An Hour Afterward

What a wonderful way to end the series. Beautiful, heartwarming, and just confusing enough for it to be Lost. I feel full. And I want to feel like this for as long as possible.

What They Died For

Locke: Do you really think all this is an accident -- that we, a group of strangers survived, many of us with just superficial injuries? Do you think we crashed on this place by coincidence -- especially, this place? We were brought here for a purpose, for a reason, all of us. Each one of us was brought here for a reason.

Jack: Brought here? And who brought us here, John?

Locke: The Island. The Island brought us here. This is no ordinary place, you've seen that, I know you have. But the Island chose you, too, Jack. It's destiny.
-Exodus, Part 2

For six years we’ve tried to figure out what that purpose was that Locke was talking about. Now we know. They are there to protect the Island. Our four remaining 815ers – led by a man with a savior complex who just happens to be a real-life savior himself, Jack Shephard – are on the precipice of realizing their destinies. With the power of the Island at hand, a clear head on his shoulders and a point in the right direction from Jacob, Jack has everything he needs to protect the place that’s called to him like a Siren’s song for three long years. He, Kate, Sawyer and Hurley now face a smokey, diabolical menace that would drag you into a hole or slit your throat as soon as look at you. All roads lead here. They’re ready.

So what happened on this last little stretch of road before “The End”? A whole lot. “What They Died For” was so jam-packed with both Sideways and Island goodness, the only thing keeping this recap under 5000 words is the fact that I have only 4 days(!) to write it. It’s crunch-time. “The Desmond’s out of the well”, as they say. So let’s get to it.

The Island events of “What They Died For” pick up right where “The Candidate” left off: Jack, Kate, Sawyer and Hurley on the beach (on the main Island as we come to find out), shaken and shattered. But not defeated! As Jack stitches up Kate’s bullet wound (finally returning the favor three years later) tears of pain and tears of sadness and tears of anger trickling down her face, she recalls little Kwon, Ji Yeon, and how the Monster made it so that Jin would never meet her. She wants to kill him. And with literally no persuasion required, Jack agrees. They set off to find Desmond in the well.

Across the Island, we finally get to catch up with Ben, Richard and Miles, whom we last saw in “Everybody Loves Hugo” setting off for the Barracks to find some explosives to blow up the Ajira plane. Kind of seems like old news now, right? They’ve finally made it to Ben’s old stomping grounds, and Miles’ dead-person radar starts going off like mad. It’s Alex, Ben’s daughter. Richard buried her after Keamy shot her in the head. (Man, that was a great scene. FYI, there might be a lot of nostalgic reminiscing from here on out. I’m sure my recap for “The End” will be even worse. Sue me.) “Thank you, Richard”, Ben responds. It’s a nice little reminder of that event and Ben’s undying vengeance against Widmore for taking his daughter from him.

And guess who shows up not a minute later but Charles Widmore himself, giving orders and strutting around like he owns the place. Ben asks him how he got back to the Island. After all, he’d been looking for it for 30 years and never could find a way to get back before. He tells Ben that Jacob invited him. Perhaps out of jealousy that Jacob never came to see him, Ben fires back “That’s a lie”. But Charles presses on, telling the group that Jacob paid him a visit not long after his freighter was destroyed, convinced him of the error of his ways, and told him everything he needed to know to take down the MIB.

Now, there are a few ways to look at this scene. First, it’s confirmation that, at least at one time, Charles was in the wrong. So we’re not going to have some sort of moment were it’s explained how Widmore was a good guy all along. I’m glad about that. I just can’t see how that could have possibly made sense. Second, are we to trust Widmore that Jacob actually came to see him? I’m really not sure. With Ben’s gun to my head, I’d have to say that he’s telling the truth, that Jacob did pay him a visit and that he told him to bring Desmond to the Island as a “failsafe” to take down the Monster. And thirdly, what was the “error in his ways” that Jacob had to convince Widmore to give up? We know that one of the main pillars of Jacob’s philosophy is the idea of free will, that everyone should have a choice. But I’ve long theorized that Widmore, with the help of Eloise Hawking (and Brother Campbell) had been pushing Desmond to the Island for a long time. They manipulated many of the major decisions in his life, from his banishment from the monastery to his desire to marry Penny to his goal of winning a race around the world, all with the purpose of guiding Desmond to the Island. But then again, telling him to kidnap Des onto a submarine doesn’t seem very Jacob-like at all. So maybe Widmore is just a big fat liar. Now that he has a bullet in his head, I’m not counting on learning the truth to this one.

But all that didn’t matter right then because the MIB just pulled up at the Pala Ferry in an outrigger. At this point, it comes down to the three choices Rousseau laid out back in “Exodus Part 1”: run, hide or die. Miles takes off into the jungle. Widmore and his right-hand gal Zoe hide. Ben chooses “die”. “He’s going to find me sooner or later”, he says with a shrug, and walks out of his house with Richard to confront the Monster.

The two exit Ben’s house, and before you know it Richard’s flying 30 feet in the air courtesy of a large column of black smoke. Ben takes a seat on his porch. Out from where the Monster just retreated walks the image of John Locke. Twirling a knife, he sits down next to Ben. Just like he did in “Dr. Linus”, he offers Ben the chance to rule the Island all by himself. He just needs to do one thing. Kill a few people is all. This time Ben agrees.

Earlier in the episode, Ben said something extremely interesting. He said, “I was told I could summon the monster. That’s before I realized that it was the one summoning me.” Ben has come to the conclusion that his whole time as leader of the Others, the choices he made and the orders he followed, the peopled he killed, they weren’t in service of Jacob liked he’d always thought. They were in service of the Monster. He lived his whole life under the mistaken belief that Jacob deemed him special and that he was destined to be the leader of his people, the first people that had ever made him feel as if he belonged. But it was all a sham. The powerful Benjamin Linus, the man always in control, the man pulling all the strings, the man who could read and manipulate people into doing his bidding as easily as reading a book, had been played all along by the exact entity that he was tasked with containing. He was embarrassed. He’d been made into a fool. And it was the Monster that did it to him. Now he wants revenge. Like with Widmore, he has a score to settle. So I don’t think for a second that Ben’s going along with the Monster’s plan to kill all those people and destroy the Island. I think he’s planning on one final trick, one last trap to show that he’s the master con artist of the Island that he always thought he was. And that he’ll prove to Jacob that he really can protect the Island every bit as well as the leader of Jacob’s people is supposed to.

But first, Ben has other vengeful urges he needs satisfied. He escorts his new ally into his house and points the way to Charles and Zoe, who are both hiding in Ben’s old secret room with all the passports and foreign cash. (Aside from a couple hints about Tunisia, we never really figured out what sort of Others business all that stuff was for, did we?) The Monster gets right down to business putting the screws to Widmore about why he’s back on the Island, threatening to kill his daughter if he doesn’t tell. Sounds to me like a pretty hollow threat, considering the MIB can’t leave the Island, but it gets Widmore talking. He tells him that he brought Desmond and his miraculously special resistance to electromagnetism back to the Island as a “measure of last resort”. Before he says anything else, Ben shoots him in the head. “He doesn’t get to save his daughter.” Vengeance #1, check. Vengeance #2 will have to wait.

Let’s head back to our other Island group. They’re still searching for Desmond, and really, how the hell are they supposed to find one random well tucked in the middle of that hugely expansive jungle? But I guess if they’re meant to find it, they will, won’t they? Jack has faith. Sawyer, he doesn’t know what to believe. He’s clearly upset about what he feels was him basically killing Jin, Sun and Sayid. He even asks Jack, “I killed them, didn’t I?” But now Jack’s the one to let someone off the hook. “No. He killed them,” he responds. That a boy, Jack.

As usual, Hurley falls behind the rest of the group. Out pops Teenage Jacob, and immediately I became as angry as Hurley was startled. He demands Hurley hand over the bag of ashes (his ashes) Hurley had grabbed from Ilana’s pack after she exploded. Before he can hand them over, Teenage Jacob snatches them right out of his hands and takes off. Hurley gives chase, only to run straight into Adult Jacob’s campsite. “Hello, Hugo,” he says. “You should get your friends…We’re very close to the end.”

