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Episode 21: Greatest Hits |
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Saturday, 19 May 2007 |
 We all have our weekly Lost routines. Mine starts immediately after a new episode. I usually spend from 1 to 4 hours posting in our Episode Discussion forums while at the same time doing any necessary research on clues from the show. Thursday and Friday I continue to post in the Episode Discussion topics. I usually take the weekends off, and then by Monday morning I'm greatly anticipating the new episode, and spend at least a day or two reading the spoiler sites to get all the goods for the coming show. But this week was a little different. This week, there was no anticipation. I didn't read a single spoiler, or talk to anybody about the upcoming Charlie-centric episode. The reason, mostly, is because I just don't like Charlie.
I know, I know, many of you are fans, while others loathe him. I used to like him, but now the only thing I find any interest in is his friendship with Hurley. His on-island romance with Claire has become boring. His drug-induced rockstar flashbacks have become monotonous and trite. Basically, like many of you, I'm just ready to see him die already!
So I'm a little confused right now why I liked this episode so darned much, and why, for a VERY brief second at the end, I actually didn't want Charlie to die.
The episode started off with Jack giving the group a visual demonstration of why they should trust him, and what exactly he's been doing with the information that Juliet gave him a few days ago. Low and behold Danielle has been bringing him dynamite so that they can blow up the Others when they attack (nice foreshadowing with Danielle getting the dynamite 2 episodes ago!). Shortly after this, Naomi tells Charlie that the media made a big deal about his apparent death in the plane crash, and that Drive Shaft had even released a Greatest Hits album in memory. For the rest of the episode, Charlie's flashbacks were his personal Greatest Hits, or the greatest moments in his life. I really liked this about the flashbacks. I realize that there wasn't really anything substantial that we learned from his flashbacks, but it was nice to see a change from his normal flashbacks to these.
Back on the island, Desmond tells Charlie of his most recent future flash. In it, he sees Claire and Aaron boarding a helicopter and being rescued from the island. But the shocker (or not so much a shocker actually) is that Charlie has to die to save them. No big surprise here, since the universe has been trying to kill Charlie for weeks.
Everyone seems on board with Jack's plan to blow up the Others as they go to the marked tents, but Sayid wants to take the plan a step further. Sayid wants to lead a group of people to the radio tower transmitting Danielle's distress call and turn it off so that they can use the satellite phone to contact Naomi's friends and get rescued. Juliet then reveals the news that many lost have been speculating about since last season, there is an underwater hatch and Ben uses it to ensure no signals leave the island but his own. Sayid immediately suggests that they must swim down to this station, which he believes is at the end of the cable he found on the beach in season 1. He shows blueprints of The Looking Glass he appears to have gotten from The Flame, and we get a brief glimpse of our underwater station's logo, the dharma symbol and a rabbit head (so I guess this is the Playboy Bunny Station?). Charlie volunteers to go but Jack nixes the plan citing that it's too complicated and they need to focus on the attack with the Others and nothing else. Am I the only one that's getting more and more annoyed by Jack these days? He used to be one of my favorites, but now, I'm not sure what he is. He spent so much time bitching about not wanting to be a leader, but all he seems to do is boss people around and attempt to lead them.
Sayid ends up getting his way after Carl shows up on the beach to warn them that the Other's are coming to take their women, and they're coming tonight, a day sooner than expected. Carl had been sent to warn them by Alex after she overheard her father, Ben, moving the attack up and giving some of his men permission to kill anyone that got in their way. While Alex is telling Carl what's going on she even makes a comment suggesting that she's not sure if Ben is her real father. I'm really curious what's going on between Alex and Ben and hope that we get more information on this in the future. She was definitely against him when we first met her, but when her father was undergoing and recovering from surgery she seemed more sympathetic towards him. Then, in the past few episodes she's seemed to return back to her angry and defiant attitude toward him.
After realizing that their explosives won't be wired in time, Jack authorizes the alternate plan of Sayid's and they find three shooters to shoot the explosives as the Others approach. Desmond and Charlie set off on their journey to The Looking Glass dharma station while Jack rounds up everyone else to head toward the radio tower.
As Desmond and Charlie reach the spot, just off the beach in Carl's boat, Desmond sees the pain in Charlie's eyes about his eminent death. Desmond tells Charlie that he'll go instead, and for Charlie to just hang tight in the boat. For a moment it seems as though Charlie is going to take Desmond up on his offer, but just as Desmond turns his head, Charlie smack's him in the head with an ore and says that he can't allow him to do that. Charlie dives in the water and begins his trek below. I have to admit that I saw Desmond's offer to take Charlie's place and die instead coming. But I never thought that Charlie would be the stand up guy and insist on playing his part, and dying to save Claire and Aaron. This just might be the one and only redeeming thing Charlie has done in his entire life.
After a long swim (a bit too long to be honest, but hey, this is TV remember) Charlie surfaces in the moon pool of The Looking Glass, gasping loudly and trying to catch his breath. I couldn't help myself at this point in the show and screamed to the television set, "shut you idiot!" My wife, a casual Lost watcher, looked at me as though I'd lost my mind, to which I reminded her, "do you think Ben would leave a station that important empty?" I barely finished uttering those words when two very angry looking women came bursting into the room with guns pointed on Charlie. For a brief moment I thought the blond girl was going to shoot him right then, but I remembered that Desmond saw him shutting off the stations jamming before he was overcome with water and drowned. Guess we have to wait until next week to see if that's indeed what happens. The final thought I had when watching this scene was about the second woman in this scene, towards the back. Was that Sawyer's ex-girl and baby's momma Cassidy?
Obviously, 3x21 "Greatest Hits" didn't even compare to last week's episode that revolved around Ben's history on the island as well as his power struggle with John Locke. But this Charlie-centric episode was a very good and solid episode and very perfectly sets us up for the 2 hour season finale this coming Wednesday. I feel that this was probably the best Charlie episode that we've seen since season 1. For a brief moment at the end of the episode, I actually hoped that Charlie would live to see one more day…but only one more.
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 14 August 2007 )
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