or, A Television-Related Word Association Experiment With the Love of My Life

Here’s a list of every current show I watch, and my boyfriend’s instant reaction to each.

• 30 Rock “Oh, Tina Fey…” (smiles)
• American Horror Story ”Thrills me.”
• Boardwalk Empire “Costumes…”
• Breaking Bad “Oh, I don’t know.  I don’t know.  Come back to me with that one.”
• Burn Notice “Never saw it… oh, but that guy is hot.”
• Californication “Gah… can’t get into it… but I want to.”
• Community “Growing on me.”
• Cougar Town “Stupid.”
• Covert Affairs “Oh, Piper Peek-a-boo.  That’s what my dad calls her… looks pretty stupid, though.  It looks like a dumbed-down Alias, if Alias could be any dumber.”
• Curb Your Enthusiasm ”I hate Seinfeld.”
• Damages “I don’t know anything about that show.  What is that show?”
• Desperate Housewives ”Ugh… desperate.”
• Dexter “Love it.  Those cat eyes.”
• Fringe “Ugh… it has that guy from Dawson’s Creek.”
• Glee “Oh, I love Lea Michele.  Oh!  Mercedes!  What’s her name in real life?”
• Gossip Girl “Ed. Westwick. Two words.”
• Grey’s Anatomy (gags ) “Menopause.”
• Justified “I wanna watch that.  It has that guy with the French last name that sounds like ‘elephant.’ E-le-phant.  You should use those French accents.”
• Louie “Say that again?”
• Mad Men (sighs) “Upsets me.”
• Modern Family “Oh my god.  I could watch that all day.”
• Nikita “Oh my god… the CW…”
• Once Upon a Time “I love Ginnifer Goodwin.  Godwin.  Goodwin.”
• Parenthood “I adore that show.”
• Parks and Recreation (smiles admiringly and shrugs)
• Private Practice “Ugh… keep it private.”
• Raising Hope “Babies.”
• Revenge “Oh, that’s the girl I’m gonna see soon in ‘Bros and Hos’ [our nickname for Brothers and Sisters].  Living in the Hamptons is so nice.  Except I hate those people.”
• So You Think You Can Dance “The judges really think they can talk”
• The A-List: New York “Not a list I want to be a part of.  Not ‘a list‘.” (laughs)
• The Buried Life “Oh.  That’s like a bucket list for adult people.  Or, or for kids.  I do want to watch that.”
• The Glee Project ”I really hated those kids.  And I did not like the results.”
• The Good Wife “Always hesitant to start, but I love it by the end.  That Kalinda: she can seduce everyone, and she’s really not that hot.  But she’s cunning.  She’s kind of like an animal actually.  Don’t you think so?  She just kinda fills her animalistic needs.”
• The Office “Ugh… never got into it.  I love Steve Carrell.  And I love that British dude who insults everyone.”
• The Sing-Off  “Nick Lachey is a really dumb host.”
• The Voice ”Oh, we were on that.”
• The Walking Dead “I really don’t like anything that has to do with zombies, except for 28 Days Later.”
• True Blood “Oh my god.  ’Sookie.’  That is also one of the first shows to make a gay person of color a main character, and in a really positive way.  People respect him.”
• Top Chef  “My dream career.  That show tantalizes me.  That shows tantalizes my every vittle.” (laughs)  ”What do you want for dinner tonight?”

My other blogging gig is covering Grey’s Anatomy for Wetpaint Entertainment, and I wanted to share the following article here on Primetimely since it’s one of which I’m particularly proud. (You can see it in its original Wetpaint context here.) The preamble is true: I do love Grey’s—but I do see its faults and its wear and tears of age, and I have some humble suggestions.

We love Grey’s Anatomy, and not just because doing so is our job here at Wetpaint Entertainment. But we’re still critical of it — and while this season and the last were better than, say, seasons 5 and 6, we’re a long ways away from the Grey’s glory days. So we took it upon ourselves to make the show great again… or to at least offer the writers some friendly suggestions. Here are five prescriptions for the writers to administer once an episode until the show’s ailments subside.

A smaller cast
Season One had nine main characters. Season Two had ten. Season Eight? Fourteen. That’s fourteen characters who need substantial storylines in most (if not all) episodes. Might the writers be spread a bit too thin trying to serve all these actors? That said, we’re not looking to vote any characters off the proverbial island — and we certainly wouldn’t want to be the ones to choose who stays and who goes! — but maybe certain characters could be scaled back to “recurring” status. Maybe certain characters who haven’t had any notable storylines thus far. Like, say, a character whose name rhymes with Flaxen Savory.

More emotional pay-offs for each climactic episode
Grey’s Anatomy is known for its occasional blockbuster episode, which usually involves some tragedy besetting Seattle. Sometimes they come off as ratings ploys, and sometimes they transcend their sensational nature to usher in innovative drama. For example, the mass shooting at the hospital made for an incredible episode in its own right, but it also made Season 7 that much stronger, since the season dealt with the doctors healing their shattered world. The ferry crash made Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) face (and surrender to) her own mortality, and it also made Alex (Justin Chambers) assume a heroic role. But on the flip side, events like the sinkhole and the plane crash had no greater ramifications — they just made for exciting television commercials.

More tragedy
Ouch. We know. How dare we want the doctors to suffer? We’ll tell ya why — it makes for quality television. Izzie losing Denny, Bailey (Chanda Wilson) losing her husband, Richard (James Pickens Jr.) losing his sobriety and his wife, Cristina (Sandra Oh) losing her ability to operate, Meredith losing Zola, Arizona (Jessica Capshaw) losing her relationship, Callie (Sara Ramirez) nearly losing her life, et cetera, et cetera. When the doctors lose, Grey’s as a show wins. And the tragedy is even better when the audience knows something the doctors don’t, a.k.a. dramatic irony. For example, in this most recent episode, we knew that Cristina was operating on Henry when she didn’t, and we knew that Henry was dead when Teddy (Kim Raver) didn’t.

Closure
Regardless of what we think of the actors who portrayed them, we liked Burke, George, and Izzie. But none of these main characters had a satisfying send-off. Burke left Cristina at the altar and was never held accountable for his actions because Isaiah Washington was released from his contract. George O’Malley was hit by a bus, and Shonda Rhimes never got to write the one last episode for him that she wanted to because T.R. Knight declined to return. After being spurned by Alex, Izzie headed for Tacoma in an episode that was not intended to be her last because Katherine Heigl chose to leave the show for good. These abrupt departures make for choppy storytelling and fan frustration. Actors should be required to appear in one more farewell episode after their character dies or moves. Or, like our girl Kate Walsh, they should just come back once a season!

More Shonda episodes
Notice any commonality between the episodes we picked as our all-time favorites? Almost all of them were written by Shonda Rhimes — you know, the woman from whose brain this entire world and all of its drama and characters sprang? Don’t hold the fact that she wrote Crossroads against her; she has since become an absurdly talented writer on Grey’s, Private Practice, and the upcoming Scandal. There’s a reason why the episodes she writes are the most memorable, buzz-worthy chapters in each show’s saga.

Want more from Wetpaint Entertainment? Keep up on all things Grey’s Anatomy by Liking us on Facebook at facebook.com/GreysAnatomyFansite and Following us on Twitter at twitter.com/GreysWetpaint.

Hello, my name is Dan Clarendon, and I’m an addict. Ladies and gentlemen, I’m afraid to say I’ve had a bit of a setback. I thought my life was better off without Gossip Girl. Only a year and a half ago, I publicly condemned it, deeming it “flat” and “uninteresting.” I criticized the fact that none of the characters mature and that none of the break-ups and make-ups matter because none of them last.

Well, I’ve been tempted again, and I have to admit, I lost control. But it wasn’t my fault, I swear—I have enablers! My boyfriend is a junkie, too. And Netflix is my supplier. How can I help myself when every episode from the past four seasons is available to stream instantly? I started using Gossip Girl again to indulge my boyfriend because I know he loves it and I didn’t hate it. So I figured I’d get caught up so that we could watch together. What was the harm, I thought. And there was a time when I enjoyed it. But then I started liking it way more than I thought I would or should.

I started watching it independently. It became my primary source of procrastination. If I had my druthers, I’d probably be watching it now instead of blogging. It’s a perfectly decent show. It can be silly and proposterous and ocassionally dull, but when it’s salacious and scandalous, it can be one of the most addicting TV drugs I know.

Listen, don’t judge me, okay? I can make fun of it like the best of them. Blake Lively is not likely to win an Emmy. Taylor Momsen looks like a would-be Lohan. Ed Westwick’s name is Ed. But, hey: everyone is good-looking, the clothes are bizarre in a cool way, the music is pitch-perfect, the storylines are tantalizing, and—best of all—the show glorifies New York City. And it just makes me feel good, dammit!

Look: I can stop any time. I swear.

Glee creator Ryan Murphy’s announcement that the McKinley kids would be graduating and leaving the show at the end of this upcoming season (stated with a “isn’t-this-totes-obvs?” tone) caused a stir surprising to even Murphy himself. Gleeks are practically worked up into a lather of separation anxiety. And it makes sense: no one is excited about the prospect of Glee devoid of Rachel’s self-aggrandizing, Finn’s lumbering dance moves, Mercedes’s vocal runs, and Brittany’s non sequiturs.

But his rationale is valid. Unless the show abandoned all pretense at realism (and it’s already halfway there with the rock-concert-worthy production values that accompany each performance), it’d be hard to draw out the chronology enough to allow the characters to stay at McKinley for any more seasons.

But Gleeks need not worry. The original stars are fantastic in their own unique ways, and they are collectively responsible for selling us on the show, but the show is not defined by them. Rather, The show is defined by the concept, the tone, the theatricality, and the (overstated) themes. Let’s face it: if the show were to continue without the original kids, Gleeks would still watch and likely enjoy the show. After all, there were only six members of the Glee club in the pilot episode: Rachel, Finn, Mercedes, Kurt, Artie, and Tina. Quinn, Brittany, Santana, Puck, Mike, Sam, and Lauren were all added to the mix later. (Oh, yeah, and that Matt guy… but we barely remember him.)

Murphy’s challenge now will be to make the changing of the guard as seamless as possible. The reason we grew to like additions like Sam, Lauren, and our favorite Cheerios so much was that they weren’t billed as replacements but rather introduced organically and intriguingly. The same needs to happen with the new New Directions. We need to be so taken with them that we forget they’re taking the place of the original crew.

Television history is chock-full with examples of cast replacements done both well and poorly. Only a fraction of the Grey’s Anatomy cast are Season 1 veterans, but the newer doctors are all equally likable. ER was a revolving door of cast members, but the still stayed fairly popular. On the flip side, fans never took to Doggett or Reyes in The X-Files or Rachel and Tom in Alias because those characters weren’t introduced as smoothly and fans could neither forget nor forgive that they were the heirs apparent.

And it’s not like there won’t be holdovers. None of the adults have any particular reason to leave McKinley, so we’ll still have Mr. Schuester and Sue Sylvester, as long as the potential for Emma Pillsbury, Coach Beistie, and maybe Holly Holliday if we’re especially lucky.

Gleeks, I’m optimistic about the changeover. It’s not only necessary but also potentially reinvigorating for the show. Uh, hello, don’t stop believing, okay?

Due to a fair amount of personal upheaval and a great amount of procrastination, this blog has been broadcasting dead air for the past three months. My bad. But I’m back now and ready to continue commenting upon my own (and enabling your) television addiction. Much as I would have loved to keep the Lost rewatch going, a change of residences took priority. But I’ll get back to the Island soon. In the meantime, please look forward to the Second Annual Primie Awards, celebrating the best in television over the past year… or, at least, television that I’ve seen so far. (I’m woefully behind on The Walking Dead.) We will now return to your scheduled programming. I promise.

“The Cost of Living”

SYNOPSIS: Recuperating in a tent, Eko has a hallucination of his brother Yemi, beckoning Eko to follow him. The tent catches fire, and Charlie and Hurley rescue Eko, but EKo then disappears. The following morning, Locke announces his intention to go to the Pearl to try to communicate with the others. Charlie and Hurley say that they couldn’t find Eko but that he was mumbling something about his brother, so Locke deduces that Eko is headed to the drug plane on top of the Pearl. He, Sayid (returned from his sea voyage), Desmond, and two other Losties named Nikki and Paulo head off in that direction. In the jungle, Eko has more hallucinations and then sees the Monster—just before the search party finds him. Together, the group reaches the Pearl. Eko finds that his brother’s body is not in the plane. Inside the Pearl, Sayid fiddles with the wiring and group happens upon another security feed, showing a bank of computers and a man with an eyepatch who seems to notice their surveillance. Above ground, Eko sees his “brother” again and follows him into a field, where his brother asks for Eko’s confession—but Eko says that he regrets nothing and did what he did to survive. But this seems to anger his brother, who stalks off. Eko tries following him but comes face to face with the Monster, which fatally attacks him. Hearing the commotion, the search party finds Eko, and Eko dies in Locke’s arms. Locke says that Eko’s dying words were that they’re “next.” On the Hydra Island, the Others have a funeral for Colleen, and Jack tells Ben he knows that Ben needs spinal surgery—and Ben eventually confirms this claim. Juliet, however, shows Jack a videotaped message in which she holds up placards asking Jack to kill Ben during the surgery. In the flashback, Eko takes Yemi’s place as priest of the village but is confronted by militia men who swindle away most of the Red Cross supplies. He kills the men but, in so doing, loses his credibility as a priest and realizes that those militia men will only be replaced by others.

THOUGHTS: Rest in peace, Eko. I hate that this narrative decision was dictated by behind-the-scenes necessity: actor Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje asked to be written off. But the man must have had his reasons, so I’ll let it go. Again, Eko is like Shannon in that he spent one season on the show and was then killed off shortly into the next season, so part of me says, why bother bring him back? But if you look at the series as a continuous story without season breaks, it matters not. And this was a great story for Eko. His monologue of non-repentance is probably one of the best of the shows. And we see the Monster again as the terrifying and malicious force that it is, not just as the curious observer it seemed to be in its previous run-ins with Eko. Also, I want to address Nikki and Paulo, two characters who were doomed from the start. They’ll be killed off soon because the producers realized how little any of the audience liked them. However, as one who is sympathetic to television writers, I would have given them a shot… but I do think that they were introduced sloppily. It would have been better, I think, if they were introduced as near-strangers to our band of Losties, not people whom they knew all along and whom we’re only just meeting. But getting back to the story at hand, I think the Hydra Island stuff was the most interesting storyline of the episode. Jack showing off how perceptive he is to Ben, Ben denying it, Ben confessing his master plan and how it was ruined, Juliet revealing her duplicity—all very intriguing and delightful drama. Next up: the mid-season finale, in which these Hydra plots will come to a head.

“I Do”

SYNOPSIS: Jack talks to Ben about his spine situation and that he needed surgery “yesterday.” Ben says he’s ready for immediate surgery, but Jack says he never agreed to do it—he doesn’t think Ben will hold up his end of the bargain. At the construction site, Alex ambushes the Others as Kate and Sawyer continue breaking up rocks: she’s looking for Karl. The Others capture her and drag her away. Juliet arrives and tells Kate to convince Jack to do the surgery or else they’ll kill Sawyer, and she takes Kate to deliver the message. Kate does so, and the ploy angers Jack. Back in the cages, Kate demands to know why Sawyer is so defeated and Sawyer reveals that they’re not on their Island. Even despite their desperation, the two kiss passionately, which leads to, uh, other passion. Meanwhile, Jack manages to escape from his tank and spots Kate and Sawyer embracing on the surveillance feed. Ben walks in on him, and Jack says that he’ll do the surgery if Ben can get him off the island. The next morning, the surgery begins with Jack operating, Juliet assisting, and Tom watching. Pickett takes this chance to kill Sawyer, and he holds Sawyer at gunpoint as Kate pleads with him not to do it. Jack then cuts Ben’s kidney sac as leverage and demands that the Others release Kate and Sawyer. He tells Kate over a walkie-talkie to tell him a story he told her when they first met when they get to the beach so that he knows that they’re safe. Kate is reluctant to leave without Jack, but he yells at her to run. On the Island, Locke, Sayid, Nikki, and Paulo hold an impromptu funeral for Eko in the jungle, and Locke spots what seems to be a message to him engraved on Eko’s walking stick. In the flashback, Kate tries settling down with a husband in Miami, and the U.S. Marshal pursuing her offers her immunity if she can truly settle down, but she reveals her fugitive status to her husband and flees.

