Lost Season Four Overview
A Brief Look into Lost's Most Exciting Year to Date
For a season cut short by the writers’ union strike, the fourth year of Lost flowed brilliantly and succeeded in telling a full, cohesive story.
The Good Moments of Lost Season 4
Of all the many things that happened we had six Losties officially return to the mainland (the “Oceanic Six”), time travelling, ghostly sightings, huge explosions and the island literally vanish in a flash of light. We also found out who was in the coffin at the end of last season’s finale which, in time honoured Lost fashion, raised more questions than answers.
There were also some brilliant episodes which will definitely make it into anyone’s top five.
Most importantly there was ‘The Constant’, easily the greatest episode of anything that has been on TV this year. And ‘Meet Kevin Johnson’, an episode detailing what happened to Lostie Michael (Harold Perrineau) after he betrayed his fellow survivors and left the island.
‘The Shape of Things to Come’ gave compelling insight into “Other” leader Ben’s (Michael Emerson) future and was a gripping 40 minutes of non-stop action. In another great episode, ‘The Economist’, he has also hired island Oceanic Six member Sayid (Naveen Andrews) as his James Bond-style assassin.
A New Hope for Losties
The third season’s finale ended with the arrival of a freighter and the promise of rescue. The freighter introduced four new characters and their collective flashback episode (‘Confirmed Dead’) gave a brief but intriguing insight into their background.
The one who stood out was Daniel Faraday (Jeremy Davies), a mad scientist who may just be able to explain the island’s unique properties. His pivotal moment came in ‘The Constant’ where a past version of himself was able to help Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick) from slipping backwards and forwards in time by finding his constant in the form of his lost love Penny (Sonya Walger).
‘The Constant’ not only confirmed that time travel existed in the Lost world but, like a Greek tragedy, told a wonderful, yet heart-breaking story of a man trying to find his loved one.
But Lost can’t take on new arrivals without first making room, meaning Rousseau (Mira Furlan) and her daughter Alex (Tania Raymonde) were both gunned down by the freighter’s mercenaries in one the most shocking moments in the show’s history.
Leadership Power Struggle Between Locke and Ben
This season pretty much confirmed that the two central characters of the whole story are Locke (Terry O’Quinn) and Ben. The year long power struggle between them over the leadership of Ben’s group made compelling viewing because Emerson and O’Quinn are easily Lost’s best actors.
Just when people think they worked out Ben’s character, his central episode ‘The Shape of Things to Come’ showed that not only did he have power over the mysterious smoke monster but that he made it off the island for good.
The Bad Times of Lost
In between the excitement and plot twists, there were also some fairly poor episodes which slowed the pace of the season a little.
‘The Other Woman’ furthered the tedious Jack-Kate-Juliet love triangle that’s been building up since the start of season 3 and was nothing more than the season’s only filler episode.
The boring flashforward episode ‘Eggtown’ gave a few surprises, especially with Kate (Evangeline Lilly) revealed as the surrogate mother of Claire’s (Emilie de Ravin) baby, but was lacking the substance needed to make it stand out.
What's Next for Lost
Overall this was without a doubt the best season of Lost to date as there was never any endless dragging of pointless story arcs that went on in previous years. The sci-fi aspect of the show has been played up more than ever and the flashforwards have introduced a unique way of continuing the story.
With half of the main cast either dead or off the island, what will be the setting for season 5? It’s anyone’s guess but it won’t stop fans theorising about it until then.
