Summary: Flashbacks show Daniel's past. Eloise raised him from childhood to always be focused on his work. After the incident with Theresa, Daniel gets a memory condition and is approached by Widmore who offers him to go to the island. Eloise encourages Daniel to accept the offer. In the present, Desmond recovers from his gunshot wound. Eloise meets with Widmore who reveals he is Daniel's father. On the island, Daniel goes to Dr. Chang to ensure he gets people to evacuate the island. The incident will be happening later in the afternoon. Daniel has a plan to get everyone where they need to be and Jack and Kate choose to help him. They go to the hostiles after a gunfight with Radzinsky and other Dharma people. Sawyer refuses to help Daniel and he organizes a plan for everyone else to live in the jungle. Radzinsky goes to Sawyer's house and finds out what happened to Phil. He captures Sawyer and Juliet. Daniel reveals that he plans to detonate a hydrogen bomb to prevent the incident and change the future. Daniel goes into the hostiles' camp with a gun to speak with Eloise, but he is shot and killed by her.
The Good: Finally we get an episode about Daniel, and this one really delivered. Daniel's story ended up being one of the saddest and most tragic in the entire show. Through the flashbacks we get to see a story of what could have been. Daniel seemed happy playing the piano, and he seemed happy with Theresa. But Eloise remained cold and distant, knowing that none of these things would be in Daniel's future. She knew that his fate was death at her hands, but she pushed him towards it anyways. It's an inherently sad story, and the way that the episode tells it is masterful. We don't realize the emotional weight of Eloise's decision to push Daniel to keep working until the very end of the episode. Seeing Eloise shoot and kill him is a stunning moment, and it completely changes how we view the episode and the characters involved. The emotional impact is similar to in season 1 with episodes like "Walkabout" and "Confidence Man" that totally subverted our understanding of the central characters we had been following. It's a tremendous piece of storytelling, and it gives this episode the emotional punch that it was looking for. Meanwhile on the island, we see Daniel objecting to Eloise's beliefs about fate. The episode is very fast-paced and it focuses on Daniel doing everything possible to change the future. There is a constant edge-of-your-seat tension throughout the episode, created by the rapid pace and the episode's sense of importance. Daniel returns and instantly starts working on his new theory about the variables, one that we learn more and more about as the episode goes on. The information is doled out to us at a really good pace, and we get a lot of excellent, dramatic scenes throughout the episode. The scenes with Dr. Chang were great, and it was a real shock to see Daniel admit he's from the future. There was also a lovely bit of suspense as Daniel also reveals that Miles is Dr. Chang's son. Following that, the episode gets into an excellent group conflict (discussed more below), a stunning scene between Daniel and Charlotte (see: Best Moment), and then an excellent, well-written shoot-out as Radzinsky catches Daniel, Jack and Kate at the motor pool. Then following that we get an outstanding reveal as Daniel unveils his plan to detonate a hydrogen bomb, which is such an insane and dramatic idea, but it works unbelievably well as a dramatic reveal that increases the stakes. The episode has so many terrific moments throughout and it is a joy to watch them all. But the glue holding it all together is Jeremy Davies' performance as Daniel. He gives such a convincing and charismatic performance, and it elevates all of these moments. For example, Daniel has never used a gun, so Jeremy Davies holds the gun with a sense of real awkwardness throughout the episode. Daniel's mistake of showing the gun to Radzinsky is perfectly sensible, since I could completely buy that Daniel may have entirely forgotten that he was even holding a gun. It's a subtle detail, but it works really well. The group conflict in this episode was handled really well. The rift in beliefs between Jack and Sawyer are what make this so compelling. Where Jack is looking for a purpose now that he's on the island, Sawyer has already found one in his life in the Dharma Initiative. These characters' motivations are easy to understand and they are laid bare for us to see, and that makes it very easy to understand the conflict that occurs once Daniel returns with plans to change the future. I enjoyed the debate scene, and I thought that every character made decisions that fit with what we understood about them. The Bad: Part of the tragedy of this episode depends on us feeling for and understanding Eloise as a character. Unfortunately, I think the episode falls short in this regard, and it diminishes the impact of this episode. The problem with Eloise is that we never understand why she is so devoted to ensuring that what's supposed to happen happens. We aren't given a convincing reason for her to sacrifice her relationship with Daniel to send him to his death. And because of that, her actions feel emotionally disconnected from us. I still think that it's powerful to rewatch the episode, seeing how everything Eloise does is to send Daniel to his fate, but it's missing that personal connection that "Lost" is usually so good at establishing. Eloise could have been written better to give this story an even greater impact. The scenes involving Desmond are fine, but like in "Dead is Dead", they feel tacked on to the episode. Obviously Desmond isn't going to die here. The Widmore reveal is pretty good, but I can't help but think that the reveal could have been integrated into the story in a more compelling way. The Unknown: How does Eloise know so much? What did she mean that for the first time in a long time she doesn't know what would happen next? What changed that made this happen? How did she know what was going to happen to begin with? Does it have something to do with Daniel? Or is it something else entirely? What's going to happen to Sawyer and Juliet? What will Radzinsky do with them? Is there any chance that Daniel's free will theory is still right? The end of the episode seems to prove him wrong in a dark and depressing way, but is there still a chance that he could be right? Could the past be changed by preventing the incident? Best Moment: Daniel's moment with Charlotte hit the hardest for me. Jeremy Davies is so good in this scene and you feel his pain when he says that he wanted to avoid talking to her but he realized that he has no choice if he wants to go through with his plan. It's absolutely tragic. Character of the Episode: Daniel. Conclusion: This was a terrific, heartbreaking episode of "Lost". Daniel's story is excellent, and the drama on the island is incredibly intense and suspenseful. As has been the case with much of season 5, there are flaws here that prevent this from being a top-quality episode. But as a whole, this is an excellent, game-changing episode that sets up the season's climax. Score: 75
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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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