Ladies and gentlemen, the arrival of Mr. Carlton Cuse!
(waits for the thunderous applause to subside before continuing with the review)
Hearts and Minds is a well-written episode that's fun for all sorts of reasons, namely a colossal misdirection and a... I don't even know what to call it, a social issue of sorts?
The urgency over food availability has the Losties on edge, which leads us to Locke and Boone, the two guys presumed to be hunting boar. In reality, Locke is sitting and staring at the Hatch in the same manner that Michelangelo stared at a block of marble. I wish I could take credit for that comparison but it was a part of the script and delivered by Locke as a wonderful anecdote. Moments like these forged a father/son bond between Locke and Boone.
Of course the bigger lesson was when Locke conked him on the back of the head and put the "whacky paste" (Cuse's term, not mine) on his wound. It would result in a dream-induced crisis where Boone leads a bloodied Shannon through the jungle — unsuccessfully. The "monster" ambushes them, scoops up Shannon and promptly deposits her corpse in a nearby stream. Boone returns to the camp determined to kill Locke, only to discover that Shannon's alive and well. Boone's experience, while horrifying, actually provided him with a temporary sense in believing Shannon was dead.
Okay, that covers the misdirection. The "social issue" exists in the flashbacks, where Carlton and Javier reveal that Boone and Shannon are actually step-siblings. It turns out their incessant bickering is fueled not by sibling rivalry but romantic tension. Or perhaps a mixture of the two. In the process of "rescuing" Shannon (who never needed it in the first place), Boone finds himself succumbing to that tension — at least for one night. Enter the social discourse about whether there's anything inappropriate about their... relations... as Charlie would say.
Bonus points for the new twist of flashbacks showing a shared path, in this case Sawyer being brought into the police station where Boone sits with an officer.
All of this combined with a hilarious tangent with Hurley/Jin makes for a very impressive LOST debut for Cuse.
This is a strong acting effort all the way around, starting with the undeniable on-screen chemistry between Locke and Boone. It'd be interesting to know which came first — if the writers always intended for them to share so much screen time, or if they sensed the chemistry in a previous episode and leveraged it from there.
Anyway, O'Quinn plays the sage role to absolute perfection, while Ian Somerhalder (Boone) knocks the "dream sequence" way out of the park. Maggie Grace (Shannon) also does a masterful job in the sequence, but she's slightly more impressive in the flashbacks as she tears down Boone's defenses with nothing more than misty eyes and a soft kiss.
Bonus points to Daniel Dae Kim and Jorge Garcia for the now-famous "pee on it" scene. I love unpredictable pairings of characters and I never would've expected to laugh so hard at that particular combination.
The Shannon-Boone "whacky paste sequence" gets the adrenalin pumping from the get-go, with a terrific shot of Boone tied up and risking his own limbs (literally) to reach Locke's knife. We violently sweep through the jungle as an unseen monster crashes through trees in pursuit of its prey, until the inevitable occurs and Shannon is picked like a ripe tomato.
I can't think of an elegant way to say it, so I'll just say it: the make-up of her mangled corpse was appropriately disgusting, perhaps even testing the limits of network television.
The scene with Jin and Hurley was undoubtedly hilarious, however I must deduct some points for the visuals. On every format I've tried (DVD, streaming, Blu-Ray), the contrasts are funky and it's just too dark, sometimes even grainy. It's one of the few cases where it looked like someone filmed a scene with a disposable camera.
Well, the episode must do pretty well in the Longevity department if I just watched it twice in a row (once regularly, once with commentary) and enjoyed it both times. There's just enough action and profundity to make this an enjoyable ride multiple times over, even when the true nature of Boone's crisis is known.
However, as fun as Hearts and Minds was, part of this category rates the relevance of an episode in the series' broader context. It's a fair argument to say that it could be skipped with minimal impact on the bigger picture. As a result, I can't in good conscience rate this category higher than an 8.5 (bear in mind that's still very good).
Hardcore LOST fans know there's something sacred about the Boone-Locke relationship, so in that regard this ep did have some emotional impact. I wasn't necessarily heartbroken at the prospect of Shannon being killed, but that's not to say other elements of the story didn't affect me.
Locke's overall lesson of "letting go", intentional or not, would prove to be foreshadowing for the series as a whole. That most certainly counts for something in the Intangibles department.