Darkness falls. Hurley, Sawyer, Kate and Jack walk into Jacob’s campsite and sit down. No more secrets. Jacob’s prepared to answer their questions. Kate starts. Is he the one who wrote their names on the wall? Is he the reason Jin, Sun and Sayid are dead? “I’m very sorry,” he says. He tells them that their dead because of a mistake he made a long time ago, a mistake they call “The Monster”. He made that mistake a long time ago, and ever since that monster has been trying to kill him. He knew he’d need to find a replacement to protect the Island for when he eventually succeeded. And it will have to be one of them.

I thought it was interesting the way Jacob framed all this. In the big moment where he finally reveals to his candidates his big plan and their purpose, he doesn’t portray himself as some all-powerful deity, but rather a flawed man. And Sawyer treats him as such. “Tell me something, Jacob. Why do I gotta be punished for your mistake?” he says, “I was doin’ just fine till you dragged my ass to this damn rock.”

“No, you weren’t,” Jacob replies matter-of-factly. “None of you were. I didn’t pluck any of you out of a happy existence. You were all flawed. I chose you because you were like me. You were all alone. You were all looking for something that you couldn’t find out there. I chose you because you needed this place as much as it needed you.” Exactly.

Sawyer seems to have forgotten all the personal growth he’s experienced over the past three years. Before 815 crashed, he was a lowly con man, a despicable scumbag who loved no one and had no one to love him. The rest of them were suffering similarly. Jack’s obsessiveness had driven away everyone he loved. Kate was on the run for murder and had alienated herself from her mother. Hurley was saddled with guilt and fear, unable to find someone to share his life with. Same for the rest of the Losties. Locke, Sun, Jin, Sayid - all pushed loved ones away with anger, resentment or bad habits they just couldn’t break. Like Jacob, they really were alone.

And then they crashed on the Island. They formed a community that allowed them to conquer their demons and realized their true purpose. Their destiny. Hurley overcame his insecurities and developed the self-confidence to trust himself. Sawyer stopped using people and became a dependable and trustworthy person. Kate learned to settle down. And Jack became the leader he always feared he couldn’t be.

But what about those that didn’t make it this far? What about Locke, Jin, Sun and Sayid? What about Boone and Michael and Charlie? Was it their destinies to die just to correct Jacob’s mistake? I don’t think that’s what they died for at all. Each one of them died not in service to Jacob or the Island, but for their friends. Starting with Boone and up through Sayid, each one of them died trying heroically to help the rest of the group. The hatch was important, so Boone climbed up to that beechcraft. Charlie sacrificed himself to secure rescue. Michael did the same. Locke died trying to get everyone back to the Island, where he knew they belonged. Jin died for Sun. Sun died because she came back to save Jin. And Sayid saved Jack, Kate, Sawyer and Hurley from meeting the same fate for which he knew he was destined. They didn’t die for Jacob. They died for each other. This place might be death, but it’s also the place everyone found something life is pointless without: love.

It’s time for those that are left to give back to the Island that gave them so much. One of them needs to take Jacob’s gig. Living in a foot statue, grilling fish on a rock, protecting a light that gives life to the entire world. That’s about it. And because of Mother, he’s not going to pick which one of them gets the job. He’s going to give them the one thing he was never given – a choice. Someone else decided Jacob’s whole life for him; he would never want to do the same to any of them. Without hesitation, Jack steps up and channels his inner John Locke, “I’ll do it. . . This is why I’m here. This is . . . this is what I’m supposed to do.” “Is that a question, Jack?” says Jacob. “No.” “Good…Then it’s time.” While Kate looks on with admiration and concern, Sawyer’s (guiltily) making snarky remarks and Hurley’s relaxing gratefully that it’s not him, Jacob performs the same ritual we saw Mother do with him just last week. He blesses some water and gives it to Jack. “Now you’re like me.”

I don’t have a ton to say about this actually, other than these scenes were beyond cool. It’s an encounter we’ve been waiting for all season. Jacob finally has the ears of his people, the one’s he’s been watching their whole lives. And most of them accept what he has to say. They wouldn’t have been ready for this if Jacob would have popped out of the jungle the day of the crash and just spilled it all out for them. But now they are, and Jack is ready to take his place. It just seems right.

Jack hasn’t won anything yet, though. He still has to take down the Monster, who’s trekked with Ben to the well where he’d been keeping Desmond. I don’t know if he was expecting to find Desmond dead or what, but when the two arrive, there’s nothing waiting for them but an empty well with a rope leading out of it. But the Monster’s undeterred. “Looks like someone helped him out,” Ben says. “No, Ben. Someone helped me out,” he replies. Widmore told him that Jacob wanted Desmond brought to the Island as a failsafe in case he’d succeeded in killing all his candidates. But now, the Monster says, he’s going to used Desmond to, “do the one thing that I could never do myself.” And echoing the end of last year’s penultimate episode “Follow the Leader” where Fake-Locke vowed to kill Jacob, he finishes this episode declaring, “I’m gonna destroy the island.”

Terrifying. So the MIB wants to destroy the Island, which I took to mean sink it like we’ve seen in the Sideways world. But how does sinking the Island lead to the Sideways world? There has to be a connection between these two clues, but I don’t see it. No crazy theories here. I’m going sit back and let this one resolve itself.

Time for the Sideways happenings. Classic shot to kick it off, close up on the opening of Jack’s sleepy eye just like in the pilot, just like several other times. It’s usually symbolic of some sort of enlightenment for that character. For Island Jack this episode, definitely. Not as sure about Sideways Jack. But no matter. He heads down to breakfast with his new happy family. David’s chowing down on some tasty Super Bran. Claire comes down soon after. What a goofy little Shephard family we have here, right? But it’s nice. At least until they’re interrupted by a call from Oceanic informing Jack they’ve found is father’s coffin. Jack takes it surprisingly well. Old Island Jack would have done that little shutter with the look that he’s on the verge of tears. But in the Sideways world. Hopefully all this coffin business doesn’t interfere with David’s piano concert tonight, where it looks like we’re finally going to meet David’s mother. Two-to-one it’s Juliet.

I have a feeling there won’t be a conflict at all, because the man on the phone wasn’t an Oceanic representative. It was Desmond, who we see in the rest of the Sideways story executing a complicated plan involving a paddy wagon, Hurley, Hurley’s Camaro, Ana Lucia, and a little black dress to get Sayid and Kate to that very concert, which Miles and Sawyer also happen to be attending. Either that, or he wants Jack nowhere near that concert hall for some reason. As long as you’re not David, that’s okay. Jack has some important business with John Locke to tend to.

But first, someone has to show Locke the way. And who else to do so but the person he trusted to show him many of the secrets of the Island, Ben? Even Ben needs a little push from Desmond first, though. After wrapping up his crank call on Jack, Des sits idling in his car in the school parking lot as Substitute Teacher Locke wheels himself back to work. Oh god, Des, don’t run him over again! Even if that was his plan, he doesn’t have time to execute it, because Ben jumps in front of his car and starts yelling about calling the police and making a citizen’s arrest. Hardly intimidated, Des gets out of his car and proceeds to beat the living crap out of this squeaky little teacher, just like he did at the marina back in “Dead is Dead”. Which, not coincidently, is exactly the moment that flashes through Sideways Ben’s mind during this beating. Des says he’s not there to hurt Locke; he’s there to help him let go.

As he’s getting stitched up in the school nurse’s office, Ben relays to Locke what Des told him about helping him “let go”. Before Locke can call the police, Ben adds, “and I believe him. Does that mean something to you?” It sure does. It’s the same advice Jack gave him. Couple that with the visions of the Island that I’m pretty sure he’s already had, and Locke’s ready to make a bold move.

But first, we need to see a little more of Dr. Linus. On his way out to his car, he runs into Alex. She’s horrified when she sees Ben all battered and bruised with his arm in a sling. “Why would someone want to hurt you? You’re, like, the--the nicest guy ever,” she says to him. Ha, that makes me chuckle. Then again, Dr. Linus really might be, like, the nicest guy ever. Alex offers him a ride home with her and her mother, and he graciously accepts that and the dinner invitation from Danielle.

Obviously, if this took place on the Island, it would be the most awkward dinner since Ben cooked a ham for Juliet. But in the Sideways world, it’s downright lovely. It’s clear that Alex absolutely adores Ben, and after he helped her with extra studying and her recommendation to Yale, why wouldn’t she. He’s been great to her. Danielle knows this and as Alex puts away the dishes, she says, “All the interest you’ve taken in her. All the help you’ve given . . .you’re the closest thing to a father she’s ever had.” Ben chokes up. It’s a heartwarming moment.

