Eggtown
Encyclopedia
"Eggtown" is the fourth episode of the American Broadcasting Company
's fourth season
of the serial
drama
television series
Lost
and 76th episode overall. It was aired on February 21, 2008 on ABC in the United States and on CTV
in Canada. It was written by supervising producer Elizabeth Sarnoff
and script coordinator Greggory Nations
and directed by co-executive producer Stephen Williams
. This is the first episode written by Nations.
The episode's island plot takes place in late December 2004, 90-plus days after the crash of Oceanic Airlines
Flight 815. Flashforwards show Kate Austen
(played by Evangeline Lilly
) on trial for her numerous pre-island crimes, after her escape from the island. "Eggtown" was watched by 15 million Americans and received mixed reviews from critics. The cliffhanger was generally praised, but the slow pace was criticized.
(Terry O'Quinn
) is keeping Ben Linus (Michael Emerson
) prisoner in the basement of the house that he has claimed in the Barracks. He prepares breakfast for him, including the two remaining eggs which he fries along with some fresh melon, but Ben taunts him and Locke becomes frustrated. Kate cuts a deal with Locke's prisoner Miles Straume
(Ken Leung
): he will tell her what he knows about her if he can speak to Ben for a minute. Miles wants to extort $3.2 million from Ben and in return, Miles promises to lie to his employer claiming Ben is dead. Miles gives Ben a week to produce the cash. Before Locke finds them, Miles reveals that he knows all about Kate's past. Locke banishes Kate from the Barracks and goes to a lake house where Miles is being held captive. Locke puts a grenade in Miles's mouth so that if he ceases to bite, he will die. Kate sleeps with James "Sawyer" Ford (Josh Holloway
) but does not have sex with him. Before Kate leaves for the camp at the beach, she slaps Sawyer across the face after he suggests that she is just pretending to be mad as an excuse to go back to Jack Shephard
(Matthew Fox
) and continue their love triangle
.
Meanwhile, Jack returns to the survivors' beach camp with Juliet Burke
(Elizabeth Mitchell
) and newcomers Daniel Faraday
(Jeremy Davies
) and Charlotte Lewis
(Rebecca Mader
). Jack and Juliet grow increasingly uneasy over a series of unsuccessful attempts to contact the freighter by satellite phone and verify that Desmond Hume
(Henry Ian Cusick
), Sayid Jarrah
(Naveen Andrews
) and Frank Lapidus (Jeff Fahey
), who departed for the freighter by helicopter the previous evening, have arrived safely. That evening, as Charlotte tests Daniel's memory using playing cards (Daniel successfully remembers two out of three cards, and Charlotte remarks that this is "progress"), Jack and Juliet ask if there is another phone number they could try. Charlotte dials an emergency number and speaks to Regina (Zoë Bell
), who reports that the helicopter never arrived.
After leaving the island, Kate is famous as one of the Oceanic Six. She is tried for her numerous crimes committed before the crash and pleads not guilty. Because Kate is opposed to bringing her son into the trial, Jack is called in as a character witness. He lies in his testimony, saying that Flight 815 crashed in the water, eight survived the crash, but two have since died and Kate was primarily responsible for the Oceanic Six's survival. Kate speaks with her mother Diane Janssen (Beth Broderick
) for the first time in four years. Diane is no longer angry at Kate because her perspective changed when she thought that Kate had died in the plane crash. When Diane, the prosecution's star witness, no longer wants to testify against her daughter, the District Attorney makes a plea deal: Kate gets ten years probation, but must stay in the state of California
. Jack meets Kate in the parking garage. He admits that he still loves her (in contrast to his false testimony under oath on her behalf) and asks to go out for coffee with her. Kate responds that they cannot go out until he is willing to visit her baby. Kate is raising Claire Littleton
's (Emilie de Ravin
) son Aaron (William Blanchette) as her own.
Greggory "Gregg" Nations worked as the script coordinator
for the late 1990s CBS
television series Nash Bridges
. Lost' s show runner
s Damon Lindelof
and Carlton Cuse
—the former was a writer and the latter was the show runner
for Nash Bridges—hired Nations to serve as Lost' s script coordinator in the 2005 alongside pre-production of the second season. Nations rewatched every episode and created a series "bible" and timeline. Nations made his direct Lost writing debut with "Eggtown". Nations would be promoted to a coproducer for the show's fifth season
.
