Lost: Catch-22 Image
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Mania Grade: B
Episode: Catch-22
Stars: Evangeline Lilly, Josh Holloway, Mathew Fox, Michael Emerson, Elizabeth Mitchell
Created By: JJ Abrams, Damon Lindelof

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"Lost: Catch-22"

What we have here is a mostly filler episode.  I say mostly because the end of the episode ties into Desmond’s story arc, and to a cliffhanger from season two that we’re finally getting back too.  These are the kinds of filler episodes that LOST needs, the kind that further develop the most interesting characters from the series.  Other than the core cast, Desmond and Juliet are the two characters I find most intriguing, so when Charlie gets the cool death scene at the beginning and then Desmond’s flashback begins I hope we were in for something interesting. 

The flashback does a good job of further defining Desmond and his motivations.  While he’s a slacker and a drunk most of the time, he realizes that there’s something more for him, something he interprets as a “calling” in this flashback.  So, he ditches his long time girlfriend a week before their wedding and joins a monastery.  The leader of the monastery welcomes Desmond as a full member of the monastery after a month long vow of silence.  That’s the thing about Desmond though, the minute he succeeds at a test his situation almost always becomes tragic.  After a visit from his ex-girlfriend’s brother, ending with a punch in the face, Desmond visits her.  That visit ends with Desmond getting drunk on the monastery’s prized and very expensive means of income.  So, of course Desmond is kicked out of the monastery.  The leader of the monastery believes that Desmond has an important destiny, and it stretches beyond just being a monk.  Desmond gets a ride from the monastery from Penny, his future love.  Desmond’s dedication and ability to put himself through tests like the vow of silence defines why he was able to spend so much time in the hatch pressing that button. 

Another side of Desmond we’ve seen time and time again is his willingness to sacrifice himself for others.  Just on the island we’ve seen him save Charlie’s life over and over again.  This leads us to Desmond’s newest vision.  In the vision, we see Desmond, Charlie, Hurley, and Jin travel to the other side of the beach where Jin and Hurley show Desmond the cable running off the beach and into the ocean.  Then a montage of shots that include a blinking light in a night sky and Charlie’s death at the hands of one of Rousseau’s traps.  Desmond convinces Hurley, Charlie, and Jin to go across the island and check out the cable.  He tells Charlie and Hurley that they all have to go because that’s how it worked in the vision.  Through the limited amount of information that Desmond shares with them, they conclude that someone is coming to the island to save them, which may not be the case at all.  Desmond believes that Penny is coming to the island and all that matters to him is that he sees her again, even at the cost of Charlie’s life.  He justifies this in his mind because he has come to believe that he can’t save Charlie.  No matter how many times he saves him things keep happening that lead to Charlie’s death.  One thing I find really interesting is Jin’s eagerness to go.  As far as the group knows, they’ve just convinced him to go because they feel they were able to get across to him that they are going camping.  Little do they know that he speaks English just fine and understands everything they are saying.  Jin gets one of the funniest moments in the episode when he tells a ghost story in Korean and he still manages to scare Hurley who has no clue what Jin is saying.  Jin knows everything that’s going on around him while everyone, including his wife, believes he knows very little.  I really want this to come out at some point.  I’m interested to see how the castaways will react when they learn that he’s spoken perfect English the whole time. 

This whole vision and quest the group is on is nothing more than another test for Desmond.  When things begin happening as he saw them the first thing he does is try to change things, try to rearrange the series of events hoping to avoid the trap that is waiting for Charlie to no avail.  The group sees, or hears rather a helicopter and what they believe is a crash in the ocean.  I question whether the helicopter actually crashed because it didn’t make a whole of noise when it went down.  Someone did parachute out of it though.  In Desmond’s vision, he sees the group searching for this person that he believes to be Penny the next morning when they come across the trap that kills Charlie.  So, Desmond wants to leave on the search right away, in the middle of the night, but no one, especially Charlie is agreeable to that.  The next day when they do go on the search Desmond saves Charlie from being killed by the trap.  He believes that if he saves Charlie then Penny may die, but he does it anyway because that’s what he’s always done.  In the end he couldn’t sacrifice Charlie for his own happiness.  The person they find is still alive though, but it’s not Penny.  It’s a young woman who’s carrying a copy of the picture that Desmond has of him and Penny and she knows Desmond on sight.  What’s interesting here is the picture she carries was stuffed inside a copy of Catch-22 in Portuguese.  If you remember the cliffhanger last season featured a couple of Portuguese men at a monitoring station discovering the pulse set off on the island and calling Penny.  So, this new mystery woman appears to be tied directly to Penny and her search for Desmond.  Is this woman part of a rescue party sent out by Penny and why would she assume that the pulse her people discovered would be linked to Desmond?  This new woman’s appearance asks so many questions and offers a ton of possibilities.  As I mentioned back at the beginning, I’m glad to finally see that cliffhanger being referenced in the series. 

Did you wonder why Sawyer wasn’t a part of the camping trip?  I did at first, or maybe I just wanted him to go.  I can’t get enough of him and Hurley together.  Sawyer got the other funny scene in this episode when he passes Jack and Juliet he asks them if they are arguing over “who’s your favorite other”.  As to why Sawyer wasn’t on the camping trip, well because he had to play ping pong with Jack and have sex with Kate again obviously.  It seems that Kate had decided that she actually prefers Jack to Sawyer, which leads to something we haven’t seen very much from Kate before, girlish flirting.  Kate’s usually surly or tough, but she has a scene with Jack where she’s flirting with him and he’s basically giving her the cold shoulder.  Jack grabs a spoon from Kate, who sucks it clean before handing it over still getting no reaction from him, and heads to a private dinner with Juliet.  Kate’s cute in this scene and I actually felt bad for her when she gets shunned.  This of course prompts Kate to settle for a little romp with Sawyer.  Earlier that day, Kate told Sawyer that Jack knows they had sex in the zoo because he saw them on the security cameras.  The next day Sawyer starts putting two and tow together and discovers he was second choice.  He tells Kate that she doesn’t have to use him, she just has to ask.  This is obviously Sawyer’s many facade coming out to protect him from getting hurt.  I’d be worried about this “situation” between Kate, Jack, Sawyer, and Juliet bogging the story down, but Ben is going to be back in less than a week now and Juliet’s real motivations will become clear, or at least a little clearer leaving Kate, Jack, and Sawyer back where they started in their love triangle.  I believe the writers of LOST have learned a lesson from the first six episodes of this season that they have to be careful with these characters not to less their romance bog the series down too much.  As long as they keep it under control, I’m all for it because it gives these characters even more complex motivations other than just wanting to get off the island. 

In the end, I enjoyed this episode.  Desmond is a great character and he deserves all the time he gets on screen.  At the same time, Catch-22 wasn’t as fast paced as the previous episodes as far as moving the story forward.  This new arrival to the island is exciting though because she has ties to Desmond and off the island in general.  She spurs some exciting questions that I’m sure will play a part, just as I suspect Ben will too, in an exciting season finale.