The Weekly Report: Solo
Most Fucked-Up Spy:
What can I say? She creeps me out.
The theme this week, I'm sure, had something to do with Rachel. And her and Syd bonding because they've both totally fucked their loved ones. Sydney can't just sit and home and be pregnant like all her doctors tell her to, and Rachel needs to prove that she's capable, if not a Derevko.
PREVIOUSLY ON ALIAS
Sloane was a sketchy man. Who knew? Rachel's sad. Sydney's sad. Nadia's in a coma. Anything else repetative to remind us of?
HAPPY HOME
Some random blonde people are beind random and blonde. Until... duhn duhn duhn... a shadow moves in the background! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's Gordon Dean!
STOTTLEMEYER'S INTERROGATION ROOM
Having stolen the set from Monk, the random blonde people are pacing. Behind the glass... okay it wasn't the Fucktard who kidnapped them, it was the ever-helpful CIA. Rachel's sad 'cause Mommy Gibson and Daddy Gibson will have to go into Witness Protection. Sydney says it's okay - they can bond with the other blonde in Witness Protection, Will Tippin. It also means that they won't have to pay the actors anymore, and thus Rachel will be the only blonde on the payroll. Rachel cries. Syd tells her that they have to do this to keep the world safe for the people they love. Yeah, Syd, 'cause the people you love are SO safe. Both ex-fiences' six feet under and Ickle Sis Nads is in a coma... so very safe. Rachel goes into the interrogation room and gets lots of hugs all round. She sits down and tells her mom, her dad, her little bother, and her little sister her life story...
Once upon a time...
PIER
Sloane and the Fucktard walk. Yay! Walkage! The Fucktard is being a fucktard and tells Sloane that he knows that the Gibsons are bonding with Will out in Wisconsin. Where apparently they exile all blonde ex-cast members to. Anyway, Sloane says he won't hurt anybody at APO. Fucktard says Sloane will do whatever it takes to save ickle Nads. Fucktard is probably right. "What would they do," he asks Sloane, "if they found out you were betraying them?"
Sloane ponders this question for a moment. "Probably shrug and say 'Oh, same ole Sloane.'"
Fucktard is obviously not impressed by this answer, and walks away to leave Sloane to his angstiness.
Sloane angsts.
At some point Fucktard mentioned that he wanted Sloane to find the location of Janos Vak. Since his name is foreign and impronouncable, you just know he's some research scientist researching something sketchy and will proceed to get his ass kicked.
APO
Sloane is fiddling with something. Can't tell what it is. It's a USB port. He plugs it in and stuff comes up on the computer screen. He sees random lady walk by. He sees pregnant Syd talk to Marshall. He finds out about Janos Vak.
Jack wants Sloane to research the Shed. Sloane talks. He looks like he's combed his hair and shaved. What's with that? Anyway, Sloane briefs the team on Janos Vak, who is researching something for the Chinese government, or something. I was too wierded out by Sloane's hair to catch all of this.
And Sloane is just like, "Yeah, bitches. I have the entire team doing my nefarious bidding once more."
The plan runs thusly: let's get Renee to infiltrate the underground crime network that Vak works for, and she will tell us how we can get Vak's location. We will also, incidentally, get her to have a line because we're paying her anyway. I so did not follow this, but I'm pretty sure this is what happened. Can't remember. Brain fart!
GYM
Rachel is channeling Vaughn's spirit and is attempting to whup the ass of a punching bag. Because she's Rachel, the punching bag is whupping HER sorry ass. Weiss comes in and says "The bag is dead!" But only in our hearts. On the actual show, NotScott comes in and says, "Hi. I'm not Scott. But for some reason they hired me anyway."
Rachel says, "Oh. Thanks. I really don't care. Please take your bad stubble and your even worse acting away from me now."
NotScott tells her that a bad actor he may be, but his heart beats only for her. And by the way, she's a shitty fighter. She tells him that since the writers have dictated that it must be so, her heart beats only for him, too, but not, perhaps in the same sense. Her heart speeds up when he is near because she fears that his bad acting might be contagious.
"Let me teach you how to fight," he offers, "in BED!"
