Episode Reviews

Sayid begins this week in the alterverse, getting out of a cab in front of a house in a typical suburban tropical locale. He approaches the front door with roses and is greeted with a smiling and obviously happy to see him Nadia... and her two kids and her husband. Who is also his brother.

A barefooted Lennon (Seriously? Barefoot? On cold stone floors and running around in the twigs and dirt outside? It hurts just to watch. I want to mail him some Birkenstocks.) Anyway, a barefooted Lennon runs (how does he not stub a toe or something? I wonder if he gets those tiny little cuts on the underside of his little toes. You know, the ones right in the crease where it bends over and you can't put a band aid on it?) to Dogen's... uh, office, I guess, to tell him Sayid's alive! And the fact that my mind is distracted with concern over this characters feet gives you some indication of how riveting I thought this episode was.

As the recap show winds to a close we see yet again the awful, heart-wrenching moment where Juliet gets sucked to the depths of a devastating hole and James gets sucked to the depths of sorrow and despair; their hands ripped apart, their love story crushed and ended. In her dying moments she valiantly exhausts her last bits of strength to save the man she loves and his friends, to put right what once went so horribly wrong. Some viewers weep openly, some brush back a tear. Very few are untouched by this scene. The credits roll and the words we have waited eight months are spoken: "Previously on Lost..."

This week on Lost we had a whole lot of angsty moments across the years for Sayid. What we didn't have was Locke, Desmond, a catfight, Miles, a plausible reason for Sayid's distrust of Ben, Daniel, torture, Rose & Bernard, a perspective on rural life, or any interesting kind of action for about 52 minutes.

Did you wonder what happened to the plane after the odd assortment of O6ers flashed away? In "Namaste" we learn that plus a lot of other stuff. For one thing, we now know that Frank is the best damn pilot southwest of the Hudson. Also, we find out who the baby is, that Sun is really handy with a paddle, and that Dharma jumpsuits come in a wide variety of sizes.

Sorry Everyone. Here is the much anticipated recap for the previous episode of Lost. Lafleur's Recap should be coming soon as well.

This week on Lost: Our brains reel over who is good and who is bad. Meanwhile Locke gets hurt in about 5 places -- both physically and otherwise, makes out with a mango and learns that no good deed goes uninsulted.

This week on Lost, all the adult O6ers are leaving on a jet plane, and they don't think they're ever coming home. Before they can go, Ben has to tie up a loose end, Jack goes to see his grandfather, and Kate forfeits her Mother-of-the-Year Award.

"This Place is Death" turned in a 9.0 average rating amongst SWLS viewers, making it the top rated show of the season thus far. The episode received nine perfect 10 ratings, along with seven ratings of 8 and 9 each. The lowest score given was a 7, and there was only one of those. What did viewers love so much about this episode? Turn the page to find out!

This week's episode was right back up to speed with lots of on-island action and excitement. We got to see some back story, a heart break, a couple of killings and a little bit of Locke's fibula. Off-island we stood around, drove for a while, and then stood around some more.

Speaking of off-island, we pick up at the marina, almost where we left off last time. Sun is still watching Kate yelling at Jack and Ben when her phone rings. It's her mom and her adorable little daughter calling from Korea. She tells the little girl that she met a playmate for her named Aaron. Ji Yeon just wants her mommy to come home. Sun chokes up when she tells her she'll be there soon. She hangs up before she remembers to have her mother forward her a more recent photo of Ji Yeon. She gets out of the car and, because of the yelling, is able to sneak up on the group. Before anyone else can react she cocks her gun and points it at Ben. Jack tries to calm her down but she is still incredibly angry and believes Ben was responsible for Jin's death. Ben calmly explains that that's not true since Jin is alive and Ben can prove it.

When we saw in "Because You Left" that someone wanted blood samples to prove Kate's relationship to Aaron, it raised a lot of speculation. The big three guesses were Ben, Claire's mom and Widmore. The problem with that much guessing is that when one of them turns out right, we all end up feeling like "we knew it." Even if we didn't "know" know, we think we figured it out because the thought occurred to us before it was shown. This makes what should be a big reveal end up anticlimactic. That, and the fact that it followed the extremely popular "Jughead," is probably why this episode was a bit of a letdown for me.

Last week I wrote about my views of time travel as a Lost fan, but also as a science fiction newbie. I came to the conclusion that I could live with the time travel since it was linear. I got the impression that they were going to avoid paradoxes and use it as a story telling technique. Daniel Faraday and Pierre Chang both explained that you can not go back in time and change the past which means you can not change the future. After observing 5x03 "Jughead" I believe they have achieved one of the goals, but failed on the other.

