Season
1, Episodes 21 and 22- “The Greater Good” and “Born to Run”
Summary:
Sayid
is approached by FBI agents who want him to infiltrate a terrorist cell in
Sydney, using knowledge of Nadia’s whereabouts as leverage. Their main concern
is retrieving stolen explosives and prefer it if Essam, who once knew Sayid,
commits suicide in the process. Sayid eventually gets him to abandon the
attack, but Essam still commits suicide. At Boone’s funeral, Locke returns to
explain himself, but is attacked by Jack. He later tries to reconcile with
Shannon but she turns around and asks Sayid to get revenge on Locke for her. Charlie
and Hurley are unsure of how to get the baby to stop crying, until Sawyer’s
voice calms him down. Locke admits to attacking Sayid and destroying the
transceiver. After Sayid tries to dissuade her from vengeance, Shannon steals
one of the guns and fires at Locke, barely missing him.
Kate
receives news that her mother is very sick and reunites with her childhood
friend Tom to help see her. Her mother yells when she sees Kate, forcing Kate
to flee with Tom. They get in a car accident and he dies but she runs away
before she can be arrested. Dr. Arzt suggests the raft must be launched as soon
as possible, and Kate lobbies for a spot on it but Sawyer and Jin have the 3rd
and 4th spots. Locke shows Jack and Sayid the hatch. After Locke
touches his arm, Walt appears to have a premonition and warns him not to open
the hatch. Michael falls ill after drinking bottled water and Jack suspects
Kate. Michael suspects Sawyer so Sawyer forces Kate to reveal she was the
marshal’s prisoner, but she maintains innocence. Jack eventually puts together
that it was Sun, trying to prevent Jin from leaving, but he doesn’t know it was
still Kate’s idea. Walt admits to Michael that he burnt the raft, before
telling him that they need to leave.
Review:
I never had much of an opinion of “The
Greater Good” before, but this time around I discovered that there were some
flaws that bring it down. I’m not sure that the on-island story has much going
for it. Maybe I’m biased since Locke is my favorite character but I thought
that Jack’s and Shannon’s anger at him was a bit unwarranted, and it’s a little
tiring that the episode is summed up as, “People are pissed at Locke.” I also
don’t think it’s very clear why Sayid is actually LESS ticked at Locke after he
revealed he knocked Sayid out all those episodes ago. The baby thing is
amusing, but doesn’t go anywhere. All in all, one of the episodes you could
maybe define as “filler”. On the plus side, more people finally start to learn
about the hatch.
Watching this in 2015, the flashback
sticks out even more than it did in 2005, and not exactly in a good way. Sayid
must infiltrate a sleeper cell and it’s a bland example of the kind of War on
Terror plot that you would see in media in the 2000’s. It feels like “24”,
which is not in itself a bad thing (“24” is, after all, my 2nd
favorite show after “Lost”), but this isn’t the kind of show that needs to use
that. Getting back in with his Islamist friend, sure. Having that friend on the
verge of an actual attack? A little too much “ripped from the headlines”.
Perhaps it feels like “24” because Essam is played by Donnie Keshawarz, who was
in season two of “24”, albeit as a good guy. Anyway, let’s just forget this
ever happened.
“Born to Run” doesn’t fare much better,
but at least there’s a mildly compelling situation happening. They do a
double-fake-out with the poisoned water. Kate is the obvious suspect before Sun
is sniffed out as the culprit, wanting to hold Jin back. But then we get
another swerve as we learn Kate actually DID set her up to it. That I had
forgotten all about that part after seeing the episode multiple times before
just speaks to the writers’ sleight-of-hand mastery. So it’s not the craziest
twist out there, but it serves its purpose and gets Kate’s past out in the
open. Walt’s little precognition moment, meanwhile, is meant to build suspense
and an impending doom at opening the hatch, but given that we know the hatch in
itself isn’t all that bad, that pronouncement now just seems empty.
While Walt’s moment falls flat because
of what we know in the future of the show, the backstory with Tom falls flat
because of what we already learned ten episodes back. He’s set up as “the man
Kate loved”, and such a powerful presence in her life that she would risk being
arrested or killed just to get his toy plane back. But he’s just…there. He’s
not developed well enough to justify being that anchor in Kate’s life, and
although the time capsule part is cute, it’s just not connecting. Oh,
and he died from Kate’s stupidity as well as his own. You don’t ram your car
into a police barricade and expect to escape unscathed; and you certainly don’t
stay in the car when you realize your outlaw friend is going to ram into a
police barricade.
So, yeah, two underwhelming episodes.
Luckily that is about to change.
Connecting the Dots:
Not a lot of dot-connecting today. It’s
revealed in one of the mobisodes that Arzt was lying about monsoon season
coming. Great.
I had completely forgotten that Sayid
was traveling with Essam’s body! They make a point of showing Christian’s
coffin on the island but not Essam’s. Perhaps the CIA tricked Sayid and it was
never there to begin with. But now that I’m thinking about this, the episode
might have been way more interesting if the Man in Black had come across
Essam’s body and then used that information to transform into him and
manipulate Sayid. Missed opportunity, guys.
Walt appears to know about the hatch
simply by touching Locke. I’m not sure how that fits into my earlier theory
about magnetism. This part seems to support the precognition idea. The only
other thing I can think of is that Locke’s continued proximity to the pent-up
energy at the Swan gave him a slight, uh, “coating” of magnetic energy, which
Walt connected to when he touched him. But that’s just me spit-balling
something without any proof.
Ranking:
1.
Deus Ex Machina
(9.5/10)
2.
Pilot, part 1
(9/10)
3.
Numbers (8.5/10)
4.
Solitary (8.5/10)
5.
Outlaws (8/10)
6.
Walkabout (8/10)
7.
Pilot, part 2
(8/10)
8.
White Rabbit
(8/10)
9.
…In Translation
(7.5/10)
10. Do No Harm (7.5/10)
11. Homecoming (7.5/10)
12. Raised by Another (7.5/10)
13. Tabula Rasa (7/10)
14. The Moth (7/10)
15. Special (7/10)
16. Hearts and Minds (7/10)
17. All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues (6.5/10)
18. The Greater Good (6.5/10) (Mostly wheel-spinning.)
19. Confidence Man (6.5/10)
20. House of the Rising Sun (6/10)
21. Born to Run (5.5/10) (The water mystery is okay. The
rest? No thanks.)
22. Whatever the Case May Be (4.5/10)
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