She says okay, since she doesn't know what she's getting herself into. She proceeds to hit him, badly. "You suck," he tells her, "but you're stacked, so let's jump into bed." She says that she has to sleep with Sark first, but after that she would be willing to feel pathetic and a loser for the rest of her miserable life with him. But let's finish the fighting lesson first! He then insults her. Which he has no right to do, because as much as Ron and Mia act circles around EVERYONE (next episode), Rachel could act circles around NotScott. Because he's not Scott. Actually, Ron and Mia don't act circles around everyone. They act Picasso shapes around everyone. "You're an even worse actor than I am!" he taunts her. "You want to go for the eyes, or the balls. Take your pick. If you were Nadia, I wouldn't need to tell you this, but Nadia wouldn't demean herself to talk to me anyway, so it's all good. And you're a horrible actor! Worse tham me!" Because she knows this is not true, she punches patronizing!NotScott in the face.
Go Rachel!
LATER AT APO
Later, Sydney is doing something, and Sloane comes up to her. He confesses that he visits the hospital every day, but he doesn't have the courage to actually go into Nadia's room, in part because he can't bear to look at her and know it's his fault she's dying, but mainly because they haven't been able to get Mia Maestro back. Syd's all... "Okay. I didn't really need this info. But thanks anyway!"
SECRET LAIR OF PEOPLE SOON TO BE DEAD
Some random people are sitting around playing dominos, or something. Because I watched this ep last night and I watched the next ep right after it, I probably have the scenes slightly out of order. Anyway, they're playing dominos. Then... a motorcycle bursts through the wall, flips 180degrees, the rider leaps off, lands on top of one of the sketchy men, and knifes him in the throat. One of the others is getting away, the the rider throws her knife into his leg with a small "uh-uh." She then knees him in the small of the back and demands to know who Vak is working for.
Okay, Renee may have a ridiculously small part, but she's the coolest character since Irina. Who jumped off skyscrapers. Renee needs a bigger part.
APO
The team plots.
The plot runs thusly: the General that Vak works for is getting married to some Indian woman, so there's some party somewhere soon. Syd, Dixon, and NotScott will get into the party and from there into the General's study, where they can learn the location of Vak. Rachel and Marshall, appropriately, will be confined to the Geek Van, like the geeks they are.
PARTY
Indian!Syd is at the party. She's on the arm of... NotScott. For a second, in my naivete, I hoped Vaughn would come back from the dead just to look sexy in a tux. But no, we are forced to suffer through NotScott. They encounter scarfed!Dixon, who tells them that the General hasn't come down yet, and the fiancee's upset, so maybe the General is having second thoughts and therefore is maybe not coming down. Indian!Syd and scarfed!Dixon talk in shorthand that goes completely over NotScott's stubbly head (much like everything else except perhaps cheeseburgers). Scarfed!Dixon goes up to the fiancee and proclaims his true love for her, and says they should no longer hide their love from the world. The fiancee is just like "Get this guy and his creepy accent away from me!"
Scarfed!Dixon is dragged off by a guard and NotScott, shouting that if he could speak English properly, the fiancee would not be able to deny their love for each other. Seriously, where was he trying to be from?
[hindsight edit: Bhutanepal]
Indian!Syd, meanwhile, snuck past the Dixon-occupied guard, and goes to the guard in front of the General's study. She tells the guard that hey, she's pregnant, and the General will really want to talk to her. Or never mind, she can just go talk to the fiancee instead. Oh, Syd is so devious.
GEEK VAN
Apparently the Campaign for the Equal Rights for Inconspicuous CIA Vans has been hard at work again, because the van is once again white rather than black. "Too many black vans!" is their chant. Equality for vans is their goal. Join their worthy cause, my grasshoppers.
Rachel is in awe because "She just made all that up! In Chinese!" Marshall nods sagely. "I see you wish to learn the ways of the Jedi, my padawan. And I shall instruct you, because we can't leave your education to NotScott. Do you, my padawan, know what a spork is?"
Rachel just gets confused by this.
GENERAL'S STUDY
The General is shocked and surprised to see Indian!Syd. "But Indian!Syd!" he says. "I promise that I was going to marry you! This other woman forced me to marry HER! It's YOU I love!" Indian!Syd just shoots him. Alright, I just made that dialogue up. He just looked confused. Then he looked unconcious with a tranq-dart in his neck. Indian!Syd goes to the safe to get the stuff out, but it's more complex than they thought.
