ORBzine TV Review - "Alias" April 2002

We start with an action scene - Sydney [the heroine, a skinny wee chick] does a Mission: Impossible burglary and defeats several armed guards. This is a flashback, because Sydney is being briefed by her CIA handler. He's about the same age as her, and they argue a lot, so he's obviously her love interest.

Sydney goes back to work for SD6. Funny how her deeds are deemed acceptable if she works for the CIA, but eeevil if she works against them.

The producers are laying on the babe factor, aiming for a young male audience. Syd disguises herself in a blue skin-tight lycra ultra-mini-dress in one scene, then later she strips to her vest to dig up a coffin.

The cliff-hanger ending from last episode is ended in the pre-credits teaser. Nice trick, the opposite of Quantum Leap putting the pre-credits scene at the end of the previous episode.

This episode, Sydney's mission concerns a Rennaissance architect who designed a transistor, planned a cell-phone and wrote machine code ... in the 1480s! Sydney must steal a document which is written in the designer's code. The KGB have sent in their best agent, Anna Espinosa [ Gina Torres ] - a Cuban assassin who is Sydney's deadly rival.

The pre-credits sequence wraps up the previous episode's confrontation with the KGB's best agent, Anna Espinosa [ Gina Torres ]. We then move back to Sydney's private life, where her best buddy is having relationship problems. This mirrors Sydney's own difficulties with her reporter friend and her father. As a result she becomes closer to her CIA controller.

Sydney is assigned to investigate some anti-Globalisation types, or something like that. Her father is put in a Flashback machine, and we see Syd's mother. For some reason she is not played by Lena Olin.

Sydney is ordered to do some Industrial Espionage. She has to help a scientist defect from a German pharmaceutical company.

Sydney suspects that her father is under investigation by the FBI. She jumps to conclusions, and is a total bitch towards him.

To steal an FTL code devcice she goes to London. Lots of gynastics in a mini-dress!

Her new mission is to contact a Manchurian Candidate [John Hannah - The Mummy ], currently an inmate in an East European Asylum.

Sydney is trapped in the Asylum, with John Hannah [ The Mummy ] as her only potential ally. Can she help him recover his memory and persuade him to help her?

Meanwhile, SD-6 are beginning to suspect that there is a mole.

Sydney and her buddies celebrate Thanksgiving. Her father even tries to bond with her. However, her journalist pal has done such a good job investigating the mysterious murders that his editor now orders him to write an article on it!

Perhaps it is the appearance of John Hannah, but this show is suddenly a lot better than it used to be.

The episode starts with a quick recap of the arc. Sydney is in Oxford, competing against Anna Espinosa [ Gina Torres ] for the Rembaldi artefact.

Back in the good old US of A, Sydney's SD-6 boss is doing some housecleaning. Her reporter buddy is getting too close to the truth. Worse, Sydney is under surveillance because her boss suspects she is a mole!

Tobin Bell [ X-Files - Patient X ] guest-stars as the SD-6 Internal Affairs man.

Syd has to save herself, and Dix, without blowing her CIA cover to SD-6.

Will discovers the evidence he found leads back to someone powerful. Someone willing to feed him info ...

Vaughn shows some Xmas spirit by giving Syd an Xmas present. A breach of protocol to get involved with an Agent, but she's a vulnerable widow so he's probably after some rebound sex.

Syd's dad must find a way to save her from SD-6. Then, he must accomplish a solo mission in Cuba.

Will interviews a convict who was framed by SD-6.

Syd's disguise of the week - blonde wig, black bikini.

Sydney and her CIA contact have to deal with the Egyptian Arms Dealer.

Sydney's father is forced to confess his past ...

Sydney has sixty seconds before the credits to get over the traumatic revelations from the last episode, because SD-6 is invaded by elite team of commandos led by an embittered ex-employee.

This is the typical Die Hard episode that every show has. However, this time the villian is a black-suited Quentin Tarantino , and the writers took advantage of their Special Guest Star and stretched this out to be a double-episode.

We get to see everyone at their best. Sydney crawls about in air ducts, and Sloane gets interrogated by Tarantino ...

This is the second part of the story, continued from the previous episode. Sydney's father is captured, but her CIA handler comes to the rescue.

Sloane, slimy villain that he is, actually holds his own against Tarantino. A pity that he becomes so self-pitying at the end.

