The Safe House - Expositions

What is Sydney up to? If you tune in cold to Alias, odds are that will be your first question. The best answer is to just relax. Go with the flow, and the big-picture plot will quickly fall into place. But for those who want a primer, here's a quick guide to help you along.

Sydney is a grad student/secret agent working for an organization known as SD-6. When she joined, she thought it was a super-secret cell of the CIA. When she learned SD-6 is actually a SPECTRE-like espionage organization working for its own nefarious ends, she joined the real CIA and now works for them as an undercover double agent. That means she's trying to accomplish her missions for SD-6 while sabotaging them for the CIA, except in those cases where the two agencies' interests coincide.

So what is SD-6 doing? The agency is always up to something, from trading arms to punishing double-crossing arms dealers. But its top priority these days is to locate the plans for a miraculous invention created by a 15th-century seer, Milo Rambaldi. They have no idea what the invention is; they just know they want it. Confused? Don't feel bad; so is the star.

"I don't know what's going on," Garner says. "I read the script several times before we ever start shooting so that I can at least have some light behind my eyes of intelligence, because I can get pretty clueless."

But as she also says, the plot is not the point. "You don't have to get the plot to like the show. People are intimidated by the idea that it's confusing. It's not that confusing. If you don't care about the mission, you can watch it simply for the wigs and the dresses, and then focus on the emotional parts, because that's what the show is about. It's not an action show. The action is a byproduct of the story, which is this girl who is in a muddle, and the only way she can get out is to be something she hates, a double agent. When what she really wants is to kiss the guy and have a dad."

Simple, huh?

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