Lindelof and Cuse hyped in September 2007 that "Eggtown" would conclude Kate's potential pregnancy. After having sex a few times in the third season, Kate and Sawyer begin to wonder if Kate is pregnant. In "Eggtown", Kate exclaims to Sawyer that she is not pregnant and Sawyer rejoices, causing Kate to become angry with him and suddenly leave the Barracks. Evangeline Lilly was excited by Kate's new connection to Aaron. Lilly has said that if she could choose to play another Lost character, it would be Claire because of Aaron. Now she gets to have Aaron while portraying Kate. She also enjoyed Kate having more responsibility because it puts her in a different situation from previous seasons.
The word "Eggtown" is not directly referenced in the episode, resulting in online speculation and confusion. According to Lindelof and Cuse, it has been "the most questioned title of the show". Jeff Jensen of Entertainment Weekly
suggested that the title was a reference to the ancient cosmic egg
concept or the chicken or the egg causality dilemma, while John Kubicek of BuddyTV
guessed that it was a shout-out to the children's book and film called The Easter Egg Adventure, which depicts roosters attempting to steal Easter eggs from the animals of a place called Egg Town or that it was an allusion to the Great Depression
slang term, which was used in the 1930s when describing a bad deal. Lindelof and Cuse confirmed that the episode was primarily named as such because Locke fries eggs for Ben's breakfast and secondarily because the story deals with Kate's possible pregnancy.
"Eggtown" continues Lost' s pattern of featuring numerous literary references, which may allude to a favourite book of the writers or a story similar to that of a character. Locke gives Ben Philip K. Dick
's VALIS
, a 1981 science fiction
novel about a gnostic
vision of one aspect of God
. Sawyer reads The Invention of Morel
, a 1940 science fiction novel by Argentine
writer Adolfo Bioy Casares
about a fugitive who hides on a deserted
Pacific island where the people are only images and do not exist.
Hurley also asks James if he would like to watch Xanadu
or Satan's Doom but James replies saying that he is reading a book. Hurley then plays Xanadu with the main song playing.
"Eggtown" was watched by 13.647 million American viewers, ranking Lost seventh of the week in Nielsen ratings
. The episode was watched by a total of 15.438 million viewers, including those who watched within seven days of broadcast, making it the most recorded show of the week; this number went toward the year-end season average. It received at least 5.7/13 in the key adults 18–49 demographic. The Canadian broadcast was seen by 1.615 million people, making it the ninth most watched show of the week. In the United Kingdom, Lost brought in 1.1 million viewers. Amidst speculation that Lost would be pulled from the schedule, 780,000 Australians tuned in to "Eggtown" and made it the nineteenth most watched show of the night. Nevertheless it was in the top ten programs of the night in each of the key adults 25–54, 18–49 and 16–39 demographics.
Robert Bianco of USA Today
praised Lilly's performance, saying that it was almost worthy of a Primetime Emmy Award
nomination
. TV Guide
' s Michael Ausiello
dubbed "Eggtown" the best episode of the first four episodes of the fourth season. Nikki Stafford of Wizard
described it as a "great episode" and observed that it features "the first conversation between Jin and Sun [of the] season. Interesting that last season so many fans were up in arms for the [early third season] because we didn't get to see enough of the other characters, and this season we're seeing even less of the others, yet no one is complaining. Looks like the writers finally found the right balance." Entertainment Weekly' s Jeff Jensen thought that the episode "was all about moving all the simmering subplots forward so the next episodes can drive them home". Kristin Dos Santos of E!
called the episode's final plot twist "fantastic" and "unexpected". Digital Spy
' s Ben Rawson-Jones called it the best of the first four episodes of the season with four out of five stars, saying that "the courtroom scenes were very well executed, with a marked difference in the characterisation of Jack [who] has become known as the trustworthy, honest type since Oceanic Flight 815 crashed, so his blatant lies about the island under oath were definitely dramatic." Erin Martell of AOL
's TV Squad reviewed "Eggtown" positively, writing that it "not many shows could mix topics like blackmail, grenades, and motherhood into one episode, but Lost pulled it off." Jon Lachonis of UGO claimed that Lost "again blew everybody's minds" with "Eggtown". BuddyTV' s Oscar Dahl commented that "those last few [flash]forward scenes were genius. The writers really out-did themselves." Jay Glatfelter of The Huffington Post
thought that "Eggtown" "effectively kept up the frantic pace that this season has set, answering some really good questions while effectively bringing up new ones."
