TBG TV: Lost - "Some Like it Hoth"

The Good:

Horace's repeated use of the phrase "circle of trust" just killed me for some reason. Thank you, Robert DeNiro, for ruining those three words forever. And, would it have killed Miles to drop a "Meet the Parents" reference? You disappoint me, you cantankerous Asian, you.

I absolutely LOVED the scene with Kate and Ben's father. I was thinking that Kate was doing a terrible job of convincing him that Ben was going to be alright. I mean, how would she know? Glad to see the writers planned it that way with Ben's dad growing rightfully suspicious of this woman he barely knew.

In about 13 months, when everyone is writing their requiem for Lost and compiling their favorite moments, I sincerely hope the look that Miles gave his dad after the "country music" line is at least in everyone's top three.

Juliet's lack of reaction to Sawyer's assault on Phil and his "get some rope" quip was just gold. The Sawyer/Juliet relationship is the only one I've given a damn about on this show, as theirs has been executed better than even the most ardent Lost apologist could've imagined. Hope those rumors of one of their deaths this season don't come to pass.

"The ditch had a gun?"


The Bad:

The Association of Hurley Haters has another public convert, as m'man Joe Reid writes: "… since Miles showed up, his brand of sarcastic comic relief has sapped me of 90% of my patience for Hurley's bumbling-slacker brand of humor, so watching Miles spend 60 minutes calling Hurley an unbelievable moron was pretty cathartic." Hurley's sole purpose this season has been to bait the geekiest fringe of the Lost fanatics with pointless in-jokes (an Ewok reference in two-thousand goddam NINE?!). If the final scene of this show isn't Miles, Sayid and Faraday using Hugo's lifeless frame as a raft home, I'm gonna be more than a little pissed.

OK…so, Juliet helped mastermind the plan to get Boy Ben the medical help he so desperately needed. Kate and Sawyer are woven into the plot and successfully transported Ben to The Others. Yet, no one has thought two minutes ahead and come up with a cover for Ben's father when he inevitably comes to check on his son? I'm probably picking nits, here, but this is one egregious nit.

Kudos to Mrs. Bootleg for calling out Naomi's odd change in wigs from scene-to-scene. I daresay that "fake hair" has supplanted "bruthas who date outside their race" at the top of the Black woman's list of annoyances.

Hey, it's the numbers! Remember how vital they were in the first two seasons, before being all but erased from the show's history? Still waiting on the return of Vincent the dog, guys! Keep those critical plot points a'comin'!


Verdict: This was one of those episodes where the nagging "bad" points were absolutely obliterated by the "good". I don't know why, but I felt a little cheated by the Miles/Dr. Chang revelation initially. Leave it to Ken Leung to turn in one of the best singular performances of the show's run to garner the right notes of sarcasm, sadness and sympathy.