Lost, Season 5, Episode 8: LaFleur

What a fantastic episode last night, one of our favorites of the season, despite (or maybe because of) the lack of shocking revelations. Not that there weren't some juicy tidbits to be had. For instance:

♦ Sawyer and Juliet! Wooo! Ever since the shirtless Sawyer washed up on the beach and fell at Juliet's feet, we suspected this was where they were heading with the characters. For the longest time, it was a development that we had a hard time believing. Well, no more. The writers did a fantastic job getting these two together in such a way that it not only seemed natural and believable, it seemed inescapable. The scene at the dock when Sawyer talks her out of leaving on the sub by asking her "Who's going to have my back now?" may just have been one of the most romantic scenes in the history of a show that isn't lacking in romantic scenes. We were yelling "Kiss her! KISS HER!"

♦ Juliet has great hair when she has access to plumbing and electricity doesn't she?

♦ Loved the scene where Sawyer (in a callback to his alias "LaFleur") came home with a single flower for his lady love, although it illustrated something we find a bit annoying, if not disturbing about how female characters are written on the show. Too often, we get introduced to these kickass woman capable of just about anything being reduced to housekeeping tasks. Kate went from running from the law on 2 continents, to swinging through the jungle with a gun, to spoonfeeding a baby that wasn't even her own. Penny went from an adventurer who spent years scouring the globe looking for her man, to a mom folding laundry. And now we have Juliet, a world class fertility specialist, a crack shot with a rifle and now she's in a kitchen draining spaghetti for dinner. The only one who went from submissive to kickass is Sun and the general consensus on that character is that she's heading in the wrong direction. Don't get us wrong, it doesn't really piss us off and we doubt it's deliberate on the writers' part, but there's a subtext there we don't much like.

♦ Another Wooo! moment: we finally got to see the entire 4-toed statue, albeit from behind and only for a second. This screencap leads us to believe that it's definitely a statue of Anubis, the Egyptian god of the underworld. After all, didn't Charlotte once say "This place is DEATH?" Isn't Cerberus (the name for the smoke monster) also a Greek god of the underworld? Doesn't it look like that statue is holding an ankh (the egyptian symbol for eternal life) in its hand? And didn't an ankh play something of a part in the unfolding story of how the Losties wound up in the DHARMA camp? Hmmmm.

♦ It's possible that the writers are actively TRYING to make us hate Jack and Kate because we did NOT want to see the Sawyer/Kate reunion after he finally found some peace with Juliet and we were kinda pissed at him that he lied to Juliet about where he was going.

♦ Speaking of which, what's the purpose of having the O6 return to the island? By the time they got there, the rest of the Losties were for the most part, safe. Clearly, the story's not over yet, but there's a reason why they had to return and we haven't been told what it is yet.

♦ WHERE THE HELL ARE ROSE AND BERNARD?! They better not be dead, y'all. We had assumed they were going to turn up in the DHARMA camp at some point, but no such luck. Are they with the Hostiles now?

♦ Speaking of the DHARMA camp, Faraday's heartbreak at seeing the young Charlotte in 1974 was a tear-jerker, no? Here's the problem: Charlotte arrived on the freighter in 2004 and died (if you can believe it) only a couple weeks later. Flash back to 30 years earlier and there's a young Charlotte of about 4 years old. There's no way the adult Charlotte was 34 years old when she died. Then again, they do tend to fudge the ages of these characters as they relate to the actors playing them. Locke and Ben are playing characters significantly younger than the actors and Christian and his father are playing characters significantly older than the actors. We guess it's just one of those things you have to accept in the show.

♦ Speaking of Ben, shouldn't the young Ben be around somewhere in the DHARMA camp? And where's Miles? He admitted he'd been on the island before. If they saw young Charlotte, shouldn't there be a young Miles wandering around somewhere?

♦ So how come a woman in 1977 can give birth on the island but women a couple decades later die from it? Could it have something to do with the poison gas used in the purge to kill all the DHARMA people? And who was the baby she gave birth to? Come on, it has to be SOMEBODY we already met.

♦ Loved the scene with Sawyer and Richard. So, there's a truce between the Hostiles and the DHARMA camp? We'd like to know more, please.

♦ And finally (although we could probably go on for another 500 words), attention must be paid to Josh Holloway, who knocked this episode out of the park. We still got glimpses of con man Sawyer in the ways he can lie so smoothly at the drop of a hat, but we also saw the culmination of this character's growth. From the man who let everyone believe he stole Shannon's inhaler to the guy who grins from ear to ear (showing off those killer dimples) at the news of a successful birth on the island and who, without any unease can openly tell a woman he loves her as he tenderly gives her a flower, it's been a great ride for the character. Although let's face it, no one, not even Sawyer himself, believes that he's really over Kate. Forget her, James! Move on! Leave her and Jack to their breathy sighs and staring contests! You've got the ass-kickingest woman in the world and she's got great hair! And she can fix your car even!


[Photos: ABC.com]


Post a Comment