Sydney and her Reporter buddy must both decide, will they continue their current courses or will they quit?

We start with a brief recap of the story so far. Because of the ending of the previous episode, there is no blurring in the storyline.

Sydney reveals herself to be a fanatical American Patriot, who works for the CIA and hates heartless men like Sloane who would trade ... lives for a profit . The silly little hypocrite!

Sydney and her co-workers set out to discover who was behind the raid. This storyline is padded out with her encounters with her flat-mate. Yes, we get a return to the style of the show's earlier episodes.

Sydney is invited to dinner with Sloane and his wife [ Amy Irving ]. Her CIA handler insists she use this as an opportunity to bug Sloane's home.

The CIA finally get a hold of the secret page of Rembaldi's book - Page 47. We find out what McKennis Cole wanted the perfume for, but yet more questions are now added!

The episode opens with the introduction of a secret US Government Agency called the DSR. It's as if the top brass took the X-Files seriously, and Lindsay Crouse gets to run it. She was last seen running The Initiative in Buffy The Vampire Slayer [Season 4] .

Sydney is interrogated by the DSR. They have decoded Rembaldi's book, and refer to it as The Prophecy. In order to get Rembaldi's code-breaking key, Sydney and her CIA handler break into the Vatican!

Sloane is called to a meeting with the heads of the other SD sections. They are going to take a vote as to whether to take violent action against The Man. Sloane wants revenge, so he conspires with best buddy Roger Moore [ The Spy Who Loved Me ]. Unfortunately, poor Sloane has no Idea about office politics!

Sydney is taken into custody by the FBI and interrogated by Terry O'Quinn [ Millennium ]. Her father and her CIA handler decide that the Feds think she is a threat, so they try to rescue her before she faces life imprisonment without trial.

This is basically a clips show. Sydney outlines the story arc that has transpired over the last sixteen episodes, with the aid of clips of the best bits of the show. However, this episode itself actually develops the plot arc ...

The actual danger from the previous episode is wrapped up very quickly, but the central plot arc hint is now the basis for Sydney's quest. Meanwhile, Sydney's father has an appointment with a psychiatrist [ Patricia Wettig ].

Sydney is sent on a mission, and bumps into her ex-BF [Peter Berg - Last Seduction]. It seems that Sydney's mother used to work for The Man ...

Sydney and BF Peter Berg get back to HQ. He wants to leave the job for good, and has lots of money secretly stashed. However, SD-6 Internal Affairs [Personified this time by Angus Scrimm - Phantasm ] suspects him of being untrustworthy ...

Sydney finally gets to see a video clip of her mother. This leads the team one step closer to their arch-enemy. Unfortunately they have a rival - K-Directorate have hired a freelancer known as The Snowman to dismember the villain. Yes, they didn't use Anna Espinosa ...

Sydney works out how to trap the arch-villain. She and her CIA handler stage a burglary to set up the bait.

Sydney's reporter friend gets another call from the mysterious source, and works out that it was Sydney's father who kidnapped him.

The episode continues Sydney's confrontation with Starke. He has no security to speak of, and no escape plan, so he is hardly an impressive villain. Sydney faces off against Dixon, who becomes suspicious of her.

Sloane's bosses decide to go after Kazenau [Derrick O'Connor - Time Bandits ] and leave Sloane's wife alone. Sydney is sent on a mission - not to get Kazenau, but to steal the last Rembaldi artefact from him.

Meanwhile, the reporter and Sydney's father try to uncover the mysterious inside man ...

This is the long-awaited conclusion to the Season, written and directed by the creator, JJ Adams. All in all it is something of an anti-climax, merely a series of cliff-hangers. Typical of a US TV series that are up for renewal.

The episode mirrors the pilot episode. One of Sydney's friends is tortured by the same interrogator she faced, while Sydney's disguise is now bright blue hair instead of bright red. And the McGuffin is the same ... sort of.

This ep has a series of Flashbacks - Sidney, Vaughn, Emily, reporter - and all loose ends are tied up.

Syd's mommy helps her out.

Ma sends Syd on missions. Da plots.

Sloane is haunted.

Vaughn suspects Syd's dad. Sloane confesses to Jack.

Syd has a flashback to age 6.

Syd and her parents are in Kashmir, looking for a McGuffin. Nukes, this time.

The villain is the French guy from Poltergeist: The Legacy .

