This episode will always be remembered as the one where Jack put the old band back together and done things old school. With Sydney in NSC custody and Lauren forced to do Lindsey’s bidding, Vaughn and Jack are forced to take action against their own Government in order to free her. We’ve seen this kind of rogue behaviour before (Vaughn’s assisting Syd to leave the country in "Prelude" for example), but this time it had a more serious renegade feel to it.

Maybe it was because it was Sloane who answered the call to assist the dynamic duo. The writing team have spent a lot of time over the last seven episodes setting up Sloane as a changed man. Someone to be counted on and a true patriot. But we Alias fans know better. Deep down, he's a cold hearted sociopath with a very dangerous endgame in sight. Bringing in some of Jack and Sloane’s old CIA buddies (including Richard Roundtree - Shaft) was an interesting move and with Marva Whitney in the background, a very absorbing web of old-school espionage is established.

As I watched the episode, I was dumbstruck with how much Vaughn is like a Jack-to-be. From what we know of spy-daddy, Vaughn is the kind of agent Jack once was before he was introduced to Laura and before his best friend betrayed his country. And as the two plotted with Sloane, it became evident that the two share more than devotion to Sydney. Vaughn's "You're starting to like me" line summed up the developing apprenticeship rather well.

But aside from the old school fun, the episode really didn’t have a whole lot to offer. We were given the usual cursory glimpse into the Jack/Lindsey rivalry but nothing too in-depth and the bleached colour effect to Syd's incarceration was a stunning piece of cinematography which really captured the desperation of Sydney Bristow. Although you can't help but marvel at the irony behind it all - the patriot and soldier of the United States is the villain while the twisted and evil man becomes the humanitarian. Only Alias is capable to pushing the shades of grey to this extreme.

And of course the second Lindsey started pushing Lauren about it was painfully obvious what was going to happen in the end. Lindsey is in fact one of the better villains that has been introduced - he seems to have the same shade of grey feel that Sloane embodied in the earlier seasons. The character of Campbell/Schapker (named after Alias writer Allison Schapker) however is perhaps the only 'villain' to exceed the malevolence felt towards Lindsey. Here is a man who was able to get into the mind of our heroine and manipulate her into divulging the truth about the two year old code. Not even Arvin Sloane was able to succeed in that.