Summary: Flashbacks show a younger Miles discover his abilities. When his mom dies, he goes to her and learns about his father, who is dead. Later, Miles is recruited by Naomi to work for Widmore. Miles is picked up by Bram who warns him not to go on the freighter but he doesn't listen. On the island, Miles is recruited by Horace to work for the inner circle, and is unable to delete footage of Sawyer on the security cameras. Miles drives a dead body down to Dr. Chang at The Orchid alongside Hurley. Miles reveals that Dr. Chang is his dad. Hurley tries to get them to reconnect and he encourages Miles to give his dad a second chance. Miles sees his father playing with his past self. Scientists from Ann Arbor arrive, including Daniel. Phil sees the security footage and confronts Sawyer but Sawyer knocks him out and ties him up.
The Good: It was nice to finally get some backstory on Miles who has been around for a while without contributing a whole lot. Getting to know his full story for the first time makes this episode feel similar to one you would see back in season 1. This feel is also established by the slower pace of this episode. There isn't as much plot movement in this episode compared to the last few, and that helps this episode keep its focus squarely on Miles and his storyline. It's a welcome change, especially after "Dead is Dead" was the complete opposite and got overwhelmed by its focus on the convoluted plot rather than character. It was good to learn more about Miles' personal life and struggles, particularly involving his father. He goes through a good arc here as he learns to give his father a second chance, while having a nice storyline in the flashbacks involving Mr. Gray. Miles claims that he's all about money, but returning his money to Mr. Gray for the sole purpose of proving a point about being a good father highlights that Miles does need that father figure in his life more than he needs the money. The island story explores Miles' daddy issues in a pretty fun way. Hurley is an excellent foil for Miles in this episode, and the opposite way that he handled his relationship with his father provides a direct lesson for Miles. To this episode's benefit, it isn't heavy-handed at all with this storytelling. Hurley and Miles start the episode as a really funny character pairing, with Hurley providing plenty of laugh-out-loud moments that made me really enjoy his presence. But when the story hit its more serious beats, it felt organic. We knew Hurley was trying to help, evidenced by his hilarious attempt to bring Dr. Chang and Miles together, so it makes sense when Hurley gives Miles some personal advice to help him resolve his issues. The story is written tremendously well. Plus we also get some really fun conversation about talking with dead people, contrasting both Miles' and Hurley's experiences. I also got a big laugh out of Hurley trying to write the script for The Empire Strikes Back. The flashbacks had some really interesting moments. It was good to see Naomi again, and her deal to Miles explains why he asked Ben for 3.2 million dollars. The sudden kidnapping by Bram is a big scene that seems to function to set up the storyline going on with Ilana on the island. I'm interested to learn more about this new mysterious group that "Lost" chose to introduce to us so late in the season. The Bad: Nothing I'd call bad. This isn't as important or revelatory of an episode as the last few episodes, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. The Unknown: Who was Bram? Who is he working for? Why haven't we seen him before? He asks the question about the shadow of the statue that Ilana asked in the last episode. Are they connected? How? What are their goals? Why did they warn Miles to not go on the freighter? Who else have they contacted? What's going to happen with Phil and Roger? Will Sawyer be able to keep Phil hidden? Will Roger complain to Horace and put some heat onto Kate? What happened to the person who died? Did electromagnetism cause his fillings to kill him? We see The Swan is being built now. Will we get to see what the incident was? What has Daniel been doing at Ann Arbor? How will his return impact the story? Why did Dr. Chang abandon his wife and Miles? He seems to be a caring father in the past. What changed? Best Moment: Miles seeing his father playing with baby Miles was a beautiful moment to cap off the episode. The episode does a fantastic job of building up to this emotional conclusion as Miles finally gives his dad a chance and sees that maybe he wasn't such a bad person after all. Character of the Episode: I want to give it to Hurley, but this was all about Miles and he deserves it. Conclusion: Some people may call this filler, but that would greatly undersell this episode. There was less plot progression here than in previous episodes, but the writing was excellent and we got a wonderful story for Miles, giving us an episode that felt similar to season 1 "Lost". This certainly isn't one of the show's best episodes, but it's still really good. Score: 69
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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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