Television Without Pity

Lost review:


Episode Report Card
334 users
B+
Wow, what a great hour-long episode that would have made, huh? True story: as I type this, PJ Harvey singing "Is That All There Is" came up on my iTunes shuffle.

The Goonies manage to snag themselves some dynamite, only Arse blows himself up. Yay! I can't believe I never pegged him as total redshirt material; I thought he was going to be part of Lost: The Next Generation. And now we can't tell Arse from a hole in the ground. But they've got the dynamite, and they're going to blow up the hatch. On the way back to the hatch, Locke gets grabbed by Lostzilla. As far getting a glimpse of the island's security system? Not so much. I guess the rope or chain or tentacle or whatever the hell grabbed Locke was our "glimpse"…as well as some black smoke-type stuff that only increases the mystery. At any rate, Locke almost gets dragged down a hole, a fate that he doesn't exactly seem to fear. But it's because, as he tells Jack, he's a man of faith, and the island brought them all there for a reason. What reason, and how, and all that, ain't getting revealed. The flashbacks are all of the "watch everybody getting on the plane" variety, and the entire purpose seems to be to show that most of them almost missed the plane -- but wound up on it anyway. Weirdest moment: the ad for Good Morning: America that promises an important "secret scene" that the producers couldn't squeeze in. Yeah, so important that there was no room for it anywhere in this two-hour bloat of an episode. If anybody watched that, you are banned from the site.

Meanwhile, Rousseau kidnaps Turniphead and makes for the black smoke, apparently to try to trade for her own baby who was kidnapped all those years ago. Charlie and Sayid race after her (making a pit stop at the Boone Death Plane, where Charlie snags himself some heroin). When they catch Rousseau at the black smoke fire, there are no "others." Because maybe when a crazy person talks about hearing voices, there aren't actually others.

Or are there? The dudes on the Millennium Falkon-Tiki (tm sdPalladio) fire off the flare gun after spotting something on the radar. And they are relieved to be spotted by...Biker Gang Boat Party? D'oh...? The bikers want Walt. Hand 'im over, they growl. And when their spotlight goes out, Sawyer gets shot, and hits the water. Jin jumps in after him. Walt is forcibly taken, and Mercutio ends up in the water as well, watching his son being kidnapped, his raft blowing up behind him. Gave me chills.

And in the final scene, also going for chills but winding up in frustration at the lack of answers, the hatch is blown, and finally opened. But if you thought we were going to find out what's inside, you don't know Jack. The hatch goes down, waaaaaaaay down. And the ladder's busted. That's not a cliffhanger. That's the writers needing to have their crack pipes cleaned over the summer and get things moving.