Syd, Sarke and Marshall steal an Echelon terminal.

Faye Dunaway is head of SD6 Internal Affairs, and interrogates Jack Bristow.

Marshall claims to speak Ewokese. Truth is, he's too old to carry this claim convincingly. And his pronunciation is all wrong.

Syd must rescue Marshall from an old enemy.

Faye Dunaway closes in on Syd's dad.

France and Germany are home to Enemies of the USA building Scud missiles!

We finally discover who Sloane's blackmailer is!

This was originally broadcast on US TV in Sweeps Week, so they maximised sex and violence to get the biggest audience they could get ...

The ep starts with a Heavy Metal soundtrack, and Syd giving a lingerie show! Then a flashback 24 hours, for plot exposition. She musat pose as a hi-class whore, overpower the guards singlehandedly, steal all of SD-6's data, then get away [with a big explosion].

Rutger Hauer [ Blade Runner, The Hitcher ] is running SD6, while Sloane is absent. Jack gets a few scenes with him.

Syd's a woman of many abilities. She's fluent in several languages - French here, and Russian in a prior ep. And she slaughters 4 people in this ep!

SD-6 security is poorer and the raiders are more violent than in the QT eps last year!

Ethan Hawke [ Gattacca ] is involved in some evil plotting. We get an incredible opening scene that lets us know the show is still in business, even if a major plot arc has been ended!

Syd, now working for the CIA, is assigned to recover a face-changer machine. But is the Hawke helping her the good one or the eeevil one?

To attract male viewers, Syd gets a slo-mo walk wearing a string bikini!.

Christian Slater is kidnapped to put the Rembaldi artefacts together. They combine to make a ... device?

Syd and the CIA try to trap Sloane as he visits a Swiss bank.

The CIA want to do an Op against an warlord pal of Sloane in Afghanistan/Pakistan. The only man who knows the territory is Dix, and he refuses to co-operate.

Syd gives herself a sweaty work-out, to attract male viewers and increase audience figures. Unfortunately the bugs are discovered, so Sloane can't get an eyeful any more.

The Asian Warlord's wife is in Mexico. Sloane and Sarke use a super-microwave weapon, which is apparently worthless to Sloane compared to the next Rembaldi Artefact he swops it for!

Vaughn is under suspicion. Syd has to spy on him.

Her parents do missions to find a Rembaldi artefact and trap Sloane.

A CIA murder-squad is after Irena, Sloane and their sidekick.

Emily's unhappy about Sloane's activities. He used to be a CIA goon! He probably did far worse things in the Watergate era.

Will the murderous Sydney shoot her compassionate boss, or kill her own mother? Will Dix shoot an unarmed man in the back?.

Syd is ordered to rescue Christian Slater.

Irena and Sloane plot. And Will's being subconsciously manipulated.

Syd's dad is promoted.

This story is told in flashback. Dix flips on an op - his wife's dead, he has nothing to lose. Except a couple of kids, as we are reminded in Season 3!

Things are also busy back in the office. Jonathan Banks [ Freejack ] is now head of NSA Special Projects. And Marshall gets a girlfriend!

Syd and Dix are sent to capture hitman Danny Trejo [ From Dusk Til Dawn ].

Rembaldi drew the DNA code of a man in Panama. He also listed the dates of great events due to happen ... the next is within 48 hours!

Sloane visits Tibet, to confront a monk [David Carradine - Kill Bill . The monk gives him a document that enlightens Sloane ... the contents are revealed in Season3, episode 18, Hourglass!

The reporter, Will Tippin, is framed. The CIA hunt him down.

A lot of loose ends are tied up. Syd discovers who the doppelganger is.

The ending is a cliffhanger.

[Season 3, Episode 6] The Nemesis
US Premiere 9 Nov 03
Shown RTE 5th November 2005 [Friday]

Sloane is now a triple agent - or is he? He agreed to work for Covenant boss Djimon Husson [Amistadt], then tells Syd about the Mcguffin they are looking for. It can hotwire any Soviet nuclear missile!

Sarke is back in business, and working for the Covenant. They partner him with an old buddy. Merrin Dungey is back in town! This leads to sloppy expository dialogue and a cat-fight.

CIA and NSC are playing their old games, forcing Will and his wife to lie to each other. Syd replaces the wife as Sloane's handlers ... do any of them trust Blondie the wife? Lauren's good at her job, as she follows up on Lazaray's killer.

