617 – The End – Sayid, Shannon & Boone

Sayid

606 – Sundown

Review:

This episode was called Sundown, I was expecting a Sun and Jin episode and I was hoping that by the end of the episode Sun would be shot down in at least one of the two timelines.  I was way off.  This was bound to happen since I don’t watch any commercials for the upcoming episodes.

This episode was about Sayid instead of Sun.  And guess who’s back?  Nadia!!  If this was season three I would be excited.  But after Sayid and Nadia got their Happily ever after (almost) I stopped caring about her.  This flashback really just dragged on for me.  It kinda set up a Jin and Sun episode, but it’s not like that’s getting me too excited.

On the Island things were more fun.  Sayid was playing an assassin for both sides.  For a short time I actually liked him again, but then he went back to the mindless killing machine so I can go back to ignoring him.  If there’s anything that I can be excited about it’s the fact that we’ll probably never have another Sayid-centric episode every again.  Huzzah!

I have to mention this somewhere, this is probably the best place.  The scene with Sayid, Claire and Kate walking through the ruined Temple with Claire’s lullaby playing off tune in the background was unique in a weird way.  That was very un-Lost-like.

But it sounds like I really hated this episode, that’s not quite true.  I really liked the Kate and Claire reunion and the last six minutes were pure energy.  This episode set up some great groups, and I’m really looking forward to the next episode.  Half of this episode was bad, another third was pretty good and a tenth of it was great then there were some commercials  I think that leaves us with about a 4.5/10.0

516 (& 517) – The Incident

Review:

So that was fun(ish).

I’ll try to start on a positive note.  Jacob was awesome!  Who knew he would be so likable.  I kinda expected him to be quite distant and cold.  But he was great.  And that storyline that they started with Jacob and his nemesis was pretty epic.  It’ll make for some great conflict next year (provided history isn’t erased, hahaha).  New “Locke” is going to make for a very interesting villain.

That was a pretty epic reveal.  It was all for shock value, it didn’t serve any real purpose except to confirm our suspicions about this new “Locke”. But really, it surprised me, and really raised the bar.

Uh oh I’m running out of nice things to say.  Damnit, why did Juliet have to die?  I’m back to having no one left to like anymore.  This is going to be season 1 all over again.  The only people I like are guest stars.

The flashbacks in this episode were slightly interesting, but they didn’t really hold my attention.  The two good ones were Hurley’s and Ilana’s.  The other ones were just filler.  (Especially Juliet’s, what the hell was that?)

The one thing about this episode that I liked was the discovery of this new part of the story with Jacob, his nemesis and that new world.  That will give me a lot of fodder for theorizing over the break.  I could live without the rest of the episode.  So where does that leave us?  How much should I give the finale that I was almost completely unimpressed with?  It can’t be less that 5, that’s not giving Jacob enough credit.  but it’s definitely not more that 8.0.  I’d say 7.0/10.0  A disappointing end to an epic season.  (Jump to the bottom for more discussion on the score, I know many of you will be surprised/pissed about the score.)

412 – There’s No Place Like Home (part 1)

Review:

(I spent a long time reviewing this episode and the next one after this season ended way back in June of 2008.  You can find all the coverage under the tag “season 4 finale“.)

This is the annual set-up episode for the finale.  This year things are much crazier (you could probably say that every year).  It’s hard to even list everything that happens in this episode.

Jack and Kate head into the jungle to follow the helicopter.  They meet Sawyer, Aaron and Miles.  Jack and Sawyer continue and Kate goes back with Aaron.  They meet Sayid who arrives on the beach with a little zodiac.  Daniel, Sun, Jin and Aaron go on the zodiac to the Freighter.  Kate turns around and goes with Sayid after Jack and Sawyer.  Meanwhile Ben, Locke and Hurley are racing to The Orchid station, trying to get there before Frank and Keamy.  Ben makes a pit-stop to contact Richard.  Keamy beats them to The Orchid.  Jack and Sawyer find Frank, then decide to chase after Locke and Hurley.  Kate and Sayid run into Richard and they all head in an unknown direction.  On the Freighter, Desmond, Jin Sun, Aaron and Michael discover a stash of wired explosives.  And in the very end Ben surrenders to Keamy.

Whew.  And that’s only what happened on the island.

Off the island we get some filler flashforwards (not in a bad way though).  We see the Oceanic 6 right after they were rescued.  We see their press-conference and see some of the foreshadowing for past and future flashforwards (whoa, that was a perplexing sentence!).  Hurley gets his old car back and is reminded of the curse of the numbers.  Sayid reunites with Nadia.  Jack finds out that Claire was his half-sister at Christian’s funeral.  That’s about it.  These flashforwards seemed to be mostly just to fill in some of the blank spots and they also showed some of the happiness and relief that the O6 felt soon after they were rescued.

This episode was incredibly paced.  It’s true that it’s just a set-up for the finale, but what a great setup it was.  9.0/10.0

409 – The Shape of Things to Come

Review:

This episode is insano.  This only the second Ben episode and already his episodes are the best.  No one else has such informative flashbacks/forwards, and no one is in the middle of things like Ben.  It’s hard to believe that he is just a supporting character.

On to the episode.  This episode has completely different interpretations now that season 4 is done.  Ben’s flashback is suddenly logical and understandable.  Now that we know exactly what preceded this flashforward we can understand his actions.

As for the actions on the island…well there is too much to say.  Ben controlling Smokey, Alex dying, Claire “dying”, Sayid coming under Ben’s control, Daniel lying, Jack nearly “dying”, Ben conversing with Mr. Whidmore; it was so much insanity that it’s hard to keep track of it all.  I don’t want to go too deeply into it here (keep reading if you want to see me go too deeply into it) but I just want to say that this episode will likely be the basis for many more storylines in the future.

10.0/10.0

In Preparation for Season 5: Lovers

Here is the fifth episode from sl-Lost‘s In preparation for Season 5 videos.  This time it’s about the couples that have formed during the course of the show.

– izi

321 – Greatest Hits

Review:

Whenever I think back, I always think that Charlie dies in this episode.  He doesn’t, but this episode is a great build up to his death.  I was fine with Charlie dying and I think he has a good death, so this episode works for me.

I like the flashbacks in this episode because they are easy to ignore.  And in an episode as crazy as this that’s a good thing.  This episode is dense with story set-ups for the finale.  It’s all preparation and planning and there was no room for complicated flashback, so I’m glad they through in these filler flashbacks.

The non-Charlie elements were not terribly exciting, a few wrenches were thrown into Jacks plan and a bunch of characters argued about their roles in the plans but that was about it.  This episode did a great job of setting up the season3 finale.  It was also a satisfying conclusion to Charlies stories.

8.0/10.0

217 – Lockdown

Review:

The last episode ended with Ben giving Locke and Jack a hypothetical about how if he was an Other he would have led their friends into a trap.  This leads to a very tense moment at the beginning of this episode.  Last week we may have believed that he was an Other, but he quickly covers his tracks.  As the episode goes on his actions and behavior make it seem like there is no way that he’s an Other.  Then in the final scene we know for sure that he is.  Quite the whirlwind of plot twists.

Also we see Locke’s life get screwed again, but this time it involves Helen leaving him and Locke getting some awkward and artificial closure with his father.

And this episode also gives us the infamous glowing map on the blast-door.  As with almost every Locke centric episode I give this one a high score.  9.5/10.0