LOST
Season 4 Episode 9
“The Shape of Things To Come”
Written by Brian K. Vaughan & Drew Goddard
Directed by Jack Bender
(WARNING: SPOILERS)

“I know who you are... what you are. I know that everything you have you took from me.”
-- Charles Widmore to Ben

Okay, this was a pretty moving installment, the first post-strike episode following the 6-week break, so let’s kick off from the Island, shall we?

The doctor from the freighter washes ashore, dead, so a plan is cooked up to fix the NaomiPhone just enough so that they can communicate through Morse code; Daniel plays electronics dude, in the absence of Sayid.
But when Daniel does send the query out regarding the doctor, he says the reply is that the helicopter will be by in the morning.
Turns out though that Bernard knows Morse, and says the reply was actually, What are you talking about? The doctor’s fine. (Hmmmm.)
So this blatant lie pisses Jack off, and he asks Daniel straight out, Were you ever supposed to take us off this Island?
And Daniel says, No. (And I’m going, F*cker! You knew about the “find Ben then kill everyone else” plan? I gave you the benefit of the doubt, Danny-boy! F*cker!)
At that point, it just killed me to see Jack as the realization sinks in that using the NaomiPhone was a monumental mistake, just as Locke had warned…
Poor Jack…

Meanwhile, the people who shot both Rousseau and Karl take Alex to the fence and have her disarm it. (So they really are Widmore’s people, and it wasn’t some evil Ben scheme to get rid of the other two people in Alex’s life… Again, sorry, dude.)
But disarming the fence triggers an alarm, which makes a phone in Ben’s house ring, the call interrupting the game of Risk currently underway (where “Australia’s the key to the whole game”; hrrrmmm). When Locke asks Ben about the recorded message (Code 14-J?), Ben says they need to hunker down at his place.
But Claire is over at her house, so Sawyer goes over there. (Locke is about go with Sawyer, when Ben says, You stay by me, because then you’ll be safe. They won’t harm me, and I need you safe because we have to get to Jacob’s cabin together. Locke later on says, But I can’t even find the cabin. Ben replies, But Hugo can.)
As Sawyer makes his way to Claire’s place, three 815 sock puppets are shot. Some bastard then blasts Claire’s house, and I’m going, Bastard! Claire can’t die! Not like that!
Sawyer searches the flaming wreckage, and finds Claire, alive. (Whew. That future Desmond flash—Claire and Aaron getting on a helicopter—has to happen…)
Sawyer carries her to Ben’s house, and Hurley has to break a window for Sawyer and Claire to get inside. (Ben’s already barricaded the door and refuses to open it.)

Within, a debate immediately explodes between Sawyer and Locke, about just tossing Ben over to the invaders, a discussion that’s interrupted by the doorbell.
It’s Miles at the door, with a walkie for Ben. They want to talk, Miles says. They have your daughter.
Ben then talks with one of the goons that we saw on the freighter, Martin Keamy (Kevin Durand, who played half-man, half-dog Joshua on Dark Angel, and Ashton Kutcher’s cellmate Carlos in The Butterfly Effect; he’ll also be seen as Gabriel in Scott Charles Stewart’s upcoming angel smackdown Legion, as well as the Blob in the Wolverine spin-off film), who takes Alex out and threatens to shoot her if Ben doesn’t surrender. Ben makes a counter-proposal, but Keamy says, You’ve got 10 seconds, or I shoot your daughter.
Ben says, She’s not my daughter. I stole her from an insane woman when she was a baby. She’s a pawn, nothing more. She means nothing to me.
BANG.
Alex dies, and seriously, for the first time, I felt sorry for Ben. There’s a look of complete devastation as he stares out the window at his dead adoptive daughter, and he says, He changed the rules. (And I go, What? Is this really just a massive chess game to Ben and Widmore?)

Once Ben gets himself together, he enters some secret chamber (locking everyone else out), and when he emerges, he says, When I give the signal, we’re all going to run to the treeline. (Oh, by the way, Claire’s apparently fine.)
Hurley says, What? Towards the guys with guns?
Ben says, Oh, no. We want to stay as far away from them as possible.
Just then, the house starts to shake, like there’s an earthquake, and when they look out the windows, we see Smokey, making its locomotive noises, as it starts attacking the invaders!
Everyone then runs for the treeline, except for Ben, who says he has to say goodbye to his daughter. (And his moment at dead Alex’s side is such a sad, sad moment. I hate Vaughan and Goddard for making me feel for the monster that is Ben…)