POLITICALLY CORRECT GEEK VAN
Marshall realizes that he has to access the safe code system via some kind of thing on the building. So Rachel has to run and plant something. She runs out to plant whatever she has to plant.
GENERAL'S STUDY
Indian!Syd gets into the safe and leaves.
DARK AND DRAMATIC GARDEN
The guard's suspicion is aroused by a white woman running around in a black suit. Yeah, my suspicions would be aroused, too. Rachel eyes him beligerantly. "Out of the way, hommie!" she warns him. But he's big and scary, so she runs away.
See Rachel run. See NotScott come out of the darkness and bash the guard repeatedly with one of those metal pole things with the red velvet ropes... Yeah. You know what I'm talking about, even if you think I don't. Anyway, Rachel and NotScott stare into each other's eyes, and Rachel wonders why she can't get into Scott's pants.
FUCKTARD LAND
In that parking garage that is almost as ubiquitous as the Staircase, Sloane meets with the Fucktard. Sloane gives the Fucktard Vak's location, then drives off in his pimped-out ride. After he's gone, Peyton gets out of the Fucktard's car (and I refuse to say anything about what the two of them might have been doing in the backseat of a car with lots of shaded windows in a dimly-lit parking garage while waiting around for Sloane to show... but you know where I'm going with this), and gets all excited that Rachel's been assigned to get to Vak. "Can I please go pretty please?" she begs the Fucktard. Because the Fucktard is old and fat and can't fight and nobody would want to see him in one of those skin-tight diving suits anyway, he agrees.
APO
The plan runs thusly: no one is allowed on or off Vak's secret water bunker. Except hookers. Syd senses a reprise of Phase One, and thus refuses to go. Jack just looks at her like "Um... no offense honey, but I wouldn't assign you to pretend to be a whore right now. You're kind of... fat." Rachel gets all freaked out because she's going on her first solo mission.
"It's okay," Syd assures her. "This way we get a title for the episode."
Rachel is consoled by this fact, as well as the fact that Syd will be on coms the whole time. Syd reminisces about how Vaughn was always on coms for her, and she'll do the same for Rachel. Only probably without the post-op sex.
GYM
Rachel's packing her stuff, and instead of giving us another painful scene with NotScott, the writers were intelligent enough to have Dixon enter. Rachel gives him a speech about how everyone thinks she's just the new girl who can't do anything, and she's a coward 'cause she ran away at the General's party. Wow, how does she sense what the audience is thinking? Ohhhhhh... she means the rest of APO..... I get it. Anyway she says what she said in the trailer, only slightly elongated: "I'm gonna but on my strappy shoes and my teeny dress, and by this time tomorrow, I'll either be dead, or I'll have re-dyed my roots."
She remarks on the fact that she's spent so much time at the firing range trying to be a good shot like Nadia, but her first mission she doesn't get a gun.
Dixon raises an eyebrow. "Have you heard of irony, Rachel? The writers of this show like it a lot. Get used to it. Also, yeah... go re-dye your roots."
DEPARTMENT STORE
Taking a break before going on the mission which I thought had to be completed ASAP but this is a nice scene so okay, Syd is sitting in a rocking chair. She sees a little girl going through some toys, then her daddy who has Vaughn-hair, but darker, comes up behind her and pickes her up and they look cute and happy. Syd and the audience are almost in tears when some nice old lady comes up behind her. Because this is not Barnett or Emily, she doesn't know or understand anything, and asks if Syd's hubby has been supportive of her and is he pulling his weight, dearie?
"Oh yeah," Syd says. "He's been wonderful." She buys the rocking chair.
*sniffle*
BOAT
Rachel's never played a hooker before! She doesn't know what to do!
"Just act like Lauren," Syd advises her. "Or my aunt Katya. Or my sister." Since Rachel isn't privelleged enough to know any of these people, she goes "Who?" Syd asks who the sluttiest girl at her high school was.
"Mandy X," Rachel raps out. Syd advises her to act like Mandy X, who stole Rachel's prom date, just like Lauren stole Syd's boyfriend! De ja vu? Well, Rachel DOES look an AWFUL lot like Lauren in those glasses and that wig...