THOUGHTS: I don’t think it was a hare-brained idea to air six episodes in a row during the fall and then the rest in a row during the spring since it gave Lost addicts a fix, but damn, if this episode didn’t leave on a (awesomely) frustrating cliffhanger. Will Kate obey Jack and leave him on the Hydra Island—possibly forever—or will she try to rescue him? Well, we know now that she’ll do the former, but it seemed at the time like she could go either way. That final scene was probably the best and most intense of the episode. But there were two runners-up: the scene in which Jack taunts Ben and mocks his plight and the scene in which Kate realizes why Sawyer has given up trying to escape and that he was looking out for her morale. The flashback provided a nice foil to Kate’s on-Island flight-or-fight dilemma, and it’s especially good because of the addition of one Nathan Fillion of Firefly fame. But anyway, it’s a good thing I don’t have to wait three months for the next episode, eh?

“Not in Portland”

SYNOPSIS: Kate and Sawyer run, and Juliet calls Jack’s bluff and orders the other Others to hunt down Kate and Sawyer and kill them if necessary. Angered, Jack tells Tom about how Juliet wanted Jack to botch the surgery, and Tom makes Juliet leave the room. At the beach, Kate and Sawyer are helpless without a boat, and the Others catch up to them, but Alex arrives and helps them elude the Others. She offers passage to the main Island in exchange for their help rescuing her boyfriend Karl. Meanwhile, Ben awakens and overhears the whole situation. He asks to speak to Juliet alone. They converse privately, and then Juliet asks Jack to finish the surgery; in exchange, she’ll help Kate and Sawyer escape. Kate, Sawyer, and Alex go to a different part of the Hydra compound, overtake the guard, and find Karl undergoing some sort of brainwash experiment. At the beach, Pickett finds the escapees loading onto Alex’s canoe and is about to shoot them when Juliet emerges from the jungle and shoots him dead. She lets the escapees go, but holds Alex back, saying that Ben would kill Karl if Alex went along. (By this point, we assume that Alex is Ben’s daughter.) Juliet gives Kate a walkie-talkie, and Kate tells Jack to story he told her, signaling that she’s safe. He tells her never to come back for him. She, Sawyer, and Karl depart for the main Island. Jack finishes the surgery and later asks Juliet what Ben said to her to make her help him. Juliet tells him that she’s been on the island for more than three years and Ben told her that he’d finally let her go home. In the flashback, Juliet’s brilliant fertility research helps her cancer-stricken sister conceive, and she attracts the attention of one Richard Alpert from Mittelos Bioscience in Portland who tries to recruit her. Her only impediment is that her controlling ex-husband (and boss) won’t let her leave, but he is suspciously hit by a bus shortly thereafter. We get the idea that Juliet takes the job and that’s how she arrived on the Island, especially when Alpert tells her that their facility is “not quite in Portland.”

THOUGHTS: Coming back from the mini-hiatus, we get an episode that’s as action-packed and dramatic as any season premiere. And our first glimpse into Juliet’s past and how fate—or, perhaps more accurately, the machinations of the Others—brought her to the Island. (Can we definitely conclude that the Others had a hand in the “accident” that killed Juliet’s ex? No. But it does seem like too much of a coincidence to ignore.) This episode ratchets up the tension significantly, seeing as how now Ben knows about Juliet’s plot to kill him. It’s surprising that Juliet ordered Kate and Sawyer captured or killed and that Jack revealed Juliet’s plot. Perhaps Juliet was playing along or perhaps not, but in any case, Jack’s counterattack is just pure spite. There’s a whole lot of moral ambiguity to go around in this episode! And, as a bonus, we first meet Richard Alpert, who will play a significant role in the second half of the series.

“Flashes Before Your Eyes”

SYNOPSIS: Desmond retrieves Hurley and Charlie from the camp to talk to Sayid and Locke in the jungle. The latter explain that Eko is dead and that Charlie and Hurley need to ease the camp’s panic. Just then, Desmond seems to get a premonition and runs toward the beach. Arriving there, he finds that a woman is being swept out to sea. It turns out to be Claire, and Desmond rescues and resuscitates her. Charlie is curious to know how he knew she was drowning and how he knew about the lightning bolt, so he and Hurley conspire to get him drunk. They do, but Desmond keeps mum. Charlie calls him a coward, and Desmond attacks him and recalls what he experienced following the Swan implosion. And what he experienced turns out to be time travel back to 1996 when he was happily dating Penny and contemplating marriage—but in this iteration, he keeps getting flash-forwards to his Island life. He tries to ask for Charles Widmore’s permission, but Widmore says that Desmond will never be a good man. (Seeing the boat model in Widmore’s office reminds Desmond of the boat he’ll own later, the Elizabeth.) On the way out of the office, Desmond sees Charlie playing guitar on the street and recognizes him from his flash-forwards, but Charlie doesn’t recognize Desmond. He meets a physicist friend of his at a pub, who denies any possibility of time travel. Desmond tries to prove it to his friend by predicting what would happen in the soccer match playing on the television, but the game doesn’t go as he predicts. He goes home to Penny, who comforts him. The next day, he tries to buy an engagement ring, but the lady behind the counter—Eloise Hawking—refuses to sell it to him because he’s not meant to marry Penny. She explains to Desmond how the universe has a way of “course-correcting” and that everything that is meant to happen will happen somehow. Later, he breaks up with Penny, claiming to not be the man he’s not to be. Penny calls him a coward. Desmond drowns his sorrows at the same pub and then watches the events he predicted unfold during that night’s soccer match. Then he realizes that he just had the wrong night in mind and that he can still master his own destiny, but just then, he ends up in the middle of a bar fight and is knocked unconscious. It’s then that he wakes up naked in the jungle. Back in the present, Charlie takes Desmond back to Desmond’s tent, and they both apologize. But then Desmond explains that it was Charlie who was going to be struck by lightning and Charlie who was going to drown trying to save Claire, and that no matter what happens, Charlie will die.

THOUGHTS: Here’s the first of Desmond’s mind-blowing time-travel episodes. On paper (or on blog, rather), it might sounds completely bonkers, but on screen, it’s so cleverly constructed that you have to applaud the writers for their creativity and dramatic know-how. Not only does this episode deal with revising the past (in a It’s a Wonderful Life kind of way), but it also deals with some pretty heady concepts dealing with determinism—the old “fate versus free will” debate. And it’s Eloise Hawking who introduces these concepts, a woman who will continue to play an eerily prescient role in the remainder of the series and who is very much connected to Charles Widmore. This episode is unique because up until now, we haven’t seen one uninterrupted flashback that takes up most of the episode. The on-Island events are really just bookends. That last scene, however, is certainly a doozy: all this time we thought that Desmond was saving Claire, but no, he has actually been saving Charlie. And now he thinks that he can’t save Charlie forever. If he weren’t drunk at the time, I doubt Desmond would have told Charlie all of that, because that’s a serious bummer of which Charlie should have been blissfully ignorant!

“A Tale of Two Cities”

SYNOPSIS: We see a woman hosting a book club in what looks like a suburban community—but then the ground shakes and a plane falls from the sky, and only then do we realize that this is the Others’ community. The man we know as Henry sends Ethan and Goodwin to the fuselage crash site and to the tail, respectively. Back in the present, Jack wakes up in some sort of glass cell. The book club lady appears on the other side of the glass and introduces herself as Juliet. She has food, but Jack refuses to eat. He finally seems to relent but attacks Juliet when she enters the cell and uses her to secure his escape, and Henry lets him go. When Jack tries exiting through a door, however, water rushes in and he and Juliet scramble to close the door. Juliet then knocks him out. When he comes to (back in the cell), he deduces that he’s in an underwater aquarium. Juliet tells him that this is the Hydra station and that they know all about him and his life. He asks after his ex-wife, and Juliet tells him that she’s happy. Outside the cell, Henry commends Juliet, and she says, “Thank you, Ben.” Meanwhile, Kate wakes up in a locker room, and Tom instructs her to take a shower and to put on a certain dress. She does, and he takes her to a beach, where Ben is waiting at a table with a full breakfast. She asks why he did it all, and he said that the next two weeks will be unpleasant and that he wanted her to have something nice to hang on to. Sawyer wakes up in an outdoor cage with a young man named Karl in the opposite cage. Sawyer tries pushing a button in the cage (against Karl’s warnings) and is electrocuted on the third push. He finally beats the system and is rewarded with a fish biscuit and some water. He then learns that this is where the polar bears were kept. Karl tries to escape and sets Sawyer free, but they’re both captured, and Sawyer is put back. Kate is brought to the opposite cage. In the flashback, Jack is having trouble dealing with his divorce and accuses his father of having an affair with Sarah, and Jack learns from Sarah this confrontation cost Christian his sobriety.

THOUGHTS: After all the events of the last season finale, it’s good to have an episode with a narrower scope—this one just focuses on the three abductees and their plights at the Others’ so-called home. That said, it looks nothing like the suburbs-like settlement we see at the beginning of the episode. Hmm! (Speaking of which, that was a very clever way to begin the episode. It seems like a total non sequitur featuring some woman we’ve never seen before until we see Oceanic 815 coming down and realize that, hey, we’re on the Island after all!) And a big welcome to Juliet, who will be with us for the next three seasons and will eventually become a beloved character. For now, though, she just seems like an unflappable Other who might be more on Jack’s side than the other Others. And we finally learn that Henry’s name is actually Ben. (Though you already knew that if you’ve been reading these blog posts!) The conversation between Ben and Kate is deeply unsettling and reveals the extent of Ben’s vengefulness. All in all, this episode is an intriguingly creepy departure from the usual Lostie saga. (And more kudos for Julie Bowen and John Terry for so capably upping the drama again in Jack’s flashback.)

“The Glass Ballerina”

SYNOPSIS: Concerned that Jack can’t see the signal fire, Sayid has Jin and Sun sail the Elizabeth farther around the Island. They find the dock (from which Jack, Kate, and Sawyer were taken) and get to work building a new fire. Sun asks Sayid why this one is so large, and Sayid confesses that he suspects that their friends have been taken and that he wants to provoke an attack to capture some Others to interrogate. Jin wises up to the charade and asks for a gun. Once night falls, Sun stays in the boat while Sayid and Jin lie in wait, but the Others approach from the water and board the boat. An Other named Colleen finds Sun and seems to know all about her and knows that she won’t kill her, but Sun shoots her in the stomach and then flees overboard. Jin and Sayid rush out to to the dock when they hear the commotion, and Jin finds Sun uninjured in the water. Earlier, at the Hydra, Colleen tells Ben that the Losties have a boat, and Ben seems worried that they’ll find the Hydra, so he orders an assault team to capture the boat. Meanwhile, Colleen’s husband Danny orders Kate and Sawyer to break up rocks at a construction site under the threat of being Tasered. Alex, Rousseau’s daughter, whispers to Kate from a bush and asks her if she’s seen a boy in a cage. Later, Sawyer impulsively kisses Kate, and steals a gun when the Others try to break them up, but he is forced to drop it when he sees that Juliet has Kate at gunpoint. As Sawyer and Kate talk over the event later and conspire to overtake the Others, Ben watches them via surveillance cameras. He later introduces himself to Jack and tells him that he needs him for a specific task and that he’ll take Jack home if he does the task. Jack tells him that he thinks the Others are stuck on the Island just like the Losties, but Ben proves that he has contact with the outside world by showing Jack a video of the Red Sox winning the World Series after Oceanic 815 crashed. In the flashback, Sun’s father catches her having an affair with the hotel heir Jae Lee, and he demands that Jin “deliver a message.” Though Jin decides to spare Jae Lee’s life, Jae Lee commits suicide. At the funeral, Sun’s father tells her that it is not his place to tell Jin of the affair.

THOUGHTS: The scope of the story is being widened slowly but surely: now Sayid, Jin, and Sun are added to the mix. Sayid, ever intuitive, realizes that something is amiss and immediately takes action to get the drop on the Others, but they outsmart him by approaching by sea (Ethan fooled Sayid the same way in Season 1!). Luckily, it all turns out okay for our Losties and not so well for the Others, all because Sun turns into a bit of a badass and flat-out shoots Colleen right as Colleen is going on about how Sun won’t shoot her. The plot thickens at the Hydra: Ben shows Jack the full scope of the Others’ operation in an inventive way. It’s almost jarring to see real-world events literally superimposed on the Island events. All this time, it really had felt like the Losties were in a snow globe. (And it’s kinda funny that the airdates and the on-Island timeframe have become so distanced—we’re still in 2004 on the Island at this point.) The Others force Sawyer and Kate to do back-breaking manual labor, and Sawyer rebels by showing the Others that they can’t breaking his spirit—nor his ladykiller ways! It could have been totally incongruous, but the kiss felt so natural and so right for some reason. I mean, why not, right? The flashback is interesting—Sun, you naughty lady—but not a favorite installment in the Jin/Sun story and not because Jin and Sun are at odds but because it’s not as elegant as some of the other flashbacks.

“Further Instructions”

SYNOPSIS: Locke wakes up in the jungle after the Swan detonation and realizes he can’t speak. He goes back to the Losties’ camp and finds Charlie and solicits his help. He builds a sweat lodge and has Charlie stand guard as he hallucinates inside. In his fever dream, Boone leads him around an airport in a wheelchair saying that Locke has to help someone. Locke realizes it’s Eko, and he emerges from the sweat lodge—his voice restored—and sets off with Charlie to save Eko’s life. They find the crater from the Swan implosion, they find signs that Eko was dragged off by a polar bear, and they find Hurley in the jungle. Hurley tells them of the Others confrontation, and Locke tells him to go deliver the message as the Others told him to do. Locke and Charlie find the bear’s cave and Locke heads in armed with a torch and hairspray. He finds a skeleton of a Dharma person and then finds Eko, badly injured. The bear drags Eko further into the cave, but Locke uses the hairspray to scorch the bear, and it releases Eko. Hurley finds Desmond naked in the jungle, and Desmond tells him about how he turned activated the Swan’s fail-safe. When Hurley freaks out about Jack, Kate, and Sawyer, Demond reassures him by reminding him of Locke’s speech—which doesn’t happen until the end of the episode when Locke and Charlie return to the camp and Locke promises that he’ll find the abductees. Hurley realizes this is the speech Demond was talking about and is duly weirded out. In the flashback, Locke picks up a hitchhiker named Eddie and takes him to the commune at which he’s currently residing, and Eddie ends up staying six weeks. But Eddie turns out to be an undercover cop investigating the marijuana the commune is growing, and Locke promises the leaders that he’ll fix the situation, but he ends up unable to kill Eddie—and feeling impotent once more.

THOUGHTS: And now, for a change of pace, we have an episode that deals with neither the abductees nor the Others but just with the Losties. Locke’s hallucinations gave the production crew an excuse to get a bit stylish with the show, and we get an airport scene loaded with clever symbolism (and a fair amount of glamour!). And it’s always good to see a deceased character like Boone again, and his appearance is especially fitting since Locke still bears a lot of guilt about not being able to save him. Locke isn’t about to let another person die for a mistake he made, so he sets out to find and rescue Eko. And he finds the man in the clutches of the polar bears, which is also fun since Sawyer is trapped in the bear’s former abode. The other especially interesting aspect of this episode is that it eludes to Desmond’s emerging clairvoyance. For now, we’re just wondering “How did he know?” But we’ll see a lot more examples in the episodes to come. The flashback is interesting in that it’s so kooky but at the same time sensical. In a way, it makes perfect sense that Locke would deal with his anger over his father’s con by staying at a marijuana-growing commune. And the Island storyline and flashback both deal with Locke’s ability/inability to “fix” things—and hey, that’s another way in which he mirrors Jack.

