Lost Re-view: Do No Harm

At last, we come to the moment teased by the Lost writers throughout the first season: the death of a main character. Promised by the show's writers... and yet this pivotal episode was written by Janet Tamaro, who never again worked on the show. Not sure what happened there. Calling the shots was regular director Stephen Williams. Interestingly, both this and his earlier episode were Jack-centric.

And speaking of Jack-centrism, it drove me more than a little nuts back in 2005 to be getting the third Jack episode in a season. In retrospect, Lost is Jack's story (if indeed it is any one person's story), so that's easier to understand. But more than that, it just makes sense for Lost's first major tale of life and death be centered around the doctor.

But before looking at the flashbacks, let me start with the on-Island story. The episode jumps right into the action, with Jack making a promise to Boone: "You are not gonna die. I'm gonna fix this. I am gonna save you." (There's a great callback to the pilot, with Hurley almost fainting -- but this time Jack snaps him out of it.)

Kate is sent on an errand to the beach, to fetch all the remaining alcohol from Sawyer's stash. It's worth noting that with a life on the line, Sawyer doesn't even consider playing games; he gives Kate everything she asks for without argument.

Back at the cave, Sun comes into her own, acting as an attending nurse. She not only assists Jack, but looks out for him. When Boone is at last somewhat stabilized, she forces Jack to step out for a moment for a break. She's then right there in the thick of it when Jack re-sets Boone's leg. (Here again, a great Hurley moment. His discomfort at hearing Boone's agony makes us all feel it more.)

Kate is rushing back to the cave, but comes upon Claire, alone in the jungle. Claire has gone into labor, but is steadfastly denying the fact. Fortunately, Jin also hears Claire's cries, and shows up on the scene. Kate dispatches him to the cave for Jack's help.

But things aren't going well for Jack. He can't find a way to fashion a needle fine enough to give Boone a blood transfusion, nor a donor with the needed A-negative blood. Sun comes to the rescue with a solution for the first problem: a sea urchin with spines fine enough for the task. Jack is forced to solve the second problem literally himself: his O-negative blood makes him a "universal donor."

He's still pouring his blood into Boone when Jin arrives with the news about Claire. Jin and Sun are forced to table their conflict long enough for her to act as interpreter. Jack cannot and will not leave Boone's side, so he tells Charlie all the information to relay to Kate so she can deliver the baby.

As all this drama unfolds, Shannon is oblivious to what has happened to her brother. She's enjoying a romantic picnic with Sayid. Setting herself up for a massive guilt trip less than 12 hours later, she tells Sayid that Boone's presence on the Island is going to make their relationship difficult.

Meanwhile, the transfusion has not worked. The blood is simply pooling in Boone's crushed leg, so Jack is ready to try a more desperate measure: amputation. Sun is horrified at the thought, and thinks Jack just won't face facts. She tells him he can't save Boone, and Jack shouts back: "Don't tell me what I can't do!" I'm sure this was a deliberate choice to have Jack echo Locke's signature line, but personally I just don't think it works. It cheapens both Jack and Locke just a bit to have them share dialogue like this without it actually meaning something specific.

Fortunately, some much better writing is going on with the Claire storyline. Her water breaks, and she panics. She won't have the baby here, and she starts to fight the delivery, much to Kate's horror. Claire is afraid the Others might have done something to the baby; she's still more afraid that it'll know somehow that she was going to give it away, that she didn't want it. Kate is just as scared simply at the prospect of having to perform the delivery under these conditions, but the two use their mutual fears to bond with one another.

Which gets us to the real meat of the episode. Yes, it's about a death. But it's also about life -- a birth. And it's the birth of Claire's child that plays a far more profound role in the overall narrative of Lost. This moment is revisited twice later in the series: first, when a time-hopping Sawyer witnesses it from just off in the jungle; later in the series finale as the "moment of awakening" for Kate and Claire.

It's a moment well worth revisiting, too. Evangeline Lilly and Emilie de Ravin both give outstanding, emotional performances. The only thing that tarnishes it for me -- slightly -- is that the later revisitings of this moment made me misremember that this scene was only about the two women. In fact, Jin and Charlie are present too, a bit off to the side. Charlie wants to charge in and do something, but Jin sagely holds him off. Their presence is a fun comic beat, but I prefer the slightly revisionist take that ignores their presence and has Kate and Claire alone for the arrival of the child they would both end up mothering.

Juxtaposed with the birth is Boone's death. Jack is about to go through with the amputation, when Boone regains consciousness and stops him. He knows he has no chance, and he releases Jack from his promise. He dies with an unfinished message for Shannon on his lips.

From there, composer Michael Giacchino takes over with a powerful piece of score for a wordless montage. Claire brings her baby to meet a happy throng on the beach, as Sayid and Shannon return from their date and Jack reveals the tragic news.

The final scene brings back dialogue as Kate approaches Jack to talk about Boone's death. But Jack isn't ready to talk, he's ready to track down John Locke and make him answer for what Jack sees as Boone's murder.

And if that were all, even despite a tiny misstep or two, this would be a grade A episode of Lost. One of the season's -- if not series' -- best. Unfortunately, it's not all. There are those Jack flashbacks to contend with.

As I said, I no longer resent focusing extra episodes on Jack as I did when this hour originally aired. And I completely see the logic of centering this flashback on Jack. The problem is, the resonance between the Island and the flashbacks simply does not work. The Island storyline is about Jack's inability to "let go." He fights against reason to save Boone, and is ultimately forced to confront a situation he can't fix.

The flashbacks, however, are about Jack's wedding. We see him trying on his tux with his best man. We hear Sarah, his wife-to-be (played sweetly by Julie Bowen, now star of Modern Family), tell a beautiful story about the car accident that threatened to leave her paralyzed, until Jack promised to "fix her," and did. We see Jack's father, Christian, come to him the night before to advise him about the writing of his vows.

It's that last scene that ham-fistedly attempts to make the flashbacks "fit." Counseling his son about his fears for the wedding, Christian tells him, "Commitment is what makes you tick, Jack. The problem is, you're just not good at letting go." Jack then takes that and crafts vows about learning to "let go," without it ever being clear what "letting go" has to do with getting married. The two concepts sound pretty antithetical to me. Even if you do buy into that notion, then the juxtaposition of the flashbacks and the Island story still fails -- Jack should have failed to learn the lesson in his past that he now is forced to confront on the Island. In other words, he probably should have left Sarah at the altar because he was unable to "let go," right?

Muddling the message even farther is an installment of the Lost "Missing Pieces" mobisodes that actually slides in during this episode. It's an extra flashback of the day before Jack's wedding, where his father gives him a watch that was given to him by his father. Matthew Fox and John Terry play the scene well, but it doesn't build on the relationship any better than the material already in this episode -- nor does it quite track with the "Jack's worried his Dad might not make it" timeline that's established here.

And come to think of it, muddled flashbacks might not be the only element bringing down this episode. It may also have been an insurmountable problem that the character they were killing off was Boone. We never really learned enough about him as a character to feel his loss ourselves, as we would later in the series for other, more powerful character deaths. We can see that the death matters to the characters, but the emotion is at a bit of a remove for the audience.

But on the strength of the Claire/Kate delivery, I'll call this episode a B+ overall. Still, I do feel like it could have been so much more.