"30 Seconds"
A disguised Sydney is in Jaipur, India, chatting on a cell phone before she meets up with a man named Halbe. She’s posing as a cosmetics designer who wants to outsource her business to India, and Halbe is in charge of a call center. This is because, as Marshall told her back in L.A., Anna (see “There’s Only One Sydney Bristow”) is routing her calls through the center, unbeknownst to the people there, and if they can find her router and remove the encryption key, they can listen in on her calls and possibly figure out where she is. Sydney needs to get a perfume bottle within five feet of a WiFi access point to allow them to map the phone system and figure out which line she’s using. At the call center, Sydney sprays some perfume around, pretending to ask someone’s opinion about it. She leaves the bottle next to a router and Renee maps the system, learning that the router is inside the building. She bursts in to “rob” the place, throwing Sydney towards some cables. As Renee takes a bunch of people’s valuables, Sydney finds the router and gets the encryption key. They run out together, Sydney dropping their haul in a trashcan though Elodie wants to keep a watch. Sydney encourages her to join APO (though she’d have to work on getting a pardon first).
In Barcelona, Sloane tells Ehrmann that according to the instructions accompanying her cure (see “There’s Only One Sydney Bristow”), Nadia’s heart has to be stopped. Ehrmann notes that it’s only for about 30 seconds, but Sloane doesn’t want to have to kill his daughter to save her. Ehrmann tells him to have faith in Rambaldi, since her illness is a result of one of his inventions: “You spent decades pursuing his works. If things had gone differently, you’d be working with us right now. You’d be there.” Sloane announces that he’s done pursuing Rambaldi and he’s only there for Nadia. Ehrmann tells him that the 12 upheld their part of the bargain, so it’s up to Sloane if he wants to administer the cure. At APO, Dixon announces that Anna’s line has gone active; Rachel and Marshall are ready to intercept it. They’re successful and hear Peyton talking to a man named Koller about how Anna works for her now. Marshall pinpoints Koller’s location but can’t get Peyton’s. Peyton has left page 47 and a code for Koller, though he can’t decipher it. Marshall manages to determine that Peyton is in Barcelona, but beyond that, he’s stuck. There, Anna (now looking like Sydney) assures Peyton that Koller will find what they want him to find. Back at APO, Jack assigns the crew to keep surveilling the calls while he takes their copy of page 47 to Sloane to figure out what the code is.
Sloane apologizes to Nadia, then smothers her to stop her heart. Jack walks in just as Sloane is about to give her the cure; he thinks Sloane is ending Nadia’s life so she won’t suffer. Sloane administers the cure and at first thinks it’s too late, but Nadia wakes up after all. At APO, Sydney and Dixon discuss Anna, who Sydney is sure is working for Prophet Five, though she’s not sure why. Dixon wonders if they need her because there’s something only she can do. Rachel announces that they’ve ID’d Koller, who claimed to have discovered some of Da Vinci’s lost drawings but who actually forged them. Now, though, he’s gone freelance, and many people want to use him, including Renee. Sydney notes that this means Renee will know where to find him. Marshall suddenly lets Nadia know that Jack is calling to let her know that Nadia is awake. At the hospital, Jack asks Sloane why he didn’t say anything about the cure. Sloane tells him that he didn’t want other people to know. He explains that he went through a lot of different channels to finally get the cure, which he got after he thought he was out of options. Sydney arrives and greets Nadia happily as a doctor tells Sloane and Jack that he wants to run tests to figure out how Nadia’s condition “reversed itself.” Sloane refuses, announcing that he’s taking her home so she can get her life back.
Jack calls Dixon and asks him to investigate Sloane’s recent activities, especially his trip to Barcelona. Later, Sydney comes back to APO, where Jack tells her that Tom is on his way to Paris to meet Renee so they can go after Koller. Sydney isn’t happy to have been called away from Nadia, but Jack wants to know how much she knows about Nadia’s cure. Dixon explains that Sloane has made several trips to Barcelona, and he was there at the same time they intercepted Peyton’s call there. Jack thinks Sloane may have agreed to work with Prophet Five in exchange for the cure. Sydney notes that she knows what Sloane is capable of, but she can’t help but be grateful because he revived Nadia. She tells Jack and Dixon they can investigate all they want, but she’s going to spend time with her sister. Nadia and Sloane sit outside near the hospital and Nadia reveals that she plans to stay with Sydney for a while. Sydney arrives with Isabelle, who Nadia is happy to meet for the first time. Sloane heads back to APO and Nadia asks Sydney what’s going on. At APO, Jack tells Sloane that he’s arranged for his requested leave of absence. Sloane apologizes for the bad timing, but Jack tells him he should be spending time with Nadia. Jack asks if Sloane was aware of the hidden message in page 47; Sloane says no and that he shouldn’t be involved in this situation.
