LOST
Season 3
Episode 21
(WARNING:
SPOILERS)
“Greatest Hits”

Now this is Lost at its best, when the emotion which accompanies the focused character’s story is potent and incredibly moving, while the Island story’s plot is cruising at a rapid clip. The success is all the more notable in that the Island story isn’t just “cruising at a rapid clip” in this particular episode, it’s careening into overdrive as we speed on towards this season’s finale.

Charlie’s the focus this time out, as he learns from Des that he needs to die in order for Claire and Aaron to get on board a helicopter, apparently to get rescued. It seems Charlie will flick a switch, and then drown, and this event has to take place, in order for the “rescue” to occur.
So, facing his impending death with as much courage as he can muster, Charlie sets out to write a list of the 5 best moments of his “sorry excuse for a life,” his Greatest Hits, spurred on by Naomi mentioning that his “death” in the Oceanic 815 crash caused a big stir, and even led to a new DriveShaft album, a Greatest Hits package.

And herein are some of the most moving bits in Charlie’s story thus far. Weighted by all the emotional baggage that his character carries (and which we’ve been privy to over the past 3 seasons), we’re in on the process of letting go, just as Charlie is. The journey is astoundingly moving, and I guess I should’ve been psyching myself out for that goodbye, given that Charlie’s death has been in the cards since early on in this season, but there you go.
Man, this was a toughie to get through, what, with all his goodbyes, to Claire, Aaron (you left the ring in the crib! Doofus!), and Hurley.
And then, the apparent last minute reprieve, as Des offers Charlie an out, but Charlie opts for the Ferro Lad Gambit. (Sorry, comic book reference. In case that went over your head, Bruce Willis pulled the Ferro Lad Gambit too, in Armageddon.)
And then!
Oooh, these sneaky little buggers!
You get all worked up and prepare yourself for Charlie buying it at episode’s end… and he doesn’t! Some gun-toting women are in the Looking-Glass Station and they’ve got Charlie in their sights.
Great. Now I’ll have to go and psych myself out from square one all over again…

Parting shot 1: I’m sure the Lost people know this, but Michael Giacchino is such a prize. Man, he does know how to rachet up the suspense with that score.

Parting shot 2: That was Nadia, right? In Covent Garden, with Charlie? If that was, then she’s crossed paths with 3 survivors thus far: Sayyid, of course, and Charlie, and Locke. I guess she really must’ve gotten around in her life as a fugitive.

Parting shot 3: Wow. I didn’t even get to talk about the Island story…
Okay, Lemme just say, I apologize for not trusting Rousseau and her motives for raiding the Black Rock’s store of dynamite. Apparently, it was for Jack’s scheme to get back at the Others (Jack, who I also mistrusted for a spell back there; sorry, the Island doesn’t really foster trust, if you know what I mean).
Oooh, we’re leading up to a doozy, aren’t we? With the shooters staying behind, and the rest hiking to the radio tower…
Next up, the two-part finale, with Jack as spotlight character.

COUNTDOWN: 50

(Image courtesy of sparklies.org.)

LOST
Season 3
Episode 20
(WARNING:
SPOILERS)
“The Man
Behind the
Curtain”

Okay, that’s a cliffhanger. Locke, shot, in a pit filled with the corpses of the Dharma contingent Ben had a hand in exterminating.
The man is a stone cold lunatic.

While back at the camp, it becomes clear that Juliet has told Jack about Ben’s nefarious plans to abduct Sun (and any other pregnant survivors) and that Jack has been (presumably) hatching his own scheme (I apologize for not fully trusting Jack; probably lingering resentment for his having been the primary reason I had to endure “Stranger in a Strange Land,” arguably this season’s lowest point) to deal with the problem.
So everyone’s apparently on the same page now. I already apologized for calling Juliet a “two-faced lying slag,” but somehow, I still can’t bring myself to entirely trust her. Like I said, if she busts her a$$ to help Sun, then maybe.

Of course, the major focus of the episode is Ben and what he’s lied about and what he hasn’t.
“Born on this island,” my a$$. Liar.
I mean, this is the man responsible for the “hostile” takeover of the Barracks. Sure, he had a pretty miserable life, with a father who blamed Ben for the death of his mother (and perhaps herein lies the fuel for Ben’s crusade to get women to come to full term on the Island; so that other kids won’t have to endure the hell he went through), but he ends up not just killing his old man (thus giving us the back story of the VW van Hurley and company had a joy ride in in “Tricia Tanaka Is Dead,” and justifying that episode’s existence) but paving the way for the slaughter of all the other Dharma people.

And what is up with “Jacob”?
That was a masterly sequence, stretching out the question of whether Ben was completely bugf*ck crazy, talking to an apparently empty chair, then all hell breaking loose when Locke unwisely shines that flashlight (Ben did warn him that Jacob felt the same way about technology as Locke did. Refresh my memory though, ‘cause Locke never struck me as a Luddite).
Of course, it really all could have been some elaborate parlour trick, but that just seems too far-fetched (says he, as opposed to the idea of a man seen by one man but not seen by another, who hears him when the other doesn’t; that’s not far-fetched at all, is it?).

