Michael Vaughn
Encyclopedia
Michael C. Vaughn is a fictional character on the television series
Alias
. Played by Michael Vartan
, Vaughn is one of Sydney Bristow
's co-workers and her ongoing love interest. He, like Sydney, is skilled in a variety of areas. His language abilities, shown in various episodes, include French
, Spanish
, Italian
, and others.
Throughout the first three seasons, his code name was BoyScout; from season four on, it was Shotgun. In season five
, Vaughn's birth name was revealed to be André Micheaux.
for the CIA
within SD-6
. But gradually, the two agents developed romantic feelings for each other as they worked closely together to bring down this corrupt espionage organization. This did little to endear him to Sydney's father Jack Bristow
, another double agent within SD-6. Vaughn and Sydney's relationship became openly intimate after SD-6 was destroyed during the show's second season. When Sydney was apparently killed in a fire a few months later, a heartbroken Vaughn left the CIA and found work as a French
teacher. He also became involved with NSC
liaison Lauren Reed
and married her some time during Sydney's two-year disappearance. Once he discovered that Sydney was still alive, Vaughn returned to the CIA and quickly saw his feelings for her reignite, a fact that caused a great deal of tension in his marriage to Lauren. Eventually, it was revealed that Lauren was a double agent for The Covenant
and that Lauren seduced him in order to gain information on Sydney. Vaughn became obsessed with her capture and was encouraged by Jack Bristow to kill her, which he did at the end of the third season. This act continued to haunt him into the fourth season even though he shot Lauren in order to prevent her from killing Sydney.
Following Lauren's demise (and between the third and fourth seasons), Vaughn appeared to go into an emotional tailspin that culminated with him setting fire to his own house. He went through a month of psych evaluations before informing his best friend and fellow agent Eric Weiss
of his resignation from the CIA. In reality, Vaughn had been recruited into a black op
s division of the CIA called Authorized Personnel Only
(APO), along with Sydney, Jack, and Marcus Dixon
(Weiss and Marshall Flinkman
would soon follow). One of his new duties was to keep an eye on Arvin Sloane
, who had been appointed director of APO despite his long history of criminal activities as the head of SD-6. Vaughn successfully resumed his romantic relationship with Sydney during their first mission for APO.
The first season established that Michael Vaughn's father was one of several CIA agents killed in the line of duty by Irina Derevko
, Sydney's mother. Bill Vaughn's death was questioned in season four after Vaughn found a journal apparently written by his father with entries dated three years after his death in 1979. Vaughn's subsequent investigation led him to conduct a secret mission in collaboration with Sydney; he turned rogue by the end of the episode "Nightingale". However, he returned to APO after discovering his father really was dead and that the journal entries had been part of a ruse devised by Elena Derevko
. At the end of the fourth season Vaughn proposed to Sydney and the two took their long-delayed vacation to Santa Barbara
. During this car ride he confessed that his real name was not Michael Vaughn and implied that his first allegiance was not to the CIA. The season, however, ended in a car crash that cut his explanation short. In the premiere of season 5, Vaughn is taken by an armed group from the crash site. He is thought to be a traitor when he is recovered, and reveals his real name as André Michaux; his father was actually a mathematician associated with a group known as Prophet Five. Seven years ago, he had been approached by a woman named Renée Rienne
, whose father worked with Vaughn's at Prophet Five, and has since worked with her to uncover more information about the group. At the end of the episode, he is shot by a rogue agent disguised as a CIA executive. Shortly before this, he learned that Sydney was pregnant with his child.
At the end of episode "Maternal Instinct" (#5.11), it is revealed that Vaughn is still alive in Nepal
living with monks connected to the outside world. One monk informs him that Sydney gave birth to their daughter. In the following episode, "There is Only One Sydney Bristow" (#5.12), it is revealed that both Sydney and Jack Bristow know that Vaughn is still alive. The information is revealed only to the other members of the APO team when they recover a chip from within Renée Rienne and Vaughn is forced out of hiding by Anna Espinosa
, who is posing
as Sydney. Vaughn and the disguised Espinosa find that Vaughn had a chip similar to the one inside Renée, his father claiming that the scar was from a bike accident. The chip leads them to an abandoned bunker beneath a German park. While Espinosa held hostage the clerk of the jewelry store that leads to the bunker, Vaughn breaks into it. Just as he finds the bunker, Espinosa attempts to shoot him, but finds that Vaughn knew of the deception and gave her an unloaded gun. In the ensuing scuffle, just as Espinosa attempts to shoot him with a new gun, the real Sydney sneaks up behind her and shoots her. Reunited with Sydney, Vaughn returns to Los Angeles and meets his daughter, Isabelle.
In the next episode, it is revealed that Jack told Vaughn while he was in the hospital that Prophet Five would stop at nothing to silence him, and that Vaughn was in no position to fight back. Jack gave Vaughn sodium morphate, a drug that slows the heart to mimic death, and Vaughn's body was picked up by one of Jack's contacts and he was shipped off to Nepal.
