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.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Everybody Loves Hugo
“Don’t you want somebody to love? Oh, don’t you need somebody to love?”
– Jefferson Airplane
The end is near. You can always tell with Lost. It happens when you reach a point in the season where the drama starts kicking into high gear, every episode kicks your ass, and the scope of the entire season starts to come into focus. Except this year it’s not just the scope of the season but of the whole series. I expect nothing but awesomeness from here on out.
“Awesome” is probably the best way to describe “Everybody Loves Hugo”, not just because of the stomach-turning confrontations, heartwarming interactions, face-cringing expressions, the jaw-dropping cliffhanger, or the soul-satisfying answers to mysteries long-pondered. It’s also the word the title character would use. As usual, there’s a lot to get to. Let’s get started.
On the Island, we join Hurley as he’s kneeling next to Libby’s grave, similar to the start of another episode that I can’t remember off the top of my head. No matter. Hurley tells Libby that things are really getting crazy and that he wishes she were there to help him through it. He wonders why she hasn’t come to see him like so many other dead people have. No sooner had he said it and out pops Ghost Michael. He comes with a warning – unless you want to get everyone killed, you won’t let Ilana carry out her plan to blow up the plane.
Hurley returns to the beach camp and finds Ilana and Richard gearing up for their mission to Hydra Island. Ilana shows Hurley her sack full of extra-frothy dynamite sticks. Remember the dynamite they used to booby-trap the camp for the Others? Clean as a whistle. The stuff that exploded poor Dr. Arzt? Just oozing with nitroglycerin. Well, that nicely foreshadowed what happened next. After a little speech about how she’s been training her whole life to protect them, Hurley, Jack and the rest watch as Ilana casually drops her bag of dynamite and blows to smithereens. Nice knowing ya, hon.
Undeterred, Richard rallies the group to press on with Operation: Blow Up Ajira 316. Hurley reluctantly agrees to go along, convinces Jack, and the group heads out to the Black Rock. On the way, Ben, always the chatty-Cathy, says to Jack, “Kinda makes you think doesn’t it?” Maybe a little off-guard, Jack responds, “What’s that?” “Ilana. There she was - handpicked by Jacob, trained to come and protect you candidates, no sooner does she tell you who you are, then she blows up. The Island was done with her. Makes me wonder what's gonna happen when it's done with us,” Ben answers.
Two things here. One, stuff like this always cracks me up. Here’s Ben, who had Jack locked up, who launched assault after assault against Jack and his people, who has messed with Jack’s head every chance he could get, and he has no problem trying to have a nice little chat as if none of that ever happened. No hard feelings, right Ben? Second thing, I wonder why they chose to have Ben ask that question. He was clearly jealous of Jack and the rest the way he said “you candidates”. Also, hasn’t Ben felt like the Island cast him aside long ago? Or is this further evidence that darkens the line between Jacob and the Island a little bit more? Sure, Ben has given up on Jacob’s purpose for him, but maybe the Island still has use for him. Something to ponder.
The group arrives at the Black Rock only to see it explode right in front of them in a spectacular ball of fire. Somehow Hurley snuck ahead and triggered the dynamite, eviscerating a major Island landmark and sending Richard with one flick of a match. The rest of the group takes it a little better, but Miles presses Hurley on why he would do such a thing. He confesses that Michael told him to, and he’s just one of the dead people who comes back and yells at him. Miles, knowing a little something about dead people, asks “And you just listen to whatever they say?” “Dead people are more reliable than alive people,” he responds.
Does Hurley really believe that? He’s always been a super-trusting person, almost to a fault. But I actually don’t think that’s the important question. We should be asking why Hurley made this decision at all. Hurley has always been the guy who “you can just hop in [his] cab and tell him what he’s supposed to do”. He knows this. He hates being the one making the decisions, being the one with all the responsibility. Remember how he poorly he handled the duty of rationing out the hatch food? The stakes are a million times higher now. That’s why he’s scared. But he accepts the responsibility because he trusts his gut that it’s the right thing to do. Hurley’s learning to have faith in himself.
