"Some Like it Hoth" Review

We finally got our Miles episode this week, and for one of Lost's "lighter" episodes, it packed a deceptive amount of intrigue in. To wit:

-The guy in the van who kidnapped Miles (for three minutes) is the same guy who was waving around a gun and standing next to Ilana last week. And again, we get the secret phrase: "What lies in the shadow of the statue?" How about: what do these people want, and who do they work for?

-What is the so-called "Circle of trust" doing in Hostile territory? I had a hard time keeping track of the geography of the island this episode, so I'm not sure how much it has to do with the hatch being built, or with Chang's own experiments. But Miles found out from the dead guy that he was killed by a cavity filling shooting through his skull -- probably a result of the island's electromagnetic field, unless there's something even fishier going on. (And Horace mentioned that Sawyer, being head of security, already knew all about whatever it is they're up to.)

Both of these plot lines are the first signs of strands that will be expanded on as we move closer to the Season 5 finale. All the Dharma stuff seems to be reaching a boiling point that should wrap everything up by the season's end: the castaways' cover is slowly being blown (and Sawyer, resignedly, realizes it), which will coincide with whatever "The Incident" (the name of the season finale) turns out to be, which will coincide with the Hatch being built and Radzinsky being sent inside to man it. (But seriously, Josh Holloway's really grown into himself as an actor. He looked so depressed as he punched Phil.)

The "Shadow of the Statue" folks, on the other hand, are a long ways away from being resolved and I think will play a major role in Season 6.

But let's talk about Miles for a bit.

It was a great move by the writers to have Miles casually mention that Pierre Chang was his father halfway through the episode. Everybody had already guessed, so it's best to get it out of the way and instead use valuable screen time dealing with its implications.

I especially liked his explanation: "On my third day here, my mom got in line behind me in the cafeteria. That was my first clue." Just one example, I'm sure, of a handful of shocks he and the rest of them experienced as they integrated into Dharma society.

Chang came across like a jerk at first, but it took all of two minutes for Hurley to get him to talk about his family and his love of Country music. How much do you want to bet that Miles will be directly responsible for Chang sending his wife and Baby Miles off the island -- thus making Miles the person directly responsible for his own troubled upbringing? That's great storytelling, right there.

Miles's "audition" for Naomi was a great example of the writers dropping in some fill-in knowledge that we don't really need but still appreciate having. In his examination of the dead body, he found that he was killed on the way to delivering sensitive documents to Charles Widmore -- presumably the same documents that Tom showed Michael in last season's "Meet Kevin Johnson" as proof that Widmore was behind the faked Oceanic 815 crash. So if I'm reading the scene correctly, that's how Tom came into possession of those documents. Cool.

Concerning Star Wars:

-Do you think Hurley and Miles were meant to be Chewy and Han, or Joe and Jerry from Some Like it Hot? I think the correct answer is "some bizarre combination of the two."

-More Star Wars parallels: Hydra Island = Hoth? Miles and Chang = Luke and Vader? Dharma and Hostiles = Empire and Rebellion? You know, none of those work very well when you think about it.

-I wonder if Hurley's pondered the paradoxical implications of trying to submit a new screenplay version of Empire Strikes Back, thus negating the existence of the first version of Empire, thus negating the possibility of Hurley ever having seen it and wanting to write an improved version. Probably not.

-Ewoks are kind of lame, yeah. But Return of the Jedi always gets a bad rap. Anybody who's deluded themselves into thinking Revenge of the Sith was better than Jedi needs to spend some hard time in Room 23.

And looking into the future:

-Faraday's back! After a four-episode hiatus! Where has he been? Ann Arbor, with the Dharma leaders? Or up to something else...

-Delivering on the promise of his return, next week's episode looks to be a Faraday episode. It's called "The Variable", which I didn't realize until last night is a total play on "The Constant." Hooray!

-Who could be behind the "Shadow of the Statue" people? Ben's the obvious answer because he's behind everything, but that would be a little too boring. Widmore would require quite a bit of explanation, because they were trying to persuade Miles not to go on Widmore's freighter. So who else is there? Well, there's Hawking -- or even, as my girlfriend Nicole suggests, her son. Could Faraday have been orchestrating some kind of time-spanning plot during his time off the island? Communicating in '77 with his mother in 2007?

-Other possibilities: people who are somehow associated with Richard and Jacob, and/or the island's ancient history -- given the nature of the "Statue" riddle.

-Or none of the above?

TAGS: Hurley, Miles, Pierre Chang, Recaps, Reviews, Some Like It Hoth, Star Wars, What Lies In The Shadow Of The Statue
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