Of all the interesting developments the episode had in it, by far the one that’s got me the most excited is the return of Claire. I didn’t really miss her that much in Season 5 but now that we’ve lost Charlotte and Juliet (and the series never did really go anywhere with the short bad-ass Sun plot of early Season 5), the series is really lacking kick-ass female characters with Kate and the criminally-underwritten/utilized Illana being the only candidates. Yet in her brief cameo, Claire certainly looks like she’s about to fill that void.
Just based on her physical appearance, it’s clear that the mundane and sweet Claire we had grown accustomed to – which sometimes made her a somewhat boring character confined to the role of a damsel-in-distress – has died and a much more interesting character has been born in her place. The uncanny parallel to the character of Danielle Rousseau makes me believe that this transformation might have something to do with the illness that struck Danielle years earlier and that Sayid has recently been diagnosed with. Interestingly, it seems the writer’s might have been planning this character connection for a while seeing as Claire’s narrative and character development is merely a reflection of Danielle’s. Both women become stranded on the island whilst pregnant, are forced to give birth whilst on the island, lose their child’s father figure (Charlie/Robert), have their child taken from them and raised by someone else (Kate/Ben), are eventually abandoned or betrayed by their fellow survivors, and ultimately must learn to survive in the jungle by themselves.
If one scene stood out in particular this episode, it was the dock scene between Sawyer and Kate. This scene accomplishes something I never thought possible in the way that it manages to both give a respectable send-off to the Sawyer/Juliet pairing while also reminding the audience of the Sawyer/Kate pairing that had been absent in much of Season 5. On paper, it shouldn't have worked - it should've come across as forced, inappropriate, and cringe-worthy. Yet thanks to the incredible acting from both Josh Holloway and Evangeline Lilly, the end result was an effective and emotionally-resonant scene that's sure to be one of the more memorable moments of the series.
It was just a really elegant scene that served a lot of purposes as it somehow managed to pay respect to the Suliet shippers, please the Skater shippers, and satisfy the non-shipper fans (in the way it seems to put the relationship-aspect of the series on the back burner). For the Sawyer/Juliet fans, this episode cleared up a lot of the doubts with their relationship as it became very evident that Sawyer truly loved Juliet and wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. For the Sawyer/Kate fans, the scene showed that while Sawyer and Kate are both emotionally unable to embark on a relationship at this point - Sawyer's grieving the loss of his potential fiance and Kate's busy trying to give Aaron the life she wants for him - there is hope for this pairing much much further down the line.
The acting from was really top-notch throughout the entire episode but none of the performers manage to shine more than Lily and Holloway. Evangeline Lilly once again proves that she's a very gifted actress, able to really deliver during the more emotionally-demanding scenes. Her scenes on the dock with Holloway are some of Lily's finest and her performance in them manage to stay with you long after the episode ends.
Yet despite the episode being Kate-centric, the real star of the episode is Josh Holloway who continues to deliver exceptional performances in every scene he's in. Without a doubt, Holloway is the one of most gifted actors on the series and the writers certainly haven't wasted his talents for a single moment this season - giving him some much darker and emotionally-heavy material to work with. Sawyer's in a very dark place this season and Holloway has really managed to convey this in the past couple of episodes.
The Bad (-) :
There seems to potentially be a major inconsistency in the Ethan storyline. In this episode, we see Ethan on the mainland – which makes sense because we know that all the women and children of the Dharma Initiative were evacuated from the island before the bomb went off. So Ethan, being born the same year as Miles, would’ve been one of the infants taken off the island along with Miles and Charlotte. However, if what Daniel said was true – that what happened happened – and Ethan, Charlotte, and Miles ALWAYS left the island, then how was Ethan back on the island in 2004 when the plane crashed in the original timeline? A lot of people just assumed that he and his mother (Amy) just defected into the Others but this seems a bit unlikely. Did they somehow return to the island after the Incident and somehow join the Others before the mass gassing of the remaining Dharma Initiative members? This seems a bit unlikely considering Miles and Charlotte never returned.
The storyline involving the Temple, while interesting, is also moving a little too slow for my liking. It has a little bit of been-here-done-that vibe as it seems to merely be a variation of the introduction-of-a-new-group storyline that’s been done every season (i.e. Season 1 – The Oceanic 815 Middle-Section Survivors; Season 2 – The Tailies; Season 3 – The Others; Season 4 – The Freighter Folk; Season 5 – The Dharma Initiative/The What-Lies-In-The-Shadow-Of-The-Statue Group). They always start out mysterious and morally ambiguous (are they good or bad?) but ultimately turn out to be relatively good (minus a select few that challenge the others in their group i.e. Danny Pickett, Martin Keamy, Phil, etc). It just feels like with so few episodes left, the series really shouldn’t be wasting so much time setting this story up. I’m also a little annoyed that we’re being introduced to even more characters when we’ve barely received proper characterization for Ilana, Richard, and Frank (ALL of whom are series regulars this season).
Also it’s a little disappointing that we didn’t get any follow-up to the Richard kidnapping and Flocke/Sun/Frank/Ilana storyline. Yet it does make me even more excited for next week – which is already an agonizing and torturous wait week-after-week.
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