Lauren having revealed Sydney’s complicity in Lazarey’s murder, Sydney is taken into custody by the NSC, who want her help in unscrambling co-ordinates. Meanwhile, Jack and Vaughn attempt to break Syd out with help from Sloane.

Just as we thought Alias was becoming simpler, the machinations between the NSC and CIA become just as complex as those between the CIA and SD-6. After weeks of believing the NSC wants the knowledge of Syd’s missing two years, we now learn that they only want the location of something, but we don’t know what. The torture Syd is put through is horrific, and she meets a fellow prisoner who she befriends. This is the only part which is something of a let-down, as I was fairly sure from the moment this other prisoner appeared that he was either a plant or a hallucination. Syd hadn’t been in long enough to be hallucinating so my belief was strong until he was stabbed by the jailers. Of course, that’s merely the last trick in the NSC’s bag, but Syd has still out-thought them.

It’s the only weak link in a pretty strong story though, as the efforts of Vaughn, Jack, Sloane and, later, Lauren, to free Syd are fantastic, even if someone at the CIA must be a little suspicious that suddenly two top operatives are mysteriously absent. It’s a little unlikely, isn’t it? You’d expect Dixon to have better control over his agents than this. We also get to see the allegedly changed Sloane out and about. While it’s nigh-on impossible not to mistrust him after all we’ve seen over the last two seasons, it’s difficult to explain why he is so keen to assist Sydney, or why he actually takes a bullet meant for Jack. As Jack points out, it could be simply that he and Sydney somehow factor into Sloane’s plan and their deaths will hinder the progress of that, though. One thing’s for sure, though: it’s good to see the little schemer back out in the world once again after being cooped up in an office so far this year.

At the end of the day, I admit we don’t learn any more about Syd’s missing years than we already knew, and I debate the wisdom of her escape when she’s going to be difficult to conceal from the NSC unless she goes abroad. Still, there’s some good stuff here, particularly in the way all the main cast are working together for the first time in a long time. It’d be nice to see Sloane paired up with Vaughn more too, as the pair have, to our knowledge, rarely encountered each other. It’ll be interesting to see where things go from here.

****

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