So this is the end. Or perhaps a new beginning (yes…another one!). As the episode opens following on from last week’s breath taking episode, I found myself hoping that what I would be getting is a well thought out and intense hour of entertainment, clocking up a third brilliant finale without any of the intermingled silliness from last years “Resurrection”.

As it stands, I was half right. While the episode saw so much of what I wanted to see, it also suffered from the same convoluting plotting of the third season. The fight between ‘The Chosen One’ and ‘The Passenger’ was the ultimate climax in the Rambaldi storyline (which I must say, has been very gracefully re-introduced), and the revelations over The Circumference and Sloane’s true motives only helped to push this episode along.

However, why was the entire episode a twisted clone of the video-game movie of “Resident Evil”? Zombie creatures, an underground subway system and a coming apocalypse - the only difference is that Jennifer Garner is a far more interesting and three-dimensional heroine than Milla Jovovich will ever be.

The biggest kick in the teeth from the episode is the involvement from Lena Olin. Her wonderful and emotional dialogue was gone, as was the twitchiness she instilled in all of the characters was nowhere in sight (although Brodien’s – Robert Patrick Benedict – almost terrified response to discovering who she was classic). The last episode was excellent for bringing Irina back into the spy-fold, but to be honest she was brought back for nothing other than to kill her sister Elena (Sonia Braga). I can kiss goodbye to the twisted Derevko-Bristow-Sloane family reunion I was very much hoping to see. But the bad-cop, badder-cop dynamic between Irina and Jack (Victor Garber) was excellently done. And while on the topic of family ties, the true parentage of Nadia (Mia Maestro) was not even discussed, much to my disappointment.

But despite the unusual level of darkness and destruction that surrounds the episode, “Before the Flood” manages to show off the usual Alias comedy routines of Marshall (Kevin Weisman) and Weiss (Greg Grunberg) – this time as a new dynamic duo. The Russian blackmail scene deserves a specific mention for the comedy genius it entails.

It was good to see Sloane (Ron Rifkin) get the forgiveness from Sydney he has worked so hard to receive, although it does beg one question to be asked: can he ever really be forgiven? With Nadia under top-level CIA care (most likely from the DSR), Irina on the run, and Sloane back roaming the halls of APO, the entire season has been neatly wrapped into a confidently sized bundle to forget and sail into the fifth season.

Well, at least that’s what you would have got if you switched the episode off after Syd springs Sloane from CIA custody. It was the last minute that was the shocker – my name is not Michael Vaughn being the big thing, and the conveniently times car accident being the icing on the cake. I just hope for the fifth season they don’t make Vaughn (Michael Vartan) become some kind of evil spy like Irina was because we’ve already had that with Lauren so a complete rehash of that is not what we need. No matter what the idea behind it is, I’m sure it will make the spy-lovers relationship that bit more spontaneous after a very quiet and slow moving relationship this season.

So….until next season.