Lost Episode Reviews

Stranger in a Strange Land and Tricia Tanaka is Dead aired on February 21 and February 28, 2007, respecitvely.

SPOILER ALERT: I WILL DISCUSS PLOT POINTS HERE, SO IF YOU DON'T WANT THINGS RUINED, THEN AVERT YOUR EYES FROM THE SCREEN

I’m not trying to make this a pattern where I cover two episodes at once, its just sometimes my schedule doesn’t allow me to see an episode in a timely fashion, so I just wait until the next one comes up and then I watch them both together, which by the way is a lot of fun, if you can stand the wait. TV shows like this one are just better when you can watch a few episodes all at once, like for instance if you just bought them on DVD. However, I can’t wait that long simply out of fear that Angeler might spoil it all for me if I did.

Unfortunately for me though, this time the two episodes in a row thing didn’t work out that well, and that was all because the second episode, the one that aired on February 28th, just wasn’t that good. But let me start by talking about the better one, and not just because it aired first.

When I say better though, it is a bit of a relative term. This episode was good, but not as good as promised and not as good as the first two that aired in this “Spring Season” of the show. They really shouldn’t have declared in the promos that there would be three major revelations in this episode, because not only does it distract you by practically forcing you to try and guess what they are, much like how one is distracted by the “twist” ending that we all know is coming in an M. Night Shyamalan movie, but also, big claims like that can end up disappointing you when they are revealed, much like I was at the end of this episode.

I have no official confirmation of this, but as far as I can tell, the three revelations in this episode were as follows: 1. The meaning of Jack’s tattoos, 2. What happened to the kidnapped people, and 3. That the Others work on Island 2, and live on Island 1. These might have been interesting if they hadn’t promised beforehand that the revelations were going to be major, because really, other than the second revelation, none of these were that big of a deal (and also they just showed us that the kidnapped people weren’t dead, they didn’t really explain why they were kidnapped or anything). In fact, I joked in my last piece that I assumed that even though they mentioned the tattoos in the promo for this episode that there was no way that the meaning of those tattoos could be one of the three major revelations. Shows what I know. The lesson, as always, aim low and people are rarely every disappointed.

What I did like about this episode though was how much it again strengthened my newfound love of Jack. The guy used to be the most annoying person on the island, but now he kicks ass on a regular basis. I loved how at the beginning part of the episode he wouldn’t help Juliet, even though she was nice to him and even though she helped Kate and Sawyer escape. And then I loved how he fucked with the Others by telling that creepy “sheriff” woman that Juliet hadn’t wanted Ben killed. And then I loved that Jack got Ben to stop Juliet from being killed. He keeps playing everyone, almost as well as Ben played people back when he was a prisoner in the hatch. Maybe it’s the “us versus them” mentality of the show making me like Jack more, but for whatever reason, right now, Jack is creeping toward the top of my favorite Lost character list. (Okay, you twisted my arm, here’s my list: Sayid, Desmond, Sawyer, Jack, Locke, Ben, Juliet. And by the way, the fact that there’s only one woman on that list doesn’t mean I’m gay.)

Last but not least for this episode, why was the woman with tattoo powers (a power by the way that was clearly a reject from Heroes) not allowed to give a tattoo to Jack? Was this like how Solitaire lost her powers of seeing the future once she lost her virginity in the James Bond film, Live and Let Die? Because otherwise, the reaction that Jack got from her brothers was uncalled for. And once again, let me say, her power was stupid.

I’m barely going to even talk about the second episode here because this one was just a bore. Kate and Sawyer return to the main camp and instead of an interesting episode revolving around that story, we were treated to a tale about Hurley wanting to start up a VW van he found in the jungle. Um, all I can say is, what the fuck? Seriously, that was a waste of my time. Sometimes they should just provide a pre-episode warning that the following hour will be one you’ll want back at the end of the show so you should probably just read an episode synopsis online, unless you have nothing better to do. I didn’t really have anything better to do I suppose, but I’d like to think that I do.

Next Week on Lost: Well this is tonight actually, so you don’t have much time to get ready, but here’s what we can expect. We’ll finally get to meet up with the guy with the patch over his eye that we briefly saw on a TV screen in that other hatch Locke found and apparently he has a big secret to hide, one that he probably won’t give up too easily though (i.e. he won’t say it in this episode). And apparently a bad game of chess between Locke and a computer will create mass hysteria or something like that. I guess we’ll have to wait and see. I might have to wait longer than most though since I work tonight.

- BEN