Lost season 5 episode 9 review

Lost returns from its week off, and it pulls out the stops with a really very good episode to woo us back...
It’s been two weeks since Lost last hit screens, so right now, any fan worth their salt has long since been driven into shivering, paranoid withdrawal, spending their days reciting the numbers over and over again in a vain attempt to divine some meaning from them. Well, that’s all come to an end now. This week, Lost came back, and after a two week gap, it had to really pull out the stops to satisfy a jonesing public.

And if there was any ever doubt: it did. Overall, season 5 has been an odd beast, unsure of how to structure itself and floundering a little as a result. The last few episodes, however, have snapped things back into focus, concentrating on the characters once again instead of leaving them subject to the whims of plot-driven fatalism. This episode sees the Oceanic five-sixths reunited with the Lefties for the first time in three years, and there’s more than a little tension in that meeting alone.

Juliet and Sawyer’s life together, steadily built over the course of their time in the Dharma Initiative, is instantly threatened by the return of Kate. It’s clear that Juliet immediately senses that, even if Sawyer doesn’t even realise that his feelings for Kate are driving his actions. Meanwhile, the tension between Jack and Sawyer returns almost instantly, though this time it’s accompanied by a change in their dynamic, since Sawyer is the leader now – Jack’s just a janitor. Indeed, for the first time, I have to praise Matthew “Speed Racer” Fox’s ability to act the line “Janitor? Don’t you know I’m an accomplished spinal surgeon?!” with a single, mute facial expression. Maybe there’s hope for him yet.