Man of Science, Man of Faith: This chapter of Lost is almost like two chapters rolled into one. The first half of this chapter deals with answering the question of what’s inside the hatch. This episode picks up where the last left off, except it’s told from a perspective inside of the hatch. There could’ve been many wild theories about what was inside the hatch, but in the end, something more deadly and dangerous than “the monster” and the consequences of not pushing the button, lied inside: Desmond.
There was a degree of mystery when the hatch blew open, and it almost felt like they were opening Pandora’s box, releasing the untold evil within. While thinking long and hard about it, Desmond was the closest thing to that. He’s not a bad or evil character, but by the end of the series, we know what he’s capable of. He’s the device that could save or destroy us all. We know that there's something important about Desmond from the beginning, seeing as he met Jack off the island years beforehand. It just takes a few more years to figure out what it is.
As for everything else in the episode, it’s pretty much dragging out the exploration into the hatch until the end of the episode. John and Kate have a nice conversation about how insane they may be. At this point in the series, John is afraid of just about nothing, and is just giddy with anticipation. He wants to get into the hatch, because he feels that everything the island did for him was to get him there. He has a lot further to go, but at least for now, he has faith. Then again, it leads to him getting a gun pointed at his head, so maybe it wasn't such a great idea after all.
Adrift: There’s a shark in the water, and Lost keeps it there so it can frequently jump it. The second episode of the season is quite a step down from the premiere, and I mostly blame that on the character it features: Michael. He’s one of my least favorite characters on this show, because he never does atone for being so irritating. His flashback offers us nothing that we didn’t already know, and it took away from his other flashback in Special. His constant bickering with Sawyer on the raft doesn’t make their predicament any more endearing.
The most interesting part of this episode is the time John and Kate spent within the hatch before Jack got down there. There’s a nice altercation where John gets out of being tied up by pointing out Kate as “the dangerous one”. We also get a little more of an idea of who Desmond is after the short peek we got at him in Man of Science, Man of Faith. It all ends the same, but it’s better than Mikey and James’ raft adventures. However, I will give duo’s screen-time one compliment. The ending with Jin running out of the jungle is one of the highlights of the episode, and opens things up for another aspect of the season.
Orientation: The events in the hatch come to a head through the lens of one of our more reliable characters, John Locke. We've known for a long time that John isn't the fearless leader we once thought him to be. He has problems like anybody else, and in most cases even worse. However, this episode really brings home the fact that Locke was not always a man of faith, and it took a long and depressing road through life to get where he is. The issue of science vs. faith has a direct line to the conflict, and though the button may just be a plot device, it's one that tests everything about the theory that John posed at the end of the last chapter.
Now that we're all the way into the hatch, we finally learn exactly what it is for. It's somewhat vague here, but the fundamental concept is that there's a button on a computer, and if it isn't pushed every 108 minutes, the world will end. Exactly how that works is never explained in the series, but my personal guess is that it makes "the source" take back all the "light" around the world, causing civilization to crumble. However, if you haven't seen the final season, you have absolutely no idea what that means. Jack thinks the button is pointless, and that it's just a mindless experiment.
Jack isn't ready to believe that everything happens for a reason, because so many of the things happening on the island seem to have no reason. Everything comes to a head merely minutes before the timer is about to hit zero, as John and Jack reach the climax of their argument. John knows that there is a part of Jack that believes that everything is true, and it's quite emotional to see John doing everything he can to get Jack to push the button. He's trying to get Jack to make that important leap of faith that he was almost unable to make. The ending puts things in place for the rest of the season to explore the hatch.
Everybody Hates Hugo: For a character that everybody loves so much, Hugo's flashback stories aren't all that compelling. They're kind of funny, but they don't ever seem necessary. His "conflicts" on the island aren't all that urgent either. He's now given the epic responsibility of dividing the Dharma food amongst the passengers of Oceanic 815, and he doesn't like being the man with all the power. It seems a bit stupid that everybody keeps turning on him. We get that Charlie is mostly there for comic relief, but could he not be so much of a jerk all the time? What can I say about this episode? It doesn't feel like it actually happened.
Abandoned: Finally, capping off this chapter of Lost, however much of a burn out it may have seemed, we learn a little bit more about Shannon. I have to admit that I sympathized with her flashback a lot more than I did with Boone's. Boone was actually really irritating when you think about it. His biggest dilemma was that he slept with his step-sister? I think we could've lived without that. However, this episode really redeems Shannon's attitude over the series so far. Then it kills her in a twist that is actually quite sad. This leads us into the second main factor of the season: The Tail-Section passengers.
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