Lauren Reed

Alias character


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name = Lauren Reed
gender = Female
affiliation = NSC
The Covenant
rank = Liaison
Field agent
Co-leader of North American Covenant cell
known relatives = George Reed (father, deceased)
Olivia Reed (mother)
Michael Vaughn (ex-spouse)
portrayed = Melissa George

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.

Bio

Though Lauren reveals early in the season that she was trained as a CIA field agent at the Farm, her father, believing the occupation to be too dangerous, used his influence to make sure she did not receive a field rating. Thus, she became an agent of the NSC, serving as its liaison to the CIA and working in the same CIA office with both Sydney Bristow and Michael Vaughn. The daughter of Senator George and Olivia Reed, she was introduced at the beginning of the third season of the show as Vaughn's wife, having married him during Sydney's two year absence under the control of The Covenant.

Lauren and Sydney have an antagonistic relationship from the start, with Lauren in particular feeling threatened that her husband's former lover is now back in his life. Eventually, Sydney and Lauren start co-operating and even go missions together. During one mission, Lauren shoots and kills a man, an act which apparently leaves her distraught.

However, it is soon revealed that Lauren is actually a double agent for The Covenant, working to sabotage the CIA's work against the criminal organization and to gain more information about Sydney through Vaughn. She also is, contrary to her air of innocence, a cold-blooded killer. Her first known mission for the Covenant was the assassination of Andrian Lazarey. She was tasked to murder her own father when he is given evidence of her true affiliations and to shore up her faltering relationship with Vaughn. Lauren couldn't bring herself to pull the trigger. Lauren's mother stepped in and pulled the trigger herself, revealing that she too is an agent of The Covenant. Lauren is also an adulterer, for not only does she seduce Vaughn and some of her targets, but also becomes involved (both personally and professionally) with Julian Sark, who is also now working for The Covenant. Eventually, her true nature is discovered by the CIA and she becomes a marked woman with both Sydney and Vaughn wanting to kill her, but this doesn't stop her from infiltrating CIA headquarters disguised as Sydney, shooting Marshall Flinkman, and causing major damage to the building and killing and injuring several agents with remote-triggered bombs before murdering an innocent motorist and stealing his car to escape.

In the season three finale, Sydney loses to Lauren during vicious hand-to-hand combat, but she is shot by Vaughn before she can kill Sydney. Before her death, she reveals to Sydney the location of a safe deposit box containing vital information about Sydney's family. This information turns out to be evidence that Jack Bristow was authorized by the CIA to kill his ex-wife, Sydney's mother Irina Derevko, an order he apparently carried out.

For reasons not yet explained, the CIA determined that Lauren's death should not be made public knowledge, and the double agent's remains are housed in a special high-security crypt.

In the fourth season episode, "A Man of His Word", Lauren's corpse was shown in the CIA crypt after Sark demands to see her body. Melissa George makes a cameo appearance as the dead woman.

Fan Reaction

The character of Lauren Reed received quite a bit of animosity from fans of the show, according to series creator J.J. Abrams, in part because she disrupted the romance between Sydney and Vaughn. However, Abrams indicated that the revelation of Lauren being a turncoat was planned from the beginning and was not because of fan response. [ [http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/art-main.html?2004-01/16/12.00.tv Abrams Hints Alias' Future] ]

References