With this episode being the last of Season three, just by
seeing the previous season finale’s on this blog, you can expect me to not keep
it short, however I will do my best to only include the portions that
personally affect Sydney or Vaughn, as well as their relationship as a
whole.
As the episode opens we see Sydney entering the Rotunda
through various security checkpoints. As
she goes through these check points we see her drop things in certain places
and adjust herself to go through them.
Including what looks like adding contacts and spraying something in her
mouth immediately before checkpoints, one that require an eye scan, then
another with a breath scan that is
actually checking DNA. It becomes clear
that with her lack of smiling and communicating with those that say greet her
that something is off. Especially once
inside the Rotunda, with how many cell phones she has laid around as she goes
through. Then to only responding with a
slight smile when Marshall greets her; this is not Sydney! The Sydney impersonator makes her way into
Marshall’s office and we soon find out that it is Lauren. She is talking with Sark who is set up
watching her in a parking garage. Marshall
walks in on Lauren and talks to her while she continues to download the needed
Intel. She never responds to his
ramblings, but she does pull out her gun.
When Marshall is about to leave again, he finally questions what she is
doing and why she is doing it, her response was to shot him. As she left his office, leaving him for
dead, Marshall managed to hit an alarm switch which alerting the building to an
intruder. Unfortunately she had a backup
plan in place for this. All those cell phones as well as other random objects
dropped throughout her entrance are miniature bombs. Sark advises Lauren to keep her head down as
he begins setting off the charges.
After the first explosion hits, Vaughn sees Lauren disguised
as Sydney and yells out her name. You
can see that this is in extreme concern for her after seeing the charge send
others flying through the room. But her
reaction took him by surprise when she didn’t stop when he yelled for her and
her obvious lack of concern for what was going on around them. So he didn’t immediately go after her. Sark then activates the cell phone that was
placed on his desk. He is far enough
away from it, that he is unscathed afterward, but barely. He gets up and watches as she leaves the Rotunda. Knowing that something is wrong, he runs
after her with his gun drawn. Lauren is
only a few feet ahead of Vaughn as he chases her down a hallway. You can tell that he knows there is something
off with the situation, but still calls out, “Syd, wait!” While this is
going on Weiss informs Jack that he found the signal of where the intruder was
broadcasting to, and gave him the address of where Sark was watching from. Sark also let Lauren know that Vaughn was
closing in on her; with that info she was able to hide, and surprise him by
hitting him with a large bar. Knocking him unconscious, even after he was
knocked out, she kicked him a few times as well before removing her mask and
showing herself. Back in the parking
garage, the CIA team apprehends Sark.
Lauren plays the victim once outside, getting a car to stop for her, unfortunately
for the Good Samaritan; she shoots him execution style and takes off in his
car. Vaughn has regained consciousness and made it to street level, but not in
time to see Lauren driving away.
Later on, the real Sydney is being held in a room, looking
irritated and wondering what she is doing there. She is questioned about the security breach
at the Rotunda. The man questioning her
(Foster) also shows her the video of her shooting Marshall, then explosions
going off. She immediately wants to know
if he is okay or if anyone was killed.
But only tells her that her having a solid alibi would be good.
Back at the Rotunda, we see people trying to recover after
the bombs and attempt to clean up the Rotunda.
Vaughn walks back in and looks around in concern. He passes by Jack and the next thing we see
id them off in a corner of the Rotunda speaking in private. Vaughn tells Jack, “I used the key you gave me. I took the suitcase. I’m prepared to use it.” If Vaughn had any doubts over what he was
feeling towards whether or not he should kill Lauren, her latest stunt of being
a double for Sydney solidified any of those doubts. If she had learned anything about Vaughn during
her marriage and with Sydney returning, she should have learned, not to mess
with Sydney. Because that is one area
where Vaughn does not respond well, which is okay in my book. If she doesn’t want to learn from her
mistakes it’s good with me. Hearing that
Vaughn is ready to take action on Lauren makes Jack almost seem happy. Jack responds to Vaughn’s statement with
advice, saying, “When the agency
concludes, as they will, that Lauren was responsible, the pressure to capture
her will rise exponentially. The disposal project we discussed must be
anonymous. Once her status changes, that will be more difficult.” While Jack is talking, Vaughn listens intently
and nods along.
