The Great Lost Rewatch Project — More Thoughts on Season 2!
Hope you enjoyed my thoughts about season 2 of Lost! Here are some of my favorite and least-favorite moments:
“Boy when you say beginning, you mean beginning.”
Favorite Episodes:
2.3 “Orientation” — What a wonderfully bizarre and perplexing episode. While the opening courts my annoyance by showing us (for the THIRD time!) the held-at-gunpoint scene between Jack, Locke, and Desmond, we finally get some tantalizing new pieces of the story of the hatch and the larger back-story of the show. We get to watch our first Dharma video (the Swan Station Orientation video) which is a tour-de-force of hints and questions. We learn that the Swan is only one of several Dharma stations on the island. We learn that the Dharma Iniviative was funded by Danish Indistrialist Alvar Hanso. We see the model of the swan station that we’ll see Radzinsky building in season 5. We hear about “an incident” that lead to the button-pushing being necessary. Awesome.
2.7 “The Other 48 Days” — A genius episode, in which we follow the Tailies from the crash of the plane right up through Ana Lucia’s shooting of Shannon.We get lots of information on what happened to this group of survivors (who had it a lot tougher than our castaways), who they are and what makes them tick, and also some intriguing hints about the mysteries of the island and the Others. (I love that they find an old-style army knife on the body of one of the two Others killed by Mr. Eko.A souvenir of the army team supervising Jughead, I presume?) I also love that we learn that Bernard was on the other side of Boone’s radio call from the Nigerian plane. Didn’t see that one coming!
2.10 “The 23rd Psalm” — I love this episode. It blows my mind. Eko gets a flashback and we discover how he used to be a violent mercenary, and it was his brother who was a priest. Eko gets his brother killed and, when he’s then mistaken for a priest, steps into that role. We learn that the plane carrying drugs in Virgin Mary statues that crashed on the island was actually sent by Eko (though his intention wasn’t for the plan to crash on any mysterious island, of course!!), and his brother’s dead body is aboard. Crazy. In this episode we also get our first full glimpse of the monster, and see it’s black-smoke-like nature. Eko stares it down, and as he does the camera passes tantalizingly THROUGH the monster, thus giving a work-out to the pause button on DVDs world-wide.
2.19 “S.O.S.” — Bernard/Rose get a spotlight!! In flashback we see how the two met, and we learn that Rose was dying of cancer before arriving on the island. In a powerful moment at the end of the episode, Rose reveals to Bernard that she believes the island has healed her, and so she doesn’t want to be rescued. (Her feelings are reinforced by her revelation to Locke that she knows he was in a wheelchair when he got on flight 815. It’s a nice twist that, of all the castaways, it’s Rose who figures this out.)
“Don’t Mistake Coincidence for Fate.”
Least-Favorite Episodes:
2.11 “The Hunting Party” — I mentioned this episode yesterday. It’s a particularly frustrating example of middle-season Lost storytelling, in which our characters’ (and our) desperate quests for answers are continually thwarted. Making matters worse, in this episode Jack behaves in a completely unhinged manner (notice how his crazy-quotient is always dialed up to 11 in his flashback episodes??). He pushes Kate away with his arrogant, dismissive attitude. This is something that has really annoyed me during my re-watch. Also, if the Others aren’t really “bad guys,” as later seasons seem to suggest, I am beyond confused as to why they are so brutally cruel to our castaways here (and in their kidnapping of Walt in season 1’s finale).
2.11 “Fire + Water” — Coming right on the heals of “The Hunting Party,” this is one of the low points of Lost in my opinion. Charlie takes a walk off the deep end. Desperate to repair his ralationship with Claire, he’s also haunted by dreams (visions?) that Aaron is in danger.His increasingly manic attempts to convey this to Claire only puts him further on the outs with her and the rest of the castaways.Eventually he becomes convinced that Aaron needs to be baptized, so he starts a fire to lure people away and then grabs Aaron and brings him down to the beach.Locke figures out what’s going on and beats up Charlie.The only thing I hate more than seeing Charlie reduced to such a sad, pathetic state here is the needless cruelty of Locke’s beat-down of him. I can’t believe none of the other castaways speak up when that happens!!
“So what do you think’s the story with that Libby chick? She’s kind of cute, right? You know, in an I’ve-been-terrorized-by-the-Others-for-40-days kind of way…”
Favorite Moments from the season:
2.1 “Man of Science, Man of Faith” — Jack’s meeting with Desmond as they both jog up and down the stadium steps is one of my very favorite Lost scenes. It’s fascinating, now, to hear Desmond speak of how he’s training for a race around the world, and the twinkle he gets in his eye when Jack talks about his issues with his female patient (since we now know that Desmond is doing it all for Penny). Then there’s his parting line: “See you in another life, brother.” Sure enough!
2.16 “The Whole Truth” — The episode ends with a terrific Ben moment that provides a powerhouse of a cliffhanger. Having finally been allowed to leave the armory, which has been his prison cell in the hatch, and have breakfast with Jack and Locke, Ben has this to say: “Of course, if I was one of them — these people that you seem to think are your enemies — what would I do? Well, there’d be no balloon, so I’d draw a map to a real secluded place like a cave or some underbrush — good place for a trap — an ambush. And when your friends got there a bunch of my people would be waiting for them. Then they’d use them to trade for me. I guess it’s a good thing I’m not one of them, huh? You guys got any milk?”
2.23 “Live Together, Die Alone” — I will forever love the enigmatic moment, in Desmond’s flashback, in which we see that he met Libby in the past, and that she actually gave him the boat that he used to compete in Charles’ Widmore’s race (and eventually crashed on the island). But what shoots this scene into the stratosphere is the revelation that Desmond’s boat was named for Libby, something none of our castaways will ever learn.
2.23 “Live Together, Die Alone” — Also from the series finale, I have to mention the final scene, in which we get our first ever present-day glimpse off the island — Penny Widmore’s arctic monitoring station.
“I’ve read everything Mr. Charles Dickens has ever written — every wonderful word. Every book except this one. I’m saving it so it will be the last thing I ever read before I die.” “Nice idea, as long as you know when you’re going to die.”