Summary: In flashbacks, Jack is approached by a woman named Gabriela who wants him to do an impossible surgery on her father to save his life. Jack does it but is unable to save his life. He ends up kissing Gabriela. He returns home to Sarah who he hasn't been spending much time with. Sarah reveals she is going to leave him. In the present, Michael locks Jack and Locke in the armory and leaves to go after Walt. Kate and Sawyer free them, and they all go after Michael. Jack orders Kate to stay behind. Jack, Locke and Sawyer follow Michael's trail and they hear gunshots. After giving chase they encounter Zeke who has come with a force of others hidden int he jungle. Zeke gets them to surrender their weapons when he reveals that he has Kate and plans to kill her. He lets them know that they don't have freedom of the island. The group returns to the camp unsuccessful. Jack goes to Ana Lucia with a plan to train an army.
The Good: It looks like "Lost" is finally picking up steam again. The island story in this one was superb. From the first minute it was intense, important and exciting. The hook of Michael leaving to go after Walt works tremendously well, and the ensuing mission to go after him creates some organic conflict and character exploration. This all builds up to an outstanding confrontation with the returning Zeke. The others have never been so mysterious and threatening as in this scene, making this a huge escalation in the conflict between the survivors and the others. Zeke was wonderfully charismatic in the role, making it clear that the others hold a real power in the jungle, one that the survivors, even with their guns, cannot hope to match. The flashbacks told a very good story too. Across the entire run of the show we have learned a lot about the good-hearted, yet immensely flawed character that is Jack. But there were still some holes in his story that needed to be filled, most importantly, the reason that his marriage with Sarah failed. We got a wonderful story encapsulating why Jack was unable to keep his marriage, and it fits perfectly with the character that we have come to know. As Sarah says herself, Jack is always obsessing over something and trying to fix something. He's never just being himself, he's always out to prove himself to his father, to get that little bit of acceptance that he desires so much. And here, Jack completely blows up his life with his own need to validate his actions. He gets more involved with Gabriela than he should, he takes his failure to save the old man's life too personally, and he consistently ignores Sarah throughout all of this. By the time Jack tries to set things right, it's too late. And what's worse is that it's nearly impossible to believe that Jack would have been able to save his marriage even if he did try -- once he knew that they were on stable ground, he would just focus on something else in a fruitless attempt to gain his father's approval. Jack's story on the island ties into this flashback story very nicely. He's angry, stubborn, overly emotional and unreasonable pretty much the entire time. Just like in the flashbacks, Jack's drive is that he desperately wants to fix something. In this case, he's desperate to bring Michael back to the camp. The connection between stories works very well, and Matthew Fox does a tremendous job conveying Jack's emotions, as always. Additionally, I really liked the parallel between this episode and "All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues". Both of those episodes showcase Jack's negative side as he recklessly goes after somebody through the jungle, but impressively enough, both episodes tell very different stories about Jack. I liked the brief Sun/Jin side story. I really like that this story stemmed from Michael's departure, just like the main storyline, giving the episode some focus. As for the story itself, it was a good way to examine Sun and Jin's relationship a little more without detracting from the central plot of the episode. The Bad: The played up love triangle stuff isn't doing much for me. There are so many melodramatic moments, like Jack accusing Sawyer of loving Kate and then later not accepting Kate's apology. It's too cheesy to be compelling television. Yet again, Kate completely fails as a hardened criminal as she gets captured. That aspect of her character has been poorly demonstrated since the beginning of the show. The Unknown: What happened to Michael? Did the others get him? What were those gunshots? Zeke called for somebody named Alex to bring Kate out. Is this Rousseau's daughter? How do Jack and Ana Lucia plan to train an army? Best Moment: The confrontation with Zeke was awesome television. This is the most urgent and intense this season has been outside of episodes 1, 3 and 7. Zeke was a frightening presence even when alone, and it was great to see his charisma going up against Jack's stubbornness early on. But then Zeke turns the tables in a splendid way. The "light em up" moment was genuinely chilling, and it shifted the tone of the scene suddenly and effectively. After that, Jack was never in control of the conversation and Zeke used both intimidation and power to wrestle him into defeat in such a fantastic, villainous way. This was great stuff. Character of the Episode: Jack, though I'll give an honourable mention to Zeke. Conclusion: This episode delivered. The island plot was epic, and the character exploration for Jack was very well done. It looks like the show is finally starting to pick things up. Score: 76
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Aaron DhillonJust a university student who loves to watch TV. And analyze it way too much. Archives
March 2024
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