Before they can continue their conversation, Dixon
approaches them, and lets them know that Sark isn’t talking, and that he isn’t
asking for anything including a lawyer or even water. Jack thinks about this, then looks at Vaughn,
and tells Dixon, “May I suggest you have
Vaughn talk with him?” Vaughn isn’t
sure he likes this idea, but it does grow on him. Dixon tells Jack that he
isn’t sure it’s advisable with Vaughn and Sark’s personal history. But Jack being the ultimate strategist tells
Dixon, “Sark undoubtedly will be more
afraid to face a man he so recently tortured. Given his pattern for caving out
of fear, I believe that Vaughn’s presence will more likely yield the results
we’re looking for.” While Jack is
speaking Vaughn is considering this more and more, and he and Jack share a look
where it is almost like Jack is telling Vaughn now is your chance to take your
revenge on him, as well as find out where Lauren is. When Jack finishes, Vaughn is looking at
Dixon for his permission. Vaughn is now
looking forward to being in the same room with Sark. Dixon nods his approval and Vaughn starts
walking off to interrogate Sark. Dixon
turns and tells him, “As the director, I
can’t sanction the beating of someone in our custody.” Even though he says this, it is clear that he
is saying that as a person I wholeheartedly think that it is fine for you to
take out some revenge after what Sark did to him (days or weeks) earlier. Vaughn looks back and tells him, “Understood. I’ll apprise you of any Intel
that comes from his interrogation.” Vaughn is well aware of what Dixon meant rather
than what he said, and leaves to go work Sark over.
In the interrogation room, Sark watches as Vaughn enters and
tells the guards that they can leave as Vaughn rolls up his sleeves. Vaughn is completely calm and collected. Personally, if I was in Sark’s position, I
would be scared to death to see Vaughn enter through that door. But Sark doesn’t respond to him
entering. Vaughn casually walks over to
Sark and says, “Last time we were
together, our roles were reversed.” I love the smile that Vaughn has as he says
this. I get the impression that he
doesn’t necessarily want Sark to be forthcoming with information right
away. Still smiling from the situation,
Vaughn says, “Funny how things happen.” With that Sark finally speaks, and tells
Vaughn, “I’m afraid the irony is lost on
me.” Sark is trying to get a rise
out of Vaughn, but Vaughn isn’t going to play into Sark’s attempts. Vaughn sighs and gets closer to Sark, then
smiles as he prepares for what is coming.
Before beginning, Vaughn wants to taunt him a little as well, which I
think is fantastic. Vaughn tells Sark, “You like the electric batons and the
injections. I’m not into accessories.” Vaughn smiles as he thinks about what type of
pain he is ready to inflict on Sark.
Sark then tells him, “I’m more
than willing to cooperate, Mr. Vaughn. I will tell you everything you want. But
I will need something in return.” Before Sark can even finish that line of
thinking, Vaughn interrupts him and tells him that there will be no deals. To which Sark declares that they are at an
impasse. Then goes on to tell him that
it won’t take Lauren long to figure out the Rambaldi stuff. With that Vaughn nods his head, stands up
strait, smirks at Sark, and says, “Well, better
get started then.” Vaughn being the
professional that he is doesn’t start beating him up, he does give Sark the
chance to answer his questions. He asked
him where Lauren is, when Sark doesn’t respond, that is when Vaughn begins. Without hesitating, Vaughn walks up behind
Sark and immediately slams Sark's head into the table. It’s Vaughn’s move, I don’t know exactly how
you would practice that move, but Vaughn has definitely perfected it, as we’ve
seen it happen to Sark many times over the years.
After the head butt to the table, Vaughn pulls back Sark’s
head and pushes his nose in to Sark’s face with his thumb and tells Sark that
he thinks he broke it. Then he steps back and asks him if he’s ready to
talk. Sark is not happy, and you can see
the amount of damage that Vaughn inflicted, maybe when they switched scenes for
a moment he did the head bang a few more times, but he tells Vaughn yes, and
Vaughn sits on top of the table ready to listen. Sark continues telling Vaughn,
“When I first learned of your wife’s true
allegiance, I almost felt pity for you.
How embarrassing it must have been to learn that the woman you shared
your bed with was only using you as an unfortunate means to an end.” Sark looked up and smirked at Vaughn. Vaughn stays calm and simply tells him, “I wouldn’t do this if I were you.” Not paying any attention to Vaughn’s warning
continued with his train of thought saying, “But
then she wasn’t sharing your bed lately, was she? She was in mine. Or in my
car. Or an elevator. Or a garage. There was this one time…This is my favorite.
We were engaged in an alley, and she called you to tell you that she loved you.
That woman was deliciously filthy.” Once Vaughn saw that Sark was only going to
talk about his and Laurens extra-curricular activities, Vaughn took a key from
his pocket, stood up off the table, freed one of Sark's hands from the cuff and
twisted his arm and then pulled it behind his back and got Sark to shut up in a
hurry about Lauren and start gasping in pain instead. Vaughn says to him, “Feel that? Feels like a knife slicing through you, doesn’t it? Now
where is she?” When once again Sark
goes silent about where Lauren is, Vaughn takes that as his invitation to
inflict more pain and without any trouble pulls back on Sark's shoulder, and
you can hear the pop as it becomes dislocated.
