Summary: Flashbacks show Kate arriving at a farm in Australia while on the run. She does work for the farmer, Ray, for a few months until Ray turns her in for a 23 thousand dollar reward. In the present, the group on the trek decide not to tell anyone about the transmission and Kate is also trusted with the gun. Upon returning, Kate tells Jack about the transmission. Jack learns from the Marshall that Kate is a fugitive and Hurley also finds out. The Marshall's condition continues to deteriorate but Jack continues trying to save his life. Kate eventually trusts Sawyer with the gun and Sawyer shoots the Marshall. He doesn't kill him however so Jack has to do the job himself. Locke finds Vincent and has Michael return him to Walt.
The Good: "Lost" has now settled into its format with this third episode. This episode took the time to establish how the show will work going forwards. Flashbacks are going to be a big part in revealing more information about these characters, and it appears that the flashbacks in each episode will be centralized to a single character. This is a great format and it does a really good job of making each episode feel like an independent story while also being part of a complete whole. I'm liking this format so far, and I hope that the story thrives with it. This episode was focused on Kate whose story is revealed slowly, and it appears that the writers are playing the long game with Kate's character. Despite seeing a lot more of her in this episode, I'm still not certain about Kate's nature or what kind of person she is. Both in the flashbacks and on the island, Kate seems like a genuinely kind person who develops a connection with Jack and Ray. But the Marshall's words suggest that there is something more under the surface of Kate (see: The Unknown). I enjoyed the thematic territory that this episode delved into. As a whole, this episode is all about starting fresh, hence the title of the episode which translates to "blank slate". There are some lovely moments that work with this theme. The obvious one is that Kate has now been given a second chance in her life after crashing on the island. But what fascinates me more is how Jack is affected by this theme. Early in the episode we see Jack encountering Sawyer in a terrific scene as it is shown that Jack is yet to accept that they are truly stuck on this island. Even when Kate tells him about the transmission, he isn't nearly as horrified as he should be. He hasn't accepted his new life yet. It's when Sawyer attempts to kill the Marshall that Jack has his wake-up call, and by the end of the episode he has realized that the world has changed and he has to start fresh. The actual plot of the episode is pretty good as well. The slow death of the Marshall is the central storyline and it leads to some great moments. One of the better sequences was how the Marshall's suffering is heard throughout the camp, and the other survivors are quickly becoming perturbed by it. This gets the viewer contemplating the morality of killing the Marshall to take him out of his misery before it is actually brought up in the show. That added a lot to my investment in the Marshall's fate, which effectively made me care about the fate of a character that I hardly know. Then there is the shocking scene where Sawyer does the deed to kill the Marshall, yet he still fails to kill him in what ended up being the darkest scene of the show so far. There were a few other scenes that deserve mentioning. I appreciated that we got to see the people on the trek working towards the decision of not telling anybody about the transmission. It took them a while to actually get the conversation there which makes sense because the transmission evokes feelings of hopelessness in people, an emotion that people would rather push away than face. But when the topic is brought up, I was pleased to see the characters sensibly come to a group decision that makes the most sense. The characters have been impressively real so far. Finally, we get to that ending montage which was a fun way to end the episode, which was especially necessary after the Marshall's depressingly painful death. Plus there were a few nice moments squeezed in there like Sayid tossing Sawyer an apple and Walt being reunited with Vincent. The Bad: This episode is pretty slow, especially coming off of the pilot episodes. With there being so many standout moments in the pilot episode, it is a bit surprising for there to be no real standout moment in this episode. There are some great conversations, like Jack and Sawyer about civilization, but they don't feel as memorable as the moments in the pilot. I wouldn't say that this is an issue, but it is the main reason that this episode didn't live up to the pilot's lofty standards. Did we really need to see Kate asking the Marshall for a favour in another flashback? The scene was shown to us just one episode ago, and it's insulting our intelligence to remind us of it with a direct flashback. The Unknown: Can we trust Kate? She seems like a decent person so far, but the Marshall suggests that she is always like this. Does this mean that Kate is a manipulator? Is she manipulating Jack right now? What exactly is it that makes her so dangerous? What was it in the jungle that chased Michael? Was it another polar bear? Best Moment: Not much stood out but I'll go with Sawyer showing some humanity and throwing his cigarette away after failing to kill the Marshall. Sawyer has been an unrepentant asshole so far, so it's nice to see that he does have some depth to him/ Character of the Episode: Kate. Conclusion: This was a slower episode, but one that establishes "Lost"'s formula in an interesting way. Plus the show's strong writing easily helped overcome the slow pacing. Score: 68
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Aaron DhillonJust a university student who loves to watch TV. And analyze it way too much. Archives
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