“Every Man for Himself”

SYNOPSIS: In the Hydra aquarium, Jack and Juliet argue over who has authority amongst the Others, but Ben summons Juliet because the submarine has just arrived and Colleen is on the verge of dying from Sun’s bullet. Pickett is notified, and Sawyer realizes that if Pickett is preoccupied by Colleen’s injury, he won’t notice the puddle extending from the cage and Sawyer can electrocute him. But it’s Ben who approaches the cage next—and Sawyer tries his plan, but Ben tells him he had the electricity turned off and then beats him unconscious. He comes to on an operating table, but the Others inject him with something and he loses consciousness again. When he comes to again, Ben shows him a rabbit in a cage and starts violently shaking the cage. The rabbit keels over. Ben informs him that they implanted him and the rabbit with the same pacemaker that will kill him if his heartbeat gets too fast. He’s taken back to his cage, and Kate wants them to escape, but Sawyer tells her it’s no use, knowing he can’t outrun the Others now. Meanwhile, Juliet retrieves Jack to help with Colleen’s surgery. On the way to the operating room, Jack sees spinal x-rays. He is unable to save Colleen, though. Pickett, enraged, beats Sawyer until he gets Kate to admit that she loves Sawyer. Later, Kate squeezes out the top of her cage, but goes back in when Sawyer refuses to budge, reminding him of their “live together, die alone” motto. In the operating room, Jack remarks on the x-rays to Juliet and asks her who he’s there to save. Ben takes Sawyer on a arduous hike, and when Sawyer wonders if this is his tactic to get his heart beating too fast, Ben shows him the same rabbit, tells him that he doesn’t have a pacemaker inside, and says that the Others are not killers. They finally reach their destination, a lookout point from which Sawyer can see that the Hydra is on a second smaller island at a distance from the main Island. Ben says that the only way to earn the respect of a con man is to con him. On the main Island, Desmond constructs a lightning rod just in time to save Claire from a freak bolt. In the flashback, Cassidy visits Sawyer in jail and tells him of their daughter Clementine, but Sawyer denies his paternity. He cons a fellow roommate into revealing the location of a stash of $10 million so that he can have the last six years of his sentence commuted, and he tells the warden to have his reward but in an Albuquerque back account in the name of Clementine Phillips.

THOUGHTS: And now we’re back with the abductees on the Hydra—shocker!—Island. The main Island must be pretty huge if the Losties never noticed a second island nearby. But then again, we know that it’s big since they’re always talking about cross-Island walks taking multiple days. This episode advanced the plot in a lot of cool ways. The Others come up with a crafty way of getting Sawyer to abandon his escape ruses and later reveal to him how futile escape would be anyway. Ben reveals himself to be a pretty wily con man in his own right. Kate professes her love for Sawyer, though it’s ambiguous whether she was lying or not. Jack realizes the real reason why he’s at the Hydra if not the person he was brought to save. And Desmond continues to show off his knowledge of the future and more of the Losties take notice. And in the flashback, we are reminded of two things: a) Sawyer is extraordinarily good as conning, and b) he has a heart! He’s not without emotions, after all! Hooray!

For those of you wondering where the latest installment of my Lost re-watch is, don’t fret. I’ve decided to take a two week hiatus after every two seasons just to publish a few other non-Lost stories for the non-Lost fans. (Blog post variety is the spice of life.) And here it is Emmy time again! As I said last year, I’m not predicting the winners here, mind you, but stating for whom I’m rooting. I haven’t seen all of the nominated shows and performances, but from what I have seen, here are my picks for some of the top categories.

Outstanding Drama Series
Lost

I know, this post was supposed to be non-Lost, right? But this show should be commended for providing a powerful and daring end to the Island saga—and one that was incredibly satisfying emotionally (if not mythologically). And as far as cultural touchstones for the decade go, Lost tops this particular list of nominees.

Outstanding Comedy Series
Modern Family

Based on the per-episode number of laughs-out-loud, this show takes the cake. If there were a category for comedic drama (or dramatic comedy, rather), then I’d give that award to Glee.

Outstanding Lead Actor – Drama Series
Matthew Fox (Lost)

His performance in the last hour of Lost alone merits this award, I think. Re-watching the show, I’m struck by how good of an actor he is in all scenarios. If he ever missteps, I certainly never notice.

Outstanding Lead Actress – Drama Series
Julianna Margulies (The Good Wife)

The show itself is a fascinating look into one person’s struggle to forgive and another’s struggle earn forgiveness. And Margulies—playing the former—is the anti-scenery chewer: she’s all internal, and yet we can somehow sense and understand every emotion.

Outstanding Lead Actor – Comedy Series
Matthew Morrison (Glee)

I half-hope Larry David wins, but Morrison’s combination of humor, emotion, singing abilities, dance movies, and—yes—hair gel is entirely far too winning to ignore.

Outstanding Lead Actress – Comedy Series
Amy Poehler (Parks & Recreation)

It’s a crime that the show as a whole wasn’t nominated, but I think a win for the much-deserving Poehler would adequately reward Parks and Recreation‘s second-season reinvention into a show that is equal to (if not superior to) its predecessor, The Office.

Outstanding Supporting Actor – Drama Series
Michael Emerson (Lost)

Again, I gotta stick by my love for Lost on this one. Emerson is an awe-inspiring actor, and somehow he and the writers transformed Ben from the show’s greatest villain to a tragic soul desperate for redemption who actually becomes likable as a person by the end.

Outstanding Supporting Actress – Drama Series
Elisabeth Moss (Mad Men)

I’d be happy if any of the actresses nominated in this category won, but I think Moss showed the most range this past season. Peggy is coming into her own as a near-equal to the agency’s partners, yet Moss still plays her with the perfect amount of dorkiness and vulnerability.

Outstanding Supporting Actor – Comedy Series
Eric Stonestreet (Modern Family)

It’s so hard to choose between the three Modern Family actors nominated, but I think you’d be hard-pressed to find any fan of the show who doesn’t list Cam among his or her favorite characters.

Outstanding Supporting Actress – Comedy Series
Jane Lynch (Glee)

No question. Sue Sylvester is the bitchiest, most fiendish, and most quotable characters to grace the small screen in years. Good on ya, Jane Lynch.

Outstanding Reality Competition Program
The Amazing Race

I know this show has won so many times before, but it’s just so thrilling, amusing, and even educational at times. I mean, who doesn’t want to compete on this show?

]]> http://primetimely.com/2010/08/2010-emmys-my-winners/feed/ 1 http://primetimely.com/2010/08/lost-season-2-episodes-21-24/ http://primetimely.com/2010/08/lost-season-2-episodes-21-24/#comments Tue, 24 Aug 2010 01:11:39 +0000 Dan Clarendon http://primetimely.com/?p=878

I’m on a quest to re-watch every episode of Lost, one per day. As I polish off each DVD, I’ll post my thoughts on the episodes contained therein. (Even if it’s a couple days late!)

“?”

SYNOPSIS: In a dream, Ana Lucia and Yemi tell Eko that John Locke needs his help. Jack, Kate, Sawyer, and Locke arrive at the Swan to find Michael stumbling out of it. The group finds the bodies of Ana and Libby inside. Ana’s dead, but Libby suddenly coughs up blood. Eko and Locke go off to track “Henry,” but Eko’s real motive is finding the question mark (a buzzword from his dream), and he demands that Locke take him there. Locke gives him his version of the blast door map with the question mark in the middle. The two of them happen upon the Nigerian drug plane and camp there for the night. Meanwhile, Jack realizes he can do nothing to save Libby and sends Sawyer to get some of the heroin from his stash to ease her suffering. Kate goes with him, and they break the bad news to Hurley. At the drug plane, Locke has a dream involving Yemi up in the tree above, so Eko climbs said tree. He sees nothing at first but then spots a question mark made out of dirt below, with the wrecked plane obscuring the dot of the mark. Below the plane, they discover a hatch leading to the Pearl, a Dharma station dedicated to the observation of the Swan inhabitants. Locke believes this to mean that the button-pushing was just a psychological experiment, but Eko thinks all of the twists of fate prove the button-pushing is indeed important. Back at the Swan, Hurley says his goodbyes to Libby, and she dies while trying to warn them about Michael. In the flashback, Eko, posing as Father Tunde, is sent by a fellow priest to investigate the supposed miracle of a teenage girl coming back to life after having drowned. He determines it’s just a mistake on the part of the medical examiner, but the girl later confronts him, saying that his brother Yemi still has faith in him.

THOUGHTS: I’m amusing myself thinking that this episode’s title should be pronounced like the Tim Allen “uhhh?” noise from the opening credits of Home Improvement. But that inanity aside, let’s continue. I guess I was a wee bit hasty in declaring two series regulars to be dead in my last recap. I forgot that Libby lived on for one more episode. But as injured and out of it as she was, it could hardly be called living, and it was hard to see Jack so powerless to help her. Her being alive for that long, however, set up some great dramatic irony for the viewing audience, as we got to see Michael squirm and worry about his crime being revealed. You can really see the “Well, rats” thought (to put it mildly) cross his face when he realizes that he didn’t really finish Libby off. And in the other storyline, it’s interesting to see Eko and Locke, two men of differing faiths, switch perspectives on the button-pushing. At first, it was Locke who was gung-ho about it and Eko who was apathetic. Now it’s the exact opposite. Eko does have a point though—his plane crash landing on the same island as his brother’s plane—which happened to fall at the base of a question mark leading to a Hatch… it does seem to be a convincing argument for fate and destiny. But on the other hand, the Pearl’s orientation video does lay out an awfully convincing argument for Locke’s guinea-pig point-of-view. Dilemma! Who to believe?! At least we’ll get the answer soon.

“Three Minutes”

SYNOPSIS: Through a series of flashbacks, we see what happens when Michael runs off to find Walt. He corners an Other in the jungle but is ambushed from behind by more of them. He’s brought to the truce line and kept gagged while the Other with the beard taunts Jack, Sawyer, and Locke and makes off with their guns. A couple days later, the Others and Michael arrive at the Others’ camp, which seems to be a huddle of tents surrounding a hatch. A woman named Ms. Klugh asks Michael questions about Walt and his powers. Later, Michael convinces Ms. Klugh to let him see Walt, and Walt tells him that all the Others have done to him is make him take tests—but he also says that the Others are “pretending.” Ms. Klugh tells Michael that to get Walt back, he needs to deliver Jack, Kate, Sawyer, and Hurley. During present day, Michael is having trouble convincing the other Losties that only those four people can accompany him to attack the Others. He finally gets Sayid to stay, but Sayid becomes suspicious of him and relays these concerns to Jack. Meanwhile, Eko begins pushing the button, Charlie tries to build the church without Eko and also throws the remaining Virgin Mary statues into the ocean, the Losties have a funeral for Ana Lucia and Libby, and Sun spots a sailboat just offshore.

THOUGHTS: Michael has become such a villain. There are no limits to his treachery and deceit! But it’s obvious that all the subterfuge and, you know, murder is taking a toll on him, mentally and physically. But it’s also hard on us, physically, to watch this episode, because I just feel repulsed whenever he dares show his face onscreen! Whatever happened to the shower-building, rock-clearing, raft-building Michael? I think it’s the beard. It exerts its evil grip on his face and thus his mind. Right? No? Maybe I’m a bit delirious. But this is a pretty riveting episode, especially once we arrive at the Others’ “camp.” It’s intriguing that they’re so fascinated with Walt, but again, I wish his powers got a little more play over the rest of the series. And Walt reveals a few nuggets of information, like that the Others are all pretending. Obviously I know what he’s talking about, but first-run audiences wouldn’t find out until four months later. And here’s yet another episode ending in a cliffhanger—one that leads straight into…

“Live Together, Die Alone” (Parts 1 & 2)

SYNOPSIS: Jack, Sayid, and Sawyer swim out to the boat, where they find a drunk Desmond below deck. He explains that he tried to sail west but was led back to the Island, and he claims there’s no world out there anymore—that they’re in a snow globe. And at this point, I’ll skip to the flashback scenes. Desmond is released from prison and immediately greeted by Richard Widmore, the father of Desmond’s love Penny. Widmore shows Desmond all of the letters Desmond wrote that he intercepted and tries to buy Desmond off, but Desmond refuses the money. Instead he decides to win Widmore’s sailboat race, and by happenstance, he meets and impresses Libby at a coffeeshop, and she gives him her late husband’s sailboat. Penny finds him training for the race, and he tells her of his plan and that he’ll be back in a year. But a storm takes him by surprise and washes him overboard, and he wakes up on a beach. A man in a HAZMAT suit takes him to the Swan and introduces himself as Kelvin Inman. He explains the routine to Desmond, and the two of them carry on pushing the button for two years. Finally, when Inman is going out in his HAZMAT suit one day (which he says protects him from “infection”), Desmond notices a tear in the suit. He follows Inman out of the Swan and sees him take off the suit. He stalks Inman to a beach, where he sees that Inman has been repairing Desmond’s sailboat. He confronts Inman about it, and Inman offers to take him along. But Desmond is infuriated, and he attacks Inman and inadvertently kills him. He makes it back to the Swan after the countdown has ended, and narrowly wards off a “system failure.” He is despondent, especially after he finds a letter from Penny from before his prison sentence in the last Dickens book he had left to read, in which she declares her undying love for him. He is on the brink of suicide when he hears Locke pounding on the hatch door (after Boone’s death) and rejoices, knowing soon he’ll be free to leave the Island. Back in present day, Sayid tells Jack that he can use the sailboat to sail around the Island and scope out the Others’ camp before the team attacks. He does with the help of Jin and Sun, and they arrive at the Others’ camp (after seeing a the four-toed foot of a statue). Sayid discovers that the camp is deserted and that the hatch is fake. Meanwhile, the team encounters the Island’s huge bird—which seems to squawk Hurley’s name—and Michael tries to shoot it only to discover that his gun isn’t loaded. Jack tries to play it off, but Michael seems suspicious. Later, they spot Others trailing them and fire upon them. This causes discord within the group, and Jack confronts Michael, forcing him to admit to killing Ana and Libby. Jack says that it’s too late to not stick to the plan but assures his friends that he has a trick up his sleeve (named Sayid). But he’s thrown for a loop when Sayid’s smoke signal rises from a different direction—it turns out Michael wasn’t taking him to the Others’ camp after all. Just then, the whole gang (except Michael) are tased by the Others. They’re taken to a dock by a group including the bearded man (whose name is revealed to be Tom), Ms. Klugh, and Alex. Meanwhile, Locke convinces Desmond to help him let the Swan countdown run down to zero, and to do that, they fake a blackout to lure Eko out of the computer room and then initiate a lockdown to keep him out. Eko asks Charlie for help, and together they retrieve some sticks of dynamite. But the resulting explosion doesn’t penetrate the blast doors. In the computer room, Desmond wonders if the button-pushing is real and the Pearl was the experiment. He asks Locke about the crash, and Locke says it happened on September 22nd. Checking the Swan logs that Locke printed out in the Pearl, Desmond realizes that that was the day he killed Inman and fended off the system failure—and he realizes that he (and the resulting electromagnetic surge) crashed Oceanic 815. Locke rejects this notion and smashes the computer, and Desmond tells him he killed them all. The countdown reaches zero, the computer starts saying “system failure,” and Desmond goes below the floor with the key to the fail-safe switch to blow up the Hatch and save everything. As the increasing electromagnetic surge causes the Swan to disintegrate, Locke comes face-to-face with Eko and fearfully admits that he was wrong. Desmond triggers the fail-safe, causing a very loud mechanical noise to resonate throughout the Island and the sky to turn violet. Meanwhile, Ben arrives at the dock, chastises Tom for removing his fake beard, and greets the Losties. He gives the boat and Walt to Michael and tells him to head off at exactly 325 degrees. Michael and Walt leave. Ms. Klugh lets Hurley go and tells him to warn the other Losties not to try any rescue attempts. Hurley asks what will happen to his friends, and “Henry” says that they’re coming “home with us.” They put hoods over the heads of Jack, Kate, and Sawyer. In an epilogue, Charlie comes back to the beach and appears to reunite with Claire. In the final sequence, a two-man team in some snowy, mountainous locale detects an electromagnetic anomaly and calls Penny Widmore to say that they “found it.”

