At the halfway point of LOST Season 2

So far the hatch has proven a bit anticlimactic, but I assume that's by design, and that we're building toward the kind of revelation(s) that will justify the near-religious focus it received through much of Season 1. They've all but promised us an "incident," so I'm looking forward to that.

I realize they were trying to fake us out when they first introduced the tail-crash survivors, and make us think they were the real "Others" when Jin called them that, but I didn't much care for the way they tried to pass Eko off as some stereotypical island savage. I mean, Jesus, the only thing they didn't do was stick a fucking bone through his nose. It doesn't quite redeem this misstep, either, and may actually compound it, that they went on to "subvert" this first impression by showing him in a nice suit on the plane (as if to say, "You see? He's actually clean and articulate."). I'm reserving judgment on where they're going with the whole Nigerian war/drug-lord to priest conversion story for now.

Michelle Rodriguez is a welcome addition to the cast, even if she does play exactly to her trademark hardcore-badass type. It suits the material, and since she's the go-to person for this kind of role, of course she nails it. Her flashbacks nicely built toward her tragic mistake of shooting Shannon. That kind of surprised me--mainly because Shannon's moment of connection with Walt, when he handed Vincent off to her, surprised me so much, and I didn't expect that potential relationship subplot to get nipped in the bud so abruptly. Anyway, it put Ana Lucia in a pretty impossible situation, and she knew it. It put Jack in quite a fix, too. I loved the agonized way he clapped his hand over his eyes when he heard her name, and realized the person he was charging out to gun down with a rifle was the young woman he shared a bit of a spark with in the airport lounge. I thought the way that whole thing played out was handled superbly, right down to when Sayid and she locked gazes before he shoved the gun in his belt and walked away. If ever two strangers understood each other in a flash of self-recognition, it was those two in that moment. Even so, there are bygones and there are bygones, and I'll be shocked if Shannon's death never comes up again. Finally, it's about damn time they reshuffled the sexual tension between Jack, Kate, and Sawyer, and Ana Lucia is totally a breath of fresh air in that regard.

Speaking of relationships, I'm pleasantly impressed with how deftly they've brought me along on Sun and Jin's journey of rediscovery. Yeah, I teared up when they got back together. I like it, too, that they aren't exactly starting over with a blank slate, however much they wish they could. When Jin tells Sun he didn't like being what to do (she forbade him from joining the search for Michael), I enjoyed her gentle but pointed, "Yeah, really sucks, doesn't it?" reply.

One last thing I'll mention before popping in the next disc--I'm getting pretty sick of the way every time Charlie's in the spotlight, we get a Very Special Episode. I kind of wish he'd just OD already, if they can't figure out something more interesting and less generic to do with his addiction arc.