Sydney Anne Bristow (born 17 April 1975), played by
Jennifer GarnerJennifer Anne Affleck , known professionally as Jennifer Garner, is an American actress. She is best known for her role as CIA agent Sydney Bristow on the ABC thriller drama series Alias...
, is the main
characterA character is the representation of a person in a narrative or dramatic work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr through its Latin transcription character, the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its...
on the
television seriesA television program , television programme , or television show is a segment of content broadcast on television...
AliasAlias is an American action television series created by J. J. Abrams which was broadcast on ABC for five seasons, from September 30, 2001 to May 22, 2006...
.
Sydney is depicted in the series as being strong both physically and emotionally. She deals with some significant trauma over the years: the death of her fiancé, the death of her best friend, the realization that her
motherIrina Derevko , is a fictional character on the television series Alias, and a main character during the second season of the series. Irina, played by Lena Olin, is the mother of the central character, Sydney Bristow.-Biography:Irina Derevko was a long-term spy for the Soviet Union...
was a former
KGBThe KGB was the national security agency of the USSR. From 1954 until 1991, the Committee for State Security was the Communist state's premier secret police, internal security, and espionage organization, whose coat of arms—the Shield and the Sword—illustrate a national military hierarchy...
spy, the estrangement of many of her friends and the constant activity and changes that she must endure from being a
spyEspionage or spying involves an individual obtaining information that is considered secret or confidential without the permission of the holder of the information. Espionage is inherently clandestine, as the legitimate holder of the information may change plans or take other countermeasures once it...
on a regular basis. Sydney is highly skilled in
Krav MagaKrav Maga is an eclectic hand-to-hand combat system developed in Israel. It was derived from street-fighting skills developed by Imi Lichtenfeld, who made use of his training as a boxer and wrestler, as a means of defending the Jewish quarter during a period of anti-Semitic activity in Bratislava...
and is quite a polyglot, speaking
EnglishEnglish is a West Germanic language that developed in England during the Anglo-Saxon era. As a result of the military, economic, scientific, political, and cultural influence of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, and of the United States since the mid 20th century,...
,
RussianRussian is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages, and the largest native language in Europe...
,
GermanGerman is a West Germanic language, thus related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. It is one of the world's major languages and the most widely spoken first language in the European Union. Around the world, German is spoken by approximately 105 million native speakers and also by...
,
GreekGreek , an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, is the language of the Greeks. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. In its ancient form, it is the language of classical...
,
DutchDutch is a West Germanic language spoken by over 22 million people as a native language, and over 5 million people as a second language.
"1% of the EU population claims to speak Dutch well enough in order to have a conversation." Outside the European Union the number of second language...
,
FrenchFrench is a Romance language globally spoken by about 65 million people as a first language , by 50 million as a second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired foreign language, with significant speakers in 57 countries. Most native speakers of the language live in France,...
,
ItalianItalian is a Romance language spoken by about 60 million people in Italy, and by a total of around 70 million in the world. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four official languages. It is also the official language of San Marino, as well as the primary language of Vatican City...
,
SpanishSpanish or Castilian is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that originated in northern Spain and gradually spread in the Kingdom of Castile, evolving into the principal language of government and trade in the Iberian peninsula...
,
PortuguesePortuguese is a Romance language that originated in what is now Galicia and northern Portugal. It is derived from the Latin spoken by the romanized Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula around 2000 years ago...
,
NorwegianNorwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is an official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants ...
,
SwedishSwedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along the coast and on the Åland islands. It is to a considerable extent mutually intelligible with Norwegian and to a lesser extent with Danish...
,
RomanianRomanian or Daco-Romanian is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova. It has official status in Romania, Republic of Moldova, and the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina in Serbia...
,
HungarianHungarian is a Uralic language unrelated to most other languages in Europe. It is mainly spoken in Hungary and by the Hungarian minorities in the seven neighbouring countries...
,
HebrewHebrew is a Semitic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family. Culturally, it is considered a Jewish language. Hebrew in its modern form is spoken by more than seven million people in Israel while Classical Hebrew has been used for prayer or study in Jewish communities around the world for over...
