TBG TV: Lost - "The Little Prince"

The Good:

The frenetic pacing of this episode lent itself well to the sense of urgency the characters should've been feeling for the past few weeks. Before last night, there was simply too much time-traveling exposition that didn't lead anywhere. While we may not have gotten any more answers – albeit nose bleeds, aplenty! – for the first time this season, the "island flashes" were used to effectively move things along and added a layer or two of development to some of the staler characters in the cast.

Ken Leung's "Miles" continues to do more with less than any other character on the show. His one-liners ("I think they want their boat back.") are acerbically hilarious and his stunned reaction to Faraday's nose bleed explanation was a terrific take.

I'll come clean on this one: After bashing the silly mash angle between Sawyer and Kate, the scene with Sawyer happening upon Kate and Claire was well done. Poignant, even. And, the best part: the emotion was passed along without any of the dopey dialogue that's been a frequent annoyance this season.

The two-fisted Jin/Rousseau reveal was brilliantly executed. I'd mocked last week's Widmore reveal as being just thrown out there, but this time I'm digging that it felt like it was out of nowhere and sure to produce more questions than answers in the short term.


The Bad:

I'm the last person on earth to come to this realization, but I finally figured out why I hates me some Kate: she's been painted as a sympathetic character the last two seasons, when she's really just a baby-stealing, father-killing, Sawyer-n-Jack tag team tramp who is pound-for-pound the worst actor on the show. So, she tells Jack, "I've have ALWAYS been with you." Really? Really?! Come ON, comeuppance.

OK…I made this point last year and was roundly shouted down by Ken Tremendous and others in the blogosphere cafeteria – I still don't buy Sun as the conniving Ben-hunting manipulator. I'm not denying her motivation, it's just that Yunjin Kim is doing a terrible job of emotionally conveying it beyond pursing her lips and shifting her supple scowl from side to side.

So, even after "three doses of horse tranquilizers" knocked Sayid out cold for hours (days?), he's able to wake up, snap out of his groggy state and go all Iraqi Jack Bauer on a would-be assassin. Aaaaaand, how did his people lose Operation Desert Storm, again?

Hurley in ill-fitting orange prison issues = not funny. I hope all you Hurley fans remember these throwaway sight gags and his generally porcine uselessness the next time the writers try to turn Hugo Reyes into something more than sweaty comic relief.

What was WITH those exaggerated facial expressions from Claire's mom (Susan Duerden) after Jack asked her what she was doing in Los Angeles?


Verdict: I've been cool on Season Five, but this episode erased my apathy in about an hour. The storytelling between the Oceanic Six and the remaining castaways was equitably balanced, while not even the ongoing uninteresting adventures of Jack and Kate could bring this down. A balls-out episode that kept things moving and, hopefully, builds momentum the rest of the way.