Patrick Day of the Los Angeles Times
found "Eggtown" to be set at a slower pace than other episodes of the season and said that "the witness stand as forum for revelation … holds no appeal for me." Newsday
' s Diane Werts had mixed feelings about "Eggtown". She criticized the lack of plot twists, stating that "that last-second 'reveal' of [Kate raising Aaron] turned out to be a bit of a dud". Werts also critiqued the execution and acting, calling the trial "blandly delivered" and Lilly and Fox "expressionless". Alan Sepinwall of The Star-Ledger
dubbed "Eggtown" "the weakest episode of the season", partially because he also was unimpressed with the lack of plot twists and does not find Kate to be a compelling character. The San Diego Union-Tribune
' s Karla Peterson gave a mixed review, writing that "last night's Lost was not amazing, until it slammed us upside the head with a plot curveball that left us unable to remember whatever doubts we may have had, say, one minute before." Daniel of TMZ
gave the episode a "D", partially because the twist ending had been spoiled for him. IGN
' s Chris Carabott rated it the worst of the first four by scoring it as a 7.6/10. He wrote that the flashforward was "out of place" and that the "final revelation was shocking … but Lost can't survive on shock value alone." Daniel MacEachern of Television Without Pity gave the episode a "B", the lowest grade for a fourth season episode from the website.
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
's fourth season
Lost (season 4)
The fourth season of the American serial drama television series Lost commenced airing on the American Broadcasting Company Network in the United States, and on CTV in Canada on January 31, 2008 and concluded on May 29, 2008...
of the serial
Serial (radio and television)
Serials are series of television programs and radio programs that rely on a continuing plot that unfolds in a sequential episode by episode fashion. Serials typically follow main story arcs that span entire television seasons or even the full run of the series, which distinguishes them from...
drama
Dramatic programming
Dramatic programming in the UK, or television drama and television drama series in the US, is television program content that is scripted and fictional along the lines of √a traditional drama. This excludes, for example, sports television, television news, reality show and game shows, stand-up...
television series
Television program
A television program , also called television show, is a segment of content which is intended to be broadcast on television. It may be a one-time production or part of a periodically recurring series...
Lost
Lost (TV series)
Lost is an American television series that originally aired on ABC from September 22, 2004 to May 23, 2010, consisting of six seasons. Lost is a drama series that follows the survivors of the crash of a commercial passenger jet flying between Sydney and Los Angeles, on a mysterious tropical island...
and 76th episode overall. It was aired on February 21, 2008 on ABC in the United States and on CTV
CTV television network
CTV Television Network is a Canadian English language television network and is owned by Bell Media. It is Canada's largest privately-owned network, and has consistently placed as Canada's top-rated network in total viewers and in key demographics since 2002, after several years trailing the rival...
in Canada. It was written by supervising producer Elizabeth Sarnoff
Elizabeth Sarnoff
Elizabeth "Liz" Sarnoff is an American television writer and producer. She has written episodes of NYPD Blue, Crossing Jordan, Deadwood and Lost.-Career:...
and script coordinator Greggory Nations
Greggory Nations
Greggory "Gregg" Nations is an American television writer and script coordinator. He wrote several episodes for The District and Nash Bridges with Carlton Cuse. Nations joined the production crew of Lost, and created the show's Bible after re-reading the scripts and creating a timeline...
and directed by co-executive producer Stephen Williams
Stephen Williams (director)
Stephen Williams is a Canadian film and television director. Williams has directed several modern day television programs including work as a regular director on the ABC drama series Lost, where he was also a co-executive producer...
. This is the first episode written by Nations.
