"Good things come to those who wait." It's a mantra that seasoned
Lost fans have learned to adopt, because due to all of the twists and turns of this juggernaut TV series that inspires such rabid devotion (and equally passionate frustration) from those who watch it, it can be very difficult to wait for each new episode. As a result, this turns out to be a series that is perhaps better appreciated on DVD, which leaves the viewer to decide how much they're willing to have their mind screwed around with in one sitting before they stop, get off the couch, and try in vain to get some sleep with all of the persistent questions rolling around in their heads. It's funny, because the first three seasons of this show have had just as many episodes as a normal TV series, spaced out over the same length of time (premiering in September or October, with the big finale during May sweeps), and yet it
seems like the wait for each episode is painfully long, despite the creators' best attempts to schedule it in interrupted blocks without reruns. You just can't win when you're writing a series that poses so many questions and leaves so many cliffhangers dangling that viewers are demanding to know the answers
now.
Season 3 of this series was especially frustrating for a lot of viewers due to (a) the decision to air a small "pod" of 6 episodes in the fall, take a 13-week break, and then return with an uninterrupted string of 16 in the winter/spring, and (b) the redirection of most of the storyline to accommodate a deeper exploration of the adversaries known as "The Others", putting off a lot of questions fans may have had about characters who fell by the wayside by way of death or disappearance last year, or about the DHARMA Initiative and its complicated backstory. This is a show with a long-term plan, meaning that any big questions they bring up, they'll eventually answer (and with three seasons left until the series' agreed-upon end date, they now know they have finite time to get around to those), but that doesn't mean that there won't be a lot of detours, some of them dead ends when the writers realize the audience isn't clicking with certain characters or story ideas, and a bit of "making it up as they go along". I actually appreciate this aspect of the series - that they have the bigger picture planned out, but are flexible enough to correct course based on what new ideas occur to them in the meantime and what storylines the audience has had enough of (well, sometimes anyway). But it's brought the show its share of detractors, and this season it seemed on several occasions that they were bleeding viewers by the hundreds of thousands on a weekly basis.
OK, so I'm talking a lot about the series' relationship with its viewers, but not very much about the actual content of the show. Let's pretend you've never seen
Lost. What do you need to know to decide you'd like to jump in now, starting with the DVD of its third season and then catching up with the already airing episodes of Season 4? Here are the basics:
- The show follows the survivors from Oceanic Flight 815, a commercial airliner that crashed on a (seemingly) deserted island at the beginning of
Season 1.
- There are other people on this island (referred to as "The Others"), who are generally hostile and manipulative toward these survivors.
- Each episode explores one (or in some cases, two) characters' past lives by way of flashbacks, usually before the crash, but sometimes filling in previously unknown details about their lives on the island.
- Strange, and possibly supernatural, events seem to occur on this island, such as dead or missing people appearing to certain characters in visions, and a "smoke monster" in the jungle that is occasionally violent enough to kill people.
- A scientific group known as the DHARMA Initiative had a presence on the island at one point, building several stations (unofficially referred to as "hatches") that were used to study various properties of the island.
- The show explains things at a generally slow pace, so a mystery that crops up in Season 1 might not be dealt with until Season 3 (or, in some cases, possibly much later than that).
That's probably enough basic knowledge to get you started - filling in enough backstory to make sure that you got the maximum value out of any particular episode would probably require some details on the character on whom that episode is focused. So, without further ado, here's a rundown of the show's characters (and the generally talented actors who play them):
---CHARACTERS--- Jack Shepard, played by Matthew Fox
Jack is the leader of the Flight 815 survivors, and the show's "flawed hero" - a spinal surgeon with a tenacious force of will, and an unhealthy obsession with fixing things. This much you know if you've watched past seasons, and if you're anything like me, this characterization has started to wear thin. However, Jack makes some bold strides in season three, still maintaining his singular focus on keeping the flock safe and getting them off the island one way or another, but resorting to some surprisingly desperate measures in the hopes of achieving that end, which lead some of the Losties to question whether he can still be trusted. Jack's
absence is also a defining plot point here and there - his abduction by the Others at the end of
Season 2 means he's not around to deal with the wounds and deaths and tough decisions, etc., that the survivors back at the beach camp have to contend with.
Kate Austen, played by Evangeline Lilly
Kate has left behind her former life as a criminal on the run with some major commitment issues, in order to become one of the most trusted co-leaders among the Losties... well, by pretty much everyone but Jack, who finds himself competing with Sawyer for her affections but isn't always sure he knows what her angle is. And her commitment issues still haunt her on the island. Kate gets her share of tough-chick moments when squaring off against the Others this year, but she also gets sexualized and humiliated in ways that I think were a bit difficult for the actress on an emotional level. I personally feel that the character is at her strongest when she's removed from the love triangle and she's all about strategy and taking action to protect her fellow Losties, which is perhaps the one thing she's been most fiercely committed to in her life so far.
James Ford (a.k.a. Sawyer), played by Josh Holloway
Sawyer is a con-man, a criminal low-life with a snaky attitude and an endless array of amusing insults who has managed to become one of the show's most beloved characters. He often plays the "bad boy" to Jack's "good guy", and his obstinance in the face of anything resembling authority translates to him taking quite a few beatings at the hands of the Others this season. At the heart of it, he seems to want to do the right thing when push comes to shove... but you'll never get him to admit it. The writers might be guilty of using him for a few too many "comic relief" B-plots later in the year, but they do take the opportunity to explore his dark side as well.
John Locke, played by Terry O'Quinn
The frustrated button-pusher who spent most of last season holed up in "The Hatch" relishes his return to the role of island shaman in Season 3. He is at once the wisest character among the survivors, and one of the most gullible and easily tempted. These traits lead to some brilliant squaring off between him and the Others in the latter half of the season, and even the Losties have to question whose side he's really on. Locke is perhaps the character we learn the most about this year, due to him being the focus of
three episodes' flashbacks.
