Wow, The Blot decides to skip reviewing the Season 4 premier of Lost and what do you know, all of a sudden we’re a fourth of the way through the season already. Time moves fast when the season is reduced to only 8 episodes because of the strike. To be honest, I kept putting off my review of Season 4, Episode 1 “The Beginning of The End” because I was pretty disappointed in it. It was a fine episode, but just not up to the high standards I hold episodes of Lost to for a few different reasons.
The first reason is that in the promos ABC has been running for weeks now, we see Jeremy Davies’ character Daniel Faraday telling Jack, “Rescuing your people, can’t really say its our primary objective.” But, that line never shows up in the season premiere. Instead we have to wait until the second episode, “Confirmed Dead,” to hear it. What’s made Lost great the past few years is that no one knows what’s coming, not the characters or the audience. When you take that away and give the audience knowledge of what’s to come you lose a lot of the suspense and I feel like that is exactly happened in this season’s first episode. All of the characters are scrambling to either contact the freighter or stop that from happening, but all the while the audiences knows that a) they obviously eventually do contact the boat and b) the boat isn't there to rescue them. If you’re going to give out that kind of information in advertisements then you might as well get to that point in the story quickly.
My second problem with this season's first episode was the frustrating lack of communication between the Losties. Why do they continue to withhold information from each other when they’ve all see such magical things occur on the island and know that for survival they all need to work together? That combined with Jack’s inability to take other peoples’ suggestions is the worst. Here there are two blood trails and Jack refuses to send a party to follow the other trail. Who does that? If there are two trails you follow both until you find Naomi. Obviously after all this time on the island Jack should know Kate’s going to follow the trail whether he likes it or not, at least if he agrees to it maybe she won’t go off into the jungle alone. I’ve come to expect this kind of idiotic thinking from Jack, but for Danielle Rousseau to go along with it I thought was out of character. Rousseau has proven to be the most logical and paranoid thinker on the show (with Sayid a close second), and I would have assumed she would have wanted every basis covered to ensure the safety of herself and the daughter she has been trying to reconnect with for 16 long years.
That being said, I loved Hurley’s Flash Forward, especially the reappearance of the red Camaro Hurley worked on as a child with his father in a previous Flash Back. I thought it did a great job introducing us to the “Oceanic 6” that had been rumored about on the internet for months and Lance Reddick’s (The Wire, OZ) mysteriously evil character Matthew Abbadon. I loved the guest appearance of Dominic Monaghan’s Charlie and can’t wait to see if the rumors of who the other three remaining members of the Oceanic 6 are true. I also enjoyed the continued screen time given to Rose and Bernard. In my opinion those two can never be given enough dialogue!
And now we can get to the real topic of today's post, Season 4, Episode 2 “Confirmed Dead.” I thought this episode was a much better episode than last weeks. It actually gave us some background information on the new characters, a few answers to some minor questions and left us with some huge new questions/cliffhangers. I have to say for an episode that didn’t contain a Flash Forward or any mention of the Oceanic 6, it was still really entertaining. I guess it just goes to show us that there will be a mixture of Flash Forwards and Flash Backs from here on out. Plus, I thought the mini-Flash Backs of this season’s 6 new characters (Naomi and the four members of her crew from the helicopter plus Abbadon) gave just enough background on these characters to pique our interest without giving any really important information about them. I for one am still trying to figure out what Ken Leung’s (The Sopranos, OZ) Miles Straume was doing in the deceased boy’s room or how that Dharma Polar Bear got all the way out to the desert…not to mention how The Others planted a gigantic replica of Oceanic flight 815 in the ocean with a complete matching set of deceased passengers and crew.
I just think “Confirmed Dead” had the perfect amount of information given, mystery and character development to make for a great episode of Lost. How many of you were sitting there watching and waiting for Sawyer to finally shut Ben up for good? I know I’ve had so many conversations over the past week with Lost fans as to why the Losties are keeping Ben alive and I guess we finally got our answer. We also finally got an answer as to how Locke is up and running around after being shot and left for dead at the end of Season 3. Doesn’t he all of a sudden look so much healthier than he did when he came stumbling out of the jungle in the Season 3 finale?
A few other side notes before I wrap this up. It was nice seeing Sawyer look out for his new friend Karl again by keeping him away from Ben. I think maybe we’re finally seeing a softer side to James. Last week he was consoling Hurley after Charlie’s death and now he’s trying to calm Karl and Alex down after some of Ben’s annoying chatter. It was also nice to see Sayid and Juliet bond on the beach before going back to rescue Jack and Kate.
I’m starting to think Juliet is now the resident badass of the Losties. She’s just about saved the entire main cast from being shot to death. First she saved Sawyer and Kate when they were escaping from The Other’s second island, then she and Sawyer saved Sayid, Bernard and Jin in last season’s season finale, and now she and Sayid save Jack and Kate from the Island’s latest invaders. If she isn’t careful she might start being considered a bigger threat to The Others than Sayid.
Ok, I think that’s enough rambling by The Blot for one week. Any big clues in this week’s episode? I haven’t heard of many on the internet but maybe little things will become more important as the season goes on. One rumor I did hear is that next week is another Flash Forward episode and a new member of the Oceanic 6 will be unveiled. With only 6 episodes left lots of things should be happening in a short amount of time! And just wait for Season 4, Episode 6…I hear its going to be a good one!
