Spoilers.
Lost Official Site
The Time: Wednesdays, 9:00 PM, ABC
The Show:
When
Oceanic Flight 815 from Sydney to London went down somewhere over the
Pacific, the survivors of the crash found themselves marooned on a
tropical island. But this is no ordinary island; it has
unusual magnetic, temporal, healing and seemingly supernatural
properties, and is fraught with constant danger. There is
a mysterious black smoke-like creature, polar bears, and even
apparitions of the dead roaming the forest. The island is
also the former secret haven of a group called the Dharma Initiative,
who were running experiments utilizing the unique properties of the
island via research stations that dot the landscape. Now the
Oceanic survivors, led by Dr. Jack Sheppard, Kate Austen, James
“Sawyer” Ford, John Locke, Hugo “Hurley” Reyes, Sayid Jarrah and
others, seek a way to escape the island and its many dangers.
But there are people, both living on the island and seeking the island
from outside, who are at war for control of it, and the Oceanic
survivors find themselves caught in the middle. Told via
nonlinear fashion that incorporates flashbacks and flash forwards, Lost is one of the most unique and densely mythological shows on television.
The Stars:
• Matthew Fox – Dr. Jack Sheppard
• Evangeline Lilly – Kate Austen
• Josh Holloway – James “Sawyer” Ford
• Naveen Andrews – Sayid Jarrah
• Terry O’Quinn – John Locke
• Jorge Garcia – Hugo “Hurley” Reyes
• Daniel Dae Kim – Jin Kwon
• Yunjin Kim – Sun Kwon
• Michael Emerson – Benjamin Linus
• Henry Ian Cusick – Desmond Hume
• Elizabeth Mitchell – Juliet Burke
• Jeremy Davies – Daniel Faraday
• Nestor Carbonell – Richard Alpert
• Alan Dale – Charles Widmore
• Reiko Aylesworth – Amy
The Episode: “Namaste”
Jack, Kate and Hurley are reunited with
The Lowdown:
After the last episode, “LaFleur,” which was great, this one is another
of the fill-in-the-blanks type of offerings where we play catch up with
characters of whom we’ve already heard of their doings off-screen in
previous episodes or learn how things came to be for other characters.
In this case I’m talking about the new Losties of Ajira Airways (I’m
calling them the 316ers) on the Hydra Island, and specifically Sun,
Frank and Ben. But back in the Me Decade, we also pick up with the O6
people who disappeared off the Ajira plane as it was passing close to
the island: Jack, Kate, Hurley. They’re reunited with Sawyer, Jin,
Miles and Juliet, who of course have settled in quite nicely with the
Dharma Initiative. On a side note, since we had to wait until January
to get Season 5, am I the only one annoyed that we had to wait two
weeks in between episodes?
In typical Lost
fashion, there are some things revealed, but then seemingly twice as
many questions arise. Things revealed include the name of Amy’s baby,
whom we were pretty certain would end up being a character we know and
it was: Ethan. We also see what happened to get Sun and Frank off the
island and why Ben was unconscious in a bed when Locke discovered him
after the crash. Sun and Frank depart the Hydra Island and go to the
Barracks, where they discover Christian, who shows them an old photo
from 1977 showing the O6 and Sawyer’s group back in the Dharma
Initiative.
We also learn that something’s going on with
Faraday, which explains why he isn’t seen with Sawyer and the others
back in 1977. We learn that Sayid got separated from Jack, Kate and
Hurley and is also in the past. We also finally see the young Ben
Linus and most importantly, we now know for certain that the Ajira
plane didn’t go back in time with those that disappeared. Of course,
what we don’t know continues to outweigh what we do. Why didn’t Sun, Frank and Ben
jump back in time with the rest of the O6? What the hell is Christian
exactly? He’s certainly not a ghost, as he was able to interact
directly with Sun and Frank, taking a picture off the wall in the
Barracks and telling them they have quite a journey ahead of them to be
reunited with the O6. Resurrected like Locke? How is he omniscient?
Is he Jacob? Is Locke? Not new questions, but when Christian keeps
popping up, they’re dredged back up.
I liked the interplay
between Sawyer and Jack when Jack sees that Sawyer and Juliet have
shacked up and their roles have now been reversed to where Sawyer is
calling the shots. But of course now we’re going to get the Jack /
Kate / Sawyer love triangle all over again probably, although with
Juliet, we’re more than likely headed for love quadrilateral
territory. I’m sorry to say, but I almost wouldn’t have minded if the
rumors of Evangeline Lilly leaving the show had panned out to be true.
Kate has been bled of damn near any interest I have left in her and if
there’s any element of the show I especially don’t want to retread,
it’s that whole romance polygon action.
Now that we’ve seen Ben as roughly a twelve-year-old in 1977, the timeline
for the Purge seems to have shifted, for me at least. I couldn’t
remember if in the flashbacks in episodes like “The Man Behind The
Curtain,” where we got Ben’s backstory, if the date of his birth was
given, but I was of the impression that the Purge had taken sometime in
the late ’70s to early ’80s. However, a little investigation on Wikipedia
on Ben shows that the Purge actually took place around 1992, because
they have it as taking place four years after Rousseau’s arrival on the
island, which was 1988. I could very well be mistaken, but that’s what
I’ve pieced together. Jeez, you absolutely need a program to this
show. I may have to work it out on Visio or Excel with macros and shit
just to keep it straight.
Anyway, this was more of a middle-of-the-road episode for me. I did
like the opening scene crash of Ajira 316. It certainly doesn’t pay to
be an airline pilot or co-pilot on this show, that’s for sure. The
complication of having Sayid having to masquerade as a Hostile is a
potentially interesting twist. We still have yet to learn how many of
the 815 passengers are left alive back at the beach camp since the flaming arrow attack. I
doubt Bernard and Rose are dead, but they could be the only ones left.
Luckily, some fresh Red Shirts have been flown in for the eventual
expendable background survivors that I’m sure we’re going to still
need. All things considered, though, still really enjoying this
season.