Lost - All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues

To take a leap of faith, ABC seemed to be nervous about the direction Creative was going with Lost. Can the show take a direction unlike any other before it (except perhaps Twin Peaks…) and not be shoehorned into the “island survival” theme? With solid ratings behind Creative, could those in the writer’s room have the freedom to take the show into areas unforeseen? That is what Lost was allowed to do and we as viewers were all the more rewarded for it. When Locke and Boone venture far into the woods away from the beach and caverns to find Claire—kidnapped by “they” (as a shell-shocked and resurrected Charlie tells Jack…), with the first true face of “the others” (Danielle told Sayid she could hear them “whispering”) being Mopather’s Ethan—and a flashlight hits metal on the ground, Lost further encouraged our imaginations to ponder just why steel would be found under their feet. And to bait the viewer once again as Locke leans down with Boone, almost nearly going back to the camp (Boone’s comments on Star Trek’s Redshirts while tearing red material as markers, wrapped around trees to get back, amused me to no end, but I did wonder if Lost would offer such secondary characters to be killed off when need-be) when their search for Claire appeared to be all for naught, pattering his knife to that steel, we’re left to wonder just what lies perhaps under such metal. To be reeled in by the mysteries of the episodic cliffhanger is an art that television today wants badly to mine and perfect. Keep me hitched to you, pull me always. Sayid, much like Jack did Claire when she was telling him about the night visitor wanting to harm her child with the needle, wasn’t quite sure Danielle’s claims of the others is not just the figments of a mind under great duress/stress. Then Mopather’s Ethan startles Jack after the doc slips down a hill, throttling him with blows, warning him to stop following after him. Why is Claire so important to Ethan and the others he is party to? That is one of the main focal points of “All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues”. The drive to find Charlie and Claire, and the real threat Ethan and the others potentially represent certainly presents itself by episode’s end.