While Vaughn is helping Sark remember where Lauren is, Sydney has been held in another part of
the Rotunda still being questioned by Foster.
She tells him that he needs to focus on Lauren and gives him the reasons
why. He then begins to question whether
Nadia and Lauren are connected somehow, and that she is also somehow
involved. All because of what Rambaldi
has decided would be their fate. With this
newest line of questioning Sydney has had enough. She tells him that if he wants to arrest her,
he better do it, if not they were done talking.
As she leaves he tells her that until DCI has his findings on the case,
she is reassigned as a desk clerk.
Back in the interrogation
Vaughn has hold of Sark's now dislocated arm and is still applying pressure to
it, making sure that Sark is in an incredible amount of pain. While doing this, Vaughn tells Sark, “I’m not going to kill you. That would be
too easy. But I’ll leave you so disfigured that when you walk down the street,
people will pity you. Lauren is going to pay for the damage she’s done to the
people I care about, not for having an affair with you. I don’t give a rats ass who she’s sleeping
with. So for the last time, where is she?”
Sark doesn’t answer and we don’t
see what happens next. That is the last
we see of Sark and Vaughn together. But
it is for that last bit that Vaughn told Sark that I included this in the
breakdown. Well not the only
reason. I actually really like the
scenes where Vaughn has the upper hand on Sark and is able to torture and
inflict pain on him so easily. They make
for great adversaries throughout the series.
Although I believe that I have already gone into that. But Vaughn has made it very clear now, that
he really doesn’t care about Lauren or what she does. However he is really pissed about what she did to
Sydney. He said people that I care
about, but there is one person who matters to him and he is ready to make sure
that they get their just reward for what they did to her.
When Sydney gets back to the Rotunda after her own
interrogation, she looks around at the destruction that Lauren caused and she
is sickened by it. She sees Weiss and
asks him how Marshall is doing. Weiss
tells her that Marshall is still in surgery, then goes on to tell her about all
of the other injuries and how many people were affected. With all of this, even if she was still upset
with Vaughn, her next question is about where Vaughn is. I think it is pretty clear that she also
wants to know how he is. Weiss tells
her, “I haven’t seen him since he
finished interrogating Sark, but, uh, word it he worked him over pretty good.
Didn’t get any information out of him, but had to feel pretty good trying. I’m
sure he’ll be back soon. Probably needed to walk it off.” As
Weiss is telling her this, you can see the look of concern cross her face. I think she knows that Vaughn got something,
they have dealt with Sark for long enough to know that he has flexible
loyalties when it comes to self-preservation and that Vaughn most likely did
get something.
So it comes to no surprise that the next thing we see is
Sydney talking to Vaughn on the phone, obviously concerned for him. She is off in a corner where she can’t be
overheard and she tells Vaughn, “Eric
said you took off. Need some company?” We then see that Vaughn is outside in a dark
location in the rain, and he is watching something in the distance. When he
answers her you can see that he is preoccupied with whatever he is watching,
and tells her, “No, I’m good.” She then asks him where he is and you can see
that he doesn’t want her involved with what he is doing, he feels like he needs
to protect her from Lauren and that he needs to take care of this on his
own. And simply responds to her by
saying, “Doesn’t matter.” Back in the Rotunda, Sydney smiles for a
moment then has a realization of what he might be doing. She asks, “What
does that mean?” And when she
doesn’t get a response from him she goes on.
She asks, “Vaughn, what’s going
on?” We see Vaughn again and it appears
that he is fighting himself with what he needs to do, but while he does this he
doesn’t answer Sydney. We then see
Sydney sigh and get a look of fear cross over her face. She takes a deep breath and realizes what is
going on and says, “Sark talked, didn’t
he? And you know where Lauren is.” Vaughn is still watching something across from
him and you can see that he doesn’t want to say much to Sydney about it. Still protecting her from anything that he
can, he simply says, “I’m taking care of
it.” After hearing this, Sydney is
visibly shaken and very concerned for Vaughn.
