"When I was little, living here, there was this man, crazy man, and hereally scared me. And he told me that I had to leave the island and
never ever come back. He told me that if I came back, I would die."
-- Charlotte (Rebecca Mader)
Spoilers. Superficially a great episode, but the usually sharp level of excitement that accompanied its reveals felt blunter than usual. A lot of it was vaguely predictable or mildly disappointing, really. As we discovered at the end of "The Little Prince", Jin (Daniel Dae Kim) survived the freighter's destruction and has been jumping around in time on the resulting wreckage for the past four episodes...
Jin's rescued from his watery fate by a young Danielle Rousseau and her shipwrecked French science team, who are planning to find a radio tower that's been broadcasting The Numbers (4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42, remember?) Jin agrees to lead them there, before returning to his own beach camp. However, while strolling through the jungle, the team are attacked by the Smoke Monster -- apparently because they've strayed too close to the ruins of a Temple covered in strange hieroglyphs. One of their team is pulled beneath said building's foundations (ripping his arm off in the process), before another white-flash transports Jin to a future date -- where he witnesses Rousseau shooting a colleague dead on the beach, apparently paranoid about his identity.
It's not long before Jin is reacquainted with his friends after another jump -- who stumble upon him on their way to the Orchid Station, where Locke (Terry O'Quinn) thinks he'll be able to stop the time-shifts before anyone dies from the effect the displacement is having on their body clocks....
Off-island, in the future, Ben (Michael Emerson) is still trying to persuade Kate (Evangeline Lilly) and Sayid (Naveen Andrews) to join Jack (Matthew Fox) in returning to the island. Sun (Yunjin Kim) has arrived with Aaron at their dockyard rendezvous, intending to shoot Ben (whom she ultimately blames for her husband's death), but she's prevented from doing so when Ben insists Jin isn't dead. Sayid and Kate quickly leave, adamant they'll never return to the island, forcing Ben and Jack to take Sun to a woman who can prove Jin's still alive.
"This Place Is Death" is one of those episodes where several exciting and important events happen, but their impact is deadened because they're hung on a choppy storyline. This episode crammed a lot of Rousseau's back-story into a scant fifteen minutes (thanks to the narrative short-cut time-jumps provide) -- meaning questions raised way back in season 1 weren't explored at a satisfactory pace. I would have preferred an old-school flashback, or a whole episode in Jin and Rousseau's company, really.There were welcome nods for fans steeped in Rousseau lore (the musical box on the beach, an explanation for how a shipmate lost his arm), but The Sickness itself is still maddeningly vague. All we know for sure is that Danielle became extremely paranoid about her crew's identity or sanity after they first encountered Smokey, and started running around shooting them dead. A justificable reaction? We don't know enough to be sure. I hope this isn't the last we've seen of young Rousseau, as these events felt too contracted. Still, it was interesting to learn that Smokey guards The Temple and resides beneath its foundations -- but what is it guarding, exactly? Also interesting to note the Temple's hieroglyph's are similar to those scratched into Ben's underground door in season 4, and on The Hatch's countdown clock in season 2. We're clearly being primed to discover more about the island's beginnings -- knowledge that will explain the four-toed statue, hopefully.
This episode also delivered a surprisingly early end for Locke's mission to stop the time-shifts, as his group find the Orchid station (only for it to vanish when they jump back in time again.) Fortunately, terminally ill Charlotte (Rebecca Mader) has cryptically told them to look for a well in such a circumstance, before she's left behind in the jungle to be tended to by Daniel (Jeremy Davies). Alone together, Charlotte reveals to Daniel how she spent her childhood living on the island, but moved away and was chastized for even mentioning the place to her mother, so she's spent her adult life trying to corroborate her old memories. Above all, she remembers a scary man warning her never to return to the island, or face certain death... and she now realizes that man was Daniel!
