The Episode…
When the writers said they wanted a little “silence before the storm” moment, a little humour in their show before they start building up to the dramatic season five cliffhanger duly named The Incident, I was worried. The last time there was an intermezzo in LOST, it came in the form of an apendicitis, and that was not what I was waiting for. Thank God I was wrong: this episode was rock solid and delivered a lot of that typical Lost
air. It was emotional, and it wasn’t about Kate, Jack or Sawyer. Well what do you know – pigs CAN fly.
I like Miles. I love how he hides his soul underneath a gooey layer of sarcasm; you know there’s something shiny in there but you just can’t seem to get it out. I think this is the closest we’ve ever been to the season 1 feeling where the flashbacks introduce a new layer to the character. I think the opening scene with little Miles was the thing that ultimately did it (even if it came first): for the first time ever we saw Miles as a human being capable of… fear. For the first time ever, you felt for this kid. You really did.
Pairing Miles with Hurley for this episode introduced us to a link some of us had not yet considered: both Hurley and Miles can speak to dead people. Both characters have some sort of “power”, powers with a defined ruleset (something very important in this show – everything has rules), but those rules are not the same. These characters are linked, but we are still missing some pieces of the puzzle. Somehow, I figured the whole Hurley-plays-chess-with-Eko thing wouldn’t be important. Seems I was wrong.
The Questions…
It took a while, but we finally got our first real freighter people flashback. Now we know why Miles was going to the island (money), why he was willing to help Ben out (more money) and why he wanted a precise amount of money for it. Oh, and the fact that all the money in the world just can’t fill the gaping hole in his chest that is Pierre Chang.
This episode also did a great job in answering some other questions about mysteries back in season 2 (questions I didn’t bother to ask at the start of season five). The numbers apparently are a serial number. Or, as a second one, that the plane really crashed because of the Swan station. I know they already cleared this up back in Season 2, but a lot of people didn’t believe it back then. They’re sticking with this story, and I love it.
In All…
This was en episode filled with oohs and ahs on my behalf. I oohed when we saw the Swan and the Orchid being built (in the case of the Orchid, it was at the same state it was in back in the first scene of season 1, so I guess the Faraday thing is yet to happen), and awed when Pierre Change, the Dharma Asshole, read “me and my polar bear” to baby Miles. That was a brilliant scene, by the way. Kudos to Ken Leung for portraing these emotions in Miles. The adult one. Not the baby.
Favourite Quote:
Dr. Chang: I need you to take me to Radzinsky at the work site. Immediately. You… Hurley – you say a word…
Hurley: Polar bear poop. Got it.
