LOST 1x23&24 - Exodus 1&2
Apr. 26th, 2024 10:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jedi_of_urth posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
tori_reviewsDerp-derp-derp, lalala, what day is it? Friday? Is there something I try and do on Friday? Hmm…
This is also not necessarily the most natural way to break up these three episodes, but it is the best balanced way as far as how much I wrote for them. Plus, after missing several it wouldn’t have seemed right to only have one barely long enough to qualify post in this one.
LOST 1x23 – Exodus 1
And the comparisons of this show to BSG continue. Because this is the kind of episode that BSG did sometimes, usually as the first part of the two-parter, and they were often some of the best episodes. This is a really good episode; I think it might be the first episode that’s gotten me emotionally connected to the show and the characters and the story. I want to watch at least the next couple of episodes and see how this story continues, even if I’m sure (and spoiled) that things are going to go bad.
This is the kind of episode that can’t be done all the time, but that makes them sweeter when they do come in. So much of it is character and mood that it’s arguably slow, but it’s just so satisfying to be in those moody moments. It has to take time to get to this point, so that it feels earned when we get the payoffs to everything that brought us here.
This time, I’m going with a list format not because I don’t have much to say on any given topic, but because it’s structured as a little bit for a lot of characters so most of them will get a point.
-Most people wouldn’t have the reaction I did to the beginning of this episode, but it certainly amused me (and made me feel all safe and homey) to get Mira Furlan gathering everyone around while she gave a speech about how long ago a great darkness came and now it’s coming back. She probably felt right at home (I wonder if she and DDK got to joke about it). Somebody could probably have used that as a selling point for me ages ago.
-I’m pretty sure this is the first time we’ve had the other island folks called the Others. And since I’m backwards I think winter is coming (or, since it’s Mira, I assume it’s the Shadows). The island security system could just about be the Z’ha’dum defenses, which also spoke in the voice of people’s fathers.
-You know, 20 years or so ago (might have been more, it almost seems like a pre-9/11 thing to have said), my dad made an offhand joke about answering airport security’s question about if your bags had been in your possession the whole time by saying that some nice middle eastern man had asked him to watch his bags. So when Sayid asked Shannon to watch his bag I thought this seemed like a setup to a joke, only then she walked away and I figured that was going to get Sayid in trouble enough, except she made it way worse and more racist. I am also a little surprised Sayid wouldn’t have thought about how this could cause trouble (while admittedly not in America, it was still 2004), but I’m not inclined to blame the victim here.
-That said, the scene between Shannon and Walt about Vincent was very sweet. Even if it, like much of the episode, made me aware of how little we’ve seen Walt interacting with anyone but Michael and Locke. There is some quiet Shannon and Sayid dynamic but I hope we get more overt moments in the remaining episodes. Not sure if I want their airport encounter to come up, but I’ll wait to see if it does before commenting on it any more.
-I really liked the big scene between Jack and Sawyer. It was pulling a lot of weight and did it well. It’s the closure Jack didn’t get with his father’s death, that Sawyer decides to tell Jack about it now speaks to them not being sure this raft plan is going to work and that he cares enough to think Jack deserves to know what Christian said. I hope it signals that they’ve pretty much buried the hatchet going forward (not that there can’t be new issues that come up). And I may be nearly asexual, but I’m not made of stone, Sawyer is one fine piece of man meat when he’s in lumberjack mode.
-The Aussie cop calls Sawyer ‘James Ford’ (presumably accurate, but could be another alias) which makes me wonder how he ended up on the flight manifest under Sawyer.
-The Sun and Jin reconciliation is lovely. Would I have liked to be more in Jin’s head about their estrangement the last couple episodes? Yeah, but that doesn’t take away from those being some really nice moments. Sometimes I think it was very likely the writers intended to kill Jin in the end of this season, but their parting doesn’t make me think that. This doesn’t feel like a cliché reconciliation just before someone dies; but more than that a lot of my thoughts that Jin might be killed off had to do with setups around Sun and Michael which wasn’t addressed here (Jin mentions Jack will protect her, and while that fits with the last couple episodes, it hasn’t been a lingering plot threat the way her and Michael has been). The fact that Sun and Michael’s goodbye was shown to be the awkward one keeps all those thoughts in place.