Locke's group locate the well Charlotte mentioned, and Locke prepares to be lowered down inside by rope -- after promising Jin that he won't force Sun to return to the island with the others, and will keep his survival a secret to prevent her wanting to return. Another time-jump coincides with Locke's descent down the well, causing the well to vanish from existence and Locke to fall into an underground cave -- breaking his leg. Injured underground, Locke is astonished to find the spectral Christian (John Terry) come to his aide with a flaming torch, but only to guide him towards a chamber containing the frozen donkey wheel Ben turned to displace the island in time. In agony, Locke pushes the juddering wheel back into its original position -- causing one final temporal flash...In the closing scenes, Sun arrives with Jack and Ben at a church to see Ms. Hawking (Fionnula Flanagan), joined by Desmond -- who has been sent by Widmore to find Daniel's mother (news of which seems to intrigue Ben, whose expression suggests he didn't know Ms. Hawking was related to Daniel Faraday.) Inside, Ms. Hawking doesn't appear to be too perturbed by the fact Ben has only managed to find two of the Oceanix Six willing to return to the island before the 72-hour window closes, which seems rather odd. We've been led to believe it's imperative all the losties return to the island, but it's now feasible to slowly replenish the island a few people at a time?
Basically, the events and knowledge attained during "This Place Is Death" were enjoyable and important in isolation, but it didn't hold together particularly well. The Jin/Rousseau opening could have been a collection of deleted scenes on a DVD, it was so extraneous. I'm also surprised the time-jumps appear to have been stopped without further exploration of the island's history a la Jughead -- but slightly glad, too, as the continual jumps were becoming irritating. But hopefully the losties won't have been returned to the present-day, but instead find themselves stuck in an interesting period of the island's history -- most likely at the height of DHARMA's existence.
The emotional moments between Charlotte and Daniel were handled very well by the actors, although it's annoying that Charlotte has proven to be largely useless and wasted since her season 4 introduction -- a la Anna Lucia. I have no doubt that Daniel will meet Charlotte as a little girl in a future episode (to warn her, futiley, never to return to the island after she leaves), but it certainly won't require Rebecca Mader in the role. I hope the identity of her parents is a nice surprise, too -- as I'm currently racking my brain trying to remember anyone with red hair who could be a prime suspect!
Again, the off-island storyline wasn't anywhere near as exciting or involving as the hijinks on the island, although it's nice to be reminded how well the Jin/Sun relationship works -- even when the pair are separated by time and location. Desmond/Penny get a lot of attention over the Kate/Jack/Sawyer love-triangle, but it's easy to forget that Yunjin Kim and Daniel Dae Kim have created a believable, touching romance of their own that's often overlooked or taken for granted.
A problematic episode in terms of telling a smooth narrative, but "This Place Is Death"'s lurching storyline still contained several memorable sequences and essential information regarding the mytharc.
Questions!
- Why does the Smoke Monster attack the science team?
- Why is the French expedition so well armed and carrying musical instruments?
- What happened to Robert, Brennan, Lacombe and Montand at the Temple when Jin jumped into the future?
- Who are Charlotte's parents?
- Does Desmond recognize Ms. Hawking as the woman who guided him through a timeslip adventure in "Flashes Before Your Eyes"?
- How does Robert know that the Monster is protecting the Temple, and why is it protecting that building?
- What has Ben done to keep the Oceanic Six safe, exactly? And safe from whom?
- Why was Locke specifically supposed to move the Island, rather than Ben?
15 February 2009
Sky1, 9pm
Writers: Edward Kitsis & Adam Horowitz
Director: Paul A. Edwards
Cast: Josh Holloway (Sawyer), Henry Ian Cusick (Desmond), Naveen Andrews (Sayid), Matthew Fox (Jack), Elizabeth Mitchell (Juliet), Michael Emerson (Ben), Yunjin Kim (Sun), Evangeline Lilly (Kate), Ken Leung (Miles), Rebecca Mader (Charlotte), Jeremy Davies (Daniel), Terry O'Quinn (Locke), Daniel Dae Kim (Jin), John Terry (Christian Shephard) & Fionnula Flanagan (Eloise Hawking)
