TV-Reviewed

I was a little suspicious about how this episode of Lost was going to play out after hearing that producers Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof were going back and forth about which episode should air first, “316″ or “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham”. They ultimately went with “316″ because they felt there was information contained in this episode which should be revealed first, even though “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham” was shot/produced first.

Eloise Hawking spilled a fair amount of information about how to find the island. She introduced Lost viewers to Dharma’s Lamp Post station. Instead of being located on the island, the Lamp Post was built in Los Angeles, allegedly atop a strong magnetic force. It was built because the Dharma Initiative knew there were other similar places on Earth, but they also thought that the island was a real place and built a very cool pendulum to find where the island would be, not where it is.

Matthew Fox as Jack Shephard

After the scene with Eloise, it was back to the core of the case, Jack and Kate, primarily. There wasn’t nearly as much arm twisting as I thought there would be. All of the survivors just seemed to show up, ready to go on the plane. I can’t wait to see how Kate and the others were convinced to show up for the plane ride. I’m also wondering about Aaron. Kate didn’t want to talk about that for some reason.

The addition of Zuleikha Robinson to the case was an interesting move. She’s going to be in several episodes from what I hear. She most recently starred on Fox’s New Amsterdam, but I’ll always remember her from The X-Files spin-off The Lone Gunmen.

I nearly crapped my pants when the pilot of that plane turned out to be Frank Lapidus (Jeff Fahey). I love the character, but I was sure he was done on the show. And he may be now. It isn’t clear yet how many of the passengers are going to make it to the island. We were only shown Jack, Kate, and Hurley.

The surprises didn’t end there in my book. I was surprised to see the old blue van back in use and Jin wearing the Dharma uniform. I wasn’t expecting it to be Jin.

This episode may be have been a setup episode of sorts, but I thought it was pretty good on its own. I didn’t have any major issues, but I wish I knew why Kate looked so terrible when she showed up to the airport. She didn’t want any attention and just wanted to get it over with, it seemed.

Rating: 8.0