TV: Lost "Exposé"

TEASER: "Who the hell is Nikki" Exactly. It looks like the character we've spent most of a season unsure of even her name is dead. Just as she gets a backstory. The catch phrase "razzle dazzle" was hilarious and makes me really question Australian television. Is Paolo next? Oh, and Billy Dee! Genius!

ACT ONE: Great episode in the making, I can feel it. I love seeing these two no-names when the plane crashed. So great to go back and see how this all began, how horrific yet simple it was. I also like the toss in of "I hope we don't end up like them" when talking about Shannon and Boone. Nikki and Paolo were initially uninteresting and fought uselessness while alive and ended up dead, just like their pretty predecessors. Ah! And Artz! I'm so glad to see him again!

ACT TWO: I like the Greatest Hits flashbacks plus they're doing a great job of explaining why we never saw Nikki and Paolo before season three. I love how they hung out with Artz, whose best moment was talking about how there were other survivors than just the dozen that got the spotlight in season one. Hurley's line about the bad guy who was a mystery until the fourth season sounded a little forced, could this be a big hint?

ACT THREE: Paolo was known to me as Bathroom Guy because of that one scene earlier in the season in "The Cost of Living." Now we know why the bathroom was important; he hid $8 million in it. The episode does have a bit of Forrest Gump to it, these two no-names visiting all the crucial turning points of the series before the rest of the cast (the plane, the Pearl Station, Ben and Juliet), but the bit about the toilet lets me know that they thought this far ahead to some degree. Genius.

ACT FOUR: Glad that Charlie's come clean. It's a step in the right direction after that nearly fatal-for-his-character move. I'm sure this'll lead to a "stay away from my baby!" from Claire if she finds out.

ACT FIVE: Holy crap! Perfect! "Paolo lies" and "paralyzed" are so close! How...I can't even think of how they came across that! I want commentary now! All the mysteries of this episode are solved and tied up, something I was afraid wouldn't be done. I'm shocked, really, but both Nikki and Paolo were pretty despicable people. They got what they deserved, I guess, and that's what the island does.

Overall this is a great episode, the only problem is that it was pretty seperate from the main story. Much like Nikki and Paolo, actually. That may have been the point. Really, this is exactly the type of episode that those two deserved after spending all of season 3 in the shadows being useless. They died as they lived, alone and apart from the others. The main cast can't eulogize them and then they bury them alive; perhaps if they were closer friends with Nikki and Paolo all along they would have known more about Arzt's bugs, been able to understand Nikki's final words (they weren't "Paolo lies" or "powerlines"), or gone looking for them that morning. But no, both of their deaths, while really murder at the hands of Sawyer, Hurley and Charlie, were total accidents and their own doing. This was a great little detour from the main drama and a reminder of what made the show great back in season one.

MY SCORE: ***** (out of 5)