,
UzbekUzbek is a Turkic language and the official language of Uzbekistan. It has about 23.5 million native speakers, and it is spoken by the Uzbeks in Uzbekistan and elsewhere in Central Asia...
,
ArabicArabic is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages such as Hebrew and the Neo-Aramaic languages. In terms of speakers, the Arabic macrolanguage is the largest member of the Semitic language family. It is spoken by more than 280 million people as...
, Farsi,
UrduUrdu is a Central Indo-Aryan language of the Indo-Iranian branch, belonging to the Indo-European family of languages. It is one of the two official languages of Pakistan. It is also one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of five Indian states...
,
IndonesianIndonesian is the official national language of Indonesia. It is based on a version of Classical Malay of the Riau-Johor Sultanate. It was first declared the official language with the declaration of Indonesian independence in 1945, following the 1928 unifying-language declaration in the...
, Cantonese, Mandarin,
Japaneseis a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family. There are a number of proposed relationships with other languages, but none have gained general acceptance...
,
KoreanKorean is the official language of North Korea and South Korea. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers. It was formerly written using Hanja, borrowed Chinese characters pronounced in the Korean...
, Hindi,
VietnameseVietnamese , formerly known under French colonization as Annamese , is the national and official language of Vietnam...
,
PolishPolish is a West Slavic language and the official language of Poland. Its written standard is the Polish alphabet which corresponds basically to the Latin alphabet with a few additions...
,
SerbianSerbian is a South Slavic language, spoken chiefly in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia, and in the Serbian diaspora...
,
CzechCzech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. Czech is similar to and mutually intelligible with Slovak and, to a lesser extent, to Polish and Sorbian. - Official status :Czech is widely...
,
UkrainianUkrainian is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the official state language of Ukraine. Written Ukrainian uses the Cyrillic alphabet....
, and
BulgarianBulgarian is an Indo-European language, a member of the Slavic linguistic group.Bulgarian demonstrates several linguistic innovations that set it apart from all other Slavic languages except the Macedonian language, such as the elimination of case declension, the development of a suffixed definite...
in various episodes. Throughout the series her code names were bluebird, freelancer, mountaineer, and phoenix.
Biographical information
Sydney Bristow was born April 17, 1975. For the first six years of her life she lived with her parents, although her father
JackJonathan "Jack" Donahue Bristow, played by Victor Garber, is Sydney Bristow's father on the television series Alias.-Biography:Jack Bristow, a longtime agent of the CIA and former double officer with SD-6, is often emotionally distant and can be among the show's coldest and most brutal characters...
's work with the CIA kept him away from home much of the time. After Laura Bristow (real name
Irina DerevkoIrina Derevko , is a fictional character on the television series Alias, and a main character during the second season of the series. Irina, played by Lena Olin, is the mother of the central character, Sydney Bristow.-Biography:Irina Derevko was a long-term spy for the Soviet Union...
), faked her death, Jack was taken into custody. He named
Arvin SloaneArvin Sloane is a fictional character played by Ron Rifkin. He was the former director of SD-6 on the television series, Alias.-Background:...
as Sydney's temporary guardian. Sydney went to live with Sloane and his wife
EmilyEmily Sloane is a fictional character from the American television series Alias. She was portrayed by Amy Irving.-Biography:Emily Sloane was married to SD-6 head Arvin Sloane for more than 30 years. Little is known of her life outside of her marriage to Arvin. She had worked for the State...
, for a time (Note that this is a
retconRetroactive continuity is the deliberate changing of previously established facts in a work of serial fiction. The change is informally referred to as a "retcon", and producing a retcon is called "retconning"...
as it was previously established that Sydney did not meet Arvin or Emily until Sydney had already started working for SD-6).
Some time after Jack's release, Sydney began exhibiting unusually high intelligence and problem-solving abilities, including being able to solve a three-dimensional reasoning "indicator" test that Jack himself could not.
When Sydney was 19 years old and a freshman in college, a man approached her and told her that he worked with US intelligence and that they wanted to interview her because she fitted a profile. She declined at first but then decided to join them. After meeting with an organization she believed was the
Central Intelligence AgencyThe Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government.It is an independent agency responsible for providing national security intelligence to senior United States policymakers....
