Monday, March 30, 2009

TBG TV: Lost - "He's Our You"


The Good:

As a rule, I'm generally disdainful towards child actors. It's my fervent belief that none of 'em actually act. Sure, they can take direction, but that's not "acting", it's "imitating". (For the adult version, see Jamie Foxx in Ray.) But, damn, did Sterling Beaumon ("Young Ben") nail that performance or what? His manipulative lilt to the "I think I can help you" line was vintage, well…"Ben".

Jesus, that whole sequence between Young Ben and his dad was intense and uncomfortable. Beaumon captured the abject terror of an abused child, while Jon Gries hit all the simmering notes of the loser who takes it all out, physically and emotionally, on his son. The writers have explored this avenue before, but I was really feeling sympathy for Boy Ben here.

As a proud Kate-hater, I was pleased to see that imbecilic walking-talking waffle bar, Hurley, break the news that Sawyer and Juliet are an item. That's for those cruel and hurtful things you said to John Locke earlier this season. Not so proud now, are you, Kate?

Zuleikha Robinson's proper introduction as "Ilana" was all kinds of James Bond-cheeseball, but her inherent hotness has earned her a pass this week. Oh, those boots…

"A 12-year-old Benjamin Linus brought me a chicken salad sandwich. How do you think I'm doing?"


The Bad:

"I'm gonna have to take this to the next level." Really, Horace? That's your threat? The writers didn't do your character any favors with your first name and now they've got you spouting one-dimensional bluster.

See? See? I told you people how unwatchable this Sawyer-Kate-Juliet nonsense would be. But, no…I was shouted down and mocked by my peers in the blogosphere. "Sawyer's going to tell Kate to pound sand when she comes back to the island", you said. "Juliet's too strongly written to be sucked into such a tired cliché", you said. Meanwhile, a pan full of delicious bacon burned because Juliet was worried that it was over between her and Sawyer. SEE?!

It was a little disappointing to have Sawyer established as a strong, respected leader all season, only to have him so hastily neutered in the face of a real crisis. Pacing and face-scrunching can only take you so far, James.

Isn't Sayid like some sort of professional killer? Pretty sure that particular skill set has been explored in an episode or two. So, why does Sayid NOT double-check that Young Ben is dead? I dunno…just seems like something you'd wanna be sure of. Really sure.


The Verdict: A strong episode chock full o' great pacing and a terrific finish. However, the character development has been all over the map, recently. Is Sawyer a leader or isn't he? And, how much longer are you Juliet fans going to be in denial about the dumbing down of her character? At least we get a Kate episode this week. Whew…haven't seen enough of her the last two weeks. Hope Jack gets a cameo!
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7 comments:

  1. SHough610March 30, 2009 at 3:34 AM

    Honest to God, I never liked Kate and now she's ruined Jack. I'm BEGGING the people who run LOST: PLEASE DON'T LET JULIET AND SAWYER GET SUCKED IN!

    Not to rag on you Cam, but there's NO way that Young Ben is dead. The show has already hammered home the course-correction theory. It doesn't matter what you do, you can't change the past. This does give a whole new dimension to the second season where Sayid interrogates Ben.

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  2. Aaron C.March 30, 2009 at 5:26 AM

    No, I get that Boy Ben is still alive (next week's episode description (Kate tries to save Ben) confirms it for anyone who doubted), but that was my point: if Sayid's going to be the one to "kill" him, you'd think a dyed-in-the-wool "killer" would've done a better job of making sure his prey was dead.

    This wasn't some Iraqi chicken he was trying to kill.

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  3. TomMarch 30, 2009 at 7:59 AM

    I will point out that I simply said if there WAS a storyline OTHER than Sawyer telling Kate to hit the bricks, I was going to be annoyed. I can see that I'm going to be annoyed.

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  4. Aaron C.March 30, 2009 at 9:34 AM

    In my defense, my blatant distortion of your position made for better blog fodder, Tom.

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  5. SHough610March 30, 2009 at 9:36 AM

    Most of Sayid's arc has been about him NOT being a natural born killer (that phrase is never going to be okay to use, thanks Dre, Cube, and Oliver Stone). And, no matter what kind of killer he is he's not a sociopath and killing a kid couldn't have been easy.

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  6. mathanMarch 30, 2009 at 10:52 PM

    I love how the latest EW speculates about Juliet's demise, because that's what happens when you a strong well written female character on televison.

    Also, I really wish that I could go back and watch those initial scenes between Benry and Sayid, so see if there's any sort of recognition in Benry's eyes.

    And I'm pretty sure that Sayid bounced without checking because he wanted to escape. I mean if he gets caught, shooting a kid is pretty much universially frowned up.

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  7. Aaron C.March 30, 2009 at 11:12 PM

    Couldn't Sayid just have fired a couple "just to make sure" shots into the back of Boy Ben's skull or something? How much time would that've killed? Five seconds? Ten?

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