Richard ain’t too happy about all this all this. His patience has run out. He’s going to the barracks to get whatever grenades and explosives he can find. Hurley has a different idea: he wants to go talk to Locke. He says Jacob’s standing right behind Richard and that’s what he told him to do. Richard calls his bluff, announces that he’s leaving right now and anyone who wants to help him destroy the plane should go with him. Ben and Miles decide to join. They take off into the jungle, leaving Frank, Sun Jack and Hurley behind. All original (or supposed to be original) 815ers. Interesting.
As the gang treks across the Island to meet up with Locke (why do they have to call it that?), Sun and Frank express their doubts about the decision they just made. But Jack does not. When Hurley confesses to him that he didn’t really see Jacob back there, that it was his decision to go meet up with the Monster, Jack admits that he knew that all along. Then he tells Hurley this – “Ever since Juliet died - ever since I got her killed - all I've wanted was to fix it. But I can't. I can't ever fix it. You've no idea how hard it is for me to sit back and listen to other people tell me what I should do...but I think maybe that's the point...maybe I'm supposed to let go.”
I’ve gotta admit, the room got a little dusty for me during this scene. The Island’s been waiting to hear Jack say those words for years now. As he did earlier this season, he admits that it was his fault that Juliet died and he knows that there’s nothing he can do about it, but unlike before, those aren’t just words. Deep down, Jack has accepted that there’s nothing he can do about Juliet’s death, and probably the same about losing Kate, pushing his father away, and not listening to Locke too. I would venture a guess that before the season’s out, we will see Jack confront each of these people directly. More on that last one in a bit.
Seconds later, the group finds themselves in the middle of a storm of Whispers. “Wait. It's cool, I think I know what these things are,” Hurley tells them. He walks a little deeper into the jungle to once again find himself once again face-to-face with Michael. Hurley tells him that he knows that’s he’s stuck on the Island, and it’s because of what he did to Libby and Ana Lucia. The Whispers are those lost souls like Michael who are reaching out to the living from the other side. (Guess I was wrong when I called that one “answered” in the mid-season wish list. Whoops.) When Hurley asks if there’s anything he can do to help him, Michael responds, “Don’t get yourself killed”. You know who else wants to see Hurley alive? The MIB. If Hurley gets himself killed, then the MIB can’t use him to get off the Island, and from Michael’s little comment their, I’d say the MIB’s planning on taking all those whispering dead people with him.
Across the Island, we pick up where we left off last week with Desmond, Sayid and the rest of team MIB. Sayid alerts the Incarnation of Evil that he has Desmond tied to a tree a short distance from camp. The MIB heads over to ask Des a few questions, but Des is having none of it. He’s as calmly defiant as he was when Sayid had a gun pointed at his face last week. The MIB, unsettled by Desmond’s demeanor, dismisses Sayid so he can get some one-on-one time with Des. The two go for a walk.
The rest of the scenes between the MIB and Des had a ring of Ben leading Locke through the jungle in “The Man Behind the Curtain”. We have one character (the main bad guy on the show) leading another (the good guy) through the jungle to an unknown destination with the good guy about to meet an unfortunate end. On the way, they encounter something the audience believes to be Jacob (invisible guy/blonde-haired boy) and by then end, the bad guy’s telling a story about Island history that ends with the good guy facing certain death. But like when Locke was left in the Dharma grave with a bullet in his gut, I don’t think Desmond’s dead. You don’t just throw a beloved character down a well, cut away quickly to another scene and have that be our last image of the guy. Oh no, there’s more story for Des yet.
The MIB makes it back to camp just in time for Hurley to emerge from the jungle. Sheepishly, he asks for the Monster’s word that he won’t hurt any of his friends. The MIB obliges and hands over his knife to Hurley. Yeah, like a knife is the biggest of their concerns when dealing with something that can turn into a huge pillar of smoke at any moment. Hurley calls to his friends that the coast is clear, leading to one of my favorite moments of the episode: Jack walks out of the jungle. He locks eyes with the MIB – John Locke – and gives an absolutely classic look, the perfect mix of anger, fear, and “shit, I’m about to throw up”.
Let’s get to the Sideways world real quick. Loved the Pierre Chang intro. That had me cracking up, especially the part about Hurley’s “lifelong love affair with chicken”. I hope I never have my relationship with food described in such a way. I also thought Carmen Reyes’ little speech to her son was funny, but also critical to the larger theme of the episode. She tells Hurley that he needs a woman in his life and the only reason he doesn’t have one already is because he’s too scared. Fear.
