S4E2 - Confirmed Dead

Well, well… it looks like a few new characters to focus on. Always a nice treat to keep things fresh.

Let’s see… we’ve got:

Daniel – The nutty physicist
TURN ONs: Inexplicable crying
What was that about, anyway? What a strange reaction to a news report. I wonder if he’s supposed to be a bit unstable. He really did seem to have a super scattered personality. Also, did anyone notice if the lady that was in the room with him when he was watching the news called him by a different name? I may be making that up.

TURN OFFs: Packing
“Uh, I wasn’t in charge of packing,” he fumbled, after Kate and Jack opened the metal trunk that had fallen from the chopper. And did you notice what was in there? Gasmasks and bags to store hazardous material. Definitely not your average search and rescue gear.

Miles – The skeptical ghost hunter
TURN ONs: Talking to and extorting money from dead people
Seriously? Is this going to be an ongoing theme for the rest of the show? People who aren’t there, but maybe kind of are there? I hope he parachuted down with his Dirt Devil, finds an outlet in Jacob’s shack, and sucks him into oblivion a la Ghost Busters.

TURN OFFs: Mean people
Not much love for the LOSTies, but I guess it’s to be expected after Naomi’s veiled warning. I think everyone should come up with and share an emergency code word or phrase with their friends. Mine will be “GLADIOLA”… or if things get really hairy I’ll say… “THER’S TOO MUCH ASBESTOS IN THE ATTIC.”

Charlotte – The deceptive anthropologist
TURN ONs: Digging up fossils, Hanging upside down
I wonder how long she was hanging there since Daniel clearly parachuted while it was still dark. The Dharma logo she found had a picture of a mythical hydra. I think I remember someone referring to a station named Hydra on the island, maybe something to do with animal research? Who knows. The interesting thing, though, is that she didn’t seem to have a what-the-hell-is-this-doing-here expression. It was more like a sweet-this-is-what-I-was-looking-for expression. I wonder if she already new about (or was already hired by) Dharma at that point.

TURN OFFs: Getting shot in the chest
Who can blame her, really? Perhaps because of Naomi’s warning, but especially judging from the guns and gasmasks, they clearly weren’t expecting a welcoming parade.

Frank – The loose cannon pilot
TURN ONs: Flying, Drinking
At least he was a drunk according to Naomi. Interesting interaction between her and the “fake Oceanic lawyer” guy. Once again, I think he’s tied to Dharma somehow. Especially once Miles flipped out and grilled Juliet on Ben’s whereabouts. Considering that Ben pretty much sold out everyone in the “original” Dharma initiative who now lay in that mass grave that Locke found himself in, I’d say they definitely have a score to settle with him. And just how difficult did they think it would be to extract him that they would need such an assortment of “specialists” to do the job? We know this is more than just a flight 815 rescue, but I think it’s more than just a Ben kidnapping as well.

TURN OFFs: Flying WHILE drinking
Maybe that’s why he “should have been the one piloting that plane,” but wasn’t. A little juice on the job, you know? And of course that’s why he feels guilty so gets roped into this mission, being told the intent is to find the “real” crash site…?


That’s one thing I don’t get—well, one of the many things. I’m going on the assumption that the discovery of the wreckage and those people’s reaction in the very beginning were real. However, was the wreckage, itself, real or was it staged? I guess it had to have been staged, right? We know the plane broke off in two pieces and is on the island, well, most of it. And even Frank, himself, swore that the footage of the pilot wasn’t really him. So the question is who would go to such lengths to stage that?

My theory is that the Dharma initiative is still alive and well on the mainland and they staged this fake wreckage so that the search would be called off and no one would discover the island. This brings up another point of clarification. How many days have they been on the island now? I’d say only three months or so. This would mean all of the flashbacks of the freighter people that we saw were probably not that long ago, since they all saw some report of the wreck discovery. I also wonder if this means that we will get more flashbacks to fill in the gaps of these new characters while continuing to get flash forwards from the “Oceanic Six.” That would definitely help broaden the potential character development rather than cycling between only six folks.

Any bets on who the other 3 of the 6 are? One of my bets is on Sayiid.

Gladiola…