THOUGHTS: Do you even see how long that synopsis is? Bless Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse for making such plot-packed episodes. But, like I said before, they still manage to create these moving character stories at the same time. This is the kind of writing to which I aspire. Some shows are all plot, some are all character, and some manage to achieve the seemingly impossible and shoehorn both in. First of all, the double-length flashback story both fills us in on Desmond’s history (and explains some of his nutty behavior) and downloads a ton of information about the Swan. It’s beautifully tragic when Desmond opens the book he had been waiting all that time to read only to find a letter from Penny about which he can do nothing… only to have a beacon of hope (in the form of John Locke banging on the door above). Plus, we get another sweet scene with Libby, and there’s a nice symmetry about the fact that her namesake is spotted offshore as she’s being buried on the beach. Then in present day, we get a few different forks in the story of the Losties. Sayid realizes the extent to which the Others are, as Walt says, “pretending.” Michael is revealed to be lying about both the intent and the destination of the trek across the Island. And Desmond and Locke stare down the barrel of the button-pushing gun only to realize that “it’s all real,” and it takes an act of enormous sacrifice on Desmond’s part to avert a global catastrophe. Michael leaves the Island with Walt, seemingly sure to find rescue, though ironically, his situation makes it so that he’ll never tell anyone about the Island for fear of self-incrimination. And the Others announce that they’re taking Jack, Kate, and Sawyer to wherever their “home” is. But the most intriguing cliffhanger is the very last scene, in which a team at some sort of monitoring system seems to locate the Island, and it turns out they’re working at the behest of none other than Penny—a development foreshadowed by when she tells Desmond that “with enough time and determination, you can find anyone.” All in all, it was a gripping finale that sort of put the Season 1 finale to shame… and that’s sayin’ somethin’!

I’m on a quest to re-watch every episode of Lost, one per day. As I polish off each DVD, I’ll post my thoughts on the episodes contained therein. (Even if it’s a couple days late!)

“Lockdown”

SYNOPSIS: Sayid, Charlie, and Ana Lucia find Jennifer Gale’s grave and then Henry Gale’s balloon. In the Swan, blast doors come down around the living area, trapping Locke. He manages to stop one door from descending fully, and he asks Henry to help him stabilize it so that Locke can enter the Numbers. But the door suddenly drops as Locke tries to slide under it, crushing his leg. Henry then has to navigate through the air ducts to get to the computer. From Locke’s point of view, we hear the countdown reach zero, and then black lights illuminate the living area, revealing some sort of map drawn on the blast door. But before long, the blast doors recede, and everything returns to normal. Locke crawls to the computer room, where Henry finds him. Locke thanks him for not trying to escape. Henry says that he entered the Numbers, he saw the hieroglyphics, and then it went back to normal. But then, Jack and Kate arrive with Charlie, Sayid, and Ana Lucia. Jack pins Henry to the wall as Sayid explains that they found the balloon and the corpses of both Jennifer and Henry Gale. Also in this episode, Jack bests Sawyer in a game of poker, Jack lies to Kate about the situation in the Swan, and the two of them find a pallet of Dharma food attached to a parachute. In the flashback, Locke finds out his father died, but his father actually reveals himself to be alive and trying to elude men to whom he owes money. He asks Locke to retrieve the money for him in exchange for a cut of it, but Helen finds out and ends their relationship because of Locke’s obsession.

THOUGHTS: The mythology thickens. The blast door map is something that only adds to the Island’s intrigue to the casual viewer and provides a ton of hints to the fanatical one who studies the freeze-frame (as I did after this episode first aired). If only Desmond were still around to explain all of these Swan quirks! Meanwhile, Henry Gale’s story almost checks out. Had Sayid not been so thorough and determined to expose Henry, who knows what kind of ruckus the Others’ could have caused with this infiltrator. The last shot is great: we see Ben’s face, partially obscured by the angry Losties’ surrounding him, trying to deduce his own fate. Definitely a “Well, rats” moment for Ben, to put it mildly.

“Dave”

SYNOPSIS: Locke confesses that he is “sick” to Libby and shows her his stash of Dharma food. She convinces him to dump it all out. But then the rest of the Losties find the pallet of food, and Hurley panics at this new temptation. Just then, he starts seeing an imaginary friend named Dave. Hurley asks Sawyer for medicine to counter these hallucinations. Sawyer mocks him, and Hurley attacks him for calling him crazy. Dave appears to Hurley again and lays out a believable argument that the whole Island exists only in Hurley’s mind. He nearly convinces Hurley to jump off a cliff to “wake up,” but Libby stops Hurley and brings him back to reality, and the two kiss. Meanwhile, in the Swan, “Henry” admits to being an an Other who killed the real Henry Gale, and Sayid nearly kills him for his treachery. He also tells Locke that he never pressed the button when Locke was trapped. Locke dismisses this as a lie, but Henry says that he’s “done lying.” In the flashback, Hurley is seeking treatment at a mental hospital to deal with his issues after being involved in (and perhaps to blame for) a deck collapse that killed two people. Dave is his friend in the hospital, but Hurley’s doctor convinces him that Dave is imaginary and only wants him to stay the way he is, and so Hurley turns his back on Dave. Also, we see that Libby was a fellow patient at the hospital.

THOUGHTS: Now this was a fun one. Even though Hurley goes through all this heavy drama (pun slightly intended), it still has a lighthearted feel to it. And I think Evan Handler should receive most of the credit for that for his performance as the sardonic oddball Dave. And I appreciated that so much of the focus of the episode was Hurley’s self-esteem and self-image as an overweight man. The show doesn’t tiptoe around the matter but instead faces it head-on and creates an interesting and ultimately uplifting story about it. And it was a neat twist at the end that Libby was in the hospital too, but I wish that storyline would have been played out a bit more in the rest of the series. Meanwhile, Ben is doing what Ben does best (and what Michael Emerson acts best): manipulation and mind games.

“S.O.S.”

SYNOPSIS: Bernard, frustrated that the other survivors have given up on rescue and are settling in, tries to recruit others to help him create a giant “S.O.S.” sign on the beach out of black rocks, but strangely, his wife Rose doesn’t support his efforts. Bernard’s lack of managerial skills cause all of his helpers to bail, and he’s left making the sign alone. Rose finally tells Bernard that she doesn’t want to leave the Island since she hasn’t felt sick while she’s been there, and Bernard tells her that they can stay there for as long as she wants. Meanwhile, Locke tries to recall the blast door map, Ben rejects the idea that the Others would trade Walt for him, Eko and Charlie are revealed to be building a church, Rose and Locke contemplate the healing powers of the Island, and Jack and Kate go to the truce line to draw out the Others but instead find a dazed Michael. In the flashback, we see when Bernard and Rose meet. But later, when Bernard proposes, Rose reveals to him that she has terminal cancer. He takes her to Australia to see a faith healer, and she becomes angry, saying that she had made peace with her prognosis. But she sees the healer for his sake anyway, and the healer tells Rose that there are areas on Earth with special powers but that she’s not in the right one for her condition. She tells him to keep the money and decides to tell Bernard that the healer was successful.

THOUGHTS: I’m so pleased that we got an episode centered around Bernard and Rose. It’s the first (and only?) time that characters who are only recurring get their own flashbacks. And it’s a sweet tale about hope, determination, and sacrifice—three themes that are dealt with often on Lost—but not usually in one episode, right? Bernard’s quest is a noble one, and I’m surprised it didn’t get more support. But maybe the other survivors have made peace with their lot in life, much like Rose made peace with her cancer. Maybe the other survivors no longer feel they need to be rescued. But honestly, if they had started this sign when they first crashed on the Island, they could have easily been done by now! (If I had been among the survivors…) And finally, Michael returns. What happened to him? What will he do next? We’re going to get the answer to the latter question before the former.

“Two for the Road”

SYNOPSIS: Ana Lucia is talking to “Henry” when he attacks her and nearly strangles her before being knocked unconscious by Locke. Locke asks him later why he didn’t try to kill him when he had the chance, and Henry tells him that Locke is one of the “good ones” and that he was actually on his way to get Locke when he was captured. Ana Lucia tries unsuccessfully to get a gun from Sawyer but then gets it by distracting him with sex. Meanwhile, Hurley tries to surprise Libby with a romantic picnic but gets them lost and realizes that he doesn’t have a blanket. In the Swan, Michael comes to and tells Jack and Kate that he found the Others but that there are only a couple dozen of them and that their living conditions are worse than that of the Losties. He says that the Losties can “take them.” Jack, Locke, and Kate leave to get guns, and then Sawyer realizes that Ana took his. Locke realizes what Ana is doing. Sure enough, Ana confronts Henry at gunpoint—but she can’t bring herself to pull the trigger. Michael tells her that he’ll do it, and she gives him the gun. He apologizes to her and then shoots her in the stomach. Libby, retrieving a picnic blanket, walks in on the scene and startles Michael, and he inadvertently shoots her, too. Then he faces Henry and shoots himself in the arm. In the flashback, Ana Lucia quits the police force after killing her once-attacker and flees to Sydney with Christian Shephard when he asks her to be his bodyguard. But Christian spends most of the trip drinking and then drunkenly confronts his daughter’s mother, so Ana bails on him and confesses her crime to her mother on the way home.

THOUGHTS: Damn. I’ll forever remember the the final moments of this episode as one of the most shocking moments in all the television I’ve watched over the years. The first time I watched it, I just sat and stared at the screen for a few moments after the installment ended, just trying to process what happened. Michael shooting Ana Lucia was shocking enough, even if we might have seen it coming for a few seconds beforehand. But then to have him immediately shoot Libby… it’s almost unconscionable. And she wasn’t even supposed to be there—she was just retrieving a picnic blanket. Then there’s just bleak silence at Michael looks at what he did. And when he opens the armory door, Ben looks at this deranged stranger with wide eyes, but Michael actually shoots himself in front of him. To have two series regulars slain within ten seconds of each other and another one wounded: it’s just something I hadn’t seen before nor do I think I’ve seen it since.

I’m on a quest to re-watch every episode of Lost, one per day. As I polish off each DVD, I’ll post my thoughts on the episodes contained therein.

“The Long Con”

SYNOPSIS: Jack and Locke agree to both know the armory’s lock combination and to always consult each other when they want to use it. Locke also tells Jack that Sawyer is hoarding pills, and Jack retrieves them despite Sawyer’s threats. Someone attacks Sun as she works in her garden, and Sawyer and Kate find her unconscious. Ana Lucia suggest that the Others have returned, but Sawyer suggests to Kate that maybe Ana herself did it to scare people into joining the army she’s building with Jack, and Kate relays the same accusation to Jack. Then Kate begins to think that Ana did it to get the guns. She sends Sawyer to the Swan to warn Locke, and Sawyer gets Locke to hide the guns. Jack arrives at the Swan to find the armory empty, and Sawyer taunts him with a pill bottle. Jack goes to Locke and accuses him of breaking the agreement, but just then, Sawyer reveals that he now has all the guns and that he’s the “new sheriff in town.” We learn later that he had Charlie attack Sun and later trail Locke to find the hiding spot for the guns. Meanwhile, Hurley gets Sayid to retrofit the Tailies’ radio to pick up transmissions, and they find a broadcast of Glenn Miller’s “Moonlight Serenade.” In the flashback, Sawyer is surprised when his mark, Cassidy, not only wises up to his con but asks to learn how to con others. In the end, however she was the mark of a “long con,” and despite his feelings for her, Sawyer steals her $600,000.

THOUGHTS: Whew, what a tangled web of accusations and power plays this episode weaves. Sawyer truly is a master con man and one who seems able to force a checkmate ten moves in advance. Indeed, all the other characters were his pawns, acting exactly as he planned for them to act. And he has an unlikely accomplice in Charlie—or, at least, Charlie seems like an unlikely accomplice until he tells Sawyer his motivation: he wants to see Locke shamed. So Locke’s unexpected (and perhaps unnecessary) brutality in the last episode comes back to haunt him after all. The flashback closely mirrors the Island story in that Cassidy, who seemed too smart for Sawyer’s cons at first, fell right into a much larger, more in-depth trap. It certainly does seem like Sawyer did have feelings for her, but perhaps even his feelings and subsequent confession was just for show. We’ll never know for sure—especially because a con man like him seems to never reveal his tricks.

“One of Them”

SYNOPSIS: Rousseau seeks out Sayid and leads him to an area where she caught a man in a net. She believes the man to be an Other, but the man claims to be Henry Gale, a man from Minnesota who arrived when the balloon carrying him and his wife crashed on the Island. Sayid cuts him down, and the man flees, but Rousseau stops him with an arrow to the shoulder. Sayid takes him to the Swan where Locke is manning the computer, and Jack removes the arrow. But then Locke helps Sayid lock himself into the armory to interrogate the man. The man says his wife died from a fever, but Sayid assumes that he’s lying since he doesn’t know how deep his wife is buried, a detail Sayid says the man would remember if he lost someone he loved. Sayid beats him, and outside, Jack becomes incensed. When the alarm for the button sounds, Jack pins Locke to the wall and says that unless Locke unlocks the door, he won’t let Locke push the button. Locke finally relents and enters the Numbers just as the countdown timer starts flipping to hieroglyphics. Jack stops Sayid, and the man gives Sayid an ambiguous look as Jack closes the armory door. Later, Sayid tells the story to Charlie and says that everyone has forgotten what the Others did to Claire and Charlie. Meanwhile, Hurley helps Sawyer find a noisy tree frog. Hurley volunteers to take it far from the campsite, but Sawyer squishes the little bugger. In the flashback, an American soldier forces Sayid to interrogate his commanding officer during the Gulf War, beginning Sayid’s long history as a torturer.

THOUGHTS: Ben Linus arrives! (Oops, spoiler alert.) And damn, the guy is such a good actor. The look that he gives Sayid when Jack forces an end to the interrogation is so good. The first time I re-watched it, I thought that he smiled. Then when I re-re-watched it, I saw that he didn’t actually smile—the smugness was all in his eyes. The guy is that good. This was a really cool episode all around, though, and certainly one of the best of the season. We get a classic stalemate when Jack makes Locke choose between the interrogation and the computer, and we get another tease of what happens when the timer reaches zero. Not the whole answer, granted, but just enough to satisfy our curiosity for a while while still keeping us intrigued. Plus, Ben chose the wrong time to make up a story about losing a loved one, since Sayid still hasn’t worked through his grief over Shannon’s death, and it explodes out in a great bit of performance by Naveen Andrews. And then Sawyer and Hurley hunting the pesky tree frog? What an inane storyline. But it’s great because it gives us some comedic relief from all the heavy drama going down.

“Maternity Leave”

SYNOPSIS: Claire is worried that Aaron has a fever and a rash, so she wants to go see Jack at the Swan. But Locke, not wanting Claire to see the man they have detained there, offers to go instead. While he’s gone, Rousseau shows up and says that the baby is “infected.” Claire suddenly gets flashes of memories from her time with the Others. Jack returns and tells Claire that the fever will pass. Claire asks Libby, a clinical psychologist, to help her regain her memories, and it works: Claire sees herself being treated by Ethan in some medical room. Convinced that the necessary medicine is there, she sets off with Kate to find that room. They take Rousseau with them, since Claire remembers scratching Rousseau when Rousseau tried to take her back to the Others. Claire’s hazy memories lead her to a hatch in the jungle, and opening it, they find that it’s a medical Dharma station named The Staff. The place has been mostly cleared out, but Kate finds tattered garments and fake beards in a locker. Remembering more, Claire realizes that Danielle was actually trying to save her from the Others. She thanks Rousseau and tells her of the girl who helped her and who may be Alex. Despite not finding the medicine, Claire and Kate return to the camp to find that Aaron is on the mend. Meanwhile, Jack and Locke argue about what to do with their prisoner, Eko confesses to murdering the two Others to the prisoner, and the prisoner starts pitting Locke against Jack. In the flashback, we see that Ethan did indeed keep Claire in the Staff, under sedation, and repeatedly injected her pregnant belly with an unknown substance before a teenage girl—presumably Alex—helps Claire escape, claiming that the Others are going to cut the baby out of her that night.