Honestly it looks like she could cry thinking about what she knows he’s
planning. She tells him, “I don’t know
what you’re thinking, but you cannot do this Michael. If you kill her, you will
be arrested and charged with her murder. And if you’re not, if you get away
with it, it’ll haunt you, Michael. God after everything we’ve been through,
I’ll lose you all over again.” While Sydney is pleading with Vaughn you can
see that he is thinking it over and considering what to do. He can also tell how serious this is for her,
with how rarely she refers to him as Michael; he knows that she means it. Also just by the sound of her voice she is
terrified, she may have been mad at him in the last episode, but she is trying
to get over it, and thinking of losing him whether to jail, or just his own
demons. She knows him well enough to
know that killing her isn’t something that he can easily live with. However, Vaughn has seen Lauren ruin too many
lives, including his and Sydney’s to let her get away with it. So he isn’t going to back down easily. While Sydney was pleading with him, he saw
Lauren’s car approach, and once Sydney is done speaking, he tells Sydney that he has to go
and he hangs up the phone.
Their phone conversation leaves both of them wondering what
the next course of action really should be.
Sydney wants to know how she can save her soul mate from changing who he
is. Vaughn knows that he has to do
something to stop Lauren from continuing to destroy the lives of the people
that he cares most about, while taking Sydney’s words into consideration. Because right now Vaughn knows two things for
sure; one, he wants to spend the rest of his life making the last year up to
Sydney and two, Lauren needs to pay for what she has done. Now he just needs to figure out how to make
the two balance out with each other.
After getting off the phone with Sydney Vaughn watches as
Lauren pulls into a parking spot and hurries into a nearby building. By the look on his face, he is still ready to
kill Lauren, but we know better. Even
though he is cautioned by Sydney’s pleading he still plans on exacting some
revenge on her and making the rest of her living life very difficult. I do still find it amazing that with all the
rage that Vaughn has in him at this moment, he is still able to stay calm and
wait for her to get her Intel, even taking pictures of it. Making sure that while he is on an
unsanctioned mission of his own making, he is still going to pass along any
usable Intel. Vaughn finds out that the
Rambaldi equation is simply a location, which turns out to be in Palermo. After Lauren gets her answer, Vaughn watches
her shot her source and walk away with the money she was paying him with. Now that Vaughn has her in his sights, she
is not going to get away. He lies in
wait in a hallway, just as she did earlier, and when she approaches he knock
her unconscious with a crow bar. Once he
does this he says very bitterly, yet its humorous to me, “Hi, Honey.” After greeting
her, he does get in a few more blows with the crow bar before taking her
away.
Knowing that Vaughn isn’t in a place where he is ready to
give up on going after Lauren, Sydney goes to find out where Vaughn is
headed. She requests the tapes from
Sark’s interrogation only to find that it has been classified by Jack. Sydney finds Jack and tells him that she
wants to see the tape. Jack tells her, “No, you don’t, not if you want what’s best
for Vaughn.” Sydney anxiously responds,
“You know what he’s going to do if we
don’t stop him.” Jack simply looks
at her and tells her, “Yes. He’ll get
closure.” Sydney then realizes that
Jack has been pushing Vaughn towards killing Lauren and Sydney is not
happy. She stares him down as she tells
him, “You want him to kill Lauren.” And she is not happy about it. Jack remains his same cool and collected
person he always is and explains his reasoning to Sydney, saying, “If he doesn’t, it will eat at him like a
cancer. The only cure is to end it now. She destroyed Vaughn’s life.” Sydney is getting more upset with each word
and then finally tells him, “Vaughn’s
life, not yours. This is about what Lauren did to Vaughn, not what mom did to
you. I don’t know what you’ve told him or how much of this you’ve orchestrated,
but in some twisted way, You’ve got Vaughn carrying your burden, trying to get
you closure by doing the one thing you never had the chance to do… Kill the
person who betrayed you.” When
Sydney finished speaking Jack looked at her and told her, “I did have the chance. And I didn’t take it. And not a day went by
that I didn’t regret letting her go. Vaughn will feel the same way. He will end
up like me, and I love you too much to let that happen.” Once Jack is done with what he has to say
to Sydney, he walks away leaving her to wonder what she should do and if her
father is right about Vaughn and Lauren.
While Sydney and Jack are speaking we see Vaughn pull into a warehouse
and open up the truck containing Lauren.
He picks her up and carries her over his shoulder to his work area. . Also
it is interesting to note that even if Sydney and Vaughn aren’t really together
anymore or yet, or however you want to look at it, with as much as Jack doesn’t
necessarily approve of Vaughn and Sydney being together, he knows that they
will and he is already making sure that Vaughn will be okay mentally once they
are together. I kind of wish that Vaughn
was able to hear some of these things that Jack has said to Sydney about
Vaughn, just so he knows that Jack does actually accept him as a good fit for
Sydney.
In the warehouse that we saw Vaughn pulling into, Lauren is
now hanging from a pulley system by her hands, and is beginning to wake up.
