If the pilot episode was the promise of a unique television experience, the two-part finale of the first season is the fulfillment of said promise, delivering all of the right ingredients for a Lost story: excitement, suspense, a couple of answers and a load of questions.
It's all beautifully set up right at the beginning, with Rousseau showing up on the beach with a warning: the Others are coming. At this point, Jack, Locke, Kate, Hurley and Leslie Arzt (Matlock veteran Daniel Roebuck) decide to find a safer place for the survivors. Thinking the hatch would be an ideal hideout, they follow Rousseau's advice and set off to the Black Rock to retrieve dynamite they can use to blow up the hatch door. Everyone else prepares to say goodbye to Sawyer, Jin, Michael and Walt, who will leave on the raft and try to get help from the outside world.
As for the flashbacks, they hark back to the pilot by showing what part of the group was up to before they got on the plane. Most notably, Jack had an encounter with a fellow passenger named Ana Lucia (Michelle Rodriguez), while Sun kept hiding her English-speaking skills from Jin during an awkward dinner. We also get glimpses of the last pre-Island moments of Kate, Sawyer, Shannon and Boone (who run into Sayid as well).
Being the first part of the finale, this episode acts more as a set-up, laying the ground for the full works in Part 2. But hey, what a set-up: the threat of the Others, already expressed previously in the season, feels more real than ever, and the presence of the mysterious, unsettling black smoke is another palpable source of tension. Not that there aren't any happier moments throughout the episode: the raft scenes are filled with a hitherto unseen optimism, and it's nice to see Somerhalder again in the flashbacks, which also serve the mythology by subtly underlining the possible connection between the characters. And this is just the appetizer...
It's all beautifully set up right at the beginning, with Rousseau showing up on the beach with a warning: the Others are coming. At this point, Jack, Locke, Kate, Hurley and Leslie Arzt (Matlock veteran Daniel Roebuck) decide to find a safer place for the survivors. Thinking the hatch would be an ideal hideout, they follow Rousseau's advice and set off to the Black Rock to retrieve dynamite they can use to blow up the hatch door. Everyone else prepares to say goodbye to Sawyer, Jin, Michael and Walt, who will leave on the raft and try to get help from the outside world.
As for the flashbacks, they hark back to the pilot by showing what part of the group was up to before they got on the plane. Most notably, Jack had an encounter with a fellow passenger named Ana Lucia (Michelle Rodriguez), while Sun kept hiding her English-speaking skills from Jin during an awkward dinner. We also get glimpses of the last pre-Island moments of Kate, Sawyer, Shannon and Boone (who run into Sayid as well).
Being the first part of the finale, this episode acts more as a set-up, laying the ground for the full works in Part 2. But hey, what a set-up: the threat of the Others, already expressed previously in the season, feels more real than ever, and the presence of the mysterious, unsettling black smoke is another palpable source of tension. Not that there aren't any happier moments throughout the episode: the raft scenes are filled with a hitherto unseen optimism, and it's nice to see Somerhalder again in the flashbacks, which also serve the mythology by subtly underlining the possible connection between the characters. And this is just the appetizer...