In the series finale, Vaughn participates in a wide variety of missions to bring about the fall of Prophet Five, Sloane and Irina. At the very end of the final episode a flash forward reveals that Sydney and Vaughn are married and semi-retired. They have a second child, Jack (named for Sydney's father).
Television program
A television program , also called television show, is a segment of content which is intended to be broadcast on television. It may be a one-time production or part of a periodically recurring series...
Alias
Alias (TV series)
Alias is an American action television series created by J. J. Abrams which was broadcast on ABC for five seasons, from September 30, 2001 to May 22, 2006...
. Played by Michael Vartan
Michael Vartan
Michael S. Vartan is a French-American film and television actor. He is probably best known for the role of Michael Vaughn on the American television action drama Alias...
, Vaughn is one of Sydney Bristow
Sydney Bristow
Sydney Anne Bristow , played by Jennifer Garner, is the main character and protagonist on the television series Alias. She is an American woman with Russian-American family background who works as a spy for the CIA....
's co-workers and her ongoing love interest. He, like Sydney, is skilled in a variety of areas. His language abilities, shown in various episodes, include French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
, and others.
Throughout the first three seasons, his code name was BoyScout; from season four on, it was Shotgun. In season five
Alias episodes (Season 5)
The fifth and final season of the American drama/adventure television series Alias premiered September 29, 2005 on ABC and concluded May 22, 2006 and was released on DVD in region 1 on November 21, 2006. Guest stars in season five include Gina Torres....
, Vaughn's birth name was revealed to be André Micheaux.
Character biography
Michael Vaughn was originally Sydney Bristow's handler while she was working as a double agentDouble agent
A double agent, commonly abbreviated referral of double secret agent, is a counterintelligence term used to designate an employee of a secret service or organization, whose primary aim is to spy on the target organization, but who in fact is a member of that same target organization oneself. They...
for the CIA
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
within SD-6
Alliance of Twelve
The Alliance of Twelve, with SD-6 being one of its subsidiary cells, is a fictional international organized crime group in the television series Alias...
. But gradually, the two agents developed romantic feelings for each other as they worked closely together to bring down this corrupt espionage organization. This did little to endear him to Sydney's father Jack Bristow
Jack Bristow
Jonathan "Jack" Donahue Bristow, played by Victor Garber, is Sydney Bristow's father on the television series Alias. Jack is widely referred to as "Spy Daddy" in Alias fandom, and consistently ranks as one of the most popular characters on the show...
, another double agent within SD-6. Vaughn and Sydney's relationship became openly intimate after SD-6 was destroyed during the show's second season. When Sydney was apparently killed in a fire a few months later, a heartbroken Vaughn left the CIA and found work as a French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
teacher. He also became involved with NSC
United States National Security Council
The White House National Security Council in the United States is the principal forum used by the President of the United States for considering national security and foreign policy matters with his senior national security advisors and Cabinet officials and is part of the Executive Office of the...
liaison Lauren Reed
Lauren Reed
Lauren Reed is a fictional character played by Melissa George in the Alias television series. She is Michael Vaughn's wife during the third season of the series.-Character biography:...
and married her some time during Sydney's two-year disappearance. Once he discovered that Sydney was still alive, Vaughn returned to the CIA and quickly saw his feelings for her reignite, a fact that caused a great deal of tension in his marriage to Lauren. Eventually, it was revealed that Lauren was a double agent for The Covenant
Covenant (Alias)
In the television series Alias, The Covenant is a large, powerful, and secretive intelligence/terrorist organization.The Covenant was a "loose affiliation of Russian nationalists" composed of retired KGB and former Central Committee members, all dedicated to the new world envisioned by Milo...
and that Lauren seduced him in order to gain information on Sydney. Vaughn became obsessed with her capture and was encouraged by Jack Bristow to kill her, which he did at the end of the third season. This act continued to haunt him into the fourth season even though he shot Lauren in order to prevent her from killing Sydney.
Following Lauren's demise (and between the third and fourth seasons), Vaughn appeared to go into an emotional tailspin that culminated with him setting fire to his own house. He went through a month of psych evaluations before informing his best friend and fellow agent Eric Weiss
Eric Weiss
Eric Weiss is a fictional character, played by Greg Grunberg, from the television series Alias. He is one of Sydney Bristow's CIA co-workers....
of his resignation from the CIA. In reality, Vaughn had been recruited into a black op
Black op
A black operation or black op is a covert operation typically involving activities that are highly clandestine and often outside of standard military protocol or even against the law.-Origins:...
s division of the CIA called Authorized Personnel Only
Authorized Personnel Only
Authorized Personnel Only , is a fictional black ops unit within the Central Intelligence Agency in the American TV series Alias. It was formed at the beginning of Season 4 and is headquartered beneath the Los Angeles Subway system....
(APO), along with Sydney, Jack, and Marcus Dixon
Marcus Dixon (Alias)
Marcus R. Dixon is a fictional character on the television series, Alias. He has been one of Sydney Bristow's coworkers and the CIA's Director of Joint Task Force. He is portrayed by Carl Lumbly.-Character biography:...