Director Dix is unprofessional as ever, carrying his grudge against a soldier who only did her job.

Syd delivers a nice jogging scene at the start, and later wears the standard mini-dress for a nightclub scene. She also wears an X-ray camera as a necklace - will it give her breast-cancer?

Syd and Sloane go on a mission to the PRC embassy. Syd dons a mask and uses sai-forks in a fight - surely a reference to her film Elektra !

Lauren closes in on Syd's secret.

Jack plots, but Sarke intervenes.

Syd is arrested by the NSC. Kurt Fuller [Wayne's World] is at his evil best. Which side will Lauren take?

Jack and Vaughn team up with Sloane to help her. They hire Vaughn's dad's buddy Brill [Richard Roundtree Q - The Winged Serpent ] to break her out.

The NSA torturer is also Elektra's father from Daredevil , and Daniel Jackson's father-in-law from Stargate Sg-1 .

Syd, Jack and Vaughn are on the run. They discover her hidden cache of clues - a severed hand!

In desperation she turns to Dream Therapy - like something out of a David Cronenberg film!

The NSC arrest Dix, wrongly believing he knows where Syd is.

Syd's memory leads her to contact Will, for help and comfort. They go undercover as cockneys! She wears a skimpy dress, as always.

Jack, Vaughn and Sloane are all manipulated by the NSA. Sloane's untrustworthy - what's his plan? Something to do with Rembaldi artefacts ...

We finally get to know what happened to Lazarey. Also, Sarke's background is revealed.

Sarke chases Syd - they're both hopeless shots. Allison [ Merrin Dungey ] returns too. Yes, it's mixed doubles!

Syd meets a familiar character, who informs her of her missing 2 years. We get to see a flashback.

One of the unseen Covenant leaders sounds like McKennas Cole [ Quentin Tarantino ].

Syd and Vaughn crash-land in North Korea, and get chased by the local military. Sarke poses as a CIA agent - yes, David Anders uses his real accent!

Jack contacts Irena, and gets her sister Katya Isabella Rosselini [who has a grudge against Sloane].

Arnold Vosloo [ The Mummy ] is a Covenant boss.

The CIA conduct surveillance of a chalet to steal the Doleac Agenda, a list of 6 Covenant cell leaders. Vivica A Fox is the security designer who knows the way in.

Sarke plots a coup. Ian Buchanan pops up briefly as one of the Covenant leaders. Quentin Tarantino also reappears - yes, McKennas Cole is a big man in the Covenant these days.

Sloane visits the CIA shrink [ Patricia Wettig ], and injects himself with something.

Marshall's pregnant GF/wife gives birth!

Ricky Gervase [The Office] is Daniel Ryan, an IRA bomber who's decided to go freelance. Apparently he served in the Royal Navy, to explain away his English accent. Well, nice to see the IRA as the villains, anyhow.

Ryan blows up the Wicklow National Bank in Belfast. Hmm. The cliched stage sets of the bank and the Pub are totally unconvincing! But that in itself makes the plot more realistic.

Ryan has gone freelance, and wants to make a deal with Sarke. The CIA use a Mission Impossible scam, strangely appropriate since series creator JJ Abrams was writing Mission Impossible 3 at the time!

Sloane and the Shrink have a brief appearance. Melissa George sits this one out, and Syd doesn't get to wear a bikini or mini-dress!

Alias Ricky Gervase
This is the Making Of ... special. It's standard episode length. Gervase gives his infantile humour, interspersed with interviews with JJ Abrams [who looks like a 20-something] and all the main cast.

Sarke is transferred from France to the USA, so the CIA can torture him. Dix's children are kidnapped, to be exchanged for 5 Covenant Agents in jail.

Sloane and his shrink have an affair, until Sarke frames him as the mole. Dix is eeevil, blondie is sympathetic.

Dix and Syd must steal a Rembaldi artefact from the NSA.

The Mole is under surveillance.

The scarred informant from [Season 1, Episode 19] Snowman pops up to help the CIA. He made it all the way from South America to the USA without his oxygen tent!

Vaughn dumps his wife, and Sarke plots against her father the Senator. Djimon Houson is Sarke's boss in the Covenant.

The CIA are closing in on The Passenger.

Vaughn suspects his wife of disloyalty ... she's in the NSA!

