Another episode, another weapon of the weak. And no, I haven’t made a spelling mistake. We are now 11 episodes into the series four, and this time last season we had just uncovered the truth regarding Sydney’s (Jennifer Garner) two-year blackout. But thus far, aside from two mythology-centred episodes, this season has been made up with stand-alone episodes revolving around a variety of deadly new weapons that will make the lives of the entire Alias cast a little bit more complicated.

But its hard to complain when each of these episodes has been of such a high standard, often allowing the actors involved to shine like never before whilst also becoming re-acquainted with the familiar covert concept which dominated the first season.

“The Road Home” however failed to live up to the new trend which the previous episodes have so highly set. It wasn’t for the lack of trying. Alison Schapker & Monica Breen (“A Missing Link”, “Unveiled”) made a valiant effort at synchronising the individual character developments of the three principle actors – Jennifer Garner, Michael Vartan and Victor Garber. As a mission of Syd’s goes south and she finds herself teaming up with a civilian, Vaughn makes contact with a man who knew his father and Jack is forced to pay a visit to a one time friend gone terrorist named Sasha Korjev. As I said, the attempt was a valiant one, but failed to achieve that elusive x-factor which will made the audience simply go “oooh, aaah”.

Sydney’s reluctant partner seemed a little too nice, if that is at all possible. Jason Segel done a good job of the role, but there was something so unbelievable about the character in general. It looks as if the idea was to put Syd under a little extra pressure by giving her a sidekick, because that’s exactly what he was.

Jack and Vaughn’s individual stories were much more entertaining, but Vaughn’s unfortunately failed to reach any kind of a solid climax. We know his father was alive in 1981 (‘So what?’ you ask yourself? He died in 1979, that’s what!), so nothing has really changed. But like last week, another wrench was thrown into the works – Vaughn’s dad might not be as much of as a patriot as we’ve been led to believe. Jack’s story however had much more substance to it…especially as we discover that Korjev still considers Jack a close persona friend and he is soon to be a father. But not even that is enough to dissuade Jack who carries out his mission. No doubt in the future we’ll begin to see the ramifications of Jack’s choices. His contact in Madagascar with the obsession for torture was an interesting character, but again like so much in the episode he never seemed to lead anywhere.

But in the end, it all works out for the best: Sydney stops the shipment of the weapon, Vaughn still ponders over what happened to his father and Jack kills Korjev – the world is a safer place.

It was good to see the return of the split-focus during the op-tech meetings, a technique which seems to have been forgotten since the second season. The third season was made up of excruciatingly long briefings with short missions following suit which forced the viewer to retain every single detail which was discussed. By splitting the focus, Marshall discusses a piece of op-tech in a briefing with Sydney, then we see it being used in the field as the operation unfolds.

Schapker and Breen should have taken some notes from an episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer entitled “Conversations With Dead People”, which saw the central characters all off on their own stories, but yet they were all intrinsically linked. That episode was performed flawlessly and had a greater sense of symmetry to it that helped make it so damn entertaining. With at least 2 writers on the team that were involved with Buffy (Drew Goddard and Jeffery Bell), its not asking too much.