Well, this episode seemed… how can I put this kindly? It seemed very… transitional. There was a lot of setup tonight. A lot of setup and a lot of relationship stuff. I know that a lot of people are invested in the Jack/Kate/Sawyer/Juliet/Vincent triangle/square/polygon, whatever the heck you want to call it, but frankly, it doesn’t really do anything for me. In all honesty Jack, Kate, and Sawyer are all incredibly flawed people and I don’t think any of them are a good fit for each other, not even Jack and Sawyer.
This whole episode was fueled by angst. Sawyer was feeling all wistful on the island after catching sight of Kate birthing Claire’s baby in the past. I wonder if that’s as much as we’re going to be seeing of Claire this season. Kate was full of angst because someone was trying to take away Aaron, using the knowledge that they are not actually related. Jack was… well, Jack was just being Jack: feeling sorry for himself for abandoning most of the survivors on the island and ruining his life off it. Jack’s a winner!
Even on the island, nothing really seemed to happen. There were some interesting tid bits, but it seemed that it was mostly just the team trying to get from point A to point B. I am curious about Ajira airways. Could that possibly be the flight that the Oceanic Six take back to the island? It certainly seems like the left-behinder’s trip to the beach was in the future and not the past. I’m sure we’ll revisit that in a more interesting episode.
My favorite part of the episode had to be the confrontation between Kate and Ben. He’s such a manipulative little jerk, and I loved that he was so unapologetic about it. “Yeah it was me.” Classic Ben.
It would appear that Jin is alive and well after being blown off the freighter. I guess that mystical healing extends a bit beyond the island, doesn’t it? Maybe it’s just a situation like with Michael, where the island has some work for Jin to do, so it won’t let any harm come to him. I’m sure we’ll find out. The poor guy must be so confused, though.
Were we supposed to be surprised at the end of the episode when Danielle introduced herself? I mean, we all knew who that was as soon as the folks in the raft started speaking French, right? In any case, I think next week will be a great episode. We’ll get to see some of young Danielle and her crew, and have a potentially epic showdown with all the Oceanic Six.
I’m going to take some time to stew on the island weirdness and will have some more analysis in my Lost in Lost column. Check back on Monday!
Clacked by Bob Degon
on Feb 05, 2009 @ 08:00 EST5EDT
Is it a little sad that as soon as I heard that screaming, I knew it was Claire?
I think it’s a little bit sad that I didn’t know that all this would happen the way it happened but I called
– Jin is alive
– they have to get back to the Orchid
– Sun is not evil
But that’s just me. To be honest at the moment all that’s left is what is Dharma and now who shot at the outrigger boat before the flash but the last one I don’t really care about and the Dharma question won’t be answered until season six.
I really get the feeling that this whole season will just be about the six returning to the island and not much more. It’s kind of interesting but again – I don’t feel any sizzle.
I mean how often can we discover that Ben is the evil mastermind and still feel awed? I’m feeling slightly bored about it, I can’t be angry anymore. I mean how often can you be fooled by the same guy and still be angry? At a certain point it’s just “meh”. Yeah ok you fooled me ha ha.
I guess I was so in the moment that I didn’t really even think of it being Danielle. I’m curious if Jin is skipping along the same timelines as Sawyer, Juliet, and the rest, and that we are just seeing it in a different order.
I also kinda liked Ben being the one behind the blood tests with Aaron and Kate. It was a lot simpler than some conspiracy that, IMHO, just wouldn’t have been interesting. This was nice and neat and, as you said, in character, so it worked for me.
My first thought when Miles went all bloody was that he might have been Candle’s son as well.
I figured Jin is hopping along the same jumps as Sawyer and the rest of who is left but he was just in the water the whole time.
Ben being behind the whole Kate thing was the only possible explanation to me. He knows he needs to get everyone back and Kate was the most resilient. Setting her up to be on the run and then find that her only safe bet WAS to go back was the best idea. I am just wondering how she is gonna wrestle with that and the fact she saw Claire who told her to not bring the kid back.
