Summary: Flashbacks reveal Charlie as a formerly religious man who is uncomfortable about the temptations that being a rockstar brings. Charlie almost quite the band but his brother Liam gets him to continue. Charlie is uncomfortable by Liam's actions but he eventually gives in and becomes a druggie. A while later, Charlie visits Liam in Australia to get him back into the band but Liam is clean and has moved on. In the present, Charlie is struggling with withdrawal and goes to Locke to get his drugs back. Locke tells Charlie he will give him the drugs if Charlie asks him 3 times. Charlie gets angry with Jack and causes a cave-in, trapping Jack. The survivors try to get him out and Charlie eventually volunteers to go in and get Jack once a hole is made. Charlie is able to get in and get Jack out safely. Charlie goes back to Locke and burns his remaining heroin. Meanwhile, Sayid sets up 3 devices to locate the origin of the transmission but he is knocked out by somebody before he can find it.
The Good: This episode feels very different from everything that came before. This episode was incredibly focused on Charlie's story, and it told a much more complete story than all of the other character-centric episodes as Charlie goes through what is pretty much a full character arc in this one episode. This nicely gives the episode a sense of completeness and satisfaction on a higher level than the previous episodes. This episode is also heavily focused on the theme of choice. The theme is explored with every chance that the episode gets, and we end up getting a very strong story for Charlie that centers around the decisions he has made and the decision he is ultimately going to make at the end of the episode. I thought the first flashback was perfect, as the priest introduced the concept of choice in Charlie's life. Charlie wants to be a good person but he gives in to temptations and doesn't seem to fully accept that there is a choice to be made. He lets himself become a druggie, and later in the flashback he blames Liam for his addiction. He hasn't accepted that drugs were his choice, not something that he was destined to do. This pays off wonderfully at the end of the episode as Charlie is finally able to understand that he does have a choice, and he chooses to go to Locke and destroy all of his remaining drugs. It's a lovely moment where Charlie finally comes full circle, and it's hard not to feel happy for him overcoming his addiction. There were more moments centering on choice that were really strong. Locke was fantastic here as he played a sort of wise master over Charlie, attempting to get him to break his drug habit. The titular moth speech that Locke tells Charlie is a spectacular moment that is so rich in theme, symbolism and character (see: Best Moment). The flashbacks are also really good as they examine why Charlie ended up making the choices he did. He felt abused by his brother and useless to his band, so to cope with these feelings, he turned to drugs. This is mirrored effectively in the island storyline as Charlie spends much of the episode feeling useless, which is conveyed through good acting from Dominic Monaghan and some stellar directing. Evidently these feelings of uselessness lead to Charlie wanting to get his drugs back from Locke, but when Charlie chooses to do something good and save Jack, he is finally able to overcome his self-destructive feelings of uselessness. The plot of the episode is fine as well. Charlie causing the cave-in made sense, and his growing frustrations as he dealt with withdrawal made sense. I liked the Sayid/Kate/Sawyer plot line too. It was a nice background plot that went to a very interesting ending as Sayid got mysteriously attacked (see: The Unknown). The Bad: The storytelling here is great, but the drama is lacking. The cave-in story doesn't add much tension because it seems obvious that both Charlie and Jack aren't going to die in a cave-in of all things. It's not a particularly tense storyline. Furthermore, I thought that having Charlie get dramatically chased by a boar early in the episode was very awkward and it seems like it was only added in an attempt to get more drama into the episode. The episode's focus on Charlie did help give the episode a greater sense of completeness, but it did lead to some cons as well. This dedicated focus meant that this episode didn't feature much story for the side characters. There wasn't really anything interesting happening with the side characters throughout the episode, taking away one of the things I most enjoyed about the past 6 episodes. There are a few other small issues I had with the episode. The episode is a little heavy-handed with its storytelling, and while I still enjoy it, there is a lack of subtlety with some of the story beats, for example the moth leading Charlie out of the cave. I thought that there were some other clumsily written moments. The biggest offender for me was Kate's oddly hostile reaction to Sawyer when he showed up, which is especially strange since Kate has never seemed to particularly despise Sawyer. It was a case where the plot demanded that Kate got mad at him, so she did. Lastly, I found the whole story of Kate running back to save Jack to be pretty generic and uninteresting. The Unknown: Is there actually a greater explanation for why everyone survived the plane crash? Michael says he has a background in construction. Is there any significance to this? Who attacked Sayid? The only person I can think of that would make any sense is Locke, but I'm still not sure why he would do that. Best Moment: Locke's moth speech is a great moment. Charlie comes to Locke at his lowest and begs for his drugs. Locke recognizes Charlie's suffering and connects it to his own suffering when he was in the wheelchair. So he lets Charlie know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, using a moth as a terrific analogy. The dialogue is really well written and the scene has a lot of significance to the story overall. Fascinating stuff. Character of the Episode: Charlie, though Locke was a close second. I get the sense that the centric character will usually be the character of the episode. Conclusion: This was a great episode that told a terrific, well-rounded story. It was more flawed than previous episodes of the show, but I thought the strong storytelling still earns in a score over 70. Score: 71
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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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