LOST: 4×02 - “Confirmed Dead”

What did I think of the follow-up episode of LOST, “The Confirmed Dead”?

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This episode was a great follow-up to the equally awesome premiere episode of last week. With a season premiere, they’re generally expected to be awesome and suck you back in, but with the second episode should pick up right from where the first episode left off and keep you going to the end of the season. This did that in spades.

Now, all week I was excited about this episode, hoping to get some answers about the Freighter Gang, (that’s what I’m calling the boatpeople) who they were and what they were doing here. Now, this season of LOST is my first to watch on a week-to-week basis, so I guess I shouldn’t have expected too much, but I did. Was I disappointed? Absolutely not. This episode answered some questions, but only gave me sooo much more, in typical LOST fashion. It was a great episode, across the board.

Like in the last episode, the titling for this episode was done in classic LOST fashion. It really summed up the viewpoints of the castaways’ state from the Freighter Gang’s point-of-view. This actually is a callback to the line in the season 3 episode, “D.O.C.,” when Naomi reveals to Hurley (whom the last episode focused a bit on, coincidentally enough) that there were no survivors on Flight 815, and that they were all dead.

This episode differed from the previous episode of LOST in the fact that it didn’t have a flash-forward into what was happening off the island. In fact, in a return to form for LOST, most of the off-island action takes place within the flashbacks of the various members of the Freighter Gang.

Each member of the Freighter Gang interests me in a different way. That’s what I think LOST does well, with introducing characters. They introduce characters that are so dang complex and so interesting that you want to learn more about as the season goes on. They did this with the survivors in the first season, the Tail survivors and Ben in the second season, the “Others” and Naomi in the third season, and now the Freighter Gang this season

What I liked with the Freighter Gang is that we met every one of them along the way and it was very progressive way to introduce each character. It flowed very nicely on screen. We got to meet the Freighter Gang just as the castaways were meeting the Freighter gang. Just a nice little thing that I noticed.

The first member of the Freighter Gang name was Daniel Faraday and we were treated to his flashback first. My initial impressions of Daniel Faraday are shaky at best. He seems to be a very . . . I don’t know. He seems to be a very erratic character, at best. I think we will have to see how far his character goes. We were not treated to much of his character’s backstory so it’s too early to say what.

I will say that I thought Jeremy Davies played Faraday’s eraticness wonderfully. You really got the sense that there was more to Faraday than meets the eye. It was very interesting, indeed. It should also be interesting to note that Mr. Faraday’s flashback had the least amount of screentime. Some people did not like Faraday, but I think the lowered screentime plus his eratic behavior intrigues me a bit. I wouldn’t be surprised to see more revealed about Mr. Faraday as the rest of these episodes go on.

The next Freighter Gangmember we were privileged (or not so privileged) to meet was Miles Straume. Many people do not like his character either, due to his tough-as-nails attitude that can be annoying at times. I actually do like this character. I think his character is very intriguing. I cannot wait to see what his character brings to the island, and to the series as a whole. In his flashback, he is introduced as a ghostbuster of sorts. But I like to think of Miles as somewhat of an ex-dirty cop, always trying to look for payment anyway he can. On the island, however, Miles is portrayed as a downright jerk and is even threatened to kill some of his other crewmembers, as well. He is seen, though, to do a lot of his exorcism work on the island, as well. His tough-as-nails nature is well played by Ken Leung, and I am excited to see more developments with his character as the season goes on.

After Miles, we are introduced to the next Freighter gangmember, Charlotte, whose full name is Charlotte Staples Lewis, obviously a throwback to the popular Narnia author, CS Lewis (LOST being famous for those literary gags with their character names). Her character is also very interesting. She was actually scheduled to be portrayed by Kristen Bell (Veronica Mars, Heroes), before she accepted the role on Heroes. But I thought Rebecca Mader did a great job portraying her, and you could kind of see a Kristen Bell vibe in the lines that are delivered by Charlotte throughout the episode.

In her flashback, Charlotte is an archaeologist, who is obviously well-versed in all languages, as she understood a Tunisian newspaper about the Flight 815 crash. They, then show her unearthing a polar bear skeleton. The polar bear skeleton also was shown wearing a Dharma collar with the Hydra symbol on it. I have to confess that this made my eyes widen. I am interested to see where this goes.

The final Freighter Gangmember that is introduced in this episode is Frank Lapidus. Frank Lapidus’ flashback was the most interesting, actually. It made my eyes widen the most, among the different Freighter flashbacks we were treated to in this episode. I think it revealed the most about things outside the passengers that happened, pre-flight. For one, it was revealed that the pilot’s (who died in the pilot episode, if you recall) name was Seth Norris. I think that was real cool that 4 seasons after his death, we finally got to hear his name revealed. I think this is definitely a good omen for LOST, as we all know that the show has 2 seasons after this. With this reveal, you could definitely tell that the writers are building towards an end by spilling all their beans. Another great reveal with Frank’s flashback was that he was originally supposed to pilot Flight 815. Why didn’t he, then? What caused him to back out of piloting 815? Very interesting answers that I’m sure we’ll get answers too before this season ends.

