ALIAS – Episode 11 – SYDNEY
The Road Home
“I have a boyfriend.”

Sometimes the opening of the show goes so fast that I miss some things. So will double check my taped copy and correct anything I missed. This was a good show. Loved Jack, of course. Don’t mess with Jack, that’s for sure.

Alias opens with Sydney in disguise as a Frenchwoman, Margeaux Girard, and she is meeting with a Mr. Connelly who has a ‘memory chip’. Near by is Vaughn (Shotgun) watching and outside in the CIA van is Dixon aka Outrigger. A guy comes in looking very gangsterish and Vaughn takes his picture and sends it to Dixon who cannot ID him. He kills Connelly who was about to give Sydney the chip he wanted to sell. The gangster steals the chip. Vaughn shoots him and all chase the wounded man; they corner him and watch horrified as he slices his own throat. His boss instills such fear in his men that if they betray him he will kill their family. Nice guy?

Back at APO, there is a briefing about the man who has ordered the biometric device, Sascha Korcheff. Sydney is to pursue the device which is in Salzburg, Austria while Jack is given permission by Sloane to get to Korcheff. Sydney’s puzzled by the fact that Jack knows the man. “I should have killed him when I had the chance.” Jeez, didn’t he say that about Irina?

So off go our two spies, attacking the problem from two fronts.

In the meantime, Vaughn is talking to Weiss. Weiss gives him a name he has dug up: Frank Murdoch, who has moved, moved and moved again. Presently however he is in San Diego. Weiss gives him the address. “You won’t tell Nadia?” Weiss effectively wants to hit him for making the suggestion. As if he would, because Vaughn has been his friend a long time.

Somewhere in Madagascar, Jack walks into a bar to talk to an old friend, Jimmy. Jimmy has a secret: kiddie porn. It’s his downfall, because when Jack puts in a DVD in his portable player, Jimmy gives him the information about the protocols needed to contact Sascha.

Back at APO, Sydney watches Mitchell Flinkman taking his first steps. (I miss Carrie. I wish she was back on duty.) Marshall finally gets down to business and tells Sydney there is a club, Club Felice, in which the biometric gizmo is being readied for shipment to Korcheff. However, Sydney needs to steal an employee ID card to gain access to it. Merlin is Marshall’s call sign.

Sydney is in the club when she notes what the card looks like and approaches a bartender who is American. His name is Sam Houser. She smiles, talks to him, and steals his card. He asks her out, but she tells him she has a boyfriend. Ah yes, must be Vaughn. She copies the information off the card with the copier that Marshall gave her. It looks liked a cigarette pack. After blowing Sam off, she enters the forbidden area and whoa, she learns the biometric weapon is field ready and will be shipped very soon to Korcheff.

She returns to the bar upstairs and finds that the owner is obviously looking for Sam, and knowing the American is in danger, decides he’d be better off with her. She takes him out of the bar without being spotted.

Meanwhile in San Diego, Vaughn enters a shop and approaches a man sitting in wheelchair. He asks if he’s Frank Murdoch. The man says no one here by that name, and Vaughn says he owns the shop. Vaughn gives him his name and phone number. The man asks if he is really Michael Vaughn. He nods.

Frank shows Vaughn a picture in which Bill Vaughn is featured in the center. They were all members of a special forces unit and all were killed except himself and Vaughn’s father. Then Bill Vaughn shot Frank in the back, leaving him paralyzed. Vaughn is aghast. He cannot believe it.

“If he is alive, don’t turn your back on him,” warns Frank.

Sydney makes a call to a contact who really works for Sascha. He tells her he’ll meet her with a car. When he comes, she is suspicious, and kills the other man who was in the car. Her contact is outside and she takes him apart. Sam is stunned. Who is this woman? He tells her that he was hoping to get a bang of an idea so he could be a writer. He tells her he has no physical skills. (Don’t worry, Sam, she has plenty.)

In Angola, Jack approaches a couple of men in uniform. He asks them to take him to Korcheff. He is hit in the back, a bag dropped over his head and his hands tied behind him. He is dumped in a truck, which drives off. Jack is finally brought out of the back of the truck. The bag is removed as Sascha comes down the steps of his home.

“Jack, my dear friend,” he greets him.
“How are you, Sascha,” says Jack.

He turns and shoots one his men who made the mistake of being rough with Jack. Oh boy, he’s mad. It seems we learn that Jack was his mentor years ago. Sascha and Jack talk. They are old compatriots until the CIA hung him out (Sascha).

“I do what what is necessary to do to stay alive.” We learn Sascha was mentored by Jack. As they are talking, his cell phone rings. Sascha hears that the shipment is ready to ship.

Inside his home, Jack meets Sascha’s wife. She is complimentary to Jack. She wants to talk to her husband. Sascha tells Jack to go to his office where he had some 18-year old malt liquor. Once in the office, Jack looks around and at a picture on the desk. It’s a picture of himself with a young Sascha. He removes a wire from his watch and winds it around his hand. Oh oh, Jack…what are you going to do?

Sydney and Sam arrive at the docks and find the warehouse where the shipment is to be made to Korcheff. Sydney now wants Sam to do something he’s not cut out to do, drive the truck inside the warehouse in three minutes. She’s going to steal the weapon. Sydney finds the club owner, Koster, and she finds the biometric weapon. She knocks out the guard, but Koster see’s it happen on his laptop and sends the weapon after her. It looks like a miniature helicopter with two tiny machine guns on it. The weapon chases Sydney through the warehouse. Sam is shot by the Koster.

Then suddenly Koster who is also trying to get her, runs into Syd. She grabs him just as the weapon starts shooting. He is killed. Sydney pulls him down on top of her as the weapon who is programmed with her picture as it’s target, sees there are bullets “in her.” The weapon leaves as the ‘target was eliminated’.

In Angola meanwhile, Jack and Sascha enjoy a drink. He tells Jack his wife just told him she was pregnant. He is going to be a father. Jack garrotes him. Oops! Leaving the office Jack tells a guard that Sascha wants to be alone and can he borrow a truck to go to town.

At APO, Vaughn tells Weiss that he couldn’t find Frank Murdoch. He fibbed! Weiss is surprised. There was a look on his face that said, “I don’t believe you.”

Sydney tells Sam that he’s good to go home. No one knows about him. They’re all dead. She tells him he certainly got a bang out of his adventure. He says that it must kill her to see places and never be able to talk about it. (Oh if he ever knew the truth.)

As she leaves, he says, “See ya around the globe!”

At APO Sydney meets Jack as she enters. He is on his way out to get some dinner. She turns back and then asks him if she can join him. He asks about her report, but she tells him it can wait.

They walk off together.

REMARKS

I liked Sam. He was really nice and even though he wanted to date Sydney, he backed off as soon as she said she had a boyfriend. He was just an everyday Joe who was caught up in a situation over which he had no control. Nice addition to the story, I thought.

Jack and Sydney leave together for the first time since the season started. Is this the road home, back to their relationship as it was before he told her he killed Irina?


DISCUSS

Vaughn lied to Weiss. Why do you think he did? Weiss gave him the information and knew it was good.

Was the final scene ‘the road home’ for father and daughter? Of course, it also meant Sam Houser would be going home safe.