With a heavy mythology-centred story being written by an Alias newcomer, you couldn’t help but worry if Luke McMullen would be able to pull it off, or if he would simply ruin what was once an original and deeply compelling story-arc. “Echoes” and “A Man Of His Word” reintroduced the sixteenth century prophet rather elegantly but did lack the momentum the story once carried. Thankfully, “Another Mister Sloane” had it all!

I’ll say this for McMullen, he knows how to get the job done. Not only was the episode full of mysterious and ominous Rambaldi references, but the dialogue for the episode was absolutely spot on - all the mannerisms of each character were fully in play. Weiss’ (Greg Grunberg) “Twelve-hundred? Jack it’s me…noon!” line for example, helped restore the Alias wit to what it once was.

Characters all seemed to have something - Sloane’s passion for Rambaldi and ability to unnerve Syd with only a few words, Jack’s chilling accounts of killing Irina and even Syd’s drive and determination has returned – she needs to stop the other Sloane. Speaking of which, the “Arvin Clone” and “Marvin Sloane” moment was hysterical! Bravo McMullen! In one masterful stroke you have managed to bring the past and present of Alias all into line for an even better future.

Keeping in tune with Alias’ trademark for unusual and glamorous costumes, Sydney as an airhostess is one of the greatest they have come up with. That particular mission had all the elements we previously saw at the beginning of the season – all the characters had a role to play, the stakes were high and it did not involve obtaining some futuristic super weapon.

But ultimately, this episode let loose three individuals – Jack, Sloane and Nadia. And all actors rose to the challenge presenting exciting new depths to each character.

When Jack first learns that Sloane set him up to kill Irina, his “I’ll take care of it” line is pretty much classic Jack Bristow: chilling and emotionless. But what is even more distressing that his solution to the problem (kill Sloane) is the actual confrontation with Arvin where he freely admits that her personally killed Irina Derevko. Since “Authorised Personnel Only”, through vague accounts of what happened to Irina, we’ve been led to believe that Jack’s involvement was minimal (namely, the signing of her execution order). However all of that has changed. We now know that it was him personally who killed her with his own gun. Garber was excellent in the scene, conveying for the first time just how conflicted he is over what he done to his ex-wife.

Nadia’s fears for her father were wonderfully performed by Maestro, who once again showed just how valuable she is to the series. To top it off, there was finally some discussions on what they found in Cienna after the season three finale. A topic that until now has remained very much in the dark.

And after studying the Rambaldi artefacts at Project Blackhole (including Page 47 which until now he has never seen), the insanity inside Sloane returned in full force. The murderous look in his eyes towards the end of the episode after beating Carter (Paul Ben-Victor) to death says more about his reformation than any other good deed he has performed. Even the large Rambaldi battery helped tie the episode back to Alias’ roots – the first time we glimpsed such a device was in the very first episode “Truth Be Told,” albeit a smaller version.

The entire episode seemed to borrow aspects of previous ones – the kidnapping of Doctor Sinclair (Michelle Forbes, known for her role as Ensign Ro in “Star Trek: The Next Generation”) was very similar to the Caplan abduction and the mission to catch Marvin Sloane was just like season two.

Unfortunately, Roberts (Michael K. Williams) was killed off rather quickly (he was only captured last week), but having said that, his death was very very satisfying.

However, all of that is secondary to true genius of the episode – the story was not resolved. That’s right…we have a good old-fashioned cliff-hanger ending with all the makings of a brilliant continuation. A very bloody Sloane and a shocked Nadia alone in a room with a massive Rambaldi device. I can hardly wait to find out what happens next. With Sloane and Rambaldi, who can be quite sure?