Now what surprised with all the flashbacks in this was the appearance of Matthew Abaddon. Now, in my review of the premiere episode, I thought that Abaddon was connected to the Freighter gang. It seems that I was right. I have one additional theory about Abaddon that I would like to pitch. In an episode of LOST, we learned that it was believed that the crew of Flight 815 was believed to be dead. This episode furthered that theory, as it began with a undersea rover scanning the wreckage of Flight 815, which mostly all the Freighter gangmembers were privy to. I believe Abaddon is part of an organization to keep what happened to 815 a secret. I also believe that organization has been the one Ben foretold of in last year’s finale. If you notice in Abaddon’s flashback, he was pretty adamant that there were NO survivors of Flight 815.

Another thing that this flashback had was the appearance of Naomi. I think Naomi was supposed to be very instrumental in the Freighter Gang’s mission being a success. Not only did Mr. Abaddon say as much, but I believe it was no coincidence that Naomi was the first to land on the island, and then the chopper with Faraday and crew came second. So, now that Naomi is dead, will that change? Will a battle royale ensue between the remaining 815 survivors, the remaining “others”, and the Freighter gang ensue? It will be very interesting to see if it does.

One thing that strikes me about the Freighter Gang, as to why Faraday, Straum, Lapidus, and Lewis were chosen for this particular mission regarding the island. I think they were all connected to Flight 815, as they all seemed to be listening, watching, or reading about footage from Flight 815. I think they are more interweaved to this mission than any of them could’ve realized. I also think that all four of these people have qualities that got them noticed by this organization interested in the island.

Now, as much as the episode revolved around the Freighter Gang, there was more to this episode than just them. As awesome and intriguing as they were. This episode, as I said earlier, flowed very well. Not only with the revelation and the introduction of the Freighter Gangmembers, but with how the story unfolded with the divided castaways.

I thought the 815 castaways being split up at the beginning of the season was a great storytelling move. I believe it enhances the characters and allows us to focus on tighter character storylines and still keep a broad scope on what is happening on the island.

Another thing that this episode highlighted was the acting talent of Michael Emerson as Benjamin Linus. Unlike in the last episode, where Miles was essentially a punching bag for everybody, and nothing more than a rag doll. While Ben was seen being punched and thrown around a lot, it was mostly because he was returning to his manipulative self. I really liked Ben in this episode.

Something else that was also in full-force in this episode was the return of the LOST triangles. I think the triangles in this show are really well-played out. Even though we did not see Sawyer with Kate in the episode, we really did see the personal implications of his decision to leave Kate by deciding to stay on the island. We also got to see the Juliet-Jack-Kate triangle played out a little bit, as it was obvious that Kate did not like that Jack clued in Juliet to his “secret plan.”

One thing I would like to say about the character of jack was that he really seemed to be an awesome leader in this episode. That is one thing that always struck me about the character of Jack is that he seems to be a very natural leader. I loved seeing him in this capacity. It very much reminded me of season 1 Jack, when he first arrived on the island. The twist with all the guns on Miles was very nice and made me smile.

Like I said, and like with most Lost episodes, this episode answered more and more questions while giving us more answers. One answer that it gave us was the reason that the Freighter Gang are on the island. Miles revealed at the end of the episode that what they were actually searching for was the location of Benjamin Linus. This obviously raises more questions about Ben. What has been doing off-island that is raising such questions from the organization that sent the Freighter Gang.

In turn, a last-minute twist that was revealed by Ben, was the full names of the Freighter Gang. He also revealed that he knew this because he admitted that he had a spy aboard the Freighter. Now, you’re obviously reading this review, hoping to gleam who I think the Ben’s freighter spy is. I honestly believe that the Freighter spy is Michael Dawson, the loving father, who left the island on a boat. In the opening credits of the episode, you obviously see Harold Perrineau as a regular cast member. I don’t think that this was not done on accident, and believe that Michael will be making a dramatic return to the series in the near future.

This episode was written by Brian K. Vaughn and Drew Goddard. I am a fan of both these writers, in the other work that they have done. I became a fan of Mr. Vaughn’s through his work on the Buffy season 8 comic and after which started to watch LOST and started to admire his great writing style, as LOST has a similar story format to a comic book. Also, writing this episode was Drew Goddard, whose work I was introduced to in watching episodes of Buffy and Angel. I thought combined they turned in a great episode, mixing the flashbacks and the various current island stories flawlessly. Together, they have turned in one of my favorite episodes of the series, “The Man Behind The Curtain.”

In conclusion, this episode was a wonderful one to watch. It continued to move the season in a nice forward direction. Not only did it do that, but is exploring the fourth season’s rich mythology nicely. Although this episode did give us a break from the deeper, darker mythology of the post-island flash-forwards and the Oceanic Six, it did continue to explore one of the other deeper mysteries of the series: the intents of the Freighter Gang.

I, for one, enjoyed this episode, and thought it did help us understand the Freighter Gang’s intents. I am excited to see what the presence of the Freighter Gang does for the season, and for the series as a whole. Like I said, LOST does its characters inductions really well. Time will tell whether the introduction of these characters will be be detrimental or beneficial to the development of the series.

RATING: 9/10

This entry was posted on 15. April 2008 at 19:21 and is filed under LOST Reviews, Tv Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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