This episode title brought about a lot of curiosity. Is "Jughead" a person, place or thing? Is it the character in the Archie comics? Is it a partial shout out to a certain "moderator extraordinaire" that has a thing for feisty, green-eyed brunettes on the run? Well, now we know one thing for certain: Jughead is Da BOMB!! Um, sorry. I'm sorry. That was pretty bad, wasn't it? I... I just couldn't help myself.

As the episode fades up, we watch a couple of beers go up to the top deck of the Searcher with Frank, where the discussions about their future is being had by the O6 three years in the past. Almost everyone seems in agreement about what they need to do; even Frank. The one hold out is Hurley who really doesn't think they should lie. If they back each other up, he figures, they won't sound crazy. Sayid still thinks this is their only choice. Hurley scowls and tells him that if ever he needs his help someday, he wont give it. Flash forward to Hurley helping Sayid to safety after they were jumped in the safe house.

Sure, he can move an island, but can Benjamin Linus convince five morally opposite castaways to return to an isolated outpost of mystery and uncertainty? In 70 hours? He has to begin somewhere. In last season's finale he starts by recruiting a drug addled and guilt ridden Jack. In this past Wednesday's Season 5 opener, the two men, and the corpse of John Locke, begin a quest to convince the other Oceanic 6-ers to go baaaack to the island.

I'd love to be sitting here, telling you all my review of the first episodes of season 5 of Lost, but I am not among the lucky (or not so lucky) screeners who get to see the episode early in order to write about it. Lucky for us, we know someone who does have that privilege. If you follow the link below you can read DocArzt's review of episode 5.01 "Because You Left" & 5.02 "The Lie". Doc doesn't reveal any major plot points of the episode or spoilers, however if you are someone who avoids all spoilers no matter what, you might want to skip this article. Otherwise, give it a read. If you're like me, it'll just make you watch your clock even more over the next 22 days.

Lost 5.01 "Because You Left" & 5.02 "The Lie" - My Review by DocArzt

There was so much to talk about in the finale of Season Four that I didn't know where to begin. It wasn't a perfect episode, but all in all I really enjoyed it. So I finally decided to narrow down what I wanted to say to a list of my favorite ten scenes. You may agree with some or all of these choices, or you may think I must have watched a completely different show. After the jump, you'll see what I considered the highlights of all three parts of "There's No Place Like Home."

I figured that if Lost was going to take a break, so would I. Now Lost is back and so is the poll review. "There's No Place Like Home, Part 1" received strong reviews earning an 8.38 rating. I was surprised that this episode earned such a high mark since it did not have very much action and was more of a set up for the two hour finale. The SWLS users gave it strong marks with only one low score and 53.2% scoring it a 9 or 10. Even PointPlace gave it an extremely rare 10! Surprised by PointPlace's generosity, some members are demanding he provide a urine sample. Since most agreed with him, he was spared "the cup", for now.

This was a very exciting episode. It had so many of the classic Lost elements: Locke on a journey towards destiny, Sayid taking things into his own hands, bad guys doing bad things, Ben being creepy, Hurley with all the good lines! Not a lot of romance but they gave us a double dose of that last week, so we were all set in that department. As always they gave us a few answers and a whole lot of new questions. Many people felt that the show was choppy. It is very obvious that these post-strike episodes are making up for lost time by packing a lot of action and information into a what little time they have remaining. I am okay with this. I have been frustrated by enough episodes that seemed to drag on and on that I will now take a condensed, choppy version and I will savor every fast-paced moment of it.

More of my thoughts on this episode after the jump.

Season 4 part 2, started off with a bang, both literally and figuratively. 4x09 "The Shape Of Things To Come" got the viewers right back into the action, gave us some answers and many more questions. Lost came out of the gates with both guns blasting and a freiight train named Smokie. The SWLS users really liked this episode. An 8.4 overall rating shows a strong positive reaction to this episode. 84% of the voters gave it an 8 or higher. A user did give it a 1, but did not post a reason for that low score. Otherwise it was 6 or higher. SWLS members are very hard graders and compare Lost against it self not other shows. Many have stated that they are holding onto a 10 for the best episode ever. So an 8.4 average is a strong rating.