The episode's island plot takes place in late December 2004, 90-plus days after the crash of Oceanic Airlines
Oceanic Airlines
Oceanic Airlines and less frequently Oceanic Airways are fictional airlines used in several films and television programs.The most famous use of this brand is in the TV show Lost, where Oceanic Airlines is featured branded with a highly-stylized logo depicting an Aboriginal dot painting that...
Flight 815. Flashforwards show Kate Austen
Kate Austen
Katherine Anne "Kate" Austen is a fictional character on the ABC television series Lost, played by Canadian actress Evangeline Lilly. She is the de facto female lead...
(played by Evangeline Lilly
Evangeline Lilly
Evangeline Lilly is a Canadian actress, best known for her role as Kate Austen in the ABC drama, Lost.-Early life:...
) on trial for her numerous pre-island crimes, after her escape from the island. "Eggtown" was watched by 15 million Americans and received mixed reviews from critics. The cliffhanger was generally praised, but the slow pace was criticized.
Plot
John LockeJohn Locke (Lost)
John Locke is a fictional character played by Terry O'Quinn on the ABC television series Lost. He is named after English philosopher John Locke...
(Terry O'Quinn
Terry O'Quinn
Terry O'Quinn is an American actor, most famous for playing John Locke on the TV series Lost. He made his debut in a 1980 television movie called F.D.R.: The Last Year. Since then, O'Quinn has had minor supporting roles in films and TV movies such as Young Guns, All the Right Moves, Silver Bullet,...
) is keeping Ben Linus (Michael Emerson
Michael Emerson
Michael Emerson is an American actor who is perhaps best known for his roles as Benjamin Linus on Lost and fictional serial killer William Hinks in The Practice.-Early life:...
) prisoner in the basement of the house that he has claimed in the Barracks. He prepares breakfast for him, including the two remaining eggs which he fries along with some fresh melon, but Ben taunts him and Locke becomes frustrated. Kate cuts a deal with Locke's prisoner Miles Straume
Miles Straume
Miles Straume is a fictional character played by Ken Leung on the ABC television series Lost. Miles is introduced early in the fourth season as a hotheaded and sarcastic medium as a crew member aboard the freighter called the Kahana that is offshore the island where most of Lost takes place...
(Ken Leung
Ken Leung
Kenneth "Ken" Leung is an American actor best known for his role as Miles Straume in the ABC television series Lost and roles in such films as Shanghai Kiss, Rush Hour, X-Men: The Last Stand, and Saw.-Early life:...
): he will tell her what he knows about her if he can speak to Ben for a minute. Miles wants to extort $3.2 million from Ben and in return, Miles promises to lie to his employer claiming Ben is dead. Miles gives Ben a week to produce the cash. Before Locke finds them, Miles reveals that he knows all about Kate's past. Locke banishes Kate from the Barracks and goes to a lake house where Miles is being held captive. Locke puts a grenade in Miles's mouth so that if he ceases to bite, he will die. Kate sleeps with James "Sawyer" Ford (Josh Holloway
Josh Holloway
Joshua Lee "Josh" Holloway is an American actor and model from Free Home, Georgia. He is best known for his role as James "Sawyer" Ford on the American television show Lost.-Early life:...
) but does not have sex with him. Before Kate leaves for the camp at the beach, she slaps Sawyer across the face after he suggests that she is just pretending to be mad as an excuse to go back to Jack Shephard
Jack Shephard
Dr. Jack Shephard is a fictional character and protagonist of the ABC television series Lost played by Matthew Fox. Lost follows the journey of the survivors of Oceanic Airlines flight 815 on a mysterious island and their attempts to survive and escape, slowly uncovering more of the much broader...
(Matthew Fox
Matthew Fox (actor)
Matthew Chandler Fox is an American actor. He is mostly known for his role as Charlie Salinger on Party of Five, and for portraying Jack Shephard on the supernatural drama television series Lost.- Early life :...
) and continue their love triangle
Love triangle
A love triangle is usually a romantic relationship involving three people. While it can refer to two people independently romantically linked with a third, it usually implies that each of the three people has some kind of relationship to the other two...
.
Meanwhile, Jack returns to the survivors' beach camp with Juliet Burke
Juliet Burke
Dr. Juliet Burke is a fictional character on the ABC television series Lost played by Elizabeth Mitchell. Her character was introduced in the third season premiere.- Prior to arrival on the island :...
