"Lost" The Man from Tallahassee (2007)

User Rating:

9.1/10   

Director:

Jack Bender

Writers:

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

TV Series:

"Lost" (2004)

Original Air Date:

21 March 2007 (Season 3, Episode 13)

Genre:

Adventure | Drama | Fantasy | Mystery | Romance | Thriller

Plot:

Jack tells Kate that he has made a deal with The Others and is leaving via submarine tomorrow. But Locke blows up the submarine before Jack can leave, after having a long conversation with Ben about the island's powers.

Plot Keywords:

Title Spoken By Character | Plane Crash | Flashback | Survival | South Pacific

Cast

Naveen Andrews	...	Sayid Jarrah
Henry Ian Cusick	...	Desmond Hume (credit only)
Emilie de Ravin	...	Claire Littleton (credit only)
Michael Emerson	...	Ben Linus
Matthew Fox	...	Jack Shephard
Jorge Garcia	...	Hugo 'Hurley' Reyes (credit only)
Josh Holloway	...	James 'Sawyer' Ford (credit only)
Daniel Dae Kim	...	Jin Kwon (credit only)
Yunjin Kim	...	Sun Kwon (credit only)
Evangeline Lilly	...	Kate Austen
Elizabeth Mitchell	...	Juliet Burke
Dominic Monaghan	...	Charlie Pace (credit only)
Terry O'Quinn	...	John Locke
Kiele Sanchez	...	Nikki Fernandez (credit only)
Rodrigo Santoro	...	Paulo (credit only)

Runtime:

43 min | Germany:42 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.78 : 1

Certification:

USA:TV-14 | Venezuela:PG-13 (DVD rating) | Netherlands:12

Filming Locations:

O'ahu, Hawaii, USA

Company:

Bad Robot

Trivia:

Juliet is holding a hamster in her portrait that hangs in Ben's home. At one point Ben claims that the electricity came from Hamsters on treadmills.

Goofs:

Continuity: When Alex returns from retrieving Sayid's bag for Locke, the clock on the wall reads 1:40. There is a brief shot of Locke as Alex hands him the bag, and then it returns to Alex's shot and the clock now reads 4:20. It took her around three hours to pass over a bag.

Quotes:

Jack Shephard: [leans into Kate's ear so the Other's can't hear... ] I will come back for you.

A masterpiece of television writing

"The Man From Tallahassee" manages to beat "Walkabout" for the title of the best Locke episode, and that is no small feat. Overall it is one of the show's greatest accomplishments in every regard: it boasts some of Jack Bender's best direction, some of the best acting on the show, especially from Michael Emerson, who manages in this episode to eclipse every one of his other performances, perhaps because it is Ben's meatiest episode since season two, giving Emerson ample opportunity to shine, and some of the finest writing on the show.

There is a tendency among some internet fans to speak of 'characterLOST' and 'mysteryLOST' as two separate things, the 'mythology' and the 'characters' as two separate aspects of the show. This is far from the truth, and the show's weakest episodes come when the focus is on one or the other. What makes "Lost" special is the intriguing, mysterious story and specifically how it relates to the many great characters on the show. "The Man From Tallahassee" finds the perfect balance here. We get loads of intrigue on the island, John and Jack's conversations with Ben, the submarine being blown up, the final twist of the episode, but everything is written with the characters in mind. Drew Goddard and Jeff Pinkner did a superb job writing this episode.

The flashbacks are some of the absolute best, revealing the brutally sad truth behind how Locke ended up in a wheelchair. They are made even better by a perfect Terry O'Quinn performance, and the scene with Locke in the hospital after the fall is one of the most emotional and genuinely touching scenes on the show. "The Man from Tallahassee" is a real tour-de-force. Excuse the use of that term, usually reserved for hyperbole coming from morons, but it really does apply here. Everything about this episode is absolutely perfect from top to bottom.