“Welcome to Liberty Village”

Alias season 4, episode 4
Original air date: January 26, 2005

APO discovers that Russian ultranationalists known as "the October Contingent" have acquired an electromagnetic pulse that can take out everything in a 10-mile radius and doesn't need much time to reset. Sydney and Vaughn go undercover to infiltrate the October Contingent as a married couple of Russian spies that has already been approached to join the group. The actual Russian couple is being held in Germany for customs violations.

Vaughn and Sydney meet their Russian handler, Yuri Kurelko, and pose as the Russians. Kurelko asks if they can speak with an American accent, so they revert to their normal speech, which pleases him. He takes them to Liberty Village, which is a real, American-style suburban neighborhood that's been set up in an abandoned Russian training facility.

There, Sydney and Vaughn have to pass a series of tests to be accepted into the group. First, they have to meet the neighbors, and they're critiqued on how American they seem. Their handler criticizes them for not being affectionate enough, because he says Americans are always touching each other. This is something of a blow to Sydney and Vaughn, who have already been accused by Weiss and Nadia of being boring. Their homework assignment is to learn to assemble a gun in under 20 seconds. Vaughn practices that while Sydney does some reconnaisance, bumping in to Tom (Kurelko), who is suspicious of her being out after dark.

The next day, Tom picks them up for their next test: they have to buy an American car. The dealership and the salesman are in on the test as well. However, the real test is to kill another couple that's being vetted for the October Contingent — here's where learning to assemble the gun comes in handy. The couple that lives gets the car and gets admitted to the October Contingent.

Fearing for Vaughn and Sydney's safety, Jack contacts one of Irina's old KGB contacts for information on the October Contingent. The contact agrees to provide support to extract Sydney and Vaughn in exchange for the books that Jack gave Irina years before. Jack has Marshall go over the books again, because he knows that the Russians must believe there's something in them that the NSA missed when they combed them years ago. Marshall finds that Irina had hidden a microdot in an ellipsis, added after the fact to one of Jack's inscriptions, which contains a protocol for contacting one of her fellow agents, named Sentinel. Jack tells Marshall that Sentinel is dead, so they can hand over the books.

Sydney and Vaughn being the victorious couple in the showroom shootout, they're accepted into the October Contingent. Their task is to attack an investment firm to gain access to their data servers, because, as Tom tells them, something unfortunate is going to happen to cripple the New York Stock Exchange in the near future. If they have access to these servers beforehand, they can steal all the money when the banks go down. In preparation for their trip, they have access to the electromagnetic pulse.

As they're preparing, though, the German consulate informs APO that the Russian couple that Sydney and Vaughn are impersonating is being transferred. Marshall realizes, though, that the communication was over an unsecure line, and so the October Contingent will also be aware of the transfer, blowing Vaughn and Sydney's cover. Sure enough, they're attacked by Tom and his henchman, but they're able to escape with the electromagnetic pulse.

After Sloane and Jack debrief Sydney and Vaughn by teleconference, Sloane says that Irina's Russian contact made good on his promise, and Jack replies that their "suspicions about Sentinel are accurate." He says that the Russians are searching for Elena Derevko, whoever that is, and Sloane replies that APO will have to move up their timetable.