S1 E5 – Doppelganger

As this episode begins, we see Sydney on her mission with Dixon; we don’t see Vaughn come into the picture until 10 minutes into the episode.  But seeing them laugh about how Dixon was able to pull a bomb out of someone while she was driving an ambulance was nice.  It’s nice to see them comfortable enough with each other that they can laugh about how bizarre the missions get.  It quickly takes a bad turn as Sydney was unable to accomplish identifying someone for the CIA.  He gets upset, but she defends herself right back.  I’m mentioned this before, but I love the way that they can have a disagreement about how something is done, but they are able to quickly move on from it.  They settle their fight and she gets up to go to class, before she leaves he stops her.  After the last episode and all that happened with her father, he went out of his way to help her find out more.  He told her, “I know you have questions about your father, so I copied his file.”  He gives her his file.  They both know that she shouldn’t have it, and that he shouldn’t have accessed it, but he knew that it would be something she would want so he did it.  That simple act showed Sydney that he is a true friend and that he would do anything for her. 

Sydney and Vaughn have found a new meeting place, Micro Self Storage.  They meet and discuss the counter mission that she will have to perform, which is a little more elaborate than usual, since this time she will have to switch out a person instead of an item.  After Vaughn introduces Kelvin, the man she will be switching out, and Sydney, Kelvin leaves.  Sydney tells Vaughn that she has to tell Dixon, that he will notice something like this.  He tells her that she can’t tell him.  Explaining that she doesn’t know if he already knows who he is working for, as well as if he doesn’t she can’t volunteer him to be a double agent.  It would be too dangerous for all parties involved, especially her and his family.  He is able to make his point by asking if she really wants to make a life decision like that for him.  Vaughn knew that Sydney could possibly argue with him over telling Dixon, but he is learning what makes Sydney tick, and he knew how to make her understand that it wasn’t the time to involve Dixon.  He reassured her that she would be able to do her job without him finding out.

Sydney is with other CIA agents, Vaughn included at the safe house that they are keeping Schiller, the man that Kelvin is impersonating.  The tech that is working on the computers is explain to Sydney that one of the reasons they made the switch was to give Sloane a bogus website to log onto, where once SD-6 logged on, it would open up the SD-6 network to the CIA.  Sydney becomes very excited at the thought of the CIA having access to the network, and when she finds out that it was actually Vaughn’s idea, she is somewhat surprised.  Vaughn even asked her why she looked so surprised, she denies being surprised, but I think she was blushing a bit, but that it was an amazing idea.  I think she is starting to realize that Vaughn is smarter than she gave him credit for.  

Sydney found out from Dixon that Sloane suspects her of making a switch since Kelvin didn’t have the information that Schiller promised him.  Dixon asks Sydney if there is anything that he should know, and even though she wants to tell him what is going on, she knows that Vaughn was right, she can’t volunteer him for the life that she is living.  So she tells him no, but as soon as she can get away from her Halloween party, she goes to the safe house.  She tells Vaughn that if she doesn’t get the information from Schiller now, they will know she is a double agent.  He is very concerned.  The way that Sydney is able to so personally talk with Schiller and convince him that they have been telling him the truth is amazing.  She is so personable, and her integrity really shines through, it is hard not to trust anything that she says.  She was also smart enough to know that she couldn’t go back with the information, but that her dad could.

We see Vaughn and Sydney meet at a gas station.  They talk about her counter mission, how she will rendezvous with a CIA team in the building that she is infiltrating and Dixon is supposed to blow up.  But since the CIA wants to obtain more information from the lab, she will need to disarm the bomb. They agree that it will be simple enough.  Sydney then gets up the courage to ask Vaughn if he had heard of a case that was mentioned in her father’s file.  He says that it had also sparked his interests since part of that file was missing, so he went and researched it for her.  It mentioned an agent Calder, who he tells her wasn’t CIA but FBI.  She asked why the FBI would be involved with her father; he told her that they wouldn’t be.  She then realized that the FBI could be investigating her father if they suspected him of selling secrets.  Vaughn doesn’t answer but his face falls as he knows that this is the case, and you can see that he feels pain for Sydney.

As Sydney and Dixon are at the plant, she watches him set up the bomb so that she can disarm it, then she goes to get the inhalers and make the switch with the real CIA agents.  She meets up with the CIA agents and makes the inhaler swap.  One of the agents tells her that he has heard of her, and that  Vaughn likes her, upon hearing this Sydney grins, and he goes on to tell her that Vaughn respects her.  She keeps smiling, but tells them that she has to go defuse a bomb.  She removes the receiver from the bomb, but doesn’t completely deactivate it.  She tells Dixon that everyone is out of the building, and he goes to detonate the bomb but his receiver won’t work.  She tries to get him to go, but he has a second detonator that she didn’t account for and she didn’t pull the receiver for.  She watches as the building blows up, knowing that there is a team of CIA agents in the building.  She can’t move, even as Dixon tries to get her to get going, she is frozen thinking about those agents inside.

• Items that I found noteworthy… 
• Vaughn talks about Sydney to other agents. 
• Will is stubborn and will not give up on finding Danny’s killer, even after being told multiple times that he needs to forget about it.