Lauren seeing the position she is in, and seeing that Vaughn is in a position
to torture her, she makes an attempt to play the victim hoping that she can
appeal to the gentleman that she has manipulated so many times within
Vaughn. She tells him, “Michael. Please, I need you to understand. When
the Covenant asked me to marry you, I knew eventually they wanted me to coax
you back into the CIA. But two years went by, and I hadn’t heard from them. By
then, I convinced myself I never would. I prayed I wouldn’t, because I’d fallen
in love with you.” While Lauren was
pleading for her life Vaughn was quietly working away, basically ignoring her,
but Lauren telling him that she had fallen in love with him through him over
the edge, and he yelled at her to shut up.
The last thing Vaughn wants is a reminder of how much she has ruined him
over the last year with her fake love; taking him away from Sydney when she
needed him the most. He is angry; with
all that he has gone through we have never seen him this angry. He usually has the ability to stay calm and
collected even when facing his worst nightmare.
But now I think that if he wanted to be calm, he could, but he wants to
scare Lauren and he is doing a good job.
After yelling at her to shut up, he walks over to her, gets right into
her face and tells her, “I am going to
erase you. I’m going to remove any evidence you ever existed. You used me. You
used my grief. My work, who I am… You took that from me. I’m taking it back.” I
love the way that Vaughn is able to be so scary, yet besides when yelling at
her to shut up, he didn’t yell again when telling her what he was going to do,
and why. Calm and collected is much
scarier than yelling. After telling her this, he goes back to the table and
picks something up, he then goes on, “This
is hydrochloric acid. You’ll be unrecognizable.” He
makes it clear that he has no intention of killing her, only inflicting a large
amount of pain on her. He knows that
much he can live with as well as get a way with, and still be able to be with
Sydney.
For some reason I thought that I had included this portion
when I was posting about
Vaughn creating
a new person for after he lost Sydney.
If you need a refresher, here is the link.
http://romancingalias.blogspot.com/2013/09/vaughns-personal-battle-lauren-vs-sydney.html But Vaughn telling Lauren that she took
advantage of who he was, his grief over losing Sydney, everything about him was
used as a ploy to gain advantages for the Covenant.
So Lauren telling him that she loves him,
only reminds him of what she took away from him.
She turned him into a person he didn’t like,
someone that he had no desire to be.
Also knowing that Lauren is Covenant and that the Covenant was responsible
for taking Sydney and faking her death, I think it’s reasonable to assume that
Vaughn blames Lauren for making him lose the one person he has really cared for
in his life.
With all of the stuff that Lauren did manage to get away
with over the course of this season you would expect her to be a little smarter
than she is in this scene, because after he tells her that, she makes an
attempt to change his mind but does it with the wrong topic, she says to him, “Michael, I swear I was going to tell you
everything. You remember that night we went downtown and had dinner? Instead
you told me Sydney was back.” Once
Sydney’s name was mentioned Vaughn just about loses it. He yells at her, “Don’t say her name!” But
apparently Lauren is really stupid and enjoys antagonizing a man that is about
to kill her, by telling him, “She came
back and you didn’t need me anymore! I could see it in your eyes. Sydney came
back, and you…” Once Lauren said
Sydney’s name again, Vaughn Immediately turned around and yelled right in her
face, “I said don’t say her name!” After yelling this at Lauren Vaughn points his
gun right at her face, but Lauren kept going saying, “Sydney came back and I lost you!” Considering all the shit she put him through
since Sydney returned, including trying on multiple occasion to kill him, she
has no right to say anything about losing him to Sydney, especially when he
wanted to be back with Sydney, but stayed with Lauren anyway. Just looking into the situation form the
outside, I’m mad at her for making a statement like that. I can only imagine the rage that Vaughn must
feel with her saying that. So seeing him
start firing gunshots right above her head is not surprising. Plus it got her to finally realize that her
playing the naïve little girl that loves him more than anything isn’t working
and she starts whimpering in fear. When
Vaughn fired off his entire clip above her head, I think he knew that if he
didn’t empty the clip after seeing how mad he was getting with her comments, he
wouldn’t be able to exact his revenge in the way that he wanted to, that he
would end up killing her. So after
emptying his clip, he yanks her head back by her hair so she is looking right
at him, he tells her, “I hate you. But I
love Sydney more. That’s the only reason you’re not dying tonight.” I love how he makes it abundantly clear that
yes, he does love Sydney more than he ever loved or even hated Lauren, and that
if it weren’t for Sydney he would kill her, but he is keeping her alive because
he wants to be there for Sydney.