TOP SECRET WATER BUNKER
What the hell is this thing? It's like... I don't even know.
After being not particularly seductive at all, Rachel is ushered into Vak's room. He gets all excited. When she realizes that, because she's not Nadia, she lost her tranquilizer lipstick provided in an earlier scene by Marshall, she freaks out and slaps him. Turns out he's into bondage, and thus she duct-tapes him to bed. She grabs the disk they're after and runs.
Meanwhile, Peyton has arrived. She shoots people a lot. Because she's just Peyton, and likes to do that sort of thing. She gets one of the soon-to-be-dead soldiers to open Vak's door for her, and then shoots the shit out of him. How about a little gratitude, huh, Peyton! She runs into Vak's room, only to discover a confused and annoyed Vak still tied to the bed and a smoking computer.
Rachel and her hooker outfit are running around, and notice a couple of guys lying in pools of their own blood. She arrives at the boat, only to find... "Uh... Syd? I'm a prostitute and I don't have a boat and there are lots of dead guys around. What should I do?"
"Just try not to die," Syd advises her before sending in the boys in their chopper.
Rachel runs up some stairs, and up some more stairs, and is probably having problems moving in those shoes, and then she comes face-to-face with Peyton. Another wave of R/P subtext totally smacked me in the face, but my mind likes to throw parties in the gutter. There's one on Friday, if anyone wants to come - beverages provided. Just look in the gutter, and there my mind will be, wearing its little party hat. Anyway, Rachel's all, "You're so eeeeeeviiiiil!" And Peyton goes on for a while about how they're just on different sides and she always liked Rachel and blah blah blah blah... oooh, knife fight. Rachel stabs Peyton with her Hairbrush of Death, Peyton responds by grabbing a knife from, like, nowhere (or a leg sheath, whatever) and tries to kill Rachel. But Rachel ducks and parries and finally people start shooting at them and Rachel, like the idiot she is, totally saves Peyton's life. What's that about? Peyton proceeds to dive into the ocean, while Rachel grabs the disk and gets an assist into the chopper from Dixon, whose hand she takes rather than NotScott's. I may have actually made that up, but I like to think it's true.
BACKLIT DOORWAY OF THE FUCKTARD
The Fucktard is backlit eerily. Sloane comes up and is likewise backlit. He's mad at the Fucktard for sending in Peyton rather than trusting him, and because the Fucktard was a bad boy, he doesn't get the disk. The Fucktard asks how Nadia is, and Sloane's like "My daughter has nothing to do with this."
"Yes she does," the Fucktard replies. "Her name was in the credits!"
Sloane brightens up.
HOSPITAL
No, she's not consious. Talk about easy paycheck - all she has to do is lie there and look pretty. Which she does, while Sloane takes her hand and cries.
Awwwwwwwwww.
APO
Rachel's sitting at her (read: Nadia's) desk, and finds a picture of her and her family.
Awwww. But not as long an awwwww as the Sl/N got.
BRISTOW/SANTOS PAD
Syd sits in her rocking chair, playing a recording of her and Vaughn on coms to the unborn Vaughnspawn.
Awwwwwwww. Only one less w than the Sl/N got, 'cause it was sad.
Therefore I won't mention that the voice did not at all sound like Michael Vartan. Won't mention it. Totally not mentioning it. See me not mentioning it?
NEXT WEEK ON ALIAS
I've already seen this but... here we go anyway.
Nadia's back! Does anything else really matter? No.
MY TAKE
It was good. But not so good that I'm gonna make this really long. In fact... I have nothing to say, other than I'm starting to get used to/like Rachel. But she will never be Nadia. I also firmly believe that as cool as Renee is, she could be so much cooler if she actually had something to DO. We never even found out about how she took Desantis' betrayal a coupla weeks back! You hire a great actress, create a great character, and then use them as a backdrop. What's WITH that?!?!
QUESTIONS
When will Sloane either tell APO of his duplicity, or at least fuck the Fucktard?
Can Nadia have a line?
Can NotScott get punched in the balls like he told Rachel to do?
Where is Scott?
When will the Campaign for Equal Rights for Van strike again?
Who does the Fucktard work for?
Can Peyton rule the world, along with Renee, Sloane, and Irina?
