ydney Bristow (Garner) gets so fed up with new CIA director Hayden Chase (Angela Bassett) that she quits in a huff. But it's only a pose. She's actually joining an even more covert agency commanded by her perennial nemesis, Arvin Sloane (Rifkin). Her job is to follow the man's orders while making sure he doesn't slip and engage in any more acts of international terrorism. One would think Sloane had used up his second chances by the end of season three, but hey, for some reason, the people in charge have faith in the guy.
Sydney is not happy about this, but at least she gets to go back to work with her old partner, Dixon (Carl Lumbly), her good buddy, Weiss (Greg Grunberg), and the stammering tech-geek Marshall (Weisman). She even has a new partner: her half-sister, Nadia Santos (Maestro), whose status as Sloane's daughter further obliges Sydney to play nice with her worst enemy. Sydney is less happy about returning to work with her father, Jack (Garber), from whom she's estranged once again following his recent apparent assassination of her mother, Irina (Lena Olin).
Many missions ensue, most of them self-contained. All three Derevko sisters (Olin, Isabella Rossellini and Sonia Braga) show up, as does a mysterious imposter who claims to be Arvin Sloane (Joel Grey). It all ends with zombies.
Not bad—just no longer great
None of us have any trouble suspending our disbelief enough to accept a superhumanly competent babe of a spy who can save the world multiple times while dodging ancient prophecies and the often evil machinations of an entire family of superspy relatives. If we had trouble believing that kind of thing, we wouldn't be in this neighborhood.
But season four of the once-great J.J. Abrams series, which begins by rebooting for the third time, requires us to believe the absolutely impossible. Not only does the United States government willingly place the known terrorist and traitor Arvin Sloane in charge of one of its own spy agencies, but it staffs that agency with people who have ample reason to want him dead. Given his responsibility for the past brutal murders or attempted murders of their loved ones, it's impossible to believe that Sydney Bristow, Jack Bristow or Marcus Dixon would consent to this arrangement, even if the show attempts to have it both ways by having them regularly march into his office to remind him how much they hate him. It's particularly hard to swallow in one episode where, for Nadia's sake, everybody gathers for a friendly, congenial dinner with the man. They should be trying to stab him in the eye with forks. (Or sporks, given that the utensil in question is used for emergency eye surgery, in one of the few genuinely memorable episodes here.)
The season also suffers from its dumbed-down structure, for the most part eschewing the cliffhangers and insanely labyrinthine plotting of prior seasons in favor of self-contained one-episode storylines of little cumulative force. But there are high points. They include a hilarious mission for Marshall, the late appearance of Joel Grey as the imposter "Arvin Clone," Sydney's most incestuously uncomfortable moment yet and a final storyline (bringing back the Rambaldi mythos) that brings the series into the realm of zombie horror.
Extras include a number of deleted scenes, of which by far the best is Marshall's tearful goodbye to Sydney, when he believes she's leaving the spy business for good. Grunberg gets to show off his snapshots, Weisman clowns around on the set, Garner sits down for an interview, and actors blow their lines in the usual assortment of unfunny bloopers.
