A fangirl's review projects

These two are each almost long enough to be their own posts, but I’ve missed so many updates lately that I suppose I might as well put them together.

LOST 1x16 – Outlaws

I think I can say that I liked this episode. Kind of in a way where I’m not sure I have much to say about it, but I can think of a few things.

By and large I think this set of flashbacks was well paced and interwoven with the plot in the present. My one sort of quibble would have to do with whether they handled the murder reveal and then experience in the right order. Because we’re told early in the episode that Sawyer (our Sawyer that is) isn’t a killer, then he drinks with Kate about having killed someone, then we see him kill in the flashback. It’s not even so much that I think this order doesn’t work, I think the problem is how close it butts up against the present day. It means we know he has to go back and kill not-Sawyer, since otherwise he likely wouldn’t have killed anyone.

Had I not seen the reviews of the show, I don’t know that I would have recognized papa Sheppard in the bar scene. I probably would have figured it out when the scene went on so long about this random guy’s kid, but I still might not have been confident in thinking it.

Also, I’d like to raise an idea that this episode puts fate and compassion as opposing forces. I can just about reconcile Papa Shep’s view on fate and bad luck with his callous attitude to his patients; he does what he can, but if it was their fate then there wasn’t anything he could do. And that puts him at odds with Jack who sees what they do as fighting to change fate that without them would kill those patients.

And I’m not sure I disagree with this view of fate. That fate is callous and cruel and damns people to it without compassion. Whenever I do get into some theory like Time Master John, it’s with the understanding that it’s at best in service of a greater good and at worst downright monstrous.

Anyway, that scene has to take place at least a few days before the crash, since Papa Shep has to have been dead a few days when Jack comes to claim the body, though I think this is implying that it’s the night he’ll die since he didn’t have his wallet on him and so wouldn’t have been easily identified until Jack was there. Do we know how he died? It’s equally possible that it hasn’t been said as that I just missed it. And we know somewhere in that time Sawyer is going to be arrested, but presumably not for suspicion of murder.

I do have some questions about the plot of the flashback though. I can’t tell if not-Sawyer was saying that he was set up by OG-Sawyer or by Robert Patrick’s character. I suspect it was about OG-Sawyer, but I’m not sure that’s right. I suspect Sawyer also wishes he hadn’t made sure the guy died so quickly we couldn’t get more answers.

The whole thing with the boar didn’t work for me, aside from the Kate and Sawyer bonding time, which I liked alright. I don’t see them as shippy exactly, though I do think they’re two people who could easily end up having a friends with benefits style relationship and I’d probably be okay with it (I don’t have a dog in this love triangle, although I will admit Sawyer is more interesting as a character than Jack). It’s just slow character stuff that I thought worked pretty well (although I still find Kate a bit hard to get a read on).

The problem with the boar story is that it starts from a weak place; and if it is meant to start from a stronger place it could be viewed as coming from the connection it never made. Since Sawyer’s flashbacks to killing not-Sawyer were so recent before ending up on the island, it could be that the fight and shooting last episode shook him loose again and so that was a big part of the ball of feelings he was processing by hunting boar. But the connection isn’t made, nor is it even reflection on being general frustration building with their situation, it just sort of seems like Sawyer’s throwing a hissy-fit or even afraid of the boar.

Though the person who I actually take issue with on the hunt is Kate. She gets so upset with Sawyer’s treatment of the piglet that I want to point out that they’ll probably end up eating the pig if they’re here long enough.

Well, the other frustration might be that no one (except maybe Sayid) points out that Locke hasn’t been bringing back anything from hunting and now they have boar coming into the camp again. Oddly enough I don’t mind Locke in this episode, the story he tells does do something to explain why he is the way he is about all the mystical stuff going on around here, though I may still call him a hypocrite for clearly knowing he should at least claim to be skeptical even though he doesn’t seem to be very much.

I like Charlie’s stuff this episode. I maybe wish they could have done a bit more with this development, but at least this much worked.



