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ben-l-miller
Reviews
Lost: Exposé (2007)
Old plot device used superbly
This is, in my oh so humble opinion, the best episode this season. Even despite how good the previous one's was (A box that one can pull anything you desire out of? John's Dad? on the island? Wicked!). And, I have to admit, LOST has been losing some interest to me lately, but I've been thoroughly pulled back into it now.
So what makes this episode so great? Well, I have to agree with another poster that it is just a "re-tell{ing of} a centuries old story we've all been told before," (although "centuries" may be a bit of an hyperbole) but I do not agree with the fact that "the only originality {lies} in its setting." I think that the originality is the use of the plot device to answer a lot of questions in a very engaging way. Yes, the whole two-lovers-killing-for-money-and-then-distrusting-each-other is nothing new and rather uninteresting by itself, but to use it as a vehicle to shed light on everything else that has been going on? Brilliant. We still find out key things about the main characters, such as Sawyer, Charlie, and Ben. But it also answers a question that has been nagging me "If they are all these other people are stranded from the flight, what have they been doing?" I mean, come on, the only intelligent people discovering crazy things on the island can not be limited to Jack, Kate, Sawyer, John, Hurley, etc
Here we see that some very minor characters are making some very interesting discoveries and perhaps know a lot more about what is going on they we thought previously; they aren't just dumb extras.
Even given all that, the single best part of this episode is how seemly well integrated into the previous episodes it was. Paulo and Nikki were there all along and I hardly even noticed! The really awesome thing about that is that is also seems to address another problem I have had with this series; it always seemed to me that the writers were just making this up as they go along. But this episode seems to point away from writers addressing things ad hoc, but instead makes a strong case for a very clear vision as to the structure of the series. Nikki wanting to accompany John to the Pearl Station? Paulo coming out of the bathroom? Even the flourish by the writers of tying it all the way back to the first episode? (I am going to have to go back and re-watch that one and see if she really was running around frantically and was asked by Boone for a pen.) And even if this was just an ad hoc solution by the writers to address the question some of us fans had to their vision? Well, they pulled it off very well, so congratulations to them. But I now genuinely have faith in the fact the they have been planning out these things well in advance and are not simply writing the show as it goes along.
And that is the true beauty of this episode, oh my fellow fans. Not that it is good as a stand alone (even though the subplot still wasn't that bad, just mediocre), but that it is great only when taken with consideration of the totality of the series. And for those people who like the mere simple hooks of the show, there was the cliff-hanger at the end. Have we really seen the last of this couple?