"There’s Only One Sydney Bristow"
A hooded Sloane arrives at a castle in Minsk and is greeted by Ehrmann. Sloane would have liked some warning that such discretion would be taken and he would have to come out with so little notice, but Ehrmann doesn’t care. He takes Sloane to a room and tells him “the 12” are waiting for him, but Ehrmann won’t be joining them. Sloane figures out that Ehrmann isn’t allowed in the room. Inside the room, Sloane meets the 12, who are fans, and they tell him that they have a way to make Nadia better. Of course, he has to do one last thing for them. Sloane wants a guarantee that this is the last time the 12 will call on him. One of the men points out that if they wanted to keep Sloane under their thumb, they wouldn’t show their faces. They promise that as soon as his assignment is over, Nadia will be given back to him. Peyton drops by a prison and visits Anna (last seen in “A Man of His Word”), who doesn’t want to talk to her. Peyton informs her that because the jail doesn’t exist on any public record and Anna is being held without any charges, she basically doesn’t exist to the outside world. Peyton’s “employer” has arranged for Anna to be released as long as Anna performs an operation for them. Anna isn’t interested until Peyton tells her that this operation will allow her to destroy Sydney.
At home, Sydney puts baby Isabelle (see “Maternal Instinct”) to bed as Jack tries to rearrange the kitchen so Isabelle won’t get into the knives. Sydney asks if Jack has contacted any of his field sources; he tells her that no one’s heard from Irina since she disappeared (see “Maternal Instinct”). He promises that they’re doing their best to find her. Sydney thinks that the lack of activity on Prophet Five’s front means that they’re regrouping and coming up with another plan. Jack encourages her to focus on being a mother, adding that he’ll let her know when her help is needed again. In Minsk, Sloane asks for a promise that Sydney won’t be in danger if he helps the 12. He adds that she probably won’t follow his orders, considering she wouldn’t even when she didn’t think he was a bad guy. The 12 still want him to control her actions as much as he can, though Sloane notes that she’s on maternity leave. The 12 have some incentive in mind to make her reenter the field. Said incentive is Will (last seen in “Remnants”), whom Anna gets close to by telling him she’s CIA, his cover may have been blown, and something’s happened to Sydney. After seeing that he’s alone (though waiting for someone), Anna tases him and lets someone know she has him.
In a briefing room at APO, Sloane and Jack show Sydney a surveillance video of Anna kidnapping Will, telling her that Anna was supposedly still in custody at the time of the abduction. Sloane is sure, however, that Anna had some help in finding out where Will was. Sydney doesn’t trust Langley to head up the investigation, but Jack assures her that APO has already been allowed to find Will themselves. Sloane tells Sydney that they wanted her to know about the situation, but they’re not expecting her to end her maternity leave to help with the search. He and Jack add that they have an advantage since Anna is so well-known in the underworld and can’t completely disappear. Sydney announces that as much as she appreciates their efforts to protect her, she’s coming back to work. The doctor from “S.O.S.”) injects something into Will’s head and Peyton says, “I’ll have Anna make the call.” Back at APO, Sloane lets Sydney know that Echelon has intercepted a call from Anna to a Russian Mafioso named Semanko, who has Will in Moscow. He tells her to come to the Centurion at midnight. Sloane explains that the Centurion is a mob front (of course, it’s a club). Sydney is tasked to infiltrate the club, figure out where Will is, and let the extraction team know where to get him.
Two agents, Rance and Dalton, arrive to babysit Isabelle while Sydney is gone. Rance assures Sydney that he and Dalton are highly trained in infant development and can completely baby-proof the house. He’s also quickly able to calm Isabelle down when she cries. Sydney says goodbye to her daughter, promising her that things won’t always be like this: “I’m just trying to make the world safer so you can grow up and have a regular life. Someone I love is in trouble. I have to go and help him out. It’s my job. Mama’s gotta go to work.” In Moscow, Sydney ziplines to the Centurion and puts pictures of Dixon, Rachel, and Tom into the VIP database so they can get in. They scan the crowd with glasses containing hidden cameras so that Marshall can find someone carrying a lot of cash. Sydney flirts with a possible Semanko, then when she finds out he’s not the guy she’s looking for, scares him off by letting him know she can’t drink because she’s breastfeeding. Marshall spots Semanko, and Tom and Rachel distract him so Sydney can put a tracker on him. Semanko meets with Anna in the VIP room, where Anna gets her payment and tells Semanko which room Will is in. Sydney rushes to get there first, letting Rachel and Tom know that Will is in the building. Unfortunately, Tom and Rachel get pulled away by guards first.
