Lost: Season 4, Episode 10 "Something Nice Back Home" Review

 "Wouldn't you rather be dreaming about something nice back home?"

-Bernard Nadler

"Something Nice Back Home" picks up at the beach with Jack (Matthew Fox) attempting to give a speech to calm everyone down about the lies of Daniel (Jeremy Davies) and Charlotte (Rebecca Mader), but he passes out in the middle of it.  Juliet (Elizabeth Mitchell) realizes Jack has appendicitis and that he needs to have his appendix removed.  She sends Daniel, Charlotte, Sun (Yunjin Kim) and Jin (Daniel Dae Kim) to the Staff Station to get supplies.  During the trip, Jin figures out Charlotte knows Korean and threatens to hurt Daniel unless she helps him get Sun off the Island.

Jack requests to be awake for the surgery so he can talk Juliet through it, even though she has performed the surgery before.  He has Kate (Evangeline Lilly) hold a mirror so he can see what Juliet is doing, but when the pain becomes too much, Juliet has Bernard (Sam Anderson) put Jack to sleep.  The surgery goes well.  Juliet informs Kate that Jack kissed her, but Juliet says she believes Jack was just trying to prove he didn't love someone else.  When Kate leaves, Juliet tells Jack that she knows he was awake for the conversation.

Meanwhile, Sawyer (Josh Holloway), Claire (Emilie de Ravin), Aaron, and Miles (Ken Leung) make their way towards the beach camp, but Miles discovers the bodies of Karl and Rousseau along the way.  They are nearly found by Keamy (Kevin Durand) and his team, but Frank (Jeff Fahey) manages to distract Keamy and lead him away.  During the night, Claire sees her father, Christian (John Terry), holding Aaron.  The next morning, Sawyer wakes up to find Claire gone and Aaron abandoned in the jungle.

In flash-forwards, it's revealed that Jack and Kate have moved in together and are raising Aaron.  Jack proposes to Kate, which she accepts.  Jack is called to Santa Rosa to visit Hurley (Jorge Garcia) to convince him to start taking his pills again.  Hurley believes they are dead and has been visited by Charlie (Dominic Monaghan), who has two messages for Jack.  That he isn't supposed to raise Aaron and that someone will be visiting him.  Sure enough, Jack has a vision of his father.  Jack starts taking pills and drinking and angrily confronts Kate when she visits someone she won't tell him about.  Kate says she was fulfilling a promise to Sawyer.  This causes Jack to get even more angry and he yells that she and Aaron aren't even related to each other just as Aaron walks into the room.  As Kate cries and holds Aaron, Jack leaves.

What Works:

One thing I really like about this episode is the pairing of Sawyer and Miles.  There two interacting is a lot of fun as they but heads frequently.  This pair is going to go a long way together, but it starts here and it's great.

Frank Lapidus is my favorite character on Lost and any time he shows up, I'm going to have something to say about it.  Lapidus is a hero here as he protects Sawyer, Claire, Aaron, and Miles from Keamy's team.  He only has one scene, but Jeff Fahey kills it and proves once again that Lapidus is the man.

Matthew Fox and Evangeline Lilly both give excellent performances in this episode.  We see them go from the happiest they have ever been on the show to absolute devastation.  It's a quick fall from grace, but they both really sell it.

Finally, while this episode doesn't have a lot of forward momentum, the one spot where it does is a huge shock.  Claire's disappearance with "Christian" was a massive shock and definitely wasn't something I was expecting.  It works well and gives the episode a nice cliffhanger.

What Sucks:

The problems I have with this episode mostly come from the main story.  The tension of Jack having surgery doesn't work at all.  We know he's going to make it off the Island.  We have a whole flash-forward storyline happening in this episode to remind us of that.  Jack is going to be fine, which deflates all of the tension and suspense out of this story.  It doesn't help that this doesn't go anywhere for the rest of the series either.

This episode also feels like a weird time to have a Jack episode because he doesn't get to do anything.   He's down for the count for the entire runtime.  This would have worked much better as a Juliet episode, especially because Jack really hasn't gotten to do anything of significance since the season premiere.  The guy is our main protagonist, yet he's sidelined for pretty much the entire season.  And this is his episode?  It just doesn't make much sense to me.

Platinum Polar Bear:

The Platinum Polar Bear goes to most competent character of the episode.  For "Something Nice Back Home," I almost gave the award to Lapidus for saving Sawyer's group, but I had to give it to Juliet for saving Jack's life and shutting down his B.S. on the operating table and having Bernard knock him out.  This is Juliet's 3rd time winning this award, which ties her for 9th place with Sun, Charlie, and Jin.

Verdict:

"Something Nice Back Home" is a fine enough episode of Lost.  We get the start of Sawyer and Miles, Frank being amazing, Juliet being a boss, a disturbing cliffhanger, and some excellent acting from Matthew Fox and Evangeline Lilly.  It's just that this episode doesn't work as a Jack episode and the surgery storyline doesn't work at all.  It's fine, but nothing special.

 7/10: Good