Unfortunately right after he says this, a knife is thrown into his back
and he staggers back a little, blood starts dripping from his mouth and he
collapses. We don’t see who threw the
knife, but Lauren does know them and she looks at them and says, “Thank God.” Whoever threw the knife takes keys from
Vaughn’s pocket and then Lauren spits on Vaughn
The next thing we know is that Sydney waiting in a hospital
and immediately after we see Vaughn being wheeled in on a gurney. Sydney immediately jumps out of her chair and
runs to Vaughn’s side, you can see that she is scared to death of losing him,
she yells, “Oh, My God, Vaughn!” While the paramedics are telling the doctors
what happened as well as Vaughn’s vitals, Sydney listens to them as well as
running besides them, but is continuously yelling his name and hoping for a
response from him. Before they push him through the doors leading to surgery,
Sydney leans in close to him and says, “You
are going to be okay! Vaughn?” She is left at the door to surgery visibly
shaken not knowing what to do next. This
last moment reminds me of the moment in Counteragent after she takes Vaughn’s
blood and then he crashes. She has to
watch him being wheeled away there as well, not knowing what to do. Luckily this time she doesn’t have to
immediately compose herself to talk to the girlfriend.
The next thing we see is Jack coming around the nurse’s
station and taking a seat next to a very somber Sydney. He tells her, “I heard. Is he still in surgery?” Sydney doesn’t answer him, but simply tells
him, “You were right. Lauren has to pay.”
I love how Sydney and Vaughn are
constantly trying to protect each other.
The one thing that will motivate them more than anything else is someone
hurting the other. Vaughn wanted revenge
on Lauren manly because of what she had done to Sydney. Originally when Sydney found out that Vaughn
was going to kill Lauren, she was upset about it, but after seeing what
happened to Vaughn she is just as mad.
Now it’s Sydney’s turn to exact her revenge on Lauren fort all the pain
that she caused Vaughn over the last year.
But Jack doesn’t see it like Sydney does, he tells Sydney, “Vaughn is going to be okay, and when he is,
he has to end it, not you.” Sydney
looks up at Jack and tells him, “If it’s
okay for Vaughn, it’s okay for me.” She stares jack down for a small moment
letting him know how serious she is before going on to tell him, “I need your help. Expedited credentials,
transportation.” Unfortunately Jack
is not on board with Sydney going and tells her, “My advice was specific to her betrayal of him.” Sydney isn’t going to stand down though, she
tells him, “Lauren betrayed all of us.” To which Jack quickly responds, “Not in the same way. She was his wife.” After that statement, Sydney looks as though
she could lose it and shows some emotion to Jack, and tells him, “I don’t care about any of that now. I want
her to die. And that’s going to happen whether you help me or not.” I think it is here when Jack realizes that
while he relates to the pain that Vaughn is going though more on a personal
level, he is finally seeing what this whole ordeal has done to Sydney. You can see the pain in his eyes that he gets
when he sees Sydney in pain and he finally agrees that she has a right to this
as well and nods his head in approval.
Since Vaughn didn’t get the pictures that he took of Lauren
and her contact back to the CIA, Sydney had to find a way to find out where she
was headed, so she took a play from Lauren book, but with better
equipment. She dressed as Lauren with a
voice modulator in place, and was placed in the cell next to Sark. She got the information needed from Sark
before revealing to him who she really was.
What happened next is a great interaction between Sydney and Sark. Sark sees what he has done and trying to
recover says to Sydney, “This little
trick of yours means Vaughn failed. Tell me, is he dead?” Knowing that Sark and Lauren had a
relationship, Sydney milks her response for all it’s worth and tells Sark, “No, he’s not. But thanks to you, Lauren
won’t be so lucky.” Also it must
have felt good for Sydney to see how much damage Vaughn was able to do to Sark.
After her encounter with Sark, Sydney goes home and finds
the Palermo location, Jack meets up with her and he gives her the documentation
that she asked for, as well as offering to go instead. Sydney simply told him that he can’t; making
it clear that she had to do this for Vaughn.
Jack looked a little distracted, so Sydney asked him what he was
thinking, Jack brushed it off and told her that they would talk when she
returned. My guess is that he was going
to tell her the truth about killing Irina, but he didn’t want to have Sydney
worrying about that on top of everything else.
Although it probably would’ve been better if Jack had told her rather
than having to find out for herself.
Sydney makes her way to Palermo and set herself up in a spot
where she can watch what is going on below and watch for Lauren, but also be
able to stay for a while until the right moment. Meanwhile back in LA Vaughn is just waking up
from surgery. He wakes up and looks
around; you can tell that he is a little confused and also not happy to be back
in a hospital. Weiss is there ready to
answer any questions and be there for Vaughn.
Once Vaughn is a little oriented to his surroundings, his first thought
is to ask where Sydney is, when he doesn’t see her, he starts to get up, and he
is really upset that Sydney is not there.