LOST 1x17 – …In Translation

This is another really good episode, and another one I kind of think speaks for itself as to why it’s good. The observation I can make about my own reaction is that I’m clearly more interested in the stories driven by the characters and focused on survival situations rather than some grander mystical Island woo.

I suppose I could say I don’t really like the flashbacks in this one, but mostly because I find them unnecessary. Rehashing Jin’s corruption working for Sun’s father is a bit underwhelming, but I suppose I did like the newer material well enough. Though I feel like I have even less of a sense of time passing in this than I did in Sun’s side of the story, and I feel like we miss a few ticks with Jin being motivated to change the direction of their lives; we don’t even know for a fact whether he was planning to go through with what his father proposed he do.

I guess what’s missing is how the anger and violence actually became something Jin embraces the way we’ve seen on the island, including in this episode. I suppose we haven’t seen him get that angry and aggressive with anyone but Michael (which does unfortunately suggest it might be a race thing); as even his controlling behavior toward Sun could be seen as less about anger and more of fear of the unknown, since the language barrier means the others are virtually unknown to him (in a way they aren’t even to Sun since she can understand what’s being said and not just guess at the talk around them).

Anyway, I’m sort of torn on a few things in Sun and Jin’s last scene. Like, I kind of agree with Sun asking why Jin didn’t just tell her he didn’t start the fire; but I also kind of sympathize with Jin reacting badly to her even thinking he’d do such a thing and storming off. It was bad idea and a mistake of a move, but not unreasonable for him to react that way. But I’m also not sure what to make of the fact that the most crucial part of Sun’s revelation is done in English; she most certainly knows he isn’t going to understand her, and the audience already knew that much, so why write it that way? I thought we were moving into conventions of sci-fi randomly, as some kind of symbol of the language barrier being broken through, but then she went back to Korean so I’m not sure what to make of it.

This is however another mark in why I don’t do things with subtitles. I really can’t get a read on Jin in the flashbacks because I can’t read tone of voice in another language or in the subtitles. And as I’ve said before, it’s less of an issue in the present, in fact it’s quite effective, because the fact I can only sort of guess at nonverbal cues puts me on the same playing field as most of the other characters.

I’m not sure why people immediately accuse Jin of the fire. I mean, sure it’s from his fighting with Michael, but I still think it’s weird to think Jin would want to burn up the raft. Once they misinterpret the signs that he was around the fire, yeah I get that, but why would people jump to the assumption first?

This episode is weird with Locke, because he’s kind of always right in the wrong way. He’s right to tell Shannon not to let Boone control her life, but she wasn’t until Boone decided to make trouble. If anything, I think her treatment of Boone regarding things brewing with Sayid was too disinterested considering their not too long ago backstory and some of her even more recent attempts to play on Boone’s feelings for her. Which may be why Boone is lashing out, that she actually doesn’t seem to care about his opinion in this, but it still seems like kind of a quick shift in her character watching it too.

But this is probably the most I’ve liked Shannon and Sayid. They really don’t seem like people who would have been interested in each other before the island, but that doesn’t mean something can’t be brewing between them here. Though I think we may need a bit more info on what happened with Nadia, since Sayid was still carrying around her picture years later, which makes me a little hesitant to think he ought to be quite ready for something new. (Also we seem to have completely discarded the Sayid/Kate shippy notes that were playing with earlier. I don’t hate that nothing came of it, but it does just seem to have been dropped.)

Anyway, I’m also bothered by Locke reminding everyone that there are other people on the island with them…and then realizing he was only using that as a cover for Walt. Not that he should have told on Walt, but it undercuts the warning he quite reasonably gave the rest of them. But I guess it fits with some of his other actions of late where he doesn’t seem to care all that much about the potential dangers out in the forest.

And did Walt set fire to the raft with regular fire or did he do it with his mind?

Wow, these reviews have gotten so scatter shot. I may need to review something more familiar to me just so I have some guide on how to set about reviewing the storylines. Even that sentence isn’t making much sense. Maybe my writing skills are just getting worse.