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tori_reviewsLOST 1x20 – Do No Harm
I was sort of all over the place watching this episode. Parts of it I was prepared to say I didn’t like the ep, other parts I quite liked, a few places I think the writers are counting on the audience to do too much of the work for them, and I definitely have issues with the flashback story.
Which is as good a place to start as any I suppose. Because this really feels like the wrong set of flashbacks to pair with this story in the present. If we had more of the backstory it could work as a contrast, but we don’t have enough to go off of to get that effect. Is Jack in the past going through with a commitment/promise that he should be letting go of? Maybe, we don’t know enough. Without the present day story there illustrating that Jack does need to learn when to call something a lost cause, the flashback story is just as easy to read as just a story of Jack overcoming his doubts.
Well, apart from the fact that his relationship to his wife has some red flags on it from the start. This definitely has some potential to be a case of transference that should not have happened. The fact that Jack doesn’t bring that up in his doubts is also suspect, because even his bride’s toast at the reception is very on brand for that. I do suspect that Papa Shep had that kind of concern, but since no one acknowledges it out loud I don’t know that we’re meant to see that as the problem in this relationship.
I feel like this is intended as some kind of payoff for Kate’s story this season but I’m not sure what that arc was. Oddly enough, it started fine, that Jack sent her to get resources from Sawyer and it’s ambiguous if Sawyer didn’t raise a fuss because he does care or if it’s because it was Kate who came looking. But I’ve actually been thinking for a while that I don’t know what Kate’s arc or narrative role is, so it’s hard for this to seem like an important step in an arc I can’t see. So while it isn’t wrong to have her be the one delivering the baby, it doesn’t connect to any deeper meaning that she’s the one doing it.
The one thing I might say, and this is me doing the work the show hasn’t done, but Kate is one of the bigger advocates for the community of the crash survivors, so she’s the one that can speak for how much the baby (and Claire) means to the community, and how much support there will be from the community. And since the end of the episode is all about the survivors as a community, welcoming the baby and dealing with the loss of Boone (I’d say he was the first loss since the aftermath of the crash, but there was Steve -or was it Scott- so I’m not sure the emotional resonance is properly calibrated), then maybe this is the cementing of Kate’s role within the community? Like I said, I’m doing the work the writers left vague.
I feel like at the time there would have been an expectation of naming the baby after Boone in some form, but as far as I know that’s not what happens. I’m not sure it would have been fitting after how this episode played out, but I think it would have been an expectation.
Likewise, I’m curious what the fallout is going to be with Shannon before I form an opinion of whether I like how she was kept out of things this episode. I don’t think it’s a bad choice narratively, but it is going to need to be handled in the next part of the story. The part I already like is that we don’t know what Boone wanted Shannon to be told, and I like that ambiguity, and think it could feed well into the next step in her actions, but I may only be hoping it’s handled well. This show so far rarely makes an outright wrong decision, but it definitely makes some imperfect and underdeveloped ones (case and point, the things that bothered me about this episode), so I’m mostly optimistic it will follow through, but not confident in that. And I’ve been burned by too many shows to offer this one much blind faith.
Considering that last we saw of Locke last episode it was sometime at night, the light in the hatch may have come on about the time Boone died and/or when the baby was born. Or maybe not, we’ll either find out or we won’t, or Locke will just assume it was so and it will be implied he’s right. …I guess I still needed to get some Locke issues in the review.
LOST 1x21 – The Greater Good
So to paraphrase what was said at the funeral: “Boone died the way he lived, well meaning but incompetent.” It’s what I would write on his gravestone if he had one.
And the fact that this observation about Boone feels like the only thing I can put to words about this episode tell me that I’m about done trying to do these. But it wouldn’t be the first time that I said something like that, but as soon as I figured I’d stop I’ll hit an episode or stretch of episodes that I do want to get down some thoughts about.
