Exposé (Lost)

"Exposé (Lost)"

"Exposé" is the fourteenth episode of the third season of Lost. It was aired on March 28, 2007, and is the 61st episode of the series. The characters of Nikki Fernandez and Paulo are featured in the episode's flashbacks.

This marks the first appearance of Maggie Grace as Shannon Rutherford since early Season 2. Ian Somerhalder as Boone Carlyle has now appeared five times since his death in Season 1 (Exodus: Part 1 & 2, Abandoned, Further Instructions and Exposé). Furthermore, Dr. Arzt and Ethan reappeared in flashbacks.

Plot

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Nikki with Arzt

In the first scene, we see Nikki breathing heavily and running through the jungle. She falls to the ground and buries something resembling a small bag.

In a flashback, we see Nikki's past life in Australia, as an actress filming a popular, Charlie's Angels-like TV show, Exposé.

On the beach of the island, Hurley and Sawyer are playing ping pong. Nikki stumbles out of the jungle and falls to the ground. As Hurley and Sawyer rush to her, she says something barely audible. She is soon pronounced dead.

In a flashback 84 days earlier, Nikki and her director, Howard L. Zukerman, are dining in his home. Zukerman introduces his chef, Paulo, shortly before he dies — evidently, from poisoned food. Nikki seizes a key from around his neck and rushes to his safe. She and Paulo open it and retrieve a Matryoshka doll which contains something worth $8,000,000 (which we later find out is a pouch full of diamonds).

On the island, Sun and Charlie have joined Sawyer and Hurley around Nikki's body. Charlie notes that she has 'gunk' under her fingernails. Sawyer recounts her saying "something like 'plywood'". Hurley remembers it as "power lines", but is then convinced it is "Paulo lies".

In a flashback 80 days earlier, Nikki and Paulo are in an airport lounge reading Zukerman's obituary, laughing at the conclusion of 'heart failure' as his cause of death, and celebrating their accomplishment. After they kiss, Nikki asks if he is chewing gum. He says it is nicotine gum and reveals that he quit smoking. They hear Shannon berating Boone, complaining that there is nowhere to sit. Boone asks Paulo if he can take a seat from their table but Shannon walks off yelling at Boone that if he would stop "flirting with random guys, maybe we could actually get on the plane." Nikki extracts a promise from Paulo that they will "never end up like them."

Hurley, Jin, and Sawyer find Paulo laying lifeless in the jungle. They speculate about what happened to him — especially since one of his shoes is wedged into a nearby tree, and his pants are undone. Jin proposes that it was the Monster.

In a flashback 75 days earlier, Nikki is pressuring Paulo to search inland for their bag. Ethan introduces himself and offers to help them.

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Paulo is paralyzed

In a flashback 57 days earlier, Nikki approaches Dr. Arzt and enquires about his collection of specimens. He cautions her against handling a jar containing Latrodectus regina, called the Medusa spider. He describes her pheremones as "very strong" and says she'd "attract every male on the island. Not unlike her." He smiles.

In flashbacks we learn more about Nikki and Paulo. They found the The Pearl DHARMA station while searching for their bag, but did not tell anyone. Paulo finds the diamonds at the bottom of the lake where Kate found the case of guns, but does not tell Nikki. He returns to the Pearl station to hide the diamonds. While stashing the doll in the toilet tank, he overhears Ben and Juliet discussing how to get Jack to do his surgery. Ben asks Juliet why the hatch was open, to which Juliet replies "Tom was in here a couple of days ago" and then Ben says "Have him cover it up with the plane."

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Sawyer and Hurley finish digging

While digging the grave for Nikki and Paulo, Charlie confesses to Sun that it was he, and not the Others, who put a sack over her head and kidnapped her. He explains that he was not himself at that time, and Sawyer gave him the idea so he could steal the guns.

In a flashback 8 hours earlier, Nikki figures out that Paulo found the diamonds and did not tell her. She throws one of Dr. Arzt's Medusa spiders at him, which bites and paralyzes Paulo. She tells him that the paralysis will make him seem dead, even to a doctor, and that it will last 8 hours. A group of the same poisonous spiders appears and Nikki is bitten on her leg. She buries the diamonds and sprints to the beach.

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Paulo and Nikki are buried alive.

The first scene is repeated, during which it can now be determined that Nikki is actually saying "paralyzed" and not "Paulo lies" in an attempt to alert Hurley and Sawyer to her condition. Sawyer pours the pouch of diamonds into the grave during the funeral. Nikki opens her eyes just as Hurley and Sawyer are tossing sand into the grave, burying them alive.

Trivia

• The sound of The Monster can be heard just before the group of spiders arrive.
• The newspaper Paulo was reading in the airport was dated Thursday 24th September 2004, which is after the flight 815 crash date (22nd September 2004). The actual September 24th was a Friday. [1] [2]
• One of the shows produced by Zukerman is "Dr. Kincaid, Esquire". Dr. Kincaid is the name of Locke's physiotherapist - not a medical doctor, but a health professional.
• On Day 8, Paulo suggests that the "Monster" could be a dinosaur, which Nikki laughs off.
• In Paulo's passport, the expression "REPÚBLICA FEDERATIVA DO BRASIL" is misspelled as "REPUBLICA FEDERATIVA DO BRAZIL".
• This is the first episode of Season 3 in which all credited regular cast members appear; however, Jack and Sayid only appeared in archive footage.
• The slate board shown at the beginning of the episode informs that the fictional season finale episode of "Exposé" was directed by Stephen Williams, who directed this episode of Lost as well.
• Arzt refers to his medusa spider as Latrodectus regina, which would make it a member of the widow spider genus, but there is no regina species of widow spider. As Arzt says that he is discovering new species, he is likely to have come up with the name himself. The actual spider does look similar to some species of widow spiders. "Regina" is the Latin word for "Queen".
• The episode explains how Shannon knew that the gun case key was around Jack's neck, because Kate let it slip when she was defending the fact that they kept it a secret that they had the Halliburton case.
• It was day 49 when Paulo overheard Ben say that he would use Michael to lure Jack, Kate and Sawyer to him. When Michael first made contact with Walt on the hatch computer it was also day 49.
• On day 24, Paulo suggests that Ethan would be more help than Arzt in finding their luggage. However, by this point, Ethan has already kidnapped Claire, hung Charlie, and should be a known danger in the camp.
• To complement the who-dunnit theme of the episode, Saywer is seen to been reading a novel by the murder mystery author Agatha Christie titled "Evil under the Sun".
• This episode states that the crash happened 80 days ago. It contradicts Claire's not in Par Avion.

External links

• Exposé at IMDb