The thing I like about Ashes To Ashes is that it it gets talked about. Talked about, speculated upon and talked about some more. Whether you like it or not, you have to admit that this level interest makes this show pretty great, even though it has missed the target as much as it has hit the bulls eye in this second series. Today's news that there would be a third series meant that I watched this with greater interest than usual - how would Alex Drake get home?

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If anything, I thought this episode encapsulated the entire series. There were some good bits, some very good bits, some funny stuff, some rubbish stuff and a few naff plot bits and pieces. Make no mistake, this series is massively inconsistent. Fun but inconsistent. If it were a football team, Ashes To Ashes would be Tottenham Hotspur - flashy without too much substance.

Before I get onto the really good bits, let's quickly discuss the not-so-good bits first. We were plunged into one of those Eighties-style TV show sequences straight away. This time it was Jackanory with Gene Hunt himself reading the story. Gene's re-telling of Alex's story in his own inimitable way was cut with footage of Gene beating up an informant (who later turned up dead in his own chip shop. Battered, literally) with the intention of getting information for a blag that was about to go daaaahn. A messy start, to say the least, and this over-reliance of 1980s TV show is starting to wear thin.

We were straight into it from that point on. No slow build-up, no real explanation as to what this blag was or any background. Then there was a woman called Jeanette, the sister of another informant, who had the hots for Gene. She was utterly superfluous to the story, I thought, and the time spent between the two flirting could have been better spent laying the background for the robbery.

But, of course, this last show had to be about Alex and Summers. It couldn't not be. As the episode wore on we knew that Operation Rose was behind the, what turned out to be, bullion blag. Summers had been taunting Alex all episode long, and things seemed to be working when Gene conveniently found one of Alex's diary tapes in his office. On it he heard Alex speculating as to what exactly Gene was, and asking whether she could trust him. She also talked about needing to stay one step ahead of Summers. This, naturally, freaked out Sheriff Gene. In a tense exchange, he demanded to know the truth from Alex. She told him. She told him that she was from the future, that she was shot and she wasn't sure who or what he was. This freaked him out even more, to the extent he suspended her from duty.

This didn't deter Alex from wanting to get involved. She wanted to find out what significance 1982 had for Summers, who, back in the future, was lying in the next hospital bed. We soon found out.

Alex had asked Chris, who had received another phone call from his bent copper contact, to lead them to the location of the blag. He duly obliged. I really did fear for Chris during this shootout - it would have been a perfect time for poor old Chris, seeking redemption, to cark it. Shaz was off trying on wedding dresses, but it was her, in said wedding dress, who came to his rescue on a true "Get in!" moment.

But anyway, Gene had defeated the bent coppers apart from one. Summers managed to sneak away, a fact not unnoticed by Alex who had been watching from the wings. In another tense showdown, Alex, at gunpoint, figured out that Summers had wanted to come back to 1982 to re-stage a heist that went wrong the first time around. Unfortunately for him, Gene had entered stage left and shot him dead.

And that was all pretty good and exciting and shootoutery, but there was thing nagging away in the back of my mind - how were they going to end this thing? Especially after today's announcement that they would be another series. Surely Alex wouldn't just disappear back to her normal life. Would she?

Well, yes and no. This was the neat twist at the end. Jeanette turned up with a gun and there was another shootout, except this time, Hunt accidentally shot Alex, who slipped into unconsciousness.

She woke up in the present day, with a doctor telling her that she not only survived the operation but also a potentially lethal infection. Molly rushed to her side. She had made it.

Except she hadn't. The monitors in her room started to flicker and Gene Hunt came on, shouting for Bolly to wake up - she was a coma in 1982. She as still in 1982 but now 2009 was the constructed world. Which was which? Which reality was real? Who knew? Who cared?

That's a bit unfair, as I thought the twist was good and left a whole heap of questions for series three to answer. Perhaps Sam Tyler and Alex Drake were wrong after all. Perhaps the life they knew in the present day wasn't their reality. Perhaps Gene Hunt was the real deal after all.

We'll have to wait until next year to find out. Despite the inconsistencies, despite the weak cop storylines and despite this messy last episode, I'll probably still be watching.