“Remnants”

Alias season 3, episode 10
Original air date: December 07, 2003

Sydney, still in her dream state, has just opened the door to Room 47 to see Will standing in her old kitchen with a box of "St. Aidan Flakes." As Will is about to speak, though, Dr. Brezzel pulls her out of her dream state. Jack insists that Sydney needs to get in touch with Will to find out what he might know. She's reluctant to jeopardize his witness protection status, but agrees. She tells Jack and Vaughn on the plane that she killed herself in the dream, but not before learning that it was the Covenant that was holding her. Jack says that Dr. Brezzel's assessment of Sydney's missing memory is that it was intentionally erased, and since it's so thorough and precise, she may have been a willing participant in the erasure.

Jack and Vaughn meet with Sloane to make the arrangements for Sydney's exchange for the Rambaldi device. Sloane is to contact Lindsay to set things up, and Sydney is to contact Sloane when she's ready for the exchange to happen. Vaughn warns Sloane that if he betrays her in the exchange, Vaughn will kill him.

Will is astonished when Sydney appears at the construction site where he's working. He attacks her, because he believes that she's a double, holding a gun on her. She begs him to ask her something only she would know, to confirm her identity, and so he asks her what happened when he went on his first journalism job interview. She says that someone spilled coffee on him, but the boss said he looked like a real reporter with the stain and gave him the job anyway. He lets his guard down, and Sydney takes the gun from him.

Sloane meets with Lindsay to let him know that he's found a marksman to kill Sydney at the exchange. It'll cost $500,000, which Lindsay approves immediately. He warns Sloane that if anything goes wrong and Sydney somehow survives, Linsday will turn his dossier of information over to the Justice Department.

Will and Sydney catch up on her past, and Sydney has to tell him that Alison survived the fire that night in her apartment. Will tells Sydney that if he had the chance, he'd kill Alison himself. Sydney asks Will about St. Aidan, and he reveals that St. Aidan was the name of a contact he had when he was an analyst with the CIA. He says he never knew the guy's real name, but that he does know how to get in touch with him still. Sydney refuses to let Will get dragged back into things, but he insists.

Meanwhile, Sark has visited Dr. Brezzel to find out what Sydney learned through her dream therapy. He shoots Brezzel in the knee and hooks him up to a morphine drip to find out what he knows. Brezzel resists until Sark turns off the morphine, at which point he reveals that Sydney went to get in touch with Will to see what he knows. Sark turns Brezzel's morphine drip back up — way up, until it kills him.

Jack and Vaughn turn over to Lindsay their information on their "investigation" of Sydney's abduction by the Covenant. Lindsay indicates that he doesn't believe the whole scheme with the Covenant. Jack slugs him, and Lindsay orders Vaughn and Jack taken into custody. Marshall tells Lindsay that in his efforts to confirm that it was the Covenant who has been communicating with him about the exchange for Sydney, he hasn't been able to prove anything. Marshall takes that as a sign of super-stealthy behavior on the Covenant's part, though.

Sydney and Will arrange to meet St. Aidan, and when he shows up, Sydney's got Will wired so she can hear what they say. He's late for the meeting, but when he shows up, Sydney can't believe what she's seeing: St. Aidan is Lazarey. Sydney tells Will to ask Lazarey about the Covenant, but that makes Lazarey agitated, and he starts to leave. Sydney tells Will to tell Lazarey that Julia sent him to meet Lazarey, that she trusts him, but she's in danger. When Will conveys this, Lazarey asks if they found "it," and says something about getting to Graz. Unfortunately, before he can say any more, Sark shows up and shoots Lazarey with a tranquilizer. Sydney and Will escape, but only barely.

Sydney and Will go over their information to try and figure out what they might know, and Will reassures her that she'll figure it out. They end up drinking all night, and then end up in bed together. Afterwards, Sydney does begin to figure something out: whatever Lazarey was talking about being in Graz, must have been something that Syndey would have hidden herself. She realizes that she would have made the same choices then as now about where she would hide something, and so begins looking at bank and hotel safe deposit boxes for one she might have used. She finds one in Graz.

While Will and Sydney are having fun together, other pieces are falling into place: Vaughn and Jack are being transported in NSC custody, and Jack urges Vaughn to stay away from Sydney, should they ever have the opportunity to be near her again. Sloane enlists the marksman, who comments that he was just starting to believe that Slaone really had turned over a new leaf. And Sark tortures Lazarey — his father — to find out what he told Will. Will and Sydney check into the hotel in Graz to find what Sydney hid there. She hacks into the hotel's computer system to find out that Julia Thorne does have a long-term contract there for a box, Box 23 to be specific. She and Will go to the sub-basement to collect it, and find a small metal box in Box 23, but before she can grab it, Sark takes it, using a magnet to suck it to the back of the deposit box. Sydney cahses him while Will tangles with Alison. He stabs her with her own knife, leaving her for dead. Sydney is able to knock Sark unconscious and take the box from him.

Sydney gets in touch with Sloane to set up the exchange, and he informs her that her father, Vaughn, and Dixon are all in NSC custody now, but that they need to proceed with the plan to reassure Lindsay that it is, indeed, the Covenant who is holding Sydney. Sydney warns Sloane that he better not try to make off with the Rambaldi device during this exchange, and then contacts Weiss for help. She asks Weiss to track the van with the Rambaldi device once it's in Sloane's control. He agrees, and the exchange proceeds as planned, with one small hitch. As Sydney approaches Lindsay, the marksman proceeds with his shot. But it's not Sydney who gets shot — it's Lindsay. When Sydney confronts Sloane about Lindsay's murder, he claims no responsibility and she opens the crate to find that the Rambaldi device is not in it. Sydney, however, continues to believe that it was Sloane who did the double-crossing, not Lindsay.

Vaughn, Jack, and Dixon are all reinstated, and as they all get back to work, Marshall is able to identify what was in the safe deposit box from the hotel in Graz. It's a vial of human tissue, and the name etched inside the box is Milo Rambaldi.