BLUE MAG

I’ve long held to the position that Terry O’Quinn is the reason to watch ABC’s “Lost.” This is no more evident than in last night’s episode “The Man From Tallahassee” which focused on O’Quinn’s character John Locke and how he ended up in that wheelchair.

Let’s face it, this season has not been great. The season opener was pretty good but it went downhill fast and by the sixth or seventh episode I was about ready to pack it in and start, I don’t know … reading? Then the show went on that long hiatus which promised uninterrupted episodes when it returned (a great idea on paper but it hasn’t seemed to work out so good ratings-wise.) I bought some novels and avoided “Daybreak” (“Lost’s” mid-season replacement) after watching the first ten minutes of the first episode.

The show finally returned three weeks ago and the first episode back was a stinker. A show I’d praised to many friends was now being thrown back in my face. “Lost totally sucks now,” was the oft-repeated phrase and I had no choice but to agree. This genuinely saddened me because those first two seasons of “Lost” were great. I felt like Sam Jackson to Robert DeNiro in “Jackie Brown” saying: “What happened man? You used to be beautiful.”

Well, now that has all changed. Each of the last three episodes have been getting better and better. Finally another Locke centered episode has shown up and man is Terry O’Quinn fun to watch. If you haven’t seen O’Quinn in the horror film “The Stepfather” you’ve missed some great stuff. The other guy I like watching is Michael Emerson as Ben Linus, the supposed leader of The Others (or The Hostiles as they’ve now been introduced.) Much of 3×13 is taken up by Ben and Loke talking to each other and with these two guys that makes some good TV.

So, the episode finally had good performances and the best thing is that in the last three episodes things have finally been coming together. We have a better understanding of what the island means becasue someone has finally stated clearly that it can heal people. We know how Locke lost the use of his legs and who did it. Also, with this episode (and the previous one where he killed a man with a sonic boom which was awesome by the way), my early prediction (halfway through the pilot when he introduced backgammon to Walt) that Locke would end up a villain seems to be coming true. Now the big problem is we won’t be returning to Locke’s story for another five weeks. Boo!

Now the other thing that the show has to get into is that mysterious station in the Artic seen at the end of season two. Whatever is going on there and with Desmond is the real story. It’s the voodoos, I tells ya.