When I was re-watching a few episodes of Alias for my last "Rating the TV Romance" post, I re-watched an episode called "A Higher Echelon", the second ep in a 2-ep arc in which Marshall Flinkman (nerdy SD-6 spy gadget inventor extraordinaire) gets to go on his first mission (with Sydney of course). Towards the end of the episode, Sydney is in the middle of saving him after he has been kidnapped by bad guys, and after she saves him, he manages to bust out a moment where he returns the favor using sheer nerdy ingenuity (i.e. one of his inventions) - a secret parachute that can be hidden in the lining of a jacket. Syd and Marshall are stuck in a tall building with no way out, so the parachute comes in very handy at that moment. The moment when Marshall suddenly turns from nerd to bad-ass spy, at least for that short minute in time, is when he straps Syd onto him so they can jump out a window together, and follows this up with: "My name is Marshall J. Flinkman, and I'm here to rescue you!!"