Sun-Hwa Kwon, played by Yunjin Kim
Sun ceased to be the demure, subservient Korean wife somewhere around episode six of the first season, and has evolved into one of the most surprisingly dramatic characters on the show, despite most of her storylines being a bit more low-key. This season, her tough side comes out as well, as she takes action to protect her unborn baby and maintain her once-rocky relationship with her well-meaning but hot-tempered husband. It's finally starting to feel like she's central to one of the island's biggest mysteries, and mark my words - Sun will surprise you in Season 3.
Jin-Soo Kwon, played by Daniel Dae Kim
Jin sort of gets the shaft this year, in that he's absent from a lot of episodes, but where he does get involved, he proves to be a bit of a hero in his own right, as well as an unlikely source of comic relief, owing to the other character's attempts to teach him English and get him more involved in their everyday activities instead of letting him and Sun isolate themselves like they did early in Season 1. I have to give Daniel Dae Kim a lot of credit for pretending like he barely knows any English when he speaks it fluently in real life, though native Korean speakers give him a lot of flak, because apparently his Korean is pretty horrible.
Hugo Reyes (a.k.a. Hurley), played by Jorge Garcia
You can always count on Hurley to find a way to boost morale when the Losties are at a low point. In addition to being the guy who tries to cheer you up when you're certain death is imminent, he also serves as a voice of (somewhat naive) reason, asking a lot of the questions that the audience would ask about things that just plain don't make sense about the island. This results in him being involved in some of the most unlikely and just plain weird adventures that the show has had to offer thus far - it's almost always a delightful scene whenever he's on screen.
Sayid Jarrah, played by Naveen Andrews
The former "communications officer" from the Iraqi Republican Guard continues to serve the Losties well in his role as a technical expert and military strategist. He's always one of the first to volunteer when there's a dangerous expedition or a rescue party that needs to be mounted, and his ability to read people and tell whether they're lying or not is rather uncanny. He's still woefully underused (a problem which has plagued this character since mid-season two), and one could accuse the character of being all brains and no heart, since he's mostly featured for his skills and not so much as a way of delving into his personal issues (aside from his one flashback episode this season). If there's anyone among the survivors who would be likely to go out in a blaze of glory, dying valiantly to keep his comrades alive, it'd probably be Sayid. (That's not a spoiler. I'm just sayin'.)
Charlie Pace, played by Dominic Monaghan
The whiny, crack-addled, washed-up rock star who managed to get on my nerves so much last season that I was prompted to write a list of "People who should kick Charlie's @r$e" manages to evolve into a bit of an unlikely hero by season's end. An event happens mid-season which radically changes this character and finally allows him to see beyond the bubble of what's good for him, his girlfriend, and her baby, and think about the good of the community overall. He still has to deal with the repercussions of past transgressions against the Losties, though, but to balance that out, he's usually dependable for some solid comic relief whenever he teams up with Hurley, Sawyer, or even Jin.
Claire Littleton, played by Emile de Ravin
Claire was the pregnant girl who was a focal point of Season 1, and in Season 2, it seems like they didn't quite know what to do with her, other than having her whine about her baby Aaron being in mortal peril, and bossing Charlie around and whatnot. This year, she still does quite a bit of that, but more of her genuine kindness comes back as she interacts with Sun, the mother-to-be, and she even conceives a clever idea that may help her fellow survivors, in an episode which refreshingly isn't all about her baby.
Mr. Eko, played by Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje
***SPOILER ALERT!*** The dubious Nigerian priest who added a strong religious element to the show last year is sadly absent from most of this year's storylines. He was an excellent addition to the cast in Season 2, and as the only one remaining from those cast additions, it was sad to see that personal issues beyond Adewale's control (specifically the passing of his parents) had to lead to his opting out of the show for most of the year. What little we do see of Eko in Season 3 sort of revolves around his descent into madness and his quest for absolution, grappling with the island on his own terms. This is the guy who stared down "the monster" in Season 2, and there's something about his tough exterior and his level-headed ability to only speak when absolutely necessary that I've always enjoyed. Even in his absence, he manages to provide a vital clue to an important quest which some of the others embark on.
Desmond Hume, played by Henry Ian Cusick
Desmond is the first of a few characters added to the cast who are
not survivors of Flight 815 - he was originally a recurring character that the Losties found living in the Swan Station (better known as "the hatch" in Season 2's memorable premiere, and since he ended up back on the island at season's end, and his former home ended up being blown to smithereens, The Powers That Be decided to just assimilate him into the group. In some ways, his role among the survivors tends to mirror that of Eko's last season, as he is haunted by past regrets and plagued by extremely odd visions that send him off on some of his own weird quests. Truthfully, I think that this character is less interesting when not tied to the whole freaky backstory of the Dharma Initiative, and left to be more of a conduit to the supernatural - it kind of stretches the credibility of the show. Still, the bond he forms with Charlie turns out to be one of the show's more touching friendships, and it's great to see the Losties admitting someone like him into their group who was originally not one of them (in fact, as we known from the Season 2 finale, he was the one responsible for their plane crashing in the first place).
Benjamin Linus, played by Michael Emerson
(***MINOR SPOILER ALERT***) Ben is the man whom we knew as "Henry Gale" in Season 2, the masterfully devious leader of the Others who pulls no punches in his use of emotional manipulation to get what he wants out of the Losties. He was originally planned to be a recurring guest star, but Emerson's acting amazed pretty much everybody, so they brought him in for the long haul, and this was a brilliant move, as he'll probably go down in history as one of TV's greatest villians. His interactions with Jack, Sawyer, and Locke in particular are a tricky game of mental chess, and it's often difficult to determine who's winning. Something about that calm, slightly ironic tone of voice that he often speaks in is at once unnerving and fascinating.