Ben’s Island destiny led him to do some horrible things. Taking Alex from Danielle was certainly one of them. But if he had killed them both like Widmore ordered, it would have been far worse. I’m not going to say Ben did either of them a favor that night in Rousseau’s tent when he held them at gunpoint, but from that moment on he has always acted out of love and protection of Alex. When Keamy shot her in the head as Ben looked on and said things like “She’s just a pawn, nothing more…She means nothing to me,” he did it because, one, he thought The Rules would prevent him from pulling the trigger and, two, to convince himself (and thus Keamy) that having her at gunpoint didn’t give Keamy any leverage. Even if Island Ben is destined to live out his days without Alex, Sideways Ben has a shot to live happily ever after. He’s found someone to love. It’s going to be sad if Sideways Ben loses that happy ending.

If you’re looking for even more of a reason to invest in the Sideways world, look no further than the conversation between Jack and Locke at the hospital. John tells Jack what happened to Ben that day, how the same guy who plowed into him with his car came back and said wanted to help him in the same way Jack wanted to help him. He tells Jack that maybe all that is happening for a reason. “Maybe you’re supposed to fix me.” He’s ready to get out of that chair. And who better to help him than Jack?

After this week, I’ve reached the point where I’m equally as excited about seeing what happens in the Sideways world as the Island. How are Jack and crew going to defeat the Monster? Can they stop him from sinking the Island? Is Jack going to fix Locke? What’s going to happen when everyone converges at that concert? What connection do these two worlds share? And I’m excited about seeing some old favorites, too. Maybe a Charlie appearance? What about Boone, Walt or Juliet? Any chance we get a Christian Shephard sighting? And there’s always the chance they tie up some loose ends like the pallet drop or the cabin or some Dharma stuff in a cool and unexpected way.

I think “unexpected” might be the key to my mindset for this last episode. I have no expectations. I mean, I want it to be great, but I don’t have a checklist of things I need to see. I just want a satisfying conclusion for the characters. Most of the mysteries are solved. It’s time for closure, not just for us, but for Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Hurley, Ben and everyone else. I’m not even really sad about it anymore. I’m just excited. Tomorrow is the time to greave. Today is about celebrating the conclusion of the best show ever.

Across the Sea

If it only ends once, then how did it begin? That’s what “Across the Sea” attempts to answer. It definitely accomplishes that goal, I will give it that. Was it the most entertaining episode? No. Was it enjoyable to watch all the way through? No. Could they have found less annoying kids to take up 50% of the screen time? Probably. Did I miss Jack, Kate, and the rest of the gang? You betcha. When I saw “MIB/Jacob centric”, I was expecting a fun hour of mythology and Island history, but instead “Across the Sea” was slower and more character-driven. The result was still an important piece of Island history told in a complex way that’s more enjoyable in hindsight than it was from 8-9pm last Tuesday.

There are so many freaking layers to this episode, I’m not going to come close to sorting them out. Themes stacked on top of metaphors on top of allusions sandwiched between meta-references and the result is too big for me to get my mouth around. It’s like Double Down in television form. And I didn’t totally like the Double Down. Just like “Across the Sea”. I’m going to take my best stab at this one and as the rules to this blog state, I must try to focus on the positives. Where do these rules come from? Well, I make them up of course! When it’s your game you can make them up. Ok, enough cuteness. Let’s get to it.

We start off in familiar Lost territory, and by that I mean on an unfamiliar beach in an undisclosed time with people we’ve never seen. A lone pregnant woman washes up on the beach. Hurt, she wanders into the jungle in search of water, only to be discovered by a middle-aged woman with a rather cranky disposition. We find out the pregnant woman’s name is Claudia. Although we don’t learn the other woman’s name, she tells Claudia that she’s alone, that she only arrived on this Island by accident, just like Claudia did. And…actually that’s all we learn about this woman, whom I’ll just call “Mother” from here on out. She refuses to answer any more questions and before we know it, Claudia’s in labor.

From there, we witness the birth of twin boys, twin boys that grow up the be Jacob and the MIB, twin boys that will shape the lives of our beloved Losties, twin boys who will learn everything we’ve ever dreamed of knowing about the Island. Claudia was only ready for one child, and thus only had one name ready, so we’re left not learning the MIB’s name and left to ponder whether he even has one. (I say he does, but we’ll never learn it).

Oh yeah, and Mother bludgeons Claudia to death with a rock.

Hence the moniker the Lost universe has dubbed this woman with. Mother helped Claudia give birth to baby Jacob and baby MIB for what appears to be the sole purpose of stealing the children and raising them as her own. This is the first instance we see of the cyclical nature of the Island in an episode loaded with them. As we see more and more of Mother, it’s revealed that she embodies many of the crisis or reoccurring issues of the Island. She raises Jacob and the MIB to rule over the Island, and not only do her issues creep into her two sons, they also become manifested in all those people caught in the middle of their epic, millennia-long conflict. The Others steal children. Rousseau steals Aaron. The cycle continues.

Flash forward thirteen years. Boy in Black (BIB) stumbles across a wooden box that has washed up on shore. Jacob asks him what he’s found. “It’s a game. You play it,” BIB responds. (Lines like these were what frustrated me with this episode. It made me long for the days of a good “Where’s Vincent?” from Walt.) BIB wants to keep the game a secret from Mother, knowing she’ll take it away. The rebellious side of him is starting to show through. When the BIB asks him if he still wants to play, Jacob answers, “Yes. I want to play.”

Now here’s some symbolism I can sort out. It’s the metaphorical beginning of the war between Jacob and the MIB. Not the literal war, but the war of ideas. Jacob wants to remain obedient to Mother, MIB wants to keeps some of his life to himself. The decisions both make as a result of their respective beliefs will haunt them for a long, long time.

When Jacob gets back home to the caves, Mother asks him where his brother is and what the two of them were doing. Showing that he’s hardly Benjamin Linus (or Fake Locke for that matter), he fails to throw her off the scent with his “staring at the ocean” alibi and eventually spills the beans about the game his brother found. She used some heavy-handed guilt-tripping to get it out of him too. “Do you love me, Jacob?” she asked. Jacob wants more than anything for his mother to love him, so he does what she says and tells her what she wants to know. Obsessive need for the love and approval of a parent, just like Jack and Locke and Ben – check another one off the Island issues checklist.

Mother tracks down the BIB, apparently pleased that he’d found the game. She tells him that he’s special. She tells him that she left the game for him. Where else would it have come from? But where did I come from, he asks. She tells him that he and his brother came from her, and that she came from her mother. She tells him that there’s nothing else but the Island. She tells him that he’ll never have to worry about death.

I don’t know if it was the actors or the dialog, but this whole exchange didn’t work for me. The mood was off. It had no flow. It was like there was some big list of hints that each needed to be mentioned, but those hints were all alluding to something that we knew was a lie. Or a truth we already knew the answer to. We found out earlier that Jacob and the MIB didn’t come from the Island. We know that there’s more to the world but the Island. We know that the MIB didn’t really have to worry about death. This scene was trying to play like typical Lost, but it was dealing with a subject that didn’t need the usual obfuscation and subterfuge. What we got out of this scene was that Mother’s a big fat liar, and I don’t think the tone of the scene fit with what came out of it.

Mother’s claims to the BIB that about the Island were refuted quickly enough. While on a walk in the jungle, he and Jacob heard noises in the distance. Moving toward it to investigate, they discover a group of three men killing a boar. Surprised, they run back to Mother and tell them what they found. When Jacob suggests that these other men looked like them, Mother insists that they were not like them, that these others weren’t there for a reason. (Awkward transition) Now’s she’s let too much slip. The BIB demands to know what the hell she’s talking about when she says “reason”. After a little more complaining, Mother gives in, blindfolds her boys, and sets off on a trek into the jungle to show Jacob and the MIB exactly what makes this Island so damn special.

The boys’ curiosities aren’t placated by Mother’s willingness to show them the heart of the Island. On the way, Jacob asks why she didn’t tell them about these other people and what makes them so dangers. Mother lays out her cynical view of humanity for him – “The same thing that makes all men dangerous. They come, they fight, they destroy, they corrupt... and it always ends the same.” We’ve sure heard that one before! We’ve used it to define the MIB’s worldview ever since the opening scene of “The Incident”. More on that in a bit.

