Wow. In keeping with the tradition of this season, once again Lost has left me absolutely bumfuzzled. Trying to see where this season is going is impossible. Lost has become an M.C. Escher painting reflected in a mirror, shredded into a thousand pieces then reassembled at random.
Which isn’t to say it isn’t great. In fact, I find myself loving this season more than any other. In past seasons, storylines became predictable and we all knew where things were going, so watching became a chore, waiting until the inevitable. Now, nothing is certain.
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The top spot on the countdown belongs to the epic season three finale, “Through the Looking Glass”. A Jack-centric episode, “Through the Looking Glass” is the first flash forward in the series, chronicling Dr. Shepherd’s post-island struggle with alcohol and oxycodone addiction. On the island, we see Jack lead the survivors across the island to the radio tower, Sayid, Jin, and Bernard blow up some Others, and Hurley come to save the day in the big, blue Dharma bus. We also see Charlie’s heroic death, and the showdown between Jack and Locke over phoning the freighter.
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Getting down to it now, this week we’ll go to season four for Desmond Hume’s mind-melting episode, “The Constant”. Straying away from the typical format comprised of on-island events and a flashback/forward, “The Constant” visits two separate time periods, but over one stretch of time. Desmond, after being exposed to the burst of electromagnetic energy as he turned the fail-safe key, has now shifted from predicting the future to actually reliving his past. Although a wild ride and fun for the viewers, becoming “unstuck in time” will eventually kill the subject if there is not a “constant” for the individual to use to separate the two realities which they are traveling between. Luckily for Desmond and his fans out there, Daniel Faraday is now on the island and is ready, willing, and able to help him find his constant and put an end to the time-jumping.
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After a brief holiday respite we’re ready to crack the top three on the countdown. Heading back to season one, “Deus Ex Machina”, the second Locke-centric episode, is up this week. The flashback scenes in the episode introduce us to Anthony Cooper, Locke’s father. We see his heartless conning of his son, and the beginning of Locke’s downward spiral to crippling depression. On the island, he and Boone continue their attempts to gain entry to the hatch. A vision that comes to Locke in a dream leads them deeper into the jungle to find Yemi’s plane and the heroine-filled Virgin Mary statues. Boone’s eventual death is caused in this episode by his falling with the plane from the jungle canopy. Also, among the survivors there are some great scenes with Jack diagnosing Sawyer with hyperopia, or, farsightedness.
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The eleventh episode of season one, “All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues”, is a look into Jack’s past and his tumultuous relationship with his father. The episode begins with Jack attempting to save one of Christian’s patients on the operating table in the ER. Despite Jack’s borderline insane persistence in saving her, the woman on the table dies of overwhelming internal bleeding, most of which was caused by Christian’s severing of her hepatic artery while operating under the influence of alcohol. The rest of the episode deals with Jack’s struggle to decide whether to have his father’s license revoked for causing the death of a patient or to let it slide. Eventually, upon realizing that the woman was pregnant, Jack chooses to tell the board investigating the incident the legitimate cause of the patient’s death. This is the moment which sets the events in motion that would ultimately lead to Christian’s demise in Australia.
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The season four finale checks in this week at number five on the countdown. The final day on the island as well as the eventual staged rescue of the Oceanic Six are chronicled. The flash forward scenes show us how they are each dealing with life off the island. We also see the death of Michael, Keamy, and possibly Jin.
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This week’s entry takes us back to season one for the unforgettable introduction to John Locke. The fourth episode of the series, “Walkabout” is the episode that truly hooked a lot of viewers, myself included. The two part “Pilot” and “White Rabbit” are both great episodes, but after the first time you see “Walkabout”, it is nearly impossible to dismiss Lost as just another prime-time, quasi sci-fi island drama.
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Number seven on the countdown is season two’s finale, “Live Together, Die Alone”. The first Desmond flashback, “Live Together, Die Alone” delves into his past with the Widmore family and also the history of The Swan before the detonation of the hatch door. We are introduced to Penelope and Charles Widmore, Henry Gale is revealed to be in a position of power amongst the Others, and we finally see what happens when the button is not pushed.
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Sticking with season one again this week, number eight on the countdown is "Exodus", the two-part, three-hour finale. "Exodus" is loaded with some of the greatest scenes thus far in the series and could be very easily ranked much higher if not for one glaring flaw. Now I understand the concept of a cliffhanger, but it was brutal of the writing staff to leave the big reveal of what the hatch contained for the beginning of season two. After months of speculation as to the contents of the hatch, it was widely, and understandably, believed that the end of the season would bring at least partial resolution. Instead, there is nothing but a broken ladder and a deep, dark passage of mystery.
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Episode nine on the countdown is our first look into the tumultuous past of James Ford. “Confidence Man” is the eighth episode in season one and begins to weave the tale of how and why everyone’s favorite wreckage scavenger came to be known as Sawyer. The contents of his mysterious letter are revealed, and we see him in action as a con man a few years before boarding Oceanic Flight 815. On the island, the search for Shannon’s asthma medicine leads to Sawyer’s stash. After refusing to hand over the meds, Sawyer is tortured by Sayid with Jack’s approval. Only after a passionate kiss from Kate, intended to elicit the meds from Sawyer, does he reveal that he never had them at all.
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