THOUGHTS: Like “The Other 48 Days”, this episode never leaves the island, but the flashback structure is still preserved. Then again, the flashbacks are a bit different in that they take the form of once-blocked memories gradually coming back to Claire. I’ve often wondered if the flashbacks are remembered by the characters at the points in the Island story at which we see them. It seems that way most of the time, but sometimes it doesn’t—sometimes there doesn’t seem to be as much of a correlation between the current Island situation and that particular flashback. And, again like “The Other 48 Days,” this episode fills in gaps in the Island chronology for us. (It seems that whenever we don’t see a character for a while—or for, you know, a whole season—it’s a sure bet that we’ll soon enough see what happened from their point of view. Michael’s storyline is coming up!) Once again, William Mapother makes Ethan hideously creepy in an oddly likable way. (If we didn’t know any better, we might be swayed his charming bedside manner.) And it was kinda fun and bizarre to see Claire so loopy and so accepting of the strangeness around her. But some of the best scenes, unsurprisingly, are those in the armory with Ben—especially the one in which he asks Locke why Jack calls all the shots. Locke tries to play it off but then takes out his fury on the dishes after he locks the door again. No one’s better at getting under someone’s skin than Benjamin Linus.

“The Whole Truth”

SYNOPSIS: Sun is working in her garden when Jin arrives in a rage, worried that Sun will be attacked again. He uproots her plants so that she has no reason to come out there again. Later, Sun begins feeling faint, and she asks Sawyer for a pregnancy test. Sun waits with Kate for the results to come in, and when they do, they confirm that Sun is indeed pregnant. Sawyer finds Jin on the beach and congratulates him on becoming a father, but Jin obviously doesn’t understand. Sun finds Jin in the garden, restoring all the plants. He apologizes to her expresses his loneliness and frustration that he can’t understand anyone on the Island. She tells him the good news, and when he asks how it’s possible with their fertility troubles, she assures him that she’s never been with another man. Jin leaves her alone in the garden—but not before saying “I love you” in English. Meanwhile, Locke has Ana Lucia talk to the prisoner, and she’s able to do what none of the others before her have been able to do—get the man to draw a map to his balloon. She goes with Sayid and Charlie in search of said balloon. While they’re gone, the prisoner tells Locke and Jack that if he were an Other, he would have the other Others ambush the search team and trade them for him—a comment that unsettles both Jack and Locke. In the flashback, Jin and Sun visits a fertility doctor who tells them that scar tissue in Sun’s fallopian tubes make a pregnancy an impossibility. She begins taking English lessons from hotel heir Jae Lee (with whom she went on an arranged date before) and tells him she’s doing so to leave Jin, and it is implied that she and Jae begin an affair. Then the same doctor finds her and tells her that Jin is the one who’s infertile, and that he couldn’t tell the both of them that since it’s a matter of honor.

THOUGHTS: “The Whole Truth,” eh? That title applies to Sun’s storyline, Henry Gale’s, and the flashback. The fertility doctor tells Sun the whole truth belatedly, Ben seems to tell Ana Lucia the whole truth in the form of the map to the balloon, and Sun appears to tell the whole truth to Jin. But, in a nice bit of dramatic irony, we get the sense that Sun isn’t telling Jin the whole truth after all, since it seems like she became involved with Jae Lee. And, as we’ll find out next episode, Ben’s story about Henry Gale is only a half-truth. (I hope no one who cares about spoilers is still reading this series of blogs!) This episode is unique in that the centric characters’ Island storyline isn’t really the focus of the episode. It seems like the verification of Ben’s story is the driving force of the episode and that Sun’s pregnancy is just a subplot. And as for Ben, the scene in which he unsettles Jack and Locke is classic, especially for the last line of the scene (and of the episode): “You guys got any milk?”

I’m on a quest to re-watch every episode of Lost, one per day. As I polish off each DVD, I’ll post my thoughts on the episodes contained therein.

“What Kate Did”

SYNOPSIS: Jack is tending to a feverish Sawyer when Sawyer mutters that he loves Kate. Kate later watches over him so that Jack can attend Shannon’s funeral, at which Sayid says a few eloquent words. Sawyer suddenly wakes and grabs Kate, yelling, “Why did you kill me?” Kate bolts, leaving Sawyer on the floor and no one to enter the Numbers into the computer. Jack and Locke arrive at the Swan just in time to reset the clock. Jack finds Kate in the jungle, and Kate has a meltdown, kisses him, looks crazy, and runs off. She returns to the Swan and pours her heart out to Sawyer as he sleeps. Then Sawyer regains consciousness, and Kate seems well again. Meanwhile, Eko gives Locke a missing part of the orientation film, Jack connects with Ana Lucia, and Michael gets a message from Walt on the Swan’s computer. In the flashback, we learn that Kate blew up a house with her mother’s abusive boyfriend Wayne inside and had her mom collect the insurance money. But what she didn’t realize is that Wayne was actually her biological father. Later, her mom gives her up to the feds.

THOUGHTS: Kate lets her freak flag fly! It seems like every character on the show has an episode in which they become crazed, and here’s Kate’s. Her checkered past begins to manifest itself on the Island, what with an emblematic black horse and Sawyer’s channeling of Wayne’s spirit. The Island’s doing? Seems like a safe bet. Her crazed kiss with Jack was at once bizarre and also satisfying. At least they’re finally acknowledging their mutual attraction! But the real shock of the episode was Michael communicating with Walt—or, at least, someone pretending to be Walt. And it’s about time, since we haven’t heard anything (except dialogue played backwards) from Walt for the past eight episodes. This is the start of a whole bunch of craziness from Michael which will lead directly to the events of the season finale.

“The 23rd Psalm”

SYNOPSIS: Hearing that Charlie has a Virgin Mary statue, Eko demands that he take him to where he found it, so the two of them set off into the jungle. Charlie, reluctant to give up his stash, tries to lead Eko astray but underestimate’s Eko’s intelligence on the matter. They have a run-in with the Monster, and Eko just stares the black smoke down as it seems to scan his memories before it recedes from whence it came. They finally reach the Beechcraft, and Eko recognizes one of the corpses as his younger brother, and he grieves. Then, he and Charlie burn the wreckage. Later, it is revealed that Charlie has a stash of the statues. Elsewhere, Claire finds out what’s inside the Virgin Mary that Charlie has, Locke teaches Michael how to shoot a gun, Hurley flirts with Libby, and Michael receives instructions from Walt via the Swan computer. In the flashback, we see that Eko became involved with drug runners at a young age only through protecting Yemi’s innocence and that he grew to be a ruthless drug lord. He coerced Yemi, a priest by that point, into letting him smuggle heroin out of the country in the Virgin Mary statues aboard a missionary plane. But there’s a shootout at the airport between the smugglers and the military, and Yemi is taken aboard the plane instead of Eko. Eko, already dressed in a priest’s clothes, then adopts Yemi’s identity.

THOUGHTS: Finally we get insight into the enigmatic Eko, a man who we’ve seen be serenely spiritual and meditative at times and brutally violent at others. Now we know why he has this duality—it reflects the two identities he lived with before the crash. Still, though he has done heinous things, they began with an act of brotherly compassion, albeit a twisted one. That one act set his life down a very dark path and one that he seems to be trying to atone for now. This episode features some phenomenal acting by Adewale Akinnouye-Agbaje that makes me sorry that he wasn’t on the show for longer. I’m also sorry because his character is always so multi-faceted and intriguing, probably due to the fact that he’s one of the most mysterious characters on the show. And that’s probably why he received three centric episodes during his time on the show, as opposed to far-less-mysterious Shannon, who only had one in the same amount of episodes.

“The Hunting Party”

SYNOPSIS: Michael ambushes Jack and Locke in the Swan and locks them in the armory so that he can take the guns and go after Walt without them interfering. Kate and Sawyer find the men there. They decide to go after Michael, but Jack tells Kate not to come. A while into the trek, they hear gunshots and then find shell casings from Michael’s gun. Later, they’re surprised by the man from the boat who took Walt, accompanied by other Others. He tells them that they’re on the Others’ turf, and there can be a truce as long as the Losties never go any farther. But in the mean time, he demands that the three of them give up their guns and go back immediately. Jack derides this threat, but then the Others reveal that they have Kate hostage. So Jack relents, and the Losties retreat. Kate apologizes to Jack, but Jack is still angry. He later asks Ana Lucia how long it would take to build an army. In the flashback, Jack is asked to do another impossible surgery, but no miracle results from this one. The bereaved daughter kisses Jack. Jack confesses this to Sarah, and Sarah says that she’s leaving him because things haven’t been right for awhile and she’s been seeing someone else anyway. She tells him that he’ll always need something to fix.

THOUGHTS: Plot-wise, this was a pretty simple episode. Just one “A-mission”: Jack, Locke, and Sawyer chasing Michael across the Island and being stopped by the Others. No real subplots. But that’s no critique—indeed, a precise focus lies in that simplicity. Michael is acting irrationally, the other guys are acting quite rationally, but they’re blocked by the Others, who are acting unreasonably, bullying the Losties into submission. The flashback provides a nice counterpoint—an antithesis, really—to the previous Jack flashbacks. Whereas Jack was successful at surgery and at love before, now he fails both, and the next few Jack-centric episodes will continue this bleak chapter of Jack’s pre-Island life. And that’s good, because angst is one of Matthew Fox’s strong points as an actor.

“Fire + Water”

SYNOPSIS: Charlie has a series of dreams which convinces him that Aaron is in danger, and he tries to convey this to Claire, but she’s still upset with him over his heroin stash. She demands that he stay away from her. He goes to Locke for help, but Locke is unsympathetic since Charlie seems to have relapsed. When he conveys the religious nature of his dream to Eko, Eko suggests that maybe the dreams mean something and that maybe Aaron should be baptized. Increasingly desperate about the situation, Charlie starts a fire near the camp as a distraction and takes Aaron to the water. But Claire spots him and alerts the rest of the group. Locke takes Aaron from Charlie and then beats Charlie. Jack tends to Charlie’s wounds, and Charlie tells him that he never actually used the drugs. Locke puts Charlie’s stash inside the armory and changes the combination for the lock. Meanwhile, Hurley becomes closer to Libby, Kate and Sawyer notice that Jack’s been spending more time with Ana Lucia, and Eko baptizes both Aaron and Claire in the right way. In the flashback, Charlie’s brother Liam sabotages all of Charlie’s efforts to revitalize Drive Shaft and is too high to even be a decent father to his new daughter. He abandons Charlie to sober up in Sydney.

THOUGHTS: And now it’s Charlie’s turn to act bonkers. Again I have to wonder how much the Island had to do with Charlie’s vivid dreams. Is it all part of a greater plan? Poor Charlie does get a bum rap in this episode (in addition to a serious rap on the head from Locke). To a certain degree, he deserved it for lying about his stash. But on the other hand, it seems plausible that he never actually used, and his dreams did seem pretty convincing. Maybe he needed to be knocked upside the head to straighten himself out, but I always thought Locke was excessively violent with him. At least redemption is down the road for Charlie, as well as a reunion with Claire and Aaron. Not all of the characters have endings that happy, least of all Locke.

I’m on a quest to re-watch every episode of Lost, one per day. As I polish off each DVD, I’ll post my thoughts on the episodes contained therein.

“…And Found”

SYNOPSIS: The Tailies tell the Rafties that they’re all going on a trek to the Losties’ camp. (Bless nicknames.) But they have to gather food first, so they split up. Libby tells Michael that they imprisoned the three of them because of their “trust issues.” Michael decides to run off to find Walt. Jin leaves to find Michael, and Eko accompanies him. Jin stumbles upon a corpse impaled on a pole, and Eko says that the man’s name was Goodwin. They hear rustling and hide, and a band of Others passes them, including a child with a teddy bear. They finally catch up with Michael, and Jin convinces him to stay with them and that they’ll find Walt together. Meanwhile, Sawyer, Ana Lucia, Libby, Cindy and Bernard continue their trek. On the other side of the island, Sun panics when she can’t find her ring and only finds it when she stops looking; and Kate reads the messages in the bottle in hopes of finding one to her from Sawyer. In the flashback, Sun is set up on an ill-fated date with Jae Lee, heir to a hotel empire; and Jin works at one of the family’s hotels but quits when he can’t deny service to lower-class visitors like his boss wants him to. But fate makes Jin literally bump into Sun at the end.

THOUGHTS: It’s interesting that the Tailies are so quick to assimilate with the Losties. It’s only a day since they found the Rafties, and already they are deciding to join forces. But it’s not a huge surprise, seeing as their ranks have been thinned from twenty-three to five. It seems that as rough as the Losties’ first six weeks have been on the Island, the Tailies have had a much worse time of it. We get another glimpse of the Others, and with their tattered clothes and bare feet, they look downright uncivilized. And why is a child with them? We’ll find out soon. As for the flashback, it’s the earliest Jin/Sun one we’ve seen. Taking all of their flashbacks and Island life into account, is there any better love story told on this show?

“Abandoned”

SYNOPSIS: Sayid unveils a tent he built for Shannon, and the two of them consummate their love, but Shannon is startled by a vision of Walt. She insists that Walt is back on the Island and needs rescuing, so she and Vincent go looking for him. Sayid follows them, concerned about Shannon’s safety. Shannon expresses her frustration that no one ever believes her. Meanwhile, the Tailies and the Rafties continue their trek, but Sawyer collapses in a fever. They continue on with him in a makeshift stretcher, but soon flight attendant Cindy gets snatched by the Others. Elsewhere, Claire and Charlie have a spat, and Locke finds out that Charlie is in possession of heroin again. Shannon and Sayid both see a vision of Walt, and Shannon chases after him and is inadvertently shot and killed by Ana Lucia. In the flashback, Shannon grieves for her father but receives neither comfort nor financial support from her frosty stepmother. Boone offers help, but Shannon won’t take it because she doesn’t think he believes in her.

THOUGHTS: Rest in peace, Shannon. I think it’s kind of a pity that she wasn’t given more to do during Season 2. There were five episodes in which she could have had character development, but instead she was a bit of a bystander. At least this episode gave her a substantial storyline. And it’s also a pity that she died just as she was becoming a likable character. She also got validation that she wasn’t crazy because, interestingly enough, Sayid also sees Walt in the jungle. I can’t remember if I knew someone was going to die this episode the first time I watched it and, if so, if I knew it was Shannon—but it is a pretty shocking death, especially because it was such an unfortunate twist of fate. She and Sayid just happened to intersect with the Tailies when the Tailies were already on edge because of the Others, no one more so than Ana Lucia. But hey, accidents happen! The last moment is great because of the looks on the characters’ faces. Ana Lucia and the rest of the gang look shocked and bewildered, and Sayid looks anguished and angered. He even starts to rise right before the final cut. Good foreshadowing for the next chapter!

“The Other 48 Days”

SYNOPSIS: We how the Tailies spent the first 48 days. The tail section of the plane crashes into the ocean just off the Island’s coast, and a couple dozen people make it to shore alive. But that very night, three of the survivors are taken by the Others, despite Eko killing two Others single-handedly. Eleven days later, the Others take nine more, including the children, Zach and Emma. The Tailies venture into the jungle for refuge. Ana Lucia holds a guy named Nathan captive, believing him to be one of the Others since no one remembers him from the plane. Under the cover of darkness, a guy named Goodwin frees him but immediately snaps his neck. The Tailies move into a Dharma bunker and find, among other things, a radio. Ana and Goodwin head to higher ground to find better reception. Ana interrogates Goodwin since she recalls seeing him come out of the jungle completely dry just minutes after the crash. He admits to being an Other and says that the children and the rest of the “good people” are better off where they are now. He and Ana Lucia fight, but kills him by impaling him. Two weeks later, Bernard speaks with Boone through the radio, but Ana Lucia assumes its the Others trying to find them. A few days later, Libby and Cindy find Jin’s unconscious body washed ashore, and we’re soon caught up to the present.

