Summary: In flashbacks, Michael tries to prevent Susan from leaving the country with Walt so that he can remain his father. Eventually Michael caves in and lets them go. On the island, Locke goes into the hatch after Kate. When Locke arrives, Desmond threatens him with a gun. Desmond locks Kate into a closet but Locke gives her the tools to escape. Kate enters the vents. Desmond questions Locke until Jack arrives in the hatch. Michael and Sawyer float through the ocean on wreckage from the raft. They argue and blame each other for Walt's kidnapping. Eventually they float back to the island where they find Jin shouting "others". A group of people descend down on them.
The Good: The scenes in the hatch were the highlight here. It was a unique idea to show us a different POV leading up to the confrontation at the end of "Man of Science, Man of Faith", and I think it worked in some levels. Desmond's scenes with Locke were very good and they raised loads of new questions (see: The Unknown), fleshing out the mystery in an enjoyable way. I was on the edge of my seat to ensure that I didn't miss any important details. Plus there were some very nice moments here like Locke excitedly assuming that he is the "him" that Desmond has been waiting for, the reveal of that mysterious computer that Locke typed the numbers into, and Kate enjoying a chocolate bar in the pantry. The raft story has a few good parts too. There was a pretty good story being told as Michael starts the episode off by blaming Sawyer for everything. He is completely blinded by his loss and makes an enemy of the one man he has for company. But by the end of the episode, everything sinks in for Michael and he accepts that Walt's kidnapping was his fault. It's a solid character arc to build an episode around. I liked Sawyer pulling the bullet out of his shoulder with his bare hands. We also got a classic one-liner to follow-up. The Bad: This episode did not do a good job of continuing the story from the last episode. After that epic season premiere, there was a ton of momentum going into this episode and it was all squandered. There were multiple moments where I found myself impatiently waiting for a scene to end so we can move onto something more interesting. This made the episode drag on, and it felt like an eternity until we finally caught up to the events at the end of the last episode. And then in a frustrating move, we still didn't get to see what happened next. Somehow the writers managed to stall the story for an entire episode. The scenes on the raft weren't very interesting either. When the extent of the story is that two characters are floating on a raft, there needs to be some extremely good character exploration to ensure things stay interesting. This episode didn't provide a fitting amount of character development. All we really got to see was Michael and Sawyer fighting for something like 15 minutes, and that wasn't interesting. Michael was a complete asshole to Sawyer the entire time. I understand why the writers had Michael blame Sawyer for Walt's kidnapping, but Michael went too far with his accusations, particularly with his claim that Sawyer took a bullet to save himself instead of Walt. Also, telling Sawyer to get off his raft when there is a shark in the water has to be one of the worst things Michael has ever done. He could have died! Speaking of the shark, the writers tried to create some tension-based drama with the presence of the shark. It didn't work at all. It was blatantly clear that nobody was getting eaten by a shark so I never got too worried for the safety of Michael and Sawyer. The death fake-out didn't work for me either, and it felt like a desperate attempt to squeeze some drama into what would have otherwise been a meandering and dull storyline. Sadly, the writers failed to produce any good drama so we ended up with a meandering and dull storyline anyways. Michael's flashbacks didn't offer much to the story at all. Sure there is the contrast of Michael fighting to get his son back both on the island and off the island, but that doesn't offer much storytelling depth. All of the episodes in season 1 had flashbacks with more depth than this. Furthermore, we don't learn anything new about Michael from his flashbacks. We know he didn't want to give Walt away, we know he loves his son, and we know that Michael has always been quick to anger. Nothing new is established here, so the flashbacks feel like a waste of time. The only redeemable part would be Michael's scene with young Walt, but I feel like we could have had a better story leading up to that moment. The Unknown: "Dharma" seems to be the corporation responsible for the hatch. Why did they make it? When? Where is the company now? What is their goals? How did they find the island? Why haven't they revealed it to anyone? Desmond brought up tons of questions. Who was the man he was waiting for? Is he waiting for somebody to replace him? What's the answer to "what did one snowman say to the other snowman"? How long has Desmond been in the hatch? The scratchings on the wall suggest that it has been an extremely long time. What is this sickness that Desmond mentioned? Is it the same one Rousseau's crew was infected with? Why aren't any of the survivors sick? Also what's with the computer? Typing the numbers into it and pressing execute resets a timer. What's the timer for? Why do the numbers have to be used? What's the point of all of that? Did Jin get taken by the others? Who are these people that are descending down on Jin, Sawyer and Michael? Best Moment: The final scene was pretty awesome. Jin finally appears and screams for Michael and Sawyer. He frantically keeps shouting "other" over and over again, and the episode ends with a brief shot of a group of people surrounding the trio. The visual is excellent, and the scene serves as an epic yet horrifying cliffhanger. Character of the Episode: Sawyer. Conclusion: I guess the title "Adrift" was an apt one for this episode. The pacing of the episode is comparable to a piece of wood adrift in the ocean. This ended up being a frustrating episode that did nothing for the show overall. It's immensely disappointing that we got this lazy episode following the series' best episode so far. Score: 47
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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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