(Weiss and Marshall Flinkman
Marshall Flinkman
Marshall J. Flinkman is a fictional character on the television series, Alias. Flinkman, portrayed by Kevin Weisman, is the tech geek at SD-6 and then later the CIA...
would soon follow). One of his new duties was to keep an eye on Arvin Sloane
Arvin Sloane
Arvin Sloane is a fictional character played by Ron Rifkin. He was the former director of SD-6 on the television series, Alias.-Background:...
, who had been appointed director of APO despite his long history of criminal activities as the head of SD-6. Vaughn successfully resumed his romantic relationship with Sydney during their first mission for APO.
The first season established that Michael Vaughn's father was one of several CIA agents killed in the line of duty by Irina Derevko
Irina Derevko
Irina Derevko , is a fictional character on the television series Alias, and a main character during the second season of the series. Irina, played by Lena Olin, is the mother of the central character, Sydney Bristow.-Biography:...
, Sydney's mother. Bill Vaughn's death was questioned in season four after Vaughn found a journal apparently written by his father with entries dated three years after his death in 1979. Vaughn's subsequent investigation led him to conduct a secret mission in collaboration with Sydney; he turned rogue by the end of the episode "Nightingale". However, he returned to APO after discovering his father really was dead and that the journal entries had been part of a ruse devised by Elena Derevko
Elena Derevko
Elena Derevko is a fictional character from the television series Alias, played by Sônia Braga.Elena is the sister of Irina and Katya Derevko. Considered to be the most ruthless of the Derevko sisters, Elena is the secret leader of The Covenant. She was first mentioned in the season three episode...
. At the end of the fourth season Vaughn proposed to Sydney and the two took their long-delayed vacation to Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, California
Santa Barbara is the county seat of Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Situated on an east-west trending section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coast of the United States, the city lies between the steeply-rising Santa Ynez Mountains and the Pacific Ocean...
. During this car ride he confessed that his real name was not Michael Vaughn and implied that his first allegiance was not to the CIA. The season, however, ended in a car crash that cut his explanation short. In the premiere of season 5, Vaughn is taken by an armed group from the crash site. He is thought to be a traitor when he is recovered, and reveals his real name as André Michaux; his father was actually a mathematician associated with a group known as Prophet Five. Seven years ago, he had been approached by a woman named Renée Rienne
Renée Rienne
Renée Rienne is a fictional character in the spy-fi television series Alias. Played by Élodie Bouchez, she was introduced as a new character for the fifth season...
, whose father worked with Vaughn's at Prophet Five, and has since worked with her to uncover more information about the group. At the end of the episode, he is shot by a rogue agent disguised as a CIA executive. Shortly before this, he learned that Sydney was pregnant with his child.
At the end of episode "Maternal Instinct" (#5.11), it is revealed that Vaughn is still alive in Nepal
Nepal
Nepal , officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked sovereign state located in South Asia. It is located in the Himalayas and bordered to the north by the People's Republic of China, and to the south, east, and west by the Republic of India...
living with monks connected to the outside world. One monk informs him that Sydney gave birth to their daughter. In the following episode, "There is Only One Sydney Bristow" (#5.12), it is revealed that both Sydney and Jack Bristow know that Vaughn is still alive. The information is revealed only to the other members of the APO team when they recover a chip from within Renée Rienne and Vaughn is forced out of hiding by Anna Espinosa
Anna Espinosa
Anna Espinosa is a fictional character from the television series Alias, . Born in Cuba, raised in Russia, Anna was a Soviet spy at some point, until the collapse of the Soviet Union...
, who is posing
Project Helix
Project Helix is the name of a fictional technology in the TV series Alias. The device is used to rewrite a person's DNA, effectively morphing them into a clone of the person from whom the replacement DNA was procured. The only way to detect a double is through a deliberate flaw built into the...
as Sydney. Vaughn and the disguised Espinosa find that Vaughn had a chip similar to the one inside Renée, his father claiming that the scar was from a bike accident. The chip leads them to an abandoned bunker beneath a German park. While Espinosa held hostage the clerk of the jewelry store that leads to the bunker, Vaughn breaks into it. Just as he finds the bunker, Espinosa attempts to shoot him, but finds that Vaughn knew of the deception and gave her an unloaded gun. In the ensuing scuffle, just as Espinosa attempts to shoot him with a new gun, the real Sydney sneaks up behind her and shoots her. Reunited with Sydney, Vaughn returns to Los Angeles and meets his daughter, Isabelle.
In the next episode, it is revealed that Jack told Vaughn while he was in the hospital that Prophet Five would stop at nothing to silence him, and that Vaughn was in no position to fight back. Jack gave Vaughn sodium morphate, a drug that slows the heart to mimic death, and Vaughn's body was picked up by one of Jack's contacts and he was shipped off to Nepal.
In the series finale, Vaughn participates in a wide variety of missions to bring about the fall of Prophet Five, Sloane and Irina. At the very end of the final episode a flash forward reveals that Sydney and Vaughn are married and semi-retired. They have a second child, Jack (named for Sydney's father).