Lost Re-view: Homecoming

In an interview given between the fifth and sixth seasons of Lost, co-creator Damon Lindelof stated that Homecoming was his "least favorite episode of the show ever." I think perhaps he was trying to take the heat. This isn't even the worst episode of the first season, never mind of the entire series, but it was written by Lindelof himself. It wouldn't exactly be sporting of him to bash a member of his writing staff by calling out one of their episodes the worst, right?

But I can see elements of why it must bother him so much. For one, the flashbacks here are ultimately worthless. If Lost were a novel, its editor would surely have had the author remove them.

In a sequence of about four or five scenes, the flashbacks follow Charlie about a year after the break-up of Drive Shaft. He meets a girl named Lucy, with the intention of stealing something valuable from her house to sell for drug money. But he actually likes her, and briefly tries to go straight before giving into his need for a fix.

None of this provides any new information about the character. Nor does it really reflect upon the on-Island story of the episode. A very forced line of dialogue from Lucy ("You'll never take care of anyone.") is the only thin connection we're offered. Dominic Monaghan gives a fine performance, but the only real reaction these flashbacks elicit is the knowing smile fans of The Office get when Lucy refers off-handedly to "some paper company up in Slough." Even the editors seem to recognize we're barely going skin deep this time. Until this point, nearly every episode begins with a tight close-up on the eye of the character to be featured; this episode begins pulled back, showing Charlie's entire face.

If so much of the episode is a bust, then why isn't it as bad as Damon Lindelof claims? Well, in my opinion, it's because there is a satisfying tension in the on-Island story. Claire has returned from... well, we don't know where as we watch this for the first time. And neither does she; she has amnesia of her time away. If this is a television cliché, Damon Lindelof hangs a bell on it at least by having Sayid ask of Jack how often he's actually encountered amnesia in his medical career.

Unfortunately, this means Charlie has to win Claire's trust all over again. And he doesn't start off well, withholding important information from her. Ethan re-emerges from the jungle with a threat: if Charlie doesn't see to it that Claire is returned to him, he will personally kill a survivor every day until that happens.

The stakes are exhilarating and high. And we see Ethan carry out his threat. Though Locke, Boone, and Sayid try to booby-trap and guard the camp, poor Scott (of "is it Steve or Scott?" fame) is found dead on the beach, his neck broken, along with all the bones in his arms and fingers. This psycho means business!

This menace is so effective in the storytelling, and the final confrontation with Ethan so visceral, that I found myself caught up in and entertained, even knowing exactly how it was going to end. And ultimately, it's this rush that's going to lead me to give the episode a passing grade in the end. But the fact is, once that visceral response fades and you start to really examine what's going on in this episode, holes do appear.

First of all, as a friend noted of the earlier episode in which Claire was abducted, it's never really clear why Ethan is such a homicidal maniac. There are tastes of that in some flashbacks that involve him, but he's also shown as quite tender to Claire during this exact time period, when we learn in a later season what was going on with Claire while the Others had her. And why doesn't he just take Claire himself? Why the special psychological torture in asking Charlie to do it? It's all a tough gap to bridge.

Then there's the posse that comes together to go after Ethan. Locke is wisely reluctant, noting that Ethan has the advantage. But Kate suggests an equalizer to Jack -- the four guns taken from the marshal's briefcase. Though Jack is initially reluctant to the idea of edgy people with no weapons experience roaming the jungle with guns, he ultimately agrees to recruit Locke, Sayid, and Sawyer to join him in a hunt. (And specifically shuts Charlie down, even though he wants to go.)

This is actually a neat moment of people who have had recent conflict laying that aside and working together for the good of the group. But there's a button on it that's sloppy writing. See, Kate wants to go too. And when Jack notes there are only four guns, Sawyer produces a fifth weapon that takes the same ammunition -- the one taken off the marshal himself. When last Kate held this gun, she claimed not to know how to use it. And only in flashbacks have we the audience seen this is a lie. For our Island characters, isn't Kate perceived to be exactly the sort of gun-inexperienced wild card Jack didn't want on the team?

In any case, what this posse doesn't bank on is Charlie. From a character standpoint, it's a superb and authentic piece of writing. We already know from Charlie's last episode exactly what his Achilles' Heel is. He has to feel like he has a purpose, a use. So when he's shut down by Jack, he reacts in the way he must. He follows them all into the jungle, picks up the gun that gets dropped in the brutal fist fight between Jack and Ethan (Jack wins this time, by the way), and shoots Ethan. Six times.

As I said, completely authentic from a character standpoint. Infuriating from a narrative standpoint. The posse was trying to take Ethan alive. The audience wanted them to take Ethan alive. We want answers, dammit! Charlie's execution is a too-neat device to forestall providing any. And even though Charlie makes an observation that rings true ("Do you really think he would have told us anything, Jack?"), it's still maddening. I suppose I can appreciate more the character truth being displayed here on the second viewing, because I now have the answers I was screaming for on the first viewing.

And still more evidence why I think Damon Lindelof was wrong to call this Lost's worst hour: the episode contains a handful of solid moments for other characters. Hurley delivers a brief but touching eulogy at Scott's funeral. He speaks uncertainly, but from the heart. It still shows exactly why we like Hurley, but uses him for more than comic relief -- which has been his main purpose in the series so far.

There's also a trio of really nice scenes surrounding Jin. The first occurs just after Claire wakes up for the first time after being carried back to camp. He talks to Sun and expresses a heartfelt concern not only for Claire, but specifically for her baby. (This loosely hints at his own inability to father a child.)

Second comes a scene where Charlie comes upon Jin in the jungle, and after greeting him with likely the one Korean word he knows, proceeds to tell Jin that he's very fortunate to be cut off by the language barrier. Everyone else is worrying about Monsters and Others and more, and Jin only has to worry about himself and providing for his wife.

That scene is then turned on its head when Jin is attacked by Ethan, and Sun later attends to the injury. Jin expresses the exact opposite sentiment. He was attacked because of something the other survivors did. He did nothing himself, and can do nothing to influence his fate one way or the other, because he's cut off from everyone. Though these three scenes are just a grace note on the episode, they really do a lot to humanize Jin and make you feel sympathy for him.

Yes, this episode had weak flashbacks. Yes, Ethan's character is a bit hard to track. But the tension is high, Charlie's behavior honest, and some side scenes with other characters actually quite special. So overall, despite Damon Lindelof's self-criticism, I'd rate this episode a B-.