Lost: Season 2, Episode 22 "Three Minutes" Review

"So, you wake up in the middle of the night, you grab your Jesus stick, you race off into the jungle.  You don't call, you don't write..."

-Charlie Pace

The penultimate episode of season 2 actually takes place entirely on the island.  The flashbacks show us what happened to Michael (Harold Perrineau) after he locked Jack (Matthew Fox) and Locke (Terry O'Quinn) in the hatch.  Michael is quickly captured by the Others and held prisoner while being interrogated about Walt (Malcolm David Kelley).  After finally being allowed to see Walt, Michael makes a deal with the Others.  He has to free Henry Gale (Michael Emerson) and bring Jack, Kate (Evangeline Lilly), Sawyer (Josh Holloway), and Hurley (Jorge Garcia) to the Others.  In return, Walt will be returned to Michael and they will be given a boat and allowed to leave the island.

In the present, Michael struggles to get the four people he needs, and only those four, to accompany him on his mission.  Michael is forced to pull rank on Jack when the doctor tries to take charge of the situation.  Sawyer invites Sayid (Naveen Andrews) to join the team, but Michael is forced to tell Sayid he cannot come.  Sayid becomes suspicious of Michael and lets Jack know.

Mr. Eko (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) takes over pushing the button and asks Charlie (Dominic Monaghan) to bring his belongings to him.  Charlie, bitter that Eko will no longer help him build a church, refuses.  Charlie also starts to patch things up with Claire (Emilie de Ravin) and tosses the rest of his heroin stash into the ocean.

Hurley refuses to join Michael's team until after he gives a speech at Ana Lucia (Michelle Rodriguez) and Libby's (Cynthia Watros) funeral.  As the funeral draws to a close, the survivors notice a sailboat just offshore.

What Works:

The best part of this episode is Harold Perrineau.  He gives a tortured performance and is excellent in every scene.  This episode improves on the rewatch because you get a better understanding of what Michael is trying to accomplish in each scene.  Michael is determined, but pained by what he has done and what he still has to do and while Michael gets a lot of deserved hate, Perrineau does a brilliant job. 

The later flashbacks also do a good job of setting up Michael's turn to the dark side.  He is held prisoner for days and comes to believe Walt is dead.  When he finally gets to see Walt, it breaks him so that he is willing to do anything to get Walt back.  It fills in the blanks in a believable way.

Sayid is awesome in this episode because he sees right through Michael's lies.  It's great to see Sayid back in action and it's an interesting setup for the finale.

I have some issues with Charlie's story in this episode, but he does have one great segment.  Vincent showing up with a statue full of heroin is hilarious and Charlie throwing all of the drugs in the ocean was a nice moment for the character.

Finally, the cliffhanger was excellent.  I wasn't expecting a random sailboat to appear and anyone who says they were expecting it is a liar.  It's a great way to end the episode and intriguing setup for the finale.  

What Sucks:

As I mentioned above, Charlie kinda sucks in this episode.  The way he treats Mr. Eko is incredibly childish and he somehow makes some progress in fixing his relationship with Claire, when he doesn't deserve it at all.  It's really annoying.

This is the penultimate episode of season 2 and penultimate episodes are setup episodes.  It's hard to be an outstanding episode of television when you are the penultimate episode because it's almost all setup.  This holds "Three Minutes" back a little bit just because of the nature of television.

Platinum Polar Bear:

The Platinum Polar Bear goes to the most useful character in an episode.  For "Three Minutes" this award goes to Sayid for seeing right through Michael's lies and beginning to form a counter-strategy with Jack.  This is Sayid's 7th time winning the award, which ties him for first place with Locke.

Verdict:

As far as penultimate episodes go, "Three Minutes" is solid.  Naveen Andrews and Harold Perrineau are fantastic, the flashbacks do a good job of filling in the blanks, and the cliffhanger is excellent.  Charlie is pretty awful and the episode is mostly setup, but it has still got it going on.

 8/10: Really Good