Juliet Burke, played by Elizabeth Mitchell
(***MINOR SPOILER ALERT***) Juliet is one of three new characters who we've never seen before this season - she's a high-ranking Other who, as a sort of parallel to Locke, seems to have her own agenda on many occasions. She's got a calm, almost kind demeanor at times that only serves to further mask her keen ability to manipulate (it's more subtle than Ben's, which in some ways makes it all the more creepy), but she's also played as a sympathetic character, especially when you see how she came to get mixed up with this misguided group of people in the first place. Mitchell plays the character exceedingly well, hiding most of her cards when the other Losties are onscreen, only to reveal something foreboding or perhaps even touching with a single facial expression when she's the only one in the frame. This is a character who, like Kate, seems to always have ten different things to hide, but she's much stronger in the way that she chooses to react to what life throws at her.
Nikki Fernandez, played by Kiele Sanchez
Paulo, played by Rodrigo Santoro
These are perhaps the two most hated characters ever to appear on
Lost - well, at least among the series regulars. The premise is that they're two of the background survivors being brought to the foreground - which in my mind is a perfectly legitimate idea since we were told from the beginning that 40-some people survived the crash, even though the show only focused on about 14 of them full-time. We've had the occasional "bit part" characters like Scott and Steve, or recurring survivors like Rose and Bernard who show up from time to time, so it's not too much of a stretch to believe that there could have been two survivors whose activities the show never focused on during the first two seasons. It's even humorous to think that some of these "red shirts" might have gone places and seen things that they never told the "cool kids" about, due to the main characters' tendency to not share information well with the rest of the group. Anyway, what looked like a good idea on paper turned out to have a truly awful execution, as these two proved to be rather limp when introduced, nagging our regular characters about dumb things, tagging along on an adventure without really offering much helpful dialogue for the audience, and basically just taking up screen time that was already being split between too many different stories. The writers' ability to recognize that they had made an unpopular move by introducing these two actually led to a highly amusing episode when it came time for them to get their own flashbacks. But by then, it was too little, too late. Paulo and Nikki will simply never be the "iconic characters" that we were promised they would become.
---EPISODES--- As much as I may express my distaste for some of these characters, it's the nature of the episodes that ensures every character will at least get one episode that revolves around them that I think keeps the show fresh. With such a large cast, and seemingly infinite ways that they can interact with one another, it's fascinating to see how the dramatic aspects of the same action/adventure or sci-fi-oriented story play out dramatically from two different characters' points of view. The stellar ensemble that makes up
Lost's casts was, disappointingly, not utilized very well early in the season, which explains why some of the episodes were uncharacteristically weak, but fear not, because the second half of the season is where things
really pick up, gaining an incredible amount of momentum that leads up to a stunning finale which all but rewrites the rules for the series. It's worth hanging on through the the so-so episodes... and of course, having the DVD set makes this a whole lot easier to do.
SPOILER WARNING: I've tried not to give away any of the major events of Season 3 in writing about the characters, but the nature of this show is that one episode builds on events from the previous one. Read with caution if you have not seen these episodes yet and wish to remain unspoiled. Most of them are worth watching and re-watching, with only a few rating "average" in my book, so that should tell you what you need to know about their quality. 3.1 "A Tale of Two Cities" ***1/2 "What do you do, Jack? What's your profession?" --Juliet
"I'm a repo man. You know, when people don't pay their bills I go into the bank and collect their possessions. I'm a people person so I really love it." --Jack As season premieres go, this one is fairly lackluster, sad to say. Even sadder is the fact that it kicks off a string of semi-lackluster episodes, largely due to the fact that a most of the action focuses on Jack, Kate, and Sawyer in The Others' captivity. This episode follows suit after the last two season premieres, in that it's Jack-centric, and we learn through flashbacks that Jack is stubborn, obsessed with his ex-wife Sarah (
Julie Bowen), angry at his father (
John Terry), and unable to let go. This is contrasted with his present situation, in which he's trapped in a creepy metal holding cell, being interrogated by Juliet, and he acts very stubborn and doesn't know when to let go. (Thanks, writers, for clearing that up.) Having said all that, Elizabeth Mitchell is a bright spot as she steps into the shoes of Juliet, and Michael Emerson makes a strong showing as The Others' creepy leader as he tries to intimidate Kate. Meanwhile, Sawyer gets the first of many beatdowns that he'll receive this season. I kind of think it's a bad move to have only five of your regular cast members in a season premiere when you've got such a wonderful ensemble to work with, but despite how anti-climactic much of this episode is, the opening teaser is pure genius, paralleling Season 2's first few moments as we're left to wonder where the hell we are and what the hell is going on.
3.2 "The Glass Ballerina" ****1/2 "Why are you lying to me, Sayid?" --Sun
"And what would you know about lying, Sun?" --Sayid The second episode is an early bright spot, as we catch up with Sun, Jin, and Sayid, adrift on a sailboat somewhere near the other side of the island, slowly realizing that they've been duped by The Others and that Jack's plan failed, and frantically debating what to do about it. It's a first for the characters of Sun and Jin in that it involves them in the action directly, weaving in story points such as Sun's pregnancy and Jin's limited understanding of English in a relevant way that helps to ratchet up the danger for these three. Sun and Jin share flashbacks in this one, and they weave together quite nicely with the current story, exploring Sun's tendency to be a big lying liar, but cunning (and beautiful!) enough to get away with it, and Jin's sometimes aggressive and overbearing, but ultimately well-meaning, need to protect his wife at all costs. Both characters do some fairly surprising things in this episode - just when you think you've seen the most shocking moment in a flashback, just wait until you see what Sun does when her life is jeopardy in the present storyline. Oh, there's some stuff involving Kate and Sawyer, too, but it's not that interesting. Jack's minimal screen time near the end of this episode actually leads to a highly amusing cliffhanger, though.