Do you want to know what makes the Island special? Well ready or not, here it comes. Mother removes the blindfolds from her two boys, and they see a beautiful glowing yellow light emanating from beneath a tunnel. A creek runs in and a waterfall cascades out. She tells them, “a little bit of this very same light is inside of every man” and that it’s their job to protect it. Because if any man were to find it, he would want to take it. And they would always want more. And eventually that light would go out, and if it goes out here, it goes out everywhere. She tells them that she’s been protecting it, but she can’t protect it forever. When they ask who would take up the duty when she’s gone, she responds, “It will have to be one of you.”

At first, I described this monumental reveal as “an answer to a question I wasn’t asking”. I still think that’s true to some extent. I had given up asking, “What is the Island.” But I should have been asking, “Why does the Island need protecting?” My usual, “It’s a special place”, while satisfactory enough for me, doesn’t really explain what would happen if it wasn’t protected and doesn’t set up the necessary urgency for finding a replacement for Jacob. This is the purpose Locke was talking about all those years ago. If that light goes out, that’s it. The lights go out everywhere. Some of this rings similar to what Widmore told Jin in “The Package” – “If that thing masquerading as John Locke ever got off this island, your wife, your daughter, my daughter, everyone we know and love - would simply cease to be.” Does that mean the light from the tunnel now resides in the Smoke Monster? What could the ramifications of that be? Well, the ultimate goal certainly wouldn’t be to kill the Monster, then. It would be more like containment. Or maybe I’ve just watched too much Supernatural lately.

Like Locke said back in “Expose”, things don’t stay buried on this island. Slowly, the BIB began to untangle the web of lies under which the Mother had sheltered her two sons. An Island vision of his real mother, Claudia, a few more encounters with the “other people” and before you know it, the BIB was the MIB and he was living with the turn-of-the-millennium Others.

So Jacob grew up with his Mother, lived a “good” obedient life, even weaving tapestries just like her. On the other side of the Island, the MIB grew up with a group of untrustworthy, selfish brutes. They kept in touch through the years, Jacob inquiring curiously about these other people all while remaining dutiful to Mother. The MIB was concocting his own scheme: he was going to use his people to get off the Island. There’s that cycle again. Everyone wants to leave this Island.

How was he going to pull this off anyway? The same many people (and polar bears) left the Island, the Donkey Wheel! But this was going to be the maiden voyage. But before he could leave, Mother arrived. She told him how much she loved him and she knocked him unconscious and filled in the well that lead to the glowing yellow light.

Now, how an elderly woman could drag a full grown man out of a deep well and then fill in an enormous hole with tons of dirt, I haven’t a clue. And others are better at speculating about such things than I am. I’m of the belief that Mother’s got a bit of smoke monster in her somewhere. It would explain how she slaughtered all of the others in the MIB’s tribe. And it would be a nice fit for the point I’m going to make in a bit about Jacob and the MIB’s relationship to her and the traits of hers that they carry.

Back at the caves, Mother approaches Jacob with a bottle of wine. It’s the same bottle of wine Jacob used in “Ab Aeterno” to explain how the Island acts as a cork to keep evil from spreading. She tells Jacob that he’s the one to protect the Island. She tells him that he doesn’t really have a choice, that it has to be him. Jacob drinks the wine. “Now you and I are the same”, she tells him.

This is the moment that will come to define Jacob’s whole philosophy about Island leadership. He grew up never feeling as if he had choices in his life. His mother always told him what to do. And he did it. And now, at this moment that will permanently tie him to the Island, he was again left without a say in the matter. But the Jacob we know is a believer in free will. “You have a choice,” he tells Ben as he’s threatened with a knife. And he passed that belief onto his followers, the Others. “We are the causes of our own suffering” was one of the images that flashed inside Room 23. Jacob knows this better than anyone. He knows now that he had a choice back then, that he’s caused all the suffering he’s felt since that moment he drank the wine. And he wants to make sure everyone else knows they have a choice as well, especially his candidates. He doesn’t want Jack or Hurley or whoever ends up getting the final nod as protector of the Island to assume the role in the same confining manner he did.

Bitter about how Mother treated him, he rejected her contemptuous philosophy about mankind and instead chose to believe in the good in people. He wanted to prove to Mother – and her philosophical heir, the MIB – that people were good. So he brought people to the Island that he knew would choose to be good. Think back at our 815ers, especially the ones who have died. Charlie, Sayid, Ana Lucia, Daniel – they all died after making a choice to do something good. Charlie choosing to sacrifice himself to secure rescue, Sayid doing the same to give the remaining Losties a little hope of making it out of the sub alive, Ana Lucia refusing to kill Ben, Daniel trying to prevent all the suffering that came from 815 landing on the Island, each had their scale tip to the side of good. Jacob sure knows how to pick ‘em.

I went into “Across the Sea” believing Jacob to be some magnificent, mystical, indubitable good guy. He still is all those things, but this episode did do one thing: it humanized him. Now we know what made Jacob like that and what makes him the embodiment of good on the Island. It’s another question that I wasn’t asking, but it’s nice to know the answer. He doesn’t need all that mystique to be freaking awesome.

So sometime after Jacob drunk the wine, he heads off into the jungle to look for firewood. He returns to find the MIB clutching a bloody knifing, standing over Mother’s dead body. Jacob flips out. He beats the snot out of his brother, drags him to the creek that leads to the glowing light and throws him in. With the classic wail, from out of the tunnel shoots a pillar of black smoke, straight into the air. As the Smoke Monster fades into the jungle, the body of the MIB trickles out of the tunnel. Jacob hauls it back to the caves and, in tears, lays it next to Mother’s body. And there’s your Adam and Eve. “Goodbye, brother,” Jacob says. -boom, LOST-

Mother may have told Jacob he was the one protector of the Island, but that’s not entirely true. The first description we had of the Monster came courtesy of Danielle Rousseau. “It’s a security system,” she called it. What does it protect? “The Island." And that it does. It wipes out everyone who could become a threat to that glowing yellow light. Which, to it (or him), is everyone. These were the two roles Mother had, and she passed one on to each of the boys.

The MIB also was left with Mother’s disdainful view of humanity. Jacob found a way to believe in the good in people, while the MIB saw only the bad. He saw up close how horrible people could be, but was unable to look past it. And you know what they say, once you turn into a smoke monster, you kind of get stuck in your ways. But he never let go of the one thing he wanted most, to leave the Island. And that’s where we’ll pick up this week.

The aftermath of this little tale, a story that felt like a classic myth of some sort, is the story that we’ve seen unfold over the past six seasons. It’s a story of jealousy and deception, but also one of family, one of faith and obedience but also one of courage and hope. Layers upon layers upon layers. I tried to peak under as many as I could here. I have a feeling I’m not done with this one, though. Count on another 3000 words after the rewatch this winter.

Apology

Gotta say, it's been a long day of thinking about Lost. And not in a good way. I've been very troubled, way more troubled than I should be, not about the last night's episode itself, but about how I felt about it. Why do I take this show so personally? I don't know. But I regret saying things like "the fundamental nature of the show has changed". It hasn't. It's like the football analogy, I swung way to far in one direction. All I could see was "Jacob-MIB" because that's all we saw this week. Come on. See the big picture. I've got to be better than that.

Having said that, I still didn't love "Across the Sea". But that's okay. I don't have to love them all. I'm back to looking at the bright side. Whatever this episode was or was not, we're now armed with a greater understanding of the Island and two of the major players in the Island saga, which can only mean good things going forward. So, Me-from-13-hours-ago, suck it up man.

Existential Crisis

When you love something, you can always explain away its faults. I’ve done this before with Lost; Moving the Island, some of the scenes in “The Incident”, scattered other bits, none of it sat right with me in the hours immediately afterward, and I’m sure in time I will do the same with “Across the Sea”. But right now I’m upset. For the first time in a while, I can say I didn't enjoy an episode of Lost. It was an episode the promised answers, but it delivered them to questions I wasn’t asking. Maybe I should have been, but I wasn’t. The show has fundamentally changed and only time will tell if it’s for the better.

Lost has always been an exercise in faith. I think part of the appeal, and part of my connection to the show and it’s characters, was that we needed to have the same faith in the Island as the characters did. We were all in the same boat. On September 22, 2004, we crashed on that Island just like they did. But now, we don’t need to have faith in the Island anymore. We know that there’s a magical center that holds the life force of all living things or something like that. But the characters that matter to me – Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Hurley, even Ben – don’t know that. So not only was this an episode this late in the game where we didn’t get to see a single character we’d known prior to the Season 5 finale, but it also drove a wedge between us and our beloved Losties, separating us from them even more than the one week of their absence. And after last week’s bloodbath, that’s the last thing I was looking for.