, she signed "hundreds of non-disclosure agreements" and was offered a job.
They had Sydney take a job as an office assistant on the twentieth floor of Credit Dauphine, a corporate bank in downtown
Los AngelesLos Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the municipality of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123.445 inhabitants...
. She assumed that the bank was somehow affiliated with the CIA. When she told her father about her job after about a month, he ordered her to quit because as a double agent within SD-6, he knew the bank was a front. Sydney angrily refused to quit and this led to the beginning of a several year estrangement in their relationship.
Eventually she was told that she was ready for the transition, which involved eight months of training. It was during the training that Sydney first heard the term
SD-6The Alliance of Twelve, with SD-6 being one of its subsidiary cells, is a fictional international organized crime group in the television series Alias...
. At this time, she believed that SD-6 was affiliated with the CIA, that it was a black ops division of the CIA, funded by the CIA's black budget. These operations are highly classified, even hidden from congressional oversight. They led her to believe that SD-6 was one of these divisions and that that was why they didn't operate through
Langley, VirginiaLangley is an unincorporated community in the census-designated place of McLean in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States.The community was essentially absorbed into McLean many years ago, although there is still a Langley High School...
.
The transition ended when they made reference to SD-6 headquarters. They told her they'd take her there. What she didn't realize was that the headquarters was in the same building. Her role within SD-6 was desk work, at first, but she advanced quickly. Within the first year, she was assigned to reconnaissance missions.
Sydney was told that the objective of SD-6 was, "the retrieval and study of intelligence, both military and industrial, throughout the world that is critical to the superiority and survival of the United States of America."
Seven years after joining SD-6, Sydney discovered that SD-6 was actually a branch of the Alliance of Twelve, an international
organized crimeOrganized crime or criminal organizations can be defined as a transnational grouping of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals for the purpose of engaging in illegal activity, most commonly for the purpose of generating a monetary profit...
group involved in the trade of intelligence and weapons that was an enemy of the United States.
Season 1
Sydney was engaged to be married to her boyfriend Danny Hecht, but he was killed by SD-6 after Sydney told him that she worked for the CIA. Shortly thereafter, she was informed of what SD-6 was by her mostly estranged father, who worked in the highest levels of SD-6.
Sydney went to the real CIA with her knowledge of SD-6, and was recruited by the CIA into working as a
double agentDouble agent is a counterintelligence term for someone who pretends to spy on a target organization on behalf of a controlling organization, but in fact is loyal to the target organization...
to bring down SD-6. Her handler, Agent
Michael VaughnMichael C. Vaughn is a fictional character played by Michael Vartan. He is one of Sydney Bristow's co-workers and ongoing love interest on the television series Alias. He, like Sydney, is talented in a variety of areas...
, was the man who gave her missions from the CIA. She soon learned her own father was a double agent as well. During her time at SD-6, Sydney performed missions with
Marcus DixonMarcus R. Dixon is a fictional character on the television series, Alias. He has been one of Sydney Bristow's coworkers and the CIA's Director of Joint Task Force. He is portrayed by Carl Lumbly.-Biography:...
, who sometimes became suspicious that Sydney was a double agent. Dixon was still under the impression that SD-6 was part of the U.S. Government. Sydney had to balance all these new revelations with keeping all these secrets from her friends, notably
Will TippinWilliam "Will" D. Tippin is a fictional character, one of Sydney Bristow's friends on the television series Alias. He is portrayed by Bradley Cooper.-Biography:...
and
Francie CalfoFrancine "Francie" Calfo is a fictional character on the television series Alias, portrayed by Merrin Dungey. She is Sydney Bristow's close friend.-Biography:Francie was Sydney Bristow's best friend and roommate during the beginning of the series...
.
During this season, the head of SD-6, Arvin Sloane, was obsessed with
Milo RambaldiMilo Giacomo Rambaldi is a fictional person from the American television series Alias. The work of Rambaldi, often centuries ahead of its time and tied to prophecy, plays a central role in the show.According to Alias creator J.J...
