TV Review: Lost Episode 2.07

Wednesday, November 16, 2005

From ABC:  The harrowing first 48 days in the lives of the tail section survivors are revealed.

My Rating:3/4

This week's episode of Lost titled "The other 48 days" tells us just that – the other 48 days of the tail-end survivors of Oceanic Flight 815. We see how they crashed, who survived impact and we also see the group dwindled down over a period of days and two night time attacks by the others. We once again see one of the others infiltrate the group in order to help in this - much like Ethan infiltrated the first group of survivors when he took Claire and Charlie.

This show is fast paced early on in the episode. We go through the first twelve days quite quickly. We see the others come in and take three of the men that survived the plane crash. They try to take on a fourth of the men, but he fights back and kills two of the others before they are able to successfully take him too. This is Eko. The large black man that led the remainder of the survivors to the original camp of the first group of survivors. He didn't start as a mute though. This only happened after the attack of the others on the first night.

After the first night, we see the survivors dealing with their new surroundings. One more of them die, and we see the man buried. The survivors are all waiting for rescue planes. We know these will never arrive. The night of the second attack by the others nine of the tail end survivors are taken, including the children that survived. On this night, something mysterious is found, and I'm still wondering about it.

A list with the name of the survivors pops up shortly after they are taken. Full names, and no one could really know this. How did the others know the names of the people? I just had an idea pop into my mind typing this. Is this Hurley's list? I'm not sure how early on he made it, but he did have a list of all those on the plane. Could the others have somehow gotten this list from Ethan and used it? Still how would they know who was who in order to take them? We'll come back to the list in a bit!

Once they are attacked, Ana Lucia takes charge and the group moves in-land, walking three days until they find a new place to call home for the time being. They find a place, and Ana Lucia and the rest of the survivors start wondering about the list as well. Have they been infiltrated? It's possible, and they all point fingers at one man, Nathan, which is a logical choice in my mind. He even looks a bit like Ethan, and there is a similarity in names – Nathan and Ethan. However, I think we can tell he is innocent with his constant denial. The writer's wanted us to think it was him, but Ana Lucia figures out it isn't quite quickly, and her attention is drawn to another survivor, Goodwin.

After Nathan somehow manages to escape, also known as Goodwin letting him out and killing him, Ana Lucia's suspicions are confirmed, and she goes a for a little walk with Goodwin once they find a radio and the bunker. She confronts him, and she does get some information from him. She asks about the list, and he mentions those were the good people, and the children were safe and in a better place. We still don't know anything about the others. We don't know why they are taking the survivors or how they got on the island in the island in the first place. The little we do know only makes us want to know more.

Goodwin does tell Ana Lucia that Nathan wasn't on the list because he wasn't a good person. Those on the list were, and this just raises more questions. Eko was obviously on the list, and he appears quite religious. When the tailies find the other bunker, the first thing that Eko is drawn to is the bible.

Is this a good versus evil thing? This has been brought up before last season in regard to Claire's baby. This season it has even been mentioned in passing that it is possible that her baby son is the Anti-Christ. A scene in once of the recent episodes appeared very much like a nativity scene with her and Locke holding the baby over the cradle and three people coming towards them. These three people were said to symbolize the three wise men coming to them with gifts. The religious aspect seems to keep coming up. Now even more so with the list of "good people." Goodwin's name is also a bit of an oxymoron here because he isn't all that good now is he?

Once Goodwin is out of the picture, things pick up again. We see a sad scene where Ana Lucia finally breaks down and cries, and we see Eko break his silence of forty days to comfort her. Another religious reference here because forty days relates to Noah and his ark. Ana Lucia cries in his arms, and you actually feel bad for her. There has to be more in her past though to make her so tough. I hope an episode focuses on her back-story because I think this might be really interesting.

As the days progress, we finally see when the tail end survivors meet up with our three men from the front end. These days go through in fast forward until the moment we left off last week. Ana Lucia pulls the trigger and shoots, killing Shannon. We once again see the looks on the faces of everyone, and all I have to say is Ana Lucia better watch our for Sayid. If looks could kill, Ana Lucia would have been dead on the spot.

This was a good episode of Lost. However, I do have some problems with this season that I'll speak about at later point. I think it was good to see the past 48 days from another perspective, and this episode did give us some more clues about the others, but to me it only created even more questions than answers. This seems par for the course for this show, so I'm not all that surprised. I'm excited to see the group united next week. Something tells me things are going to be interesting and possibly explosive.

Don't forget if you want to discuss this show with myself and others to head on over to my Lost forum on Media Village. I have a topic for tonight's show set up here. If you missed tonight's episode, it will be available through iTunes in the morning.