Sydney finds Will, but before she can get away with him, Anna shows up and starts fighting with Sydney. Meanwhile, Peyton and the doctor watch through a hidden camera and take a biometric scan of Sydney. The doctor asks Peyton how good her operative is. “We’ll find out soon enough,” Peyton replies. Anna cuts Sydney’s arm and the doctor announces, “Begin data capture.” There’s a tracing isotope on the knife, which becomes a key player in the Sydney/Anna fight. Fortunately, Will is now free and able to beat her up enough to save Sydney. Anna breaks a window and makes her escape, telling Sydney, “Maybe we’ll do this again sometime.” The doctor tells Peyton that they got exactly what they were looking for. On a plane, Sydney asks Will if he was interrogated; he tells her no one around him talked to him. He asks if it’s safe to call his fiancée, explaining that he did ask out the painter he was interested in in “Remnants,” and he was planning to propose when Anna grabbed him. Sydney can’t believe Will is about to marry a woman she’s never met; Will can’t believe Sydney has a daughter with Vaughn. Back at APO, Sydney tells Jack that she hates not being able to tell Will that Vaughn is really alive, but Jack says she did the right thing, since keeping Vaughn’s non-death a secret is the only way to keep him safe. He adds that Prophet Five was probably behind Will’s abduction, in an effort to get to Sydney.
On the phone, Ehrmann tells Sloane that everything is going as planned and Sloane did a great job with his mission. Sloane wants to know everything that’s going to happen before he agrees to do anything else for the 12. Ehrmann tells him to give his team the correct orders when he gets his signal, which he’ll know when he receives it. As Anna is biometrically scanned and the isotope data transfer is completed, Sydney introduces Will to Isabelle and lets Rance and Dalton go home. Sydney tells Will that they have to assume he was kidnapped because of her; she apologizes that he’s in danger because she’s in his life. Will protests that his life is a lot better with Sydney in it. Suddenly a security alarm goes off and Rance takes Isabelle from Will so he can be given a once-over with a metal detector. The agents quickly discover that something has been implanted in Will’s head. At APO, Marshall looks at a scan of Will’s skull and tells Will that it’s a radio receiver patched into a micro charge - basically, it’s a bomb. If it goes off, it’ll kill Will (though no one else should be hurt). He’s worried that attempting to remove it will set off a failsafe and make it explode. Jack asks the medical team to take a look and come up with an extraction plan anyway. Will starts freaking out and isn’t calmed at all when his phone rings. It’s Anna calling to tell Sydney to bring her page 47 (see “Page 47”) on a train to from Portugal to Madrid in exchange for the deactivation codes. If Sydney doesn’t, Will’s head will go boom.
Sydney wonders why Anna would want page 47 out of all the Rambaldi artifacts. “Who’s Rambaldi?” Rachel asks, proving that she’s not qualified to work at APO. Sloane gives her a lesson and Rachel is surprised that people actually believe Sydney’s the chosen one. Sydney doesn’t see any problem in giving Anna page 47, since it contains prophecies about things she might do - if she doesn’t do them, they won’t come true. (She seems to have forgotten that she’s already busted a prophecy - see “Masquerade.”) Sloane agrees with Sydney, but Dixon isn’t sure they should give in to Anna’s demands. Sydney points out that the page will get her close to Anna, but that doesn’t mean Anna will deactivate the bomb. Jack asks Marshall if he can hack into the deactivation frequency, but Marshall reminds everyone that Anna mentioned deactivation codes, and he might be able to reverse engineer them. However, they need to get the bomb in the range of the deactivator, which means Will gets to go to Portugal with Sydney. On the train, Sydney and Will use French accents and try to convince a conductor that they’re supposed to be in first class even though they have coach tickets. They’re able to buy their way in, and as Sydney is tapping into the train’s security monitors, Will starts to ask her to do something depending on what happens there. She thinks he wants her to tell his girlfriend he loves her, but he just wants her to be his best man.
