Solitary (17 Nov. 2004)

Ashamed with his behavior torturing Sawyer, Sayid Jarrah decides to leave the group of survivors and travel alone through the island, trying to find the source of transmission and map the ... See full summary »

Director:

Greg Yaitanes

Writers:

Jeffrey Lieber (creator), J.J. Abrams (creator),

Stars:

Naveen Andrews, Matthew Fox, Jorge Garcia

Cast

Episode cast overview, first billed only:
Naveen Andrews	...	Sayid Jarrah
Matthew Fox	...	Jack Shephard
Jorge Garcia	...	Hugo 'Hurley' Reyes
Maggie Grace	...	Shannon Rutherford
Josh Holloway	...	James 'Sawyer' Ford
Malcolm David Kelley	...	Walt Lloyd
Daniel Dae Kim	...	Jin Kwon (credit only)
Yunjin Kim	...	Sun Kwon
Evangeline Lilly	...	Kate Austen
Dominic Monaghan	...	Charlie Pace
Terry O'Quinn	...	John Locke
Harold Perrineau	...	Michael Dawson
Ian Somerhalder	...	Boone Carlyle
William Mapother	...	Ethan Rom
Mira Furlan	...	Danielle Rousseau

Storyline

Ashamed with his behavior torturing Sawyer, Sayid Jarrah decides to leave the group of survivors and travel alone through the island, trying to find the source of transmission and map the place. He is arrested and tortured by the French survivor Danielle Rousseau and recalls his beloved Nadia back to his days years earlier in Iraq as part of the interrogation/torturer for the Republican Guard. Meanwhile, Hurley decides to get the survivors spirits up by getting up a golf course in a sunny field.

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Plot Keywords:

labrador retriever | mysterious island

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Genres:

Adventure | Drama | Fantasy | Mystery | Sci-Fi | Thriller

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Certificate:

TV-14

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English Korean

Release Date:

17 November 2004 (USA)

Filming Locations:

O'ahu, Hawaii, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Bad Robot, Touchstone Television

Technical Specs

Runtime:

43 min

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.78 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

First appearance in the series of Mira Furlan playing Danielle.

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Goofs

When they are on the newly-constructed golf course, a line of fence post is clearly visible in the background.

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Quotes

Jack: Things could be worse.
Hurley: [squeals] How?

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Soundtracks

"End Title"
Written by Michael Giacchino
Performed by Hollywood Studio Symphony Orchestra

User Reviews

Learning more about the island while Sayid's past is revealed

"Solitary" is a very well-written episode but much about the way it is executed bothered me. For one, while Naveen Andrews is superb as Sayid it is embarrassing that all his flashbacks have him inexplicably alternating between English and Arabic (really, really bad Arabic). One may argue that casting an actor of German origin to play an actor of British origin is similar and acceptable, but it's a given in those situations that the actor speaks English well and doesn't speak nonsensically in an entirely different language to other Arabs. In addition I found the cinematography by Larry Fong and the direction by Greg Yaitanes completely pedestrian, predictable, and occasionally silly. It's debatable whether the writing on "Lost" has improved over the four years it has been on air, but it is beyond any question that the series looks far better now on a visual level than it did in season one.

"Solitary" is one of the four scripts written by acclaimed writer David Fury before he left "Lost", and it is certainly less impressive than his two classic episodes "Walkabout" and "Numbers", but isn't bad by any means. Still, the flashback isn't quite handled as well as it could have been, essentially hammering home points about Sayid's character that we already learned in the previous episode. The fact that "Solitary" comes right after "Confidence Man", where Sawyer's character was so spectacularly and interestingly explored in unexpected ways, and provides a simplistic 'jaded good guy in love' story, albeit one with some interesting plot turns, makes "Solitary" seem weak.

The most interesting aspects of this episode are the on-island events. We get a good dose of island mythology in this episode, as we discover the source of the signal, Rosseau, and learn about her mysterious backstory. Sayid and Rosseau's scenes together are continually interesting, and the episode introduces us to the Others, albeit indirectly. Although many fans hate the golf part of this episode, but I found it a very entertaining bit of light-hearted "Lost", well-written and fun. It also gave us an excuse to see Shannon in a bikini.

"Solitary" is a very good episode that leads into the following two episodes quite nicely. With the perspective of the fourth season and the recent Lostpedia David Fury interview (where he stated that the network had him cut out Rosseau telling Sayid that her team were studying time) in mind I am completely satisfied with the resolution of the 'sickness' question.

8/10