle butt, but firing and killing the other and that warns Sark someone is in the building. He grabs the disk and runs out, not killing Neil. Now that was puzzling, since we think Neil was probably right about him. However, who does he really take orders from and why? Irina Derevko is his real boss, friend or – something more?
Sydney appears telling Neil that he has about sixty seconds to live. She tells him about Elsa, but he already knows it. He tells her the NSA recruited him when he was a student at Cal Tech. Then, he too fell in love. What a tangled web! Anyway, Vaughn goes after Sark who disappears and Sydney removes the cyanide capsule.
She brings Neil down to the cell to see his wife and is happy to see them embrace. Upstairs she asks Jack not to blame Vaughn and he tells her he’s sending him to escort the Caplans to Bambridge Island as he’s granted Elsa defector status.
“She is not Irina Derevko!” However, he warns her not to go around him again or he’ll have her transferred and she won’t be a part of finding Sloane and Irina.
Marshall comes to Jack with the news someone hacked into the CIA computer and downloaded a huge amount of footage from the Tuscany feed. Jack orders him to find the inside man or woman who was responsible.
The scene shifts to a dinner party with Sydney, Vaughn, Diane and Marcus Dixon enjoying an evening out. They laugh and Diane is feeling more comfortable now that she is getting to know Sydney who depended on Marcus as her back up in the field. Vaughn tells the unbelieving Marcus the agency has season tickets for the Lakers. They leave the restaurant. Diane has driven their SUV and is on her way to pick up the children. As she drives off, the vehicle explodes in a ball of fire. A half a block away, Francie drives off. Sydney and Vaughn are stunned and horrified, while Dixon cries out in agony, “Diane!”
Some thoughts: First, Sark. At this moment, there’s been a lot of speculation about him. Who is he really? What is his true relationship to Irina? Well, here’s my speculation, which is probably wrong. Why? It’s Alias, of course, and I don’t work for JJ Abrams. Therefore, I’m going to stick my neck out to say he’s Irina and Jack’s son, but Jack doesn’t know. There’s even the possibility Sark doesn’t even know. Oops!
Second, Irina: Her obsession with Rambaldi is almost on the same level as Sloane’s perhaps even more. Does she know more than she has let on? They don’t truly trust each other, yet they are entwined by their obsession. What was the secret this scientist from the sixteenth century kept hidden within his artifacts and manuscripts? Is it the secret of immortality? Is that what Irina wants? We know that’s Sloane’s reason; because he told Emily he wanted her to be cancer-free forever. Now, however, Emily is dead, so what is driving him in the search?
great summary, too bad i didn't get to see the episode last night(little league game was on instead)but this is still worth reading, and thanks a bunch for the pm.