I read somewhere this week (probably Doc Jensen) that sometimes the audience’s greatest frustrations with Lost are entirely intentional on the part of the writers. In Season 2, people complained about the show treading water, that it was just stuck in the same rut of boring flashbacks with little hope that a payoff was coming down the road. But this made us feel exactly like Locke did stuck in the hatch pushing the button. We hated feeling trapped when there was a whole beautiful Island that needed exploring. It made us ask the same questions that Locke and everyone else were asking: Why are we doing this? Should we be doing this? Is any of this actually important? In Season 3, people complained about the imprisonment of Jack, Kate and Sawyer and that the show was going nowhere. Metaphorically, we felt the same thing our characters were feeling. We had the sense of urgency that they did, to escape, to get back to the rest of the group. To borrow a term that TV writers like to use to sound smart, there’s a whole “meta” thing going on with the story of Lost. Maybe the same thing is happen now. I just can’t see it yet.

In some ways it comes down to expectations. I reached a point in my Lost-watching career where there were certain questions I didn’t expect to get an answer to. What is the Island? What’s Jacob’s back story? These questions were so big that I started to get comfortable with the fact that I might never know the answers to them. And slowly, I think I began to like not knowing the answers. Dreaming about what was inside of those magic boxes was better than any answer they delivered. It was one of my favorite parts of the Lost experience. So going into “Across the Sea”, even though I knew it was going to be centered on the MIB and Jacob, I never thought we were going to go that deep into their pasts. Maybe I wasn’t ready for it.

I guess those were answers I need to hear. The answer to “What is the Island?” gets at the heart of what makes the Island worth protecting. It explains why Jacob needed his candidates to replace him when he died. Maybe I just thought “it’s a special place” was enough. Maybe I’m just not ready for Lost to be over. But I’m trying to be optimistic. I’m sure I will come to appreciate how important that golden light is to everything else we’ve seen. Still, it’s one less thing to have fun wondering about.

The problem with watching this show week to week is that we have the tendency to treat it like football season. After each week in the NFL, my opinions on teams – their strengths, their weaknesses, their ultimate destinies for the season – tend to shift wildly from one extreme to another. With Lost, each episode is like a game. I’m probably going to overact and say things like “the fundamental nature of the show has changed” when it most likely hasn’t. Like I said, it takes some time to put everything into context. And I’m sure I will with “Across the Sea”. But right now, I’m hurting. And that’s not a feeling I’m used to having with this show. At least there’s next week. Wow, I won’t be able to say that in a couple weeks. That’s sure not going to cheer me up.

The Candidate

If “The Candidate” is any indication of how the finale’s going to go, I better stock up on Kleenex. Wow. Not only was it the bloodiest episode of Lost ever in terms of deaths of regular cast members, it was not coincidently one of the saddest. It left our four remaining 815ers – Jack, Kate, Sawyer and Hurley – on the beach alone, battered, broken, vulnerable and exhausted with the Monster (I can’t call this horrible beast Locke) lurking just across the sea.

We lost Jin. We lost Sun. We lost Sayid. And that’s how I felt Wednesday night, like part of my group, like three of my friends, were gone. It was a horrible feeling. But then again, we’re going to be losing all these characters in just a few short weeks time. That’s the effect “The Candidate” had on me more than anything: for the first time it really felt like Lost is almost over. With just two episodes and the finale remaining, our time on the Island is quickly drawing to a close. And even though I still only have the faintest idea what that ending will be, I can certainly feel all the loose ends and divergent threads coming together. It’s a good feeling, but it’s a scary feeling.

I’ve watched “The Candidate” twice now. And I’ve got to say, the second time was just as rough as the first. More tears. But more insights! Enough to make this the longest yet of my many monstrous recaps. Let’s get to the episode, starting in the Sideways world.

I love the description Lostpedia uses to describe this one. Instead of the usual one character classification or the occasional “various”, it reads “Jack and Locke”. Coupled with next weeks that I expect to read “Jacob and MIB” and that’s quite the interesting parallel we have there. Like I talked about last week, the epic and complicated history between these two characters makes any interaction ooze with tension and history. This was especially the case this week in the Sideways world, where most scenes this year have alluded directly to conversations and situations we’ve seen in past seasons. As always, I plan to break those down in excruciating detail.

The title, “The Candidate”, like many Lost episodes, has a couple of meanings. One, most obviously, refers to Jack as the candidate to replace Jacob. I think at this point, the debate on that is all but closed. Jack is the chosen one. He has total faith in the Island. He recognizes his purpose. He sees the big picture. And now he can lead with a clear mind and monkey-less back. Once he embraced the fact that the Island had chosen him, all his preoccupations with being the leader and acting how he thought a leader was supposed to act crumbled away. What emerged was a man who could lead. Remember when Locke told him “A leader can’t lead until he knows where he’s going?” Yeah, well, Jack knows where he’s going now.

The second meaning refers to John Locke as a candidate for the new procedure to cure his paralysis. It’s one of the first things Sideways Jack tells Locke after he wakes up from surgery. You know who else decides who’s a candidate and who isn’t? Jacob. Like the moment later on where Jack offers the Apollo Bar to Claire, it’s the first of several Jack-Jacob parallels throughout the episode. In the same scene, in attempting to find out more about Locke’s condition so he could help him, Jack asks Locke about how he became paralyzed in the first place. Locke refuses to tell him. But Jack’s determined to find out what’s wrong with Locke. He’s going to unearth that baggage and help him deal with it. Just like Jacob would do.

His first stop is at Locke’s dentist’s office, and wouldn’t you know it, but Bernard (of Rose and Bernard fame) has been in the care of Locke’s chompers for at least the last three years. Bernard tells Jack that Mr. Locke came into his office a few years earlier following an accident with another man named Anthony Cooper. After an almost-knowing, “I hope you find what you’re looking for” (where have we heard that before besides from Kate earlier this season?), Jack bids Bernard adieu, now committed to tracking down this Anthony Cooper.

Jack’s quest leads him to a nursing home where he runs into Locke’s fiancé, Helen. She tries to get Jack to just leave it all alone. Of course, he refuses (something he won’t do later on with Jin), so Helen wheels over Anthony Cooper, vegetable edition. That’s why John doesn’t hate his guts in the Sideways world! It’s hard to pull off a long con when you’re brain-dead. Part of me thought the guy playing Cooper might not have had to do much acting to pull off the role this time around. Let’s face it, there have been some moments where the makeup department hasn’t lived up to the standards set by the rest of the show (yeah, 20-year old Ben in “Dead is Dead”, I’m talking about you), so for a guy who seemed so spry just three years ago, to see him so wrinkled and cold-faced was shocking. And kind of satisfying.

After seeing Cooper like that, Jack was stumped, so he heads back to the hospital. He stands by Locke’s bed, deep in thought, confused. Why would this guy refuse his help? Still asleep, Locke mumbles, “push the button”. Then “I wish you had believed me.” Sleeping Sideways Locke’s getting a little dose of Island Locke! Be prepared to have that last one thrown back in your face in a little bit, dude. I think Jack recognized that second mumble too. Just like he looked at the cut on his neck extra hard in “LA X”, and how he couldn’t remember how he got his appendix scar, Jack’s very, very close to having the “Charlie moment” as I like to call it. He’s going to have the crossover. I’d like to make a prediction right here though – Locke has already had it. He just refuses to believe it. Like Jack when he came face-to-face with Desmond in the hatch, Sideways Locke does not want to believe. He’s in the type of place mentally where he would encounter a real life miracle but insist on the looking the other way. He needs to take a leap of faith. He just needs a little push.

In the last of the Sideways scenes, Locke’s rolling himself out of the hospital, eager to leave the notion that he can be fixed far behind. But Jack catches up to him. He’s not going to let this go (no kidding!). He asks Locke one last time why he’s in that wheelchair and this time John caves. He spills it all, every heartbreaking detail. How he was in a plane crash, how he was the pilot, how he asked his father to be his “first official passenger”, how they never got off the ground, how it was his fault, and how could never forgive himself for what he did to his father.