-The message bottle is a lovely touch to add to the story and I wonder if it plays into anything going forward.
-I really expected the baby to be named before the raft launched. This could be the last time the crash family is together, in theory should the rafters return everything will change and people could go their separate ways, so the crash family baby probably should have been named.
-As much as I know narrative convention means nothing good will come of this (if anything at all) the launching of the raft is a beautiful moment that feels as significant as if should if this was going be the thing that changed everything. Which is basically the main feat of the episode, to convey that sense that things could go well, there is reason to hope. Which will of course be snatched away very soon I’m sure.
LOST 1x24 – Exodus 2
I debated longer and harder than usual about doing this review. Unlike the last episode, this one was clearly meant to exist as part of a two-parter, it even ends with the ‘to be continued’ banner. As such, this is definitely an incomplete story and therefore review.
This was not as effective as the previous episode, not by a long shot. It has a few good moments but the plot is in play more and didn’t strike nearly the same chord as last time. Even the flashbacks were more plot-like than the ones in the last ep where they played more into the mood and emotions than plot beats.
One small touch I did like was that the peanut gallery Americans, that were so prominent in Sun’s flashback, weren’t there in Jin’s. He didn’t understand what they were saying so it was just part of the background noise. On the other hand, the scene in the bathroom didn’t work for me. Partly because the other guy was oddly familiar to me and it was distracting that I couldn’t place why (imdb-fu…still not sure; Sliders would seem to most likely but that wasn’t a season I remember watching); but this also shows the weakness of having a main character who doesn’t speak the main language of the show. I am not Jin in that scene, I’m trying to process the words in the subtitles with the visual cues in the acting with trying to recall how this is connected to what we’ve seen before with this character, and my brain doesn’t do well trying to make that a single stream of understanding. I don’t know when the other guy goes from making up vaguely Korean (or not even trying for Korean) words, to when it becomes actual language that is probably supposed to sound fluent; it’s not very different to me until the subtitles kick in at least. Plus I think adding in these last minute threats from Sun’s father doesn’t properly gel with how Jin has acted before, and makes it more questionable why he’s so determined to get off the island and back into that messy situation.
The way this episode treats Artz is weird. In general I have some questions about this little fetch quest (like why Hurley even went or why Jack is such an asshole) but those are minor compared to the (poor word choice ahead) bad taste it leave in my mouth the way the writers handled Artz. Something I’ve been telling myself about making it through at least season 1 of this show was that it must sort of stand on its own rather than being influenced by the meta narrative of the show being so popular. But Artz seems very much intended to be a stand-in for a pedantic fan of the series and then they kill him off needlessly which then comes off as mean spirited rather than just surprising.
Made worse by the fact that he’s not exactly wrong. Yes a lot of the things he brings up are consequences of being a TV show that likely wouldn’t exist if this was real; but things being what they are, there are some legitimate criticisms to lay at the main character clique. And Jack is pretty much the in universe reason why for reasons we see in this episode. Jack isn’t a good leader; but for all his debatable reluctance to be the leader, he was always going to have to be because he doesn’t think anyone else can be. But once he is, all his bad leader qualities become pretty obvious.
Although if Jin really is only sharing his fish with the in-crowd, that’s an issue that should probably be addressed.
And I think it would be better if the show mostly just ignored Hurley’s weight. It is weird that the character isn’t losing weight on the island diet, though it hasn’t been as long for the characters as it feels even now in the audience and definitely would have then. But mainly it’s that way it is for Doylist reasons of the actor not being on the castaway diet, and so probably best not to point out the Watsonian questions it raises.