He knows that if he’s in the hospital, Sydney is probably out to get
whoever put him there. Weiss has to hold
him back and tell him to take it easy, and to sit back and relax. But Vaughn isn’t going to relax, pleading
with Weiss he says, “Tell me where she
is.” Weiss looks down, not wanting
to upset his friend more, but knows he has to and finally says, “She went after Lauren.” Hearing what he feared to be true, Vaughn
starts to get up again and says, “Oh no.
I have to get to her.” But Weiss
gently pushes him back down on to the bed and tells him, “No, no, no, no. Mike, you got a punctured lung. You even breathe
wrong, that thing could collapse again.” Hearing what may happen to him doesn’t seem to
faze Vaughn; his only concern is for Sydney. He has urgency in his voice when
he tells Weiss, “I have to warn
her.” Luck is not on Vaughn’s side though, Weiss
tells him, “No chance. There’s a guard
outside the door. Foster’s got the building locked down. He revoked your
clearance pending an investigation of your rogue op. You’re not going anywhere.”
Vaughn is just getting more agitated
with this, and tells Weiss, “I have to
get to Syd. She’s walking into a trap.” This confuses Weiss and prompts him to say, “What? What are you talking about?” Vaughn shakes his head and then tells Weiss, “Lauren didn’t stab me. Katya Derevko did.” So Katya defiantly has her own agenda and has
had it since we first saw her back in Crossings.
I have to assume it is a few minutes later when we see
Vaughn flat line and Weiss rush out the door for help. Because Vaughn is ready to grab the defibrillator
and shock the men coming to rescue him form the flat line. Vaughn takes off his oxygen and gets out of
bed and tells Weiss, “Let’s go.” So they had planned this together, although I
wonder if Weiss was included in all of Vaughn’s plans. Vaughn gets dressed and comes out of the hospital
room with a gun pointed at Weiss. The other
guards that are placed within the hospital are yelling for Vaughn to freeze. But Vaughn just yells back at them that they
need to freeze. Playing along with the role he has been given, Weiss tells
Vaughn, to think about what he’s doing.
Vaughn just continues walking with Weiss still holding the gun to his
head, and yelling for the guards to put their guns in the trash. Weiss tells
the guards to follow Vaughn’s commands.
Vaughn tells the guards to get in the elevator, then he pushes Weiss in
to, and by the look on Weiss’s face, he was not expecting that part. Vaughn takes the radio and shoves Weiss
in. Vaughn then shoots out the elevators
controls and lets the door shut, and runs off to the stairwell. I think Vaughn knew that Weiss may end up
trying to stop him at some point, or he wanted to make sure that Weiss was safe
from any inquiry, either way he wasn’t going to let anything get in his way of
getting to Sydney. As agents are dispatched
to go assist the men in the elevator, Vaughn takes the fire hose and slides
down it to get to the bottom floor rather than taking the stairs. When he gets to the door and looks outside to
find more agents standing by, he gets on the radio and says, “Vaughn’s going out the front. All units to
the main entrance now!” That’s one
way to get away from security. He watches
as the men disappear and then he runs off himself.
In Palermo, Sydney is still sitting and waiting for her
chance, the sun has gone down. We then
see her from behind as a gun gets pointed at her head. She instinctively uses her training to takes
the gun from the assailant. She is
surprised to find that it is Katya, and they speak for a moment. Katya pretends to have Sydney’s best
interests at heart when talking with her.
But when Sydney hands back the gun and turns around, Katya fires a shot
at Sydney’s head, but Katya is surprised to find that she has an empty
clip. She asks Sydney how she knew; only
to have Sydney tell her that she didn’t know, but know she does. Sydney then shoots Katya with a tranq gun and
Katya falls to the ground. Sydney then starts
making her way down through the Covenant camp taking out guards one by one with
her tranq gun. Sydney watches as Lauren arrives
and prepares her real gun to take down Lauren with. Sydney fires her gun, but the man Lauren was speaking
with got in the way and he was shot instead.
Know that Lauren knows that someone is there she pulls out her own
weapon and starts shooting. Sydney ducks
down behind a rock and hides.
A little while later, Sydney is up and is back to sneaking
around the Covenant’s camp, hoping to find Lauren. Unfortunately Lauren finds
Sydney first.
Once Lauren has a hold of Sydney
the fighting begins.
Each of them takes
turns having the upper hand on the other.
Now honestly I’m not interested in the specifics of another cat fight to
end the season.
Lauren does say a few
things to about Sydney’s disappearance and Irina, but Sydney has no interest in
what she has to say.
Once thing that Lauren
says doesn’t peak Sydney’s interest during the fight, but Sydney does remember
it, Lauren told her,
“There’s a bank in Wittenberg.
