Lost Review:
"This Place is Death" (Episode 5.05)

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When Jin floated up to Rousseau's raft on a piece of plywood, I had mixed feelings. On one rather superficial hand, its nice to see his chiseled cheekbones again. But from a critical perspective, I know that one of Lost's most effective strategies is its merciless annihilation of characters. The production crew kill em' off and don't look over their shoulders, and plot lines are completely unpredictable as a result. Hopefully the show has a deeper, plot-based reason for bringing him back on, and its not just a ratings ploy.

For good or ill, Jin is back, and last night's Lost threw us into an accelerating sea of time-jumps on the island; they're spinning around more quickly now, and nearly everyone is starting to suffer from it. We were also immersed in Kate/Sun/Jack/Ben's world, and what with the islanders' time-travel every minute-and-a-half, and the shifting story-lines, the story was (surprise!) a bit hard to follow. But c'est la vie: the directors have bitten off a huge chunk, and now they're chewing it, quickly (which makes digestion a bit of a pain) but effectively.

And a few moments of sparkling character development drew me in again last night. As Charlotte lay dying, I became convinced, once again, that Faraday is truly in love with her. I still have my suspicions that he has a cloudy character (he picked up and left Theresa after destroying her mind, after all), but I think his feelings for the lovely redhead ring true. Too true, perhaps. Will he go back in time, and "meddle" with her past to keep her alive?

I've said it before and I'll say it again, Michael Emerson's Ben is endlessly fascinating this season. He always has been a closed book (we really never knew what his motivations were), but this season I oscillate on my speculations of where Ben stands constantly. When Christian met Locke, saying, "When has trusting Ben done you any good?" I was shocked to find myself recalling that I once thought Ben was an evil, manipulative bastard. This season I've been so sucked into his (pretenses for?) helping Jack & Co. that I literally forgot about most of the shady crap he's pulled.

When he screeched the brakes of the van and screamed at Sun and Jack, "If you want to shoot me, shoot me!" I truly believed that he was a deeply maligned innocent. But he can't be, right?