Fear. Often times it’s the strongest motivator in the lives of our characters. Desmond was afraid he could never live up to what he felt Penny deserved. In “Everybody Hates Hugo”, Hurley feared change and that money would isolate him from the people he cared about. We see it again here. Hurley has insecurities about being fat and it prevents him from even trying to talk to women for fear of rejection.
Because he won’t do it himself, Carmen sets up a little date for Hurley. He’s supposed to meet Rosalita at Spanish Johnny’s, a situation that doubles up on references to the Springsteen album, The Wild, The Innocent and the E Street Shuffle but I’ll leave the dissection of all that to Doc Jensen. I’ll just say I was upset I didn’t pick up on all that myself. But instead of Rosalita, Hurley meets an uber-cute blonde girl named Libby. She says something about believing in soul mates and that she remembers him, but before Hurley can say much, she’s whisked away by Dr. Brooks (who looks like he’s aged about ten years since Season 1, but at least he lost all that Season 4 weight).
Confused and sad, Hurley does what he always does to cheer himself up: he dives headfirst into a family-sized bucket of chicken. He’s lost in that bucket when who comes up to him but the man with order number 42 – Desmond David Hume. Hurley tells him about the crazy girl who told him she remembered him and how she said he should remember her. Well, isn’t that convenient for Des? He tells Hurley that he should try to figure out what she knows him from before giving up on her. That’s just the push Hurley needs. Off to Santa Rosa!
After bribing Dr. Brooks, Hurley gets a little time with Libby at the table next to the Connect Four board. I was hoping for some Leonard action there, but alas, he must have found his sanity in the Sideways world. (Quick tangent: if the Island doesn’t exist in the Sideways world, how did the Numbers drive Leonard crazy? And if they didn’t drive him crazy, how did Hurley play them in the lottery and get rich? I’m not holding my breath on an answer to this one). Hurley confesses to Libby that he doesn’t remember her, but he’s impressed that she had the guts to even come up to him like that. He gets scared just saying hi to a girl. He takes those pity points straight to the bank and asks Libby out. She says yes.
Everyone’s favorite mismatched coupled finally get to have their picnic date! Awwww. And this time he didn’t forget the blankets. Some pleasant conversation, a little cheese, and the two kiss, just like they did at cliff’s edge on the other side. With that, Hurley’s Island memories come rushing back to him. Des watches from his car, smirks, and drives away. Job well done. Onto the next 815er.
With this scene, we see the convergence of fear and love, the two big themes of the episode. Hurley was terrified to go out and meet girls and it was keeping him from being truly happy. Once he overcame that fear, he re-experienced the love that he felt for Libby on the Island and with it came enlightenment. Much like Des and Charlie and Faraday, Hurley’s experience with his loved one, his “constant” if you will, helps him understand himself and his world in a more complete way. That togetherness will allow him to change it and save himself. “Live together, die alone” right? Desmond (Island and Sideways versions) felt this same thing. He was together with Penny, at least in spirit, in both worlds. Armed with the power of love (Huey Lewis and the News, thank you Doc Jensen), he had the confidence and peace of mind to stare down the most terrifying thing of all – John Locke. And he was not afraid. We will see how Jack reacts when confronted with the same man soon enough.
We know how Sideways Des reacts too – he plows into the poor wheelchair-bound bastard at full-speed and leaves him looking as if Anthony Cooper just threw him out of an eighth-floor window. Ben thought he was creeping on the kids, but instead Des was out for blood. Why would he want to take out John Locke in such a crude and painful way? Payback for throwing him down the well on the Island? Was it not really Locke in the first place, but rather the MIB? Or is he carrying on with his mission of “showing something” to all the 815ers, and smearing him all over his windshield was just a means to that end? I like option two the most in terms of shock value, but I’d say option three is the most likely. Either way, it was probably the best cliffhanger since “I’m going to kill Jacob”. I just loved it.