Can Irina just friggin' come back???
What can I say? She creeps me out.
The theme this week, I'm sure, had something to do with Rachel. And her and Syd bonding because they've both totally fucked their loved ones. Sydney can't just sit and home and be pregnant like all her doctors tell her to, and Rachel needs to prove that she's capable, if not a Derevko.
PREVIOUSLY ON ALIAS
Sloane was a sketchy man. Who knew? Rachel's sad. Sydney's sad. Nadia's in a coma. Anything else repetative to remind us of?
HAPPY HOME
Some random blonde people are beind random and blonde. Until... duhn duhn duhn... a shadow moves in the background! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's Gordon Dean!
STOTTLEMEYER'S INTERROGATION ROOM
Having stolen the set from Monk, the random blonde people are pacing. Behind the glass... okay it wasn't the Fucktard who kidnapped them, it was the ever-helpful CIA. Rachel's sad 'cause Mommy Gibson and Daddy Gibson will have to go into Witness Protection. Sydney says it's okay - they can bond with the other blonde in Witness Protection, Will Tippin. It also means that they won't have to pay the actors anymore, and thus Rachel will be the only blonde on the payroll. Rachel cries. Syd tells her that they have to do this to keep the world safe for the people they love. Yeah, Syd, 'cause the people you love are SO safe. Both ex-fiences' six feet under and Ickle Sis Nads is in a coma... so very safe. Rachel goes into the interrogation room and gets lots of hugs all round. She sits down and tells her mom, her dad, her little bother, and her little sister her life story...
Once upon a time...
PIER
Sloane and the Fucktard walk. Yay! Walkage! The Fucktard is being a fucktard and tells Sloane that he knows that the Gibsons are bonding with Will out in Wisconsin. Where apparently they exile all blonde ex-cast members to. Anyway, Sloane says he won't hurt anybody at APO. Fucktard says Sloane will do whatever it takes to save ickle Nads. Fucktard is probably right. "What would they do," he asks Sloane, "if they found out you were betraying them?"
Sloane ponders this question for a moment. "Probably shrug and say 'Oh, same ole Sloane.'"
Fucktard is obviously not impressed by this answer, and walks away to leave Sloane to his angstiness.
Sloane angsts.
At some point Fucktard mentioned that he wanted Sloane to find the location of Janos Vak. Since his name is foreign and impronouncable, you just know he's some research scientist researching something sketchy and will proceed to get his ass kicked.
APO
Sloane is fiddling with something. Can't tell what it is. It's a USB port. He plugs it in and stuff comes up on the computer screen. He sees random lady walk by. He sees pregnant Syd talk to Marshall. He finds out about Janos Vak.
Jack wants Sloane to research the Shed. Sloane talks. He looks like he's combed his hair and shaved. What's with that? Anyway, Sloane briefs the team on Janos Vak, who is researching something for the Chinese government, or something. I was too wierded out by Sloane's hair to catch all of this.
And Sloane is just like, "Yeah, bitches. I have the entire team doing my nefarious bidding once more."
The plan runs thusly: let's get Renee to infiltrate the underground crime network that Vak works for, and she will tell us how we can get Vak's location. We will also, incidentally, get her to have a line because we're paying her anyway. I so did not follow this, but I'm pretty sure this is what happened. Can't remember. Brain fart!
GYM
Rachel is channeling Vaughn's spirit and is attempting to whup the ass of a punching bag. Because she's Rachel, the punching bag is whupping HER sorry ass. Weiss comes in and says "The bag is dead!" But only in our hearts. On the actual show, NotScott comes in and says, "Hi. I'm not Scott. But for some reason they hired me anyway."
Rachel says, "Oh. Thanks. I really don't care. Please take your bad stubble and your even worse acting away from me now."
NotScott tells her that a bad actor he may be, but his heart beats only for her. And by the way, she's a shitty fighter. She tells him that since the writers have dictated that it must be so, her heart beats only for him, too, but not, perhaps in the same sense. Her heart speeds up when he is near because she fears that his bad acting might be contagious.
"Let me teach you how to fight," he offers, "in BED!"
