LOST is in a strange position going into tonight's episode, the first of a three-part season finale: we already know the future. We don't know what happens to all the characters but most of the main ones' fates are already set: Sayid, Jack, Kate, Hurley, Ben - we already know where they end up, just not how they got there. This puts tonight's episode in a strange position: it's hard to build up tension in a scene if the ultimate outcome is not only not in doubt but is, in fact, known.
Knowing this, why did the show bother to keep pointing out Jack's leaky appendix wound? We all know he's one of the six "survivors"- if we didn't know, or had forgotten, they reinforce this within the first few minutes of the show. This completely undermines any tension we might feel since we know he'll survive: whatever happens with his injuries, ultimately it isn't a factor. Yet the writers waste time and dialog on it. I don't know why.
It's the characters whose fates we don't know that should have gotten the lion's share of the time but don't: Sawyer, Locke, Jin, and Desmond (I'd say Claire but she seems to have gone over to the dark side). Locke spends the episode standing behind Ben chewing his lip and looking confused while Sawyer plays baby taxi and Jack escort. Jin? He does a good job standing behind Sun doing exactly nothing. Great.
I think I've labeled just about every episode I've written about thus far as a "setup" episode. This must be the ultimate setup episode but nothing happens. And I mean nothing. I could summarize the "action" as a travelogue of movement around the island. It was all about moving people around to put them in place for next week. That's it. And they didn't exactly do much to make those moves exciting to watch. It was a five minute bit of exposition stretched out into an hour. I hope it's worth it because, otherwise, this was a total throwaway. Next week better make up for it.
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