Will and Sydney spot Anna in the dining car and Sydney heads in to distract her so Will can scan the codes. As he does so, Sydney presents Anna with page 47 and asks her why she wants it. Anna doesn’t tell her, then heads off to get the detonator. Will calls her bluff and tells Sydney that they wouldn’t be able to do the scan if Anna didn’t have the detonator on her. Sydney uses violence to keep Anna where she is. Of course, Sydney is able to stop the timer on the bomb and knock Anna down, swearing that Anna will never beat her. “And you still don’t understand the game,” Anna tells her. She grabs page 47 and runs out, closing the door and kissing the glass just as she did in “Parity.” The cabin floods with red liquid and though Sydney tries to break the glass to get out, she can’t. She passes out and the liquid drains through the bottom of the cabin, filling a container. Anna makes a call informing someone that they’re getting Sydney’s DNA and the process has begun. “There will be no further delays,” she promises. Will hits her with a fire extinguisher and gets Sydney from the cabin. Anna resets the timer on the transmitter and tosses it off the train, giving Will 30 seconds before his head explodes. Will and Sydney dive into a river after the transmitter and Sydney turns it off.
Sloane meets with Peyton in an L.A. parking lot and reminds her that Sydney wasn’t supposed to be harmed. Peyton replies that nothing’s wrong with Sydney (despite her being sprayed with the red liquid). She refuses to tell Sloane what was done to Sydney; all he needs to know is that his job is done. There’s a compound ready for him that contains instructions on how to give Nadia her cure. In Moscow, Anna lies in a cage as Ehrmann and the doctor discuss their preparation of Sydney’s DNA template. Anna has also been given provacillium - the medication given to participants in Project Helix. The doctor warns that Anna isn’t in for a fun experience, and she’s submerged in the red liquid. In L.A., Sydney and Will take a walk with Isabelle and Sydney tells Will that he’ll be given a panic button so she can come help him if he’s in danger again. She apologizes again for putting his life in danger, but he still doesn’t want to hear it. She notes that everyone she loves is hurt eventually. Will doesn’t want Sydney to blame herself for “the evils of the world” because he’s seen a lot of evil in the world, but he sleeps okay at night because he knows Sydney is fighting it all. He wouldn’t trade her friendship for a normal life: “I know a lot of regular people who live regular lives. There’s only one Sydney Bristow.” Well, maybe two - Anna is now a perfect Sydney clone.
MEMORABLE QUOTES: “If I’m interrupting your busy schedule of invasive interrogation, I do apologize.” - Peyton to Anna
Jack: “Sydney, you do not leave edged weapons within the reach of children.”
“My apologies. My wife, she’s…a bit of a whore.” - Tom to Semanko
Sydney: “We have to assume you were grabbed because someone was trying to hurt me.”
Will: “Syd…you know, my girl, she’s waiting for me back home, and, uh…so depending on how this all goes down…if, uh, I was….”
Written by Drew Goddard; directed by Robert M. Williams, Jr.
Sydney: “She’s four weeks old, Dad.”
Jack: “Particularly young Bristow women.”
Sydney: “She can’t even hold her head up. I think we’re safe.”
Will: “Yeah? Well, yeah. I didn’t think they wanted me for all the Lakers statistics I have in my head.”
Sydney: “Will, look at me. You’re gonna make it through this. I’m not gonna let anything happen to you.”
Will: “I know that.”
Sydney: “Okay.”
Will: “Wait. What did you think I was asking?”
Sydney: “I…was just being supportive in case you thought…you might….”
Will: “Die?”
Sydney: “It’s not important. What were you asking?”
Will: “I was asking you to be my best man.”
Sydney: “Really?”
Will: “Yeah. Before I realized that you have such little faith in me. You thought I was gonna die?”
Sydney: “No, I - you want me to be your best man?”
Will: “Well, I did. Now I’m not so sure.”
Sydney: “How would that work, exactly? Would I have to wear a tux?”
Will: “You don’t have to worry about it, ‘cause you’re not invited.”