The Mole's relationship with Sarke and Djimon is put under pressure ...

Jack uses IRC to chat with Irena.

Thanks to the Tibetan monk [David Carradine - Kill Bill ], Syd discovers what The Passenger is. She has to get the next artefact - by doing an illegal Black Op in the USA!

Sloane is booked for execution. Jack turns up to gloat.

Syd tries to save The Passenger. She goes undercover ... as a nerd!

Sarke and Blondie torture Vaughn for her location.

Apparently Vaughn's father and his buddy Brill [Richard Roundtree Q - The Winged Serpent ] were Rembaldi followers!

Also, strangely, it seems none of these super-spies have access to recording equipment!

Sloane has The Passenger - Sarke closes in.

Vivica A Fox is the security designer who knows the way into Sloane's lair. Irena's sister Katya [ Isabella Rosselini ] pops up to help as well.

Vaughn is becoming an insane torturer, like Jack. Poor old Sloane is a nice guy in comparison!

Vaughn is obsessed with killing Lauren. He feels entitled to a permanent divorce - she lied to him , after all, and worked for a different company. Those darn career women! Just like Irena Derevko, whose sin was even worse - being born in a country other than the USA! What if she was from Canada? Remember - Due South had culture clashes between 2 virtually interchangeable cultures.

This ep is the climax of the Season. Syd faces off against her main female antagonist. Strangely, during the fight the antagonist delivers exposition - laying foreshadowing for the next ep. Which is nice, but hardly what you expect some to do when they should be concentrating on killing their arch-enemy!

Sark and Lauren are typically far more sympathetic than Vaughn and Syd. And Sloane's attempts to reconcile himself with his daughter are far more touching than Jack Bristow's non-relationship with Syd.

The password Sark gives is a Nietzche quote, Woman was God's second mistake. It might have been more ironic to use That which does not kill me makes me stronger - especially since Sark tends to cave under torture.

The tag at the end leaves a nice cliffhanger of sorts. All gets resolved in the first few eps of the Fourth Season.

[Season 4, Episode 1] Authorized Personnel Only (1)
US Premiere 5 Jan 05

The ep, and the season, starts with a reference to the Sweeps Week ep from the middle of Season 2. The iconic moment when Syd opens the door in her skimpies ... And the title sequence is sexed-up too, with shots of Syd in different skimpy outfits.

The main ep is flashbacks of the mission, bookended by an interrogation by Angela Bassett.

Syd and Vaughn are recruited into a new secret agency. Sloane is the boss, backed by Jack and Dix.

Syd's job ... to recruit Marshall and Nadia.

The team do a Mission Impossible-style scam, and even Marshall gets to do some undercover work.

A US ex-pat tries to sell the CIA a sample of a bioweapon. Unfortunately he swallowed the sample, with predictable results.

Syd and Vaughn go undercover in a hospital in Montenegro. Dix lurks in the background, blending in as the only African-American civilian in 500 miles!

Vaughn has issues regarding his dead wife. He falls for Kelly MacDonald , the nurse who runs the hospital. The rest of the plot is entirely predictable.

[Season 4, Episode 5] Welcome To Liberty Village
US Premiere 26 Jan 05

Syd and Vaughn must pose as a married couple. They go undercover in a Potemkin village - a KGB facsimile of a US suburb.

Some villains have perfected a halucinogen.

Syd gets a dose of it, and thinks that Jack and Vaughn are out to get her.

The ep is more soap-opera than usual. The main plot is about recovering Red Thorium, before villains use it.

Sloane tries to bond with Nadia, while Syd tries to turn her sister against him.

Nadia comes into her own, taking the initiative on a mission. And the big twist is when the villain is a buddy of Sloane's!

Sloane temporarily recuses himself as head of IPO, because their new mission involves a Season One villain now obsessed with Rembaldi. Unfortunately, the villain also has info on IPO. Syd's sister [now having a relationship with chubby CIA man] is kidnapped. To get her back, Syd must retrieve a Rembaldi artefact.

W Morgan Sheppard [ American Gothic, Star Trek: TNG ], their contact man, demands Syd asassinate Sebastian Roche [ Roar, Odyssey 5 ]. To do this, she dresses as a hooker, True Lies style!

Good catfight, but they're overdressed.

Vaughn goes to visit an old adversary of his own.

