When Sloane kills a Russian mafioso that Irina Derevko used to know and steals his wallet (!), she understands that he must have been looking for a Rambaldi document that details his studies on the human heart. But the dead guy no longer had the document - he had sold it, and Irina knows to whom. So Jack devises a plan: the CIA will again release Irina temporarily and she will take him to the man with the document; they will steal it and use it as bait to make Sloane arrange for a meeting to buy it from Irina, setting a trap for him. Meanwhile, Sydney is questioned by a CIA "counterintelligence threat analyst" who is suspecting Vaughn (yes, Vaughn) of disloyalty to his service. I really liked this episode. In the previous one, "Firebomb", the emphasis was on the external threats - Sloane and Sark primarily. Here, the emphasis is on the internal threats - "Francie" (I've said it before, and I'll say it again: this character is now 10 times more interesting than she was in Season 1 - although technically she's not the same character. Plus the actress, Merrin Dungey, clearly loves playing the bad girl, and it makes her HOTTER as well), Irina (she's out of her cell again; will she use the opportunity to try to escape, or will she honestly help the CIA? The finale seems to give us an answer, but I think it deliberately tries to play it both ways), Will (he is hypnotized by "Francie" into revealing crucial information, which she then passes on to Sloane), and even Vaughn himself. The way this episode brings together the Jack-Irina and the Sydney-Vaughn plots is a lesson in good screen writing. *** out of 4.
Review of A Dark Turn
