Lost: Season 1 Episode 7 "The Moth" Review

"Nice work, Charlie!  You make excellent bait."

-John Locke

The 7th episode of Lost follows Charlie Pace (Dominic Monaghan) as he starts suffering from heroin withdrawal.  Charlie ask John Locke (Terry O'Quinn) for his drugs back.  Locke declines, but says if Charlie asks twice more, he will give back the heroin.

In a cave, Charlie gets into a confrontation with Jack (Matthew Fox) after a perceived slight.  Charlie raises his voice which cause the cave to collapse trapping Jack inside.  Charlie goes to the beach to get help and Michael (Harold Perrineau), who has lots of construction experience, takes charge of the effort to rescue Jack.

Charlie goes to see Locke again to ask for his drugs back.  Again, Locke says no and shows Charlie a moth struggling to get out of a cocoon and tells Charlie that struggle is nature's way of strengthening.  

Michael's team manages to open a tunnel leading to Jack and Charlie volunteers to climb inside.  It collapses, but Charlie manages to make it through to Jack and frees him from the rocks pinning the doctor down and relocates his arm.  As they face death due to lack of oxygen, Charlie notices a moth flying around the cave and follows it to another tunnel.  Charlie manages to dig through and get himself and Jack out of the cave.  

Later, Jack helps Charlie get through his withdrawal.  Charlie goes to see Locke again and asks for his drugs back.  Disappointed, Locke gives in, but Charlie tosses the drugs in the fire and watches a moth fly away into the night.

Meanwhile, Sayid (Naveen Andrews) creates three antennas he wants to use to triangulate the French distress signal and enlists Kate (Evangeline Lilly) and Boone (Ian Somerhalder) to help.  Since the batteries on the antennas won't last long, they decide to launch bottle rockets to signal when they are all in position.  

After hearing about the cave in, Boone leaves his responsibilities to Shannon (Maggie Grace) and rushes off to help, while Sawyer (Josh Holloway) goes after Kate and Sayid to let them know what is happening.  But when Kate insults Sawyer, he decides to hold off on letting her know what is going on with Jack, but eventually tells her in a snide comment to get back at her.  Kate leaves to help Jack leaving Sawyer to launch the rocket.

When Sayid is finally in position, he launches his rocket as does Shannon.  We also see the third rocket launch, but we don't see who launched it.  Sayid activates his antenna and starts to triangulate the signal, but before he can, he is knocked out by an unseen figure who destroys his equipment.

In flashbacks, we see Charlie deal with wanting to be a good, Catholic man, but being tempted by the sinful life of his band DriveShaft.  He attempts to quit, but his brother, Liam (Neil Hopkins), convinces him to stay with the promise they will walk away if things get too crazy.  As Liam starts abusing heroin, Charlie finally has enough, but Liam berates him and calls him useless if he's not in the band.  Charlie breaks down and starts using heroin. 

Years later, Liam, now clean, is living is Sydney, Australia.  Charlie comes to visit him to convince him to rejoin DriveShaft and go on a new tour.  Liam refuses and offers to help get him clean.  Charlie refuses and leaves to board Oceanic 815.

What Works:

Lost is known for it's large scale stories that span over the course of multiple episodes, but The Moth is one of the best contained stories of the series.  Charlie's journey works incredibly well in this episode and he has a fantastic and emotional arc.  Monaghan gives a stellar performance throughout and shows us why Charlie is one of the best characters (at least in the first season).

Matthew Fox and Terry O'Quinn also do a fantastic job.  Both Jack and Locke get some really great scenes with Charlie in this episode and develop interesting relationships with him.  Locke's story about the moth is one of the best scenes in the series and the conversation between Jack and Charlie in the cave is wonderful.  I love their dialogue and the dark jokes Charlie makes.

Charlie's flashbacks are also great and are utterly heartbreaking.  Watching the relationship between the two brothers fall apart and the tragedy that comes from this is really well done and some of the best flashbacks of the series.

Finally, though there isn't a ton of meat from the antenna storyline, we do get an awesome cliffhanger of Sayid being attacked.  It's interesting now that we know Locke was the man who attacked Sayid and it adds something to this episode on the rewatch, but when it first aired and we didn't know who it was, we were given an exciting setup for the episodes to come.

What Sucks:

I got nothing for you.


Platinum Polar Bear:

The Platinum Polar Bear Award goes to the most useful character in a given episode.  For "The Moth", I'm giving the Polar Bear to Charlie Pace; his first one!  Sure, he did cause the cave-in, but it was an accident.  He was brave enough to go into the tunnel, he rescued Jack, and fixed the doctor's arm all while going through heroin withdrawal.  And in the end, he tossed his drugs into the fire.  It was an episode of redemption for Mr. Pace.

Verdict:

"The Moth" is one of the best episodes of Lost that I think gets forgotten about due to the unfortunate direction the season 2 Charlie-episode "Fire + Water" takes.  It's too bad because "The Moth" has some really great performances from Monaghan, Fox, and O'Quinn, an emotional, story, excellent flashbacks, and a great cliffhanger.  It's one of the best episodes of the series and has certainly got it going on.

 10/10: Amazing