Here’s to an awesome stretch run of episodes. Until next week…
– Jefferson Airplane
The end is near. You can always tell with Lost. It happens when you reach a point in the season where the drama starts kicking into high gear, every episode kicks your ass, and the scope of the entire season starts to come into focus. Except this year it’s not just the scope of the season but of the whole series. I expect nothing but awesomeness from here on out.
“Awesome” is probably the best way to describe “Everybody Loves Hugo”, not just because of the stomach-turning confrontations, heartwarming interactions, face-cringing expressions, the jaw-dropping cliffhanger, or the soul-satisfying answers to mysteries long-pondered. It’s also the word the title character would use. As usual, there’s a lot to get to. Let’s get started.
On the Island, we join Hurley as he’s kneeling next to Libby’s grave, similar to the start of another episode that I can’t remember off the top of my head. No matter. Hurley tells Libby that things are really getting crazy and that he wishes she were there to help him through it. He wonders why she hasn’t come to see him like so many other dead people have. No sooner had he said it and out pops Ghost Michael. He comes with a warning – unless you want to get everyone killed, you won’t let Ilana carry out her plan to blow up the plane.
Hurley returns to the beach camp and finds Ilana and Richard gearing up for their mission to Hydra Island. Ilana shows Hurley her sack full of extra-frothy dynamite sticks. Remember the dynamite they used to booby-trap the camp for the Others? Clean as a whistle. The stuff that exploded poor Dr. Arzt? Just oozing with nitroglycerin. Well, that nicely foreshadowed what happened next. After a little speech about how she’s been training her whole life to protect them, Hurley, Jack and the rest watch as Ilana casually drops her bag of dynamite and blows to smithereens. Nice knowing ya, hon.
Undeterred, Richard rallies the group to press on with Operation: Blow Up Ajira 316. Hurley reluctantly agrees to go along, convinces Jack, and the group heads out to the Black Rock. On the way, Ben, always the chatty-Cathy, says to Jack, “Kinda makes you think doesn’t it?” Maybe a little off-guard, Jack responds, “What’s that?” “Ilana. There she was - handpicked by Jacob, trained to come and protect you candidates, no sooner does she tell you who you are, then she blows up. The Island was done with her. Makes me wonder what's gonna happen when it's done with us,” Ben answers.
Two things here. One, stuff like this always cracks me up. Here’s Ben, who had Jack locked up, who launched assault after assault against Jack and his people, who has messed with Jack’s head every chance he could get, and he has no problem trying to have a nice little chat as if none of that ever happened. No hard feelings, right Ben? Second thing, I wonder why they chose to have Ben ask that question. He was clearly jealous of Jack and the rest the way he said “you candidates”. Also, hasn’t Ben felt like the Island cast him aside long ago? Or is this further evidence that darkens the line between Jacob and the Island a little bit more? Sure, Ben has given up on Jacob’s purpose for him, but maybe the Island still has use for him. Something to ponder.
The group arrives at the Black Rock only to see it explode right in front of them in a spectacular ball of fire. Somehow Hurley snuck ahead and triggered the dynamite, eviscerating a major Island landmark and sending Richard with one flick of a match. The rest of the group takes it a little better, but Miles presses Hurley on why he would do such a thing. He confesses that Michael told him to, and he’s just one of the dead people who comes back and yells at him. Miles, knowing a little something about dead people, asks “And you just listen to whatever they say?” “Dead people are more reliable than alive people,” he responds.
Does Hurley really believe that? He’s always been a super-trusting person, almost to a fault. But I actually don’t think that’s the important question. We should be asking why Hurley made this decision at all. Hurley has always been the guy who “you can just hop in [his] cab and tell him what he’s supposed to do”. He knows this. He hates being the one making the decisions, being the one with all the responsibility. Remember how he poorly he handled the duty of rationing out the hatch food? The stakes are a million times higher now. That’s why he’s scared. But he accepts the responsibility because he trusts his gut that it’s the right thing to do. Hurley’s learning to have faith in himself.
Richard ain’t too happy about all this all this. His patience has run out. He’s going to the barracks to get whatever grenades and explosives he can find. Hurley has a different idea: he wants to go talk to Locke. He says Jacob’s standing right behind Richard and that’s what he told him to do. Richard calls his bluff, announces that he’s leaving right now and anyone who wants to help him destroy the plane should go with him. Ben and Miles decide to join. They take off into the jungle, leaving Frank, Sun Jack and Hurley behind. All original (or supposed to be original) 815ers. Interesting.
