TGLR - SEASON ONE - EPISODES 7, 8, 9

[fernandito]

Episode #7 - "The Moth"
Charlie is suffering from withdrawal and asks Locke for his heroin, and Locke says that he will return the drugs the third time Charlie asks. Charlie risks his life to rescue Jack after he is trapped in a cave-in. Flashbacks show Charlie and his brother Liam leading their band DriveSHAFT and, eventually, Liam getting Charlie hooked on heroin. Years later, Charlie visits Liam's house in Australia and wants him to rejoin DriveSHAFT for their comeback tour but a clean Liam refuses. Charlie eventually asks Locke for his heroin for the third time, but only in order to destroy it.

Episode #8 - Confidence Man
Sawyer is suspected of having Shannon's inhaler when she has an asthma attack. Sayid tortures Sawyer, who reveals to Kate that he does not have them. Kate reads a letter that Sawyer always carries around, which reveals that "Sawyer" is an alias. When Sawyer was a child, a man known as Sawyer conned and slept with his mother, who was killed by young Sawyer's father in a murder-suicide. Young Sawyer vowed, in the letter, to give the letter to the original Sawyer before exacting revenge. Later, he became a con-man himself and took the name of the original Sawyer. In flashbacks, Sawyer tries to con a husband and wife, but gives up when he discovers that they have a son. Sayid sets off to explore the island's shoreline in self-imposed isolation, needing time to come to terms with his actions in torturing Sawyer.

Episode #9 - "Solitary"
Sayid finds a cable running out of the ocean and into the jungle. While following it, he is caught in a trap and captured by Rousseau, the woman who sent out the distress signal. Rousseau tells Sayid she was part of a science team, and that they crashed on the island sixteen years ago. She identifies a group of island inhabitants she calls the "Others" as the carriers of a sickness that her companions caught, and says that the Others whisper in the jungle. Sayid escapes and while trying to find his way back to camp, Sayid hears the whispering she told him about. In flashbacks, Sayid is tasked with torturing a prisoner named Nadia, who was a childhood friend. Sayid's superior tells him to execute Nadia, but instead he helps her escape.

[Darkthoughts]

:excited: I've cheated, I watched The Moth and Confidence Man already :lol: What, I was off work sick and I got bored!

[fernandito]

:lol:

The Moth is not only one of my favorite LOST episodes, it's one of my favorite episodes from any television series, ever. Locke's speech to Charlie about how he would be doing the moth a disservice by helping him break free from his cocoon is incredible, it gives me chills just thinking about it. A great, great episode and a poster boy for LOST's great character development.

[Darkthoughts]

Yes, I really enjoyed it on the rewatch. It's funny actually because some of the eps that were my favourites, like Walkabout, Confidence Man and What Kate Did, didn't have the same impact when I rewatched them because I knew what was going to happen. I don't mean I didn't enjoy them, but for instance with What Kate Did I remember being really excited all week when I knew that ep was coming up :lol:

Back to The Moth though, Locke and Charlie pawn that whole episode...but...best dialogue award goes to Charlie and Kate:

Charlie hands Kate her top

Kate: It was full of bees.

Charlie: I would have thought C's actually...


The Lostpedia entry for The Moth has some great trivia and points of interest, including a comparison between Charlie and Liam with Eddie and Henry Dean: http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/The_Moth

[Ricky]

Listening to Michael Giacchino's score for the finale of season 4 makes me realize how much I miss LOST.

[Darkthoughts]

Best line from Confidence Man has got to be Hurley - "That was like a ...Jedi moment!" :D

I like how the first season keeps you really undecided about Locke. In The Moth he comes across as very kind and spiritual, the way he helps Jack, but in CM we see his worst side where he tries to get Sayid to blame Sawyer for knocking him out and even gives him a knife.

Incase you're interested, here's a transcript of what the whispers Sayid hears in the jungle in Solitary are saying:

Male Voice- "Just let him get out of here"
Male Voice- "He's seen too much already"
Male Voice- "What if he tells?"
Female Voice - "Could just speak to him"
Male Voice- "No"

[fernandito]

Nice ! Thanks for posting that transcript , Lisa.

One of my favorite quotes from Solitary is

"This is not a game , Nadia."
"Yet you keep playing it Sayid."

[Darkthoughts]

Niiice! Like how you go for the meaningful quote and I go for Hurley pop culture...shallow Lis, shallow! :lol:

[fernandito]

:lol: Hey, to each our own right ?!