I will presumably have more to say after the last episode brings this story to a ‘close’ (for certain season finale values).
This is also not necessarily the most natural way to break up these three episodes, but it is the best balanced way as far as how much I wrote for them. Plus, after missing several it wouldn’t have seemed right to only have one barely long enough to qualify post in this one.
LOST 1x23 – Exodus 1
And the comparisons of this show to BSG continue. Because this is the kind of episode that BSG did sometimes, usually as the first part of the two-parter, and they were often some of the best episodes. This is a really good episode; I think it might be the first episode that’s gotten me emotionally connected to the show and the characters and the story. I want to watch at least the next couple of episodes and see how this story continues, even if I’m sure (and spoiled) that things are going to go bad.
This is the kind of episode that can’t be done all the time, but that makes them sweeter when they do come in. So much of it is character and mood that it’s arguably slow, but it’s just so satisfying to be in those moody moments. It has to take time to get to this point, so that it feels earned when we get the payoffs to everything that brought us here.
This time, I’m going with a list format not because I don’t have much to say on any given topic, but because it’s structured as a little bit for a lot of characters so most of them will get a point.
-Most people wouldn’t have the reaction I did to the beginning of this episode, but it certainly amused me (and made me feel all safe and homey) to get Mira Furlan gathering everyone around while she gave a speech about how long ago a great darkness came and now it’s coming back. She probably felt right at home (I wonder if she and DDK got to joke about it). Somebody could probably have used that as a selling point for me ages ago.
-I’m pretty sure this is the first time we’ve had the other island folks called the Others. And since I’m backwards I think winter is coming (or, since it’s Mira, I assume it’s the Shadows). The island security system could just about be the Z’ha’dum defenses, which also spoke in the voice of people’s fathers.
-You know, 20 years or so ago (might have been more, it almost seems like a pre-9/11 thing to have said), my dad made an offhand joke about answering airport security’s question about if your bags had been in your possession the whole time by saying that some nice middle eastern man had asked him to watch his bags. So when Sayid asked Shannon to watch his bag I thought this seemed like a setup to a joke, only then she walked away and I figured that was going to get Sayid in trouble enough, except she made it way worse and more racist. I am also a little surprised Sayid wouldn’t have thought about how this could cause trouble (while admittedly not in America, it was still 2004), but I’m not inclined to blame the victim here.
-That said, the scene between Shannon and Walt about Vincent was very sweet. Even if it, like much of the episode, made me aware of how little we’ve seen Walt interacting with anyone but Michael and Locke. There is some quiet Shannon and Sayid dynamic but I hope we get more overt moments in the remaining episodes. Not sure if I want their airport encounter to come up, but I’ll wait to see if it does before commenting on it any more.
-I really liked the big scene between Jack and Sawyer. It was pulling a lot of weight and did it well. It’s the closure Jack didn’t get with his father’s death, that Sawyer decides to tell Jack about it now speaks to them not being sure this raft plan is going to work and that he cares enough to think Jack deserves to know what Christian said. I hope it signals that they’ve pretty much buried the hatchet going forward (not that there can’t be new issues that come up). And I may be nearly asexual, but I’m not made of stone, Sawyer is one fine piece of man meat when he’s in lumberjack mode.
-The Aussie cop calls Sawyer ‘James Ford’ (presumably accurate, but could be another alias) which makes me wonder how he ended up on the flight manifest under Sawyer.
-The Sun and Jin reconciliation is lovely. Would I have liked to be more in Jin’s head about their estrangement the last couple episodes? Yeah, but that doesn’t take away from those being some really nice moments. Sometimes I think it was very likely the writers intended to kill Jin in the end of this season, but their parting doesn’t make me think that. This doesn’t feel like a cliché reconciliation just before someone dies; but more than that a lot of my thoughts that Jin might be killed off had to do with setups around Sun and Michael which wasn’t addressed here (Jin mentions Jack will protect her, and while that fits with the last couple episodes, it hasn’t been a lingering plot threat the way her and Michael has been). The fact that Sun and Michael’s goodbye was shown to be the awkward one keeps all those thoughts in place.