, a man from the 1400s who was able to create brilliant devices that were far ahead of their time. Sydney worked on a number of missions to retrieve or modify these Rambaldi devices to prevent them from falling into the hands of SD-6. During the season finale, on one such mission to destroy such a
deviceA Mueller device is a mysterious piece of technology in the US television series, Alias. It usually appears as a hook-shaped armature which levitates a red-orange liquid-filled sphere. It is named for Oskar Mueller, an alchemist who was believed to have invented it, though it is later revealed to...
, Sydney is captured and discovers that the organization that SD-6 has been pursuing is being run by
Irina DerevkoIrina Derevko , is a fictional character on the television series Alias, and a main character during the second season of the series. Irina, played by Lena Olin, is the mother of the central character, Sydney Bristow.-Biography:Irina Derevko was a long-term spy for the Soviet Union...
, Sydney's mother and a former
KGBThe KGB was the national security agency of the USSR. From 1954 until 1991, the Committee for State Security was the Communist state's premier secret police, internal security, and espionage organization, whose coat of arms—the Shield and the Sword—illustrate a national military hierarchy...
spy.
Season 2
During season 2, Sydney continues to act as a double agent inside SD-6 and also performs direct missions for the CIA. Irina Derevko turns herself in to the CIA and provides valuable information to help bring down SD-6. Midway through the season, the CIA finally has enough information to bring down the entire Alliance organization and the assault on SD-6 headquarters, led by Sydney and Vaughn. The organization comes tumbling down, but Sloane gets away and is now working covertly with
Julian SarkJulian Sark is a recurring fictional character portrayed by David Anders on the American Broadcasting Company television series Alias. The series follows Sydney Bristow, an operative working for an organization called SD-6 which she believes is a covert branch of the Central Intelligence Agency...
.
Following the fall of SD-6, Sydney decides she wants to leave the CIA but finds herself unable to do so knowing that Sloane is still free. Sydney also has to work to make amends with Dixon, who is bitter that Sydney knew SD-6 was not part of the U.S. Government and didn't tell him, although they are eventually able to patch things up and Dixon begins to work with the CIA.
During this time, Sydney's friend and roommate Francie has secretly been
replacedProject Helix is the name of a fictional technology in the TV series Alias. The device is used to rewrite a person's DNA, effectively morphing them into a clone of the person from whom the replacement DNA was procured. The only way to detect a double is through a deliberate flaw built into the...
by an agent of Sloane and Sark's, Allison Doren. Sydney eventually figures out that "Francie" is not who she says she is and the two engage in a battle which destroys the entire apartment. Sydney shoots Allison three times, apparently killing her, but Sydney is also severely wounded and passes out.
When Sydney wakes up, she is in
Hong KongHong Kong , officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, is a highly autonomous territory of the People's Republic of China, facing Guangdong to the north and the South China Sea to the east, west and south...
and comes to find out that two years have passed without her knowledge.
Season 2 saw a fundamental change in Sydney's character, allegedly introduced in order to give the show more action. In the first season, Sydney almost never kills, preferring fisticuffs and tranquilizer guns to deadly blows and real bullets. Starting this season, she behaves more like a stereotypical spy, usually killing enemies and rarely using tranq guns. Although there were some minor incidents prior, the episode "Phase One" is generally considered to mark the arrival of this new version of Sydney. While some fans have criticized this change in Sydney's character, others have suggested that it might have been influenced by the arrival of her mother.
Season 3
Sydney now has to deal with the pain of not knowing what has happened for the previous two years of her life, but also the fact that Vaughn is now married to another woman,
National Security CouncilThe White House National Security Council in the United States is the principal forum used by the President for considering national security and foreign policy matters with his senior national security advisors and Cabinet officials and is part of the Executive Office of the President of the...
liaison
Lauren ReedLauren Reed is a fictional character played by Melissa George in the Alias television series. She is Michael Vaughn's wife during the third season of the series.-Bio:...
. Sydney tries to manipulate the CIA to stay in the loop of the organization (they don't trust her because of her absence).
Sydney learns that an organization known as
The CovenantIn the television series Alias, The Covenant is a large, powerful, and secretive intelligence/terrorist organization.The Covenant was a "loose affiliation of Russian nationalists" composed of retired KGB and former Central Committee members, all dedicated to the new world envisioned by Milo...
seems to be involved with her disappearance. In the meantime, Sydney continues to perform missions for the CIA, while working with her father to find out more about her past.
Eventually Sydney learns through
FBI Assistant Director KendallAssistant Director Kendall is a fictional character from the television series Alias, played by Terry O'Quinn.-Season 1:He first appeared in the first season as the head of an FBI tribunal brought in from Washington DC to interrogate Sydney Bristow after she is arrested following evidence linking...
(who is actually the director of the
Department of Special ResearchThe Department of Special Research is a fictional government agency from the American television series Alias. The DSR is introduced in the first season episode The Prophecy....
) that she worked in the employ of the Covenant as a supposedly brainwashed assassin, although she was able to resist their attempts to manipulate her due to her experiences with
Project ChristmasProject Christmas is a fictional black ops project from the television show Alias. Developed by the Central Intelligence Agency and headed by Jack Bristow in the 1970s, the project was designed to identify and train children as sleeper agents to become future spies...
and report to the CIA during this time. Eventually, she wiped her own memories to conceal information and perhaps also because of the horrifying realization that the Covenant had extracted her eggs in order to fulfill one of Rambaldi's prophecies. She was also greatly disturbed that she chose to kill an unarmed man in cold blood rather than risk losing her cover as a brainwashed assassin.
Sydney and Vaughn continue to suppress their feelings for each other in light of Vaughn's relationship with Lauren. However, it is discovered that Lauren is actually an agent working for the Covenant, although both Sydney and Vaughn are, at first, unaware of this fact.
The CIA learns that there is a mole in the Los Angeles office. Jack is assigned to find the mole and soon starts to suspect Lauren. Jack confronts Lauren's father, Senator Reed, but he dismisses it.
Meanwhile Vaughn decides to separate from Lauren. Lauren tells Sark and Sark explains that the last time Vaughn strayed from a relationship because of Sydney he quickly reconnected when his then-girlfriend Alice Williams' father died. Sark orders Lauren to kill her father. Lauren cannot go through with it but her mother bursts in and finishes the job. They frame Senator Reed for being the mole. Vaughn quickly recommits to Lauren, breaking Sydney's heart.
On a mission to meet a Covenant asset, Sydney sees Lauren. When she tells Vaughn he dismisses it. Sydney talks to Jack and then Jack talks to Vaughn telling him the signs that his wife is betraying him. When Vaughn becomes suspicious he looks in Lauren's suitcase and discovers evidence that she does work for the Covenant.
Vaughn tells Jack and Sydney and he is ordered by Dixon to pretend that he is unaware of Lauren's betrayal. Lauren soon finds out that she has been played by Vaughn and she and Sark kidnap him. After torturing him and failing to get any information they leave him for dead. Weiss finds Vaughn and he is taken to the hospital.
Sydney soon discovers that the Passenger is
Nadia SantosNadia Santos is a fictional character in the television series Alias, and a main character during the series' fourth season. She is played by Mía Maestro.-Biography:...
, her half-sister by the way of an affair between Irina and Sloane. After a rescue mission, Sydney's sister is taken by Sloane so he can get the formula that was stored in her brain by Rambaldi (actually her unique nervous system can replay the graphical hand movements encoded in the Rambaldi Fluid-protein strands that cause unconscious, movements like handwriting). Sydney rescues her again, but Nadia later elects to accompany Sloane in search of the Rambaldi artifact known as The Sphere of Life.
Lauren enters the CIA office disguised as Sydney and steals information. Sark is captured and interviewed by Vaughn. Sark gives up Lauren and Vaughn resolves to kill her. Vaughn tracks her down and brings her to an empty warehouse. As Lauren dangles from the ceiling, Vaughn states that he loves Sydney more than he hates Lauren thus he will not kill Lauren. He does, however, plan to douse her in hydrochloric acid, rendering her unrecognizable. Sydney's aunt, the ambiguous
Katya DerevkoYekaterina "Katya" Derevko, alias The Black Sparrow, was the second of the three Derevko sisters to be introduced on the ABC television series Alias. She was played by Isabella Rossellini....
