Lost Episode 4.08 The Goodfather, The Badfather by Luhks

Once upon a time, during the first season of Lost, the series seemed to present a much brighter outlook on life. Through the simple narrative device of flashbacks, Lost introduced a group of characters with very tortured pasts. The emphasis, though, was on the word past. The island offered a chance for all of these characters to atone for their prior sins and to make a better life for themselves. Each episode concluded with the general impression that the characters would eventually overcome both internal and external challenges on the island, and then move on to lead a much happier life afterward.

Lost Episode 4.07 Life After Death by Luhks

"Birth and death are not two different states, but they are different aspects of the same state. There is as little reason to deplore the one as there is to be pleased over the other.”- Mahatma Gandhi


As the fourth season of Lost moved beyond its halfway point, episode 4.07 Ji Yeon once again managed to push the show’s narrative structure into new territory. Just as the series was beginning to settle into a steady rhythm of flashback episodes and flash-forward episodes (aside from the occasional Desmond time-travel story), Ji Yeon experimented with yet another concept. The episode intertwined the stories of three different time periods at once: the events of the island and freighter, flash-forward scenes for Sun, and flashback scenes for Jin. In the future, viewers might not need to categorize only individual episodes as either back or forward, but they might need to make such distinctions on a scene-by-scene basis.

Lost Episode 4.06 Triangles and Tribulations by Luhks

JULIET: It’s very stressful being an Other.

Season One introduced the audience to the very first member of the Others, Ethan Rom (whose name doubled as an anagram for Other Man). As each season has progressed, the Others have become less mysterious, but they have become more human and more complicated at the same time. The sixth episode of Season Four, The Other Woman, centers around the story’s most prominent female member of the Others, Juliet Burke. Of course, the title also refers to the more common use of the term, as Juliet becomes ‘the other woman,’ in a stuggling marriage. The episode began by presenting a straightforward love triangle between Juliet, Goodwin, and his wife Harper. In the initial scenes, this story did not appear to offer any new perspective on the familiar love triangle stories. Steadily, though, The Other Woman morphed from an episode about those two female romantic rivals, into the strange story of Ben's struggle to wrestle Juliet’s attention away from Goodwin. With each successive flashback, the episode shifted its focus away from the Other woman, Juliet, and onto the central Other man, Ben.

Lost Episode 4.05 The Heart and The Head by Luhks

LOCKE: We're going to need to watch that again. (Orientation)


Immediately after its initial airing, audiences already regard The Constant among the greatest Lost episodes of all time. Although this overwhelmingly positive reaction might seem a bit extreme, there are many strong reasons to support such a claim: this episode not only presented a series of mind-blowing scenes one after another, but also built towards a climax that proved to be as emotionally touching as any other moment of the series. Perhaps the episode’s greatest strength, though, is the way in which it casts every other Lost episode, both past and future, in a completely different light.