Apr 15 2009
Lost — “Some Like It Hoth”
*SPOILER ALERT* Tonight’s Lost episode, “Some Like It Hoth”, gave us more of the inside scoop on Miles (Ken Leung). We finally got the explanation for those weird little things Miles seemed to know in past episodes, simply by walking over a patch of ground. Turns out he can hear people’s thoughts even after they’re gone. It’s almost like he hears the echo of the person and what remains of their life story and experiences.
It was fun to see him continue his hostile bantering with Hurley (Jorge Garcia)–hostile on his side only, of course. After inadvertently discovering Miles’ gift for communing with the dead, Hurley shares his own tale of conversations with those long gone. I’m still not entirely sure that Hurley’s conversations are all in his head or real communication, but the ghost of Ana-Lucia did definitely get him out of a jam once.
The big eye opener of the episode was discovering that Miles’ father is none other than Dr. Chang (François Chau), the man who appears in all of the Dharma videos the Lost gang discovered on their original landing on the island. I feel like I should have seen that one coming, but I never did. The thing is that from what Miles knows, his father kicked his wife and son out when Miles was just a baby. Miles never knew him, and Miles’ mother only spoke of him on her deathbed.
Believing he can’t change the past, and that his father is really long dead, Miles has no interest in getting to know his father on the island. It’s a nice dynamic as Hurley tries to get Miles to move on from all the hate and actually get to know his father. He gets Miles’ attention when he reveals how he gave his own father a second chance, and how much better his life was for it.
Miles goes along with Dr. Chang on another errand, to pick up new arrivals in the submarine. There’s a chance Miles may get to know his father better–and perhaps a chance that he may find a reason for his father’s actions that he didn’t expect. We all know things aren’t always as they seem.
The wonderful kicker of an ending is when Miles walks up to the sub and sees the long missing Daniel Faraday getting out. And when he says hello, Daniel *recognizes* him. For a moment I’d wondered if it was another time-traveling version of Daniel who wouldn’t know who Miles was yet. Perhaps in the next episode we’ll learn where Daniel’s been all this time.
Other items of note: the dead body Miles picks up from the construction site of the hatch looks like he has a bullet wound. But later Miles repeats what the dead man’s thoughts were, of his filling being pulled out of his head. What looked like foul play now looks to be an actual accident, perhaps from the powerful magnetic pull attracting the filling?
Kate, Kate, Kate. Not content to leave well enough alone, Kate (Evangeline Lilly) tries to console Ben’s father Roger (Jon Gries) and instead arouses his suspicion. Jack (Matthew Fox) possibly scares Roger into silence for the moment, but there’s no telling how this is going to go. Especially when Sawyer (Josh Holloway) has to knock out his security team buddy Phil (Patrick Fischler)–who has seen Sawyer and Kate on the security tapes. This can only get worse, because what are they going to do with him?
And a big LOL to Hurley for trying to rewrite The Empire Strikes Back to send to Lucas. There’s a good chance Hurley can write better dialogue!
Watch Lost on ABC Wednesdays at 9/8c. Looks like next week will be one of the Lost recap specials, and then a new episode the following week.
Read all of my previous Lost posts.
PHOTO: Ken Leung as Miles Straume in Lost, screencap c2009 ABC Studios.
