"Lost" Confirmed Dead (2008)

Director:

Stephen Williams

Writers:

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

TV Series:

"Lost" (2004)

Original Air Date:

7 February 2008 (Season 4, Episode 2)

Genre:

Adventure | Drama | Fantasy | Mystery | Romance | Thriller

Plot:

The surviving members of the supposed "rescue team" are scattered around the island after a helicopter problem. However, once they are located, they reluctantly reveal that they are indeed not there to rescue them.

Plot Keywords:

Group | Helicopter | Flare Gun | Cocking Gun | Polar Bear

Cast

Naveen Andrews	...	Sayid Jarrah
Henry Ian Cusick	...	Desmond Hume (credit only)
Jeremy Davies	...	Daniel Faraday
Emilie de Ravin	...	Claire Littleton
Michael Emerson	...	Benjamin Linus
Matthew Fox	...	Jack Shephard
Jorge Garcia	...	Hugo 'Hurley' Reyes
Josh Holloway	...	James 'Sawyer' Ford
Daniel Dae Kim	...	Jin Kwon (credit only)
Yunjin Kim	...	Sun Kwon (credit only)
Ken Leung	...	Miles Straume
Evangeline Lilly	...	Kate Austen
Rebecca Mader	...	Charlotte Lewis
Elizabeth Mitchell	...	Juliet Burke
Terry O'Quinn	...	John Locke

Runtime:

43 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | French

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.78 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

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

Filming Locations:

O'ahu, Hawaii, USA

Company:

ABC Studios

Trivia:

The character Charlotte Staples Lewis' name is derived from the late Clives Staples Lewis, better known as C.S. Lewis, the late Irish author and scholar known for his writings on Christian apologetics, and most famously, the children's series The Chronicles of Narnia.

Goofs:

Plot holes: When Ben is trying to save himself from Locke, he recites Charlotte's bio, including her date of birth. He says 1979 was the year she was born. However, in the Season 5 episode "Lafleur" we see a young Charlotte in the Dharma Barracks in 1974.

Quotes:

George Minkowski: [on the radio phone] Dan, the chopper com went dead. What the hell happened up there?
Daniel Faraday: Yeah, I don't know, George, there was an electrical storm. All the instruments, I think they just went down. Listen, I made contact with some of the survivors and we just, uh...
George Minkowski: Dan, am I on speaker?

Movie Connections:

References Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

A bravura piece of genre storytelling

"Confirmed Dead" is a bravura piece of pure genre storytelling, and there's nothing else to it. "The Beginning of the End" put everything in place for the rest of the season, and "Confirmed Dead" had the goal of pushing the story even further, really introducing us to the world of season four, and introducing us to the 'freighter four', if you will, and accomplished its goal very well.

The episode flashes back to the freighter four, Daniel Faraday, Miles, Charlotte, and Frank Lapidus all around the time the wreck of Flight 815 was 'discovered'. Daniel's is still the most interesting and enigmatic flashback (Miles' is just confusing and bewildering), simply because I just don't know who that woman is, don't understand why he was crying, and am also connected to him emotionally more than any of the other freighters. Charlotte's dig in the Tunisian desert was definitely a 'what the hell?' moment and is still a lot of fun. I like my polar bears to be skeletons in a desert a billion miles from where they're supposed to be, they're more interesting that way. Frank Lapidus was supposed to fly 815 eh? Interesting. I don't think there's more to him as a character, but we will probably see a Daniel flashback and a Charlotte flashback in season 5.

Naturally there is not much depth to the proceedings, but the action/adventure stuff on the island is pure adrenaline, Miles' awful couple of lines of exposition excluded, and it's just a bravura piece of storytelling in just about every way, and genuinely suspenseful at times. I'm kind of surprised that this episode holds up on repeat viewings, but it really does. It may not be up there with the show at its absolute peak, but it's definitely a great episode in its own way.