Sydney Bristow


Sydney Anne Bristow is a fictional character and the protagonist of the television series Alias. She is an American woman with a Russian-Canadian family background who thought she was working as a spy for the CIA when, in fact, she was one of the operatives working for a criminal organization known as SD-6 — one of the arms of the terrorist group The Alliance of Twelve. Eventually, Sydney learns the truth about her employers and becomes herself a spy for the CIA.
Sydney is depicted in the series as being strong both physically and emotionally. She deals with some significant trauma over the years: the death of her fiancé, the death of her best friend, the realization that her mother was a former KGB spy, the estrangement of many of her friends and the constant activity and changes that she must endure from being a spy on a regular basis. Sydney is highly skilled in Krav Maga and is a hyper polyglot, speaking English, Russian, German, Greek, Dutch, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Swedish, Romanian, Hungarian, Hebrew, Uzbek, Arabic, Persian, Urdu, Indonesian, Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean, Hindi, Vietnamese, Polish, Serbian, Czech, Ukrainian, and Bulgarian in various episodes. Throughout the series her code names are Bluebird, Freelancer, Mountaineer, and Phoenix.

Character biography

Sydney Bristow was born April 17, 1975. For the first six years of her life she lived with both of her parents, Jonathan and Laura Bristow. However, her father's work with the CIA kept him away from home much of the time. Sydney and her family were living in rural Maryland until Jack was transferred to Los Angeles when Sydney was two. In 1981 her mother, who was also an undercover agent for the KGB, faked her own death to prevent being apprehended by the FBI. Afterwards Jack was taken into custody for some time, because it was believed that he also was part of a larger conspiracy.
Jack named Arvin Sloane as Sydney's temporary guardian and Sydney went to live with Sloane and his wife Emily, for a time.
When Sydney was 19 years old and a freshman in college, a man approached her and told her that he worked with US intelligence and that they wanted to interview her because she fit a profile. She declined at first but then decided to join them. After meeting with an organization she believed was the Central Intelligence Agency, she signed "dozens of non-disclosure agreements" and was offered a job.
They had Sydney take a job as an office assistant on the twentieth floor of Credit Dauphine, a corporate bank in downtown Los Angeles. She assumed that the bank was somehow affiliated with the CIA. When she told her father about her job after about a month, he ordered her to quit because as a double agent within SD-6, he knew the bank was a front. Sydney angrily refused to quit and this led to the beginning of a several-year estrangement in their relationship.
Eventually she was told that she was ready for the transition, which involved eight months of training. It was during the training that Sydney first heard the term SD-6. At this time, she believed that SD-6 was affiliated with the CIA, that it was a black ops division of the CIA, funded by the CIA's black budget. They led her to believe that SD-6 was one of these divisions and that that was why they did not operate through Langley, Virginia.
The transition ended when they made reference to SD-6 headquarters. They told her they would take her there. What she did not realize was that the headquarters were in the same building. Her role within SD-6 was desk work, at first, but she advanced quickly. Within the first year, she was assigned to reconnaissance missions.
Sydney was told that the objective of SD-6 was "the retrieval and study of intelligence, both military and industrial, throughout the world that is critical to the superiority and survival of the United States of America."
Seven years after joining SD-6, Sydney discovered that SD-6 was actually a branch of the Alliance of Twelve, an international organized crime group involved in the trade of intelligence and weapons, and was an enemy of the United States.

Storylines

Season 1

Sydney was engaged to be married to her boyfriend Danny Hecht, but he was killed by SD-6 after Sydney told him that she worked for the CIA. Shortly thereafter, she was informed of what SD-6 was by her mostly estranged father, who worked in the highest levels of SD-6.
Sydney went to the real CIA with her knowledge of SD-6, and was recruited by the CIA into working as a double agent to bring down SD-6. Her handler, Agent Michael Vaughn, and who is her ongoing love interest on the show, gives her missions from the CIA. She soon learns that her own father is a double agent as well. During her time at SD-6, Sydney performed missions with Marcus Dixon, who sometimes became suspicious that Sydney was a double agent. Dixon was still under the impression that SD-6 was part of the U.S. Government. Sydney had to balance all these new revelations with keeping all these secrets from her friends, notably Will Tippin and Francie Calfo.
During this season, the head of SD-6, Arvin Sloane, was obsessed with Milo Rambaldi, a man from the 15th century who was able to create brilliant devices that were far ahead of their time. Sydney worked on a number of missions to retrieve or modify these Rambaldi devices to prevent them from falling into the hands of SD-6. During the season finale, on one such mission to destroy such a device, Sydney is captured and discovers that the organization that SD-6 has been pursuing is being run by Irina Derevko, Sydney's mother and a former KGB spy.

