Lost: Season 2, Episode 8: Collision Review
Collision
Original Airdate: November 23, 2005
Writers: Javier Grillo-Marxuach & Leonard Dick
Director: Stephen Williams
In the podcast commentary, the writers stated that the mission of this episode was to make the merge between the two halves of 815 as messy as possible. That way, the episode wouldn't be bogged down with tons of exposition that the audience already knew. With Shannon’s death, a major piece of this work was done for them. Any chance of a calm union was shattered as that bullet entered her. In “The Other 48 Days”, we backtracked to see how Ana-Lucia and the Tailies got to that point. Now we move forward to see how it shakes those on the island and begins to shape the rest of the season. Although some did roll their eyes when they realized it was another set up episode, it appears that “Collision” has wrapped up that phase of this season.
Ana-Lucia is at a critical point and through this episode she struggles with how to proceed. Once the confident leader of the Tailies, she falls apart from both guilt of taking an innocent life and anxiety of what Sayid would do to her. Initially she panics, turning the scenario into a hostage situation. After she loses her cool, she soon loses the rest of her Tailies, starting with Eko, her closest associate on the island. She doesn’t know whether to kill Sayid, let him go, merge with the tribe or go out on her own. In the panic, she thinks she'll survive alone in the jungle with some supplies.
It is much like her flashback self (ironically, she is the one who takes orders). Ana-Lucia's finding it hard to adjust to work on the force again, especially with her mother as the captain. All we know at this point is that she was involved in some incident on the job that required counseling. She is confused and panicked then, as the sight of the baby at the domestic disturbance causes her to go overboard (an interesting casting choice, Michael Cudlitz as Ana-Lucia's partner, usually plays the guy in authority who goes overboard.) The episode does a good job at hiding the reveal that she was pregnant and miscarried because she was shot in the line of duty. There were hints given on the island, as Ana-Lucia’s answer to if she had any children hinted that she was withholding something. Clearly her dark tale of loss and revenge would provoke such a response.
This episode introduces another character with parental issues. Ana-Lucia's mother is unfortunately underused, but that could mean we may see more of her in other flashbacks, like Jack's father. She clearly has a strong influence on her daughter, giving her patrol duty, but assigning a safer neighborhood to go down. However, Ana-Lucia tends to look at things as they affect her, and having two such personalities clash makes for interesting drama.
This is the third time we’ve seen her kill someone in as many episodes. The murder of the man who killed her baby (which is certainly understandable) is meant to draw parrallel to her current situation with Sayid. Ironically, it is she that is in the position of the man she killed. Because of that, she believes that Sayid would take the same actions against her. Lost often pits its characters in situations similar to those in their flashbacks, as the writers said (I’m paraphrasing) to see if they would make the same mistake again or learn.
Seeing Sayid not exact revenge will likely be a big part in Ana-Lucia’s redemption. She soon sees that not everyone will react to the loss of a loved one the same way she would. However, if Eko didn't fight Sayid after Shannon's death, Sayid might've killed her there in the heat of his anguish. Because he was forced to cool down and reflect, in addition to looking back at his own history of violence, calling back to his torture of Sawyer in "Confidence Man", Ana-Lucia was spared. However, he never said specifically that he wouldn't kill her.
Unlike many of the other survivor’s first flashbacks, Ana-Lucia’s first flashback doesn’t specify exactly why she was on the plane. I’m not sure if we can assume what Ana-Lucia’s next actions were after killing that man. Since he was the guy responsible for Ana-Lucia’s miscarriage and Ana-Lucia let him go so she could kill him later, those facts would be enough for the other LAPD officers to suspect her of it, and that’s not including if the gun she used was police issued. They could certainly use Kate’s backstory to draw a parallel to Ana-Lucia’s. Perhaps unlike Kate, Ana-Lucia was on her way to LA to turn herself in because of something she experienced on the run. In “Exodus”, she told Jack at the bar that “the hard part’s over”.
Ana-Lucia still isn’t a likeable character. However, we haven’t seen much of Ana-Lucia besides being the tough girl who goes against our established characters. Lost always goes deeper to give us a three dimensional view of the characters. Her character development in this episode is meant to show that she is in line for a change. Think about the initial impression we had of Jin: it wasn’t that good. As season one progressed, we learned more about his hard past and his genuine love for Sun and he became extremely likeable. She won't turn into a likeable character like Jin is, but we should expect her attitude and behavior to evolve.
Many have expressed their dislike of Ana-Lucia's character, Michelle Rodriguez’s acting talents or both. I’ve already discussed how I feel about her character and Rodriguez’s performance doesn’t bother me. Ana-Lucia’s presence, especially in the last few episodes, has been rather large. Perhaps as the tribes merge, we’ll see the focus return to the ensemble or our established favorites and the Ana-Lucia animosity will subside.
