Lost: Season 5, Episode 5 "This Place Is Death" Review

"You wanna shoot me, then shoot me, but let's get on with it!"

-Ben Linus

"This Place Is Death" picks up in 2007.  Sun (Yunjin Kim) pulls a gun on Ben (Michael Emerson) and plans to kill him to avenge Jin (Daniel Dae Kim).  Ben reveals that he can prove Jin is alive and will help Sun get back to the Island to find her husband.  Sayid (Naveen Andrews) and Kate (Evangeline Lilly) refuse to go along with Ben and leave, while Ben drives Sun and Jack (Matthew Fox) to a church.  Ben gives Sun Jin's wedding ring and claims he got it from Locke (Terry O'Quinn).  Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick) arrives and they all go inside to see Eloise Hawking (Fionnula Flanagan), the mother of Daniel Faraday (Jeremy Davies).

On the Island, Jin and Danielle Rousseau's (Melissa Farman) team trek towards the radio tower with a plan to head to the Oceanic beach camp afterwards.  On the way, they are attacked by the monster.  Montand (Marc Menard) has his armed ripped off and is dragged beneath the walls of the Temple.  The team goes after him, but Jin convinces Danielle to stay outside with him to keep her baby safe.  A time flash occurs and Jin witnesses Danielle kill the rest of her team before being saved by another time flash.

Jin reunites with Sawyer (Josh Holloway), Locke, Juliet (Elizabeth Mitchell), Daniel, Miles (Ken Leung), and Charlotte (Rebecca Mader) and they explain the situation to him.  They continue towards the Orchid until Charlotte collapses.  Daniel stays behind with her while the others continue on.  Charlotte reveals that she actually grew up on the Island with the Dharma Initiative, but had to leave.  She said a man had told her if she ever came back to the Island, she would die, and believes that man was Daniel.  The time flashes become too much and Charlotte dies.

The others make it the Orchid, but it vanishes in a time flash.  They find a well nearby and Locke prepares to climb down it.  Before he does, Jin makes him promise not to bring Sun back and tell her that Jin is dead.  He gives Locke his wedding ring as proof.  Locke goes down the well, but a time flash causes him to fall and he breaks his leg.  He is met by someone appearing to be Christian Shephard (John Terry) who tells him that he needed to move the Island, not Ben, and that's why the flashes are happening.  Locke is told he has to gather everyone who left together and bring them to Eloise Hawking, but that he will have to die in the process.  Locke agrees and fixes the donkey wheel.  As Locke is transported off the Island, "Christian" tells Locke "Say hello to my son."

What Works:

This is one of those episodes that actually works better when you know the whole scope of the show.  Knowing that Christian is actually the Man in Black and what his motives are makes this so much more interesting.  The scenes between Locke and the Man in Black are much more awesome now because we know that Locke is being manipulated brilliantly.  I like to imagine the Man in Black broke the wheel intentionally to bring Locke to this point.  All of this is amazing and sets up the end of Locke's journey on this show very nicely.

I really like the early parts of this episode that have Jin hanging out with Rousseau's team.  It's fun having a bunch of characters that we know aren't going to last long.  It makes the scenes with them a little more tense.  Most of them could go at any time.  The Monster attack is a lot of fun and we get our first glimpse of the Temple.  It's fun stuff.

Daniel Dae Kim is amazing and gives a wide range in his performance.  We get to see his stunned confusion when he learns the year, angry confusion when he and Sawyer talk about time travel, and brutal despair when he gives Locke his wedding rings and makes him promise not to bring Sun back.  Jin is a pretty underused character on this show, so it's great when they actually give him something to work with.

Finally, Desmond's arrival blew my mind the first time I watched this episode.  It immediately clicked that the woman in the church was Daniel's mother and it makes perfect sense that she is the one Desmond met in "Flashes Before Your Eyes."  I actually kinda felt stupid for not realizing it earlier.  It's a piece of the puzzle that fits together extremely well.

What Sucks:

Like I said before, I liked the stuff with Jin and the French team, but it does feel kinda rushed.  We definitely could have had a whole episode of just them.  It would have been a great way for the show to show us some of the Island's history and answer some questions.  Seeing more of what happened to Rousseau also would have been nice.

Charlotte's death also felt pretty rushed.  That could have been a whole other episode to be honest.  Charlotte is one of the most underused main characters in the entire run of the show and had almost no significance to the plot once she arrived.  It's a shame because she had some real potential.  I wish they could have given her a flashback episode before killing her off.

Platinum Polar Bear:

The Platinum Polar Bear goes to the most competent character of the episode.  For "This Place Is Death," this award goes to the Man in Black for manipulating Locke into leaving the Island and sending him on his journey to bring the candidates back and to his eventual death.  Not to mention that he killed two members of Rousseau's team single-handedly and was possibly indirectly responsible for the deaths of the rest.  This is the Man in Black's 2nd time winning this award, which ties him for 14th place with Rose, Ana Lucia, Ben, Lapidus, and Daniel.

Verdict:

"This Place Is Death" comes off a bit rushed and probably should have been two separate episodes.  That said, I like most of what we get.  The scenes with Rousseau's team are great, Daniel Dae Kim does a spectacular job, the Eloise Hawking reveal is brilliant, and the episode improves when you know the grand scope of the show as a whole.  It's definitely got it going on.

 8/10: Really Good