Summary: Flashbacks show Charlie deciding to steal and sell a woman's valuable heirloom in order to buy more heroin. He befriends the girl and ends up falling in love with her, wanting to be respectable. He takes a new job, but after dealing with withdrawal, he goes through with the con anyways. In the present, Claire wakes up with amnesia. Ethan appears to Charlie and threatens to kill somebody at nightfall if Claire isn't returned. Jack and Locke debate defenses to protect Claire. Their plans fail and somebody is killed. Jack brings out the guns and takes four others to fight Ethan, using Claire as bait. Jack fights Ethan and captures him but Charlie kills him before he reveals anything.
The Good: Charlie is a good character. He is very flawed, but he comes off as earnest and passionate in everything he does, making it easy to root for him. In both the flashbacks and the present, it is easy to root for him to succeed and prove that he is capable enough to protect the people around him. The story told surrounding his character is pretty good, and it is nice to see him becoming capable enough to help Claire on the island whereas he failed to take care of Lucy in the past. Ethan was the highlight of this episode though. He's threatening and scary, and his presence adds a huge deal of tension. The entire episode is centered around his impending threat, and it is gripping to see Jack, Locke, Sayid and the others all preparing strategies in an attempt to prevent Ethan from killing people. The stakes are high in this episode, so I was very invested. The plot moves nicely and it builds to a good climax featuring another really intense fight between Jack and Ethan. As usual, a few small details impressed me. I was pleased by Sayid thinking logically and wondering if Ethan had somehow caused Claire to become amnesiac and returned her to the camp. I also liked that Claire wa sable to figure out that something was happening based off of how people kept looking at her. Lastly, I really laughed at Charlie's Monday selling copiers. The Bad: Unfortunately this episode is by far the most frustrating so far. Ethan's death is a massive disappointment, and it is very annoying that we learned literally nothing about these other people from the whole Claire abduction storyline. It feels like the writers wanted to introduce others on the island but were opposed to explore what that would mean for the survivors. So they crafted a meaningless storyline that had such little impact on the plot of the show as a whole. Furthermore, the writers were evidently uninterested in exploring how the presence of other people on the island would impact the community of survivors. Inner conflict is never shown, not even in this episode when Ethan literally kills somebody in cold blood. It's very disappointing and it's a far cry from episodes like "White Rabbit" that beautifully conveyed conflict within the survivors camp. Another piece of lazy writing is Claire's convenient amnesia. It becomes apparent that Claire actually did escape, making Ethan look bad, but also she somehow forgot everything so that she is unable to give us any important details about the other people. This was such a clichéd moment in the episode, and it's annoying to see "Lost" taking after every other generic TV drama in this episode, especially after the show worked so hard to stand out in its first ten episodes. I was not a fan of Ethan dying either. Ethan was such a big threat, but somehow he is taken out in such an easy way. Jack and all of the others bring out guns, acknowledging that they had to do something extreme to take down Ethan. But not a single shot is fired, and Jack simply takes down Ethan by just beating him up. If Ethan could be beaten down so easily, then why was he such a big threat? This is an example of very generic villain writing, where the villain is depowered whenever it is convenient for the plot. Then we get to Charlie actually killing Ethan. Charlie is a character I like, but by having him kill Ethan for no reason whatsoever, viewers will start to turn on him. Charlie has just taken away the possibility of getting answers, and also the possibility of an interesting new plot development of Ethan in captivity. That's a very poor use of a sympathetic character. Lastly, it's annoying that nobody got frustrated with Charlie for killing Ethan. Ethan could have told the survivors some useful things, and he was also their best chance of getting off the island. Surely people would be angry with Charlie for taking away their best chance of escape. But the writers don't punish Charlie for his actions, but they frustratingly reward him by having Claire come back to him after he kills Ethan. The Unknown: Who was Ethan anyways? What did he do to Claire? How did she escape? Why did he want her back? Best Moment: Ethan threatening Charlie was a chilling moment that set the tone for the rest of the episode. Character of the Episode: Ethan. Conclusion: The Claire abduction story has been the show's biggest failure so far. The plot didn't go anywhere and it got a very poor resolution here. Charlie's character story is good however and it, as well as William Mapother's performance as Ethan, prevent this episode from getting too low of a score. Still, this is easily the weakest episode so far, and "Lost" has clearly entered a midseason lull. I really hope that the rest of this season can get the show back on the right track. Score: 51
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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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