A numbered vault. Proof…” But before
she can go on, Sydney gets in a good hit.
They continue fighting and Lauren knocks Sydney down pretty good and
goes to grab her gun and points it right at Sydney.
But before she does anything, she hears a voice;
Vaughn is there and is yelling at her to stop.
Upon hearing his voice, Lauren picks Sydney up and holds her to gun
point.
She turns and we see Vaughn standing
a little ways away pointing his gun at Lauren.
He yells at Lauren,
“Let her go!” But Lauren isn’t going to go down easily, she
yells back for him to put the gun down.
But that just upsets Vaughn and he yells,
“Do it now!” Lauren yells
back for him to put down the gun.
But he
keeps his aim ready and simply nods his head.
Grasping at straws Lauren says,
“If
you love her, you’ll put the gun down.” Showing Vaughn that she was the one that he
almost shot during Blowback; Vaughn wanting to make sure that Lauren is crystal
clear on who he loves and it being Sydney, does lower his gun.
But you can tell that he doesn’t plan on
keeping it down, when it is down, Lauren makes the comment,
“You really are a boy scout.” Once she said that, his gun was immediately up
and she had a bullet in her shoulder, which was quickly followed with another
shot into her chest.
Once Sydney was
released she ran right for Vaughn and they quickly embraced.
Seeing Sydney and Vaughn finally be able to embrace the way
that they have wanted to for the last year, makes me smile from ear to ear.
Seeing them caress each other’s faces and
hold on to each other almost makes what they’ve gone through worth it, but not
really.
Sydney breaks away from Vaughn
by a few inches; just enough to be able to stroke the back of his head and see
his face at the same time.
She looks up
at him clearly concerned after last seeing him being taken into surgery and
asks,
“What are you doing? How did you
get here?” And without missing a
beat, he looks at her as if he never wants to let her go and tells her,
“I came for you.” And with that they go in to kiss each other
for the first time without having the fear of a firing squad or it being in a
dream.
You can almost see them going
back in time to the car the night Sydney was abducted.
Before they can live their happily ever after, at least for
now, Lauren does manage to get back up.
She refuses to go down without a good fight.
But as she is getting up, Vaughn sees her
behind Sydney, seeing Lauren trying to ruin this moment that he has with Sydney
upsets him again and he fires his weapon three more times and we see the blood
cascading down her body.
As she is
falling down she manages to get out the numbers, 1…0…6…2.
After she gets out the numbers, she is right
above the hole that the Covenant had been digging, and Vaughn has had
enough.
He fires his gun one last time
hitting her again in the chest, but forcing her to fall over in to the hole.
Sydney and Vaughn both watch her fall down relieved that she is gone.
After she falls and they know that Lauren is
gone, Vaughn asks Sydney,
“What was that?”
Not caring about anything that Lauren
had information about, Sydney ignores it and tells Vaughn,
“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.” They then go back into that kiss, transporting
them for a few minutes to a place where there is no Lauren and the last year
never existed.
They will worry about
those problems later.
But right now they
finally have each other the way they are meant to be.
As far as the relationship goes, season three ends here. After all that they have been through during the season, they will have some things to work through. They are happy now and that's good enough for me. We'll see how they work through their issues when we begin season four. But for now, I'm going to focus on the fact that here and now they are happy that Lauren is now out of the picture and they can begin to develop their relationship again, and hopefully make it back to where they were.
- Items that I find Noteworthy…
- Sloane broke into the CIA safe house to talk to
Nadia. It turns out that while Nadia was
under the influence of the Rambaldi fluid, she became lucid towards the end and
changed parts of the formula. The
location from the Rambaldi location that the CIA have as well as the Covenant
is not in Palermo as they suspect. While
hesitant at first to escape from the CIA with Sloane, Nadia does eventually
escape and join him.
- At the digging sight Sydney was determined not
to listen to anything that Lauren had to say, but curiosity got the best of her
and she went to Wittenberg. While there,
she broke into Vault 1062 and found a classified folder that had her as the
subject. We never see more than her name
and birthdate, but we do see that the information inside clearly upsets
Sydney. Moments after she arrived and
has read through the documents, Jack arrives and tells her, “Sydney, you were never supposed to have
found this.” And the episode
ends. We don’t find out exactly what
happens until the 2nd episode is season four. But it allows for Jack not to be Sydney’s
rock any longer and allow room for Vaughn to come back in and take his place in
her life where he belongs. Since the beginning Vaughn has been the one that Sydney has turned to when she couldn't handle all the ups and downs of her life. Besides their romantic relationship, I'm guessing that they both missed that aspect of their friendship the most, being able to be there for one another. It will be nice to see that back as well.
