Lost: Season 3, Episode 12 "Par Avion" Review

 "You are not on the list because you are flawed.  Because you are angry, and weak, and frightened.
-Mikhail Bakunin

"Par Avion" starts off in a flashback.  We see the aftermath of a car crash caused by Claire (Emilie de Ravin), which results in her mother ending up in a coma.  Claire discovers the hospital bills are being paid for by an unknown 3rd party, who later turns out to be Christian Shephard (John Terry), Jack's (Matthew Fox) father.  He reveals that he is Claire's father as well.  He tries to convince Claire to take her mother off life support because it is very unlikely she will wake up.  Claire refuses and Christian leaves.  Years later, when Claire is pregnant with Aaron, she goes to see her mother and apologizes for all of the terrible things she said in the moments before the car accident.

On the island, Claire notices a flock of sea birds land and she spots a scientific tag on one of them.  She recruits Sun (Yunjin Kim) and Jim (Daniel Dae Kim) to help her capture a bird so they can tie a note to the tag.  Charlie (Dominic Monaghan) refuses to help and Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick) ruins their plan by scaring off the birds with a gunshot.

Claire confronts Desmond as he finds a sea bird and he reveals the truth about his visions and that Charlie would have died if he had helped on the sea bird quest.  Claire and Charlie reconcile and she writes the note, ties it to the sea bird's tag, and sets it loose.

Meanwhile, Sayid (Naveen Andrews), Kate (Evangeline Lilly), Locke (Terry O'Quinn), Rousseau (Mira Furlan) take the captive Mikhail (Andrew Divoff) towards the Barracks, where they come across a sonic fence that surrounds it.  Mikhail claims it no longer works, but Locke pushes Mikhail between the pylons, which seemingly kills him.  It's also revealed that Locke knew about the C-4 in the Flame and took some of it with him.  The group uses a tree to climb over the pylons and they make it to the Barracks, where they see Jack playing football with Tom (M.C. Gainey).

What Works:

My favorite part of this episode is definitely the B-plot.  We don't spend a lot of time with the away team, but we get a few fun moments.  I always thought the sonic fence was really cool.  It works really well to enhance the mystique of the Dharma Initiative.  It's such a creative defense mechanism and I always love when it shows up.

I love Locke in this episode.  He continues to be super shady with pushing Mikhail between the pylons and having the C-4 on him.  Untrustworthy Locke is excellent Locke.  Him pushing Mikhail is one of my favorite Locke moments on the entire show.  It's very Breaking Bad of him.

I also love the cliffhanger the episodes ends on where we see Jack playing football with Tom.  It's exciting enough that out heroes have found the Barracks, but I don't think any of us expected to see Jack playing football with the Others.

Finally, I have some problems with the flashbacks, but they do give us some good stuff.  Obviously the reveal that Christian is Claire's father is really intriguing, but it's hilarious that Claire was a goth, rebellious teen.  Seeing Emilie de Ravin dress in all black with the stereotypical goth boots never fails to crack me up.

What Sucks:

Like I said, there are some things I like in the flashbacks, but for the most part I don't find them particularly engaging.  Claire's story here isn't that interesting and doesn't add much to her character or the show as a whole.

The A-plot has a lot of problems.  First off, like the flashbacks, it's not all that interesting.  Claire is trying to catch a bird.  Granted, it feels a lot like a season 1 episode, but it doesn't fit that well in season 3.  Also it never ends up going anywhere.

I also find it extremely annoying that the conflict between Claire, Charlie, and Desmond could have been solved with one conversation.  We see it happen by the end, when Desmond explains what is going on to Claire.  Why couldn't they have done that at the beginning of the episode?  The tiniest bit of communication could have saved them all some headache.  It's sloppy writing.

Finally, I have never understood why Desmond fires his gun to scare the birds out of the trap Claire, Sun, and Jim built.  If they catch the bird, it's over.  Charlie is safe.  Why does Desmond need to scare the birds away?  It doesn't make sense.

Platinum Polar Bear:

The Platinum Polar Bear goes to the most competent character in an episode.  For "Par Avion", this award goes to Sayid for stopping Kate from walking into the path of the sonic fence, stopping Kate from exposing their position to get Jack's attention, and for helping the group get over the sonic fence.  This is Sayid's 9th time winning this award, which ties him for 1st place with Jack.

Verdict:

"Par Avion" is a fine episode of Lost, but it's the last one before the start of the best stretch of episodes in the show.  The B-plot is fun and the flashbacks have some moments, but the main plot of the episode isn't very interesting and could have been solved with some basic communication.

 6/10: Okay