-The message bottle is a lovely touch to add to the story and I wonder if it plays into anything going forward.
-I really expected the baby to be named before the raft launched. This could be the last time the crash family is together, in theory should the rafters return everything will change and people could go their separate ways, so the crash family baby probably should have been named.
-As much as I know narrative convention means nothing good will come of this (if anything at all) the launching of the raft is a beautiful moment that feels as significant as if should if this was going be the thing that changed everything. Which is basically the main feat of the episode, to convey that sense that things could go well, there is reason to hope. Which will of course be snatched away very soon I’m sure.
LOST 1x24 – Exodus 2
I debated longer and harder than usual about doing this review. Unlike the last episode, this one was clearly meant to exist as part of a two-parter, it even ends with the ‘to be continued’ banner. As such, this is definitely an incomplete story and therefore review.
This was not as effective as the previous episode, not by a long shot. It has a few good moments but the plot is in play more and didn’t strike nearly the same chord as last time. Even the flashbacks were more plot-like than the ones in the last ep where they played more into the mood and emotions than plot beats.
One small touch I did like was that the peanut gallery Americans, that were so prominent in Sun’s flashback, weren’t there in Jin’s. He didn’t understand what they were saying so it was just part of the background noise. On the other hand, the scene in the bathroom didn’t work for me. Partly because the other guy was oddly familiar to me and it was distracting that I couldn’t place why (imdb-fu…still not sure; Sliders would seem to most likely but that wasn’t a season I remember watching); but this also shows the weakness of having a main character who doesn’t speak the main language of the show. I am not Jin in that scene, I’m trying to process the words in the subtitles with the visual cues in the acting with trying to recall how this is connected to what we’ve seen before with this character, and my brain doesn’t do well trying to make that a single stream of understanding. I don’t know when the other guy goes from making up vaguely Korean (or not even trying for Korean) words, to when it becomes actual language that is probably supposed to sound fluent; it’s not very different to me until the subtitles kick in at least. Plus I think adding in these last minute threats from Sun’s father doesn’t properly gel with how Jin has acted before, and makes it more questionable why he’s so determined to get off the island and back into that messy situation.
The way this episode treats Artz is weird. In general I have some questions about this little fetch quest (like why Hurley even went or why Jack is such an asshole) but those are minor compared to the (poor word choice ahead) bad taste it leave in my mouth the way the writers handled Artz. Something I’ve been telling myself about making it through at least season 1 of this show was that it must sort of stand on its own rather than being influenced by the meta narrative of the show being so popular. But Artz seems very much intended to be a stand-in for a pedantic fan of the series and then they kill him off needlessly which then comes off as mean spirited rather than just surprising.
Made worse by the fact that he’s not exactly wrong. Yes a lot of the things he brings up are consequences of being a TV show that likely wouldn’t exist if this was real; but things being what they are, there are some legitimate criticisms to lay at the main character clique. And Jack is pretty much the in universe reason why for reasons we see in this episode. Jack isn’t a good leader; but for all his debatable reluctance to be the leader, he was always going to have to be because he doesn’t think anyone else can be. But once he is, all his bad leader qualities become pretty obvious.
Although if Jin really is only sharing his fish with the in-crowd, that’s an issue that should probably be addressed.
And I think it would be better if the show mostly just ignored Hurley’s weight. It is weird that the character isn’t losing weight on the island diet, though it hasn’t been as long for the characters as it feels even now in the audience and definitely would have then. But mainly it’s that way it is for Doylist reasons of the actor not being on the castaway diet, and so probably best not to point out the Watsonian questions it raises.
I will presumably have more to say after the last episode brings this story to a ‘close’ (for certain season finale values).