Dixon tells Jack that Marshall has agreed to tell Sloane he’s working on page 47 if Sloane asks. They’ve also placed taps so that they’ll know if Sloane goes to Prophet Five. In Paris, Tom and Renee prepare to make contact with Koller but first have to banter about the French being more punctual than Americans. Renee calls Koller, who’s studying page 47, and sets up a meeting with him. Meanwhile, Sloane himself makes plans to meet someone. At Sydney’s place, she and Nadia talk about Sloane, and Nadia says she doesn’t want to get hurt anymore. Sydney tells her that while she was comatose, Sloane was completely devoted to her - more than he was ever devoted to Rambaldi. Sydney offers to let Nadia stay with her as long as she wants, even though being around a crying baby might not be fun. Nadia is fine with it, as she wants a lot of life around her. Jack calls and tells Sydney that Sloane has set up a meeting tonight, which Jack is planning to survey. Sydney decides that it’s time to tell Nadia what’s going on. That night, Nadia finds Jack and tells him she’s tagging along because she wants to know whatever he’s about to discover about Sloane. Renee goes to Koller’s house in Zurich and seduces him while Tom blows a hole in the house to get in. In L.A., Jack tells Nadia that despite Sloane’ s actions, he thinks Sloane’s feelings for her are real. He also wants Nadia to know that Sloane isn’t her only family.
Jack and Nadia follow Sloane to a storage facility, where he gets a suitcase. Nadia manages to replicate the code he used to get into a unit, and inside she and Jack find all of Nadia’s stuff. Jack realizes that Sloane is there to get it for her. He also finds findings from the clinical trials Sloane was researching in his attempts to help Nadia. In Zurich, Tom and Renee interrogate Koller, who denies having any information on Anna. After some threatening, Koller finally admits that he’s meeting with Anna in Ghana the next day. He’s only going to get paid, but he’s worried that bad things will happen because the document is a fake. Tom calls Sydney at APO to tell her, explaining that the titanium dioxide in the document means it’s not more than ten years old. Sydney wants to keep the meet and use Koller and the page to lure Anna to them. Tom asks where the real page 47 is. Neither knows that Sloane has it. Nadia goes to Sloane’s house to ask if she can stay with him while Sydney is in Ghana going after Anna. They spend some time together and Sloane is surprised that Nadia would want to be near him again after everything that’s happened. He tells her that when he first met her, he didn’t know how to be a father; he thought it was about being needed. Since then, he’s learned that he needs Nadia more than she’ll ever need him. Sloane heads off to finish making dinner, and when Nadia looks for scissors to cut off her hospital bracelet, she finds page 47.
Sloane asks Nadia to trust him, but she shoots back that he promised his Rambaldi obsession was over. He admits that when he handed everything over to the DSR, he couldn’t bring himself to part with page 47 because he’d spent so much time devoted to Rambaldi. Nadia says it’s an obsession but Sloane calls it faith. She tells him how horrible the past 12 months were for her, since she could still hear and feel but couldn’t move or open her eyes. She tells him he has to choose between her and Rambaldi, but Sloane doesn’t want to have to choose between what he considers to be the two most important things in his life. “I supposed then you’ll lose us both,” Nadia replies. She throws page 47 into the fire, which illuminates the As the mission begins, Rachel and Sydney pretend to shop in the marketplace while Dixon has a meal. Rachel meets up with a nervous Koller as Renee rents a room that gives her an overhead view of the marketplace. A car arrives and the APO crew wonder why no one is getting out of it. The car starts up again and takes off through the marketplace, trying to lose the APO crew. Sydney stops the car with some bullets, but Anna isn’t inside. Renee runs off and catches up with who she thinks is Sydney - but it’s actually Anna, who promptly slashes her throat. Sloane voices over about originally being horrified at the thought of double-crossing APO and killing Nadia, but now he knows that it was inevitable so that he can complete the rest of his mission. “I have been preparing for this my whole life. I knew it was coming. I have betrayed everyone I ever loved, but I was chosen,” he says. As he talks, Marshall tells Jack that Nadia is dead. In Ghana, Sydney finds Renee’s body as Jack finds Nadia and an explanation letter from Sloane. Sloane himself is at an airport with Ehrmann, who says that the 12 appreciate what he’s done. “This is my road to follow,” Sloane announces. “Welcome back,” Ehrmann tells him. Together they board Prophet Five’s jet.
R.I.P. (OR SO WE THINK): Nadia, Renee
MEMORABLE QUOTES: Rachel: “Is everything okay?”
Written by Monica Breen; directed by Frederick E.O. Toye
Koller: “Wonderful, considering I might get killed today.”