"Lost"
There's No Place Like Home: Part 1 (2008)

Director:

Stephen Williams

Writers:

Jeffrey Lieber (creator) and
J.J. Abrams (creator) ...

TV Series:

"Lost" (2004)

Original Air Date:

15 May 2008 (Season 4, Episode 12)

Genre:

Adventure | Drama | Fantasy | Mystery | Thriller

Plot:

Plot Keywords:

Number Stations | Fate | Beach | Plane Crash | Shipper

Cast

Naveen Andrews	...	Sayid Jarrah
Henry Ian Cusick	...	Desmond Hume
Jeremy Davies	...	Daniel Faraday
Emilie de Ravin	...	Claire Littleton
Michael Emerson	...	Ben Linus
Matthew Fox	...	Jack Shephard
Jorge Garcia	...	Hugo 'Hurley' Reyes
Josh Holloway	...	James 'Sawyer' Ford
Daniel Dae Kim	...	Jin Kwon
Yunjin Kim	...	Sun Kwon
Ken Leung	...	Miles Straume
Evangeline Lilly	...	Kate Austen
Rebecca Mader	...	Charlotte Lewis
Elizabeth Mitchell	...	Juliet Burke
Terry O'Quinn	...	John Locke

Echoing Exodus

The last time "Lost" had a two-part, three hour, finale was in season one with the "Exodus" episodes. I watched "Exodus: Part 1" recently as part of re-watching all the seasons of Lost and thought it was a great episode and was obviously aware that most fans agree with me. Let's look back on it and see what happened:

-Rosseau arrives and tells the beach folk that the Others are coming. We see a pillar of black smoke way off somewhere, Jin and Sun reconcile, a group goes to the Black Rock to find dynamite to blow up the hatch. The flashbacks show some of the Losties meeting people in Australia.

Oh, the simple, simple days of season 1, when all it took to please fans was a well-written episode of television drama. Shortly after this episode has aired there is already a sense of disappointment among some fans that it wasn't completely action-packed. Well, there's a reason for that and the reason is the master storytelling from Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof. Let's go back to "Exodus" for a second: now, in the first place the script didn't have to deal with nearly as much as this finale does, but it still felt great to us at the time. Why is that? Is there a reason that we should suddenly want a different pace from "Lost"? This is a set-up episode, yes. It echoes not only the brilliant "Exodus: Part 1" but also "Greatest Hits" from last season (although not as emotionally driven as that particular episode). I for one would like to remind fans that what drew us into this show was the incredible storytelling and mystery and not non-stop action and 'answers' like in "The Shape of Things to Come", which is an episode I liked but not something I'd like to see Lost become on a regular basis. I have been 100% behind the fresh direction "Lost" has taken in season four, but there's no need to forsake what we all originally loved about it, and really, "There's No Place Like Home: Part 1" exemplifies what Lost is all about: thrills, excitement, well-written and paced plot, and beautiful character moments, all done with a thematic basis.

Taking up a surprisingly short running time in the episode are the flashforwards which mainly do a good job of showing us what happens upon the Oceanic 6's leaving the island and returning to the outside world. Standout moments include Jack finally learning the truth about Claire and Hurley seeing the numbers. The island events are action-packed but so well-paced and intelligently-written that they seem no different to the small-scale events of "Exodus: Part 1", and are done with a similar multi-perspective view of several groups. The beach group, the freighter group, and the two groups that have left the beach and stayed on the island: Ben, Locke, and Hurley traveling to the Orchid, Jack and Sawyer following the helicopter's path and finding Frank Lapidus. We also see the return of the Others (FINALLY!) who despite being such a central piece of the Lost mythology were unfairly ignored this season. It's nice to see them back in their season 2 rugged look, as well. It is an interesting counterpoint to "Through the Looking Glass", which featured the Losties uniting behind Jack and fighting a war they were prepared for, that "There's No Place Back Home: Part 1" finds the majority of those on the island fully unprepared for the news that Keamy and his crew were there to harm them and going even further, finds all the groups separated, in disunion. What fantastic, subtle, and fine writing from Cuse and Lindelof.

Echoing the setup episodes for the great "Exodus: Part 2" and "Through the Looking Glass", "There's No Place Like Home: Part 1" is just what the doctor ordered for this season of Lost: a good, old-fashioned, traditional Lost episode. As much as I have loved season four it is a bit of a shame that in the attempt to tell all these stories and so fast, some of the character interaction and mystery atmosphere was forsaken. I am thankful that season four was exciting, and I'm also thankful that the writers have stated that next season will be a little slower in pace. Watching "There's No Place Like Home: Part 1" reminded me, for the first time this season, that "Lost" doesn't need to set aside different episodes for different purposes because one of them can serve for all of those purposes.

9/10