3.3 "Further Instructions" ***1/2 "You're not taking drugs are you? I only ask because there is a zero tolerance policy on the island and I wouldn't want you to have to punch yourself in the face." --Charlie, to Locke At long last, we're back at the beach with the rest of the other Losties, and... well, don't get too attached to most of 'em, because this episode is mostly Locke's story, with Charlie tagging along, Eko being in mortal peril, and Hurley and Desmond providing a small amount of comic relief. All of our favorites are back, and yet they all feel a little bit "off" in this episode, except for Locke himself, who relishes his return to "great bald hunter" status, with a creepy island vision and a dangerous jungle quest to boot. It beats the button-pushing boredom that the character was subjected to for most of last season, but there's a lot of effort spent here that will only be undone a few episodes later, so it's rather frustrating to go back and watch it now. Locke's flashbacks, in which he joins a hippie commune somewhere in Northern California, aren't the Locke story that we're all dying to have told to us, but the vision that the island gives him is definitely one of the coolest scenes in the history of the series - it's incredibly surreal and symbolic. Also noteworthy is the opening teaser, which cleverly mimics the first few moments of the show's pilot episode. Near the end of the episode is when we finally meet the new characters Nikki and Paulo - and neither the scene that introduces them here nor the painfully awkward deleted scenes originally intended to introduce them do a good job of endearing them to the audience. Locke episodes are typically strong, but this one kind of sputters along.
3.4 "Every Man for Himself" **** "What, don't you read? It's from Of Mice and Men
. You'd like it, puppies get killed." --Sawyer, to Ben Here we get an A-story involving Sawyer in a cage, interspersed with flashbacks of Sawyer in jail. Doesn't sound like a whole lot of variety, but I'll give this episode credit for having a solid mix of drama, deception, and smarmy one-liners from our favorite redneck. It's pretty brutal, though. Sawyer's mouthing off basically escalates the situation with The Others to the point where they come up with a rather disturbing way of keeping him in line. It's a twisted game of wits between Sawyer and Ben, with an ending that tempted viewers to accuse the writers of making it all up as they went along, but that I found convincing and remarkably attentive to the series' established continuity, actually. There's a B-story which expounds a little but upon the freaky Desmond stuff from the previous episode, but we're not really gonna get to the meaning of that for a few more episodes, so sit tight.
3.5 "The Cost of Living" **1/2 "I ask for no forgiveness, father, for I have not sinned. I only did what I had to do to survive." --Eko This episode is probably the worst one that
Lost has had to offer thus far. It's not a total wash, but it is rather frustrating to watch, to the point where it was the only episode I skipped outright when re-watching the season. This one is centered around Eko, who is bordering on delusional after his near-death experience from a few episodes ago. Flashbacks follow up on the story begun in
The 23rd Psalm last year, and as you'd expect for a story about a drug lord who defrauded his way into the priesthood, it's a story about past demons and personal redemption. The problem is that a lot of this feels like supernatural mumbo-jumbo, and doesn't really serve to advance the important storylines that the series has been postponing dealing with. It feels a bit rushed in its need to wrap up some of Eko's loose ends. On the upside, Locke and his motley crew of whichever Losties feels like getting involved (unfortunately including Nikki and Paulo) revisit an interesting locale from last season, which gives us a tantalizing hint of things to come, and Jack's Stockholm Syndrome situation with Juliet starts to get a bit more twisted.
3.6 "I Do" **1/2 "I thought it was bad luck to see the bride before the wedding." --Kate
"No, it's bad luck to see the bride in her dress before the wedding. You, my friend, are naked." --Kevin Two deeply disappointing episodes in a row preceded a 13-week hiatus before
Lost got back on its feet in early 2007, so after watching this one, you can probably understand why a lot of fans gave up on the series during its third season. This one's not bad as a further study of Kate's character, but it lacks the sudden surprise that made the previous "winter hiatus" cliffhangers so exciting (the discovery of the hatch, and Walt's communication with Michael via the hatch computer). It actually fills in a blank that attentive viewers were wondering about since season one, when Kate alluded to having been married before in a conversation with Sawyer, since her flashbacks here explore her marriage and the reasons why it didn't last. You can probably predict most of it from the first few scenes, though, and the role of Kate's husband is a fantastic waste of one
Nathan Fillion (of
Firefly fame). Kate's desperate pleas to keep Sawyer alive and Jack's drastic measures to gain leverage against the Others would be fine as the lead-up to the climactic scene of an action movie, but
Lost has taught me to expect curveballs, and this episode doesn't throw very many. I suppose it'll surprise anyone who was hoping for something to happen with the infamous "love triangle", but that stuff generally just makes me roll my eyes.
3.7 "Not in Portland" **** "Whatever you think I am, I'm not. I'm not a leader, Mr. Alpert, I'm a mess." --Juliet Now this is more like it! We're still caught in the trap of
Lost feeling like a claustrophobic spinoff of itself, due to the focus on only a few members of its cast, but it's always refreshing to see the first flashback from a new character, and Juliet's backstory in this episode is fairly intriguing, comparing her somewhat meek persona from her former life to the tougher, take-whatever-side's-convenient sort of attitude that she has in the present storyline.
Nestor Carbonell makes his first appearance here, in a recurring role that will soon become one of the most intriguing among the show's many peripheral characters (please, God, let
Cane be cancelled so they can wrap this story up!), and we get to see Ethan (
William Mapother) again, who turns out to get a lot of mileage for a dead guy this season. This episode is great in its ability to make us re-examine characters we thought we knew, download a little more of island weirdness for our brains to process, and dare us to sympathize with one of the "bad guys" when all is said and done.