75.   4- 9                
 2 Mar 05   A Man of His Word
76.   4-10                
 9 Mar 05   The Index
77.   4-11                
16 Mar 05   The Road Home
78.   4-12                
23 Mar 05   The Orphan
79.   4-13                
30 Mar 05   Tuesday
80.   4-14                
 6 Apr 05   Nightingale
81.   4-15                
13 Apr 05   Pandora
82.   4-16                
20 Apr 05   Another Mister Sloane
83.   4-17                
27 Apr 05   A Clean Conscience
84.   4-18                
 4 May 05   Mirage
85.   4-19                
11 May 05   In Dreams...
86.   4-20                
18 May 05   The Descent

Elena's plan has entered the endgame phase. She and Sloane have taken over a city in Russia ...

Only one woman can save the world - Irena! Can Syd and the others locate and rescue her?

Angela Bassett pops up, in charge now that everyone else is indisposed.

[Season 5, Episode 1] Prophet Five
US Premiere 29 Sep 05

Syd and Vaughn are pulled out of the car wreck. They are separated by the paramedics.

Vaughn is interrogated by strangers, and declared an outlaw by the NSC. Syd is outlawed if she helps him ...

Sloane is in jail. Even though Irina was allowed to go free at the end of last Season!

Gordon Deane, the man who's after Vaughn, has a gorgeous blonde hacker [ Rachel Nichols ] on his staff. She's even in the title creds.

Syd, 4 months pregnant, makes contact with Vaughn's contact [ Elodie Bouchez ].

The enemy hitman is tracked down. He's after a supply of an atomic element, possibly for use in a dirty bomb.

The McGuffin is a cryo-chamber. Who's in it, and who's after it, are left for later eps!

Jack selects a newbie [Balthazar Getty - Young Guns 2] as Vaughn's replacement. And the chubby CIA guy gets written out, so the actor can have his own TV show.

Amy Acker steals a bio-weapon. Her hacker is the one that the villains used last ep.

Syd has to track Amy down. Marshall traces the hacker. Syd doesn't want to have to work with The Newbie. Marshall insists on going to Prague with them, even though he used to hate planes.

Sloane and Dix visit Russia to find a cure for Nadia.

It turns out that the villain is copying Sloane's SD-6 setup! Well, Argie Intel did it too.

Syd tries to bust the vault at Monte Carlo. Good to see a standard Op, even though she's heavily preggers.

Someone holds Syd hostage and wants to trade her for Mockingbird - the blonde hacker! After all, the hacker is the one person who can seize the villains' bank account!

Dix and the Newbie go to the Cayman islands to meet illicit banker Rowena King.

Sloane is victim of a kangaroo court run by the US Government. His past Pardon agreements are ignored. The Feds accuse him of having indulged in criminal behaviour his entire life, and excusing his actions as necessary evil. Even when he was REALLY in the CIA?

The French woman opens the cryo-pod and wakes Patrick Boucheau [ Poltergeist: The Legacy ]. Syd and Newbie go to see what she's up to.

Marshall bonds with the blonde hacker. She and Dix do a field op.

Arvin tries to get his old job back with the APO. He has a debt to pay, after all. And he hasn't lost his touch.

The villains have a French-speaking SWAT team. They also work for North Korea, and had access to Helix dna-doubling tech 23 years ago!

The French woman now works for the APO, on a one-off basis.

Sloane is back at APO, but leaking info to the villains. He'll do whatever he has to so he can save Nadia. But the morons don't realise that the more they use Sloane's info, the sooner they'll blow his cover!

Blondie flirts with Newbie, and is flirted with by Marshall. She's good at tech, but uncertain about fighting or seduction. Then she's sent undercover as a call-girl. And Amy Acker is sent after her by the villain!

Lucky that Chinese Generals marry Indian women - English is their common language!. And the PRC hires French black market freelance arms dealers instead of using theior own people [2/5 of the world's pop is Chinese!] ... amd puts him on an oil rig in International waters instead of a bunker a thousand miles from the border!

Sloane doublecrosses the villain. Blondie gets some payback. Can Syd and Marshall make the pooor bastard talk?

Angus MacFadyen [ Miracles ] pops up. He offers to cure Nadia ....

Syd is all broody. She does some crib-shopping.

We find out who the villains are. It's like the S1 Alliance setup ... but bigger!