, stabs him in the back. When Sydney learns about Vaughn, she goes after Lauren herself. Vaughn goes after her and arrives just in time to save Sydney from Lauren. As Vaughn and Sydney kiss, Lauren tries to make one last shot. Vaughn sees this and shoots her dead. Before Lauren dies she tells Sydney that there is a
safe deposit boxA safe deposit box is a type of safe usually located in groups inside a bank vault or in the back of a bank or post office...
in
WittenburgWittenburg is a town in the district Ludwigslust in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Germany. Population 5570, area 46.25 km². Wittenburg should not be confused with the much bigger Wittenberg....
that has information about her.
Sydney goes to the box and finds secret CIA documents about her. Jack gets there and tells her that she was never supposed to find them.
Season 4
Several months after her discovery, Sydney is once again estranged from her father, having discovered (through the secret documents) that he had killed Irina Derevko. Following a botched mission in
ShanghaiShanghai is the largest city in China, and one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world, with over 20 million people. Located on China's central eastern coast at the mouth of the Yangtze River, the city is administered as a municipality of the People's Republic of China with province-level...
, she receives a dressing down at a performance review, is demoted, and subsequently resigns from the CIA.
In truth, Sydney has been recruited into APO (
Authorized Personnel OnlyAuthorized Personnel Only , is a fictional black ops unit within the Central Intelligence Agency in the American TV series Alias. It was formed at the beginning of Season 4 and is headquartered beneath the Los Angeles Subway system....
), a new
black opA black operation or black op is a covert operation typically involving activities that are highly secret.-Origins:Black ops missions often fit into the deniable category, a situation in which there is no claim of responsibility for the action, and/or a false flag operation is used to give the...
s division of the CIA patterned after SD-6. Much to her dismay, this new agency is headed by Sloane, who oversees a handpicked team which includes Sydney, Jack Bristow, Vaughn, and Dixon. During APO's first mission, Marshall is also recruited, as is her half-sister, Nadia. Her former colleague,
Eric WeissEric Weiss, played by Greg Grunberg, is one of Sydney Bristow's CIA co-workers on the television series, Alias.-Biography:Eric Weiss is a field agent at the CIA. He is a friend of most of the people at the CIA and often gives advice to the other characters, as an outside observer to all of the...
, thinks that Sydney is working for a bank - the same cover she had used when working for SD-6.
During the course of APO's first mission, to bring down a terrorist and assassin-for-hire, she learns the man was actually hired to kill her - by Irina. Jack subsequently killed Irina to protect his daughter. Meanwhile, Sydney rekindles her romance with Vaughn. Later, it is revealed that Irina is not actually dead - Jack killed a genetic double in an elaborate deception orchestrated by Irina's evil sister, Elena, who recruits Sloane in activating a huge
Mueller deviceA Mueller device is a mysterious piece of technology in the US television series, Alias. It usually appears as a hook-shaped armature which levitates a red-orange liquid-filled sphere. It is named for Oskar Mueller, an alchemist who was believed to have invented it, though it is later revealed to...
invented by Rambaldi, which has the potential to destroy the world. Irina is rescued from Elena's clutches and reunited with her family - including Nadia, who she hasn't seen for years - and together they fly to Russia to stop Elena's plans.
Around this time, after some twists and turns and ups and downs in their relationship, Vaughn finally proposes marriage prior to the mission to go after Elena. Sydney doesn't answer just yet. Finally, when she is about to destroy the Mueller device, Sydney goes back to Vaughn and gives him an affirmative reply.
The season ends with Vaughn and Sydney's car being struck just as Vaughn tells Sydney that his name is not Michael Vaughn - and depending on who is asked, he might be a "bad guy".
Season 5
Sydney and Vaughn survive the car crash, but Vaughn is taken by an unknown organization. He manages to escape and reveals to Sydney his real name is André Michaux. He also tells her that he's been working for several years to uncover the activities of a mysterious organization known as Prophet Five. His father before him had also worked to gather intel on Prophet Five. Shortly thereafter, Sydney learns she is pregnant and Vaughn is shot and apparently killed by a rogue agent posing as a CIA officer. Four months later, Sydney makes contact with
Renée RienneRenée Rienne is a fictional character in the spy-fi television series Alias. Played by Élodie Bouchez, she was introduced as a new character for the fifth season...
