Episode 19: In Dreams
5/11/2005
Sloane's impostor (Sloane 2) arrives at an Italian monastery
to discuss with Father Kampinski his experiments on breeding
the aggression out of bees. As Kampinski shows him a supposedly
extinct orchid mentioned in Rambaldi's Vespertine papers,
Sloane 2 offers 50 million dollars in exchange for a cutting
and the text. Denied, Sloane 2 has an accomplice trigger Rambaldi's
Mueller Device, which causes the bees to attack and sting
the monks to death.
Sloane informs the team of the orchid theft and orders them
to recover the orchid and find the impostor. Marshall says
that this orchid has properties that heighten receptivity.
Privately, Jack confronts Sloane, blaming him for this predicament.
The team sets a trap for Sloane 2, bringing him out by pretending
to put the Vespertine text up for auction in Paris. Via surveillance,
Dixon and Vaughn chase a man attempting to steal the papers.
They stop a delivery truck. In the back, they find Sloane
2.
During questioning, Sloane 2 invites Syd to work with him.
He proposes eliminating the world's bad guys and fostering
harmonic coexistence by administering the orchid extract to
the general population via drinking water.
Marshall points out that Sloane 2's brain patterns are identical
to Sloane. He also recalls working on an SD-6 program for
brain imprinting that Jack says was run by Calvin McCullough,
a senior partner in SD-6. Project Brainstorm's purpose was
to explore experimental technologies for interrogation, brainwashing
and transferring memories. They conclude that finding McCullough
will lead them to the orchid.
Vaughn and Dixon approach McCullough in Buenos Aires. He
admits that he made Sloane 2 believe that he is Arvin Sloane,
but that Sloane 2 double-crossed him and kept the orchid for
himself. As he calmly adds a packet of cyanide to his coffee,
he declares that his employer wouldn't let him be interrogated.
He drinks up and dies.
Sloane confesses that through Omnifam he contaminated the
drinking water of 400 million people worldwide as the first
phase of creating a more peaceful species of human. The second
phase, based on Rambaldi's teachings, was to introduce the
orchid's nectar into the water supply. But without the orchid,
Sloane's attempts at duplicating the formula failed. Now that
Sloane 2 has the orchid, however, he has only to drop the
nectar into the water supply to bring the affected people
under his control.
Marshall tells the team that Sloane 2 was created from Sloane's
own brain scans. He postulates that the Sloane clone won't
reveal the orchid's location unless he stops believing that
he's Arvin Sloane. The only way to do this, he says, is to
shock Sloane's personality out of him using a traumatic memory.
In order to present the most vivid memory, Sloane must relive
the past.
Jack hypnotizes Sloane and guides him through his memory.
Sloane's sees his pregnant wife Emily and they decide that
their daughter will be named Jacquelyn. They are devastated
when Jacquelyn dies shortly after birth.
They upload this painful memory to Sloane 2, who suddenly
reveals that he's a prisoner of war named Ned Bolger. He says
that the orchid is located in Switzerland. Shortly thereafter,
he switches back to the Sloane 2 personality and breaks down.
Sloane refuses to wake up, preferring to alter his memory
and live on happily with Emily and a healthy Jacquelyn. Forcing
him awake, Marshall says, may kill him. Nadia nonetheless
wants to get him back. She gently tells Sloane that he can't
stay in his dream because his must undo what he's set in motion.
When Sloane admits that he's ashamed of his past, Nadia says
she believes that he can redeem himself.
Sloane awakens and Nadia embraces him. Alone with Jack, Sloane
reveals that Rambaldi meant nothing to him until after Jacquelyn
died, when he used the writings to fill the hole in his heart.
Seeing Ned showed him how much of himself he had lost. He
promises to rectify his misdeeds, though every day is a struggle.
- description from ABC.com
| 
