S1 E19 – Snowman

Luckily they don’t spend too much time continuing the story that the last episode left off with, Sydney and Noah are extracted from their location and then we get to see Sydney meet up with Vaughn at Micro Storage.  Vaughn tells Sydney that another person is interested in getting to Khasinau, he’s called the snowman.  The CIA has had the snowman on their watch list for twelve years, but he went off the grid seven years ago.  Vaughn tells her that he knows how important it is to her to get to him first, so he wanted to make her aware and let her know that he is following the leads on the snowman and hopefully they will lead them to Khasinau.  Maybe it’s just me, but I think that Sydney was looking at Vaughn in a whole new way during this meeting, she’s not ready to give up on Noah again, but she’s thinking about having relationships again.  Maybe she has realized that she is ready to move on after her little stint with Noah, and thinking about Vaughn in that way.  Or I just am doing some wishful thinking. As Sydney is walking out of the locker that they meet in, Vaughn is rubbing his head debating if he should say something or not, and then he calls her back.  He asked if the mission went alright, she just simply said yeah.  I think that he may have wanted to say more, but couldn’t get himself to say what he wanted to say.  Because you can see the frustration, and longing for Sydney as she walks away on his face.  He can’t take his eyes off of her.  And the thought that she might get back with Noah drives him crazy.  

Noah asks Sydney to join him when he walks away from SD-6, he tells her that he has been funneling money into off shore accounts and they can run away and never have to lie to anyone ever again.  She turns him down, telling him there are hundreds of reasons, as well as telling him that the other night was a onetime thing.  He asks for one reason and she tells him that she needs to find her mother.  He asks if he were to wait would she come, she just smiles and walks away.  Personally I think that after meeting with Vaughn, and having had that moment with Noah, she has realized who she wants to be with.  Although I don’t like it, the night with Noah was necessary for Sydney and Vaughn.   She had to be with someone else to know she was ready to move on, I’ve said it before, but Vaughn could not be her rebound from Danny.

Okay I know this scene isn’t really a relationship building scene, but as a woman, I love any moment that Michael Vartan is on the screen.  So this being a fun interaction between Vaughn and Weiss, I had to add it here.  Sorry!  Vaughn is getting ready to meet with his contact about the Snowman and he is going to Bogota, so he throws his keys at Weiss and tells him that he needs to feed Donovan.  He goes into detail multiple times about how to feed his dog.  They talk about if Vaughn can meet with his contact, they can find out more about the snowman, which in turn will lead him to Khasinau.  As he leaves he reminds Weiss once again how much food to give his dog, and that he doesn’t want to come home to a fat dog.  I love this part, I think partly, because the part about the dog, Michael Vartan could’ve been talking about his own dog here.  He loves animals and especially his own dog Millie. 

On a personal note, I would’ve adopted a dog by now after all I’ve seen with Michael Vartan and his talking about loving your pets, but alas, one of my daughters is the one in a billionth person who is deathly allergic to dogs and cats.  She was hospitalized for three days after spending an evening at a home of someone who had a dog even though the dog was never in the house.  So there will be no dog for me; and the end of my personal rant.

Vaughn meets with his contact in Bogota, who he learns used to work with the Snowman until some faulty Intel was passed.  Then the Snowman came after him while sleeping with his weapon of choice, an icepick, he agrees to contact the Snowman ad pass on the Intel to Vaughn, but Vaughn must promise to make him suffer.  Vaughn doesn’t reply, but unhappily nods.

Sydney writes up her SD-6 mission on her paper bag explaining that she and Noah were heading to Cape Town to go after Calder, and asking what the counter mission is.  But when she meets with Vaughn he is not happy.  He yells at her for not telling the CIA about Calder, and telling SD-6 about it first.  He asks her what she was thinking, why she didn’t tell him.  She tells him that she was thinking of the 36 hours that she was held hostage by the CIA, FBI, DSR  and that if she told him he would be requires to tell his superiors who would make it Omega 17 Classified and they wouldn’t allowed near the investigation.  He gives her a device and tells her what she’s supposed to do with it, but guesses that she’s not going to do it. She became very sincere when she replies back, telling him that she promises that she will not let Khasinau walk and she won’t let SD-6 get to him first, but she refuses to let the FBI get in her way again.  Vaughn isn’t happy, but he knows that she is going to do it, and fighting her is a waste of time.

