Summary: In the flash-sideways, Kate escapes from Edward and hijacks a taxi which has Claire sitting in it. The airline loses Jack's coffin and he's upset about that. Jack meets Locke, who lost his box of knives, and offers to give him a consult for his condition. Jin's money gets taken away. On the island, the group goes into the tunnels underneath the temple but are captured by the others. Their leader, Dogen, threatens to kill them but Hurley reveals the guitar case, which has an ankh inside it, carrying a piece of paper. After reading it, Dogen lets them in. He tries to save Sayid using a pool, but it doesn't work and Sayid dies. Hurley reveals that Jacob is dead so the others make preparations and send out a flare. Richard sees the flare and panics. MIB emerges from the statue and knocks out Richard, taking him with him. Jack picks a fight with the others, but they stop when Sayid wakes up.
The Good: I enjoyed much of this episode. It's a lot of table-setting, but it is done well and is very exciting. The intro to the temple was superbly done, and it is a really impressive set. The scenes at the temple were packed with mystery and I'm intrigued by this new group of others. I want to learn more, so the episode did its job of getting me hooked for the season. There was still some emotion here that gave the temple story some heart. Jack and Sawyer's emotional states are being set up well. Jack is wracked with guilt over what he's done, and we can see that the guilt is undoing the transformation he made last season. The episode even parallels Jack trying to save Sayid to Jack trying to save Charlie back in "All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues", making it explicitly clear to us that Jack is returning to his stubborn self in his grief. His faith has been shattered, and I'm interested to see if he finds a way to rediscover it. Sawyer on the other hand is processing his grief normally. He's passed the point where he wants to kill Jack and is accepting what happened. I'm curious to see how Sawyer is able to move forwards without Juliet. Then of course we get to Sayid's revival at the end of the episode. Sayid's death was sad and had some good farewells, but it was a bit flat compared to Juliet's death. Now we get to see why. During a really touching scene as Hurley says farewell to his friend, we get a hint from Miles that maybe something isn't right with Sayid. And the end of the episode gives us the stunning reveal as Sayid comes back to life, wondering what happened. The moment lands really well and it's a great cliff-hanger to take us into the next episode. The story at the statue was kept short but it was consistently interesting. We got a fantastic scene between MIB and Ben (see: Best Moment), and then we get a pretty great moment as MIB takes out a stunned Richard and walks off into the jungle. I'm very excited to see what happens next with MIB and I hope to see more of him in the next episode. I have my criticisms of the flash-sideways (see: The Bad), but there were more fun moments and references in there. I enjoyed seeing Frogurt shouting at Kate, and there was a nice reference to "White Rabbit" when Jack tells Locke "you won't believe me if I told you". The Jack/Locke scene was surprisingly good, and it was nice to see these two interacting as helpful strangers, offering advice to each other about their respective problems. I hope that we see more of these two together in the flash-sideways. The Bad: The flash-sideways world feels strange to me and I'm not yet engaged in the storyline. Last episode worked because it had the emotion of the survivors never actually going to the island and getting to LA X. This episode doesn't have that added emotion, so it relies on us caring about this storyline. And at the moment, I'm not invested in seeing this version of the characters. These aren't the same people I've invested the last 5 seasons in, so I'm not very interested in what happens to them. This is why Kate's escape doesn't work for me, because I'm not invested in her getting away safely. The scenes in the flash-sideways mostly dragged until the really well-written Jack/Locke conversation. Once again, this episode fell into the trap of having too many frustratingly vague statements. Something like the translator claiming that the paper said they have to save Sayid or it would be bad is needlessly frustrating. Just tell us what the paper says! Instead, we apparently learn that Sayid dying would be an apparent calamity, but we have no idea why. It feels like fake stakes, and I'm unable to properly understand what it is that the others are afraid of. These kinds of lines are still very frustrating. The Unknown: What did Juliet mean by "it worked"? Did she see the flash-sideways universe as she died? What was written on the paper inside of the ankh? Why did it convince Dogen not to kill everyone? I presume that the pool was used to heal people, but it doesn't appear to be working anymore. Why? Is it because Jacob died? How did Sayid end up coming back to life? Did the pool actually work or was it something else? Who is Dogen? How connected is he to Jacob and the others? What will we learn about the others in the temple? How different is this group of others from the others that were led by Ben? MIB says to Richard "it's good to see you out of those chains". Does this mean that Richard came to the island on the Black Rock? It seems that these two have met before. When and under what circumstances? Will Kate be able to escape in the flash-sideways? Is Sun able to speak English? What happened to the coffin and Locke's box of knives? Best Moment: MIB's speech to Ben about Locke, tying back to his own motives was superb. I have to keep praising Terry O'Quinn because he has been stellar in this role, and he adds and extra level of engagement to this scene. The dialogue is extremely well written. MIB's analysis of Locke is profoundly sad and it hammers in how awful his death really was. I'm really pleased with how this scene was used to give us a motivation for MIB, proving that he will not be a 2-dimensional villain. He wants to go home, and I'm curious to learn why. The entire scene was just 2 minutes, but it was packed with information and emotion, and I loved every second of it. Character of the Episode: MIB. Conclusion: This episode felt more like moving pieces into place than the last one, but some excellent scenes gave this one some extra weight to it. Overall, this is a very exciting part 2, and I'm interested to see what's to come for the rest of the season. 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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