THOUGHTS: This is the first episode to break the flashback format… though I suppose it was all one big flashback. In any case, it’s the first episode to be presented completely chronologically. First of all, I give credit to the production designers and the director for making the tail-section crash just about as intense a viewing experience as the middle-section crash. And now, we finally see why the Tailies are so paranoid and frayed when we meet them—we see the full scope of the hell they’ve been through on the Island. They started off with a much smaller group, whose ranks thinned far more rapidly than the middle-section survivors. I liked the ways the Tailies’ chronology matched up with that of the Losties. (Writers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse even managed to perfectly time a 40-day vow of silence for Eko between the first night and the day when Bernard spoke to Boone and Eko had to comfort a disconsolate Ana Lucia.) Plus, the opening of the episode was fantastic: a pleasant beach scene turned hellish when the tail section and various debris rains down from the skies. All in all, it was an episode worth changing the game for.

“Collison”

SYNOPSIS: Resuming where we left off two episodes ago, Sayid tries to attack Ana Lucia but is taken down by Eko. Ana has Sayid tied to a tree but seems unsure about what to do and highly on edge. Eko leaves and takes Sawyer back to the Losties’ camp. He encounters Jack and Kate as they play a round of golf, and the three of them take Sawyer back to the Swan, where Jack treats his infection. Ana sends Michael back for supplies and implies that she’s going to set off on her own. Eko refuses to tell Jack any details about what happened because he knows the news would only make Jack angry. Michael arrives and tells everyone what’s going on. Jack is ready to leave with a gun, but Eko stops him and says that he’ll take them as long as they go unarmed. Ana finally frees Sayid and accepts her fate, but Sayid doesn’t kill her. Jack and Eko meet Sayid carrying Shannon and Ana not far behind. At the same time, the rest of the Tailies arrive with Jin back at the beach, and Jin and Sun and Rose and Bernard have joyful reunions. In the flashback, a psychologist clears Ana Lucia to back to work as a police officer, but she’s trigger-happy and hell-bent on revenge. We find out that she was given time off because a man shot her and killed her unborn child. She tracks down this man and brutally kills him.

THOUGHTS: The Tailies and the Losties are finally one tribe, for better or for worse—and we see both those pros and cons in this episode. A collision, indeed. It seems fitting that Ana and Sayid spared one another’s lives, since they realized that neither of them are without tortured pasts. Plus, Sayid realizes—as I assume the rest of the Losties will—that the shooting was just an accident. (I actually don’t remember how the storyline plays out from here!) Also, I love the moment when Jack is trying to hit the golf ball out of the jungle and is surprised to see Kate looking so startled. He turns to see Eko, this hulk of a man, with a lifeless Sawyer on his shoulder. It’s a great instance of a sudden change of tone in which a comedic subplot merges with the main drama of the episode.

I’m on a quest to re-watch every episode of Lost, one per day. As I polish off each DVD, I’ll post my thoughts on the episodes contained therein.

“Man of Science, Man of Faith”

SYNOPSIS: We see a man going about a morning routine inside some sort of high-Seventies apartment, but then a rumble startles him. He immediately takes action, getting guns and using a system of mirrors to look up the Hatch at Jack and Locke, who had just blown it open. Not being able to see past the darkness, Locke wants to go down and explore, but Jack says that they should wait until morning since the hiding plan won’t work anyway. Locke proceeds anyway, and Kate helps him. She goes down first, but falls. Locke, unable to hear her, goes down after her. Tired of waiting around, Jack joins them. He finds Locke pinned at gunpoint by the man, whom Jack recognizes from his past: his name is Desmond. Meanwhile, Shannon sees a creepy apparition of Walt in the jungle. In the flashback, we see Jack struggle with his bedside manner as he tells his future wife Sarah that she won’t be able to walk after a horrific car commercial. Then he almost screws himself over by promising her that he’d fix her. But he gets a pep talk about miracles from a stranger named Desmond, and, as it turns out, a miracle did indeed happen: Sarah has sensation in her legs after the surgery.

THOUGHTS: Last season posed the question of what is in the hatch, and within the first two minutes of this episode, we find out. And it’s so cool. (Retro chic!) Between the reveal of the Hatch, the tension of our Losties descending into said Hatch, and the flashback, this was a stellar return. And how fantastic is Julie Bowen as Sarah in this episode? Obviously, Emmy-nominated Matthew Fox gave a great performance, but Bowen was a real stand-out. Between this drama and the comedy of her role on Modern Family, the woman can do it all. The scene in which Jack realizes that Sarah is miraculously unparalyzed was the emotional high-point of an already-great episode.

“Adrift”

SYNOPSIS: After the people on the other boat blew up the raft and took Walt, Michael and Sawyer cling to the debris, and Jin is nowhere to be found. Michael blames Sawyer for convincing him to set off the flare gun, but Sawyer reasons that the boat wasn’t seafaring and came from the island and thus must belong to the Others, who were purportedly coming for Walt anyway. Sawyer pulls out the bullet from his shoulder, and shortly thereafter, he and Michael are nearly attacked by sharks bearing odd octagonal emblems (read: Dharma). Finally, the currents take them back to the Island, and on the beach, they find Jin running from a bunch of scary-looking people he calls “others.” In the Hatch, we see what happened to Kate and Locke before Jack arrived. Desmond told Locke to tie Kate up, and Locke did so but slipped her a knife before locking her in the pantry. She uses this knife to free herself, and she climbs up into the ducts. Desmond asks Locke if he is “him,” referring to his replacement, and Locke says yes despite not understanding the question. Desmond realizes that Locke isn’t “him” and forces him to enter the Numbers into the computer. In the flashback, Michael fights to block Susan from taking Walt out of the country, but Susan makes Michael think of what’s best for Walt, and Michael backs down.

THOUGHTS: What other television show would have an episode that takes place aboard a disintegrating raft in the middle of an ocean in the middle of the night? I thought the production values alone sold this episode—the photography was incredible, especially post-raft-explosion. And it’s interesting to see an episode which rewinds the Island time a bit to show what is happening elsewhere. We’re used to the flashbacks showing past parts of the chronology, but this is the first time (to my knowledge) that the Island storyline filled in a gap. Character-wise, Sawyer is still snarly, but he’s warming up to his fellow Losties. And the flashback did well to illuminate why it’s so important to Michael to never give up on his son again.

“Orientation”

SYNOPSIS: Kate drops down from the ducts and gets a shotgun from the vault, which she uses to club Desmond. But in his surprise, Desmond fires a bullet right into the computer, and he thinks it’s curtains for all of them. Kate runs to get Sayid to fix the computer. While she’s gone, Desmond tells Jack that he was marooned on the island and that a guy named Kelvin found him, brought him to the Hatch, and made him enter the Numbers every 108 minutes to “save the world.” Kelvin eventually died leaving Desmond alone. Desmond tells Jack and Locke about an orientation film, which they watch. It says that the Hatch is actually called The Swan and it’s one of many research stations on the Island built by the Dharma Initiative. The electricity cuts out, and Desmond flees the scene. Kate returns with Sayid and Hurley, and Sayid fixes the computer. Jack catches up to Desmond, who finally remembers him and asks about Sarah before leaving for good. As the countdown nears completion, Jack and Locke argue about whether to push to button. Locke convinces Jack to take a leap of faith, and Jack does the deed. Elsewhere, the “others” attack the Rafties and take them to a makeshift prison, where they also (pretend to) hold Ana Lucia captive. She explains that she was from the back section of the plane. Satisfied that they’re who they say they are, she has the other “others” take her out. In the flashback, Locke pursues a relationship with a woman named Helen, but he’s still too obsessed with the man who conned him out of a kidney. Helen convinces him to give the two of them a shot and have faith that he can be whole again.

THOUGHTS: This is a great episode because of the dilemma it poses. The button-pressing may truly be saving the world every 108 minutes, or it might be a social experiment—a fool’s errand, really—monitored by the Dharma Initiative. In the end, though, I think the Losties made the right decision. And I’m not just saying that because I’ve seen the rest of the season—but because they don’t have a lot to lose. Sure, it’s a menial and tedious task, but it’s worth not taking the chance of an armageddon. Plus, it’s a small price to pay for all the amenities the Swan has to offer: shelter, food, water, entertainment, even a laundry machine. Not a shabby deal at all. As for the flashback, I’m glad that it continued the kindey-con storyline. I’m glad the writers didn’t just have Locke take his lumps and forget about the whole ordeal and that Locke is still just as hung up as he was in the last flashback.

“Everybody Hates Hugo”

SYNOPSIS: Hurley is tasked with itemizing and guarding the food, a job which he hates because it makes him the miserly bad guy who can’t give out food freely and gladly. He almost blows up the pantry with a stick of dynamite, but Rose talks him out of it. Instead, he decides to give it all out for one big camp-wide feast, and Jack surprisingly gives his blessing to the idea. (Everyone loves Hugo.) Elsewhere, the Rafties are taken by Ana Lucia, Libby, and guy-later-known-as-Eko to the Tailies’ camp where they meet Rose’s husband, Bernard. Meanwhile, the bottle of messages washes up on shore, and Sun buries it; Sayid investigates the cemented-in portions of the Swan; and Charlie gets Locke to fill him in on everything. In the flashback, Hurley quits his job at a chicken joint after winning the lottery, but his friend there quits in solidarity, not realizing Hurley has enough money to never have to work again. The two of them have a crazy day/night and live life to the fullest, but the friend feels betrayed when he finally finds out Hurley is filthy rich.

THOUGHTS: All the episodes have flashbacks that mirror, inform, or play off the Island storyline; but the connection seemed especially apparent in this episode. Hurley knows what it’s like to have a windfall of riches. Before it was money; now it’s food. But he doesn’t want to revisit past mistakes, so he wants to shirk the responsibility. And what a perfect solution he comes to. I thought the flashbacks were especially realistic in what (I’d imagine) it’s like to come into a large amount of money and how it’d make you try to figure out what matters most before you spend a dime. Unfortunately for Hurley, his friend got the wrong idea, and by the time Hurley found out, the damage was already irreversible. At least this time he handled the riches better this time around with guidance from the invaluably optimistic Rose.

I’m on a quest to re-watch every episode of Lost, one per day. As I polish off each DVD, I’ll post my thoughts on the episodes contained therein.

“The Greater Good”

SYNOPSIS: Kate is able to get Jack back to camp, and the survivors hold a funeral for Boone. Locke shows up and says it was his fault and explains about the plane. Jack attacks Locke for lying and leaving Boone to die, but then Jack collapses. Kate drugs him with sleeping pills, and he has himself a little nap. Locke tries to apologize to Shannon, but she asks Sayid to “take care” of Locke. Sayid makes Locke take him to the plane to rescue its radio parts. Trying to win Sayid’s trust, Locke admits that he foiled Sayid’s triangulation efforts so that Sayid wouldn’t lead anyone into the “dark territory.” Sayid is pissed but decides not to shoot Locke. He asks Locke about the hatch that Boone spoke of, but Locke claims ignorance. Shannon decides to take matters into her own hands, steals the Halliburton key from Jack, and corners Locke at gunpoint. But Jack, Kate, and Sayid catch up to her; and Sayid tackles her before she’s able to shoot Locke. Sayid later tells Locke to take him to the hatch. Locke tries to lie again, but Sayid’s too smart for that. Meanwhile, Michael, Walt, and Jin continue work on the raft; and Charlie discovers that Sawyer’s voice soothes Aaron. In the flashback, the CIA has Sayid infiltrate a terrorist cell in Sydney—of which Sayid’s friend Essam is a member—in exchange for Nadia’s whereabouts. But when Essam learns of Sayid’s duplicity, he shoots himself.

THOUGHTS: Locke’s lies are coming home to roost as the survivors deal with the aftermath of Boone’s death. He would have fared so much better had he not been so determined to keep the Hatch a secret. And why the secrecy anyway? Irrational Locke is so much less awe-inspiring than All-Knowing Locke. It’s almost too bad Shannon didn’t end up killing him, because he’ll never be the hero he was in the first half of the season. His fanaticism and stubbornness will only lead him to frustration and despair. Maybe I’m being a little too harsh on the guy, but really, he could have been such a boon to the other survivors (pun intended), but he instead got too wrapped up in his own beliefs to realize the havoc he was wreaking.

“Born to Run”

SYNOPSIS: Kate tries to get on the raft, but Michael sticks by the deal he brokered with Sawyer. Kate promises Sawyer that she’ll take his spot. A science teacher named Arzt tells the Rafties that they should leave immediately to catch the northerly tradewinds. Michael doubles over in pain suddenly. Jack realizes that he drank poisoned water. Michael immediately suspects Sawyer but Jack wonders if it was Kate. It turns out it was neither: it was Sun, who intended on Jin drinking the water and being forced to stay on the Island. In order to defend his position on the raft, Sawyer exposes Kate’s fugitive past. Meanwhile, Charlie dreams up songs for Driveshaft’s comeback, Sayid takes Jack to the Hatch in hopes of Jack convincing Locke not to open it, and—weirdly—Walt gets a premonition and tells Locke not to open it. Walt also tells Michael that he was the one who burned the raft, but then says that they need to leave the Island now. In the flashback, fugitive Kate goes to Iowa to see her dying mother and reconnects with her childhood friend/boyfriend Tom. They dig up their time capsule, and the toy plane is inside. But things go south at the hospital, the police arrive, and Tom is accidentally killed in Kate’s escape attempt.

THOUGHTS: Born to run, indeed. Kate is so hard-wired on taking flight at the first opportunity that she sabotages her own standing in the survivors’ community. Obviously, an honest life is not worth going to jail for. Still, it’s hard to watch her get shamed by Sawyer in front of the whole camp. She doesn’t even seem that mad with him, though—more resigned to the fact that the truth was bound to come out sooner or later. It was a great twist that Sun was the one who poisoned the water. I had forgotten about that development (and just when I said I was never surprised anymore). We see more of Walt’s “special”-ness as he somehow gleans that the hatch is bad news. (But why? Doesn’t he know the “brotha” who is down there?) And the flashback is interesting in that we get a sense of just how bad Kate is from her mother’s terror upon seeing her. Plus it’s interesting to see the provenance of the toy plane, what it means to Kate, and why she had to break into a safety deposit box to get it back. These characters’ pasts are getting filled in piecemeal, and not necessarily (or ever) in chronological order. It’s one big jigsaw puzzle, and we’re flipping over a piece one episode at a time.

“Exodus, Part 1″

SYNOPSIS: Rousseau wanders into the camp and warns that “the others” are coming and that the survivors will either need to run or hide. Jack decides to hide everyone in the hatch, but that means blowing the top open. And for that, they need explosives, so Rousseau takes a group through “the dark territory” to her source of dynamite, the Black Rock—which turns out to be a wooden ship in the middle of the jungle. The expedition narrowly avoids a run-in with the Monster. Meanwhile, Michael organizes the other survivors to help launch the raft. Jin and Sun reconcile, Sawyer tells Jack about meeting his father in Sydney, Charlie collects messages to loved ones back home, Sawyer and Kate miss saying goodbye to one another, and Walt gives Vincent to Shannon because Vincent “is a good listener.” In the flashbacks, we see some of the survivors on the day of the flight. We hear the highlights of Kate’s fugitive-dom, we learn that Sawyer was being deported back to the States, we see Boone again as he bickers with Shannon, and we’re introduced to Ana Lucia as she flirts with Jack at the airport bar.

THOUGHTS: Boy, this episode’s action got off to a fast start. Rousseau ambles in and says, “Uh, hey, everyone. Run!” And almost immediately, the survivors have a plan. But—nothing is ever easy—first they have to open that damn hatch once an for all, and for that, they need dynamite. And for that, they have to go to the Black Rock. And to go there, they have to pass through this so-called “dark territory” and face down the Monster. Meanwhile, everyone else gets the raft up and running. The scene in which the raft launches is easily one of the most memorable moments of any television show I’ve ever seen because it was so long-anticipated—and so worth the wait. After all the drama and trauma the survivors had to go through, here is one moment of sheer jubilation, heightened by Michael Giacchino’s genius score. But even with all the action, this episode had quite the emotional backbone. Jin and Sun’s reunion was so gratifying, but Jin’s breakdown was hard to watch. (At least we know once and for all how much he loves his wife.) Sawyer unselfishly gives Jack closure and solace about his relationship with his father. And little Walt shows true compassion when he gives Vincent to Shannon to help with her grief. This is why I love episodes penned by Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse (especially those that are directed by Jack Bender)—they manage to move the plot forward by huge steps while also providing for moments of terrific emotion.

