5x04, "The Little Prince"

*JIN! And here I thought if he survived we'd have to wait all season to see him again. His hanging out with Young Danielle will certainly be interesting, but I'll get back to that in a second.

*I have to admit, prior to that reveal the episode felt... off somehow. It was a lot of interesting stuff that I'm sure really cohered:

-Sawyer sees Kate helping Claire give birth and suddenly accepts his inability ot change he past? Not quite sure I buy it, but I think it's meant to to sort of remind him why he loved her in the first place, a last memory to keep before he starts shacking up with Juliet. I mean it's pretty clear that's where they're going, yes?

-Someone is stalking Kate... and it's exactly who we thought the entire time. Who else could it be but Ben. He, once more, worked everything perfectly and other than Hurley everyone's at the same place at the same time, ready to be rounded up and go return to the Island. The swerve of "It's Claire's Mom!" was interesting, but also predictable as a swerve.

-The missing camp and the mysteriously appearing canoes.

I think what's bothering me is LOST had such a great formula, one that guaranteed at least some attempt at giving each episode a character arc. The new format presents a host of opportunities, but I still feel like we're just trying to get from one plot point to another without any grounding in what made the show great, the character-centric episodes that seemed both intimate and epic all at once. Now it's just all epic.

*Interesting exchange between Sawyer and Locke. I have to rewatch it but what's interesting is how the Left Behind are beginning to realize their timeshifting is an opportunity to gain perspective on their past in a new light. I wish the episode was entirely about this. The makings of a joint Locke/Sawyer centric episode were there.

*Oddly enough though the episode really was Aaron-centric:
-On the Searcher, Kate decides to keep Aaron
-Ben makes Kate think someone is trying to take him from her so he can reunite her with the O6
-We see his birth
-He's sort of a pawn of Sun
What's so odd about this is that things seem to almost happen around the "-centric" than the "-centric" serving as the instigator of the action.

*I can't help but be disturbed that Ben's evil lawyer was the cool dad from My So-Called Life:


*Sledgeweb, of course is on top of the "Little Prince" references from the episode, all leading into the big reveal:

*DANIELLE! I wish they hid it a little more as anytime someone says something is French on LOST you almost always have to connect it to Danielle, long known as simply, "The French Woman." What was really nice was making reference to Montand who Danielle in the Season 1 Finale says lost his arm in a region of the Island she called "The Dark Territory." Might we see Danielle and her crew succumb to the sickness? Might we even see a young Ben kidnap a newborn Alex?

*Ajira Airways is going to be a big part of LOST. It was first reference in a quick shot of the logo in a music video by "The Fray" that was also a Season 5 promo piece. A very well done site was soon found for the company. (Lostpedia has all the site's easter eggs.) Might Ajira be the way the Oceanic 6 return to the Island?

NEXT WEEK: The ominously titled, "This Place is Death."