Speaking of our favorites, they’re still doing their thing, filling out cryptic crosswords in the Hatch-elor Pad or playing golf again. The reintroduction of golf certainly provided an excellent source of contrast between the two tribes’ lives on the island. There’s no way anyone would’ve been up for golf at the Tailies’ camp. The difference is really nailed as Eko interrupts Jack and Kate’s game carrying Sawyer’s lifeless body (Evangeline Lilly's face flawlessly transfers from amusement to grave concern in an instant). *There’s* a collision right there. It couldn’t be at a more inopportune time for Jack and Kate’s budding relationship. Not only is Sawyer back in this triangle, but Jack has to stop the quality time to save his life.
Kate is suddenly in conflict too. The writers said that Sawyer and Jack are two halves of the perfect man for her. I personally think that Sawyer is the guy she would have fun with, but she'd settle down with Jack. However, these relationships and the triangle are rife for drama, especially in the scene with the bedside manner. Kate is able to coax Sawyer to swallowing the pill and in doing they share a tender moment, which Jack witnesses awkwardly.
Not all the collisions are disastrous. Jin & Sun and Bernard & Rose’s respective reunions were certainly potent. We know that Daniel Dae Kim and Yunjin Kim have extremely good chemistry, but Sam Anderson and L. Scott Caldwell were a great treat to see together too. You could definitely imagine them married. They did a great job before this episode of those moments where they (mostly Rose) reflected on their loved one on the other end of the island.
It was interesting to see Michael reunite with Sun. Early in season one, they appeared to be making a potential love triangle between Michael, Sun and Jin. However, they decided to change that and have Michael focus more on his son and develop the potent and complicated love between Jin and Sun. Now the writers are more focused on making it a friendship than anything with romantic tension, which was a smart decision: we have a more potent triangle with Sawyer, Kate and Jack (possibly a quadrangle with Ana-Lucia).
Michael’s reunion with Vincent certainly could’ve been played as comedy (as one said, it would’ve been if it was the final shot of the episode), but it comes off as another part of the nice ending. Vincent is the only connection he has to his son aside from bizarre apparitions.
One meeting everyone was hoping for was appropriately underplayed and that was the one between Eko and Locke; a simple ‘Hello’ from both sides. There really wasn’t a way they could make this reunion live up to the hype the fans have generated for it. The collision of Shannon’s death was dramatic enough to allow them to take their time with the Locke-Eko storyline. Also, Eko has shown himself as a man of few words, and those he speaks are concise. Eko and Locke's relationship is clearly one that will develop through this season and beyond.
The final reunion is one where we’re left to draw our own conclusions. When Jack is ready to confront whoever was responsible for shooting, he is ready to go with the stockpile of weapons in the Hatch-elor pad. This is a big change from the reluctant Jack who kept the suitcase of guns hidden and had the key wrapped around his neck (another change is that he insists that Locke push the button when the alarm goes off). However, when he learns it is Ana-Lucia, he obliges Eko with his request to go alone and unarmed. With the final shot, the tribes are officially merged and we can only ask what can happen after this.
Eko had some interesting moments in this episode. We learn a bit more about his distaste for violence, as he doesn't want Jack bringing any weapons. The writers have said these guns would play a big role this season, as they have with Jack's willingness to bring in guns into the equation. Now we see a contrast between Jack and Eko, one that may be interesting to see play out.
Early in the episode, Eko takes Sawyer to the other camp, not for Sawyer, but for himself. It seems like of the castaways, Eko is the most active in pursuing redemption, which is interesting since we don't know any of his past misdeeds and hasn't done anything morally questionable in his time on the island.
One of the difficult things to do in crafting an episode like this, as the writers said in their podcast, is how to merge these two tribes without bogging down the episode with exposition that the audience already knows. Sometimes it doesn’t work (as many pointed out when Michael first entered The Swan bunker). While I think they could've shown some tags of explanations at the beginning of some scenes, the urgency of Ana-Lucia's personal crisis and saving Sawyer were higher than comparing notes.
As one user said on one of Lost’s many internet forums, this episode was effectively the writers way of typing “4 8 15 16 23 42” into their computer and hitting “Execute”. That said, it isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Now everyone (except for Walt and the deceased Shannon) is back with the Fuselage tribe. However, the status quo has been altered dramatically. It is easy to forget because of Lost’s airing schedule that only four days have passed on the island since this season has started. The initial segment had plenty of drama on it, but it took a bit too long in the season to move forward. Some believe this is because they deliberately slowed down the pace not to overwhelm those jumping on the bandwagon. Now everything should be on track for the real story to commence.