3.8 "Flashes Before Your Eyes" *** "I think I have made the biggest mistake of my life. And the worst part is I'm pretty sure I have made it before." --Desmond
"That is what they call deja vu, mate." --Bartender If you were wondering how they were going to manage to plausibly explain Desmond's eerie, newfound abilities from a few episodes ago, then well... keep wondering, because this one's going to turn your expectations upside-down and slightly askew. After Desmond saves Claire from certain death, Charlie and Hurley begin to hound him, demanding the same answers that the audience is, which results in a deviation from the usual episode format, where flashbacks are interspersed with the main island story, in order to give us one big long flashback of Desmond's life back in England, with his girlfriend Penny (
Sonya Walger), who we recognize from the Season 2 finale as the woman who was trying to locate the island. It's perhaps the first time that we're deliberately led to wonder if a character's memories of the past are really the way things happened, and while it's a bit of a fascinating mind game for the show to play with us, I was a bit miffed to once again have the vast majority of the cast out of the picture for most of the episode (especially since Desmond was a later addition and not one of the original band of survivors). This episode is important to the overall mythology and it raises some fascinating questions about Desmond and about the show's preferred mode of storytelling, but in doing so, they might have damaged the credibility of the story just a tad.
3.9 "Stranger in a Strange Land" *** "I have no interest in your father." --Achara
"Well, that's a relief, because I'm pretty tired of talking about him." --Jack This one's notorious among
Lost fans for being the episode in which we find out how Jack got his tattoos. No, really, that's what the flashbacks are all about. Hawaii acts as a stand-in for Thailand, as we watch Jack trying to get away from it all in Phuket, having a torrid love affair with a local woman named Achara (played by
Bai Ling, a Z-list celebrity who has managed to upgrade herself to Y-list with the help of her private parts), and basically being stubborn and bull-headed when he doesn't get the information he wants out of people. Things fare a little better on-island, as Juliet has to deal with the aftermath of her actions toward her fellow Others, and Jack has to figure out whose side he's on. A surprising appearance by some previously seen characters that we'd all but forgotten about adds a nice bit of continuity here, as if to remind us that storylines which go untouched for long periods of time haven't necessarily been forgotten by the writers. Still, I have to downgrade this one because seriously, we didn't need yet
another Jack episode so early in the season.
3.10 "Tricia Tanaka Is Dead" ****1/2 "I'm sorry." --Jin
"Okay, nice. Keep it coming." --Sawyer
"You were right." --Jin
"Okay. That's two. Hit me." --Sawyer
"Those pants don't make you look fat." --Jin
"Now you got it! Only 3 things a woman needs to hear." --Sawyer I have yet to be disappointed by a Hurley-centric episode. The character is constantly used to give the audience a few laughs, but they got some good drama out of Hurley's personal problems last year, and this time around they work both aspects of the character into a solid episode, albeit one that's mostly there as a "lighter" outing in between more intense adventures. This one's great about getting the whole cast more involved, with specific focus on Hurley's and his unlikely band of good ol' boys (Charlie, Sawyer, and Jin) trying to start up an old van that they found in the jungle. Yeah, it's ridiculous, but just go with it - there are laughs aplenty, and a solid dose of hope offered by this episode. Flashbacks deal with Hurley's daddy issues, which is so horribly cliche for this series, but who cares, because "daddy" in this case is
Cheech Marin. Hurley also has to deal with his guilt due to the "curse" that he believes is related to the lottery numbers, and that caused the death of a reporter named Tricia Tanaka (
Sung Hi Lee appears in the titular role, and yeah, pun intended.)
3.11 "Enter 77" **** "I've played a lot of computers, and I'm pretty sure they don't know how to cheat. That's what makes being human so distinctly wonderful." --Locke Plenty of action and intrigue are found in this episode, in which Sayid, Kate, and Locke stumble upon another Dharma Station, with another mysterious inhabitant. He ain't no Desmond, though - he's Mikhail Bakunin, deviously and expertly played by
Andrew Divoff. Sayid spends part of the episode just trying to figure out what this guy's game is, and it's a stellar game of cat-and-mouse between the two. All the while, Locke's incessant need to explore and mess with stuff he shouldn't mess with rears its ugly head once again. You'd think this dude would learn his lesson! Flashbacks are a bit disappointing, though - Sayid hasn't had any truly solid backstory since season one's
Solitary, and this episode sort of reverses that one, since he's the interrogator in the present, and the interrogated in the past, being held prisoner for war crimes that he may or may not have committed. It's an intriguing bit of drama that stretches out for far too long, and Sayid is already a bit of an underused character, so I'm frustrated with the writers' seeming inability to give him a backstory worth talking about. Also not that great is a just-for-laughs subplot involving Sawyer and Hurley - it's too much too soon after the much better smart-remark fest in the previous episode.
3.12 "Par Avion" **** "This was my mother's worst fear." --Sun
"What do you mean?" --Claire
"That I would end up doing something like this - cutting bait. She had high hopes for my future, but they did not include me marrying a fisherman's son." --Sun
"Well, I guess we don't always turn out like our mothers want." --Claire Did you ever notice that every Claire episode has followed a Sayid episode? Just wondering. Claire is an anomaly to me, in that she's one of the series' most one-note characters, and yet the one episode a year in which she's the central character tends to be a really strong episode. This one's no different, though unlike
Raised by Another and
Maternity Leave, it's not really because of Claire's story. I give Claire a lot of credit for being smart and doing something other than whining about her baby in this one - she is suddenly struck by a clever idea that might get everyone rescued, and gathers all the help she can to implement it, despite Desmond's attempts to talk Charlie out of helping her. The A-story centers around all of the non-American characters on the island, though not intentionally. Claire's flashbacks don't really seem to relate to her island story as directly, dealing with the aftermath of a horrible car accident that left her mother in a coma. They're mostly notable for revealing an interesting connection between her and another character (which astute viewers were already wondering about during Season 2). The B-story is what really makes this episode sizzle, as Kate and her rescue squad make their way toward the Others' barracks and have to contend with Locke's hidden agendas and a deadly obstacle in their path.
