Alias/Spirit

Spirit
Season 1, Episode 10
Airdate	December 16, 2001
Production Number	E639
Written by	J.J. Abrams & Vanessa Taylor
Directed by	Jack Bender
← 1x09 Mea Culpa	1x11 → The Confession
Alias — Season One

Spirit is the tenth episode of the first season of Alias. Sydney must come to the aid of her father after he saves her.

Starring: Jennifer Garner (Sydney Bristow), Ron Rifkin (Arvin Sloane), Michael Vartan (Michael Vaughn), Bradley Cooper (Will Tippin), Merrin Dungey (Francie Calfo), Carl Lumbly (Marcus Dixon), (credit only) Kevin Weisman (Marshall Flinkman)

and Victor Garber (Jack Bristow)

Guest Starring: Miguel Sandoval (SD-6 Agent Anthony Russek), Scott Paulin (Robert Stoller), Aharon Ipale (Ineni Hassan), Christopher Thornton (Nevil), Scotch Ellis Loring (Agent Gordon), Sarah Shahi (Jenny), James Warwick (Severn Driscoll)

Featuring: Conrad Gamble (Bodyguard), Erica Inez (Hotel Manager), Kevin McCorkle (Agent) Don Took (Agent Grey), Scott Vance (Security Section Agent #1), Nancy Wetzel (Amy Tippin)

Uncredited: Ken Olin (David McNeil)

Plot Overview

Sydney awakes shackled in an SD6 interrogation cell. Sloane is convinced that she will respond to threats against colleagues so he sends in Russek under the guise that he was her partner in sending the duplicate transmission. Although convincingly tortured, Sydney doesn't believe he's in trouble and doesn't break. Jack Bristow, fearing that they will kill Sydney, takes a chance and plants a message painting Russek as a K-Directorate agent. Sydney is freed while Russek remains and later dies under interrogation. Sydney is suspicious that Russek was a double-agent and, although her father denies it, knows he was responsible.

Now that SD-6 is in possession of his assets, they intend to close the loop and kill Ineni Hassan. He has fled the country to Kenya and likely changed his identity. Sydney must go undercover to Semba Island to find his new identity from noted forger Severn Driscoll. Flirting with him to get his room number, she bypasses the hotel door locks and searches his room. In the process, she is discovered by his bodyguard and in the process of knocking him out discovers a hidden room with cosmetic surgery tools and Hassan's new identity - Nibseni Saad. As part of her CIA counter-mission, she passes the new identity to the CIA but tells SD6 that she couldn't find him.

Having received the Saad identity from some other means, SD-6 sends Jack Bristow to Havana to find him and kill him. CIA has him tasked with a counter-mission to find his new identity and collect his client list, using a faked death to appease SD-6. Jack goes to Havana and gets in direct contact with Hassan's men, who capture him. Sydney, hearing this from Vaughn, enlists his help in traveling to Cuba to find him. While being beaten for information, Jack makes an offer for Hassan's freedom via faked death in exchange for his client list. Hassan is prepared to deal but during the discussion Sydney is caught breaking in and is taken up to them. To prove himself, he gives a gun to Jack and orders him to shoot Sydney.

With the help of his electronics friend, Will finds that the garbled tape he received says 'Did you tell him about SD6' before the gunshots. The only reference he can find to SD6 is from a court case of the People vs. David McNeil. Contacting him in prison and talking to his lawyer, he finds that he was pressured into selling his computer programming business and was railroaded into prison and later had his wife killed after refusing. He refuses to discuss it in prison out of fear for his remaining family.

Notes

• Sydney beats two guards but is knocked unconscious by another. Jack fights off two guards before being overpowered and taken into custody at gunpoint.

• Sydney goes undercover as Victoria King, daughter of industrialist Martin King.

• Marshall gives Sydney a cell phone with a keycard descrambler as well as sunglasses with zoom and silent camera.

47

• The suite Sydney "mistakes" Severn to be in.

Music

• Freedy Johnston - "Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)"

• Thunderball - "Domino"

• Klyph Black - "Santa's Dilemma"

Quotes

• Jack: I understand it's been a difficult week.

Sloane: One night... now this is years ago. Maybe two years before you and I met. Just finished my first Far East briefing at the White House. I was new to the CIA. After that meeting everyone got into a limousine to head back to Langley. But I didn't. I told them I was going to walk for a while. They all looked at me sort of funny, I mean it was a cold night, so I said I needed to get some air. But the truth is, I was overcome. It had occurred to me as I was walking down the White House steps that I was living in a perfect moment. Everything was filled with promise. My role in the CIA, my relationship with a wife I had not yet met. Still, I could feel the darkness coming. So I wandered around for a while and ended up at the Jefferson Memorial. It's always been a favorite one. Looked out across the basin... Lincoln right there. Didn't know how it would finally materialize, the darkness. I had nothing to base it on. It wasn't as if the CIA had just betrayed me. That my wife had just been diagnosed with lymphoma. None of that had happened yet. So when life takes an unfortunate turn, as it has this week, I just remind myself that I could see it coming all along.