Yet again the focus of this episode feels askew. It’s almost a little sexist that something that affects Shannon more than anyone else is mostly played through the men in the plot. To be fair, the show does treat Jack as the nominal main character so it thinks his reaction is important, and Sayid was focused on Shannon’s feelings and only took it further once she asked him to, and Locke…Locke is a lying asshole who should feel a lot worse than he does especially now that he’s randomly gotten over his messed up legs again. (Do I sometimes feel bad about hating on Locke? Eh, I’m surprised by it and have no idea whether it’s how the audience feels in general, but I don’t feel bad.)
Still, pairing the men-focused a-plot with showing Charlie’s adventures with the baby instead of Claire adjusting to motherhood makes the sexism vibe even more suspect. I don’t know that I want to lay that accusation on the writers or this episode, but there’s certainly a whiff of it.
So it was Locke who wacked Sayid and stopped the transmitter test. I remember thinking he was the logical suspect (way more logical than suspecting Sawyer like they did) but I thought we’d find out the answer was some unknown other player in the game. But no, it was Locke being an asshole. I feel less and less bad about hating him as we learn more.
To give him a tiny bit of credit, he doesn’t rat Walt out, although if I was guessing I’d suspect Sayid knows the Locke knows who burned the raft.
As a story, the flashbacks were fine this time. Similar to Sayid’s last set of flashbacks, so I think he’s got the highest batting average so far. But I do have a few broad thoughts I guess I’ll bring up.
-Sci-fi rules or were they speaking English all through this one? Sci-fi rules probably make the most sense, but there’s a lot less indication of that than there was in the first Sayid ep.
-Was everyone on the plane coming off a major personal crisis that they wouldn’t have had time to recover from before getting in a plane crash? Because little to none of this seemed to influence their behavior in the early episodes.
-Establishing that Sayid had in fact been looking for Nadia for eight years is a really odd thing to put up against his new relationship with Shannon. It wouldn’t be impossible to reconcile, but the show currently isn’t doing anything to reconcile it.
…so, to repeat, this episode was fine, there were things about it I even quite liked, but it left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. Also kind of a bland one that means I don’t feel like writing much about either the good things or the bad aftertaste things. And that’s just what I got from this one.
I was sort of all over the place watching this episode. Parts of it I was prepared to say I didn’t like the ep, other parts I quite liked, a few places I think the writers are counting on the audience to do too much of the work for them, and I definitely have issues with the flashback story.
Which is as good a place to start as any I suppose. Because this really feels like the wrong set of flashbacks to pair with this story in the present. If we had more of the backstory it could work as a contrast, but we don’t have enough to go off of to get that effect. Is Jack in the past going through with a commitment/promise that he should be letting go of? Maybe, we don’t know enough. Without the present day story there illustrating that Jack does need to learn when to call something a lost cause, the flashback story is just as easy to read as just a story of Jack overcoming his doubts.
Well, apart from the fact that his relationship to his wife has some red flags on it from the start. This definitely has some potential to be a case of transference that should not have happened. The fact that Jack doesn’t bring that up in his doubts is also suspect, because even his bride’s toast at the reception is very on brand for that. I do suspect that Papa Shep had that kind of concern, but since no one acknowledges it out loud I don’t know that we’re meant to see that as the problem in this relationship.
I feel like this is intended as some kind of payoff for Kate’s story this season but I’m not sure what that arc was. Oddly enough, it started fine, that Jack sent her to get resources from Sawyer and it’s ambiguous if Sawyer didn’t raise a fuss because he does care or if it’s because it was Kate who came looking. But I’ve actually been thinking for a while that I don’t know what Kate’s arc or narrative role is, so it’s hard for this to seem like an important step in an arc I can’t see. So while it isn’t wrong to have her be the one delivering the baby, it doesn’t connect to any deeper meaning that she’s the one doing it.
The one thing I might say, and this is me doing the work the show hasn’t done, but Kate is one of the bigger advocates for the community of the crash survivors, so she’s the one that can speak for how much the baby (and Claire) means to the community, and how much support there will be from the community. And since the end of the episode is all about the survivors as a community, welcoming the baby and dealing with the loss of Boone (I’d say he was the first loss since the aftermath of the crash, but there was Steve -or was it Scott- so I’m not sure the emotional resonance is properly calibrated), then maybe this is the cementing of Kate’s role within the community? Like I said, I’m doing the work the writers left vague.
