Alias 5.6: Solo

Sydney and Rachel watch a scared family behind a two-way mirror. Rachel gazes at them sadly, and talks about the guilt that she feels for putting them in danger. Syd assures her that putting them in the witness protection program is the best way to ensure their safety. Rachel goes inside the room and embraces her family.

Later, Sloane reports to Dean that Rachel's family is in the protection program. After Dean makes it clear that Sloane should be prepared to kill them, Dean tells Sloane to find a weapon designer named Janos Vak using APO resources.

In the briefing room, Jack heads a meeting and lets Sloane speak. By "using" Rachel Gibson's debriefing, Sloane recommends that they find Janos Vak, a Hungarian who specializes in weapon targeting software. Since Vak is currently working on a software program that can intercept and redirect missiles, and Dean has been trying to locate him in the past, Sloane suggested that Vak can be used to bait Dean. Jack also shows them a photo of an Algerian arms dealer who had a meeting with Vak and who can give them a lead. Syd suggests that Renee Rienne can help with penetrating the Algerian underworld.

After Renee infiltrates a warehouse in Marseilles and acquires intel on Vak, Sydney presents this information to the team. She says that Vak met with a Chinese official named General Liem Song, who is having an engagement party at a Chinese Consulate in India. Dixon adds that Song keeps an encrypted copy of his contacts in a safe in his room and this should lead them to Vak.

With Marshall and Rachel waiting in a van, Syd attends the engagement party with Tom. Realizing that General Song is not leaving his room, Dixon creates a scene by proposing to the bride-to-be. With the busy guards, Syd slips into General Song's room, tranqs him and starts to bypass the safe.

When Marshall says that there is too much shield in the building, Rachel volunteers to set a relay antenna near the garden to boost the signal. After Rachel plants the relay device and Syd was able to get the contents in General Song's safe, Rachel is caught by a guard. With surging panic, she turns and runs away. Tom helps her and knocks the guard out.

Sloane meets with Gordon Dean, who is furious that APO acquired significant intel from the consulate. He demands that the decrypted data be given to him later that day.

At the APO office, Dixon tells Sydney that they have located Janos Vak at an oil platform facility in the middle of the South China Sea, and adds that Jack is sending Rachel to this mission. As Syd expresses her opposition in this decision, Dixon adds that the government has suspended all shore leave except for a "female companion" every other weekend for Vak. Nervous and embarrassed from the last mission, Rachel listens to Dixon and Sydney's advice and prepares for her first mission alone.

Sloane meets with Dean and gives him details on the next mission. Dean then meets with Peyton and assigns her to get the software herself and advises her to kill Rachel if they cross paths.

Dressed as a prostitute, Rachel arrives at the oil facility. A few minutes after entering Vak's room, she drops her lipstick that was supposed to be Vak's tranquilizer. With Syd's guidance, Rachel improvises and seduces Vak. After tying him to the bed, Rachel downloads the program from Vak's computer.

Peyton arrives at the facility and upon realizing that the original software had been destroyed, she runs after Rachel, who is making her way to the heli-deck for extraction. She confronts Rachel who in turn expressed her anger about Peyton's betrayal. When Peyton urges her to hand the data over at gun point, Rachel starts rummaging through her bag and finds the hair brush equipped with an ice pick that Marshall built. She jams it into Peyton's shoulder and they exchange blows. Just then, the Chinese guards start shooting at them. Dixon arrives in time and picks Rachel up with the helicopter as Peyton jumps to the sea.

In another meeting, Sloane refused to give Vak's software to Dean, saying that Dean had tried to kill an APO agent. In response, Dean pointed out that he decides how to run their operations. As Sloane stood his ground, Dean mentions Nadia and uses her to convince Sloane.

Inside her apartment, Sydney sits in a rocking chair that she bought from a toy store, where, for a brief moment, she wistfully watched a father take care of his child. She then plays an old mission tape that Marshall handed to her before she left. With the sound of Vaughn's voice playing, she holds the tape close to her belly.

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Last week ALIAS was not on. ABC chose to show Pirates of the Caribbean instead. So now I resume my Thursday evening ALIAS update & commentary.

Mia Maestro was listed in the guest star credits this week and made a cameo appearance in the last two minutes of the show tonight. It's nice to know her charachter isn't dead yet, and that the possibility remains that she'll get better and return to her role as Syd's sister and APO member. Too bad her love interest from last season was effectively written off. I still don't like the way they killed off Vaughn (Michael Vartan's charachter). Maybe they'll invent some brainwashing scheme and work in that his being shot many times was a set up. Or maybe they'll pull a Dallas/Newhart thing and this season will end up being a dream.