, an assassin on the CIA's most wanted list, who had been working with Vaughn, and whose father had worked with Vaughn's father, to bring down Prophet Five.
Sydney finds a kindred spirit in Rachel Gibson, a young, inexperienced agent rescued from "The Shed", a covert criminal organization that, much like SD-6, operates under the alias of a CIA black-ops division. Gibson, like Sydney years earlier, had been duped into believing she was working for the CIA. Now a member of APO, Gibson is learning the ways of being a field agent, with Sydney her designated handler, just as Michael had worked with her. With Nadia still comatose in the hospital, Gibson has moved into Sydney's home.
Sydney has also put at least some demons of the past behind her. Now fully reconciled with her father, she has also expressed some forgiveness of Sloane, to the point of writing a letter of recommendation for Sloane's release hearing.
Sydney continues to go on missions when her condition allows, often using the pregnancy as part of her disguises. However, in the episode "Solo", she came to realize that these days might be fast coming to a (temporary) end when she is not allowed to go on a mission due to her condition.
Three weeks before her due date, Sydney is captured by Prophet Five in order to force her (via a form of drug-induced hypnosis) to remember details of a giant SD-6 flowchart that she had been shown by Michael Vaughn during one of their first meetings. Encouraged by her mental recreation of Michael Vaughn, she is able to resist the hypnosis and provide false information to her kidnappers (who, unbeknownst to Sydney, include Irina). Sydney discovers that she has been stranded aboard a freighter at sea where she attempts to elude Prophet Five and their chief minion,
Kelly PeytonKelly Peyton is a fictional character played by Amy Acker on the television series Alias. She works for a terrorist organization known as Prophet Five, which is the focus of the fifth and final season of the series....
. During this incident, she discovers that her family doctor is actually a Prophet Five agent, and suffers a complication with her pregnancy that (to her later surprise) is corrected by Prophet Five and the baby is saved.
After being extracted by APO, Sydney is reunited with her mother and together with her and Jack they travel to
VancouverVancouver is a coastal city and major seaport located in the Lower Mainland of southwestern British Columbia, Canada. The city is bounded by English Bay, Burrard Inlet, the Fraser River, the city of Burnaby, and the University Endowment Lands. Vancouver is named after Captain George Vancouver, a...
in order to obtain a mysterious object called "The Horizon" which Prophet Five believed Sydney possessed. During this mission, which is complicated by the discovery that Irina works for Prophet Five and a subsequent attack by Peyton, Sydney goes into labor and — with the aid of Irina and Jack — gives birth to a baby girl, named
IsabelleIsabelle Bristow Vaughn is a fictional character from the ABC television series Alias. She is the daughter of Sydney Bristow and Michael Vaughn. The events surrounding her birth are a focal point of the final season of the series...
. Irina subsequently disappears with The Horizon.
After the birth of Isabelle, it is revealed that Vaughn didn't die. After his shooting, Jack helped him fake his death and hide in
BhutanThe Kingdom of Bhutan is a landlocked nation in South Asia, located at the eastern end of the Himalaya Mountains and is bordered to the south, east and west by the Republic of India and to the north by People's Republic of China. Bhutan is separated from the nearby state of Nepal to the west by...
.
About a month after giving birth, Sydney returns to duty when Anna Espinosa is recruited by Peyton to kidnap Will Tippin. Espinosa implants an explosive in Tippin's head and demands that page 47 of Rambaldi's manuscript be turned over to her in return for the disarming code. Sydney and Will battle Anna but lose page 47, and in the process Anna uses an unknown chemical agent to collect genetic material from Sydney. Anna goes through the genetic doubling process and becomes Sydney's duplicate.
After Anna kills Renée Rienne while she is on a mission with APO, a chip bearing Michael Vaughn's real name (André Michaux) is discovered implanted in her body. The chip bears what appears to be a corrupted code. Sydney heads to Nepal to meet with Vaughn but is intercepted by an agent of Prophet Five while Anna keeps Sydney's rendezvous with Vaughn. Anna and Vaughn discover that Vaughn has the other half of the code on a chip implanted in his body and after deciphering the code he and Anna head to Germany. They discover a bunker containing all of Vaughn's father's research on Prophet Five. Vaughn reveals that he knows Anna is not Sydney and they fight. Anna gains the upper hand until Sydney shoots her in the head, killing her. Sydney goes undercover as Anna to infiltrate Prophet Five and meets up with Peyton.