(Elizabeth Mitchell
Elizabeth Mitchell
Elizabeth Mitchell , is an American actress/modelwho is known for her roles as Dr. Juliet Burke on ABC's TV series Lost and as FBI agent Erica Evans on V. She has starred in such films as The Santa Clause 2, The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause, and Gia.-Early life:Mitchell was born Elizabeth...
) and newcomers Daniel Faraday
Daniel Faraday
Dr. Daniel Faraday, often referred to as Dan or simply by his surname, Faraday, is a fictional character on the ABC television series Lost played by Jeremy Davies. Faraday is introduced in the season four premiere as a physicist, suffering from memory loss, and is part of the team aboard the ...
(Jeremy Davies
Jeremy Davies
Father Jeremy Davies , an English Roman Catholic priest whose parish is based around Old Hall Green, is a former doctor and also a leading exorcist....
) and Charlotte Lewis
Charlotte Lewis (Lost)
Dr. Charlotte Staples Lewis is a fictional character on the American Broadcasting Company television series Lost, played by Rebecca Mader. Charlotte is introduced in the second episode of season four and is a cultural anthropologist on a mission to the island where Oceanic Flight 815 crashed...
(Rebecca Mader
Rebecca Mader
Rebecca Leigh Mader is an English actress. She is known for her roles as Morgan Gordon on All My Children and Charlotte Lewis on Lost.-Career:...
). Jack and Juliet grow increasingly uneasy over a series of unsuccessful attempts to contact the freighter by satellite phone and verify that Desmond Hume
Desmond Hume
Desmond David Hume is a fictional character on the ABC television series Lost portrayed by Henry Ian Cusick. Desmond's name is a tribute to David Hume, the famous empiricist author and philosopher. Desmond was not a passenger of Flight 815. He had been stranded on the island three years prior to...
(Henry Ian Cusick
Henry Ian Cusick
Henry Ian Cusick is a Scottish-Peruvian actor of stage, television, and film. He is well-known for his role as Desmond Hume on the United States television series Lost, for which he received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination....
), Sayid Jarrah
Sayid Jarrah
Sayid Hassan Jarrah is a character from the ABC show Lost portrayed by Naveen Andrews.-Season 1:Sayid fixes the transceiver recovered from the cockpit, and leads a group into the jungle in order to send out a distress signal. Instead, he picks up a looping message . He tries to locate the...
(Naveen Andrews
Naveen Andrews
Naveen William Sidney Andrews is a British American actor. He is best known for portraying Kip in the movie The English Patient and Sayid Jarrah on the American television series Lost.-Early life:...
) and Frank Lapidus (Jeff Fahey
Jeff Fahey
Jeffrey David "Jeff" Fahey is an American film and television actor. He has portrayed Captain Frank Lapidus on the ABC series Lost and the title role of Deputy Marshal Winston MacBride on The Marshal.-Early life:...
), who departed for the freighter by helicopter the previous evening, have arrived safely. That evening, as Charlotte tests Daniel's memory using playing cards (Daniel successfully remembers two out of three cards, and Charlotte remarks that this is "progress"), Jack and Juliet ask if there is another phone number they could try. Charlotte dials an emergency number and speaks to Regina (Zoë Bell
Zoë Bell
Zoë E. Bell is a stuntwoman and actress from New Zealand. Some of her most notable stunt work includes doubling for Lucy Lawless on Xena: Warrior Princess and for Uma Thurman in Kill Bill. As an actress, she has appeared both on television and in feature films and also starred in the web series...
), who reports that the helicopter never arrived.
After leaving the island, Kate is famous as one of the Oceanic Six. She is tried for her numerous crimes committed before the crash and pleads not guilty. Because Kate is opposed to bringing her son into the trial, Jack is called in as a character witness. He lies in his testimony, saying that Flight 815 crashed in the water, eight survived the crash, but two have since died and Kate was primarily responsible for the Oceanic Six's survival. Kate speaks with her mother Diane Janssen (Beth Broderick
Beth Broderick
Elizabeth Alice "Beth" Broderick is an American actress famous for her portrayal of the character Zelda Spellman in the television sitcom Sabrina, the Teenage Witch from 1996–2003 on ABC and then the Warner Bros. network.-Early life:Broderick was born in Falmouth, Kentucky and grew up in...
