Locke Pulled a Gilligan!
Surely I'm not the only one who flashed on
Gilligan's Island at the end of this week's
Lost, after Locke inadvertently caused the farmhouse/communications hub to go boom when he typed the numbers "77" into the chess-game computer. As Sayid moaned, channeling the Captain: "Now look what you've done, Locke." (Another fine mess?) There goes our communications link with the outside world. Now we'll
never find our way home. If the soundtrack at that moment had bleated a comical wah-wah-wah, it would have been perfect.
Not that I didn't enjoy the episode. On the contrary.
Lost continues its post-hiatus rehabilitation (in quality if not in ratings) with another strong episode, albeit not a work of art like last week's Hurley joyride. (If you didn't like that episode, what in the world are you doing watching
Lost?) The Sayid flashback, a parable about the quality of mercy in a world tainted by torture, provided solid counterpoint to the taut suspense of Sayid, Kate and Locke's eventful yet frustrating encounter with Mikhail Bakunin.
There I sat, foolishly taking notes like any self-respecting
Lost fan/critic, figuring I might actually be getting some useful info from "the last living member of the Dharma Initiative." Except, of course, he wasn't. "He is one of
them," Sayid told Kate shortly before the smackdown started. While Locke played chess on the computer! (Didn't his time in the hatch tell him how treacherous computers are on this island?)
Still, we did get a better sense of how things were meant to work, if the hatch explosion hadn't apparently knocked all communications offline, including an underwater beacon to help guide submarines to the island. I yelped with happy surprise when Locke beat the computer at chess, triggering a manual override in which the Man from Dharma appeared on screen to give codes for mainland communication and sonar access. Tough luck it was all inoperable, and that Locke felt compelled to "enter 77" (the episode title) to signal the incursion of hostiles. Not the smartest move when the entire farmhouse was wired with C4. (And what of the horses and cows? Did they survive the explosion?)
Regardless, nice job from Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse to move the story forward and to give our heroes an upper hand, at least for now, over one of
them. On to the barracks, and on to find and maybe even rescue Jack.
And can I just say that I hope the next week in the life of the islanders goes by quickly, because what fun will it be if Sawyer can't nickname anyone? I liked the playfulness of the ping-pong match, bringing a little comic relief into a show that could use it. And who didn't laugh when Sawyer looked at Kiele Sanchez (whose name, we're told, is Nikki, and who has already signed for ABC's
Football Wives pilot) and barked, "Who the hell are you?" Good question. To say that she and Rodrigo ("Zorro") Santoro (aka Paulo) have made less than zero impression so far this season is to be kind. I hope they've enjoyed their Hawaii vacation this year.
