S1 E9 – Mea Culpa

 

Sydney wakes up at the bottom of the cave and in a lot of pain, she manages to climb up the ladder and finds Dixon shot and bleeding out. She flashes back to a moment with Vaughn where he gave her a satellite phone that she can contact the CIA from anywhere. She had asked what if Dixon see it, he just told her not use it in front of him.  She tries to resist taking it, but he tells her to take it, just in case of emergency.  Dixon is in and out of Consciousness so she takes out the phone and calls to base ops for a med evacuation, and while she is doing that she had to use her CIA code name Freelancer.  While she is talking with them, Dixon repeats the name Freelancer twice.

Sydney is recounting the story to Vaughn and telling him that she was worried about how Sloane would react when he found out that she had betrayed him and SD-6, but once in the hospital in Buenos Aires she came up with a plan.  She called Sloane and told him that she dragged Dixon to the Humvee and took him to the hospital, and then they had SD-6 airlift them to a Los Angeles hospital, Angel of Mercy. Vaughn was relieved that she was able to get out of the situation, but she said, no, Dixon is at a SD-6 hospital.  She didn’t like having to lie to Dixon's wife, who tells him that he’ll make it, and Vaughn also reassures her that he will make it out.  She also tells him about having to use the Sat phone in front of Dixon. Vaughn tells her that he was barely conscious he won’t remember, and then she tells him about Dixon repeating her CIA code name.  She wants to post some agents near Dixon, but he reminds her that they can’t, it’s a SD-6 hospital.  They are both incredibly worried.

Sloane and Dryer have a meeting, and Dryer tells Sloane that Sydney is the mole.  Also that if Sloane doesn’t report it, he will.  The Alliance needs to know.  Sloane defends Sydney, and tells Dryer that he will take care of it.

Sydney meets with Vaughn at a café to discuss her mission to retrieve data from a computer, he tells her SD-6’s real intentions, and they go over basic mission stuff.  Nothing too notable about this scene between them, although he does notice that she is distracted and asks what’s going on, so she goes on to tell him about her meeting with Sloane.  She passed the lie detector and he rambles on about how she used to trust him, how he didn’t want to have Danny killed because he cares about her.  Then he delivers the shocking news that he has known Sydney all her life.  That he knew her mother and attended her parents wedding. Sydney is not happy to find out that Sloane has been checking up on her for her whole life, and that her thinks of her as his own daughter.  We go back to Sydney and Vaughn at the café and she tells him that the conversation was almost like Sloane was telling her goodbye, that she might not be coming back. Vaughn looks worried, but he stays calm and tells her that she will come back.  But he wants her to contact him when she gets back.  She says, with the account numbers.  But he replies by telling her. Account numbers or not, I want to know when you get back. He really does care about her, and it shows in this moment.

Sloane calls a man into his office; he wants to contact SD-4 in Rome over server 5.  He is having a SD-6 operative killed with security sections knowledge.  The kill should take place in Donati Park in Tuscany the next evening. The agents name is Bristow, Sydney Bristow.  

While Sydney is on her mission, Weiss approaches Vaughn and tells him that Sd-6 has a hit ordered on Sydney.  Vaughn orders an extraction team to Tuscany to be there when Sydney gets there.  He also contacts jack and lets him know.  Jack tells him that he may be walking into a trap, and checks the servers at SD-6 with Marshall. Who tells him that server 5 is no longer connected to the SD-6 network.  Jack gets back to the CIA and tells Vaughn to abort the mission and that the message was only sent to them. Vaughn wants to continue with it and get Sydney to safety, but Jack tells him that by doing that he’ll only prove that Sydney is the mole. Jack and Vaughn get into an argument about what to do, and there is a lot of tension between them.  Vaughn is shocked that Jack isn’t more concerned, but jack tells him that he knows Sloane and that Sloane is bluffing.  Vaughn tells him that he really hopes that he is right about it.  They watch they dead drop take place, and all watch tensely as they do nothing.  Then we see Sloane watching her as well.  Sloane meets with Dryer and tells him to leave Sydney alone and look for the real mole.

Sydney meets with Vaughn who tells her about the trap, she asked how he knew to stop it and was surprised to find out that her dad was able to tell the difference.  Vaughn gives her a new transmitter that will allow the CIA to hear everything that she hears and says while she is on her next mission, so when she reads out the bank account to her temporary SD-6 partner Russek, the CIA will hear it at the same time and track the account. Later on though, Marshall goes to Dryer and lets him know that an additional transmission was being sent while Sydney was at the bank.

Sydney gets a call in the middle of the night letting her know that Dixon has waken up, so she meets with his wife and goes to see him.  She asks him what she remembers, and he tells her that he doesn’t even remember being shot. When she is leaving, she notices that she is being followed, she starts to run, but then they hit her with a car. She struggles with the men, but they shot her in the neck with a tranquilizer gun.  Sloane is notified that security section has her.

Not a huge episode for Sydney and Vaughn together, but they each had their own moments.  I feel like I have a lot of filler information on this episode, but I think that it is important information for their story to be able to move on.

•  Items that I found noteworthy… 
•  The person listening to the bug in the flower has contacted Will and instructed him to go to a location where he finds they have left him a tape with muffled sounds followed by a gun shots.