) for the first time in four years. Diane is no longer angry at Kate because her perspective changed when she thought that Kate had died in the plane crash. When Diane, the prosecution's star witness, no longer wants to testify against her daughter, the District Attorney makes a plea deal: Kate gets ten years probation, but must stay in the state of California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. Jack meets Kate in the parking garage. He admits that he still loves her (in contrast to his false testimony under oath on her behalf) and asks to go out for coffee with her. Kate responds that they cannot go out until he is willing to visit her baby. Kate is raising Claire Littleton
Claire Littleton
Claire Littleton is a fictional character played by Emilie de Ravin on the ABC drama television series Lost, which chronicles the lives of the survivors of a plane crash in the South Pacific. Claire is introduced in the pilot episode as a pregnant crash survivor. She is a series regular until her...
's (Emilie de Ravin
Emilie de Ravin
Emilie de Ravin born 27 December 1981)is an Australian actress. She is commonly associated with her roles as Tess Harding on Roswell and Claire Littleton on the ABC drama Lost....
) son Aaron (William Blanchette) as her own.
Production
Script coordinator
Script Coordinator is a role in the production of a film or television series. The script coordinator is responsible for producing each draft of the script and annotating it for ease of use for the production team....
for the late 1990s CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
television series Nash Bridges
Nash Bridges
Nash Bridges is an American television police drama created by Carlton Cuse. The show starred Don Johnson and Cheech Marin as two Inspectors with the San Francisco Police Department's Special Investigations Unit. The show ran for six seasons on CBS from March 29, 1996 to May 4, 2001 with a total of...
. Lost
Show runner
Showrunner is a term of art originating in the United States and Canadian television industry referring to the person who is responsible for the day-to-day operation of a television seriesalthough such persons generally are credited as an executive producer...
s Damon Lindelof
Damon Lindelof
Damon Laurence Lindelof is an American television writer and executive, most recently noted as the co-creator and executive producer for the television series Lost. He has written for and produced Crossing Jordan, and wrote for Nash Bridges, Wasteland, and the MTV anthology series Undressed...
and Carlton Cuse
Carlton Cuse
Carlton Cuse is an AmericanEmmy Award winning screenwriter and producer, most famous as executive producer andscreenwriter for the American television series Lost for...
—the former was a writer and the latter was the show runner
Show runner
Showrunner is a term of art originating in the United States and Canadian television industry referring to the person who is responsible for the day-to-day operation of a television seriesalthough such persons generally are credited as an executive producer...
for Nash Bridges—hired Nations to serve as Lost
Lost (season 5)
The fifth season of the American serial drama television series Lost commenced airing on the ABC network in the United States and on A in Canada in January 2009, and concluded with a two-hour season finale on May 13, 2009...
.
Lindelof and Cuse hyped in September 2007 that "Eggtown" would conclude Kate's potential pregnancy. After having sex a few times in the third season, Kate and Sawyer begin to wonder if Kate is pregnant. In "Eggtown", Kate exclaims to Sawyer that she is not pregnant and Sawyer rejoices, causing Kate to become angry with him and suddenly leave the Barracks. Evangeline Lilly was excited by Kate's new connection to Aaron. Lilly has said that if she could choose to play another Lost character, it would be Claire because of Aaron. Now she gets to have Aaron while portraying Kate. She also enjoyed Kate having more responsibility because it puts her in a different situation from previous seasons.
The word "Eggtown" is not directly referenced in the episode, resulting in online speculation and confusion. According to Lindelof and Cuse, it has been "the most questioned title of the show". Jeff Jensen of Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
suggested that the title was a reference to the ancient cosmic egg
Cosmic Egg
Cosmic Egg is the second studio album by Australian rock band Wolfmother, released on 23 October 2009. It is the first album by the second lineup of the band, featuring vocalist, songwriter and lead guitarist Andrew Stockdale, bassist and keyboardist Ian Peres, rhythm guitarist Aidan Nemeth and...
concept or the chicken or the egg causality dilemma, while John Kubicek of BuddyTV
BuddyTV
BuddyTV is an entertainment-based website based in Seattle, Washington, which generates content about television programs and sporting events. The website publishes information about celebrity and related entertainment news through a series of articles, entertainment profiles, actor biographies and...
guessed that it was a shout-out to the children's book and film called The Easter Egg Adventure, which depicts roosters attempting to steal Easter eggs from the animals of a place called Egg Town or that it was an allusion to the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
slang term, which was used in the 1930s when describing a bad deal. Lindelof and Cuse confirmed that the episode was primarily named as such because Locke fries eggs for Ben's breakfast and secondarily because the story deals with Kate's possible pregnancy.
