Lost 4.10 Something Nice Back Home
May. 2nd, 2008 12:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakErr... it's better than the "Jack gets a tattoo" episode? Also, this time at least they waited that long with inflicting a Jack episode on us (a first when compared to the other seasons, I think), and there is a subplot?
The thing is, while the s3 finale got me somewhat interested in future!Jack, he's till very low on my order of Lostian priorities. So is his love life. Plus since a) we know he won't die on the island, and b) we already know he's not with Kate in his bearded state, so a pre-beard relationship is bound to implode, both the island and the flash forward plot were predictable to a spectacular degree. Though I will say that at least ever since the s3 episode where Jack stalks his ex and drives his father to drinking again, I feel that the writers don't try to sell him as this wonderful hero to us anymore, and when he behaves like a jerk he's meant to behave like a jerk, not be misunderstood and tragically noble. So, zero surprise that his relationship with Kate implodes because he's still a control freak with jealousy issues. Jack starting on the medication and alcohol due to more visits from his late father (while not talking about same with Hurley or Kate, either of whom would not disbelieved him) is typical, too.
Poor Kate. How long has it been that she had any kind of characterisation that didn't revolve around her involvement with either Jack or Sawyer or both? Ever since the horrid "please save me from evil stalker Ben, Jack!" scene with Jack and Juliet I was afraid the symptom of being a badly written female character would spread to Juliet too, as it is intimately connected with being in love with Jack, but no, here she was competent and mature throughout the episode. Phew. While I rolled my eyes at the apparant necessity on the writers' part to make Juliet into a cheerleader for Jack/Kate, I infinitely prefer it to another idiotic triangle and Juliet depicted in jealous misery. I also liked Juliet giving Jin the gun and letting him supervise Daniel and Charlotte.
Speaking of Jin: hooray for a speaking!Jin scene. Comes complete with reemergence of ruthless!Jin and some more writerly telling of 'shipping states, in this case Charlotte/Daniel. Charlotte, wiser than Ben last week, does not call the bluff (and I didn't think Jin was bluffing, either). So she speaks Korean. Where did Widmore get all those dead bodies from again?
Sawyer, Claire and Miles trekking back through the jungle was by far my favourite part of the episode, even though it came with the crushing proof that Danielle Rousseau isn't just mostly dead but really, really dead dead. That was an effective and creepy use of Miles' dead-people-seeing power, as was the thing with Christian Shephard later. Sawyer versus Miles was very ironic, as in many ways Miles is early Sawyer. Frank the pilot in his cameo saves Our Heroes' lives and proves he's not on board with the mercenaries' killing policies, though sadly this intermezzo also proved more of the bunch are still alive instead of being dead by smoke monster. Ah, well. Ben will think of something else, I'm sure.
Lastly: Claire seeing Christian Shephard on the island and Jack seeing him off the island tied the two plots together, but Lost, tell me you didn't kill the fourth female character this season! (Actually, I'm pretty sure they didn't; Naomi, Rousseau and Alex all died on camera, and Claire is a regular which they were not, so if Claire dies, she'll do so on camera, too, not by mysteriously disappearing. I bet we'll see Claire again in the Locke/Ben/Hurley plot once they manage to find Jacob (who these days seems to be embodied by the late Christian S.).
In conclusion: I do appreciate the acid irony of the title, and hold out hope this much Jack in one episode means little of him in the next...
The thing is, while the s3 finale got me somewhat interested in future!Jack, he's till very low on my order of Lostian priorities. So is his love life. Plus since a) we know he won't die on the island, and b) we already know he's not with Kate in his bearded state, so a pre-beard relationship is bound to implode, both the island and the flash forward plot were predictable to a spectacular degree. Though I will say that at least ever since the s3 episode where Jack stalks his ex and drives his father to drinking again, I feel that the writers don't try to sell him as this wonderful hero to us anymore, and when he behaves like a jerk he's meant to behave like a jerk, not be misunderstood and tragically noble. So, zero surprise that his relationship with Kate implodes because he's still a control freak with jealousy issues. Jack starting on the medication and alcohol due to more visits from his late father (while not talking about same with Hurley or Kate, either of whom would not disbelieved him) is typical, too.
Poor Kate. How long has it been that she had any kind of characterisation that didn't revolve around her involvement with either Jack or Sawyer or both? Ever since the horrid "please save me from evil stalker Ben, Jack!" scene with Jack and Juliet I was afraid the symptom of being a badly written female character would spread to Juliet too, as it is intimately connected with being in love with Jack, but no, here she was competent and mature throughout the episode. Phew. While I rolled my eyes at the apparant necessity on the writers' part to make Juliet into a cheerleader for Jack/Kate, I infinitely prefer it to another idiotic triangle and Juliet depicted in jealous misery. I also liked Juliet giving Jin the gun and letting him supervise Daniel and Charlotte.
Speaking of Jin: hooray for a speaking!Jin scene. Comes complete with reemergence of ruthless!Jin and some more writerly telling of 'shipping states, in this case Charlotte/Daniel. Charlotte, wiser than Ben last week, does not call the bluff (and I didn't think Jin was bluffing, either). So she speaks Korean. Where did Widmore get all those dead bodies from again?
Sawyer, Claire and Miles trekking back through the jungle was by far my favourite part of the episode, even though it came with the crushing proof that Danielle Rousseau isn't just mostly dead but really, really dead dead. That was an effective and creepy use of Miles' dead-people-seeing power, as was the thing with Christian Shephard later. Sawyer versus Miles was very ironic, as in many ways Miles is early Sawyer. Frank the pilot in his cameo saves Our Heroes' lives and proves he's not on board with the mercenaries' killing policies, though sadly this intermezzo also proved more of the bunch are still alive instead of being dead by smoke monster. Ah, well. Ben will think of something else, I'm sure.
Lastly: Claire seeing Christian Shephard on the island and Jack seeing him off the island tied the two plots together, but Lost, tell me you didn't kill the fourth female character this season! (Actually, I'm pretty sure they didn't; Naomi, Rousseau and Alex all died on camera, and Claire is a regular which they were not, so if Claire dies, she'll do so on camera, too, not by mysteriously disappearing. I bet we'll see Claire again in the Locke/Ben/Hurley plot once they manage to find Jacob (who these days seems to be embodied by the late Christian S.).
In conclusion: I do appreciate the acid irony of the title, and hold out hope this much Jack in one episode means little of him in the next...
