S1 E6 – Reckoning

When Sydney and Vaughn meet at Micro Self Storage to go over the mission Sydney recounts to Vaughn how she was frozen after watching the building with the CIA agents inside explode.  How Dixon had to practically drag her into the van, and how she had to make up an excuse as to why she was frozen at the scene.  She feels incredibly guilty because she was responsible for disarming the bomb, she tells this to Vaughn and he tells her that there was nothing that she could’ve done, she had no idea that Dixon had a second trigger.  He is empathetic to her concerns and you can see that he wants to comfort her, but he has to follow the rules and keep their relationship professional.  She goes on to tell him that she could have told Dixon.  He begins to go into why she can’t and she tells him that she knows the reasons that she can’t, but if he had known those men wouldn’t have died for nothing.  He tells her that they died for their country, not for nothing.  But when he sees that she is still upset, he apologizes that she had to go through all that.  He knows how hard this is for her, and he wishes that he could make it better, but he knows that it’s just going to get harder.

When Sydney returns home, somber anyway, she starts looking at photos of her mother, as well as looking at her father’s files.  She contacted the wife of the deceased FBI agent that was in the file.  After speaking with the wife, she discovers that the FBI agent was the other person killed in the car accident that killed her mother.  She contacts Vaughn and meets with him again.  She explains to Vaughn how she thought her mother had died, but comes to the conclusion that the car accident was caused by the FBI agent going after a KGB agent, which must have been her father. She thinks that if her father wasn’t a double agent than her mother would still be alive today.  You can see that she is at a place where she doesn’t know if she should be screaming or crying she is so upset.  Then she gathers herself and apologizes that she is involving Vaughn.  But she doesn’t have anyone else to talk to about this.   We knew that she trusted Vaughn and that she wasn’t willing to work with anyone else, but it’s here that we realize that she really depends on him.  She needs someone to be able to talk to, someone who knows the whole story.  Someone she can trust and she can finally trust someone with all of her secrets.  Vaughn is happy to be that person for her.  She wants to report him; she is so mad that he could have done this.  Vaughn tries to rationalize with her.  He tells her that reporting him for being under suspicion twenty years ago isn’t going to do anything and that he’s is instrumental in taking down SD-6 which is their current goal.  She tries to argue with him, but he is able to calm her down once again, he tells her that he will look into what’s going on with her father, but asks her to be patient and give him two days to figure it out.  She is frustrated, but agrees.  Once again, Vaughn is able to take some of that rage and bring it down to something that she will be able to live with later on.  He knows that her acting irrationally will upset her later on. 

Unfortunately Sydney did not listen to Vaughn when she saw her father next.  She walked into SD-6 to find that Jack had been transferred from the location that he was in to be in her office to help facilitate missions.  Sydney is just seething with anger.  Once they are alone, she goes at him.  Telling that she knows he was being hunted by the FBI and that her mother died because of it.  You can tell that Jack wants to tell her something, but she won’t give him the chance.  She tells him that she is going to make sure that he pays for what he did.

Vaughn and Sydney meet up at the golf course and go over the mission, they joke around a little bit as well.  You can see how comfortable they are around each other. But when she tells him that she confronted her father after he tells her that he checked around and he is clean, he gets upset.  That is one thing that I love about Vaughn, even though he is all about protecting her, he isn’t afraid to get mad at her and tell her when she’s done something stupid.  They don’t hold back from each other, it never goes too far, and they can each hold their own, but I love the way they argue.  I know that sounds stupid and trivial when we are looking at the romance aspect of this whole thing, but I think that you can only truly argue with someone that you trust and respect if you want the agreement to accomplish anything.  She knows that she shouldn’t have done it, but she defends herself by saying that if her father hadn’t been a spy, she would be alive and he has no idea how hard it is to lose a parent to the spy business.  