"Eggtown" continues Lost
Philip K. Dick
Philip Kindred Dick was an American novelist, short story writer and essayist whose published work is almost entirely in the science fiction genre. Dick explored sociological, political and metaphysical themes in novels dominated by monopolistic corporations, authoritarian governments and altered...
's VALIS
VALIS
VALIS is a 1981 science fiction novel by Philip K. Dick. The title is an acronym for Vast Active Living Intelligence System, Dick's gnostic vision of one aspect of God....
, a 1981 science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
novel about a gnostic
Gnosticism
Gnosticism is a scholarly term for a set of religious beliefs and spiritual practices common to early Christianity, Hellenistic Judaism, Greco-Roman mystery religions, Zoroastrianism , and Neoplatonism.A common characteristic of some of these groups was the teaching that the realisation of Gnosis...
vision of one aspect of God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
. Sawyer reads The Invention of Morel
The Invention of Morel
La invención de Morel — translated as The Invention of Morel or Morel's Invention — is a science fiction novel by Adolfo Bioy Casares. It was Bioy Casares' breakthrough effort, for which he won the 1941 First Municipal Prize for Literature of the City of Buenos Aires...
, a 1940 science fiction novel by Argentine
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
writer Adolfo Bioy Casares
Adolfo Bioy Casares
Adolfo Bioy Casares was an Argentine fiction writer, journalist, and translator. He was a friend and collaborator with his fellow countryman Jorge Luis Borges, and wrote what many consider one of the best pieces of fantastic fiction, the novella The Invention of Morel.-Biography:Adolfo Bioy...
about a fugitive who hides on a deserted
Desert island
A desert island or uninhabited island is an island that has yet to be populated by humans. Uninhabited islands are often used in movies or stories about shipwrecked people, and are also used as stereotypes for the idea of "paradise". Some uninhabited islands are protected as nature reserves and...
Pacific island where the people are only images and do not exist.
Hurley also asks James if he would like to watch Xanadu
Xanadu (film)
Xanadu is a 1980 romantic musical fantasy film written by Marc Reid Rubel and directed by Robert Greenwald. The title is a reference to the poem "Kubla Khan, or, A Vision in a Dream: A Fragment" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, which is quoted in the film. Xanadu is the name of the Chinese province...
or Satan's Doom but James replies saying that he is reading a book. Hurley then plays Xanadu with the main song playing.
Reception
Nielsen Ratings
Nielsen ratings are the audience measurement systems developed by Nielsen Media Research, in an effort to determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States...
. The episode was watched by a total of 15.438 million viewers, including those who watched within seven days of broadcast, making it the most recorded show of the week; this number went toward the year-end season average. It received at least 5.7/13 in the key adults 18–49 demographic. The Canadian broadcast was seen by 1.615 million people, making it the ninth most watched show of the week. In the United Kingdom, Lost brought in 1.1 million viewers. Amidst speculation that Lost would be pulled from the schedule, 780,000 Australians tuned in to "Eggtown" and made it the nineteenth most watched show of the night. Nevertheless it was in the top ten programs of the night in each of the key adults 25–54, 18–49 and 16–39 demographics.
Robert Bianco of USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
praised Lilly's performance, saying that it was almost worthy of a Primetime Emmy Award
Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress - Drama Series
This is a list of winners of the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress – a Drama Series.-Superlatives:-1950s:*1952: Helen Hayes*1953: no award*1954: Loretta Young – The Loretta Young Show*1955: no award...
nomination
60th Primetime Emmy Awards
The 60th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards was held on Sunday, September 21, 2008, at the newly opened Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles, California. They were hosted by Tom Bergeron, Heidi Klum, Howie Mandel, Jeff Probst, and Ryan Seacrest and televised in the United States on ABC.The Creative Arts Awards...
