Lost: Season 3, Episode 12 Review: Par Avion

Par Avion
Original Airdate: March 14, 2007
Writers: Jordan Rosenberg and Christina M. Kim
Director: Paul Edwards

Of the lead castaways we’ve known since the beginning who haven’t been killed off, Claire is the least developed. Her character has been largely defined by her pregnancy and later motherhood to Aaron, as well as her relationship with Charlie, similar to Walt defining Michael’s character. There have been hints at a larger plan for Aaron, but that would be hard to tell since he is only a month old. So the episode takes advantage of the “transitional” format and give us Claire’s back story with context outside of her pregnancy (although she was expecting in the last flashback). Ultimately we see Claire’s difficulty becoming a mother is due in part to her issues with her mother and absentee father, although with the former she was more cruel to her mother.

The comatose status of Claire’s mother represents Claire’s struggle with hope and guilt. While there is little chance of her waking up and being as she was, Claire is hanging on to her as a way to atone for her behavior. Claire’s goth look (which was a little hot), represents that rebellious attitude, and her final appearance with her natural hair and a blue shirt symbolizes a change in perspective. With Claire’s belief in fate, she believes that saying she hated her mother is responsible for the accident, which intensifies the guilt.

Learning that Christian is Claire’s father is hardly earth shattering, as many saw this coming since “Two For the Road”. What this revelation does for Claire’s character is place her on a path of accepting more responsibility knowing where it will lead her. This connection between Claire and Jack (who were wisely not coupled up) reinforces the notion that the people on the island are there for a reason. Whatever reason for placing him in the episode, it’s still great to see John Terry again. He was sorely missed during the last Jack flashback.

Desmond’s weird insistence that Charlie go with him boar hunting and his sabotaging the attempts to get the birds so Charlie wouldn’t kill himself placed Claire in a position where she had to learn the secret of Charlie’s impending doom. Considering the three “flashes” Desmond’s had of Charlie dying have all involved Claire, it would make sense that she would feel some guilt over that and want to step up and prevent it, as monumental a task as that has been for Desmond.

The plan involving the birds is pretty clever, and ties to Claire’s need for hope. With no other form of communication, placing a message on a tracking bird is a far more reliable than in a bottle. Thankfully they didn’t have a lame coda where the bird flies to Ben’s windowsill and he intercepts it or gets eaten right after Claire releases it.

Jack’s two week absence from the main camp has created a power vacuum among the remaining leaders. Locke is out for himself; to accomplish an unknown goal that only frustrates his co-horts. It doesn’t feel like rescuing Jack is his top priority. As Mikhail said, Locke is angry. Locke, while remaining a man of faith, still has anger issues to face, as we see when he mercilessly throws Mikhail into the sonic fence.

During the trip to the barracks, the personalities among the A-team clash, with Locke being the prime agitator. There have been hints of this back when they first assembled the rescue team in “Tricia Tanaka…”, but now Sayid and Locke’s differences are at the forefront. Now that Sayid has a map, he no longer has to follow the bearing Locke believes will lead them to Jack. In the feud between science (Jack) and faith (Locke), Sayid represents the middle man. He was willing to go on Locke’s tip before, but with a concrete clue.

Obviously Sayid was mad that Locke destroyed The Flame before he could see if the communication system could be revived, much less use any of the extra information in the manuals Sayid couldn’t carry with him. Initially Locke plays dumb and pretends that he didn’t know entering “77” would detonate the C4, but he did, and packed a piece of the C4 with him for an unknown purpose. His reluctance to answer why he’s doing this is only heightening tensions in the group, and challenging Locke’s role in it.

While The Others aren’t known for being forthright, Mikhail offers some insights to The Others’ society, while bringing up several recurring themes to the front. It’s safe to presume the great man who brought Mikhail to the island was Jacob, although how that happened isn’t explained. Mikhail also mentions the list, and the reasons why the three castaways are not on it. He never explains what this list means and why certain people are on it, but it’s a good reminder of another important piece to The Others puzzle.

One revelation that was conveniently cut off was Mikhail informing Kate, Sayid and Danielle of Locke’s paralysis. His inflection implies that he once knew Locke when he was paralyzed. If he is honest about when he got to the island, it’s unlikely he left in the last few years to encounter Locke, unless he was one of the long theorized “recruiters”.

The sonic fence, both the design and the scenes focusing on it, are probably the biggest conversation point in the episode. Were these pylons designed to keep something out, like the smoke monster, or keep something in, like test subjects? Regardless of the truth, seeing Mikhail get his brain scrambled was disturbing (and maybe the writers taking advantage of the later time slot) in its unrelenting brutality.

Their rescue plan for Jack hits a major snag when they see him appearing to have fun with Tom. It seems that they believe The Others have converted Jack to their way of life. However, he could always be playing the submissive go along guy to mislead them while planning his turn against The Others. Regardless, the recovery isn’t going to be as easy as they may have hoped.

As a transitional episode, this one works very well. It sets up some major fireworks which are due for the next episode while also developing an underdeveloped character, which utilizes the transitional format.

Overall Score: 8/10