Wednesday, March 17, 2010

TBG TV: Lost -- "Recon"


Three Things I Dug:

Detective Sawyer - The First Scene: This episode started out with a firecracker opening sequence that included a note-for-note homage to a Sawyer flashback from several seasons ago, the Bizarro cop twist and an opportunity for Miles and Sawyer to show off the chemistry their characters displayed during last year's "1977" storyline. For the first few minutes, I was eating it up with a spoon.

Charlotte - Every Scene: Rebecca Mader briefly revisited her "Charlotte" character for the alternate timeline story. In what would turn out to be an exceedingly uneven episode, Mader killed in the little bit of time she had. In rapid-fire succession, she pulled off (1) sexy blind date who won't suffer Sawyer's B.S. (2) A six-second love scene that was more (television) sensuous than all the other Sawyer-conquests combined. (3) Target of Sawyer's cartoonish mood swings. (4) Rejecting Sawyer's reconciliation attempt with an iciness worthy of any of my ex-girlfriends.

A Few Feet of Miles: Well, it wasn't much, but I'll take "sidekick cop" Miles over the neutered, two-scenes-an-evening version we've gotten all season. I liked how his detective mind always seemed to be "on" -- not unlike Batman -- as he was suspicious of every syllable that spilled from Sawyer's mouth. Running his partner's credit card was an absolute douche move...and one that I'd have expected from "Island Miles", too.


Three Things I Didn't Dig:

Detective Sawyer - Every Other Scene: In Josh Holloway's defense, last night's script did him no favors. I was cringing -- practically convulsing -- when Detective Sawyer punched the mirror in the locker room. And, when does his epiphany occur? During a rerun of Little House on the Prairie?! Michael Landon helps Sawyer see the light?! REALLY? Viewers were then subjected to Holloway's "conflicted face" as he squirmed in his seat while coming clean to Miles. Let's be kind and call his performance "rough".

Untwisted: Yes, the endgame is approaching and the time for long, drawn-out storylines is winding down. But, the revelation of Zoe's true intentions (and boss) and the alternate-timeline Kate reveal were obvious from the start of their respective scenes. That's not to say I have a better idea on how they should've been shoehorned into the story, but the choppy camera shots of Kate -- face obscured -- running from the police was just silly when every viewer knew it was her. And, it sure seemed like it took Island Sawyer -- professional con man -- a few too many minutes to figure out Zoe wasn't one of the good guys.

Sorry 'bout That Knife Thing: So, m'girl Killa Claire has a knife to Kate's throat. Kinda-sorta intense. Dark Locke has to pull Killa off'a Kate and then he explains to Kate that Claire's gone cra-zay. Cut n' dry, no ambiguity here. In their very next scene together, Claire apologizes to Kate and hugs her. Here's my issue: there's no way in the world this woman (Claire) gets within 50 feet of me. She had a knife to Kate's throat! Kate had even armed herself, but still allowed herself to stand within Claire's established stabbing radius.


The Verdict: The winning streak ends at two, as Lost served up a table-setting episode instead of a continuation of the main course. Points for the forwarding of the Widmore angle, I suppose, but this one peaked for me in the first five minutes.

5 comments:

Joe said...

Loved Sawyer as a cop, but I don't think "Island Sawyer" was as gullible as you think. I think he was trying to get as much information out of her as he could.

I was kinda surprised that bad-ass cop Sawyer would watch Little House on the Prairie. I did like that Charlotte was involved instead of shoe-horning Kate as the blind date (that would have been worse than her just showing up as a runaway suspect)

Was Charlie's brother the guy that was trying to get Sawyer to help out in the Police lobby? He said something about picking up his brother who OD'd at the airport.

The one thing that bothered me about Claire/Kate was that even when Locke pulled her off and she started to charge again, Kate picked the gun up like she was going to swing it like a bat. It's a gun... not a Louisville Slugger.

Looking forward to Richard's episode.

Vig said...

I believe the guy in the police lobby was referring to Charlie...who Jack "saved" on the plane in LAX.

AJC-I agree with you about Kate letting Claire get too close to her at the end. No way I'm letting that psycho hug me, especially when I have a rifle around my shoulder with the barrel basically pointing at the back of my head.

SHough610 said...

Joe, that was Liam Pace, Charlie's brother.

I think you summed it up with the line "a table setting episode rather than the main course", Cam. I'm worried I have my standards a little high for Richard's episode next week.

Michaelangelo McCullar said...

I enjoyed the episode a lot. I'm gonna give you some advice. Let go. Just enjoy the run. I know too many people who are sitting each week with scorecard in hand counting the reveals and freaking out that time is growing short. Look, you've trusted DamonCuse this far, trust them to bring it home. If you do that, I think you'll enjoy these episodes a whole lot more. For me, the only weak episode this season was the Kate one. But I've thoroughly enjoyed the rest.

Aaron C. said...

Dude, I'm with you. Really, I am. I loved the hell out of last season's viewer-polarizing time-travel nonsense and, if you check my write-ups of this season, I've been mostly pleased - and only occasionally frustrated.

The reason I used variations of this "some good, some bad" review format is because there are some fans who can find no wrong with the show and others who reflexively criticize it simply to reflexively criticize.

I'd *like* to think I'm more fair than either one of those camps.