Review: Lost 4.2: Confirmed Dead

Note: If you want to understand these reviews, I'd direct you to Lostpedia's Season Four portal. All of the images in my Lost reviews have been taken from Lostpedia, and the plot there goes into greater detail.

In the past, Miles talks to a ghost.

Season Four uses its second episode to lay down the ground rules concerning this year's quirks, making use of flashback to show us the new roster of characters coming our way, and how exactly they got involved in the first place. Meanwhile, events in the present turn into a somewhat farcical run-around as the survivors meet the freighter people and vice versa.
      Flashbacks show us scientist Daniel Faraday being upset at the discovery of a false wreckage for Oceanic 815, spiritualist Miles Straume getting rid of a ghost, anthropologist Charlotte Lewis finding a polar bear skull in Tunisia, pilot Frank Lapidus informing Oceanic that the pilot in the wreckage isn't the one that was on the plane, and Naomi (who died last episode) talking with mysterious Abbaddon about how and why she needs top assemble this motley crew. I can appreciate that this episode was caused by the Writers' Guild Strike, but it would have been so much better to display the essence of their character instead of (in Charlotte's case) simply using them for mixing up the plot. I think the most well done of these on a character level is Miles' segment, perfectly capturing his abilities and his personality well.

Charlotte "lands".

     Meanwhile, on the island, Daniel meets with the survivors, as well as Miles, who reveals that Naomi's request to "Tell my sister I love her" was in fact a warning signal. Jack and Kate explain what happened. Meanwhile, Locke's group get funky about their "destiny", and they run into Charlotte hanging upside down. Frank lands, send out a flare and both teams set out to move towards it; Charlotte is shot (not fatally, she's serupticiously wearing a bulletproof vest) and, after some coaxing, Miles reveals why they're really on the island. And it's not to save the survivors - it's to find a man. A man called Ben Linus, the leader of the island's natives who is currently being held by Locke's group. (Again, I direct you to Lostpedia.) The story doesn't waste any time in getting everything into position and blowing away any doubts about how quickly the rescues are going to happen. Unfortunately, this can often feel rushed and out of pace. Again, I can only blame the writer's strike for this.
     Confirmed Dead is an episode with some very interesting ideas and a vested intention of setting out the season's stall before throwing the viewer back into the flashforward world. It does suffer because of the Strike, but what we do have is quite impressive considering those conditions. Otherwise, it's a firm story that pushes the plot along with some enjoyable drama and mystery to chew on.

Thanks.