Season
2, Episodes 19 and 20- “S.O.S.” and “Two for the Road”
Summary:
In
flashback, Rose and Bernard meet and begin dating. He proposes to her and she
reveals she is dying of cancer, but he asks again anyway. They fly to
Australia, looking for the faith healer Isaac. He tells Rose this is the wrong
place to heal her but she insists on telling her husband she is fixed. On the
island, Bernard recruits people to build an S.O.S. sign on the beach but Rose
calls it false hope and he struggles to keep the workers satisfied. Rose tells
Bernard she was not healed by Isaac but that she has been healed since crashing
on the island, and they decide they will not leave. Locke tries to remember the
blast door map and questions Henry’s story of not pushing the button, and Eko
and Charlie work on building a church. Jack and Kate head to “the line” to
request a trade of Henry for Walt but they briefly get trapped in a net. No
Others meet them, but Michael stumbles out of the brush.
Ana-Lucia’s
mother questions her daughter about the murder of Jason. She encounters
Christian Shephard, and he recruits her as a bodyguard as he visits Australia
to meet a woman in the middle of the night asking to see his daughter. She
drops him off at a bar, and calls her mother at the airport wanting to come
home. Henry reveals he was originally heading to their camp to find Locke, and Ana
seduces Sawyer to get a gun to use on Henry. Hurley and Libby prepare for a
picnic date. Jack and Kate bring Michael back to camp and he reveals that he
found the Others and describes how weak and disorganized they are. Ana is
prepared to shoot Henry but she can’t go through with it. Michael arrives and
offers to shoot him but mournfully shoots Ana-Lucia instead, and accidently
shoots Libby as well. He then opens Henry’s cell and shoots himself in the
shoulder.
Review:
“S.O.S.” is the last pleasant little
episode before shit goes down, and we use it to grow our 3rd-string
characters Rose and Bernard. Did they need a flashback episode? Probably not.
But if it spares us from another Kate installment, or another reminder that
Charlie was a druggie, I’m fine with it. Bernard has been kind of a
cranky-pants since he reunited with Rose but it builds up to the reveal that
she has been cured and wants to stay. It’s a pivotal moment, as it’s
the first time someone from the camp overtly claims to want to stay on the
island (Locke’s desire can be inferred, but it’s not explicit yet), which is a
key building-block to one of the macro-themes of the show. “People are saved in
different ways,” Eko says, and now we might start to get into the idea that the
island is not a hellish prison, but rather a rehabilitating paradise. The warm
Otis Redding song that draws us to the end of the episode invites us to feel
comfortable with the island too.
As Eko and Charlie work on a new church,
Locke struggles with remembering the map and is frustrated at Ben’s claims
about the button – as one faith is being lost, another is being found. I admire
Jack’s tenacity in requesting a trade, but if it’s just an excuse to get him
and Kate trapped in a net, then that kinda ruins the intention. Michael
stumbling out of the woods is reminiscent of Claire in “Special”, but leads to
a more fruitful storyline than a brief spell of amnesia.
Ana’s 2nd flashback is mildly
better than her first, though not by much. It is saved by the knowledge of what
happened to Christian before and after this, although Ana’s tearful phone call
to her mother is pretty sad once you know what’s about to happen to her.
Otherwise, it’s unremarkable, as with most of the island stuff.
The big elephant in the room is the
double-homicide of Ana-Lucia and Libby. I kept up with spoilers at the time,
and I don’t recall there being even a hint of this. It’s one of the only times
I can recall where my jaw literally dropped at watching something. It was
insane. And next week’s preview showed Eko falling off a cliff and I thought
the Tailies were all going to be slaughtered (Eko didn’t die, of course…well,
not yet). Then Michael shoots himself??? It put us in a tailspin, for sure.
It’s an instant classic. Yet when we have all the details, it raises questions.
Why did he have to keep his orders secret from the group? Why couldn’t he have
just freed Ben and coordinated an attack, like Jack tried to do with Sayid? I’m
confident they would have agreed to it if they knew it would bring Walt back.
So with all that rattling around in your head, it’s hard to think much of the
double-murder. It also banks almost completely on surprise rather than
substance. Ana isn’t that well-liked, and it’s not drawn out, or emotional.
Those three factors are present in Libby’s death in the next episode but at the
time it just looks like she expires with the blankets in hand. Nothing will
exceed the shock value of this, but there’s not enough meat on the bone to
justify the entire episode as “great”.
Connecting the Dots:
“S.O.S.” marks the first mention of
Frogurt, who will later appear in “Missing Pieces” and then season 5.
In a deleted scene, Rose tells Sun that
she has a deceased daughter. Since it was cut, it can’t technically be
considered canon, but it would have provided another interesting development.
Isaac of Uluru describes his sacred home
by saying, “Perhaps this energy is geological…magnetic.” Yet another reference
to magnetism before it is fully explained to us. And if his home really is on
top of one of these hot spots, maybe his “healing” really does work.
Ben describes the Others’ leader: “a great
man, a brilliant man, but he’s not a forgiving man.” Is he describing Jacob? Or
possibly himself? I don’t know if this describes either of them. I guess we
don’t know enough about Jacob to know if he is forgiving or not.
Ben claims he was coming for Locke when
he got caught in the net. If this is true, perhaps it was prompted by Richard
remembering Locke from the time-travel and the childhood visits, ready to
fulfill his destiny of leading the Others.
Christian knocks on the door of Claire’s
aunt, looking for Claire. We confirm that he is her father in “Par Avion”.
Ranking:
1.
The 23rd
Psalm (10/10)
2.
One of Them
(8.5/10)
3.
The Other 48 Days
(8.5/10)
4.
The Whole Truth
(7.5/10)
5.
The Long Con
(7.5/10)
6.
Two for the Road
(7.5/10) (The ending is a top-tier “Holy shit” moment. Everything else is
generic.)
7.
Maternity Leave
(7.5/10)
8.
Orientation
(7.5/10)
9.
Dave (7.5/10)
10. S.O.S. (7.5/10) (A cute episode that sets up the
important theme of the island actually being a good place.)
11. Man of Science, Man of Faith (7.5/10)
12. Lockdown (7/10)
13. The Hunting Party (7/10)
14. …And Found (6.5/10)
15. Abandoned (6.5/10)
16. What Kate Did (6.5/10)
17. Collision (6.5/10)
18. Everybody Hates Hugo (6.5/10)
19. Adrift (5/10)
20. Fire + Water (4/10)
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