Last week's episode of lost, Ji Yeon, had us following Sun and Jin in an interesting flash-forward/ flash-back combination episode. We watched as Sun, screaming for Jin "Michael Style" had her baby in an obvious flash-forward as Jin ran around the city buying panda bears, breaking his cell phone, and threatening to kill cab stealers. To put it simply, while watching this episode live I was underwhelming with the plot and soap opera-ish style that never really got me excited for the whole hour. However, in hindsight I think that episode wasn't as terrible as I felt it was while watching it. For Ji Yeon, the whole was greater than the sum of its parts.

I am pretty certain that I have made mention of the fact a number of times that I love this show. I buy into it hook, line and sinker. I don't think I've ever rated an episode any lower than a 6 or 7, and this episode is no different. I've been poking around the internets looking at reviews and of course reading the opinions and thoughts of our esteemed users here at Sledgeweb, and from what I can tell, the viewers of "The Other Woman" give it a resounding "meh."  The majority of us were not blown away by this particular installment. I enjoyed it; it was an episode of Lost, after all. It wasn't my least favorite episode of the season, but it wasn't my favorite either. More of my thoughts on this episode after the jump.

If you're like me, as you prepare for tonight's installment of LOST on ABC, you're thinking back to last week's offering, "The Constant", and finding yourself still puzzling over the ramifications of that show, and how it may or may not impact the rest of the season, and future seasons of LOST. Time Travel has been a small theme in the multitude of themes in LOST since Desmond blew himself through time after turning the failsafe key in the hatch. At that time, the rules of "time travel" were loosely explained to Desmond (and us) by an enigmatic elderly shopkeep. The main rule basically being that the future cannot be significantly altered. Some sort of cosmic-will would "course correct" and make sure whatever was supposed to happen, would happen. Thus, despite Desmond's ability to foresee Charlie's multiple deaths, he was forced to give into the laws of infinity and explain to Charlie, "Your gonna die". This steadfast rule, however, seemed to be broken, or at least stretched to the limits, in "The Constant". Love it, or hate it, LOST took a Quantum Leap last week.

Last week's Sayid-centric episode, "The Economist" had quite a few nice twists and turns. The opening scene on the golf course, the Hurley-as-bait move and Elsa's romance scam switcheroo were all classic Lost to me.  By that I mean I practically jumped out of my seat from the unexpectedness of those scenes. All in all I thought it was great, with one minor exception. I could personally have done without some of the flash-forwards. I mean, I got it; they needed to show the time Sayid and Elsa were spending together and how there were feelings developing, or at least the appearance of them. I will admit that until he pulled the trigger I believed Sayid had fallen in love and would be unable to kill her. I was glad I was wrong. No, my main objection was all the kissing scenes. It was bringing back bad flashbacks of the Shannon relationship. Every time they started smooching I would begin yelling to my TV, "Get on with it! We have questions that need answering!"

I personally gave this episode a 9. I don't know if it's because I view every episode through rose-colored glasses, I just enjoy every new little bit of Lost that I can get even if I don't like (mushy) parts of it. Almost 80% of the users who voted in our poll gave this episode an 8 or above.  However, in our new Segment Episode Ratings it was evident that members of SWLS found the middle part of the episode less than stellar. As for the rest of the country, Lost placed 4th overall in the weeks Nielsen Ratings. On the one hand, that was better than it's season average, which is 9th. On the other hand, while I can understand that no show can compete with the juggernaut of the two American Idol shows, to come in just after The Moment of Truth? That hurts.

As The Beginning of the End started tonight I found myself literally sitting on the edge of my seat as I watch Hurley's old camero race from the police, crashing through this and that at every turn.  Knowing that this could be either a flash-forward or a flashback, I decided to start searching for the clues early.  I absolutely love the fact that we will now be guessing at each turn whether we are watching future or past events on Lost.  But there was no need to wonder in this first episode of season 4.  As Hurley quickly exclaims, "Don't you know who I am, I'm one of the Oceanic 6!"  Fade to black, on the screen and in my mind, as a chill ran up my back.  What did he say?  The realization that Hurley's words could only mean one thing began to sink in instantly...only 6 of our castaways will be leaving this island.  So do the others die?  Do they choose to stay on the island?  Are the forced to stay on the island?  We're barely 4 minutes into the season premiere and I already have more questions than answers!  By the end of this fantastic season 4 opener I can do nothing but sit, still on the edge of my chair, with my mouth open.  The final realization in this episode that the "Oceanic 6" left the others behind on the island, and lied about it all upon returning is something that I honestly didn't expect.  Below are my other comments and reactions on the start of season 4.