Lost: Season 4, Episode 9 "The Shape of Things to Come" Review

 "Can't believe you're just giving him Australia.  Australia's the key to the whole game."

-Hugo "Hurley" Reyes

"The Shape of Things to Come" starts off on the beach, where Jack (Matthew Fox) isn't feeling very well. The body of the freighter's doctor, Ray (Marc Vann), washes up on the beach.  Daniel (Jeremy Davis) manages to get back in touch with the freighter by rigging the sat phone up to do morse code.  He asks about the doctor, but says the boat only replied that the helicopter will be coming for them in the morning.  Bernard (Sam Anderson) reveals he knows morse code and Daniel is lying.  The boat actually said they didn't know what Daniel was talking about and nothing had happened to the doctor.  Jack confronts Daniel with his lies and gets him to reveal the freighter crew never had any intention of rescuing them.

At the sonar fence, Keamy (Kevin Durand) forces Alex (Tania Raymonde) to turn off the fence, but she also manages to send a warning to the Barracks, which Locke (Terry O'Quinn) receives over the phone.  They tell Ben (Michael Emerson), who arms himself and starts barricading himself, Locke, Hurley (Jorge Garcia), and Aaron inside one of the house.  Keamy and his men attack and kill 3 Oceanic 815 survivors and blow up Claire's (Emilie de Ravin) house.  Sawyer (Josh Holloway) manages to save her and get back to the rest of the group.  

Miles (Ken Leung) is sent in with a radio for the two groups to negotiate.  He reveals that Keamy has captured Alex.  Keamy threatens to kill Alex if Ben does not give himself up.  Ben tries to pretend that Alex isn't important to him, but this backfires and Keamy kills Alex.  Ben disappears into a secret room within his secret room and appears to summon the Monster, which attacks the mercenaries.  Ben's group flees into the jungle with the plan to go see Jakob for further instruction.  Sawyer refuses and tries to take Claire, Aaron, Hurley, and Miles and head for the beach.  Locke holds him at gunpoint as he and Ben need Hurley to find the cabin.  Hurley talks everyone down and agrees to go with Locke.

In flash-forwards, Ben wakes up in the Tunisian desert wearing a Dharma jacket.  Two men find him and attempt to take him prisoner, but he subdues them both.  He makes it to a hotel, where he learns it is now October of 2005, Sayid (Naveen Andrews) made it off the Island, and his wife, Nadia (Andrea Gabriel), has been murdered.  Ben travels to Iraq to see Sayid and tells him Nadia was killed by an associate of Charles Widmore (Alan Dale), Ishmael Bakir (Faran Tahir), who they track down and kill.  Ben manipulates Sayid into becoming his hitman before paying Widmore a visit.  Ben promises to kill Widmore's daughter and Widmore tells him he will find the Island and take it back.

What Works:

The first thing we need to talk about is Michael Emerson's performance.  He is absolutely phenomenal here and has a massive range of emotion.  He gets to go full James Bond in the flash-forwards, gets to be back in charge of certain situations on the Island, and gets destroyed by Alex's death.  Emerson is one of, if not, the best actors on the show and he proves it here.

Alongside Ana Lucia and Libby, Alex has one of the most shocking deaths on the show.  We've seen the hostage being held at gunpoint trope done a million times in TV shows and movies.  If it's a developed and important character, we almost never seen them actually get killed.  Most shows simply don't have the balls to do that.  Lost is not most shows.  Alex's death caught me completely off guard when I first watched the show and it still manages to be extremely effective.  It's heartbreaking and tragic, a character that was cut down too early, but it works for Ben's story, while showing just how evil and dangerous Keamy is.

This episode feels more like an action movie than a typical episode of Lost.  On the Island, we get some really fun sequences with Sawyer's mad dash through the Barracks and the Monster's attack.  In the flash-forwards, we also get Ben and Sayid killing people.  It's a lot of fun and really keeps the momentum of the episode going at a breakneck pace.

I love the flash-forwards as well.  I've heard people compare the flash-forwards from "The Economist" to a spy movie, but I think these flash-forwards are much more along those lines.  Seeing Ben be so effective off-Island is just fun to watch.  Taking down those two guys in Tunisia, manipulating Sayid, and confronting Widmore are all awesome scenes and make me love Ben even more.

Finally, the beach subplot, though small, is very effective.  The intrigue continues to get ramped up with Ray's body and the strange message from the freighter, but we also get some awesome moments with Jack and Bernard.  I love Bernard being the one to expose Daniel as a liar and seeing Jack finally confront Daniel is very cathartic.

What Sucks:

I got nothing for you.

Platinum Polar Bear:

The Platinum Polar Bear goes to the most competent character of the episode.  For "The Shape of Things to Come," I'm giving this award to Jack for putting together the morse code plan with Bernard and for getting the truth out of Daniel.  I would have probably given this award to Ben, but he did get Alex killed. Anyway, this is Jack's 11th time winning this award, which ties him for 1st place with Sayid.

Verdict:

"The Shape of Things to Come" is easily in the top 2 best episodes of season 4, alongside "The Constant," and there's an argument that it is a top 10 episode of Lost.  It's certainly my favorite Ben episode thanks to Emerson's performance, the awesome action, excellent pacing, exciting flash-forwards, cathartic b-story,. and one of the most shocking deaths in the entire show.  Without a doubt, this episode has got it going on.

 10/10: Amazing