When Ben catches up with Locke and company, Locke says he’s sorry that Alex died. He also calls Ben out on the lie (that he didn’t know what Smokey was).
Ben says, You can ask Jacob what it is when we get to the cabin. (Sigh.)
Sawyer says, Screw that. I’m going to the beach and I’m taking Claire and Hurley with me. Locke pulls out a gun and says, Hugo stays with us.
Sawyer says, No way, and pulls out his gun.
Hurley says, Put down your guns. It’s okay. I’ll go with Locke.
Sawyer doesn’t like that one bit, and warns Locke, You harm so much as one hair on his curly head, I’ll kill you. (Another fantastic moment in this episode, as Sawyer clearly displays his protectiveness over Hurley; earlier on, of course, it was with Claire.)
So Sawyer, Claire, Aaron, and Miles head off to the beach, while Locke, Ben, and Hurley are off to find Jacob’s cabin.

Onward ho, flashforward (though we don’t know that right off.)
Ben finds himself in the Sahara Desert, his arm wounded, in a fleece-lined Dharma jacket (that doesn’t look at all like it was made for desert wear). He then goes into deadly bad-a$$ mode as he kills two armed Bedouins and takes a horse to presumably get to civilization.
We next see him at a hotel, where he checks in under the preferred guest name, “Dean Moriarty.”
He then makes it a point to inquire about the date, and that’s when we find out it’s October 24, 2005, and we’re in a flashforward. (Note that Ben makes it a point to confirm the year, as if, well, he wanted to make sure he was in 2005, and why do you think he’d want to do that? Hrrrm…)
He also sees on the TV, a newsbit about Sayid attending the funeral of his wife! (And the reason why Sayid ended up working for Ben begins to crystallize…)

As it turns out, Sayid found Nadia, only to have her die on him, and according to Ben, the man who killed Nadia was working for Charles Widmore. (He also claims that he used Des’ boat to get off the Island, but that smells fishy…)
Later on, it looks like Ben is tailing the purported Widmore assassin, and it looks like the assassin has just caught Ben, but of course, it’s all a set-up, and Sayid shoots his a$$ dead, till the gun is empty.
Ben then walks away, but Sayid stops him. Ben says, It’s over, Sayid. Walk away and mourn your loss. This isn’t your war.
Sayid says, I spent 8 years looking for the woman I loved and I found her, and these people took her away from me. This is my war too…
(And I’m going, Dammit! Sayid asked for it. Then I think, Oh, no, don’t let this be some despicable manipulation on Ben’s part. Not when I actually felt sorry for him for the first time, ever.)
Ben says, Don’t let your despair turn into anger because it’ll never leave you then. I speak from experience.
(And I’m thinking, Oh please, please mean what you’re saying…)
But Sayid wants to join the war, and asks, Who’s next?
Ben then says, I’ll be in touch, and walks away, and I’m going, Don’t smile. Don’t smile. Don’t—F*cker!
The smug, evil bastard smiled. He played Sayid (and me) like a second-hand fiddle. (And I hate Vaughan and Goddard even more for pulling off these astonishing reversals.)

We then close with a coda in London, as Ben makes his way to Widmore’s digs.
It’s a great face-to-face between these adversaries during which we are made to understand that Widmore believes the Island is his, and that Ben merely usurped it from him.
Widmore asks, Are you here to kill me, Benjamin?
And Ben says, We both know I can’t do that.
Ben then says, But you killed my daughter.
Widmore says, Don’t pretend to be the victim here. You killed your daughter. (And I can only assume he meant, You killed her by not just surrendering when you could have.)
Widmore then asks, So if you’re not here to kill me, what are you here for?
Ben says, I’m here to tell you I’m going to kill your daughter (a very audible gasp from yours truly). “Penny,” is it? I’m going to kill her and then you’ll understand what I feel like and regret changing the rules.
And Ben walks away.

F*cker.

Okay, explosive episode which pretty much turns on the astonishing reversals Vaughan and Goddard pull off, by toying with the audience’s emotions toward Ben.
And of course, now that it’s made clear that Ben is targeting Penny, it’s even more evil, the position the writers have put us in.
On the one hand, we can completely see Ben’s side of it, in that he truly did care for Alex, and since Widmore took his daughter away, it would only be fair that he deprive Widmore of his daughter.
But that daughter is Penny, dammit!
Penny!!!