Season 2

During season 2, Sydney continues to act as a double agent inside SD-6 and also performs direct missions for the CIA. Irina Derevko turns herself in to the CIA and provides valuable information to help bring down SD-6. Midway through the season, the CIA finally has enough information to bring down the entire Alliance organization and the assault on SD-6 headquarters, led by Sydney and Vaughn. The organization comes tumbling down, but Sloane gets away and is now working covertly with Julian Sark.
Following the fall of SD-6, Sydney decides she wants to leave the CIA but finds herself unable to do so knowing that Sloane is still free. Sydney also has to work to make amends with Dixon, who is bitter that Sydney knew SD-6 was not part of the U.S. Government and didn't tell him, although they are eventually able to patch things up and Dixon begins to work with the CIA.
During this time, Sydney's friend and roommate Francie has secretly been assassinated and replaced by an agent of Sloane and Sark's, Allison Doren. Sydney eventually figures out that "Francie" is not who she says she is and the two engage in a battle which destroys the entire apartment. Sydney shoots Allison three times, apparently killing her, but Sydney is also severely wounded and passes out.
When Sydney wakes up, she is in Hong Kong and comes to find out that two years have passed without her knowledge.
Season 2 saw a fundamental change in Sydney's character, allegedly introduced in order to give the show more action. In the first season, Sydney almost never kills, preferring fisticuffs and tranquilizer guns to deadly blows and real bullets. Starting this season, she behaves more like a stereotypical spy, usually killing enemies and rarely using tranq guns. Although there were some minor incidents prior, the episode "Phase One" is generally considered to mark the arrival of this new version of Sydney. While some fans have criticized this change in Sydney's character, others have suggested that it might have been influenced by the arrival of her mother. During season 2 Sydney also begins to dress and act more sexually to achieve her goals.

Season 3

Sydney now has to deal with the pain of not knowing what has happened for the previous two years of her life, but also the fact that Vaughn is now married to another woman, National Security Council liaison Lauren Reed. Sydney tries to manipulate the CIA to stay in the loop of the organization.
Sydney learns that an organization known as The Covenant seems to be involved with her disappearance. In the meantime, Sydney continues to perform missions for the CIA, while working with her father to find out more about her past.
Eventually Sydney learns through FBI Assistant Director Kendall that she worked in the employ of the Covenant as a supposedly brainwashed assassin, although she was able to resist their attempts to manipulate her due to her experiences with Project Christmas and report to the CIA during this time. Eventually, she wiped her own memories to conceal information and perhaps also because of the horrifying realization that the Covenant had extracted her eggs in order to fulfill one of Rambaldi's prophecies. She was also greatly disturbed that she chose to kill an unarmed man in cold blood rather than risk losing her cover as a brainwashed assassin.
Sydney and Vaughn continue to suppress their feelings for each other in light of Vaughn's relationship with Lauren. However, it is discovered that Lauren is actually an agent working for the Covenant, although both Sydney and Vaughn are, at first, unaware of this fact.
The CIA learns that there is a mole in the Los Angeles office. Jack is assigned to find the mole and soon starts to suspect Lauren. Jack confronts Lauren's father, Senator Reed, but he dismisses it.
Meanwhile Vaughn decides to separate from Lauren. Lauren tells Sark and Sark explains that the last time Vaughn strayed from a relationship because of Sydney he quickly reconnected when his then-girlfriend Alice Williams' father died. Sark orders Lauren to kill her father. Lauren cannot go through with it but her mother bursts in and finishes the job. They frame Senator Reed for being the mole. Vaughn quickly recommits to Lauren, breaking Sydney's heart.
On a mission to meet a Covenant asset, Sydney sees Lauren. When she tells Vaughn he dismisses it. Sydney talks to Jack and then Jack talks to Vaughn telling him the signs that his wife is betraying him. When Vaughn becomes suspicious he looks in Lauren's suitcase and discovers evidence that she does work for the Covenant.
Vaughn tells Jack and Sydney and he is ordered by Dixon to pretend that he is unaware of Lauren's betrayal. Lauren soon finds out that she has been played by Vaughn and she and Sark kidnap him. After torturing him and failing to get any information they leave him for dead. Weiss finds Vaughn and he is taken to the hospital.
Sydney soon discovers that the Passenger is Nadia Santos, her half-sister by the way of an affair between Irina and Sloane. After a rescue mission, Sydney's sister is taken by Sloane so he can get the formula that was stored in her brain by Rambaldi. Sydney rescues her again, but Nadia later elects to accompany Sloane in search of the Rambaldi artifact known as The Sphere of Life.
Lauren enters the CIA office disguised as Sydney and steals information. Sark is captured and interviewed by Vaughn. Sark gives up Lauren and Vaughn resolves to kill her. Vaughn tracks her down and brings her to an empty warehouse. As Lauren dangles from the ceiling, Vaughn states that he loves Sydney more than he hates Lauren thus he will not kill Lauren. He does, however, plan to douse her in hydrochloric acid, rendering her unrecognizable. Sydney's aunt, the ambiguous Katya Derevko, stabs him in the back. When Sydney learns about Vaughn, she goes after Lauren herself. Vaughn goes after her and arrives just in time to save Sydney from Lauren. As Vaughn and Sydney kiss, Lauren tries to make one last shot. Vaughn sees this and shoots her dead. Before Lauren dies she tells Sydney that there is a safe deposit box in Wittenburg that has information about her.
Sydney goes to the box and finds secret CIA documents about her. Jack gets there and tells her that she was never supposed to find them.