Now, Jack Shephard knows a little something about guilt. And about causing irrevocable harm to his father. He gives it to Locke straight up: his father’s gone. He has to let it go. What follows is a perfect mirroring of their conversation from “Orientation”, one of the best bits of dialogue from a show loaded with memorable exchanges, which went like this –

LOCKE: If it's not real, then what are you doing here, Jack? Why did you come back?
Why do you find it so hard to believe?
JACK: Why do you find it so easy?
LOCKE: It's never been easy! I can't do this alone, Jack. I don't want to. It's a leap of
faith, Jack.

But this time, Jack’s the one urging Locke on, attempting to show a stubborn, struggling man a different way of thinking. He tells him it’s okay to let go. “What makes you think letting go is so easy?” Locke asks. Jack responds with complete honesty – “It's not. In fact, I don't really know how to do it myself. And, that's why I was hoping that…maybe you could go first.” But Locke’s had enough. He says goodbye and wheels away. Jack shouts after him, “I wish you believed me”. Locke pauses, then wheels out the door.

I’ve got goose bumps even now. Whether they’re on the Island or off, original timeline our Sideways, these two men need each other. In the hatch, Locke told Jack that he couldn’t do it alone. In the hospital, Jack asks Locke to show him how to let go. That discussion in the hatch laid some of the first bricks for Jack’s road to inner peace, toward his acceptance of the things out of his control, acceptance of his destiny. Even though it went against every instinct he’d ever had, Jack pushed the button. He took the leap of faith. Now it’s time for Locke to do the same. Once again, Locke needs to show Jack the way. And I think he will.

So a few episodes after the game-changing “Happily Ever After”, we’re not any closer to knowing “the answer” to the Sideways world. I’ve thrown my whole theory about the MIB causing the Sideways timeline and how taking him down on the Island will lead to the collapse of the “fake” Sideways world right out the window. This world doesn’t seem all that bad. And it doesn’t seem like the MIB’s going to be in the mood to give any rewards to Jack in the form of a loving relationship with his son anytime soon. So what is it? Are we going to end the show with two different endings, two different versions of all our characters? That would be odd. I could dig it, but I don’t think it’s likely. Somehow the enlightenment of Sideways Locke will be crucial. I can bank on that. But otherwise, I really don’t have the slightest idea. That’s just the way I like it too. That’s the show Lost has been for six years. I wouldn’t want it to change now.

Time to switch over to the Island action and, boy, was there a lot of it. We pick up with Sawyer and the rest of the Elizabeth crew in the captivity of Team Widmore in the Hydra cages. After Smokey rips through the camp, decimating the guards just like he did Keamy’s mercenary team, Jack hustles over, grabs a key and frees them from the cages. Woo-wee, saved by the MIB! Not so fast my friend. The last piece has fallen into place, the final trap set to fall over that block of cheese. He’s earned the trust of most of the group but, unfortunately for his plan, not the trust of its two leaders – Jack and Sawyer.

After a quick stop at the Ajira plane where the MIB effortlessly disposes of two clueless guards (Shooting the Smoke Monster with bullets? Honestly?) and collects a watch and a brick of C4, he gathers the group and tells them that flying off the Island isn’t going to work. They’re going to have to take the submarine. As he leads the group back to the submarine dock, Sawyer asks Jack to hang back with him for a little chat. Sawyer has no intentions of letting the MIB leave the Island with the rest of them, so he asks Jack to help buy him some time to get everyone sans MIB on the sub. Jack agrees.

The group reaches the sub. The coast appears to be clear. Jack and the MIB wait a beat while the rest charge the dock. Sawyer, Lapidus, Hurley and Sun make it into the sub, while the MIB makes one last attempt to get Jack to leave with him. “Whoever told you, you needed to stay had no idea what he was talking about,” he says. Without hesitation, Jack boldly answers, “John Locke told me I needed to stay,” and shoves the MIB into the water. Just one more of many badass Jack moments this season. And boy did it feel good to see him do that. Enough with the smack talk about Locke already! Jack’s going to prove to the MIB who was right all along.

But before the rest of the group can climb in, shots ring out over the dock. Widmore’s men have arrived (albeit pretty late) to protect their only means of transportation off the Island. Kate takes a bullet in the shoulder. If anything’s going to get Jack on the sub, it’s Kate. He hustles over to her, picks her up, and with the help of Sayid, gets her into the submarine. Before Jack can get out, the sub’s hatch has closed and they’re diving.

Frantically searching for a first aid kit, Jack eventually turns to his backpack. Little did he know the MIB had pulled the old switcheroo while they waited together in the bushes, so instead of first aid, Jack finds the C4 rigged to a stopwatch. Piece-by-piece, Jack began to put everything together. “This is what he wanted,” he starts. “[The MIB] said that he can’t leave the Island without us. I think that he can’t leave the Island unless we’re all dead. He told me that he could kill anyone of us whenever he wanted. So, what if he hasn’t because he’s…he’s not allowed to. What if he’s trying to get us to kill each other?” Sawyer’s not buying any of it. He wants to pull the wires like Sayid said they could (good to see Sayid flashing the tech skills again, by the way). Then Jack drops this doozie (one of many this episode) – “Nothing is gonna happen...James. We are going to be okay. Just have to trust me.”

But Sawyer doesn’t trust him. He can’t. Not after what happened with Jughead. Not after what happened to Juliet. He doesn’t speak destiny. So he pulls the wires and just when you think that maybe Jack was wrong, the timer begins ticking down, double-time.

Loved this scene. Jack giving Sawyer the Locke treatment, Sawyer giving Jack the Jack treatment. It was like looking in the mirror, but this time we’re not in the Sideways world. How many times has Jack been the one yelling “I’m not gonna stand here and do nothing!” while Locke was talking about purpose and the will of the Island? Well, this time it was Sawyer yelling. John wasn’t always right, but this time Jack is.

While everyone else begins to panic, Sayid springs into action. He knows what needs to be done, just like he has at almost every turn. Back in the day, when everyone was looking to Jack as the leader making the decisions, he had Sayid’s clear-headed approach to lean on. Whether on the Island with Rousseau, with Henry Gale, with their trap for the Others or off the Island when he shot himself to save Nadia, Sayid has always been willing to make the tough call. As he told Jack in “Through the Looking Glass”, “I’m willing to give my life if it means securing rescue.” That’s what he does here. He quickly informs Jack about Desmond in the well (See? He didn’t kill him!), tells him “It’s going to be you” then does what needs to be done. He grabs the bomb and takes off down the hall, trying to get as far away from the group as possible. The bomb explodes. Sayid’s dead.

As I (and everyone else) predicted last week, Sayid didn’t kill Desmond. Desmond’s question to him about how he’s going to explain to Nadia what he did to get her back, how he was going to justify his horrible means of achieving a selfish end, touched whatever good there was lying dormant in his soul. Sayid died a hero, plain and simple. Maybe this one final act doesn’t make up for all the people he killed, but it let us know that there’s never a point when it’s time to give up on a person, even when all hope appears to be lost. Just like Hurley said, even Anakin came back from the dark side. Maybe Sayid’s scale was more balanced than Dogen thought.

Speaking of Des, now that we know he’s still in that well, what’s the plan for him the rest of the way? The MIB fears his specialness, that much is clear. But how can Des use his electromagnetic immunities to take down the Monster? He’s immune to knives, bullets, explosions and water; it’s not like Des can shoot electromagnetism out of his hands, and even if he could, who’s to say that would have any effect on him? But once again, we find Desmond below ground, just like his days in the hatch, struggling for survival. It’s time for Jack to play the Locke role again and save Desmond’s life, brotha, so he can save them.

Despite his heroics, Sayid’s sacrifice couldn’t stop the bomb from damaging the sub. One of the other hatches blows off the side, killing Lapidus and sending water flooding in. It’s time to evacuate. Jack hands an unconscious Kate off to Hurley and tells him to swim to safety. He has to stay and help Jin pry away a large cabinet-looking object that’s trapped Sun against the wall. On three they lift it away, only to find that something else has also pinned her. And there’s no moving this one. After Sawyer gets knocked in the head, the stakes are clear. But Jin won’t let Jack stay and let Sawyer die. He urges Jack to save Sawyer. I’ve mentioned the history between these characters, Sawyer’s one of Jin’s best friends on the Island, going all the way back the raft through their Dharma days. They’ve been through a lot. There’s no use in everyone dying in this sub. He will stay and help Sun. Jack knows what comes next, but he listens to Jin anyway. It’s just Jin and Sun left on the sinking sub.