A micro-pulse bomb is used on a train in Siberia. Apparently MI6 knew about it, so APO attend a yah-toodle-pip tea party. Caroline Goodall is Jack's contact.

Blondie goes undercover as a Brit. Sarke is there, posing as a Texan named Bob! They're both after the same thing, and discover they have a lot in common.

Jack and his lady friend get in trouble. Syd needs Sarke to help rescue him! Blondie's bitchier than Syd, and Sarke's a perfect gent!

Incredibly in this arc-heavy season, this is a stand-alone ep.

We're back to the story arc. Syd's having dreams about Vaughn ... and Gaines [24, Season 1] is responsible. Vaughn wants her to leave him, so they cn find each other.

Amy Acker steals Vaughn's data from a CIA database. The Frenchman wants her to find The Horizon, something they've been after for 30 years. Apparently Vaughn hid it, and told Syd where it was in Season One.

The french woman is a kill-crazy maniac who wipes out all round her with multiple throwing knives and a several sig sauer pistols. Jack is a sadistic torturer, but he has good cause. And he doesn't do it in a public street in broad daylight with dozens of witnesses!

Sloane has a moral dilemma. He wants to help Syd, but the villains will only help Nadia ...

The French Woman's not in the credits any more - but Amy Acker is. Good for her, since she's in charge of hunting Syd down.

Syd's within 3 weeks of her due date, but is still running around doing spy stuff. Not much choice, since she's on a ship run by the enemy.

Jack realises that the only way to trace her is to break into the CIA vaults in Langley, Virginia. Perhaps a reference to the first Mission Impossible film, now that the Series Creator is directing the new one! Pity nobody remembers that Greg Grunberg is a senior man in Langley ...

The CIA traitor is assassinated. Obviously CIA know there's another mole, so they let Internal Affairs take over APO. Sloane has to con the others into covering his ass.

Irina approaches Jack and Syd, and helps them retrieve the secret item. This op has to be done without the knowledge of IA. However, Amy and a hit-squad go after them, in case Irina is untrustworthy.

Grace, the Newbie, has a self-assigned mission of his own. He deals with the man who killed his wife. The poor bastard was only a soldier doing his job.

Syd goes into labour. And news of the birth reaches a most unlikely person!

In the 100th ep, the show's been cancelled. However, typically we get some familiar faces as guest-stars.

A month after the birth, Syd's called back into the line of fire. It's pure manipulation - Anna Espinosa is hired by the villains to kidnap Will Tippin, and put a bomb in his head.

Anna's mission is to send Syd on a series of wild goose chases. Dr Gaines didn't bother getting Syd's DNA or biometric readings when he had her prisoner on the ship. That was 2 whole months previously, so maybe this is a new plan.

The McGuffin is Page 47 of the Rembaldi manuscript. The page shows Syd's face, and says she will unleash the greatest power. There's Only One Sydney Bristow - unless you consider the Season 2 Helix Protocol, that alters DNA.

Sloane has the cure. But to use it, he must stop Nadia's heart for 30 Seconds.

The team must retrieve the Page, and recapture Anna. The Page is with an old accompli of the annoying French Woman. He's her ex-BF, so she offers him sex. Then doesn't deliver.

Jack suspects that Sloane is still a traitor. And Nadia's bond with her father is practically non-existent. She claims she could hear while in the coma, but ignores the fact he waited constantly at her bedside.

This ep kills off a couple of supporting characters. They were never great characters to begin with, and deserved to get their throats cut, but it's done here just so we get our heart-strings tugged at.

Syd goes off to Nepal to find Vaughn. Unfortunately, Anna is on their trail.

Sloane is haunted by Nadia. He's made progress with the decoding, but he needs help. He calls in an old pal ...

Syd goes undercover, pretending to be her own killer. Can she fool Arvin?

Arvin sends Anna and Sarke on a mission. They must enter an Italian prison and retrieve a Rose.

It's all set up for the finale, a gigantic double-ep next week!.

Oh, and Balthazar Getty's little subplot is resolved. Who cares?

Sloane kidnaps Marshall and Rachel, and gets Kelly and Sarke to torture them.

The APO are on the revenge path. But Arvin has an armageddon plan. His financial backer wants to try something similar to the end of last Season ...

Arvin discovers Rembaldi's original big-red-ball device. But its effect is the opposite of last Season's one!

The final confrontations include: