Television Review: Homecoming (Lost, S1X15, 2005)

Special (S01E14)

Airdate: February 9th 2005

Written by: Damon Lindelof
Directed by: Kevin Hooks

Running Time: 41 minutes

By the mid-point of its first season, fans of Lost had ample reason to suspect that the groundbreaking series was succumbing to the grind of network television’s demands. What began as a thrilling, meticulously plotted mystery was showing signs of becoming routine, forced to justify a 24-episode order with a snail-like pace of overarching plot development and increasingly unimaginative, repetitive flashback exposition. Homecoming, the fifteenth episode, serves as a potent, if frustrating, example of this emerging trend. It is an hour that advances the narrative in necessary, plot-mechanical ways while simultaneously highlighting the creative strain of the format, delivering a storyline that feels both consequential and curiously hollow.

The previous episode, Special, had artfully evaded some of these structural issues through the sheer quality of its acting and writing, focusing on the poignant backstory of Michael and his son Walt. However, it concluded with a compelling cliffhanger: Boone and Locke discovering a dishevelled Claire wandering from the jungle. Homecoming promptly addresses this, yet in a manner that feels deliberately obstructive. Claire is revealed to be still pregnant and nearing her due date, but the crucial questions—how she escaped Ethan, or if she escaped at all—are immediately stifled. She suffers from complete amnesia, remembering nothing since before the crash. This narrative shortcut, while providing an easy out for the writers, feels like a cheat, robbing the audience of a potentially harrowing tale. Charlie, guilt-ridden over his failure to prevent her abduction, attempts to rekindle their connection, but her vacant stare and lost memories create a wall that the episode never meaningfully scales.

Instead, a new crisis is swiftly manufactured. Ethan re-emerges with brutal efficiency, overpowering Jin and Charlie to deliver a stark ultimatum: return Claire or he will pick the survivors off one by one, saving Charlie for last. When Charlie conveys this threat, the response from Jack, Locke, Sayid, and Boone is a predictable refusal to negotiate. They organise security perimeters, set traps, and arm themselves with knives and spears. Their tactical acumen is summarily mocked by Ethan, who outflanks them by swimming in from the sea to ambush and kill the hapless Scott Jackson. The death of this "redshirt" (played by Dustin Watchman) does raise the stakes, but it also underscores a growing problem: the disposable nature of background survivors, introduced merely to be culled.

Recognising their conventional defence has failed, Jack reluctantly agrees to deploy the show's Chekhovian arsenal: the guns from the Marshal’s suitcase. Five firearms are distributed to Jack, Sayid, Sawyer, Locke, and Kate. The plan is to use Claire as bait to ambush Ethan. Charlie, though unarmed, insists on accompanying them, driven by a protective fervour. The ambush itself is serviceable but uninspired. Jack, who was physically outclassed by Ethan in their previous encounter, now manages to subdue him with surprising ease—a victory that feels narratively convenient rather than earned. Just as the survivors (and the audience) anticipate long-awaited answers, Charlie executes the subdued Ethan with a picked gun. His justification—that he did what was necessary to prevent the "animal" from harming Claire again, and that Ethan would never have talked—is both chilling and deeply frustrating. It makes Charlie the first major character to commit cold-blooded murder, a stark violation of his previously established persona as a flawed but essentially decent man seeking Catholic redemption.

This character pivot might have carried more weight were it not juxtaposed with one of the season’s most maligned flashbacks. This B-story delves into Charlie’s past, depicting him at his nadir: a heroin addict exploiting his fading rock-star fame to scam money. His target is Lucy Heatherton (Sally Strecker), the daughter of a wealthy copier machine salesman. Charlie seduces her with the sole intention of robbing her home, coveting a precious Winston Churchill cigarette lighter. He steals it, but in a bizarre twist, accepts a job offer from her father as a copier salesman. His sales demonstration, sabotaged by heroin withdrawal, ends in humiliating disaster. When he later returns to apologise to Lucy, she coldly informs him she knows of his theft and will not forgive him. As co-creator Damon Lindelof has openly stated, this segment is pure "filler"—unnecessary, uninspired, and doing little to illuminate Charlie’s actions in the present beyond reinforcing his history of addiction and failure. Its sole redeeming feature for some might be a throwaway reference to The Office, a meta-joke that would only resonate with fans like J.J. Abrams.

Ultimately, Homecoming is a deeply conflicted episode. Its main storyline is mechanically efficient, disposing of a primary antagonist and forcing the survivors to cross a moral threshold by using firearms and committing murder. The guns, long established as a secret resource, fulfil their narrative purpose. Ethan’s demise, however abrupt, did allow the writers to parcel out the island’s mysteries more gradually in subsequent episodes, a decision that paid long-term dividends for the series’ mythology, albeit at the immediate cost of viewer gratification. Yet, the episode epitomises the mid-season slump Lost was experiencing. It relies on a repetitive flashback structure, eliminates a compelling villain too easily, and hinges its climax on a character moment that feels unearned due to a weak backstory. It is not the worst episode of the season, but it stands as a clear example of the series struggling to maintain its initial innovative spark under the weight of its own expansive episode order, sacrificing nuance and pacing for plot mechanics and character beats that, in this instance, simply did not land.

RATING: 6/10 (++)

Blog in Croatian https://draxblog.com
Blog in English https://draxreview.wordpress.com/
InLeo blog https://inleo.io/@drax.leo

LeoDex: https://leodex.io/?ref=drax
InLeo: https://inleo.io/signup?referral=drax.leo
Hiveonboard: https://hiveonboard.com?ref=drax
Rising Star game: https://www.risingstargame.com?referrer=drax
1Inch: https://1inch.exchange/#/r/0x83823d8CCB74F828148258BB4457642124b1328e

BTC donations: 1EWxiMiP6iiG9rger3NuUSd6HByaxQWafG
ETH donations: 0xB305F144323b99e6f8b1d66f5D7DE78B498C32A7
BCH donations: qpvxw0jax79lhmvlgcldkzpqanf03r9cjv8y6gtmk9