Score: 8/10
Original Airdate: November 23, 2005
Writers: Javier Grillo-Marxuach & Leonard Dick
Director: Stephen Williams
In the podcast commentary, the writers stated that the mission of this episode was to make the merge between the two halves of 815 as messy as possible. That way, the episode wouldn't be bogged down with tons of exposition that the audience already knew. With Shannon’s death, a major piece of this work was done for them. Any chance of a calm union was shattered as that bullet entered her. In “The Other 48 Days”, we backtracked to see how Ana-Lucia and the Tailies got to that point. Now we move forward to see how it shakes those on the island and begins to shape the rest of the season. Although some did roll their eyes when they realized it was another set up episode, it appears that “Collision” has wrapped up that phase of this season.
Ana-Lucia is at a critical point and through this episode she struggles with how to proceed. Once the confident leader of the Tailies, she falls apart from both guilt of taking an innocent life and anxiety of what Sayid would do to her. Initially she panics, turning the scenario into a hostage situation. After she loses her cool, she soon loses the rest of her Tailies, starting with Eko, her closest associate on the island. She doesn’t know whether to kill Sayid, let him go, merge with the tribe or go out on her own. In the panic, she thinks she'll survive alone in the jungle with some supplies.
It is much like her flashback self (ironically, she is the one who takes orders). Ana-Lucia's finding it hard to adjust to work on the force again, especially with her mother as the captain. All we know at this point is that she was involved in some incident on the job that required counseling. She is confused and panicked then, as the sight of the baby at the domestic disturbance causes her to go overboard (an interesting casting choice, Michael Cudlitz as Ana-Lucia's partner, usually plays the guy in authority who goes overboard.) The episode does a good job at hiding the reveal that she was pregnant and miscarried because she was shot in the line of duty. There were hints given on the island, as Ana-Lucia’s answer to if she had any children hinted that she was withholding something. Clearly her dark tale of loss and revenge would provoke such a response.
This episode introduces another character with parental issues. Ana-Lucia's mother is unfortunately underused, but that could mean we may see more of her in other flashbacks, like Jack's father. She clearly has a strong influence on her daughter, giving her patrol duty, but assigning a safer neighborhood to go down. However, Ana-Lucia tends to look at things as they affect her, and having two such personalities clash makes for interesting drama.
This is the third time we’ve seen her kill someone in as many episodes. The murder of the man who killed her baby (which is certainly understandable) is meant to draw parrallel to her current situation with Sayid. Ironically, it is she that is in the position of the man she killed. Because of that, she believes that Sayid would take the same actions against her. Lost often pits its characters in situations similar to those in their flashbacks, as the writers said (I’m paraphrasing) to see if they would make the same mistake again or learn.
Seeing Sayid not exact revenge will likely be a big part in Ana-Lucia’s redemption. She soon sees that not everyone will react to the loss of a loved one the same way she would. However, if Eko didn't fight Sayid after Shannon's death, Sayid might've killed her there in the heat of his anguish. Because he was forced to cool down and reflect, in addition to looking back at his own history of violence, calling back to his torture of Sawyer in "Confidence Man", Ana-Lucia was spared. However, he never said specifically that he wouldn't kill her.
Unlike many of the other survivor’s first flashbacks, Ana-Lucia’s first flashback doesn’t specify exactly why she was on the plane. I’m not sure if we can assume what Ana-Lucia’s next actions were after killing that man. Since he was the guy responsible for Ana-Lucia’s miscarriage and Ana-Lucia let him go so she could kill him later, those facts would be enough for the other LAPD officers to suspect her of it, and that’s not including if the gun she used was police issued. They could certainly use Kate’s backstory to draw a parallel to Ana-Lucia’s. Perhaps unlike Kate, Ana-Lucia was on her way to LA to turn herself in because of something she experienced on the run. In “Exodus”, she told Jack at the bar that “the hard part’s over”.
Ana-Lucia still isn’t a likeable character. However, we haven’t seen much of Ana-Lucia besides being the tough girl who goes against our established characters. Lost always goes deeper to give us a three dimensional view of the characters. Her character development in this episode is meant to show that she is in line for a change. Think about the initial impression we had of Jin: it wasn’t that good. As season one progressed, we learned more about his hard past and his genuine love for Sun and he became extremely likeable. She won't turn into a likeable character like Jin is, but we should expect her attitude and behavior to evolve.
Many have expressed their dislike of Ana-Lucia's character, Michelle Rodriguez’s acting talents or both. I’ve already discussed how I feel about her character and Rodriguez’s performance doesn’t bother me. Ana-Lucia’s presence, especially in the last few episodes, has been rather large. Perhaps as the tribes merge, we’ll see the focus return to the ensemble or our established favorites and the Ana-Lucia animosity will subside.