. TV Guide
TV Guide
TV Guide is a weekly American magazine with listings of TV shows.In addition to TV listings, the publication features television-related news, celebrity interviews, gossip and film reviews and crossword puzzles...
Michael Ausiello
Michael Ausiello is an American television industry journalist and actor. He was a Senior Writer at TV Guide and its companion website, TVGuide.com. On May 28, 2008, Ausiello left TV Guide for Entertainment Weekly and posted his first blog for Entertainment Weekly on July 2, 2008...
dubbed "Eggtown" the best episode of the first four episodes of the fourth season. Nikki Stafford of Wizard
Wizard (magazine)
Wizard or Wizard: The Magazine of Comics, Entertainment and Pop Culture was a magazine about comic books, published monthly in the United States by Wizard Entertainment from July 1991 to January 2011...
described it as a "great episode" and observed that it features "the first conversation between Jin and Sun [of the] season. Interesting that last season so many fans were up in arms for the [early third season] because we didn't get to see enough of the other characters, and this season we're seeing even less of the others, yet no one is complaining. Looks like the writers finally found the right balance." Entertainment Weekly
E!
E! Entertainment Television is an American basic cable and satellite television network, owned by NBCUniversal. It features entertainment-related programming, reality television, feature films and occasionally series and specials unrelated to the entertainment industry.E! has an audience reach of...
called the episode's final plot twist "fantastic" and "unexpected". Digital Spy
Digital Spy
Digital Spy is a British entertainment and media news website. According to Alexa Internet traffic statistics, as of February 2011, Digital Spy is the 93rd most popular website in the United Kingdom, with an overall Alexa ranking of 2,088....
AOL
AOL Inc. is an American global Internet services and media company. AOL is headquartered at 770 Broadway in New York. Founded in 1983 as Control Video Corporation, it has franchised its services to companies in several nations around the world or set up international versions of its services...
's TV Squad reviewed "Eggtown" positively, writing that it "not many shows could mix topics like blackmail, grenades, and motherhood into one episode, but Lost pulled it off." Jon Lachonis of UGO claimed that Lost "again blew everybody's minds" with "Eggtown". BuddyTV
The Huffington Post
The Huffington Post is an American news website and content-aggregating blog founded by Arianna Huffington, Kenneth Lerer, and Jonah Peretti, featuring liberal minded columnists and various news sources. The site offers coverage of politics, theology, media, business, entertainment, living, style,...
thought that "Eggtown" "effectively kept up the frantic pace that this season has set, answering some really good questions while effectively bringing up new ones."
Patrick Day of the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
found "Eggtown" to be set at a slower pace than other episodes of the season and said that "the witness stand as forum for revelation … holds no appeal for me." Newsday
Newsday
Newsday is a daily American newspaper that primarily serves Nassau and Suffolk counties and the New York City borough of Queens on Long Island, although it is sold throughout the New York metropolitan area...
The Star-Ledger
The Star-Ledger is the largest circulated newspaper in the U.S. state of New Jersey and is based in Newark. It is a sister paper to The Jersey Journal of Jersey City, The Times of Trenton and the Staten Island Advance, all of which are owned by Advance Publications.The Newark Star-Ledgers daily...
dubbed "Eggtown" "the weakest episode of the season", partially because he also was unimpressed with the lack of plot twists and does not find Kate to be a compelling character. The San Diego Union-Tribune
The San Diego Union-Tribune
-Predecessors:The predecessor newspapers of the Union-Tribune were:* San Diego Sun, founded 1861 and merged with the Evening Tribune in 1939.* San Diego Union, founded October 10, 1868.* Evening Tribune, founded December 2, 1895.-Ownership:...
TMZ.com
TMZ.com is a celebrity news website that debuted on November 8, 2005. It was a collaboration between America Online and Telepictures Productions, a division of Warner Bros., until Time Warner divested AOL in 2009. However, it is still affiliated with AOL News and has the AOL News logo affixed in...
gave the episode a "D", partially because the twist ending had been spoiled for him. IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...