Then there’s an ill-attired Ben popping up in the Sahara, asking what year it is.
So is there actual physical time-traveling going on in the Lost-verse, or did Ben teleport from someplace else, and just wanted to ensure he hadn’t also inadvertently moved through time?
And poor Sayid, whose happy ending with Nadia was so cruelly taken away off-screen, and who was manipulated so coldly into becoming Ben’s Crying Freeman…

And there better not be any long-term damage from that house explosion Claire found herself in…
I mean, is it just me, or was her survival a little… miraculous? That house was decimated…

COUNTDOWN: 39.

(Images courtesy of ABC, variety.com, and ew.com [images 3 & 4].)

LOST
Season 4 Episode 8
“Meet Kevin Johnson”
Written by Elizabeth Sarnoff & Brian K. Vaughan
Directed by Stephen Williams
(WARNING: SPOILERS)

So aside from a few Island and Boat bits, this episode (as indicated by the title) is pretty much a protracted flashback precipitated by Sayid’s questioning of Michael, which relates to us (and Sayid and Des, of course), how Michael went from escaping the Island with Walt, to swabbing the freighter’s deck as Ben’s spy…

Apparently, after their escape, Michael was so burdened by his guilt over killing both Libby and Ana-Lucia, that he confessed to Walt what he’d done to purchase their freedom.
Justifiably horrified by what was done to get him back, Walt turns on Michael, and ends up living with Michael’s mother, not wanting to have anything to do with his murdering father.
Thus, Michael is despondent and suicidal, and tries to off himself by crashing his car, but he makes it out of the wreck alive. At the hospital, he has a nightmare where Libby, with some blankets, is the nurse checking up on him.
Michael tries to see Walt, but the kid won’t even come down from his room, looking down from his window at his murdering father.
So Michael hocks the watch that Jin gave him as a gift, and gets a gun and some bullets. He’s about to shoot himself in an alley when who should show up but Mr. Friendly! (And for just a moment, I think, Oh, wonderful. Michael’s seeing dead people too. Then it occurs to me that this flashback is probably occurring before MF is shot by Sawyer back on the Island.)
There’s some fisticuffs before MF reveals to Michael that he can’t die, that the Island won’t let him! MF then leaves Michael, telling him where he can be found (the penthouse of some hotel or other).

In his ratty apartment, Michael tries to shoot himself, but the gun just doesn’t want to fire, despite being fully loaded… (He also sees the news item about the “discovery” of Oceanic 815.)
So Michael heads to MF’s penthouse, where we see the confirmation that MF is indeed not straight, thus his declaration that Kate wasn’t “his type” way back at the start of Season 3.
We also discover the more vital information that—according to Ben—Da Widmore is responsible for the fake Oceanic 815 wreckage. This is so that people would stop looking for the plane, since Da W. wants to keep the whereabouts of the Island to himself.
Michael is also told that there’s a freighter that’s about to head for the Island, which, when it gets there, will be responsible for the deaths of everyone on the Island, including the other 815ers.
So the carrot dangling on the stick here is, this is Michael’s last chance to redeem himself; to save his fellow 815ers, by killing yet more people…

So Michael gets on board the freighter, meeting Minkowski, Naomi, and Miles (who tells Michael, I know “Kevin Johnson” isn’t your real name, but it’s okay, 80% of the people on this boat have secrets of their own). Michael also finds a crate for him, which contains what appears to be a bomb.
When Michael tries to activate it though, two things happen: one, Michael again sees Libby, who tells Michael not to do it; and two, when Michael does set it off, and the countdown reaches 0, a little Joker note springs out, which reads, NOT YET.
Later still, Michael gets a call from the mainland, from “Walt,” who turns out to be Ben, of course.
Ben instructs Michael to draw up a list of everyone on board, and then, after Ben calls him again, that he relay that list to Ben, then smash the comm equipment, then sabotage the engines (which of course we know he did).

Getting back to the freighter in this episode’s “present,” Michael’s story just serves to piss Sayid off. Accusingly (and ironically, since we’ve already seen his Crying Freeman flashforward), Sayid says, So you’re working for Ben.
And when Michael agrees, Sayid rats Michael out to Capt. Gault.

Back at the Barracks, Locke calls a town meeting, and explains to everyone exactly what Miles and the Boat people are here for: capture Benjamin Linus, then kill everyone else on the Island. (Miles doesn’t dispute this allegation, which thus makes me wonder, were Daniel and the others actually aware of this “kill everyone else” plan, ‘cause I honestly don’t see Daniel signing up for something like that. Or was Miles secretly privy to this bit because of his whole angry ghost whisperer thing?)