Sydney, still undercover as Anna, meets Sloane and learns that she is to seek a rose from an ancient Italian monastery. She meets up with Julian Sark in Italy and he gets them arrested to infiltrate the prison that stands where the monastery once did. Sydney discovers an elderly man who identifies himself as The Rose. The Rose gives Sydney an amulet and tells her she can't stop Prophet Five from carrying out its plans. While Peyton extracts Sark from the prison, Sloane attempts to kill Sydney, still believing she is Anna. Sydney survives the attempt but Sloane escapes with the amulet. Sydney and Vaughn return to Los Angeles, where Vaughn meets his daughter for the first time. Their happiness is short-lived, however, as Sydney gets a call from Sloane, who has figured out that she is still alive.
Sydney finally travels to Sydney, Australia as part of an APO mission to get intel on the twelve leaders of Prophet Five. She successfully captures intel on three of the twelve and returns to Los Angeles.
Shortly thereafter, Marshall and Rachel are kidnapped by Peyton and Sark respectively and Sydney encounters Sloane, who convinces her to get Marshall to help him locate a certain underground cavern. Marshall is able to pass a message to Sydney, who, working with Marshall's wife Carrie, is able to locate Marshall and Rachel and mount a rescue. Marshall and Rachel advise the team that Sloane is seeking a cave in Italy and Sydney deduces that Sloane is headed for Mount Subasio. She and Vaughn travel there and Sydney descends into the cave. There she encounters Sloane again, with the amulet she recovered earlier. Sloane fires several rounds into the floor of the cave at Sydney's feet, causing the floor to give way. Vaughn rescues Sydney and performs
CPRCardiopulmonary resuscitation is an emergency medical procedure for a victim of cardiac arrest or, in some circumstances, respiratory arrest...
on her.
The team next tracks Sloane to
MongoliaMongolia is a landlocked country in East and Central Asia. It borders Russia to the north and the People's Republic of China to the south, east and west. Although Mongolia does not share a border with Kazakhstan, its western-most point is only 24 miles from Kazakhstan's eastern tip. Ulan Bator,...
and the tomb of
Milo RambaldiMilo Giacomo Rambaldi is a fictional person from the American television series Alias. The work of Rambaldi, often centuries ahead of its time and tied to prophecy, plays a central role in the show.According to Alias creator J.J...
. There Sydney encounters Sloane yet again as he implements his endgame by placing the Horizon on an altar, creating a red ball similar to that created by the
Mueller deviceA Mueller device is a mysterious piece of technology in the US television series, Alias. It usually appears as a hook-shaped armature which levitates a red-orange liquid-filled sphere. It is named for Oskar Mueller, an alchemist who was believed to have invented it, though it is later revealed to...
. Sydney disrupts Sloane's plans by grabbing the Horizon from the altar, causing the ball to collapse in a torrent of red liquid. Sark leads Jack and Vaughn into the tomb after capturing them, and in the ensuing gun battle Sydney finally shoots Sloane several times, including one through the forehead. With Sloane seemingly dead but with Jack critically wounded, Sydney reluctantly departs for
Hong KongHong Kong , officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, is a highly autonomous territory of the People's Republic of China, facing Guangdong to the north and the South China Sea to the east, west and south...
for a final confrontation with Irina. Jack drags himself back into the tomb and confronts the now-immortal Sloane and detonates a belt of explosives, killing himself but trapping Sloane in the tomb forever.
In Hong Kong, Sydney and Irina battle a final time, with Sydney seeking to stop Irina from using the Horizon to gain immortality. In the course of the fight, Irina ends up atop a glass skylight. Given the choice of reaching back to Sydney or ahead for the Horizon, Irina chooses the Horizon and plunges through the skylight to her death.
The series ends several years in the future. Sydney and Vaughn are married and semi-retired. They have had a second child, named Jack in honor of Sydney's father.