She says okay, since she doesn't know what she's getting herself into. She proceeds to hit him, badly. "You suck," he tells her, "but you're stacked, so let's jump into bed." She says that she has to sleep with Sark first, but after that she would be willing to feel pathetic and a loser for the rest of her miserable life with him. But let's finish the fighting lesson first! He then insults her. Which he has no right to do, because as much as Ron and Mia act circles around EVERYONE (next episode), Rachel could act circles around NotScott. Because he's not Scott. Actually, Ron and Mia don't act circles around everyone. They act Picasso shapes around everyone. "You're an even worse actor than I am!" he taunts her. "You want to go for the eyes, or the balls. Take your pick. If you were Nadia, I wouldn't need to tell you this, but Nadia wouldn't demean herself to talk to me anyway, so it's all good. And you're a horrible actor! Worse tham me!" Because she knows this is not true, she punches patronizing!NotScott in the face.
Go Rachel!
LATER AT APO
Later, Sydney is doing something, and Sloane comes up to her. He confesses that he visits the hospital every day, but he doesn't have the courage to actually go into Nadia's room, in part because he can't bear to look at her and know it's his fault she's dying, but mainly because they haven't been able to get Mia Maestro back. Syd's all... "Okay. I didn't really need this info. But thanks anyway!"
SECRET LAIR OF PEOPLE SOON TO BE DEAD
Some random people are sitting around playing dominos, or something. Because I watched this ep last night and I watched the next ep right after it, I probably have the scenes slightly out of order. Anyway, they're playing dominos. Then... a motorcycle bursts through the wall, flips 180degrees, the rider leaps off, lands on top of one of the sketchy men, and knifes him in the throat. One of the others is getting away, the the rider throws her knife into his leg with a small "uh-uh." She then knees him in the small of the back and demands to know who Vak is working for.
Okay, Renee may have a ridiculously small part, but she's the coolest character since Irina. Who jumped off skyscrapers. Renee needs a bigger part.
APO
The team plots.
The plot runs thusly: the General that Vak works for is getting married to some Indian woman, so there's some party somewhere soon. Syd, Dixon, and NotScott will get into the party and from there into the General's study, where they can learn the location of Vak. Rachel and Marshall, appropriately, will be confined to the Geek Van, like the geeks they are.
PARTY
Indian!Syd is at the party. She's on the arm of... NotScott. For a second, in my naivete, I hoped Vaughn would come back from the dead just to look sexy in a tux. But no, we are forced to suffer through NotScott. They encounter scarfed!Dixon, who tells them that the General hasn't come down yet, and the fiancee's upset, so maybe the General is having second thoughts and therefore is maybe not coming down. Indian!Syd and scarfed!Dixon talk in shorthand that goes completely over NotScott's stubbly head (much like everything else except perhaps cheeseburgers). Scarfed!Dixon goes up to the fiancee and proclaims his true love for her, and says they should no longer hide their love from the world. The fiancee is just like "Get this guy and his creepy accent away from me!"
Scarfed!Dixon is dragged off by a guard and NotScott, shouting that if he could speak English properly, the fiancee would not be able to deny their love for each other. Seriously, where was he trying to be from?
[hindsight edit: Bhutanepal]
Indian!Syd, meanwhile, snuck past the Dixon-occupied guard, and goes to the guard in front of the General's study. She tells the guard that hey, she's pregnant, and the General will really want to talk to her. Or never mind, she can just go talk to the fiancee instead. Oh, Syd is so devious.
GEEK VAN
Apparently the Campaign for the Equal Rights for Inconspicuous CIA Vans has been hard at work again, because the van is once again white rather than black. "Too many black vans!" is their chant. Equality for vans is their goal. Join their worthy cause, my grasshoppers.
Rachel is in awe because "She just made all that up! In Chinese!" Marshall nods sagely. "I see you wish to learn the ways of the Jedi, my padawan. And I shall instruct you, because we can't leave your education to NotScott. Do you, my padawan, know what a spork is?"
Rachel just gets confused by this.
GENERAL'S STUDY
The General is shocked and surprised to see Indian!Syd. "But Indian!Syd!" he says. "I promise that I was going to marry you! This other woman forced me to marry HER! It's YOU I love!" Indian!Syd just shoots him. Alright, I just made that dialogue up. He just looked confused. Then he looked unconcious with a tranq-dart in his neck. Indian!Syd goes to the safe to get the stuff out, but it's more complex than they thought.