I really thought I was going to lose it watching this next scene. When Jin made the call to let Jack leave, my eyes welled up a bit. Sun kept pleading for Jin to leave, to save himself, but he wouldn’t. He refused to let them be apart again. He tells his wife in Korean “I won't leave you. I will never leave you again”. The Korean hit me the hardest. It was really, really beautiful. She kept pleading, but Jin wasn’t going anywhere. Finally, she embraced him. After one last kiss, we cut away to some shots of the sub sinking with sad music in the background. It was a heartwarming and gut-wrenching scene all in one. We didn’t have to see inside that sub; we knew what was happening. After they both passed away, we were left with a shot of their hands slowly drifting apart. That part was only gut-wrenching.

Sun and Jin were always the couple that weren’t meant to be together. Not “together” in the sense of being in a relationship with each other, but ‘together” as in the same physically proximity. The show continually ripped them apart and brought them together, only to rip them apart again. The raft, the Kahana explosion, the Island moving, again and again we saw these two separated, each time with greater and greater obstacles dividing them. But as Jack’s heavy-handed tomato metaphor in “The Package” taught us, sometimes sheer stubbornness can overpower even fate. Jin and Sun died together, and even though the last image we had was of them drifting apart, of separating once again, it was only symbolic of that stubbornness. Only death could keep those two apart. I’d almost consider it a happy ending for them.

(Quick note, because this isn’t the important part of the scene but in needs to be said: Jack never would have left Jin in Season 1. No way. Again, he’s now recognized the things he cannot change. He’s learning to let go. In “White Rabbit”, Christian told him a story about a little boy who died on his operating table. He says Jack doesn’t have what it takes to deal with that. Well, Jack sure did here.)

I’ve gotta say, I’ve been more worried about Kate getting shot than I would have expected. No, she’s not my favorite character. Or second, or third, or probably even fifth. But at this point, I’ve spent six years with these people. I’ve grown attached. I’ve learned to see the good in all of them. Losing any of them would (and following the rest of the carnage in this episode, is soon going to) feel like a big piece of Lost is missing. Plus, I’ve never for a second felt like there was a chance Kate wouldn’t survive to the end, so maybe it was more shock than anything. But guess what? We’re pretty much at the end. Everyone’s at risk.

This gives me a chance to talk about something that hasn’t been given enough attention – the fact that Kate isn’t one of the candidates. I find this hard to believe, and really a bit troubling too. I guess we don’t know why Jacob crossed out many of the others he had marked as candidates at one time or another, but I think we can assume it has something to do with their “goodness”. I just have a difficult time believing that Kate’s done something so egregious that she has to be stricken from the list. I mean, she’s worse than Sawyer? Really? If we’re considering what everyone’s done since coming to the Island, I think Kate’s as much of a model citizen as anyone. She’s always been there to comfort people like Claire or Sun or Hurley in the hard times. She’s always down for a good rescue mission. And she did the noble thing of leaving behind her life as Aaron’s mother – a life she’d grown to love more than anything, ever – so she could do what was best for him and what was best for Claire. Looking just at her post-815 life, I challenge you to name me one of the survivors who seemed more helpful and kind – who seemed more good – than Kate. You can’t do it.

So why would Jacob take her off his list? I’m guessing this isn’t a recent development, either; Locke told her back in “Left Behind” that the Others weren’t too keen on her joining the group. They said it was because of her past. But you’re going to tell me her past is worse than Sawyer’s? Or Sayid’s? Give me a break. There has to be some other reason. I don’t think they can just sweep this one under the rug. Kate’s to big of a character for us to just accept that she’s not one of the candidates without an explanation. End of rant.

At the end of “The Candidate”, we’re left with Jack, Sawyer, Kate and Hurley alone on a dark, empty beach. A moment of utter despair. Out of all the low points these four have been through both together and individually in the past three years, this is the lowest. All hope is lost for them. It would be for me too if it weren’t for Jack. He feels just like the rest of the group. He’s been beaten down just like they have. But I know that Jack’s now armed with something the MIB can’t take away from him – faith in the Island. The MIB might have been able to prey on John Locke’s willingness to trust the Island, to make him into what he calls “a sucker”, but he can’t do that with Jack. He’s shown him his true colors and they’re as dark and rotten as they come. It’s the man who believes in the Island’s specialness versus the man who says, “It’s just a damn island”. The latter might be impervious to earthly weapons, but the former has all that comes from being chosen as the protector of a place where miracles happen. This week we will learn exactly comes with that territory, what kind of tricks Jack will have up his sleeve when that final encounter between Jack and the MIB finally come to pass. It should be a one hell of a ride.

Until next week…

The Last Recruit

Well, the boards my not have liked this one so much, but it sure had me on the edge of my seat. “The Last Recruit” did not focus on one specific character, but rather tied together the loose ends of several of the Sideways stories and reunited the original 815ers for the first time since, well, I can’t even remember that far back. “The Beginning of the End” maybe? We’re way closer to the end of the end now, and the show isn’t wasting a moment. Let’s dive right in.

Confession: I wrote half of this in the couple days after the episode and the other half right before “The Candidate”. Instead of spending the two-week break rewatching the entire season up to this point like I should have, I worked, read a lot, and forgot most of my post-episode impressions that I wrongly assumed I would have no problem retaining. Simply put, I’ve fallen out of the Lost groove. I’m completely out of the rhythm that comes from watching and writing about the show every week. So, if some of this seems disjointed, that’s the reason why. Here’s to overestimating your memory of an hour of TV you’ve only watched once!

“It’s good to have everyone back together again.” That’s how the MIB (why am I getting a stronger and stronger urge to call him Locke by the day?) greeted his camp as a new day began on the Island. As I’ve been saying, the last few episodes have dripped with Jack’s old mantra “Live together, die alone”. But that saying is no longer just a catchy (if not a little cheesy) slogan; it has turned into the dominant theme of the show and the solution to the final conflict of the series.

But first things first: that conversation between Jack and (ah, screw it) Locke. Wow! Just, wow! It sure has been a long time coming. Jack snapped himself out of his state of mild shock, summoned whatever courage he had and sat down with the Monster for a tense freaking conversation that had me biting fingernails, forgoing blinking, and yelping expletives on multiple occasions. I believe “Holy fuck!” was the phrase I shouted when that one was all finished.

As always, the MIB poked and prodded his adversary in his most sensitive places (wait, that doesn’t sound right). “Does it bother you?” he asks Jack, referring to his appearance, attempting to put him back on his heals. Jack does a decent job of standing his ground. He throws it back at him, asking “Why John Locke?” He says it with a hint of admiration for his fallen former-rival. “Because he was stupid enough to believe that he'd been brought here for a reason. Because he pursued that belief until it got him killed,” answered. Maybe it was warning, maybe it was an insult to Jack and his newfound adherence to that same belief, but the words had their desired effect. Now much more rattled, Jack asks him the one question he really wants to ask – one the audience has been asking for years now – “The third day we were here I saw... I chased my father through the jungle... my, my dead father. Was that you?” The answer was yes.

So does the MIB’s admission that he was the Christian Jack saw in “White Rabbit” mean the Christian Shephard case is officially closed? I say no. I take the MIB at his word when he says that he was the one to lead Jack to the caves. But remember, Christian’s body was missing from the casket. Could the MIB have just moved the body in order to mess with Jack’s head? Sure. That’s probably the most likely explanation. But coupling the missing body with other facts that don’t quite jive with the MIB’s story – the differences in Christian’s clothes, his appearances off the Island and sightings of him at the same time the MIB was in Locke form – and I think there’s more to be told here.

Also, it was pretty freaking obvious that the MIB’s appearance did bother Jack. Of course it would! Talk about history; these two have it by the bucket load. First bitter enemies, Locke did everything he could to try to help Jack realize the very thing Jack refused to see, that he was special and the Island was special. Then Locke died and Jack has assumed his role to get everyone back on the Island. Now Jack has some creature that looks just like Locke saying the exact things to him that he used to say to Locke. Jack was reeling. But he didn’t break down. He stayed strong. And that gives me hope for him. I’m more confident in Jack than I have been at any point since “Through the Looking Glass”. This is a guy I’d follow. It’s nice to have him all the way back.