While on the mission with Noah, she almost falls and sets off the alarm, but Noah was able to catch the rope and manually pull her back, but afterward his arm was incredibly cut up by the rope requiring him to wear a bandage all the way up his arm with 36 stitches.  When back at home, he tells her that he is going that night and that she could join him.  She admits that sometimes she wants to disappear, but she has her own personal reasons for staying.  He gives her plane tickets for the next night, and begs him to let him show her that it can work, to give him one week, and they kiss.

Noah calls her from the plane, and asks if she is going to join him, she tells him if things were different, then he asks if there was any info on Calder, she tells him no even though she is about to leave for a mission to go get him.  She is about to say something else and he tells her, let’s not do good byes and they hang up.

She meets with Vaughn once more, he tells her that Devlin knows that she is going to Australia and asks if she understands that he’ll expect a full report.  She says that she does, but her mind is off in another world.  Vaughn tells her that he knows how important it is for her to find her mother, and that he’ll help her as much as he can.  Which if I was her, would mean a lot to me; knowing that I have support in finding the one woman he hates more than anyone in the world.  She asks if there has been any word on the Snowman.  He just tells her that he is waiting to hear back from his contact.  He knows that something is going on with her, so he asks her what up.  Then he sits next to her and tells her that she can talk to him about anything, off the record. She smiles and tells him that she’s alright, but he knows that she is hiding something.

After Sydney has landed at the house she is supposed to infiltrate, we get a look back at Vaughn who just received the call from his contact about the Snowman.  Sydney is going thru the house and sees no guards as was expected, and then sees them down in the house.  Vaughn runs to Weiss and tells him that the Snowman is in Mckay, the same city that Sydney is in, they are both going after Calder.  He asks if he knows of anyway to contact Sydney, but since she isn’t on coms, they don’t know of a way.  Sydney is calling for Dixon to come and assist since something is wrong.  Sydney sees a masked man in the kitchen and initiates a fight with him.  During the fight she picks up a knife, he takes it from her, she kicks him and he falls on the knife, when he doesn’t get up, Sydney goes over to him.  She sees that the masked man has a bandage on his arm, and then she removes his mask and finds Noah.  Noah is the snowman.  She sits with him as he dies and cries over him.

I’m okay with this ending, first of all I didn’t like Noah, and even though I didn’t like him, the relationship needed him.  Sydney needed to have another relationship between Danny and Vaughn.  And her knowing that he was a bad guy will let her move on faster and not regret her decision to not run off with him.  She is now going to be able to focus all of her attention in that department on Vaughn.

• Items that I found noteworthy… 
• On the computer file that Sydney and Noah retrieved, there was a tape of Sydney’s mother after the accident. In the video we also see that the FBI agent that was killed in the accident with her mother is in the video as well interviewing her.  It appears that agent Calder from the FBI was actually her KGB handler. 
• Noah trained with Sydney, in the opening of each episode she states that she was recruited seven years ago.  The snowman went off of the CIA’s grid seven years ago. I don’t think that’s a coincidence. 
• Jack’s real name is Jonathon Donahue Bristow. 
• Irina/Laura was sent to find out about a project that jack was working on called Project Christmas. 
• When Sloane insinuates that Sydney wasn’t intimate with Will, but she is with Noah, Jack becomes very protective and defensive telling Sloane that he isn’t sure if it’s his business, but it certainly isn’t Sloane’s business. 
• When Will and Francie confront Sydney about going to Italy, Sydney has to make up a lie about being promoted at work and having to be a courier for documents, afterwards she goes into the bathroom and breaks down over how close they came to finding out the truth.