3.13 "The Man from Tallahassee" ***** "'The man from Tallahassee?' What is that, some kind of code?" --Locke
"No, John. Unfortunately, we don't have a code for 'there's a man in my closet with a gun to my daughter's head.' Although, we obviously should." --Ben Locke's second flashback is a major comeback - the first truly exceptional episode of the season, and an exemplary case for what makes
Lost such an engrossing series. Locke's true intentions are exposed here as he makes his way to the Barracks and quickly shows the rest of the group that he's not exactly there to rescue Jack - much of the episode plays out as an intricate game of verbal chess between him and Ben, and the numerous parallels and the attention to continuity detail here are stunning. It's an episode that will intrigue newer viewers while giving hardcore fans a payoff they've been awaiting for some time now. Flashbacks show us a bit more of Locke's struggle to get even with his b@st@rd of a father (
Kevin Tighe), connecting a few dots that lead us from the pathetic man he was before the crash to the confident, but somewhat superstitious individual that he became when he arrived on the island. It's another one of those episodes that will make you jump more than once with its sudden surprises, and just when you think you're over the shock, it'll hit you with an even bigger doozy in the end.
3.14 "Expose" ****1/2 "Look, I'm just a guest star and we all know what happens to guest stars." --Nikki After doing next to nothing for the handful of episodes in which they appeared, Nikki and Paulo get their promised flashbacks here, which tell us both why they were on the plane and what they've been doing on the island for all of this time that they've supposedly been just offscreen, having their own little adventures. It's a bit preposterous to think that the writers want us to buy the way in which they've been shoehorned into the story, but at the same time, it's kind of fun to see them superimposed onto classic moments from the series so far, so just suspend your disbelief and go with it. The flashbacks to new viewpoints on classic episodes and island locales aren't just there for long-time fans to geek out over, though - they're how the audience gets filled in on the origins of a mystery presently occurring on the island, that has all of the other survivors confounded, since they barely know Nikki and Paulo and haven't seen what we've seen. It's the first episode of the season in which all credited series regulars actually appear on screen (though some of them only show up briefly in flashbacks), and we even get quite a few dead characters reprising their roles, whether we missed them or not - there's Boone (
Ian Somerhalder) and his bratty sister Shannon (
Maggie Grace), Dr. Arzt (
Daniel Roebuck), and the aforementioned Ethan, all doing what they did best way back in the show's heyday (largely annoying us and creeping us out, actually, but it's nostalgic this time around!) The most notable scenes here are a recreation of the plane crash from Nikki's perspective, and a rather chilling ending which proves to the viewers that the writers
are listening to our criticisms of the show after all.
3.15 "Left Behind" **** "Welcome to the wonderful world of not knowing what the hell's going on." --Kate, to Juliet This one's sort of like
Thelma & Louise meets
Midnight Run. It's actually a strong episode for Kate in that it shows her taking a more independent stance in both the present and flashbacks. Somewhat coincidentally, she spends the flashbacks palling around with Sawyer's old flame Cassidy (
Kim Dickens), as these two criminals on the lam try to scheme their way into visiting Kate's estranged mother (
beth Broderick) without getting caught by the notorious marshal (
Frederick Lehne) who spent the better part of his career playing
Catch Me If You Can with Kate. The girls' day out on the beach involves Kate and Juliet, who are rather miffed to find themselves waking up in the jungle, handcuffed together. Sure, a lot of it's about arguing over boys, and there's even a mudfight involved, which some might see as a bit degrading, but both are strong characters in this episode who don't take any crap from each other. Add a creepy visit from one of the island's scary inhabitants, and you've got a recipe for a solid hour of
Lost. (Well, if you take out another Hurley/Sawyer subplot that's just there for laughs and has no bearing whatsoever on the episodes that follow. Why is it that two of my favorite characters, when matched together, are so often a recipe for bad B-plots?)
3.16 "One of Us" ****1/2 "You know, it's interesting that you two are now the camp's moral police. I'm curious, Sayid, how long was it before you told everyone on that beach exactly how many people you've tortured in your life? Do they know about Basra? And I'm sure the first thing you did when you got here, James, was to gather everyone in a circle and tell them about the man you shot in cold blood the night before you got on the plane. So why don't we just skip the part where you two pretend to be righteous?" --Juliet This episode's title is a subtle twist on last year's
One of Them, in which we first met "Henry Gale", now better known as Ben. It once again focuses on Juliet, continuing her story from where
Not in Portland left off, and once again posing the question of whose side this enigmatic woman is really on. You will feel her pain in this episode, and you'll want to kill her, all within the span of about five minutes - kudos to Elizabeth Mitchell for once again pulling this off with subtlety and with great authority (particularly in a scene where she gives Sayid and Sawyer a sharp dressing-down for playing her judge and jury). It's great to see Mitchell interacting with the rest of the cast after being isolated with Jack and the Others for much of the season - she fits in so well that, much like Michael Emerson, I forgot she wasn't part of the show all along.
