Alias: Passage, Part 1

"I'm not about to let Irina Derevko near six nuclear weapons, supervised only by you."

This episode was tremendous spy family fun; I loved every minute of it. My favorite moment was when all three of them were in the train, with the James Bond music in the background, arguing about who was going to jump off the bridge first.

Irina is definitely working on Jack, isn't she, with the bra thing in the sleeper compartment (did you get the stunned look on his face when he saw her half naked) and the kisses in the train station? And she's smiling at him in the most beguiling way. I'd love to know what's going on in Jack's head right now.

So what's up with Sark, and do I care? Well, I sort of care. Sark knows that Sydney tried to kill Sloane, so he has something on her. Also, he may very well know that Sydney and Jack are double agents. Irina said that she never told Sark, but hey, Sydney may be falling for Irina's game to the point of finally calling her "Mom," but I'm not. Jack even pointed out the fact that Sark and Irina are both in infiltration mode; can this be a coincidence? I don't think so.

Vaughn finally managed to tell Sydney that he loved her, in an incredibly convoluted, indefinite kind of way involving his father's watch. Does Sydney love him back? Is that what her "me, too" meant? English, people! And for goodness sake, why is Irina trying to get Vaughn and Sydney together? What does she have to gain by it?

On the home front, Vaughn was forced by Devlin to fire Will... but it looks like Will isn't going to stay fired. The investigative reporter once again has the bit between his teeth, and he's going to find those forty kids who might be Soviet sleeper agents. We all know how well his last obsession went.

On the Emily front, Sloane finally got a ransom demand... and ewww. The "kidnappers" want account numbers for all SD-6 investments, or they tell the Alliance Emily is alive, which would be very bad for Sloane. But is she alive? They could have stolen her body, kept it on ice so that they would have convenient access to body parts, put an Emily ringer on the street for Sloane to see... I'll admit I'm completely perplexed.

Bits and pieces:

— No saga sell this week.

— The opening Sydney/Sark car scene had one of my favorite places in L.A. in the background: the Griffith Observatory.

— Loved Jack faking out Kendall by agreeing with Sydney! Machiavelli has nothing on him.

— Marshall, upon being introduced to Sark: "Hi. Welcome. Don't kill me."

— Sydney, to Irina: "Stop baiting him." To Jack: "And stop being such an easy target."

— We're seeing a lot more of Kendall now than Devlin, and I very much approve. The talented Terry O'Quinn is an asset to any show.

This week's...

... itinerary: an opium den in Uzbekistan, the People's Revolutionary Front prison camp in Kashmir, a train station in New Delhi.

... cool gadget: the C4 necklace-slash-decapitator that Jack put on Irina.

... cool looks: first a corpse in a body bag, complete with a bullet hole in Sydney's head, and then the wavy blond, no-brain look in New Delhi.

Four out of four spies. Can't wait for part two,

Billie
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Billie Doux loves good television and spends way too much time writing about it.

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