Ah, Lost. In this episode, Locke returns to the Beach and asks Sawyer for a very odd favor (no, not that kind of favor). Meanwhile, no one trusts Jack, Sayid tries to get the satellite phone working, and more plot holes get sloppily filled.

By semi-flashbackless, I mean that other then filling in what Locke has been up to since we last saw him, there were no flashbacks. And indeed, after the episode was done I can see why: you don't need flashbacks when you just randomly hemorrhage information out of a temporary character. It seems that in an effort to shy away from the long, mysterious, vague plots of yester-season, the Lost writers has pushed too far into the other extreme and are now just vomiting plot points on us like a frat girl at Mardi Gras.

I was stunned by this weeks episode because not only did it infuriate me, it also floored me. The episode had so many amazing and subtle moments, like when Locke was told that the Others had been waiting for him. When Sawyer takes out the piece of paper and hands it to Locke's father and quietly says "Read it". Locke refusing to kill his father. These are the powerful moments, the ones I watch Lost for.

On the other side, there was more sloppy writing than a Fox newsroom.

"Sawyer's real name is Keyser Soze? That can't be right."

The writers seem to have adopted a new technique, which I will hereby dub "strangerblurt". They did it with Juliet, they did it with Alex, they did it with Patchy, and now they've done it with Locke's father. The process behind the technique goes a little something like this:

1. Introduce a secondary character
   
2. Give that character some kind of connection to a main player (a communications officer for the Others? Bens pseudo-daughter?)
   
3. Make that character give away as much information and as many plot points that you possibly can while they are with the Losties
   
4. Kill off or remove character from view
   

These are professional TV writers, for Pete's sake! You'd think that with a cast of at least 14 Losties you could put together a good storyline where they seek out and discover information on their own. But noooooo. This season we've had Juliet tell them about the fertility thing, we've had Patchy tell them about the files, we've had Alex tell them about the brainwashing, we've had the new pilot girl tell them about Penny's rescue attempts, and now Locke's father revealing the whole sordid history behind Sawyer's past and why he became a conman.

What makes me more frustrated is that this could have been an epic setup. Locke needs his father dead to fit in with the Others, he knows about Sawyer and his fathers shared history, and then locks the two of them in a secure place knowing full well what will happen once they figure it out. A plotline that Edgar Allan Poe could be proud of. But unfortunately, no matter how excellent the idea, you're still writing for two snarling dogs in a room. The entire exchange between Sawyer and Locke's father (the original Sawyer, as it turns out) felt forced. Character 1 says something, Character 2 reacts. Character 2 asks a question, Character 1 reacts. Rinse, repeat. I won't go into detail about how they could have fixed this (I don't want to ramble off on a tangent), but I'll post my thoughts about it in my blog (members only).

"I'll make ya famous!"

It broke my heart when Locke's father ripped up that letter. From the first line of the letter, you realize how long Sawyer has been waiting for this moment, how long he's been suffering, how long he's been planning this encounter. To see it all go wrong after such a long time makes the audience feel for Sawyer, and makes the resulting confrontation not only possible, but warranted. Again: great writing at some points, terrible writing at others.

Meanwhile, back at the beach Sayid is recruited to help sort out the situation with the pilot. Strangely enough this doesn't involve torturing her for information, so the Losties must finally be warming up to poor Sayid. It also seems like they wasted all their good foreshadowing on the Beachies this episode. The pilot tells them that the plane was found and the bodies were all there.

Crazy Lost Theorist Guy says: "Dude! The Others crashed a duplicate plane with lookalikes to keep people from looking for the survivors!"

Sayid attempts to fix the satellite phone, casually remarking that it is more advanced than anything he's seen.

Crazy Lost Theorist Guy says: "Dude! They're stuck out of time! The rest of the world has advanced while they haven't aged at all! Penny Widmore is probably like 90 by now"

Kate snitches like a 4th grader, and Juliet tells Jack to "tell her".

Crazy Lost Theorist Guy says: "Dude! They totally know all the secrets to the island!"

And so on and so forth.

The previews for the next few shows leading up to the season finale are exactly what I would expect them to be: vague, mysterious, uninformative, etc. I can't even begin to guess what it is they will be pulling out to shock us this year, I only know that it will lead up to one major event that will begin to happen and then BAM. Screen goes black, Lost logo zooms by. Fans everywhere scream in abject horror because they will have to wait for next season to find out what happens. Same thing as every year.

Comments (1)

Peter Sorensen wrote...

Say what you will, but I am fairly proud of this weeks review. It's opinionated, funny, sincere... I even coined a new word with "strangerblurt".



and yet, only two people liked it. Wow. Time to try harder, I guess.

|| May 04, 2007

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