Lost: Season 5 Episode 4: The Little Prince

We realize that our viewing experience of this show differs from the long-time fans' in that what took them 4 years and a ton of patience to get through, we zipped through in less than a month. Because of that, we don't always have the same take on previous seasons they do. We understand that a lot of fans hated Season 3 and considered Season 4 a step in the right direction, but not nearly as good as the first two seasons. We don't feel that way but as we said, we didn't have to sit through 4 years, waiting week in and week out for some answers.

Having said that, is this season not kicking ass and taking names left and right? The plot is amped way up and it's actually a little dizzying when the writers decide to tackle two plot strands in one night. We honestly thought we weren't going to see much of the doings on the island last night, assuming that the writers would spend the episode focusing solely on the O6. We were happily proven wrong. Parallel storylines are the new thing this season. We no longer flash forward and backward along a character's storyline because now, half the characters are literally flashing forward and backward along other characters' storylines.

♦ Danielle! Who didn't figure out that Danielle and her team were going to make an appearance the minute Charlotte uttered "It's wreckage?" We are very keen to get some of the details on Rousseau's backstory. There are certain things that make no sense to us. She claimed when Sayid first met her that she had never seen another person on the island in 16 years. That always struck as us odd because the 815 survivors were on the island a matter of hours before they encountered their first Other and a matter of months before they were living in the Others' compound. Not only that, but 16 years ago would have been a time when the DHARMA Initiative was in full swing on the island, vans and all. So, we're eager to get an explanation for that and we're eager to see the circumstances surrounding the deaths of everyone on Rousseau's team as well as just what it was they were studying.

Our only complaint is that the actress didn't really look much like Rousseau and the reveal was treated as some sort of big shock when come on, as soon as they spoke French, it was pretty obvious who we were dealing with.

♦ That was one long bullet point, yes?

♦ JIN! We knew he had to be alive, but kudos to the writers, because we were just distracted enough by the introduction of Rousseau's team that we honestly had no idea who they were pulling out of the water. So Jin's alive and he was rescued by Danielle's team 16 years in the past. Didn't see that one coming at all. And what does this mean for ...

♦ SUN! New, crazy, hard-edged Sun with a box of candy and a gun! Oh, honey. We can sympathize with your desire to kill Ben (although we don't know why you're not equally as keen to kill Widmore) but we can't help thinking you do not want to go down this road. We're aching for a Sun/Jim reunion ASAP but we think those SOB writers are going to make us wait a while. Which brings us to...

♦ We're really hoping that this "We have to go BACK!!!" plot is resolved or at the least, moving toward resolution fairly soon. We don't think they're going to spend the entire season attempting to get back to the island but at the very least, can we move the players out of L.A. now? That end of the story is getting a little stale. At least point them in the direction of the island. If that means two months of scenes with all of them on a boat or something, fine. But we're ready to see the O6 get a little sweaty and dirty again. Watching these characters drive around L.A. freshly showered and in full makeup is getting boring. Speaking of scenes on a boat...

♦ The only flashback sequence they've shown all season is the O6 on Penny's boat just before they went public. We're going to come right out and say that we are completely over Jack and Kate, both separately and as a couple, but we have to admit, that scene with the two of them ending with the maudlin (but completely on point) "I have always been with you," was well-written and necessary. Why? Follow us to the next bullet point, why don't you?

♦ Kate and Jack: just not as interesting as the writers seem to think. That's our take, anyway. Every character on this show has their asshole moments. Every single one. None of them are morally pure and that's what makes the show fun and interesting. On the other hand, these two have SO MANY asshole moments, both alone and separately, that we just don't care about their big bags of bullshit anymore.

Don't get us wrong, we care about what they're going to do, because they're part of that inner core of characters on the show (Sawyer and Locke being two of the others) that really drives the plot. We just don't give a shit why they do it or what drove them to do it anymore. "Somebody wants Aaron!!" Yeah, whatever, Kate. You're basically repeating Claire's only line throughout all of Season 2. Jack's going through withdrawal? Who cares? Again, Charlie did it in Season 1.

♦ Come to think of it, it is kind of weird how Kate & Jack became the new Claire & Charlie and Juliet & Sawyer became the new Kate & Jack.

♦ ANYWAY, our point, several bullet points ago, is that the scene on the boat with Kate and Jack was necessary even to haters like us because it reminds you of a time when they were less polished, leaner and more desperate, and because of that, more in love with each other. You saw the old, tribal versions of their characters; a time when Jack needed Kate to stand by him in order to lead the group.

♦ This is why we're so eager to see them back on the island. All of these characters (with the possible exception of Sun) are just not as interesting off the island as they are on it.

♦ Final bullet point: Okay, so length of time on the island is determining the order in which people get nosebleeds and Juliet's been on the island almost 4 years at this point, right? So how the hell long were Miles and Charlotte on the island for the two of them to get their nosebleeds first? Clearly, they must have been there as babies, which naturally leads to the question: Whose babies?


[Photos: ABC.com]


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