Alias/So It Begins

So It Begins
Season 1, Episode 2
Airdate	October 7, 2001
Production Number	E631
Written by	J.J. Abrams
Directed by	Ken Olin
← 1x01 Truth Be Told	1x03 → Parity
Alias — Season One

So It Begins is the second episode of the first season of Alias. Sydney, returning to regular operation in SD-6 and struggling to understand the scope of her newest role as a CIA double agent, must find a missing nuclear bomb.

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)

and Victor Garber (Jack Bristow)

Guest Starring: Evan Dexter Parke (Charlie), Aharon Ipale (Ineni Hassan), Alex Kuz (Kazimir Shcherbakov), Ravil Isyanov (Luri Karpachev), Sarah Shahi (Jenny)

Co-Starring: Ammar Daraiseh (Supplier), Azdine Melliti (Bodyguard #1), John Storey (CIA Officer)

Featuring: Xavier J. Nathan (French Officer), Gregory Phelan (Student), Seema Rahmani (Sara)

Uncredited: Greg Grunberg (Eric Weiss), John Aylward (CIA Officer Davenport)

Plot Overview

Sydney, preparing to return as an SD-6 operative while working as a double agent for the CIA, details her view of the SD-6 operation to Agent Vaughn, including the reliance that they have on an Egyptian arms dealer named Ineni Hassan whom she suggests is key to bringing down SD-6. When Vaughn tries to tell her to focus on covertly doing her job as normal, Sydney says that she wants to resolve this far more quickly and that it must be done her way. When prompted to draw a hierarchal map of SD-6 operations, Sydney gives a detailed although small map. Agent Vaughn in turn shows her a far more detailed and multinational view of SD-6 of which her Los Angeles chapter is but a small part.

She is given rules on how she is to pass along information, by dropping details of her current operation on brown lunch bags into rotating trash bins and indicating them with a numbered tone on a dial in number. A request for a private conference is indicated with a wrong phone call from "Joey's Pizza".

Sydney moves into a new place with the help of her friends and Francie's boyfriend Charlie. Will confronts her about the use of his sister's identify and credit card, but Sydney tries to dissuade him from looking any further for fear for his life. He later probes deeper into Danny's death and finds that he was booked for an airline trip to Singapore.

Her father meets her in SD-6's offices, both to establish for SD-6's benefit that they know of each other's real position in the organization and to help with the CIA-related covert activities. When pressed by Sydney, her father admits that he knew that Danny would be killed when he called for his approval to marry Sydney. Sydney slaps him and tells him to never talk to her again. Sydney later realizes that the airline booking to Singapore was her father's doing and was an attempt to save him and Sydney from SD-6's reprisal and thanks her father for the first time.

The operation is defined as a search to recover lost intel originally collected by Moscow's GRU and being offered for sale by two members of the Russian Mafia. Their goal is to prevent the sale of the goods and recover the intelligence. They plan to impersonate the buyer of the merchandise while also stealing his money so that they can pay the Russian Mafia and escape with the intel. Sydney, dressed as a housekeeper, breaks into the buyer's hotel room while Dixon, posing as the African buyer, occupies the Mafia and brokers the deal. Caught while picking the lock of a briefcase, Sydney disables the buyer and his guards but finds that the money is fake and they had no intention of paying for the goods. Adapting, Sydney changes clothes and accomplishes a handoff of the intel but Marcus is caught trying to excuse himself from the table. Both Sydney and Dixon disable the two Russians and leave with the intel.

As instructed, Sydney drops the intel off at the airport terminal for Agent Vaughn's team to copy and recovers it before leaving the airport. The intel shows a set of seven nuclear bombs buried under locations in the United States 20 years ago, six of were previous recovered. The final bomb is buried under the grave of a man named Ivanov in Virginia. Sydney digs up the grave and finds the bomb inside, which is activated when she opens it. Thinking quickly, she calls Marshall who helps her disarm it before detonation. Agent Vaughn and his superior are angry that she didn't call them as SD-6 has recovered the bomb and provided it to Hassan for sale abroad. Vaughn is removed from Sydney's case in favor of a more experienced case officer.

Sydney leaves to recover the bomb in Cairo, Egypt while her father helps provide a cover story. Fighting her way into Hassan's compound, Sydney is caught by Hassan at gunpoint while removing the Plutonium core from the bomb.

Notes

• Marshall provides them with a skin contact sedative, good for two uses, mounted on a ring. Sydney also uses a portable video scrambler, portable repelling gear for an elevator cable, and lockpicking gear in glasses.

• Sydney goes undercover as both a Moscow hotel maid and an underdressed partygoer. Dixon goes as African buyer Navarro.

• Sydney defeats five men in hand to hand combat and evades fire from two gunmen. Dixon defeats one man in hand to hand combat and Hassan murders one of his own associates for providing faulty merchandise.

47

• Milovich Ivanov's tombstone gives his lifespan from 1927 to 1974, meaning died at the age of 47.

Music

• Roland Gift - "Looking For A Friend"

• Kate Bush - "This Woman's Work"

Arc Advancement

Characters

• Marshall, Will, and Sloane all show concern for Sydney's well-being after the death of her fiancé.

Quotes

• Vaughn: Since I've been at the CIA, I've only seen this map grow. This is what you're in the middle of, Sydney. If shutting down the Los Angeles cell is all we were after, we would have raided that office three years ago. This is not about cutting off an arm of the monster, this is about killing the monster. And the work you have ahead of you, the work your father's been doing, it's complicated, it's political, and it is long-term.

• Eric: Impressive.

Vaughn: Heh, yeah.

Eric: Balls of Steel. No, that's what I'm going to call you from now on. (to passing coworker) Have you met my friend Balls of Steel?