"Lost" Meet Kevin Johnson (2008)

Director:

Stephen Williams

Writers:

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

TV Series:

"Lost" (2004)

Original Air Date:

20 March 2008 (Season 4, Episode 8)

Genre:

Adventure | Drama | Fantasy | Mystery | Romance | Thriller

Plot:

Michael's journey from escaping the island to working as Ben's spy on Widmore's ship is revealed, as well as his mission. Ben tells Danielle and Alex to leave Locke's camp and go to the island temple, but they are ambushed on the way.

Plot Keywords:

Freighter | Radio Room | Flashback | Hands Tied | Shoot

Cast

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

Runtime:

43 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Colour:

Colour

Aspect Ratio:

1.78 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

USA:TV-14 | Netherlands:12 | Venezuela:PG-13 (DVD rating)

Filming Locations:

O'ahu, Hawaii, USA

Company:

ABC Studios

Goofs:

Errors in geography: During the scenes at the Suva port, a large airliner is shown nearby taking off or landing. In fact there is no major airport near Suva capable of handling that size of aircraft. In Honolulu, the international airport is close to the harbor and was probably the source of that airliner.

Quotes:

Michael Dawson: What do you want?
Tom: Your help.
Michael Dawson: Why would I help the son of a bitch who kidnapped my son?
Tom: We gave him back to you in one piece, Mike, you're the one who lost him. You told him, didn't you? You couldn't carry the guilt of what you did to those two women all by yourself, so you shared it with a 10-year-old kid. Is that why you wanna kill yourself, Michael? Because that's the way he looks at you now? Because he knows you're a murderer?
Michael Dawson: Go away!
[turns to walk away]
Tom: I got some bad news for you, amigo. You can't kill yourself. The Island won't let you!
Michael Dawson: What'd you say?
Tom: No matter how bad you want to, no matter how many different ways you try, it won't happen.
[Tom hands the revolver back to Michael]
[...]

Movie Connections:

References The Shining (1980)

Another great episode which does a great job of tying up loose ends

Like many, many other Lost fans I was concerned about how the writers would explain Michael's return, but it went off without any major issues. The flashbacks were effective, explanatory, interesting, and provided a chance to encounter some faces we haven't seen in a while. Harold Perrineau did a brilliant job this episode, proving that he is a great actor when given the right material to work with, which Elizabeth Sarnoff and Brian K. Vaughan provided with an excellent script. We see barely anything of 'present-time' island events, only getting the obligatory (but nicely done) scene with the rest of the 'important' members of Locke's camp learning that Michael was on the freighter, as well as Ben sending Rousseau to the temple with Alex and Karl, which led to the pretty shocking ending, which actually felt really out-of-the-blue to me, and almost disappointing in how it was written, though not necessarily for its content.

The episode's flashback story was nicely set up, with further mythology reveals (more like hints, admittedly) and nice character-driven moments. There's some great scenes here, and overall I'd say that it's around as emotional and interesting as "Special" from season one, which I personally thought was a great episode. Stephen Williams did a fairly good job of directing the episode and it was nice to revisit some of the music Giacchino wrote for Michael's character. All in all this isn't my favorite episode of season 4, but it is still excellent, and in keeping with the generally high quality of the season, excepting "Eggtown" and "The Other Woman", and to a lesser extent "Cabin Fever", I suppose.