LOST: Season 4, Episode 2

Here we go, fans! In this episode, we get to meet the NEW CHARACTERS for Season 4.

The biggest bombshell in this episode is that Naomi appears to have been telling the truth: Flight 815 really WAS discovered at the bottom of the ocean with all passengers on board…no survivors. (I can’t help but wonder, does that mean that Drive Shaft really did release a hugely successful Greatest Hits album after the crash? Mysteries, mysteries…)

It’s always tough to welcome new characters into an established television series, but a look at the history of Lost tells us that most of these characters will probably die soon anyway.

Take Season 2 for example. The new characters were the “tail-ies”, those passengers from the tail section of the plane. First the Aussie hostess was taken by The Others (although it turns out that she isn’t actually dead), then Ana-Lucia and Libby are shot and killed. Mr. Eko was finally killed by the Smokey Monster in Season 3, leaving sweet old Bernard as the sole survivor. Yep, new characters are doomed in the world of Lost.

In Season 3, the day-to-day lives of The Others were revealed. Remarkably, Ben and Juliette have managed to stay alive thus far, while most of the other Others have been killed by the Losties throughout Season 3 (even poor Tom, the original bearded man who took Walt and sunk the raft). Even Naomi, who parachuted onto the Island to rescue them, is dead before the Season is over.

So here we are, two episodes into Season 4 and four new characters have been introduced in a not-so-subtle way. One of them has the ability to communicate with dead people. The woman appears to be the modern, female equivalent of Indiana Jones (with a keen interest in Dharma paraphernalia and of course, Polar Bears), whilst another new guy confirms the “THEY’RE NOT IN HELL” theory by pointing out that the dead pilot at the bottom of the ocean is NOT the man who was flying the plane (he knows that the pilot always wears his wedding ring – and the dead guy in the water had no ring).

OK, we know these people are from a boat which is NOT PENNY’S BOAT, but that doesn’t mean they’re evil, does it? So far they seem like friendly folk.

Less friendly was the black guy who first made an appearance in the previous episode, harassing Hurley at the mental institution. Here we see him instructing Naomi to take these 4 new characters to the island to retrieve Ben. It seemed for a moment that Sawyer or Locke might finally kill him and put us all out of our misery…but if we weren’t squirming over Ben’s creepy mind games, it just wouldn’t be Lost.


Funniest moment: The look on John Locke and Ben’s faces when Hurley reveals that he has seen The Shack (“it’s back that way”).

Saddest moment: They go to the trouble of bringing Naomi’s body to the helicopter, only to be told that it can’t take any unnecessary weight. It would’ve been nice for SOMEONE on the island to get a decent burial.

Biggest potential screw-up: Letting Ben live. (Would somebody just pop a cap in his proverbial already?)