SYDNEY GETS A SISTER ON ALIAS
8 APRIL 2004. SOURCE: ZAP2IT

The Bristow family tree is about to get a little more gnarled. In a season in which bad guy-turned-do-gooder Arvin Sloane has already hinted that he could be Sydney's father, our put-upon CIA agent heroine is about to discover she has a sister as well.

Mia Maestro (left) has signed on to play Sydney's sister in three episodes of the show, beginning on Sunday 25 April, ABC confirms. It's also likely that she'll be a regular on the series next season.

ABC, naturally, isn't saying where the sister fits into the Bristow family. To review, Sydney discovered that at the end of the show's first season that her mother, Irina, whom she believed to be dead, was in fact alive and later found out she had been a Soviet spy before turning freelance. Mom disappeared again at the end of last season.

Recently, Sloane revealed to CIA psychologist Dr. Judy Barnett (Patricia Wettig) that he had an affair with Irina about 30 years ago - which would coincide with the time of Sydney's birth. Sloane says he never took the step of finding out whether he or Jack Bristow is Syd's real father.

Maestro, a native of Argentina, played Christina Kahlo in FRIDA. She also appeared in HBO's FOR LOVE OR COUNTRY: THE ARTURO SANDOVAL STORY and the Che Guevara biopic THE MOTORCYCLE DIARIES, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January.

ABC also says that Peggy Lipton (THE MOD SQUAD, TWIN PEAKS) will play the duplicitous Lauren's mother in an episode scheduled for Sunday 18 April. David Carradine will reprise his role as a Rambaldi-loving monk in the same episode.