After Jack’s reunion chat with Locke, we get Jack’s reunion chat with Claire, their first since learning that they're actually half-siblings. I don’t think “awkward” is a strong enough word to describe this one. Jack began to apologize for leaving her behind, but Claire cut him off. She was much more happy to see him than he was her, and much more emotionally invested as well. The whole scene made me very uneasy. More on Claire later.

Jack and Claire make their way back to the group, and after an impressive display of precision airstrikes by Team Widmore, Locke tells the group that it’s time to get over to the Ajira plane so they can fly off the Island (to some still unknown location). He sends Sawyer on a separate mission to retrieve Des’ old sailboat and meet the rest of the group on the other side of the Island. Sawyer obliges and recruits Kate to tag along with him. But, always having a plan, he slips Jack a map of the Island, tells him to round up Hurley, Lapidus and Sun and meet him at a rendezvous point a safe distance away from Locke.

Before they can set off, Hurley gets wind that Sayid and Claire aren’t being invited on the 815 Reunion Tour and gets upset. Sawyer tells him Sayid’s not invited because he’s gone over to the dark side. “Yeah, but you can always bring people back from the dark side,” Hurley responds. Cut to Sayid, who’s on a mission from Locke to kill Desmond. Right before he’s about to pull the trigger, Des interrupts. He’s going to try to smooth talk his way out. And while we don’t know for sure if Sayid pulls the trigger, I (and almost everyone else) don’t think he does. Desmond asks Sayid what reward awaits him in exchange for the murder he’s about to commit. Sayid tells him it’s the woman he loved. Des replies, “This woman--when she asks you what you did to be with her again…what will you tell her?” This stops Sayid in his tracks and we don’t see Desmond for the rest of the episode. But I think Desmond’s words effected Sayid just enough to spare our brotha’s life.

Get ready, because as nerdy as this blog usually is, it’s about to get even nerdy-er. Hurley’s line about Anakin wasn’t just a typical Hurley joke. It hinted at a question we should be pondering as we move toward the end of the series – is it possible to be beyond the point of redemption? Let’s take a look at Star Wars for a second, since Hurley was kind enough to point us in that direction. Something that happened when George Lucas tacked the second trilogy onto the beginning of the Star Wars saga was that the series changed from the story of Luke to the story of Anakin. Instead of a classic hero’s journey, it became a tale of redemption. Luke told his dying father that he could feel there was still some good in him, and if even the smallest glimmer of good remains that means there’s hope. And if there’s hope, that means you can’t give up on the possibility of changing for the better.

Apply this to two of our characters who have gone to the dark side: Sayid and Claire. Both have embraced their anger – Sayid over losing Nadia, Claire over losing Aaron – and have answered the call of Lost’s version of Emperor Palpatine, the Man in Black. Does any good remain in either? With Claire, I’d say no. She’s been in too deep for too long. She’s been motivated entirely be revenge for three years now with nary a hint of any other emotion. I can’t trust her one bit after the way she attacked Kate. Darth Vader might have been evil, but he wasn’t insane. Claire has completely lost her mind. I think she’s gone for good.

On the other hand, I think Sayid has a chance. Even after a couple long years playing Boba Fett for Ben, he still had the desire to do good, to atone for his sins, so he joined Habitat for Humanity. He may have accepted that he’s a killer, but that doesn’t mean that he’s incapable of good. Over the past few weeks, it seemed like all hope was lost for Sayid, but I think Desmond’s words for him this week rang true somewhere deep in the recesses of his soul. I am absolutely convinced that he didn’t kill Desmond. He refused the orders of his evil master, just like a certain other darkly dressed murderer did on the Death Star. And you thought that black tank top was just for looks?

Back to the main group. They all meet at the boat according to plan. They set sail for Hydra Island with Capt’n James manning the wheel accompanied by First Mate Kate. Jack’s sitting alone at the bow of the boat, just gazing off into ocean. Sawyer hands the wheel to Kate and walks over to have a word with the Doc. Like Jack and Locke, it’s incredible to think about how much history these two characters have with each other. Both have done plenty at the expense of the other, but at the same time, there’s a bond there that can never be broken.

Two of my favorite scenes of the series involve these two. The first was in “Exodus Part 1”, where Sawyer tells Jack the story about his time at the bar with Christian in Australia, how Christian said how proud he was of his son, how much he loved him, and how badly he wanted to call and tell him that. “Something tells me he never got around to making that call,” Sawyer said. It was something Jack needed to hear, and even though they were nothing but enemies at that point, Sawyer – soon to be departing on the raft – mustered whatever good there was inside him to let Jack know before it was too late. It was the first time we saw this side of Sawyer and it was touching to see a bridge begin to build between these two rivals. The other scene was in “Three Minutes”. After Ana Lucia was killed, Sawyer tells Jack – part guilty, part genuinely sad – that the he and Ana Lucia had sex in the woods, that he didn’t even know her last name. Jack asks him why he would tell him that. Sawyer responds, “Because you’re about the closest thing I’ve got to a friend, Doc. Because she’s gone.” Gets me every time.

So yeah, these two go way back. And that’s what makes some of these conversations this late in the game so compelling – they have a certain gravitas that a conversation from earlier in the series couldn’t possibly have. So, back on the boat, Jack tells Sawyer it doesn’t feel right to be leaving the Island. He tells him he remembers how he felt last time he left, like part of him was missing. He tells Sawyer that the Island isn’t done with them yet (we’ve heard that before!). Sawyer doesn’t want to hear any of this. He’s come too close to leaving the Island too many times and has lost more each time he’s failed to leave. He tells Jack to get the hell off his boat. And Jack does. He tells Sawyer, “I’m sorry that I got Juliet killed,” and he jumps.

I love the choice Jack made to jump from the boat. The way he talked about how horrible he felt when he left the Island and how he was compelled to stay, it was everything Locke felt back in Season 1. The Island made Locke whole again then and it’s doing the same to Jack now. Jack might as well have said to Sawyer what John told him so many years ago – “I’m on my own journey now”.

Over the past few weeks I’ve come to realize how badly I want to believe in all the things that hooked me on this show in the first place. I want Jack to be the hero. I want Jacob to be good. I want the Island to be special. I want all the characters to feel like Locke did and Jack does. We spent so much time hearing about destiny and purpose and what people were “meant to do”, I want it all to be true. I want John to be right. I’m setting myself up for disappointment, I know. But this show hasn’t let me down yet, and I don’t’ think it will start now. I have faith.

I’m only going to touch on the Sideways world briefly, not because I didn’t thoroughly enjoy it, because I did. Rather, it’s because there wasn’t really one cohesive story to analyze. It was basically more of the “Live together, die alone” we saw on the Island. All the characters are beginning to converge – Kate, Sawyer, Miles and Sayid in one place, Claire, Desmond and Ilana in another, Jin, Sun, Ben, Locke and now Jack in another. What’s actually happening here, I have no idea. My best guess is that they’re about to have one big collective flash over to the Island world.

Two things deserve specific mentions. First, Sun’s fearful cries when she saw Locke being wheeled into the hospital at the same time she was. A couple of the plausible possibilities here: either we’re getting some consciousness bleeding from the Island world to the Sideways world and she’s mistaken Locke for the Monster, or somehow she can see through his exterior appearance and sees that this badly battered sack of meat isn’t really John Locke, it’s actually the Monster. I’m betting heavily on the latter.

The other important Sideways scene leaves us with a mirror image of the Island’s closing scene. Locke face down on the operating table, Jack all scrubbed up, one holds the other’s life in his hands. It’s a scene we’ve been waiting for ever since Jack’s “Nothing is irreversible” line in “LA X”. Is this how Jack and Locke will have their “consciousness-altering” moment? What effect will this have on the Island timeline? Will the two worlds merge? Will the shred of good inside the MIB, the part of John Locke that’s been living inside him all this time, finally surface? Are we about to see his Darth Vader-turns-back-into-Anakin-Skywalker moment? Could these questions be any more transparently leading?

All that and I didn’t even get to Sun and Jin’s heartwarming, if short, reunion (it got a little dusty), what Richard, Ben and Miles might be up to (I have no clue, but would have liked to noodle on it a bit), or the MIB rescuing Jack (I don’t think Jack’s falling into that trap one bit). Too much action, but in a good way. Tonight’s episode, “The Candidate” (gah!) promises some heavy-duty awesomeness, so be ready for the usual monster recap next Tuesday. Consider yourself warned.