“Exodus, Part 2″

SYNOPSIS: The dynamite team board the Black Rock and find that it was a slave ship. They retrieve the boom sticks, but Arzt stops them and schools them in dynamite safety right before blowing himself up. (Dude.) The surviving dynamite team handles the sticks a bit more gingerly and sets off for the Hatch. In the caves, Sun ponders if they’re all on the Island as punishment. On the beach, Rousseau corners Claire, knocks her out, and kidnaps Aaron. Charlie and Sayid realize she wants to offer Aaron to the Others in exchange for her own child, Alex. They pursue her. En route, they come across the Beechcraft, and Charlie takes some heroin for the road. The dynamite team encounters the Monster. Locke tries to stare it down, but it attacks him. It nearly drags him down a hole, and he almost lets it, but Kate and Jack thwart it by throwing a stick of dynamite down the hole. Aboard the raft, Jin makes Michael keep the $20,000 watch. Meanwhile,, Jack and Locke have an argument about science versus faith. The Rafties find a signal on their radar and flag it down with their flare gun. But the people aboard the other vessel turn out to be Others, and they shoot Sawyer, blow up the raft, and abduct Walt. Sayid and Charlie find Rousseau, who tearfully returns the baby to them after not being able to find the Others. Jack and Locke rig the hatch to blow, but Hurley tries stopping them after finding his unlucky numbers inscribed on the hatch. Locke lights the fuse anyway, and boom goes the dynamite. The Hatch door is open, but it only reveals a very long tunnel into darkness. End of Season One! (The flashbacks were more scenes from the day of the flight. Sayid is wrongly interrogated; Jin is told he’ll never be free of Sun’s father; Charlie is attacked by a woman over a heroin fix; Michael tries to pawn Walt off on his mom, Hurley almost misses the flight, and Locke has to be carried to his seat.)

THOUGHTS: Double cliffhanger whammy! I had forgotten that this second part was two hours, so my one-episode-a-day regimen was almost disrupted. But it was a great episode. In retrospect, I probably prefer the emotions in the first half and the action in the second half. As for finale fodder, I think Walt’s abduction was much more of an unexpected cliffhanger than the mystery of what’s in the hatch. I mean, we wondered about letter ever since Boone and Locke unearthed it, so it comes as no surpriseL that we’re not going to find out until next season. (I wonder how much of the answer to that question the producers knew at the end of Season 1.) The other huge development of this episode is that we get our first look at the Monster, and it’s lookin’ kinda smokey. All in all, a satisfying finale, especially when all of the “Exodus” saga is considered as a whole. Ordinarily, I’d have to wait four months for Season 2 to start. Not now, baby! Onward!

I’m on a quest to re-watch every episode of Lost, one per day. As I polish off each DVD, I’ll post my thoughts on the episodes contained therein.

“…In Translation”

SYNOPSIS: A misunderstanding between Jin and Michael leads to more fisticuffs, and Sun slaps Michael. She tells him later that she did it to protect him against Jin. When Michael’s raft goes up in flames, he blames Jin. (Jin even has burns on his hands.) Sawyer, having already bought a seat on the raft, attacks Jin. Later, Jin is almost attacked by Michael, as well, but Sun yells for him to stop… in English. Everyone is shocked by this revelation, no one more so than Jin, who feels irreparably betrayed. Sun convinces the others that Jin was burned trying to put out the fire. Locke diverts the conflict by saying that the biggest threat comes from the people without their camp, not within. Michael decides to rebuild the raft. Sun tells Jin she just wants them to start over, but he says it’s too late. Meanwhile, Shannon and Sayid become a couple despite Boone’s meddling, and Locke realizes that Walt burned the raft because he’s happy on the island, and Jin volunteers to help Michael with Raft #2. In the flashback, Jin’s work for Sun’s father becomes violent, but he does his best to retain his humanity. He even reconciles with his father, a poor fisherman, whom he had shunned out of shame.

THOUGHTS: Oh, “lost in translation”—it’s a pun! But seriously, another great episode. Whereas the past few episodes were more character-driven, this episode managed to be both character- and plot-heavy. Finally the truth about Sun is out, and it seems more than Jin can bear. And, interestingly, he and Michael simultaneously put aside their differences. It says a lot about Jin that even though he had problems with Michael, he still tried in vain to put the fire out. Similarly, we see more of the Jin’s better side in the flashback, which shows us the same events of the previous Jin/Sun flashback—but from his perspective this time. He’s not the cold-blooded thug that he was originally portrayed to be. The work is, in fact, agonizing to him, but he does it because it’s the only way he can be with Sun. And finally, what an awesome twist that it was little Walt who burned the raft… but not out of any malice. He just likes the Island, giving him even more kinship with Locke (a.k.a. Knower of All Things).

“Numbers”

SYNOPSIS: Michael needs a battery for the raft, and Jack and Hurley ask Sayid where to find Rousseau so that they can get one, but Sayid considers the venture too risky. When Hurley sees the numbers 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, and 42 on Rousseau’s notes, he decides to find her himself. Jack, Sayid, and Charlie catch up to him and help him look; but the group becomes separated. Hurley comes face to face with Rousseau. He asks her what the numbers are, and she tells him that her scientific team was following a broadcast of those numbers when they were shipwrecked. She agrees that the numbers are cursed, and he hugs her in relief. Later, he returns the group with a battery from Rousseau. He tries to open up to Charlie about his tragic past, but Charlie thinks he’s mocking him. Elsewhere, Locke enlists Claire’s help constructing something, which turns out to be a cradle; Sun misses Jin; Sawyer suffers from a headache; and we see that the numbers are inscribed on the side of the hatch. In the flashback, Hurley wins the lottery with then umbers and is immediately beset by bad fortune. He finds his old friend from the mental hospital, Leonard, who directs him to his colleague in Australia, whose wife said that her husband heard the same numbers in a broadcast and used them to win money but then was convinced he was cursed.

THOUGHTS: Finally, we get a Hurley-centric episode. Hurley truly is the comedic relief for the show, but this episode lets us see his serious side, and he handles the drama quite capably. His meltdown in front of Rousseau was pure gold. I’m a big fan of numbers being used repeatedly for effect in a show (see Alias and the number 47), and I like that the numbers are used in so many ways before and after this episode—and, indeed, for the rest of the series. Plus, in addition to being easter-egg-fodder, the numbers also take on narrative significance in the final season. It was good to see Rousseau again, since the stakes and tensions are raised whenever she comes on-screen (especially when she’s wielding a rifle). And, of course, Locke continues to amaze us with his prescience—he just decided to construct a crib for Claire on a day which turned out to be her birthday? The man knows everything.

“Deus Ex Machina”

SYNOPSIS: After many unsucessful efforts opening the hatch, Locke realizes that he’s losing feeling in his legs. He has a dream in which a yellow Beechcraft crashes on the island. He tells Boone about this dream, and they set off in search for it, but Locke’s leg problems get worse. By the time they find it, Locke can hardly walk. So Boone climbs the tree and enters the plane, only to find that it was used by Nigerian heroin smugglers. He uses the radio and reaches someone, but that someone says that they are the survivors of Oceanic 815. Shortly thereafter, the plane crashes to the ground, critically wounding Boone. Locke is able to carry him back to the caves and to Jack but then leaves right away. He has a meltdown atop the hatch, but then a light shines through the hatch’s window. Meanwhile, Sawyer’s headaches get worse, Jack diagnoses the problem—farsightedness—and Sayid improvises a pair of glasses. In the flashback, Locke’s mother finds him and she tells him that he was immaculately conceived. But he hunts down his father anyway, and the two of them become close. Locke volunteers to give his father a kidney, but the father abandons him shortly thereafter. The mother reveals that it was a con all along, and Locke is devastated.

THOUGHTS: This was the first episode that Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse wrote together, and it’s easily one of the strongest of the season. The Island’s mysteries are again compounded when Locke’s dream leads him and Boone to another crashed plane, in which Boone finds that they’re not the only survivors of Oceanic 815. Plus, Locke’s failing legs seem to mirror his impotence in opening the hatch. His once-steadfast faith in the Island is unraveling, especially when his determination leads to Boone getting horrifically injured. And then, at the brink of his frustration, the Island gives him another sign—literally a light at the end of the tunnel.  We’re seeing the sudden shift from has-his-shit-together Locke to fanatical-crazy Locke. The flashback is hard to watch, as Locke realizes that his new-found father mercilessly exploited him for his own gain. For once in his life, it seems, Locke was truly happy, and then his father robbed him of that happiness—a loss even more painful than that of his kidney. On a side note, it was clever foreshadowing to show Locke explaining the game of Mousetrap to a kid right as Locke’s mother found him.

“Do No Harm”

SYNOPSIS: Jack and Sun struggle to save Boone’s life. Jack even donates a large amount of his own blood. At the same time, Kate finds Claire in labor in the jungle. Luckily, Jin hears Kate’s cries for help, and he is able to deliver the news to Jack with Sun translating. Jack sends Jin and Charlie back, and the three of them help deliver Claire’s baby. Claire is scared at first—of being a mother and of the possibility that the baby might know he was unwanted—but she’s jubilant when the baby is born. Boone’s blood starts compartmentalizing in his leg, so Jack and Michael devise a way to amputate it, but Boone tells Jack to stop. He asks Jack to let him go, and dies trying to give Jack a message fo Shannon. As Claire shows off her baby to the rest of the survivors, Shannon and Sayid return from a night away, and Jack has to break the news to Shannon. She grieves over Boone’s body in the caves alone. Jack leaves to find Locke, whom he considers to be Boone’s murderer. In the flashback, Jack wonders whether he’s ready for his impending nuptials to Sarah, a woman whose spine he fixed years ago, especially because he can’t seem to write his vows. But after talking with his dad, Jack realizes that marriage is exactly what he wants.

THOUGHTS: Damn. The first major death. Juxtaposed with a birth. The Island giveth; the Island taketh away. It would have been a truly Lost moment if Claire gave birth to a mini-Boone, but that’s neither here nor there. It was a heart-rending episode with a flood of various emotions at the end. The scene in which Claire brings the baby to the beach camp is so beautifully shot, and the baby seems to warm the cockles of all the survivors’ hearts. Even Sawyer can’t help smiling. At the same time, Shannon returns from a lovely date night with Sayid, presumably happier than she’s ever been, only to find out about the tragedy that she missed. It’s heartbreaking to watch her sit over her stepbrother’s body and sob. But the last moment of the episode is really striking. Jack declares that Boone didn’t die; he was murdered. And he leaves to find John Locke. Hell hath no fury than a Jack rendered helpless to “fix” people.

I’m on a quest to re-watch every episode of Lost, one per day. As I polish off each DVD, I’ll post my thoughts on the episodes contained therein.

“Hearts and Minds”

SYNOPSIS: Locke and Boone continue unearthing the metal plate, now revealed to be a handleless hatch, amidst concerns that they’re not bringing back any boar on their “hunting excursions.” When Boone tells Locke that he has to tell Shannon the truth, Locke clocks him on the head. When Boone wakes up, he’s bound by rope, and Locke rubs some sort of paste on his wound before leaving. Boone hears Shannon screaming and the monster approaching, so he frees himself and finds and unbinds Shannon. They seem to outrun the monster, but it catches up to them and kills Shannon. He attacks Locke for putting them in that position, but Locke reveals that it was all just a paste-induced hallucination designed to free Boone from his step-sister’s emotional grip. Meanwhile, Shannon flirts with Sayid, Sayid is confused by the anomalous magnetic field of the island, Kate helps Sun sew seeds in a garden and realizes that Sun knows English, and Jin and Hurley form a friendship over an urchin. In the flashback, Shannon and her boyfriend con Boone out of $50,000, and Boone realizes that this isn’t the first time. But this boyfriend steals the money and leaves, and Shannon goes back to Boone… and they sleep together.

THOUGHTS: This episode made me sorry that I knew so much already. That’s the one drawback of re-watching these episodes: hardly anything surprises me. If I were somehow able to wipe my memories of this show, I could truly experience it all over again the same way I did the first time. But all of that is not to say that it’s not still enjoyable. This is one of my favorite episodes out of the season, because we were all so thoroughly duped the first time. We really did think that the events of this episode were actual, only to find that it was all just a dream. It’s one of television’s commonest tropes, but it’s used here smartly and for a good purpose. And again, Locke proves himself to be the handiest man on the island, both in practical and in spiritual matters. And, to top it all off, this episode satiates our monster-appetite for a while—we’re reminded that this threat is still out there and still one of the Island’s biggest mysteries.

“Special”

SYNOPSIS: Michael and Walt are having trouble connecting. When Michael finds Walt with Locke and chastises him, Locke suggests that maybe the trouble is that Michael treats him as a child. But Michael tells Locke to stay away from both of them. Michael tries to bond with Walt over art, but that doesn’t work. He decides to build a raft, and he tries to get Walt to help him, but that doesn’t work either. When Walt wanders off again, he’s cornered by the polar bear, and it takes both Locke and Michael to rescue him. Then all three of them are chummy. Elsewhere, Charlie watches over Claire’s stuff but can’t help reading her diary, Shannon and Sayid suspect Rousseau’s maps lead to a place on the Island (perhaps the Black Rock), and Locke and Boone happen across a disoriented Claire in the jungle. In the flashback, Michael and his girlfriend Susan become estranged shortly after Walt’s birth, and she takes Walt to Amsterdam with her. When Susan falls ill and dies, her new boyfriend makes Michael take custody over Walt, claiming that weird things happen when Walt’s around.

THOUGHTS: I don’t even have much to say about this one, oddly. I always enjoy it, but I don’t think it advances the plot much. (Maybe this is the shrewd stalling that Dan Snierson of Entertainment Weekly was talking about.) Still, it provides a very good history for Michael and Walt and why they have so much difficulty bonding. Plus, I’m really impressed with Harold Perrineau’s acting in this one. He has a way of reading his lines in such a natural, conversational way that you forget they were even lines to begin with. Two other notes: I have nothing but respect for visual effects master Kevin Blank, but I wish the polar bear CGI were better. Also, the scene in which Charlie struggles not to read Claire’s diary makes me crack up every time I watch it. Dominic Monaghan, bless you.

“Homecoming”

SYNOPSIS: Locke carries Claire back to the caves, but she remembers nothing since the crash, so the survivors have to help her fill in the blanks. Ethan attacks Jin and Charlie in the jungle, saying he’ll kill one survivor each night until Claire is returned to him. The survivors set up trip wires around their camp, but when one of them turns up dead the next morning, they realize Ethan came from the ocean. Jack relents and disperses the guns from the marshal’s case to Sayid, Locke, Sawyer, and Kate. The five of them lay in wait while Claire draws Ethan out. They corner him and try to press him for information, but suddenly he’s shot and killed by Charlie shoots him, who later said he never wanted him to be able to hurt Claire again. Claire is startled, but she tells him later that she wants to trust him. In the flashback, Charlie seduces a woman just to rob her father’s home and be able to buy a fix. But he develops feelings for her, all of which are for naught when he discovers his deception.

THOUGHTS: Guns, death, Others, oh my! Another action-packed episode. Ethan established himself as a true ninja Other who is crazy talented at hurting/killing. He can knock Jin out with a flung rock. He can lift Charlie in a chokehold with one hand. He can kill Steve—I mean—Scott by breaking most of the bones in the poor guy’s body. But he cannot beat the five most bad-ass Oceanic folks (plus Charlie). I’m a bit surprised that Charlie’s murder of him had so few repercussions. I mean, yes, Ethan probably deserved to die. But no one seemed to really be appalled by Charlie’s behavior. Eh, another murderer. No worries, man. We’ve all killed somebody. Once again, the flashback was quality. We feel both disgust and sympathy for Charlie as he is screwed over by his own lie right when he was trying to lead a truthful life. Yet another character on the Island looking for redemption.

