Alias Series Summary - Season One
For seven years, Sydney Bristow was employed by an organization called SD-6. She believed it was a secret division of the CIA; she worked as a spy, sneaking into places and obtaining information - which they called "intel" - for SD-6.
When Danny asked Sydney to marry him, she said yes. However, she felt bad about keeping her secret life hidden from him, so she told him the truth. Unfortunately, SD-6 monitored their agents very closely: they considered Danny's knowledge a breach of security, and they murdered him. They tried to murder Sydney too, but she escaped with the help of her father, Jack Bristow. Jack wasn't around much when Syd was growing up; she thought he sold airplane parts. He revealed that he also worked for SD-6, which is not part of the CIA, but is actually an enemy of the United States. With nowhere left to turn, Sydney went to the CIA. She joined with them and returned to SD-6 as a double agent, for the sole purpose of taking them down.
SD is an abbreviation of Section Disparu, that is, the section that doesn't exist. SD-6 disguises its Los Angeles headquarters as a bank called Credit Dauphine. Marcus Dixon, Sydney's partner at SD-6, does not know SD-6 is not part of the CIA. None of the "lower level" agents know.
Sydney learns that although Jack is a high-ranking officer at SD-6 - and a close friend of Arvin Sloane, the head of SD-6 - he is also a double agent, secretly working for the CIA. She and Jack have never been very close, and Sydney questions his true loyalty on more than one occasion.
Sydney's CIA contact is a (devastatingly handsome) man named Michael Vaughn. Their business relationship grew a bit more complicated when Vaughn began to have less-than-professional feelings for Syd.
Sydney's best friends are Francie Calfo and Will Tippin. Throughout season one, they believed that Sydney was just a grad student who worked at a bank.
Francie was engaged to Charlie until Sydney discovered that Charlie was cheating on her.
Will, a reporter, began to investigate the death of Danny, Sydney's fiancé. Sydney learned what Will was doing and tearfully begged him to stop, knowing that if he learned about SD-6, they would kill him.
Sloane did learn that Will was talking to David McNeil, a man in prison because he was set up by SD-6 for the murder of his wife. Sloane wanted Will killed, but Jack wanted to spare Syd the loss of another friend. He convinced Sloane to let him try to discourage Will; in disguise, he kidnapped Will and threatened his family and friends if the investigation continued. Convinced, Will told Mr. McNeil that he was dropping the story.
However, Will's informant called again, telling Will that it was Jack who kidnapped and threatened him. Will confronted Jack, and from there Will became more entangled in the spy world where he was surprised to find Syd in disguise in Paris kicking some bad guy butt.
Sydney thought her mother died when she was six. Surprise number 1: her mother was a double agent for the KGB, who only married Syd's father to steal information from him. Surprise number 2: her mother didn't die, but faked her own death. Sydney began to search for her mother; Sloane gave her a lead by providing the name of her mother's former boss: Alexander Khasinau.
Vaughn's father, also a CIA Agent, was killed by Sydney's mother as part of a KGB assignment.
Throughout season one, Sydney and others searched to find artifacts designed by Milo Rambaldi. Milo Rambaldi was Pope Alexander VI's chief architect. He was an artist, an inventor. His designs were so technologically advanced, at the time, they thought he was heretic - and he was executed. SD-6 and other intelligence groups think he was a prophet with a master plan.
One of the pages of Rambaldi's book had a picture of a woman who looked like Sydney. The page described the woman as follows: "This woman here depicted will possess unseen marks. Signs that she will be the one to bring forth my works. Bind them with fury, a burning anger unless prevented at vulgar cost this woman will render the greatest power unto utter desolation." The FBI took Sydney into custody, fearing that she was the woman described, since she matched the three unseen marks - DNA sequencing, platelet levels, and heart size. We ended season one knowing that the woman described by Rambaldi was not Sydney but her mother.
Emily, Sloane's wife, revealed that she knew about SD-6 - although she was under the impression that they were the good guys. When the Alliance, the powerful organization in charge of SD's one through twelve, found out, they insisted that she had to be eliminated. At first Sloane refused, arguing that the cancer she had would soon take her life anyway. When her cancer went into remission, the Alliance again gave Sloane orders to eliminate her, promising that it would also advance his standing within the organization. Sloane took Emily away to a private beach. He told her everything; she was shocked at first, but later told him that she forgives him. He secretly slipped poison into her wine.
Will was taken captive by Khasinau, who thought Will had knowledge of a certain Rambaldi device. At the newspaper where Will worked, his friend did as instructed: in the event of his disappearance, she was to publish the article he had written, exposing SD-6.
Jack, Sydney, and Vaughn went on a mission to recover Will and to destroy a mysterious Rambaldi artifact that Khasinau had. The device was destroyed, but it resulted in Vaughn being trapped behind a very solid door as the hall he was in filled with water. Sydney was caught and knocked unconscious; when she came to, she was handcuffed to a chair. Khasinau was there, offering her something to eat. He explained that he was not the criminal mastermind known as The Man. Another figure appeared from the shadows, and Syd asked, unsurely, "Mom?"
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