Lost Episode 3.21: "Greatest Hits"
Original Airdate: May 16th, 2007

The dichotomy at the heart of Lost--that it’s a mythology-heavy series that focuses to a great degree on character development and interaction--has always tipped more heavily toward the mythology side than the character side. For fans, anyway.

Let’s be honest--at first, the flashbacks were clever, and fun, and revealed much about these people trapped together on a remote island where some crazy smoke creature roamed free, and polar bears appeared out of nowhere, and hey isn’t that a hatch over there? Wonder what’s inside?

And so it went, and so it goes--the personal stories weaving inextricably into the larger story, the past constantly informing the present.

Yet one can only swallow so much of the personal before the endless questions about that larger story become overwhelming, and crush enthusiasm. As much as I have enjoyed the strong moments of character revelation and development, in the flashbacks and otherwise, I yearn for revelations in the mythology of the series.

I can’t imagine I’m alone in this. That’s the show’s hook, after all--this wacky island, those wacky Others, that wacky Dharma Initiative. The creation of these endless questions has drawn viewers in; the lack of answers has pushed them away.

Now we see the series seemingly recognizing this deficiency, and finally getting around to maybe creating (artificial?) connections between all these disparate curiosities, and what’s perhaps most fulfilling about it isn’t just the answers, but the return of that powerful intertwining of the personal with the global--the tiny stories of one person that illuminate and enrich these big crazy sci-fi mindblowers tearing like bats from hell out of the TV screen.

So we get episodes like "Tricia Tanaka is Dead," and "Flashes Before Your Eyes," and even Nikki and Paolo’s brief turn on the center stage. And we get episodes like "Greatest Hits," where we are reminded of how good the show was by how good the show IS.

It’s like the writers have upped their game across the board, and in doing so, they’ve reminded us of two things: You’re invested in this island, of course, because we’ve made it the ultimate puzzle with no ultimate solution. But you’re also invested in these characters, whether you realize it or not, so we can punch you in the gut too, even as we confound your brain.

In "Greatest Hits," the various threads of season three are gathered together and pulled taut. It’s a nice piece of arc-building, one of those great "calm before the storm" episodes where all the pieces are put into place and you are given an understanding of the scope and the stakes of the battle to come. Buffy used to do a fantastic job at this, and now Lost is doing it, too.

We know that Jack is half-blinded by rage at the Others and wants to blow them up with dynamite. We know that Sayid is finally able to convince him that his gambit to use the recently-discovered satellite phone to dial off the island is a venture just as worthy. We learn that the Dharma Initiative, or the Others, or WHOEVER have been jamming Danielle’s radio signal, and thus, could jam Sayid’s phone call. We learn there’s an underwater base where a switch can be flicked to turn off the signal jam.

And we learn that Charlie will flick that switch--in fact, he MUST flick that switch, and die in the process, or else Claire and her baby will not escape the island. We learn that thanks to Desmond’s future visions, natch.

Then we just...dive into Charlie. On the larger story scale, it’s a ramp-up episode to the finale; on a personal character scale, it’s a good-bye to Charlie. That it manages to work as both exceptionally well is a testament to the skill of these writers, and to the ability of Dominic Monaghan as Charlie.

The best part all around is that none of these fairly deft dramatic feats requires any complex tricks or smarmy fake-outs. It’s simple, straightforward storytelling, the kind that is probably very hard to execute but looks smooth and easy on screen. Lost for me went through a fairly rough patch where the writers seemed to think themselves far more clever than they actually were, which is actually why there are so many questions to answer.

"Greatest Hits" is Lost at its best--its most straightforward and impacting. It’s everything why this show is great. Finally, this series is fully back on the rails.

iTunes Links:

Lost Series
Lost Season 3
This Episode - "Greatest Hits"

Vern Seward is a writer who currently lives in Orlando, FL. He’s been a Mac fan since Atari Computers folded, but has worked with computers of nearly every type for 20 years.