“Outlaws”

SYNOPSIS: Sawyer awakes one night to find a boar rummaging through his tent. It spooks and runs off with his tarp. Sawyer is intent on finding it, but he gets lost, hears whispers in the jungle, and is eventually knocked into a puddle by the boar. Now Sawyer is really pissed, so he decides to hunt the boar down. Kate offers to help him, since he’s inept when it comes to hunting. The two of them play a revealing game of “I Never” over their campfire, in which they both admit to having killed a man. The next morning, Sawyer finds his gear scattered around their campsite. He finally corners the boar culprit but decides not to shoot it. Also, Sawyer talks to Sayid about the whispers, Sayid helps Charlie come to terms with having killed Ethan, Charlie bonds with Claire, and Michael makes good progress with his raft. In the flashback, we see the night when Sawyer’s father killed his mother and himself. Later in his life, Sawyer is fooled by his partner into killing an innocent man he thought was the original Sawyer.

THOUGHTS: Okay, now here’s some definite stalling. This episode is all about character and not so much about plot. I did enjoy it, and it had a lot of snappy writing, but I realized afterward how little actually happened. Basically, the one upshot of this episode is that Sawyer finally processes his guilt from shooting the innocent shrimp vendor. All of that said, a lot was revealed in the “I Never” game. It was a clever way to dump a ton of exposition about both Kate and Sawyer, and the scene nimbly goes from a frivolous tone to a grave one.

I’m on a quest to re-watch every episode of Lost, one per day. As I polish off each DVD, I’ll post my thoughts on the episodes contained therein.

“Solitary”

SYNOPSIS: On his sojourn, Sayid finds a cable in the sand. But it leads him to a trap, and when he regains consciousness, he’s tied to a bed frame in a hut, which somehow has power. A woman electrocutes him, demanding to know where someone named Alex is. Sayid realizes that this is the French woman from the distress call. When he finally convinces her that he is innocent and not one of “the Others,” she tells him that her name is Danielle Rousseau and she came when her scientific expedition was shipwrecked on the Island. But her colleagues, including her lover Robert, were infected by a “sickness,” and she had to kill them. When Sayid tries to escape, but Danielle corners him with a gun. She tells him that she can’t let him leave because then she’d be alone again. He persuades her to let him go and invites her back to the camp, but she leaves. Elsewhere, Hurley sets up a golf tournament to ease the survivors’ tensions, and Walt asks Locke to teach him knife-throwing. In the flashback, Sayid is forced to interrogate his childhood friend Nadia, but they become close, and Sayid facilitates her escape.

THOUGHTS: The first time I saw this, I was surprised enough by the cable in the sand—but then even more surprised that Sayid meets another person on the island so soon. On any other show, this development would have been drawn out over the course of an episode or even multiple episodes, not just revealed in the first act. But that’s Lost—always advancing the plot by leaps and bounds. The tables are turned when former torturer Sayid becomes the tortured, but just like how Nadia connects with Sayid, he too bonds with Rousseau. She’s pitiable in that she’s desperately lonely but too maladjusted to even consider joining the survivors’ camp. As for the flashback, every time I watch it, I am always awed by the simplicity and eloquence of the dialogue between Sayid and Nadia. All of that praise for this episode said, I’m ambivalent about the whole “sickness” thread, since it’s not really fleshed out fully by the rest of the series, but that’s only a minor quibble.

“Raised by Another”

SYNOPSIS: Claire wakes up from a nightmare screaming. Jack passes it off as a one-time event, but the next night, Claire claims to have been attacked. Not seeing any signs of trauma, Jack wonders if Claire is having delusions. He offers her some mild sedatives, but she is outraged that he doesn’t believe her, and she leaves the caves. Charlie tries to reason with her en route to the beach, but then she starts having contractions again. She tells Charlie to get Jack, and Charlie tells a guy named Ethan. Meanwhile, Sayid returns and says that there are others on the island, and Hurley—having conducted a census of the survivors—realizes that Ethan was never on the plane. Ethan confronts Claire with a creepy smile. In the flashback, Claire is ditched by her boyfriend soon after she gets pregnant, and she decides to give the child up for adoption. A psychic tells her that she must raise the child herself or else the child will cause unspeakable evil. She refuses, and he gets her onto Oceanic 815 under the pretense of meeting adoptive parents, presumably knowing all along that the plane would crash and Claire would be stuck with her child.

THOUGHTS: What a creepy episode this was. Creepy dreams, creepy nights, creepy psychic, creepy Ethan. The dream was appropriately surreal, with a lot of nice touches, like the baby mobile made out of models of the Oceanic plane and Locke’s one white eye and one black eye—the latter speaking again to the light/dark motif that would play so heavily into Locke’s fate. I thought Emilie de Ravin did a good job in her character’s flashback, in which her performance could have devolved into histrionics, but de Ravin plays it realistically and not overly melodramatically. But the real MVP of this episode is William Mapother, who was able to switch from affable Ethan to psycho-killer Ethan so readily. And I especially like how his full name, Ethan Rom, is an anagram of “other man.”

“All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues”

SYNOPSIS: Jack and Locke rush out to find Charlie and Claire, but before long, John doubles back to assemble a search party. Kate and Boone join him, and they come across a disoriented Jack. They find one of Charlie’s decorated bandage strips and assume they’re going the right way, but then Kate wonders if it’s a dummy trail. She and Jack go one direction, and Boone and Locke go another. When it starts raining, Jack slips and falls into a gully, where Ethan attacks him, with the warning that he’ll kill one of his hostages if Jack and Kate continue following him. But they do so anyway, and soon Jack and Kate come across Charlie’s body hanging from a tree. When Jack is finally able to resuscitate him, he says that he doesn’t remember anything beyond the fact that they only wanted Claire. Meanwhile, Locke and Boone happen upon something steel in the jungle, and they make haste to uncover it. In the flashback, Jack witnesses his father Christian operating on a woman under the influence of alcohol. The woman dies and her husband threatens to sue. Jack reluctantly agrees not to tattle on his dad but does anyway when he finds out the patient was pregnant.

THOUGHTS: This was a unique episode in a couple ways. First, it’s the second Jack-centric episode of the season, and some of the characters haven’t even gotten their own flashbacks yet. Despite the show being an ensemble drama, Jack is clearly set up as one of the lead characters, if not the main character. Also, this episode doesn’t have any secondary storylines. Sure, the search party splits and goes different ways, but they’re all on the same mission. We only get a few moments with the other survivors, like Sayid, Sawyer, Michael, Walt, and Hurley. The most potent scene of this episode was when Jack was trying to save Charlie. When this episode first aired, the whole viewing audience and I were pretty much convinced that Charlie was a goner. I’m accustomed to drawn-out CPR scenes, but I was sure he was dead when they cut to a long shot. That made me think “end of scene,” but no! He lives! Crafty filmmaking.

“Whatever the Case May Be”

SYNOPSIS: Kate and Sawyer find a pond and two corpses from the crash underwater, still buckled into their seats. They also find a Halliburton case underneath the seats,which Kate recognizes. Sawyer thinks it has special meaning to Kate, so he takes it. After Kate tries repeatedly to get it back, and when he gives up trying to bust it open, he offers it to her as long as she tells him why it’s so important, but she refuses. She goes to Jack and warns him that there are guns inside but that they have to exhume the marshal’s body to get the case’s key. Jack bargains with Sawyer and gets the case and then helps Kate unearth the key. They open the case, finding the guns and, oddly, a toy plane. Jack demands to know what it is, and Kate confesses that it belonged to the man that she loved/killed. Elsewhere, the tides rapidly come in, submerging the fuselage and forcing the survivors on the beach to find a new camp. Rose helps Charlie ask for spiritual guidance, Locke and Boone continue unearthing the steel plate, and Sayid has Shannon translate Rousseau’s notes. In the flashback, Kate helps stage a bank robbery but then turns on her fellow robbers, interested only in the safe deposit box with the toy plane inside.

THOUGHTS: And here’s Kate’s second episode! Kate is vying with Jack for the “main character” title. I know some people regard this as the season’s worst episode, but I still really enjoyed it. I didn’t think the reveal of the toy plane as the MacGuffin was anticlimactic. In fact, I thought it was intriguingly bizarre—why would Kate go to such pains just to rescue such a small tchotchke? (We’ll find out much later.) I also enjoyed all of this episode’s power plays between Jack, Kate, and Sawyer. Even Sun gets into the fun, eavesdropping on Jack and Kate’s private conversation under the guise of not knowing English. And Kate establishes herself as the epitome of badassery, especially in the flashback, when she shoots her three accomplices in rapid-fire. (There’s a reason she’s dressed in black most of the episode.) The writers are toying with us by leaving the crime for which Kate was arrested ambiguous. Was it the bank robbery? Was it the murder of the toy-plane man? Another crime entirely? (We won’t know for sure until next season.) Plus, I loved the last image. Shannon sings “La Mer” before Michael Giacchino’s soundtrack takes over the melody; Kate looks at the toy plane, and we see it silhouetted against the campfire. Très symbolique. (One snide remark: it seems like every single episode features someone startled by something rustling in the jungle! It gets a bit repetitive, but it’s one of the only Lost tropes I can think of.)

I’m on a quest to re-watch every episode of Lost, one per day. As I polish off each DVD, I’ll post my thoughts on the episodes contained therein.

“White Rabbit”

SYNOPSIS: After Jack fails to rescue a survivor swept out to sea, he becomes frustrated with how everyone is looking to him for leadership. He chases the hallucination of his father into the jungle and narrowly avoids death when Locke saves him from plunging off a cliff. Locke tells him that maybe the hallucination of his father means something and tells Jack to continue on his quest. The hallucination leads Jack to a source of freshwater, where he also finds his father’s coffin—empty. Meanwhile, the survivors turn on one another when the water supply gets critically low. Jack returns just in time to quell the conflict and to tell people that they need to start living together or else they’ll die alone. In the flashback, his father tells a young Jack that Jack “just doesn’t have what it takes,” Jack’s mother sends an older Jack to Australia to find his father, and Jack finds out that his father drank himself to death in Sydney.

THOUGHTS: This episode stands out as one of the most thematic in the first season. Jack truly is a reluctant hero and leader. His talents as a doctor and his obsession with fixing people make him act heroically, but he doesn’t want to shoulder responsibility since his father’s pessimism in his leadership abilities still haunts him. This episode also marks the first undercurrents of the “man of science, man of faith” debate, as Locke is convinced that Jack’s hallucinations are something more than just a symptom of stress, insomnia, and dehydration. This episode also sees the survivors realizing that they have to take roots in this strange land since rescue is an increasingly unlikely prospect.

“House of the Rising Sun”

SYNOPSIS: Jack realizes that the caves where he found the fresh water would make for a suitable shelter and a better encampment (despite the existence of two skeletons there, which Locke calls “our very own Adam and Eve”). But some of the survivors—like Sayid and Kate—would rather stay on the beach in hopes of rescue. Thus, the survivors are divided. Meanwhile, Jin attacks Michael out of the blue, and it’s incumbent on Sun to explain that Jin is only concerned about her father’s watch, which Michael had found. But to do so, Sun must reveal that she speaks English. Also, Locke convinces Charlie to hand over his cocaine. In the flashback, a working-class Jin woos socialite Sun and convinces her father to let him marry her. But, as part of the agreement, Jin must do work for Sun’s father, which is implied to be thug work. Sun confronts him about it, and he becomes hostile. She contemplates leaving him but decides at the airport to stay and board Oceanic 815 alongside him.

THOUGHTS: I remember being totally blown away when Sun spoke English for the first time. Though we have only been with the survivors for six episodes now, it was a startling twist. And it sets up a source of dramatic irony while making her character—and Jin, transitively—more accessible to the audience. The flashback storyline was affecting in that it started off sweetly but then soured dramatically. In only a handful of scenes, we see how and why Jin and Sun’s relationship took a turn for the worse. It was the devolution of a relationship as seen through vignettes. And, of course, the last moments were pensive and a bit desolate, as we left the survivors contemplating—and perhaps doubting—their choice of encampment.

“The Moth”

SYNOPSIS: Charlie, struggling with the effects of withdrawal, asks Locke for his stash of drugs. Locke pontificates about gaining strength through struggle and says that if Charlie asks two more times, he’ll give them to him. Back in the caves, Charlie is talking to Jack when their part of the cave collapses. Charlie makes it out, but Jack is pinned inside. Charlie works his way through the tunnel, but a second collapse traps him where Jack is. Finally Charlie spots sunlight, and the two of them burrow out. Charlie asks Locke for his stash a third time but destroys it. Elsewhere, Sayid puts his triangulation plan into effect, but someone knocks him out before he is able to find the source of the distress call. In the flashback, Charlie and his older brother Liam find fame through their band Driveshaft, but Liam and then Charlie fall victim to the rock-star lifestyle and start using. Years later, Charlie flies to Sydney to convince his now-clean brother to join him a comeback, but Liam says that he has a family now and doesn’t want that life, and Charlie leaves frustrated.

THOUGHTS: If only every episode of Intervention were this successful! But I guess no one else has a guru like John Locke. Indeed, this episode convinced me the first time around that John Locke knows everything and that everyone should just do as he says. (Even if it means being live bait for a boar.) We’re still in the mystical-yet-practical John Locke stage and not yet to the fanatical, obsessive John Locke stage. I also like this episode because Charlie not only kicks his addiction but also realizes his self-worth as someone who is anything but useless. The moth metaphor might be a little heavy-handed, but whatever; I still appreciate it.

“Confidence Man”

SYNOPSIS: When Shannon uses her last asthma inhaler, Boone rifles through Sawyer’s loot to find the rest, but Sawyer catches him and beats him. Jack confronts him about it, and they even come to blows, but Sawyer won’t give up the inhalers. He tells Kate that he’ll only fork them over if she gives him a kiss. When she says that no one’s that selfish, he makes her read a letter written by a young kid, who blames Sawyer for sleeping with the kid’s mother and stealing the family’s money, which led to the father killing the mother and himself. Jack allows Sayid to torture Sawyer, but Sawyer still doesn’t talk. Finally, Kate kisses him, and he reveals that he never had the inhalers. Sayid suspect that he’s still lying, attacks him, and slices an artery in his arm; but Jack is able to stop the bleeding. As Sawyer recuperates, Kate realizes that he was the one who wrote the letter, and Sawyer says that he took the name of the confidence man who ruined his family. Also, Locke insinuates to Sayid that Sawyer might have been the one who knocked Sayid unconscious, Charlie woos Claire with some fake peanut butter, and Sayid—ashamed of resorting to his background of torture—leaves to explore the island. In the flashback, Sawyer nearly cons a couple but calls it off when he sees that the couple have a young boy.

THOUGHTS: I try to keep my synopses as concise as possible, but this episode was so packed with plot that I had to write more than I usually do!. I credit showrunner Damon Lindelof, who wrote this episode, for cramming so much story into 42-some-odd minutes of television. It’s hard to have empathy for Sawyer for most of this episode, but—even though Sawyer himself says, “Don’t you dare pity me”—it’s impossible not to by the end. His childhood was nothing short of tragic, and it’s equally tragic that he became the man who destroyed his life, in both name and profession. Sawyer is one of the many characters who seeks and ultimately earns redemption on the island, and this episode marks the first step: admittance. (Plus, we witness sides of Sayid we hadn’t seen before which will be developed even further in the next episode.)

I’m on a quest to re-watch every episode of Lost, one per day. As I polish off each DVD, I’ll post my thoughts on the episodes contained therein.

“Pilot, Part 1″

SYNOPSIS: In the aftermath of the horrific crash of Oceanic 815, the survivors recuperate while wondering both about the possibility of rescue and about the ruckus in the jungle. Jack, Kate, and Charlie set out to find the cockpit. They find the pilot, miraculously alive, who tells them that they were a thousand miles off-course at the time of the crash. The monster comes back and kills the pilot, while the three other survivors escape with their lives.

THOUGHTS: A hell of a way to start a series. In the beginning, everything was so simple: it was just a survival show. Who at the time could have conceived the scope of the drama, mystery, and emotion to come? J.J. Abram directs with tautness and precision, balancing action with introspection neatly, and only revealing as much—in the story and in each frame—as necessary. It’s fun to think of all the ways the show will have changed by the end, but for now, I’m enjoying going along for the ride again and recalling my reactions when I saw this the first time.