That reminds me, I forgot to post this in the first thread, but one of my favorite Charlie quotes is

(Kate asks Charlie to help her look for Jack after barely escaping Smokie) "Go back ? Kate, there's a certain gargantuan quality about this whole thing" :rofl:

[Darkthoughts]

:lol: Anything Charlie says is naturally awesome :D

I can't wait until Mr Eko makes an appearance, I've missed you twitching your eyebrows at me :lol:

[DoctorDodge]

Ok, thoughts are overdue, but i'm finally up to speed. Here's my thoughts on eps 7, 8 and 9:

The Moth
The "junkie going through cold turkey hell before kicking drugs" story has kinda been done to death, but in Lost it's done in a way that's interesting to watch and never seems too melodramatic. Feev pointed out just how awesome Locke's speeches and testing of Charlie is, and I have to agree with him here. To me, Locke is the biggest reason why I love watching this show: when he's the side character of the ep, he helps people go through major realisations in the most subtle ways, and when he's the main character, we discover he's more fucked up back home than anyone else.
But back to Charlie. I think his flashback story of "rock band ruined by drugs" is a little bit basic, considering that all the great rock bands practically thrived on the success of their reported excess more than their music (Lemmy, Slash, Keith Richards, all are proof that being a rock star makes you invincible, or at least proof that the living dead do exist, and they were made to be rock gods. Hell, that's a great idea for a comedy comic there! Sorry, back to my review). But, then again, Driveshaft are never really shown to have anything more than moderate success imo, a band that had just made it big before it all came crashing down around them, so as a dramatic story it's not so bad. The ending of Charlie making his choice and contrasting his major step in development with the final shot of the moth was a nice touch. I found this overall to be a decent episode, but not a great one.

Confidence Man
In which we find out just how much of a bastard Sawyer really is! Flashback wise, i liked this one a lot. Mainly because, you know, it's the amoral bastard's flashback, who at this point is the 2nd most interesting character in the show (normally, the amoral bastard is the most interesting character in most shows, however, Sawyer's in the same show as Locke, so he loses 1st place here). The main island story wasn't quite so interesting, at least the story involving Shannon's inhaler, as it was kinda predictable that Sawyer was just being an arsehole about it because he "wants to be hated". The letter parts I liked though, as not only did they finally reveal crucial backstory about Sawyer, but also made you believe you had worked out the ending of the flashback long before it had finished, so when Sawyer decided to do the right thing in his life for once when he saw the kid, it came as a very nice surprise. Also, there's nothing cooler than an amoral bastard with a vengeance story! Another decent ep that was great at the flashback stuff but a little bit predictable in other parts.

Solitary
And finally, we have Rousseau in the show! Plotwise, this is a fantastic ep: exploring Sayid's past as torturor, revealing a classic doomed love story (i'm a sucker for those, especially when it's done right), and, of course, the first mention of "the Others"! What could possibly be the best part out of all of this?
Actually, none of the above. I think I love this episode mostly for Hurley, because out of all of them, he's rapidly becoming the guy with the most common sense of the group. Whilst everyone's working out how to save lives in the long term and how to work as a unit, Hurley's the one who realises that every once in a while everyone, including the hero doctor, needs a sodding break from all of that, even if it's just doing something as simple as playing golf. It's a small moment for Hurley, but one i've enjoyed in the re-watch because it's the first sign that's there's much more to him than just being the useless fat guy, and it's a trait that continues to develop as the series goes on. In fact, for being the guy who comes up with the best ideas from sheer common sense, he probably gets first place in my list of personal favourite characters in the show. Well, not just the common sense: the fact that he says the geeky shit that we all think whilst watching the show certainly helps! :D

[Darkthoughts]

Yes, I loved how they made Hurley the fan's voice :D

But now, knowing the end it almost seems obvious that Hurley is the perfect candidate, he's such a humanitarian and wants to connect with everyone on a personal level. It's like that ep where he tells Jack his bedside manner sucks and I thought, yeah!! That's the difference, Jack wants to make the situation right, Hurley wants to make the individual feel right about the situation.

[DoctorDodge]

Couldn't have put it better myself! Hurley was always one of my favourite characters, especially after the episode Numbers, but when The End came i thought, regarding his role as the new leader, "You know what? That makes perfect sense." I think the main reason he was never seen as a leader was just because he wasn't interested in being seen as a leader, just the guy you could hang out with and improve your life in the tiniest ways, which were usually the most significant. The ep in season 3 where he convinces Charlie to risk his life getting a broken down van to work is definitely my favourite example of this: with a simple dare and an aim to make something work, he got Charlie out of his depression about facing his mortality. That's why Hurley's such a brilliant character: unlike so many others, he's the guy who aims for a simple life as nobody important, and yet he's also the one who's most likely to improve everyone's mood.

[fernandito]

In regards to Hurley ...

I agree, assigning him as the eventual leader of the island was a genius move on behalf of Darlton. Like Ben said "You do what you do best Hugo, take care of people.". That's one of the primordial jobs of being an island protector.