Television Review: Exposé (Lost, S3X14, 2007)

Exposé (S03E14)

Airdate: 28 March 2007

Written by: Edward Kitsis & Adam Horowitz
Directed by: Steven Williams

Running Time: 43 minutes

By the time Lost reached the second half of its third season, the creators had become acutely aware that they had accumulated a considerable number of problems, many of which were particular to that uneven season. Perhaps the most glaring issue was the clumsy and thoroughly unconvincing introduction of two new characters—Nikki Fernandez and Paulo—who had been inserted into the ensemble as if they had been present all along. The audience, never known for their patience with narrative contrivances, began to hate the pair with an intensity that surprised even the show's writers. The solution to this problem arrived in the form of Exposé, an episode that, whilst certainly not among the worst offerings of the series, unquestionably ranks among its most divisive instalments.

The episode commences with Nikki in a state of utter panic, sprinting through the jungle towards the beach. She manages to mumble something largely incoherent before collapsing dead in front of a bewildered Hurley and Sawyer. When the pair investigate, they venture into the jungle and discover Paulo's body, apparently having succumbed to the same mysterious affliction. However, they also find a walkie-talkie on his person, suggesting that he might have been collaborating with the Others. As the beach survivors prepare for an impromptu double funeral, they attempt to piece together how the couple died and whether the Others might bear responsibility.

The flashbacks reveal Nikki to be Nikki Fernandez, an aspiring actress who has secured a guest role in the fourth season of Exposé, a Baywatch-esque action programme about crime-fighting strippers. She obtained this role through considerably less than meritocratic means, having slept with Howard L. Zuckerman (Jacob Witkin), an elderly and lecherous producer residing in Sydney, Australia. Nikki subsequently recommended a talented Brazilian chef named Paulo, who is revealed to be her co-conspirator. Together, they poison the elderly producer and help themselves to the contents of his safe, snatching diamonds worth eight million US dollars, which they intend to smuggle to Los Angeles aboard the ill-fated Oceanic 815.

The flashbacks subsequently chronicle the couple's activities following the crash. In the initial days, they realise they must locate the bag containing the diamonds. Nikki seeks advice from Dr. Artzt regarding possible locations and receives an incidental lecture about Medusa spiders, which he has been collecting as the Island's zoologist. Paulo discovers the bag but conceals this from Nikki, subsequently attempting to hide the diamonds in various locations, including the Pearl Station, which he discovers before anyone else. Later, both join an expedition to the Pearl Station, forcing Paulo to re-hide his contraband. Nikki eventually concludes that Paulo is concealing the diamonds on his person and decides to poison him with a Medusa spider, whose venom induces eight-hour paralysis—sufficient time to extract the information she requires. However, her scheme backfires catastrophically when pheromones attract a swarm of additional Medusa spiders that bite Nikki, paralysing her as well.

In the epilogue, the survivors discover the diamonds and, deeming them worthless in their current predicament, decide to bury them alongside both spouses. In the final haunting shot, Nikki opens her eyes, indicating that the paralysis has worn off—but this only means she will meet her end buried alive.

Before production commenced, it was abundantly clear that fans utterly despised Nikki and Paulo and wished them gone. Damon Lindelof decided to grant their wishes in one of the series' more unconventional episodes, wherein scriptwriters Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz blended elements of horror, mystery, and tragedy with references to film noir, meta-commentary on the television industry itself, and plentiful helpings of extremely dark humour.

Exposé functions effectively as a crime mystery, presenting archetypal characters in the form of two utterly amoral individuals who commit murder and deceive everyone around them, ultimately receiving their just desserts in a profoundly dark and disturbing manner. The episode operates almost as a morality tale, wherein greed and treachery are punished with an irony so cruel it borders on the sadistic.

There are also elements of self-satire woven throughout. Nikki's commentary on the sad fate of guest characters in long-running shows functions as a knowing wink to the audience. The presence of Billy Dee Williams, playing himself as the star of the fictional programme, represents, by that point, the closest Lost comes to real-life television conventions—a curious meta-textual layer in a series already renowned for its narrative complexity.

However, another aspect of this episode proves considerably more contentious. The producers conceived the notion of using these two characters to provide a rapid recap of previous events from an entirely different perspective, effectively transforming Exposé into a form of clip show. This necessitated re-shooting or editing scenes with Nikki and Paulo into footage from past episodes, including the pilot, and resurrecting numerous guest characters whose roles had long since concluded.

The most controversial aspect, however, lies in its revisionist interpretation of the entire plot up to that point. Nikki and Paulo, motivated by greed and mutual distrust, venture into the jungle and somehow manage to stumble upon iconic locations that regular characters have yet to visit—including the Beechcraft before it falls and the Pearl Station, where Paulo even has the opportunity to hide and observe Ben and Juliet discussing their sinister plans. The entire trajectory of events could have been dramatically different had these two troubled themselves to share their discoveries with their fellow survivors. They bear shared responsibility for subsequent tragedies, making their grim fate further justified. Yet this also brings *Lost? dangerously close to annoying "retcon" territory, forcing viewers to accept that significant events occurred off-screen whilst the main narrative unfolded elsewhere.

Having Ben and Juliet discuss their plans in a manner that feels somewhat out of character, combined with Paulo conveniently finding a walkie-talkie to serve as a later "red herring," constitutes one of the episode's lower points. These contrivances strain credibility even by Lost's accommodating standards.

Nevertheless, despite its manifest flaws, Exposé is an entertaining episode that demonstrates the producers, even at that advanced stage, were not above conducting bold experiments whilst attempting to rectify earlier mistakes. It might be viewed as a curious artefact—a self-contained tragedy wrapped in the fabric of a larger mystery, flawed yet fascinating, and ultimately unforgettable for all its problematic elements.

RATING: 6/10 (++)

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