“Conscious”

Alias season 3, episode 9
Original air date: November 30, 2003

Sydney awakens to find herself at Jack's storage locker with Sloane, Vaughn, Jack, and Lauren. They're planning their re-entry into their lives, which includes framing the Covenant for Sydney's escape. Jack plans to use the correct coordinates from Sydney's apartment in Rome to track down whatever it is she was hiding from Lindsay. Sloane informs them, as well, that there may be a way for Sydney to recover her memory using some research that his foundation has been funding.

Lindsay sends a raid on the location of the coordinates that Sydney gave him, but it's a liquor store and he realizes they've been played. When Sydney and Jack go out to the desert to the real coordinates, they dig up a metal box with a human hand in it with a marker on it. The symbol is of the Magnific Order of Rambaldi, according to Sloane. No one is sure what it all means, but Jack says that Marshall can run DNA tests on it when they take it back to the CIA. Lauren has to explain where she's been, so she concocts a story about the Covenant abducting her during Sydney's release. She'll tell Lindsay that they're still holding Sydney and only let her go to arrange for an exchange: Sydney for the Rambaldi device that Sloane turned over after his capture. In order for Lauren's story to be believed, she has to be banged up as if she was being held by the Covenant. Sydney's only too happy to oblige.

Lindsay has had Dixon arrested for conspiracy in covering up Sydney's release. He threatens to let Dixon rot in prison if he doesn't cooperate, but Dixon won't go along with it. In the middle of their interview, though, Lindsay is called away to talk to Lauren, who has been dumped on their doorstep. He questions her about the timing of this alleged exchange. He's very suspicious, but he follows Lauren's instructions, getting in touch with "the Covenant" (Jack) by cell phone to learn that he will be contacted for further instructions.

Sydney, Jack and Vaughn go to New Haven to meet with the neuroresearcher that Sloane has recommended. Dr. Brezzel and his student turn out to basically be stoners, conducting memory research through getting high. Sydney and Vaughn are more than a little put off by it, but Jack reminds them that they don't have other options. Dr. Brezzel explains his research as being based on the dream state: he believes that dreams are a pathway into memories, and if you can get the brain into a dream state, you can control your dreams and direct them to a specific memory.

He gives Sydney the drugs to get her into a dream state, and she goes to the last memory she has from before her missing time: being knocked unconscious in her apartment after her fight with Francie. She wakes up in an ambulance with Vaughn, but in her dream state, she's not remembering things, she's creating dreams for herself. She forces herself back to her apartment, where she kills Francie and sees herself being taken away by people whose faces she can't see, since she was unconscious. She can hear snippets of conversation betwen the people as she's being transported, but then they administer a drug and she completely loses consciousness.

She finds herself at her birthday party from when she was a little girl. As she cuts the birthday cake, it runs with blood, and Dr. Brezzel reminds her that she needs to find the thread of her previous memory. She leaves the party and finds herself in a hospital-like facility with corridors, where she sees her body being wheeled around by the faceless men again. They enter a room, and she can't follow them, but she sees Lauren in the dream and follows her. They fight, and Lauren covers Sydney's head with a plastic sheet, suffocating her. Dr. Brezzel has to bring her out of the dream forcibly, since she's experiencing a heart attack. He injects her with epinephrine to her heart, so that she recovers.

Marshall gives Lauren the results of the DNA test on the hand: no match. He says he'll still run more tests, but that the tests he's already run indicate that the person from whom the hand was cut was still alive as recently as four months ago. Sydney realizes, though, that in her dream about the birthday party, she was cutting Lazarey's hand off. She disbelieves that it could have been Lazarey whose hand she cut off, but Jack begins to wonder if Lazarey's whole murder was a performance. When Sydney awakens, she sees Vaughn at her bedside. Assuming that she's dreaming again, she kisses him. Unfortunately, this time it's real, and she's made a fool of herself. She discusses her dream therapy with Jack, Vaughn, and Dr. Brezzel, and they discuss the fact that Sydney grappled with Lauren outside Room 47. Dr. Brezzel says that "Lauren" was probably just a representational shape-shifter in the dream, considering that Sydney didn't know Lauren at the time of her disappearance. Sydney says that she wants to go back into the dream state to learn more.

Meanwhile, Sloane is summoned for a meeting with Lindsay. He's surprised that Lindsay is there, since he had assumed he'd meet with a low-level agent for his next assignment. Lindsay informs him that his next assignment is a big one: he wants Syndey killed when the exchange is made for the Rambaldi device, and he wants it to look like a Covenant double-cross. To force Sloane into it, he gives Sloane an envelope of information that he's gathered, saying that he knows what Sloane's end-game is. Whatever is in the envelope is enough to convince Sloane to do what he wants. Sloane speculates aloud that Sydney must have something in her memory on Lindsay.

Before Sydney goes back into the dream state, Jack receives confirmation from Marshall, through Lauren, that the hand was Lazarey's, based on some of his DNA that Lauren had from her investigation of his murder. When Sydney enters the dream state again, she's in a car with Dixon — a St. Aidan. She comments on the brand, and he says it's hard to find. This isn't the first time she's encountered St. Aidan in her dreams, but she still doesn't know what it means. She meets up with Weiss and Marshall at a poker game and tells them she needs to get back to that room. They tell her to check the kitchen, and she finds herself back in the hospital-like building.

Once again, she wends her way through the hanging plastic sheeting and confronts Lauren. But this time, she says she knows it's not really Lauren, and when they fight again, Sydney wraps plastic around Lauren this time. When she tears the plastic away, Sydney discovers that it's not Lauren at all, it's herself. Her double tells her that she needs to stay away: they knew the Covenant had her and there's a reason she can't remember anything. She warns herself away from the memories, telling her to "trust Lazarey." At this point, Jack wants to pull her out of the therapy, but Dr. Brezzel reassures him that she's alright. Sydney continues fighting herself, but then picks up the gun and kills her double in the dream. She makes her way to Room 47, opens the door, and simply says "Oh my God" at whatever she sees there.