After the meeting, Ben sees Karl and Alex have a little PDA. He then speaks to Alex, giving her a map, telling her to go to “the Temple,” where the other Others are, apparently. Ben says, Go there, because if these people know you’re my daughter, they’ll use you to get to me.
Ben says, Go there, where you’ll be safe. He then adds, Your mother will protect you.
Alex asks, Are these people more dangerous than you?
And when Ben admits to that, Alex, Rousseau, and Karl, take the map and head for the Temple.
On the trek there though, first Karl, and then Rousseau, are shot by unseen snipers. Alex then surrenders, calling out, I’m Ben’s daughter!

Okay, first off, in the wake of the strike, the initial plan had been that the break would take place after episode 7 (“Ji Yeon”), and this episode—which had been completed pre-stirke—would kick off the batch of post-strike-produced episodes leading up to the season finale. If that plan had gone into effect, the cliffhanger would have been that kick-a$$ closer on “Ji Yeon,” which, honestly, feels like a more effective cliffhanger than this one.
But somewhere along the way, someone decided to show all the pre-strike episodes as a block, then take the six-week break, before airing the post-strike episodes, thus leaving us with this episode…
And yes, I am honest enough to cop to the possibility that I think “Ji Yeon” was a better episode than “Meet Kevin Johnson” because I’ve never really liked Michael’s character. At all. Since Day One.
If I could have Walt (kid with creepy, unnerving powers) without Michael (just a plain annoying yutz), that would be totally sweet. Unfortunately, right now we’re being given Michael without Walt. Sigh.

Somehow though, even if I put aside my dislike for Michael, I do still think “Ji Yeon” was a far better installment.
For one thing, there just seemed to be less artistry displayed in this one, with its straight-forward flashback. Within the context of the narrative, I can understand the reason for that choice—since Michael is apparently relating the story to Sayid and Des, it wouldn’t do to jump back and forth in time.
However, the “flashback-all-in-one-go” method seemed to make more sense in “Flashes Before Your Eyes.” Here, it just plays out as lazy and uninspired.

As for the cliffhanger we’re left with for the next six weeks though, I honestly can’t say for certain that those snipers were Boat People.
I mean, I wouldn’t put it past Ben to orchestrate this whole ambush so he could eliminate the other important people in Alex’s life, so he could again have his adoptive daughter all to himself. (And if it does turn out to be a legitimate ambush, I apologize in advance to Ben. Don’t blame me, dude, but trusting shifty li’l you is a pretty tall order.)
Oh, and I did say I missed Libby, but I sincerely hope we’ll see more of her than as just Michael’s guilt-inducing phantasm. The character deserves better than that…
Ah, and the whole “you can’t die, the Island won’t let you” bit…. Is that why Jack’s suicide attempt at the bridge was interrupted by a fortuitous accident?

COUNTDOWN: 40.

(Image courtesy of ABC and variety.com.)

LOST
Season 4 Episode 2
“Confirmed Dead”
Written by Drew Goddard and Brian K. Vaughan
Directed by Stephen Williams
(WARNING: SPOILERS)

So just as Season 2’s new faces were the Tailies, and Season 3’s, the Others, this season brings us the Boat People, with this episode introducing a quartet of them, who also supply the episode’s 5 flashbacks, the fifth courtesy of the still apparently dead Naomi.

Daniel Faraday: physicist. Headcase. (And who better to play him than Jeremy Davies, who we got a glimpse of in last episode’s cliffhanger.)
Faraday’s flashback opens the episode, as he watches TV, inexplicably moved by the underwater footage of the “discovery” of the 815 wreck in the Sunda Trench.

Miles Straume: ghost whisperer. Played by Saw‘s and X-Men: The Last Stand’s Ken Leung (who joins fellow Sawer Michael Emerson on Lost), Straum can apparently communicate with the dead, and is not above making quick money off this talent.

Charlotte Staples Lewis: anthropologist. Played by Justice‘s Rebecca Mader, Lewis discovers the skeletal remains of a polar bear. In Tunisia. Wearing a Hydra Station collar.
So I guess someone figured out teleportation… (And just maybe, time travel, if that skeleton proves to be ancient…)

Frank Lapidus: Played by The Lawnmower Man’s Jeff Fahey, Lapidus is the pilot who was supposed to have been at the controls of 815 that fateful flight, but I guess he traded with poor Greg Grunberg.
And when he sees what’s supposed to be the skeleton of Grunberg on TV, he notices that the corpse isn’t wearing a wedding ring, and it should be…

