'Lost': Claire Littleton Seagull

Well now. This makes, by my count, three pretty decent episodes of Lost in a row. Will wonders not cease.

The episode, "Par Avion," suffered from a bit of a disconnect between the beach-bound action involving Claire, Charlie and Desmond and the search party's efforts to navigate the Running Man-style barriers around Others Town. But after all the complaining I and others have done about the show being too pokey, it hardly seems right to be too critical when tonight it tried to cover maybe a little too much ground.

Although I rather liked seeing Dark-Hair Claire -- and am generally in favor of more screen time for Emilie de Ravin, who's underused in the Lost ensemble -- the flashback involving her didn't cover a ton of new ground. The idea that Claire is Jack's half-sister has been kicking around since midway through last season, so while it was nice to have that confirmed, I'm guessing it brought mostly shrugs from the show's fans.

Better was her plan to attach an SOS to one of the tagged seagulls' legs. It's a long, long shot for rescue, sure, but nothing else has really worked so far, so why not? She was specific enough in her note -- giving the flight number, the amount of time they've been stranded (80 days now) and at least a very rough location (headed back to Fiji) -- that it could at least be in the realm of possibility for an ornithologist to deduce where the crash survivors might be.

And good for her for actually trying to figure out why Charlie and Desmond were acting so strangely instead of just sitting around and stewing, and getting a straight answer (such as it is). It really does feel lately as if the show's writers are conscious of having the characters at least try to find out a couple of things.

Which is not to say that they still don't pull the bait-and-switch on us. Case in point tonight: As prisoner Mikhail was rattling off the full names and defining personality traits of captors Kate, Sayid and Locke, and explaining to them that the "magnificent man" who brought him and the other Others to the island wasn't Ben (so, Jacob, then?), Rousseau had to interrupt them with her discovery of the Others Town security system.

Then again, the fact that Sayid and Locke argued about who should have told who about the C-4 at the Flame station could be seen as progress. And I think I may have to partially retract my statement about Locke being a fool -- the man clearly has something on his mind besides just finding the barracks site and getting Jack back. Given that he also had a brick of C-4 in his backpack and the lack of remorse he showed after sending Mikhail across the barrier, it seems he's out for blood.

Now: What to make of that final, WTF-worthy shot, with a seemingly contented Jack tossing a football around with Tom in Others Town? Given the way the show left things the doc, I have to believe that to at least some extent, he's going along to get along. And maybe a shower, a bed, some fresh clothes and a chance to take a break from the constant struggle to survive might just lighten a guy up a little. But I've been watching this show too long to take the image of Happy Jack at face value.

That said, though, I'm actually kind of looking forward to next week. It's been a while since I could say that with a straight face.

How about you? Do you dare to hope that Lost is getting on track again? Has Locke finally come completely unglued?

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