Throughout the relationship so far, we’ve seen Sydney open herself up and we’ve gotten to know what makes her tick and why she does the things that she does.  And we’ve seen Vaughn be there for her and support her, but he’s always kept it professional.  Here for the first time, we see him open up part of himself to Sydney.  You can see the moment on his face when he goes from being the ultimate professional, to making it personal.  He tells her about the book in Langley that is kept under locked glass, and the marble wall behind it with the stars carved into it. With it being a memorial to the agents that the agency lost in action.  He goes on to tell her that the families aren’t told how they died or even where they died, just that they won’t be coming home.  He tells her that he was eight when his father became one of those stars.  He tells her about the protocol that is in place for CIA agents at the funerals, what they can say, who they can talk to and how they are told that they can’t be conspicuously emotional. Sydney has calmed down and apologizes to Vaughn. But he is on a roll now, and tells her that he has now been assigned to be the CIA representative at the funerals for the agents that died in the explosion that Sydney witnessed.   Nothing more is said, but you can see the way that their dynamic has changed.  It’s only a little, but it’s there.  Before now, Vaughn was the confidant that she could go to, but now he has opened himself up and she can now be there for him as well.

Jack and Sydney have a confrontation as she is preparing to go on her next mission where she will have to be admitted into a mental health institute.  Jack tells her that Vaughn is unavailable and that he is giving her the counter mission, she tells him that he is at a funeral, not just unavailable.  She then goes off again about what he did and he tells her that she doesn’t understand, she asks for an explanation and she is told that she doesn’t have clearance.  She tells him to break the rules and explain it her to her.  He reminds her of the last time she was so caviler about breaking the rules, and that she needs to start jumping to simple conclusions.  

Watching Vaughn at the funerals was heartbreaking, you have to figure that he knew the agent, it could’ve been the agent that he was friends with. Maybe it was the agent that he talked about Sydney with.  Seeing him having to stand there and show no outward emotion and then carry the flag to the family, you can feel the pain that he is in.  I love that he got down on the level of the little boy and told him that his dad was a hero.  The little boy giving Vaughn a hug afterwards was so precious.  I think that on some level Vaughn saw that little boy as himself so many years ago.  It must have been so hard on him to have to be at that funeral.  I think after this, is when he really feels like he can be open with Sydney.  They share something personal, both of them having lost a parent to the spy business and not knowing the full scope of their deaths.

So this episode was a very busy episode, a lot of emotions and ups and downs.  I know that this is a huge post, but I think that I would be remiss if I didn’t add some of the other story lines that didn’t directly involve Sydney or Vaughn in this episode, but will affect them soon.  So I am wrapping up the others stories instead of adding things I found noteworthy.

Will is incredibly stubborn in his trying to pursue the story on Danny and find out why he can’t get a straight answer about his murder.   He finds the women that was pretending to have an affair with Danny and that was listed on the flight to Singapore with him.  He finds her and she tells him that she was paid $2,000 to tell him that she was Kate Jones and that she was having an affair with Danny.  Her real name in Eloise, and will goes back to talk with her and finds her apartment open, with everything cleaned out and left open and new paint on the walls.

Marshall is concerned that the SD-6 computer system is sluggish and not running as it should.  He figures out that someone has hacked into their system and is taking bits of information with them. So he shuts down the network and tells Sloane.  Sloane then calls someone to request a meeting and tells them that he thinks that there is a mole in the office.

Sydney has now been admitted into the mental institution, she tries to talk to the man that she has to get the information from, but when she starts to recite the poem that will open up his mind, he attacks her, while this is happening her partner is questioned by the lead doctor, who has figured out that he isn’t who he says he is.  Also Weiss got a message that was meant for Vaughn, he learned that the institution that Sydney has been admitted into is run by a member of K-Directorate.  Back at the mental institution after the orderlies pull the man off Sydney and take him away, some other men come and take her, she is put in a strait jacket, but is able to fight the men off and run away from them.  She finds herself a room to hide in, she frees herself and finds her partner sitting in a chair in that room, she gets over to him and finds out that he has been murdered.

So like I said, a lot happened, huge episode for the relationship as far as building it, and making them better friends.  Since right now, they aren’t allowed to be more than friends and Sydney isn’t ready for more yet either. Also a lot goes on for furthering all of the characters. (I know that I left off the Francie and Charlie bit, but honestly, I think that is just filler… sorry!)