"Welcome to Liberty Village"
Original airdate: January 26, 2005 Sydney, Michael, Eric, and Nadia have
dinner; Eric convinces Nadia to go bowling with him. Eric implies that
Sydney and Michael are boring.
A Russian terrorist group called The October Contingent owns a powerful
electromagnetic weapon that could disable U.S. cities in a matter of minutes.
Sydney and Michael go undercover as two Russian mercenaries that were already
contacted by the group and captured by their government.
They are taken to a Russian base that used to be used to train Russian spies
to act like Americans. It looks like a typical American suburb and all of
the bad guys are masquerading as regular Americans. Sydney and Michael are
questioned and told to act like a real couple, as well as put through a
dangerous test that leaves another couple dead. The lead bad guys mentions
that Syd and Michael seem "cold" to each other.
Syd and Vaughn try to keep to their original plan to take things slowly, but
being forced to act like a married couple forces them closer. Sydney is
touched when Vaughn tells the story of how he asked her to marry him (for their
cover story) and it is clear that if they had gone to Santa Barbara as planned
three years ago, he would have asked her then. They end up making love.
Syd sent pictures of the "neighbors" back to APO, so Sloane and the others
realize that all of the bad guys are all wanted, evil people and that it is far
more dangerous for Syd and Michael to be in there than they thought. Syd
discovers that their camp has heavy surveillance, so it would be difficult to
leave.
Jack has to meet with an old Russian informant, Alexei, to elicit his help in
extracting Syd and Michael. Alexei wants some old books that Jack had
picked up years ago and given to Irena as gifts (the ones with encoded KGB
messages), so Jack realizes there is something that the NSB missed.
Marshall figures out that there is an encrypted message from Irena to an
operative named "Sentinel". Jack tells Marshall that Sentinel is dead, but
he doesn't sound truthful when he says that. Jack gives Alexei the book
with the message and tells Sloane that they are looking for Irina. Sloane
says mysteriously that they may have to move up their time table.
Syd and Michael's cover is blown when the Russians tell the whole world that
the people they were impersonating have been moved to a new prison. Syd's
communication device was destroyed during their shoot-out with the other couple,
so they have no way of knowing. The bad guys plan to kill Syd and Michael,
but their behavior tips off Syd, who starts fighting before they can be killed.
Syd and Michael overpower the two men they were fighting, but then the bad guys
send a helicopter after them. They use the EMS weapon to bring the chopper
down and it also destroys all of the local emergency power. Alexei helps
bring them back, but Syd and Michael decide to head to Paris for dinner first,
rather than be cold or boring. | 
