LOST: season 4 episode 1-8 review
I have to say season 4 has been my favourite season yet! Before the season started we knew that an end date was set for lost. It was to be 3 more seasons and I believe 16 episodes per season. I was very interested to see this new season since there was no floating end point anymore. The writer knew when the show was finished so they start nailing the show down rather than let if float off with question after unanswered question.
In the wake of the writers strike we have ended up with 8 continuous episodes aired with a break of about a month and then a return with a couple more weeks worth to end the season. I believe also this season has been cut to 14 episodes but that those extra 2 will simply fall to later seasons.
From Season 3:
S3 ended with a twist. Suddenly there was no flash back, but a flash forward. We see our would be hero Jack in the future, alive and well (so to speak) off the island. And guess what, Kate was there too. Jack’s life was hell and he desperately wanted to get back to the island. Wow. Now that the season dealing with the Others is over, and the impending “rescue” of the Losties about to begin, we start S4.
Freighter Folk
This all started when Naomi landed on the island. Knifed down at the end of S3 by Locke she succumbs to her injuries, but not before sending a message over her satellite phone indicating foul play. Soon new members from the freighter join those on the island.
First we have Daniel. Dan is a physicist and a rather odd individual. He seems to know a good deal about the “weirdness” on the island and seems to have a scientific explanation, especially when it comes to the strangeness with time. He performs a test with the crew on the freight launching a beacon that takes over 30 minutes to arrive, proving there is a lag in time going to and from the island.
Next we have Miles. When he is introduced in his flashback he reveals that he has some innate ability to speak to people who aren’t around, in other words dead. He was making a living at talking with the dead before he ended up on the freighter. Miles is conniving and always seems to be out for himself, meaning he doesn’t like to trust too many people. He finds himself traded over and held prisoner by Locke where he ends up trying to make a deal with Ben for $3.2 million dollars to walk away and never tell where he found him. You see, the freigties are after Ben Linus.
Charlotte seems to be confident woman, and knowledgeable. She is at first captured by Locke after dropping on to the island but is traded for Miles by Sayid when he makes a deal to get onto the freighter. Charlotte and Daniel sneak away to the Hydra station to prevent the release of a toxic gas spreading on the island that would kill everyone. It was one of their objectives after arriving to diffuse what could by Ben’s last resort to island invasion.
Lastly we have Frank who is the chopper pilot that got everyone on the island. His flashback shows that he was supposed to be the pilot on Oceanic 815 but never made it on flight. He seems determined to help the survivors and maybe doesn’t know the whole story.
Oceanic Six
In the first episode the flash forwards continue. Now they start to roll back from the last we saw of Jack going inevitably closer to present time on the island. Hurley is the focus of this episode and reveals that he is one of the six survivors. In an ironic twist a calm Jack visits Hurley in the mental institution who is emphatic that they have to go back, much like Jack was at the end of S3.
We of course know that Jack was a member of the Oceanic Six.
Next we learn that Sayid is also a member of this elite group. However, in his flash forward he is a hitman! In this time it is his job to protect his friends by killing those that are on the list. And the man that Sayid is taking orders from is from the last one you would expect: Ben!
Kate was revealed at the end of S3 to have made it off island but we get her flash forward story and see that she faces the law upon her return. Interestingly enough in her trial Jack takes the stand and tells the story of the plane crash but drastically different from the real events. There is an obvious cover up going but we have no idea why. Kate is eventually seen as a hero and settles with house arrest. She is happy to go home and be with her son who we find out is an older Aaron, Claire’s child!
Finally our last one is Sun. In her flash forward she is pregnant with Jin’s baby but ends up giving birth alone. We see that a solemn Hurley and new mother Sun with baby visit the grave site of Jin who didn’t seem to make it off island.
Who is the Bad Guy?
We know Ben has done some wicked things but still claims to be the “good guy.” When Locke and Jack have fundamental differences about whether the freighter folk are actually there to help them, the remaining survivors choose sides and Locke takes Ben with him.
Even as a prisoner Ben seems to weasel his way back into their graces and he keeps dropping more information to his capture. He shows him who the real bad guy is: Charles Widmore. The freighter is his and Ben is fearful of this man discovering the island. Ben even had evidence that Widmore had staged the entire plane crash into the bottom of the ocean, including 300 plus dead survivors.
Meaning while evidence to the contrary that Ben was behind the faked plane wreckage is also show to Sayid and Desmond and also to a new ally for Ben: Micheal!
Micheal returns on the freighter. He and Walt had made it off the island back to New York but under assumed identities. It turns out killing Anna Lucia and Libby was getting the better of him and he even told Walt which drove them apart. Micheal resulted to suicide but he couldn’t. Mr. Friendly (aka Tom) from the island (before he died obviously) was the one that told him the island wouldn’t let him die because he still had work to do. He convinced him to be Ben’s spy on the freighter and to do what was necessary to redeem himself.
Constant
In the best episode of the 8 so far we learn more of Desmond’s condition. When Sayid makes the deal for Frank to fly him to the freighter, Desmond tags along. But after they get so far from the island something unique happens to him. His conscience is replaced by that of himself 8 years earlier!
Throughout the episode Desmond lives in two timelines, one with Sayid on the freighter and the other back in his life in 1996. His jumping back in forth would soon kill him he couldn’t find a way to anchor himself to the right timeline. For that Daniel of the island present time talks with him and has Desmond find himself in 1996 for help. Desmond does and in an emotional ending he rights himself by talking with Penny in the island present. She professes she will find him.
Deaths
By the time the episode run finished we have questions answered but not all of them. The flash forwards are making their way back to the point of how the survivors left the island and what happened to see that there was only 6.
It seems also that a war is brewing. A desperate Ben sends his daughter Alex away to the Tempest station for safety. She leaves with her mother Rousseau and her boyfriend Karl.
They are ambushed and Rousseau and Karl are looked to be fatally shot. Alex is left alive and its easy to see that the unknown assailants were after Ben’s daughter to use against him.
Looking Forward
This season is definitely the best so far. There is so much more yet to be revealed and the next couple episodes promise to be amazing. We should learn by season end some of the terrible things that take place to bring about the future we saw at the end of S3. We are likely to see in later seasons what happens to those characters and if they indeed go back to the island.
Lost returns April 24th, I know I’ll be watching!
~David