POLITICALLY CORRECT GEEK VAN
Marshall realizes that he has to access the safe code system via some kind of thing on the building. So Rachel has to run and plant something. She runs out to plant whatever she has to plant.
GENERAL'S STUDY
Indian!Syd gets into the safe and leaves.
DARK AND DRAMATIC GARDEN
The guard's suspicion is aroused by a white woman running around in a black suit. Yeah, my suspicions would be aroused, too. Rachel eyes him beligerantly. "Out of the way, hommie!" she warns him. But he's big and scary, so she runs away.
See Rachel run. See NotScott come out of the darkness and bash the guard repeatedly with one of those metal pole things with the red velvet ropes... Yeah. You know what I'm talking about, even if you think I don't. Anyway, Rachel and NotScott stare into each other's eyes, and Rachel wonders why she can't get into Scott's pants.
FUCKTARD LAND
In that parking garage that is almost as ubiquitous as the Staircase, Sloane meets with the Fucktard. Sloane gives the Fucktard Vak's location, then drives off in his pimped-out ride. After he's gone, Peyton gets out of the Fucktard's car (and I refuse to say anything about what the two of them might have been doing in the backseat of a car with lots of shaded windows in a dimly-lit parking garage while waiting around for Sloane to show... but you know where I'm going with this), and gets all excited that Rachel's been assigned to get to Vak. "Can I please go pretty please?" she begs the Fucktard. Because the Fucktard is old and fat and can't fight and nobody would want to see him in one of those skin-tight diving suits anyway, he agrees.
APO
The plan runs thusly: no one is allowed on or off Vak's secret water bunker. Except hookers. Syd senses a reprise of Phase One, and thus refuses to go. Jack just looks at her like "Um... no offense honey, but I wouldn't assign you to pretend to be a whore right now. You're kind of... fat." Rachel gets all freaked out because she's going on her first solo mission.
"It's okay," Syd assures her. "This way we get a title for the episode."
Rachel is consoled by this fact, as well as the fact that Syd will be on coms the whole time. Syd reminisces about how Vaughn was always on coms for her, and she'll do the same for Rachel. Only probably without the post-op sex.
GYM
Rachel's packing her stuff, and instead of giving us another painful scene with NotScott, the writers were intelligent enough to have Dixon enter. Rachel gives him a speech about how everyone thinks she's just the new girl who can't do anything, and she's a coward 'cause she ran away at the General's party. Wow, how does she sense what the audience is thinking? Ohhhhhh... she means the rest of APO..... I get it. Anyway she says what she said in the trailer, only slightly elongated: "I'm gonna but on my strappy shoes and my teeny dress, and by this time tomorrow, I'll either be dead, or I'll have re-dyed my roots."
She remarks on the fact that she's spent so much time at the firing range trying to be a good shot like Nadia, but her first mission she doesn't get a gun.
Dixon raises an eyebrow. "Have you heard of irony, Rachel? The writers of this show like it a lot. Get used to it. Also, yeah... go re-dye your roots."
DEPARTMENT STORE
Taking a break before going on the mission which I thought had to be completed ASAP but this is a nice scene so okay, Syd is sitting in a rocking chair. She sees a little girl going through some toys, then her daddy who has Vaughn-hair, but darker, comes up behind her and pickes her up and they look cute and happy. Syd and the audience are almost in tears when some nice old lady comes up behind her. Because this is not Barnett or Emily, she doesn't know or understand anything, and asks if Syd's hubby has been supportive of her and is he pulling his weight, dearie?
"Oh yeah," Syd says. "He's been wonderful." She buys the rocking chair.
*sniffle*
BOAT
Rachel's never played a hooker before! She doesn't know what to do!
"Just act like Lauren," Syd advises her. "Or my aunt Katya. Or my sister." Since Rachel isn't privelleged enough to know any of these people, she goes "Who?" Syd asks who the sluttiest girl at her high school was.
"Mandy X," Rachel raps out. Syd advises her to act like Mandy X, who stole Rachel's prom date, just like Lauren stole Syd's boyfriend! De ja vu? Well, Rachel DOES look an AWFUL lot like Lauren in those glasses and that wig...