And here, I thought we’d see about the whole Alex thing, but of course, we don’t. We also don’t see what happened to Annie, though I imagine Ben got her pregnant and she died. (More personal fuel for his crusade to make the Island a conception-safe zone.)
But really, weren’t those dolls Annie gave him just creepy?
And why does Richard look like he’s younger than Ben, when he’s not?

Crackerjack episode, gentlemen.
I continue to be dazzled, as does my iguana.

(Image courtesy of sparklies.org.)

LOST
Season 3
Episode 17
(WARNING:
SPOILERS)
“Catch-22”

Like Hurley said, this is future crap.
So it’s Des and his flashes, and being placed in a situation where he must choose if he’s willing to sacrifice Charlie for the sake of the possibility that Penny’s about to arrive on the Island. (Catch-22, indeed.)
We also see Des’ brief life in a monastery, making wine, before he’s whisked off by Penny. (Huh. First Eko’s stint as a priest, and now Desmond. What is it about Lost and men of the cloth? Maybe Kate was a nun for awhile…)
Speaking of Kate, she can be such a doofus. After making her solid choice back in the cages, now she’s hurt ‘cause Jack is making time with that two-faced lying slag Juliet, and she jumps Sawyer’s bones. At least Sawyer was canny enough to figure out he was being used. (And isn’t that cute? He gave her a mix tape…)
Getting back to Des, it’s an interesting perspective he voices, that maybe his flashes are a test. Maybe the test is knowing all this is inevitable and resisting the urge to change what he sees.
I was also about 94.6% sure that it wasn’t gonna be Penny there, hanging dead from the tree. I certainly didn’t wait for almost a year just to have her wind up on the Island, dead.
But really, who was that?!

(Image courtesy of sparklies.org.)

LOST Season 3 Episode 10 (WARNING: SPOILERS)
“Tricia Tanaka Is Dead”

What is it about Lost and bad fathers?
Fathers on this show are conmen, drunks, abusive, crooked, or coldly controlling. Now you can add “absentee” to the list.
As it turns out, Hurley’s dad (played by Cheech Marin; too bad Chong wasn’t along for the ride) abandoned the family 17 years ago, and suddenly pops back into their now nouveau riche life to straighten out the son he walked out on all those years ago (and have some really long overdue sex with the missus).
And even as we get another peek into Hurley’s past, the island story (which I said last review was moving at a snail’s pace) begins to chug slowly along as Kate and Sawyer make it back to camp, finally getting Locke and Sayid off their a$$es and on the road to rescuing Jack.
So, although I was kind of expecting there was more of a story to the meteor hitting the fast food joint (and what happened to Marguerite Moreau?! She ran off with DJ Qualls? Come on! I thought there was more of a story there too.*), this episode does play better than last week’s, and not just because the island story is gradually revving up.
We also have nice little scenes of Jin being taught English (first by Sun, then by Sawyer), as well as the payoff to the whole “let’s get the VW running,” as Sawyer gets back to camp with a whole lotta beer and no one to share it with.
And now that they’ve finally informed Danielle that her daughter may very well be alive, I should mention something that didn’t occur to me till a few days after I’d written my review of episode 7 (“Not In Portland”): if Alex really is Ben’s biological daughter (and not simply adopted), then why is it that Ben came into the survivors’ lives through his “misfortune” of getting caught in one of Rousseau’s traps? If Ben really is Alex’s biological father, then Danielle must know who he is, shouldn’t she? Or was she in on it? Did she knowingly allow Ben to insert himself into the survivors’ lives because she struck some kind of deal with Ben? (I have always thought that if Ben is such a smart guy, how stupid was he that he got caught in one of Rousseau’s traps? And what, he was traipsing around the jungle all by his lonesome? The all-powerful leader of the Others? I dunno…)
Or is that how far gone Danielle is that she can’t even recognize the father of her own child? Or maybe the Others’ Alex is just a young woman who happens to be named Alex and isn’t actually Rousseau’s daughter. Was there even a real Alex to begin with? Maybe Rousseau’s just completely loony and this stolen baby episode never really happened.
So many questions…
Then again, this is Lost.

* And I love Marguerite Moreau! Please tell me we’ll see her again. Since we see the point when Hurley leaves for Australia in this episode, the only chance we’ll see Starla again is if we do see the events leading to DJ Qualls running away with her…

Parting shot: Still waiting for Paulo and Nikki to make that significant contribution… What’s his excuse this week? Oh, yeah. He was gonna get some bananas. Right.

Parting shot 2: Hurley should really think twice before chasing Vincent out into the jungle. I mean, I love the dumb dog, but he was one of the key factors in Shannon’s death by Ana-Lucia…