JJ Abrams and Co. have been running a relentless “We loveLauren! You will too!” campaign for a few months now. And Ihave to admit that it’s finally working! When Lauren, akaMrs. Vaughn (Melissa George), relieved Dixon of his duties andlocked down the CIA, I loved that. And what about when she screwedSydney over by ratting her out to the NSC? You know, she really ismy absolute favorite character now.

That was all sarcasm, in case it wasn’t glaringly obvious.I hate her.

Now that that’s out of my system, “Prelude,”the best episode of the latest season, aired Nov. 9. The goodoutnumbered the bad this week, as we learned more aboutSydney’s missing two years, Vaughn (Michael Vartan) admittedabout 55 times that he’s still in love with Sydney (as if wecouldn’t tell!), and Jack (Victor Garber) showed yet againhow bad-ass he can be when the safety of Syd is at stake.

Sydney has been having haunting dreams of her two lost years,and found out that the procedure to recover her memories before theCovenant can is very dangerous. Lauren and Vaughn found out thatSimon’s Covenant partner, Javier (Clifton Collins Jr.), hasinformation on “Julia Thorne” (aka Sydney) &-namely, that she killed Russian diplomat Andrian Lazarey, who wasSark’s (David Anders) father. Before they can expediteJavier, in Mexico, Jack gets to him and hangs him. Back in L.A.,Sark reveals to Lauren that Julia Thorne is, in fact, SydneyBristow. Lauren rips into Vaughn for keeping a secret from her,somehow overlooking the fact that she was keeping the details ofher investigation secret from him. She becomes incensed when hetells her that Dixon and pretty much everyone else knows about Syd,and tells him that she already reported the information to her bossat the NSC.

Vaughn goes to help Syd. She says that she’ll go to Rome&- Julia had rented an apartment there a year before, andmailed the key and a code for an address to Sloane (Ron Rifkin) inan envelope marked “for Sydney.” Jack, upon hearingabout the code, says that it’s one Syd’s motherdesigned. The plot thickens as we realize that Syd/Julia was likelyin contact with her mother and Sloane during the two years.Meanwhile, Lauren locks down the CIA as Vaughn tells Jack thathe’ll do pretty much anything to save Syd.

Sydney arrives in Rome. She recognizes the apartment and themenacing stone figures across the street, which she saw in herdreams. She goes in the bathroom and finds a pill prescription forJulia Thorne, right before she’s thrown to the ground by thepolice.

Mrs. Vaughn is still around, but “Prelude” is easilythe best episode of the season so far. We left with at least a fewmore questions answered and some great character development. Itseems that the third season is finally picking up steam, and I, forone, couldn’t be happier.

Grade: A