Alias/Passage (1)

Passage (1)
Season 2, Episode 8
Airdate	December 1, 2002
Written by	Debra J. Fisher & Erica Messer
Directed by	Ken Olin
← 2x07 The Counteragent	2x09 → Passage (2)
Alias — Season Two

Passage (1) is the eighth episode of the second season of Alias, and the thirtieth episode overall. Sydney, Jack, and Irina Derevko join forces to prevent a nuclear emergency.

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), Kevin Weisman (Marshall Flinkman), David Anders (Julian Sark)

with Lena Olin (Irina Derevko)

and Victor Garber (Jack Bristow)

Special Guest Star: Terry O'Quinn (FBI Special Officer Kendall)

Guest Starring: Pasha D. Lychnikoff (Zoran Sokolov), Shishir Kurup (Saeed Akhtar)

Co-Starring: Kiran Rao (Lead Soldier)

Featuring: Chayton Arvin (Soldier), Rahul Gupta (Passport Officer), Keith Lal (Porter), K.T. Thangavelu (Woman), Richard F. Whiten (Security Section Agent)

Plot Overview

Now that Sark has joined forces with SD-6, Sydney corners him on a lonely mountain road to let him know any word of her involvement in Sloane's kidnapping will have an equivalent confession about his role. Sydney also asks Irina Derevko is she had ever told Sark about the double agent roles that she and Jack are performing. Irina tells her that she has never shared that secret but that Sark is to be considered dangerous nonetheless. At SD-6, both Sydney and Dixon express strong disagreement with Sark's cooperating role, but Sloane proceeds regardless.

Sark has provided SD-6 with information about Zoran Zokolov, a mercenary who traffics black market information. Zokolov is in possession with communication codes used by Uzbekistan and that is purportedly of interest to Tajikistani rebels to track troop movements and plan terrorist activities. Sydney and Dixon are to travel to Uzbekistan and pose as Sark's employees to purchase the codes. Sydney is immediately suspicious that Sloane would be interested in preserving the security of that tumultuous region so she asks Irina what the codes might really be for. Irina surprises her by asking for her faith and allow her a 48 hour period, under armed US escort, to investigate this on her own. Unwilling to provide any further details, CIA Agent Kendall is unwilling to let such a dangerous individual out in the open. Instead, the CIA countermission is to duplicate the codes so that the CIA can determine their true use. Behind closed doors, it is obvious that Sloane and Sark have an unspoken deal that they are hiding from the SD-6 members.

Sydney and Dixon meet with Zokolov and successfully exchange the codes, housed in a briefcase, for the money. Before he lets them go, Zokolov tells them that the briefcase is armed with a bomb that can only be disabled with the fingerprints of the Uzbek colonel who carried the case. Zokolov has had Colonel Vassily Kapilov assassinated and arranged for his corpse to be available for Sydney to get the necessary fingerprints. With Zokolov's assistance, Sydney is checked into the morgue as a dead soldier. When left alone, she quickly checks the corpses and finds the Colonel's body in a freezer and copies his prints. An Uzbek soldier forgets his paperwork and returns to the morgue finding Sydney's body bag empty. Sounding an alert, Sydney has to fight off two guards before escaping with Dixon and Zokolov.

The codes are determined by the CIA to not be communication codes but instead arming codes for Uzbekistan nuclear weapons that were recently stolen. In exchange for trivial personal items like a blanket and pillow, Derevko tells them that the weapons are being held by the People's Revolutionary Front in a defunct maximum security prison. Irina's original request for time to investigate was to determine the nature of the codes and she has little interest in helping them recover the weapons given their lack of trust. Sydney makes a personal plea that her role in providing the weapon codes demands that she'll have to recover the weapons and with this, Irina agrees to help them.

Sydney, Jack, and Irina are to breach the closed borders of Uzbekistan by jumping off an Indian train running along the border and then meet with a CIA contact. To ensure Irina won't try to escape, she has to wear a decorative necklace that contains C4 explosive, while Jack has a remote detonator. Posing as a vacationing American family, the three of them get on board the train safely while Irina takes great pleasure in taunting Jack and baiting him into arguments. As the train crosses near the border at night, the three go into the cargo car to get suited up to parachute from a bridge. After some argument about the order of jumping, as Jack doesn't trust Irina, the three meet up with their CIA contact, an old associate of Jack named Saeed Akhtar.

As the four of them travel by jeep, their path is blocked by a fallen tree. Jack, sensing a trap, yells for Saeed to reverse but they are immediately surrounded by ten armed men. Held at gunpoint, their captors identify themselves as the PRF and know that they are traveling with the assistance of the CIA, as they've had an observer watching Saeed. The leader kills Saeed in front of them and asks why they are in Uzbekistan. Jack tells them that they are after the nuclear weapon while Irina motions to him about her necklace. While the PRF check the supplies in the jeep, Irina removes the necklace and throws it at the jeep while Jack detonates it. Fighting and disarming nearby guards, the three of them gun down the remaining PRF soldiers, although Sydney takes a grazing bullet wound. Noting that they are behind enemy lines and that the PRF knows they are there, Irina tells Jack that he has to trust her but Jack still refuses to allow her to carry a weapon.

Notes

• Sydney beats two armed Uzbek guards. The PRF kill CIA contact Saeed Akhtar. Together, Jack, Sydney, and Irina kill eight PRF members through a combination of hand to hand combat, explosions, and gunfire.

• Jack uses a small remote computer access device while Sydney uses a fingerprint reader to copy a dead body's biometric access.

• Jack, Sydney, and Irina go undercover as the Godson family on a train vacation of India.

Music

• Creedence Clearwater Revival - "Bad Moon Rising"

• U2 - "Walk On"

• Josh Canova - "Almost Ran"

Arc Advancement

Happenings

• Sloane receives a garbled phone message demanding the account codes to all of SD-6's financial holdings or they'll let the Alliance know that Emily Sloane is still alive. Demanding proof of life, Sloane later receives a severed finger with a wedding ring.

• Will uncovers that the test results housed in the Testing Service Archive are missing, but is able to get a list of 40 children's names from a cross referenced cultural bias study. Vaughn is surprised and notes that the FBI hasn't been able to get any information on the results.

Characters

• Will makes it a point that he won't accept more money for his off the books CIA work than he's owed.

Trivia

The Show

• Once again, the episode abandons the title sequence and instead plays the credits over the first scene after the recap.