Naomi’s flashback shows her talking to creepy Abaddon about the “team,” made up of Faraday, Straum, Lewis, and Lapidus.
She objects, since these aren’t field operatives, but Abaddon overrules her. Apparently, she was the head of this team, though it strikes me as an odd thing that she went off ahead of the team she was supposed to be leading…

Back on the Island, Daniel tells Jack and Kate that he bailed out of the helicopter, and that there are 3 other members of his team (all of whom are equipped with GPS transponders, that, acting in tandem with the NaomiPhones, can indicate where the others are). Jack and Kate are also quick to note that Daniel is armed. Oh, and Daniel says rescuing the 815ers isn’t their primary mission.
When they find Miles (thanks to the handy GPS thingamabob), he pulls a gun on Jack. Apparently, Naomi sending her love to her non-existent sister was a code phrase meaning she’d gotten into trouble with whoever she was with. Miles knows she’s dead and insists they take him to her. Kate says “A man named Locke killed her, but he isn’t with us anymore.”
Miles still insists on seeing Naomi’s body.

When they reach her body, Miles does the ghost whisperer thing and apparently makes contact with her; he says they told the truth, that she was indeed killed by this Locke person.
They’re about to move on, when Sayid and Juliet arrive and turn the tables on the Boat People.
They then pick up Charlotte’s GPS device, but it turns out to be attached to good old’ Vincent. (Yay, doggie!) So they now know that Charlotte is with the man who killed Naomi…
They then spot a flare, which turns out to be Frank, who was able to land the helicopter safely. Sayid checks out the helicopter, and except for some minor damage, it’s operational.
While Juliet tends to Frank’s scrapes though, he asks her what her name is, and notes that she wasn’t on 815’s manifest, and thus, was on the Island before the crash. A “native.”
Thus, the primary mission is revealed: they’re here for Ben…

Meanwhile, over with Locke and company…
On the way to the Barracks, they make a detour, and Locke says they’re headed for the cabin. Hurley says, “But isn’t it that way?”
Locke and Ben take note of this, though Hurley covers up by saying, “Oh, I thought you meant the cabin on the plane…”
Locke explains to Sawyer that he’s headed there to talk to Walt, who helped him after Ben shot him. (Ironically, Locke points out that if he still had his other kidney, the bullet would have hit it and he’d probably have died from it.)

They then find Charlotte, but of course are suspicious of her. So they take her GPS thingamabob and send Vincent traipsing off into the jungle with it. (Damn these people! Aren’t they worried the poor doggie’ll be accosted by Smokey?)
Ben then filches Karl’s gun off the poor sap and shoots Charlotte. She is, however, wearing a flak jacket, so she’s fine.
Ben however, is not.
Locke is about to shoot him (protests lodged by Alex and Claire), but Ben tries to buy himself time by saying he’s indispensable and that he still has answers that Locke needs.
So Locke asks, “What’s the Monster?” To which Ben replies, “I don’t know.” (Naturally.)
So Locke is about to shoot him for real now, but Ben starts to rattle off Charlotte’s full name, birthplace, schools attended, etc. etc.
He then says there are 3 others with her, and what their names are.
And he says he knows this because he has a mole on the freighter…

So this installment moves along at a nice clip, and I must say most of the new faces are interesting, particularly Daniel, since I’m a big believer in Jeremy Davies. (That early scene where he’s watching the TV, and the bit where he says the light doesn’t scatter right on the Island… Small scenes, but great nonetheless.)
Actually, the only new character that doesn’t really fire me up is Charlotte, though her flashback is great, since it’s got that polar bear skeleton in it…

And when Locke asks Ben what the monster is, is it just me or did that sound more like a question the fans are dying to know the answer to, as opposed to the first question Locke would want answered? I mean, didn’t he get a good look at it way back in Season 1? Didn’t he say it was like looking into the eye of the Island, or some such mystic blather?
Somehow, I guess I imagine Locke would ask something else, like, how did my father really get here? Or, how can I be seeing a Walt that’s older than he should be, and how can I be seeing him when he’s supposed to be off the Island?
In that moment, it just seemed like Locke was more a mouthpiece of the audience than a real character.

That cliffhanger meanwhile, where Ben claims he’s got an inside man…
That seems to me like some possibly manipulative BS on Ben’s part. I mean, who’s to say that wasn’t Jacob whispering into Ben’s ear?
Of course, Ben really could have a mole (and an astoundingly accurate memory), but I guess we’ll have to see what the deal is between the Boat People and why they want Ben so badly…

COUNTDOWN: 46

(Images courtesy of ABC and aol.com.)