She’ll drop Aaron off with Grandma at the hotel.
But wouldn’t the kid need to go back too?
*POST AUTHOR*
Looking back on some of the earlier episodes this season, I just noticed that Sun didn’t only ditch her baby in Korea, but she didn’t even have an up to date photo to show Kate. In the hotel, she hands Kate a baby picture, meanwhile the kid is at least 2.5 by now.
Apparently there’s no room for Ji-Yeon this season.
I too wondered about that picture. I just hope that was a flub on the production part and not an issue with Sun.
*POST AUTHOR*
If you go back and watch the scene, she does say, “here’s a BABY picture.”
It was odd though.
Akbar – I guess you are right about the 6 required to go back and that means Aaron too. However, the logistics involved in taking a small child through that hell of an island make it seem unlikely to me that he’ll be going.
Bob – Regarding Sun and the picture. I thought about this and what if a baby picture is all she has because her baby died for some reason. If that were true it could be the catalyst for her losing her marbles and wanting to kill someone, like Ben/Jack who she seems to have beef with over Jin.
Question: Does anyone remember how older Danielle interacted with Jin in early episodes? Did she ever give some indication she knew him?
Now we have some notion as to what all the whispering was in early episodes.
bsg: I must have missed it… What is the whispering?
It happened in earlier seasons; at times someone would find themselves alone, there would be whispering. I recall, when the whispering happened then I thought, perhaps this person is going crazy, like Danielle describing her collegues going crazy. Anyhow, in my mind it fits that the whispering can be attributed to the time shifts.
No… I remember the whispering… Do you think the whispering is these folks that are skipping, them talking as they watch stuff?
*POST AUTHOR*
You jogged my memory about Harper, Goodwin’s wife. Remember when she popped up last season and told Juliet to get to the Tempest station and then vanished? Certainly seems like she was jumping through time.
Yes Dorv, that’s exactly what I think. Sorry if I was not clear. You are supposed to read my mind!
I agree that this episode was almost filler. A little bit of it felt like they were stretching somethings out just to fill time, but everything presented was important.
As for the Danielle reveal, I don’t think we were supposed to be suprised by it but more of we were supposed to feel Jin’s surprise by him going “WTF?”
I’m just a little pissed they had to cast someone else instead of the awesome Mira Furlan. In fact, I kept wanting the other woman in the background of the french people to be her and the one talking to Jin to be someone else.
I’ll come out and say it, the episode sucked, and I want my 62 minutes back. We learned NOTHING, and no plots were advanced. The “shocking” parts of the episode were “No shit, Ben is evil, so they went back in time 16 and French woman shows up, and Jin is alive…”
Is it next week yet?
*POST AUTHOR*
It was definitely the weakest episode this season.
Like Dorv, I was too in the moment (and, frankly, had to change the settings on my TV to see Jin’s face in the water because my plasma gives me the darkest of dark, and I couldn’t make out a damn thing, so I was kind of in THAT moment) to realize it was Danielle. Plus, her head is round and Danielle’s was long and thin, so I was deceived by poor casting. :-D
But to the important part. Saywer. It brought tears to my eyes watching him watch Kate. You know, he doesn’t get much credit for his acting, but Josh Holloway killed in that scene. He said so much with his face. I thought it was great. And proves that he loves Kate much more than Jack ever could.
Seriously – Jack finds a note with Kate’s address on it and instead of telling her on the phone what is going on, he demands to see her. Meanwhile, there COULD have been any number of other dudes out there meaning her harm. WTF Jack? After everything you guys have been through, do you REALLY think it would be hard for Kate to believe a dart gun wielding assassin had an appointment at her place? That whole scene was one of the worst I’ve seen.
I’ll grant that it wasn’t the most exciting episode so far, but I’ve seen worse. I’m glad Jin is back, but I hope they tell us what happened to the other survivors (Rose and Bernard, especially) soon.
So is Sun just going to leave her daughter forever, I wonder?