LOST Season 4 Episode 2: Confirmed Dead

SPOILERS
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Seriously, skip this if you haven't seen it yet
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Okay, first of all, if after all that back story they end up turning Locke into some kind of villain I will disown this show, sell my DVDs, and forget I ever watched it.

Secondly, still hate Jack. Hate him a little more with every eye-twitching second of screen time he gets.

Thankfully, he did not get that much screen time this episode, because it was focused on introducing four of the freighter people:

1. Daniel Faraday - you might remember actor Jeremy Davies from his role as the cowardly Upham in Saving Private Ryan, or as Charles Manson in the 2004 TV miniseries Helter Skelter. Here he plays a fumbling...scientist of some sort. Who has a gun. Who is not really on the island to rescue anyone, even though he says he is.

2. Miles Straume - you might remember actor Ken Leung from Saw, or as Carter Chong from the "Remember When" episode in the last season of The Sopranos (where he beat the shit out of Uncle Junior). Here, he's some sort of scummy psychic. He can talk to the dead. I expect he'll have lots of conversations on the island. He has a gun, too.

3. Charlotte Staples Lewis - C.S. Lewis, get it? Isn't that clever? These little in-joke names are beginning to make my eyes hurt from all the involuntary rolling. Anyway, you might remember actress Rebecca Mader from something. I don't. On LOST she is a ginger anthropologist who managed to get on my nerves in less than ten minutes of screen time, wears a bullet-proof vest, and gets immediately taken hostage by Locke. Locke rules, by the way.

4. Frank Lapidus - Alcoholic helicopter pilot played by actor Jeff Fahey (Lawnmower Man, Psycho III, any number of bad made-for-TV Sci-Fi movies, and who is looking like ten miles of bad road nowadays). He was supposed to be the pilot of Oceanic Airlines flight 815, but was replaced by the now-dead pilot from the first episode. I guess guilt drove him to drink, and is what's bringing him to the island.

5. Naomi Dorrit - portrayed by actress Marsha Thomason. Still dead! hahahaha. We do get to see her in flashback, being approached by the MYSTERIOUS BLACK MAN from last episode (the one who creeped out Hurley in the insane asylum) to lead the team to the island. She scoffs at having to "babysit" this team of amateurs, all of whom have outlived her.

So, in this week's dose of televised blue balls frustrating unanswered questions, we get to:

See Ben beaten (twice!), see Jack twitch around at least three times, see Kate furrow her brow a couple times, see Miles rid a middle-aged black lady's home from the ghost of her son (and pocketing a wad of hidden drug money), hear Hurley say "I dunno, dude" once, see Daniel Faraday weep while watching television, see Frank Lapidus begin to realize that the footage they're showing on the news of flight 815's underwater wreckage is fake, see a cow, hear Sawyer give Locke a funny nickname ("Colonel Kurtz"), hear Ben beg for his life, hear and see Charlotte being annoying and finding polar bear bones (and a Dharma collar) in the desert, see Charlotte get shot by Ben (who also happens to know every little life's detail about all four of the freighter people on the island), and see Vincent the dog scratch himself.

ANSWERED QUESTIONS - One. Why did the freighter people come to the island? They came for Ben.

UNANSWERED QUESTIONS - Everything else, lulz

HEARTSTOPPING CLIFFHANGER - "Because I have someone on their boat."