TOP SECRET WATER BUNKER
What the hell is this thing? It's like... I don't even know.
After being not particularly seductive at all, Rachel is ushered into Vak's room. He gets all excited. When she realizes that, because she's not Nadia, she lost her tranquilizer lipstick provided in an earlier scene by Marshall, she freaks out and slaps him. Turns out he's into bondage, and thus she duct-tapes him to bed. She grabs the disk they're after and runs.
Meanwhile, Peyton has arrived. She shoots people a lot. Because she's just Peyton, and likes to do that sort of thing. She gets one of the soon-to-be-dead soldiers to open Vak's door for her, and then shoots the shit out of him. How about a little gratitude, huh, Peyton! She runs into Vak's room, only to discover a confused and annoyed Vak still tied to the bed and a smoking computer.
Rachel and her hooker outfit are running around, and notice a couple of guys lying in pools of their own blood. She arrives at the boat, only to find... "Uh... Syd? I'm a prostitute and I don't have a boat and there are lots of dead guys around. What should I do?"
"Just try not to die," Syd advises her before sending in the boys in their chopper.
Rachel runs up some stairs, and up some more stairs, and is probably having problems moving in those shoes, and then she comes face-to-face with Peyton. Another wave of R/P subtext totally smacked me in the face, but my mind likes to throw parties in the gutter. There's one on Friday, if anyone wants to come - beverages provided. Just look in the gutter, and there my mind will be, wearing its little party hat. Anyway, Rachel's all, "You're so eeeeeeviiiiil!" And Peyton goes on for a while about how they're just on different sides and she always liked Rachel and blah blah blah blah... oooh, knife fight. Rachel stabs Peyton with her Hairbrush of Death, Peyton responds by grabbing a knife from, like, nowhere (or a leg sheath, whatever) and tries to kill Rachel. But Rachel ducks and parries and finally people start shooting at them and Rachel, like the idiot she is, totally saves Peyton's life. What's that about? Peyton proceeds to dive into the ocean, while Rachel grabs the disk and gets an assist into the chopper from Dixon, whose hand she takes rather than NotScott's. I may have actually made that up, but I like to think it's true.
BACKLIT DOORWAY OF THE FUCKTARD
The Fucktard is backlit eerily. Sloane comes up and is likewise backlit. He's mad at the Fucktard for sending in Peyton rather than trusting him, and because the Fucktard was a bad boy, he doesn't get the disk. The Fucktard asks how Nadia is, and Sloane's like "My daughter has nothing to do with this."
"Yes she does," the Fucktard replies. "Her name was in the credits!"
Sloane brightens up.
HOSPITAL
No, she's not consious. Talk about easy paycheck - all she has to do is lie there and look pretty. Which she does, while Sloane takes her hand and cries.
Awwwwwwwwww.
APO
Rachel's sitting at her (read: Nadia's) desk, and finds a picture of her and her family.
Awwww. But not as long an awwwww as the Sl/N got.
BRISTOW/SANTOS PAD
Syd sits in her rocking chair, playing a recording of her and Vaughn on coms to the unborn Vaughnspawn.
Awwwwwwww. Only one less w than the Sl/N got, 'cause it was sad.
Therefore I won't mention that the voice did not at all sound like Michael Vartan. Won't mention it. Totally not mentioning it. See me not mentioning it?
NEXT WEEK ON ALIAS
I've already seen this but... here we go anyway.
Nadia's back! Does anything else really matter? No.
MY TAKE
It was good. But not so good that I'm gonna make this really long. In fact... I have nothing to say, other than I'm starting to get used to/like Rachel. But she will never be Nadia. I also firmly believe that as cool as Renee is, she could be so much cooler if she actually had something to DO. We never even found out about how she took Desantis' betrayal a coupla weeks back! You hire a great actress, create a great character, and then use them as a backdrop. What's WITH that?!?!
QUESTIONS
When will Sloane either tell APO of his duplicity, or at least fuck the Fucktard?
Can Nadia have a line?
Can NotScott get punched in the balls like he told Rachel to do?
Where is Scott?
When will the Campaign for Equal Rights for Van strike again?
Who does the Fucktard work for?
Can Peyton rule the world, along with Renee, Sloane, and Irina?
Can Irina just friggin' come back???