3.17 "Catch-22" ***1/2 "This is future crap, isn't it?" --Hurley, to Desmond I wasn't really looking forward to another Desmond-centric episode at this point, but thankfully, this one plays a little better than
Flashes Before Your Eyes, since it doesn't mess with the narrative structure as much. We've got another motley crew of four guys out on a grand island adventure to anchor the episode - this time it's Desmond, Charlie, Sawyer, and Jin on a camping trip, which is really just a ruse for Desmond's attempt to find something deep in the jungle which he believes will lead to his rescue, despite the knowledge that it may put them in mortal peril, which of course he doesn't let on to the others about. A notorious character from past episodes makes a surprising reappearance here in an attempt to thwart them, and in general this episode is a great example of how nothing on
Lost is as it seems, and yet it's close enough to what you expect to instill a great sense of foreboding when things play out
almost as you dreaded they would. Not so great are the flashbacks, which explore Desmond's life as a monk, which is a hell of a lot of effort to spend just to tell us he had a fear of commitment and that his time in the clergy is where he learned to call people "brothah".
3.18 "D.O.C." ***** "You know how powerful my family is. My husband believes that you are dead. Do not force me to make that a reality." --Sun Hey, how come Sun has had three flashback episodes all to herself, and yet Jin has only had one? No matter. This is another one of the series' finest, featuring the formidable pairing of Yunjin Kim and Elizabeth Mitchell, as an angry Sun, upon learning Juliet's background as a fertility doctor, marches right up to Juliet and demands to know what happens to pregnant women on the island. The two spend much of the episode together, as Juliet proceeds to show her. There are about a million different thoughts and hopes and fears being expressed in Kim's face during this episode - it's a tour-de-force of great acting that hints at all of the emotions underneath the surface without playing most of them out in the open. Sun's flashbacks involve an underhanded blackmail attempt on her rich and powerful family, which she goes to great lengths in her attempts to quash. Both stories intertwine beautifully in an exploration of the sense of shame that was instilled in Sun by her culture - it's played in a respectful way, while also showing how devastating it is for Sun to wrestle with the person she once was and the "survive at all costs" nature of life on the island. The B-story involving Desmond and company's discovery in the jungle is also fascinating, leading up to a mind-bending reveal at the end that will likely cause you to blurt out "What???!?!" at the exact same time Hurley does.
3.19 "The Brig" ****1/2 "Okay, Tarzan. So, now that you're back from your 'Blow Up Everything That Could Get Us Off the Island Tour,' how 'bout you tell me why you joined up with the damn enemy?" --Sawyer This is the
third flashback episode for Locke this season, but it's unique in that all of the flashbacks take place on the island (similar to
Maternity Leave and
Three Minutes from Season 2). This is the payoff after the "Oh. My. GOD!" ending of Locke's previous episode - we don't see much of him in between the two, and it definitely worked to tell this story all at once instead of dragging it out over several episodes. Here, Locke enlists Sawyer's help for a rather grizzly task, something that you'd think would be beneath Locke despite how dubious we already know his intentions to be, and we sort of find out the "why" in flashbacks to the days leading up to this event, after watching the horrid event transpire. It's one of the show's darkest episodes thus far, but it also pays off another
huge mystery from Season 1, so sit tight; it's worth the time spent in this damp, dank prison cell.
3.20 "The Man Behind the Curtain" ***** "You know what I think, Ben? I think there is no Jacob. I think your people are idiots if they think you take orders from someone else. You are the man behind the curtain, the Wizard of Oz, and you're a liar." --Locke You want dark and creepy? This episode takes the cake in that department. It's also one of the most fascinating
Lost episodes ever, because this is when we finally get the Ben flashback that we've been waiting for all season. Here we learn how Ben (played as a youngster by
Sterling Beaumont) evolved into the manipulative, sadistic mofo that we know him to be today (and I mean that somewhat literally, since his mother is played by Michael Emerson's wife,
Carrie Preston. How very Freudian.) Sure, some of it involves the ever-present daddy issues that seem to plague every character, but most of it involves a tantalizing glimpse at the island during the hippy-friendly heyday of the Dharma Initiative, which gives us quite a bit of history about the island in the process. In the present story, Locke throws down the gauntlet, so to speak, and demands some answers from Ben about the island. Do we get them? Maybe. You know how this show rolls by now. If you're lucky enough to get the answer you were looking for, you'll only walk away with roughly ten new questions.
3.21 "Greatest Hits" **** "So tomorrow night, we stop hiding, we stop running, we stop living in fear, because when they show up, we're going to blow them all to hell." --Jack Now here's an episode about a character who doesn't appear to have any daddy issues! What a concept! If you've been wondering all season why Charlie hasn't gotten any flashback love, then you'll be relieved to know that they've saved it for the lead-in to the season finale, which finds Charlie recounting the five greatest events of his life so far (this might normally serve as an understated character study, and thus a disappointment to fans, but given the drama Charlie knew he'd soon have to face at this point, it was well-timed and relevant to the story). Personally, I've never been a big fan of Charlie, and his three flashback episodes before this have all been among the show's worst, so I'm glad to see the writers redeem the character a bit with this one. The finale is set up beautifully here, as Charlie volunteers for a dangerous and surprisingly selfless mission that might put the Losties at a huge advantage over the Others. Meanwhile, Jack makes a comeback of his own by demonstrating good leadership skills and putting together a plan to blow the Others to hell. Plus the recurring characters Rose and Bernard (
L. Scott Caldwell and
Sam Anderson) make their much-belated first appearance of the season. All I have to say about this is, it's about damn time!
3.22/3.23 "Through the Looking Glass" ***** "If you say the words 'live together, die alone' to me, Jack, I'm going to punch you in the face." --Rose This is the one that got them all talking. OK, so there have been a lot of
Lost episodes that got a lot of buzz going around the water cooler the next morning, but most of those were early in the series. This one's where the fit hits the shan in ways we haven't seen since the Season 1 finale, and a dizzying amount of intertwining storylines collide with one another for one big purpose - the final showdown with The Others, and the tantalizing hope of rescue from the island, supposedly made possible by the valiant attempts of Charlie and Desmond. This one turns audience expectations on their heads and then some - even a few of the biggest naysayers who thought the series had lost its way, and that the writers were making it all up as they went along, were pleasantly surprised by the daring storytelling on display here. You simply will not see the final surprise coming, especially given the fact that it's a Jack episode, and we've come to expect a certain amount of redundancy from his off-island stories. It won't come clear to you why we're wasting the better part of a season finale on Jack flashbacks until you reach that final scene, and then you'll have to reconsider pretty much everything you've seen. Simply put,
Lost will never be the same.
