i agree with you, VH. it's just a bunch of bullsh*t if you ask me. but like leslie, i really want to know the real reason. why? ya, her career isn't going too well right now and like leslie, i think it looks like alias is the best option. even just to do a couple episodes so the show isn't screwed and doesn't ruin the other people's careers or something. and also, she said so herself that she get's more publicity doing alias. i know she wants to be with her family but doing two episodes isn't as long as a movie. even one episode in the least. AT LEAST ONE. and if you recast irina, it won't be the same. lena did a marvelous job with irina and nobody else could fill her shoes. and you can't project helix her either cuz project helix was destroyed. and even if it wasn't, it'd still be hard to fill her shoes. lena was spymommy in a way that nobody else could be and i'm one of those people who do NOT want to see her recast. like others, throughout S3 there was a sliver of hope that lena would come back, but she didn't. and i think that's one reason why s3 sucked. s1 and s2 were great. s2 even better because of spymommy. and lena got a ton of new fans, including myself. and i agree that s2 was hard to follow up. a lot of people hated lauren from the start and i'm one of those who hated slark. if there was irina, i betcha the season could be better. ya sure, there was IMing but that made like no difference. i know BBL didnt' work but what about a BBL2? Lena knows how much her fans love her but what if we do it again? Maybe it'll work. I'm willing to do a BBL2. I'd put it together but I can't. I'm underage but still, Lena needs to be back. I dont' care if it's for one episode only. She needs to wrap things up and needs to be back.