Lost: Season 3, Episode 14 Review: Expose

Exposé
Original Airdate: March 28, 2007
Writers: Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz
Director: Stephen Williams

Nikki and Paolo have been criticized by viewers from the second they were introduced in “Further Instructions”. They were hardly intriguing like other characters introduced midstream have been (Desmond, Ben, Juliet, Eko), nor was their introduction as fluid as those examples. However, critics of the first part of the season were likely just looking for something to complain about, and these new characters were easy targets. They may have had a dozen or so lines and not much more in way of screen time. There was too little coverage of them to warrant an opinion. Kiele Sanchez is hot (check baby check baby one two three four), so I was willing to see where they were going before criticizing them the way many viewers had. Unfortunately, the rampant public outcry over these two caused the producers to cut most of their storyline. According to interviews, one episode was to be built around Nikki’s show-within-a-show “Exposé”, a “Charlie’s Angels” type show that has been mentioned in previous episodes (a billboard in “Flashes Before Your Eyes”, Locke watched it in the last episode) that starred Billy Dee Williams, but they got booed off the stage before they could enact their long term plan.

This episode was likely to draw some controversy. It was the most polarizing episode of the season; some liked the episode showing us another perspective on the island, others thought it was a waste of time to develop these two so much only to kill them off in the end of the episode. Some wanted immediate answers to the “Dad in a box” reveal at the end of the last episode, but they should know by now that that isn’t how the show operates. The episode was the writers trying to make nice to those critics so they could move on with the season.

One thing many people criticized this episode about was the fact that Nikki and Paolo seemed to uncover a lot of stuff, but never mentioned it to anyone else, such as The Pearl Station, Eko’s plane or Paolo’s encounter with The Others. What they don’t seem to acknowledge is that neither Paolo nor Nikki care about any of those things. This was clear in the flashback of the day of the crash. Nikki, running amongst the survivors and all that chaos, can only think of the diamonds.

It could’ve been more compelling if the contents of the bag never been revealed. It doesn’t matter what was in them, just how badly Nikki and Paolo wanted to retrieve them. The lack of initial reveal seems to indicate that this is where they were going with the story, but ultimately they recanted.

There are a few winks to fans and critics of the show; Sawyer having no idea who Nikki is (although you’d think he’d try to put the moves on her at some point), the lack of acknowledgement for off island events like Thanksgiving and theories about the monster. This episode is probably the closest “Lost” will get to a self-contained episode, which is also a reference to “Lost” losing in its timeslot against the crime of the week show “Criminal Minds” in the fall.

They also talk about the tenacity of fans to refuse to call a character dead, with the “Nothing stays buried on this island line” (clearly a reference to The Swan) and Zuckerman’s assertion that they could contrive a way for Nikki’s character to survive several gunshots with her only protection being a coat and a bikini. Some thought the ending allowed some leeway for the buried thieves to find their way above ground again, but if Nikki’s “Exposé” counterpart is any indicator, the writers don’t want us hanging on to that idea.

The episode saluted, in a way, the red shirts on the island as well. Many of the characters who never got the screen time our main guys have and served more to advance the leads’ character arcs rather than having one of their own (Boone, Shannon, Arzt, etc.) It would’ve been nice to see something from the Scott/Steve duo, or especially something from Libby, who could’ve been featured in this episode.

If this episode did anything, it confirmed my belief that Arzt was killed off way too early. He’s the anti-Hurley: a schlub who is constantly high strung and bitter. Also, it’s too bad we’ve never seen Arzt’s lab before, since it was rather intriguing. No surprise that there are a bunch of new species on this island, but how did Arzt find out that the Medusa spider could paralyze someone for eight hours? Did he find an unwilling participant to experiment on?

With Nikki and Paolo lying (seemingly) dead in front of him, The Others considered suspect of the crime and Desmond’s prophesy fresh in his mind, it makes sense that Charlie would want to make amends for attacking Sun. Knowing Charlie’s upbringing, confession is the proper way to resolve his guilt over the issue. Of course Sun isn’t going to be too forgiving, but when Charlie mentions Sawyer, it turns the expected chain of events into a more interesting direction.

The lack of the leadership is given some time, with Sawyer being the only one around when two people are found presumably deceased with no explanation and the castaways don’t find out why even by the end of the episode. It also doesn’t help when the leader was seen fighting with one of the victims hours before she collapsed. This is an effective example of the flaws under Sawyer’s leadership and possibly hints at larger problems if Sawyer doesn’t step up or the leaders return to camp.

Nikki and Paolo’s death, buried alive, is unusually cold for the show, but it works. “You wanted them dead, we’ll do it in the cruelest way we can think of” must’ve been the writers’ mindset. It also works within the theme of redemption on “Lost”: those who don’t atone for their sins will pay for them. Nikki let greed lead to her ruin and Paolo failed to realize that Nikki was nothing but bad news. In a “Twilight Zone”-esque twist, they get what they want; Nikki gets her diamonds and Paolo gets to be with Nikki forever.

While some didn’t like this episode at all, it was a nice episode for the fans. It finally gave us reason to care for Nikki and Paolo and made the short sighted critics feel a little guilty by killing them off. What this episode has to do with the big picture probably isn’t much, but it’s still solid with a good one-off mystery.

Overall Score: 8/10