Having captured two CIA agents and sent one’s head back in a box, The Covenant ask for a trade: the captured Sark for the CIA operative.

More or less the second half of the season’s rejigged storyline, this episode brings us up to date with the rest of the main cast and moves things forward a bit in the quest to find Syd’s memory. This is the aspect I’m going to have the biggest problem with; there’s only so long they can stretch out the missing time thing before all the viewers get annoyed. Luckily this episode demonstrates a willingness to start putting the pieces together in the way Syd encounters people who are somehow connected to what happened to her. Of course, she’s just shot them and they die before they can tell her anything, but at least it’s progress.

As for the rest of it, it’s good to see Sark again. He’s not had anywhere near enough to do so far in the series, and now his connection to Syd’s missing time comes via the fact that she’s murdered his father, something he’s unaware of but will no doubt find out about given time. He also has access to a vast fortune and The Covenant obviously has some kind of plan for him. The fact that they get away with Sark and their original hostage is unlikely to bode well for the CIA. The trade is pretty cool, with the higher-ups interfering and wrecking the entire plan, leading to a fantastic confrontation between Syd and one of her bosses, where she explains just what she thinks of him in no uncertain terms. Vaughn’s wife then makes her first appearance as a direct result of Syd’s tirade, but it’s too late in the episode to really judge her effectiveness.

Elsewhere, Jack seems to have slipped back into his old habits, contacting Derevko and making the viewers wonder once again why he’s been let off any charges that were pending against him. You’d think at the very least that someone would be keeping an eye on him to stop him doing exactly that. However, it does help to know that Syd’s mother is still an active component in the series, even if you don’t actually see her. Further proof that things are still staying coherent and being carefully planned out. There’s also a fantastic scene between Sloane and Jack, who of course hasn’t seen the new, improved Arvin since being locked up and trusts him about as far as he can throw him. Their encounter is loaded with tension and you wonder what Jack will do. He’s playing a very careful game at the moment and it’ll be interesting to see if the pair work together or become enemies once more. Sloane’s research into Syd’s death makes it look like the former, but surely it can’t last?

As for the story itself, it’s an oddly forgettable one. The fate of the captured agents seems to take second place to everything else that’s going on, and though the hand-off is a fantastic piece of action shooting, featuring guns, cars, vans and even helicopters, it takes second place to the various bits of character drama going on. The weirdest of these is Vaughn returning to the CIA; why? Presumably there’s a reason he gave it up and became a teacher, so why does he just jack in his new job so quickly and come running? If his marriage is anywhere near stable, it can’t be for Syd’s benefit. It only appears to be so that he can use his knowledge to get her out of a tough spot while she’s on a mission. Quite what his long-term purpose is, I’m not sure.

Overall then, this is actually a very good episode, just not entirely for the reasons it should be, maybe.

****

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