Lost season 4 episode 4 review

Before I start, I have to give a shout out to the awesome Previously On Lost, whose music I found on MySpace last week. Basically, their aim is to recap each week’s episode of Lost through the power of song, which is a pretty damn cool aim – most weeks, I struggle to do it through the power of MS Word. Check them out at myspace.com/previouslyonlostmusic, spread the word, and don’t forget to download their stuff!

And one more thing – Merry Christmas from Lost! Yup, it’s Christmas Day on Mystery Island and nobody has noticed due to all the hostage-taking and helicopter-riding that’s going on. And despite the inital disappointment of not seeing Charlie, Shannon and Eko return in ghostly form for a one-off performance of A Tropical Christmas Carol, we wouldn’t have it any other way.

This week’s Lost has left many prone to hyperbole on the interwebs since its stateside airing on Thursday, including fellow Geek writer Carl England, who texted me last night saying that “Eggtown” was “the ep [he’s] been waiting for this season” (all expletives have been removed). And I have to disagree with him, bless his soul. Last night’s episode was solid all the way through but the whole Kate/Sawyer fanservice setup I complained about in last week’s recap continued to nag me. (Skaters, I await your flaming arrows of fandom to pierce me!)

Oh, Kate, you love a man, you love another man, you realise one man’s got you as part of his hostage rescue plan and then you leave man number one’s camp and stay within man number two’s camp, sleep with man number two, fight, and then go. Much of this whole Sawyer/Kate thing we’ve seen before, and a lot of it wasn’t enlightening in any sense, even though Evangeline Lily gave it all she got. In the final on-island scene, she left Sawyer in New Otherton, upset at his insensitivity over her whole am-I-pregnant issue. My way of reading Kate’s decision to leave: after finding out that Miles and everybody else on the freighter knew she was a wanted convict, she slowly came to realise that being stuck in the holding pattern that Sawyer described (“in about a week, you’ll find some reason to get pissed at Jack and bounce right back to me”) was not the best thing to do. As I said last week, the characters of Lost fight hard for redemption on and off the island – and unlike Sayid, who found some kind of redemption on the island for his past as a torturer, only to lose it upon becoming Ben’s assassin, Kate seeks redemption for her crimes and gets it (even if she cuts corners by lying about her island experience and not going to jail).

Ah, Flashforward City. We all want to talk about it, so let’s go there. In this week’s off-island events, we witnessed (pun!) Kate’s court case. At the first hearing, Kate claimed to be not guilty before being remanded into custody. The look on her face was priceless – after so long on the run, it was really bewildering and a bit sad to see our favourite flight risk in cuffs and being led off to prison. But when meeting with her lawyer in prison, we were slapped with the first Massive Flash O’ Info of the episode: Kate has a son. A son she refuses to show to the world, let alone a courtroom or her own mother. And by the time Kate beat the case, signing a plea bargain that allowed her to literally slip out the back door, we found out that aforementioned Massive Flash O’ Info was a big, steaming, all-over-red herring with a side order of GOTCHA! Kate’s son is not her son. He’s not Jack’s either, and he doesn’t want to see him for some mysterious reason. And lo and behold, we already know he isn’t Sawyer’s, so who could it be? Claire Littleton’s son, Aaron. Double-u tee eff?!

I kinda saw this coming – Desmond’s vision that led to Charlie’s death was meant to culminate in Claire and Aaron getting off the island – but that’s not to say I wasn’t shocked by the final-second twist. What does this mean for Claire? Is she dead or left on the island? Is Aaron one of the Oceanic Six? And bringing this question back to the forefront again: could Ben, an off-island character not on the manifest, be one of the O6 too? How long has it been since Aaron got off the island, and has his age been rapidly advanced a la Taller Ghost Walt? I can think why Aaron is being kept out of sight by Kate – as the first baby born on Mystery Island in some time, could the New Big Bad Corporation I believe Sayid is killing off one-by-one want him for experimental purposes? I think we won’t be coming back to this plot strand for a little, despite the recently reported news that the audience should know who all of the Oceanic Six are by episode seven.

But back to the court case. In a move masterminded by a legal team that earned law degrees from 80s soap operas and Lionel Hutz, Jack was called in as a character witness. Looking well-shaven and confident – not sure where the chronology of this flashforward fits in relation to Hurley’s asylum escapades – Jack took the stand, vowed to tell the whole damn truth and nothing but the truth, and then proceeded to lie his arse off. His story included these following inconsistencies: the plane crashed somewhere in the South Pacific (actually true, but wasn’t the mock 815 wreck found somewhere else completely? Any geography students here?); there were only eight survivors; Kate’s Marshall died in the flight; Kate helped all the survivors with first aid; he doesn’t love Kate. Lies, all lies! Outside the case, Kate said something very telling: “You know, Jack, I’ve heard you say that story so many times, I’m starting to think you believe it.” The spinal surgeon could only respond with a nervous look, insinuating that he was obviously falling for the stuff coming out of his mouth, just as shown in the season premiere. It’s going to be interesting to see how Jack’s faith in bending the truth falls apart so heavily to the point that he’s grown a Chia Pet-esque Flashforward Beard™.

In other developments this week, we found out nothing about the helicopter carrying Frank, Sayid, Desmond and Dead Naomi. At least that’s how it looks if you’re on that bloody freighter – when Charlotte called Regina (the “emergency” contact that we’ve heard numerous times already), the 411 on the chopper was that there was no 411. At frakking all. Which begs the question: how the hell does a helicopter disappear into thin air? Did Frank not go through the bearing that Daniel ordered him to, therefore causing big problems? Or have they left the island and they are still waiting longer than usual to cross over into Real World Time? Is there construction work on the road back to the freighter? (If this is an actual plot point and the island has a time-travelling version of the M30, I will not be impressed.)

Back with Team Locke, Kate was trying to get more information out of Miles, although her queries were more of the “do you know I’m a wanted criminal?” sort than the “are you here to kill us?” kind. For more info, Kate helped break the new prisoner out of his quarters at the boathouse and into Ben’s cell (funnily enough, the same cramped, dark room that Anthony Cooper was found in in “The Man From Tenessee”) for a one minute conversation. “Do you know who I am?” Miles asked. “Yes,” came the clipped, wary answer. Obviously Miles’ employers give Ben the heebie-jeebies, but it says something about Miles’ lack of integrity or loyalty when he offered to lie about Ben’s life status for a cool $3.2 million in cash and “take care” of Charlotte, the only other person from the freighter that’s seen him alive. The git. I like him even more now. Despite my initial uneasiness with Miles’ conniving plans, I’ve warmed to this plotline and can’t wait to see where it takes us. Who thinks the money is to buy shares in one of the institutions Lost has to offer, like the Dharma Initiative or Mittelos Biosciences? Or could it be something more badass than shares?

And that’s most of it for this week’s Lost recap, so I’ll take the opportunity to cram as many questions involving this episode as possible: What was that card game between Charlotte and Daniel about? Has Jin been getting English lessons from Hiro Nakamura? (Like the season one incarnation of the Heroes time-traveller, he’s getting to grips with English very, very quickly…) Don’t you love it when Locke throws things? Should I start reading Philip K Dick’s VALIS for clues? Wasn’t that just the truest thing about the show when Locke said Ben (in this case, the audience) “might catch something you missed the second time around”? And what’s your favourite song by Previously On Lost?

Til’ next week, I’m Lost. And tired, because it’s 0512 and I have class in five hours. And Daniel Day-Lewis just won the Best Actor Oscar. Your milkshake, he drinks it up!