I feel like at the time there would have been an expectation of naming the baby after Boone in some form, but as far as I know that’s not what happens. I’m not sure it would have been fitting after how this episode played out, but I think it would have been an expectation.
Likewise, I’m curious what the fallout is going to be with Shannon before I form an opinion of whether I like how she was kept out of things this episode. I don’t think it’s a bad choice narratively, but it is going to need to be handled in the next part of the story. The part I already like is that we don’t know what Boone wanted Shannon to be told, and I like that ambiguity, and think it could feed well into the next step in her actions, but I may only be hoping it’s handled well. This show so far rarely makes an outright wrong decision, but it definitely makes some imperfect and underdeveloped ones (case and point, the things that bothered me about this episode), so I’m mostly optimistic it will follow through, but not confident in that. And I’ve been burned by too many shows to offer this one much blind faith.
Considering that last we saw of Locke last episode it was sometime at night, the light in the hatch may have come on about the time Boone died and/or when the baby was born. Or maybe not, we’ll either find out or we won’t, or Locke will just assume it was so and it will be implied he’s right. …I guess I still needed to get some Locke issues in the review.
LOST 1x21 – The Greater Good
So to paraphrase what was said at the funeral: “Boone died the way he lived, well meaning but incompetent.” It’s what I would write on his gravestone if he had one.
And the fact that this observation about Boone feels like the only thing I can put to words about this episode tell me that I’m about done trying to do these. But it wouldn’t be the first time that I said something like that, but as soon as I figured I’d stop I’ll hit an episode or stretch of episodes that I do want to get down some thoughts about.
Yet again the focus of this episode feels askew. It’s almost a little sexist that something that affects Shannon more than anyone else is mostly played through the men in the plot. To be fair, the show does treat Jack as the nominal main character so it thinks his reaction is important, and Sayid was focused on Shannon’s feelings and only took it further once she asked him to, and Locke…Locke is a lying asshole who should feel a lot worse than he does especially now that he’s randomly gotten over his messed up legs again. (Do I sometimes feel bad about hating on Locke? Eh, I’m surprised by it and have no idea whether it’s how the audience feels in general, but I don’t feel bad.)
Still, pairing the men-focused a-plot with showing Charlie’s adventures with the baby instead of Claire adjusting to motherhood makes the sexism vibe even more suspect. I don’t know that I want to lay that accusation on the writers or this episode, but there’s certainly a whiff of it.
So it was Locke who wacked Sayid and stopped the transmitter test. I remember thinking he was the logical suspect (way more logical than suspecting Sawyer like they did) but I thought we’d find out the answer was some unknown other player in the game. But no, it was Locke being an asshole. I feel less and less bad about hating him as we learn more.
To give him a tiny bit of credit, he doesn’t rat Walt out, although if I was guessing I’d suspect Sayid knows the Locke knows who burned the raft.
As a story, the flashbacks were fine this time. Similar to Sayid’s last set of flashbacks, so I think he’s got the highest batting average so far. But I do have a few broad thoughts I guess I’ll bring up.
-Sci-fi rules or were they speaking English all through this one? Sci-fi rules probably make the most sense, but there’s a lot less indication of that than there was in the first Sayid ep.
-Was everyone on the plane coming off a major personal crisis that they wouldn’t have had time to recover from before getting in a plane crash? Because little to none of this seemed to influence their behavior in the early episodes.
-Establishing that Sayid had in fact been looking for Nadia for eight years is a really odd thing to put up against his new relationship with Shannon. It wouldn’t be impossible to reconcile, but the show currently isn’t doing anything to reconcile it.
…so, to repeat, this episode was fine, there were things about it I even quite liked, but it left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. Also kind of a bland one that means I don’t feel like writing much about either the good things or the bad aftertaste things. And that’s just what I got from this one.