Speaking of our favorites, they’re still doing their thing, filling out cryptic crosswords in the Hatch-elor Pad or playing golf again. The reintroduction of golf certainly provided an excellent source of contrast between the two tribes’ lives on the island. There’s no way anyone would’ve been up for golf at the Tailies’ camp. The difference is really nailed as Eko interrupts Jack and Kate’s game carrying Sawyer’s lifeless body (Evangeline Lilly's face flawlessly transfers from amusement to grave concern in an instant). *There’s* a collision right there. It couldn’t be at a more inopportune time for Jack and Kate’s budding relationship. Not only is Sawyer back in this triangle, but Jack has to stop the quality time to save his life.
Kate is suddenly in conflict too. The writers said that Sawyer and Jack are two halves of the perfect man for her. I personally think that Sawyer is the guy she would have fun with, but she'd settle down with Jack. However, these relationships and the triangle are rife for drama, especially in the scene with the bedside manner. Kate is able to coax Sawyer to swallowing the pill and in doing they share a tender moment, which Jack witnesses awkwardly.
Not all the collisions are disastrous. Jin & Sun and Bernard & Rose’s respective reunions were certainly potent. We know that Daniel Dae Kim and Yunjin Kim have extremely good chemistry, but Sam Anderson and L. Scott Caldwell were a great treat to see together too. You could definitely imagine them married. They did a great job before this episode of those moments where they (mostly Rose) reflected on their loved one on the other end of the island.
It was interesting to see Michael reunite with Sun. Early in season one, they appeared to be making a potential love triangle between Michael, Sun and Jin. However, they decided to change that and have Michael focus more on his son and develop the potent and complicated love between Jin and Sun. Now the writers are more focused on making it a friendship than anything with romantic tension, which was a smart decision: we have a more potent triangle with Sawyer, Kate and Jack (possibly a quadrangle with Ana-Lucia).
Michael’s reunion with Vincent certainly could’ve been played as comedy (as one said, it would’ve been if it was the final shot of the episode), but it comes off as another part of the nice ending. Vincent is the only connection he has to his son aside from bizarre apparitions.
One meeting everyone was hoping for was appropriately underplayed and that was the one between Eko and Locke; a simple ‘Hello’ from both sides. There really wasn’t a way they could make this reunion live up to the hype the fans have generated for it. The collision of Shannon’s death was dramatic enough to allow them to take their time with the Locke-Eko storyline. Also, Eko has shown himself as a man of few words, and those he speaks are concise. Eko and Locke's relationship is clearly one that will develop through this season and beyond.
The final reunion is one where we’re left to draw our own conclusions. When Jack is ready to confront whoever was responsible for shooting, he is ready to go with the stockpile of weapons in the Hatch-elor pad. This is a big change from the reluctant Jack who kept the suitcase of guns hidden and had the key wrapped around his neck (another change is that he insists that Locke push the button when the alarm goes off). However, when he learns it is Ana-Lucia, he obliges Eko with his request to go alone and unarmed. With the final shot, the tribes are officially merged and we can only ask what can happen after this.
Eko had some interesting moments in this episode. We learn a bit more about his distaste for violence, as he doesn't want Jack bringing any weapons. The writers have said these guns would play a big role this season, as they have with Jack's willingness to bring in guns into the equation. Now we see a contrast between Jack and Eko, one that may be interesting to see play out.
Early in the episode, Eko takes Sawyer to the other camp, not for Sawyer, but for himself. It seems like of the castaways, Eko is the most active in pursuing redemption, which is interesting since we don't know any of his past misdeeds and hasn't done anything morally questionable in his time on the island.
One of the difficult things to do in crafting an episode like this, as the writers said in their podcast, is how to merge these two tribes without bogging down the episode with exposition that the audience already knows. Sometimes it doesn’t work (as many pointed out when Michael first entered The Swan bunker). While I think they could've shown some tags of explanations at the beginning of some scenes, the urgency of Ana-Lucia's personal crisis and saving Sawyer were higher than comparing notes.
As one user said on one of Lost’s many internet forums, this episode was effectively the writers way of typing “4 8 15 16 23 42” into their computer and hitting “Execute”. That said, it isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Now everyone (except for Walt and the deceased Shannon) is back with the Fuselage tribe. However, the status quo has been altered dramatically. It is easy to forget because of Lost’s airing schedule that only four days have passed on the island since this season has started. The initial segment had plenty of drama on it, but it took a bit too long in the season to move forward. Some believe this is because they deliberately slowed down the pace not to overwhelm those jumping on the bandwagon. Now everything should be on track for the real story to commence.
posted by Matt @ 3:04 PM
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