---SPECIAL FEATURES--- Disc 7 is always the first disc I pop in when I've brought home a newly purchased DVD set of
Lost episodes - that's where I'll find all the behind-the-scenes stuff, and possibly, some clues as to what the show might do next, or why it's done what it's done so far. This season's set of special feature sort of pales in comparison to the impressive bonus disc from Season 2, but still contains a few featurettes that are worth watching for the more curious
Lost fans out there. There's nothing that rivals the extensive
Lost Connections interactive piece, or the amusing menus narrated by Marvin Candle, but they do manage to work an "Others" motif into them by way of using the Pearl Station monitors as the selectors for different branches of the menu (and if you click around enough, you'll find several Easter Eggs, as always).
The Lost Book Club An analysis of the literary works referenced in
Lost, and how those references have influenced some of the more rabid members of the fan base to check out those authors.
Cast in Clay: Creating the Toys of Todd McFarlane Sort of an ad for the
Lost action figures, but it's neat to see how they managed to make some of them look so much like the actors by doing 3-D imaging of their heads.
The Next Level: Inside the Video Game At the time of release,
Lost: Via Domus wasn't yet complete, so this feature doesn't go into the depths I'd have liked to see, in terms of demonstrating the game in action. It's neat that they're making a game, but I wanted more from this one.
Lost: On Location You've seen this in past DVD sets for the show - it contains several vignettes explaining how they set up shots and came up with story ideas for several different episodes. I'm a bit baffled as to why they repeat some info on episodes we already have commentaries for, but whatever.
Crew Tribute with Evangeline Lilly An amateur video shot by Evangeline during a typical day on the set, introducing us to a lot of the people who do menial jobs that you'll never see on camera. I admire her spirit for doing this, but it's fairly routine "behind the scenes of a TV show" stuff.
Lost in a Day This feature's probably more lengthy than it needs to be at roughly half an hour, but it goes far beyond the
Anatomy of an Episode feature from last year, showing us a typical day in the making of the show, during which at least seven different episodes are being worked on - the earlier ones are already in post-production while others are being shot and still others are being conceived in the writer's room, and this certainly must be a hell of a puzzle for the crew to put together when all is said and done! (I was also amused to find out that they get wardrobe for the extras at Savers, the same second-hand store in Honolulu that my wife likes to visit when we're in town.)
The World of The Others This is basically a recap of the show's exploration of The Others this year, noting several of the second-tier characters who were killed off over the course of the season, and the complex relationship between these character and the Losties, as commented on by several cast members and writers. Since this was filmed after the season ended, they offer thoughts on what Season 4 might mean for this now largely splintered society. We don't learn that much new from it, but it's still mildly interesting.
Terry O'Quinn: Throwing from the Handle A brief interview with the actor who plays Locke, demonstrating the right way to throw a knife.
Blooper Reel For some reason, these weren't as funny this year.
Harold Perrineau's presence was such a bright spot in Season 1's bloopers; he's sorely missed this year.
The Lost Flashbacks/
Deleted Scenes I'm honestly confused as to why they grouped these as they did when one "Lost Flashback" involves Nikki & Paulo on the island, and one "Deleted Scene" is a Jack flashback, but whatever. These fill in a few small gaps, minor details that they didn't have the time to explain, while also showing an alternate way that they originally planned to introduce Nikki & Paulo (which at least gave them a slight amount of relevance, but was also rather uncomfortable to watch). None of these should be taken as canon, but they're an interesting look into what ends up on the cutting room floor as commercials demand more and more of the airtime that was once occupied by actual story.
Also, a few of the other discs contain audio commentaries that run alongside the episodes, specifically for
A Tale of Two Cities (with Elizabeth Mitchell and co-creator/showrunner
Damon Lindelof),
I Do (with Evangeline Lilly, Josh Holloway, and showrunner
Carlton Cuse,
Expose (with writers
Edward Kitsis and
Adam Horowitz, and
The Man Behind the Curtain (with Michael Emerson, Damon Lindelof, and Carlton Cuse). Of these,
The Man Behind the Curtain is the only one that I found truly worthwhile, because it's always interesting to hear Emerson's take on his devious character (he still seems to be holding out for the reveal that Ben is actually a good guy!), and it's just an episode that is packed with mystery and curious questions about why they chose to tell the story the way that they did. The other three are all episodes that were widely panned by fans. I do enjoy hearing Mitchell talk about the debut of her character Juliet, but it's kind of weird to have the actress commenting on an episode that features someone else's flashbacks (couldn't we have had her comment on
One of Us, or Matthew Fox comment on
Through the Looking Glass?) Lilly and Holloway's commentary mostly deals with the tedious Jack/Kate/Sawyer love triangle, and the
Expose commentary, unsurprisingly, is basically an apology for including characters in the series that were poorly written and that nobody liked. (I enjoyed the episode, and technically speaking, it's quite an achievement, but really, I could think of far more interesting episodes to give fans the dirt on.)
So, in summary: Solid storytelling, once you get past the difficult early episodes of the season. Bonus features that add a little bit of knowledge and intrigue for curious fans, but not enough to warrant a purchase on their own. Buy it because you enjoyed enough of
Lost's third Season the first time around to watch it again, or because you're getting caught up with the series in the first place. Season 4's already off and running, so there's not a moment to lose!