As the gang treks across the Island to meet up with Locke (why do they have to call it that?), Sun and Frank express their doubts about the decision they just made. But Jack does not. When Hurley confesses to him that he didn’t really see Jacob back there, that it was his decision to go meet up with the Monster, Jack admits that he knew that all along. Then he tells Hurley this – “Ever since Juliet died - ever since I got her killed - all I've wanted was to fix it. But I can't. I can't ever fix it. You've no idea how hard it is for me to sit back and listen to other people tell me what I should do...but I think maybe that's the point...maybe I'm supposed to let go.”
I’ve gotta admit, the room got a little dusty for me during this scene. The Island’s been waiting to hear Jack say those words for years now. As he did earlier this season, he admits that it was his fault that Juliet died and he knows that there’s nothing he can do about it, but unlike before, those aren’t just words. Deep down, Jack has accepted that there’s nothing he can do about Juliet’s death, and probably the same about losing Kate, pushing his father away, and not listening to Locke too. I would venture a guess that before the season’s out, we will see Jack confront each of these people directly. More on that last one in a bit.
Seconds later, the group finds themselves in the middle of a storm of Whispers. “Wait. It's cool, I think I know what these things are,” Hurley tells them. He walks a little deeper into the jungle to once again find himself once again face-to-face with Michael. Hurley tells him that he knows that’s he’s stuck on the Island, and it’s because of what he did to Libby and Ana Lucia. The Whispers are those lost souls like Michael who are reaching out to the living from the other side. (Guess I was wrong when I called that one “answered” in the mid-season wish list. Whoops.) When Hurley asks if there’s anything he can do to help him, Michael responds, “Don’t get yourself killed”. You know who else wants to see Hurley alive? The MIB. If Hurley gets himself killed, then the MIB can’t use him to get off the Island, and from Michael’s little comment their, I’d say the MIB’s planning on taking all those whispering dead people with him.
Across the Island, we pick up where we left off last week with Desmond, Sayid and the rest of team MIB. Sayid alerts the Incarnation of Evil that he has Desmond tied to a tree a short distance from camp. The MIB heads over to ask Des a few questions, but Des is having none of it. He’s as calmly defiant as he was when Sayid had a gun pointed at his face last week. The MIB, unsettled by Desmond’s demeanor, dismisses Sayid so he can get some one-on-one time with Des. The two go for a walk.
The rest of the scenes between the MIB and Des had a ring of Ben leading Locke through the jungle in “The Man Behind the Curtain”. We have one character (the main bad guy on the show) leading another (the good guy) through the jungle to an unknown destination with the good guy about to meet an unfortunate end. On the way, they encounter something the audience believes to be Jacob (invisible guy/blonde-haired boy) and by then end, the bad guy’s telling a story about Island history that ends with the good guy facing certain death. But like when Locke was left in the Dharma grave with a bullet in his gut, I don’t think Desmond’s dead. You don’t just throw a beloved character down a well, cut away quickly to another scene and have that be our last image of the guy. Oh no, there’s more story for Des yet.
The MIB makes it back to camp just in time for Hurley to emerge from the jungle. Sheepishly, he asks for the Monster’s word that he won’t hurt any of his friends. The MIB obliges and hands over his knife to Hurley. Yeah, like a knife is the biggest of their concerns when dealing with something that can turn into a huge pillar of smoke at any moment. Hurley calls to his friends that the coast is clear, leading to one of my favorite moments of the episode: Jack walks out of the jungle. He locks eyes with the MIB – John Locke – and gives an absolutely classic look, the perfect mix of anger, fear, and “shit, I’m about to throw up”.
Let’s get to the Sideways world real quick. Loved the Pierre Chang intro. That had me cracking up, especially the part about Hurley’s “lifelong love affair with chicken”. I hope I never have my relationship with food described in such a way. I also thought Carmen Reyes’ little speech to her son was funny, but also critical to the larger theme of the episode. She tells Hurley that he needs a woman in his life and the only reason he doesn’t have one already is because he’s too scared. Fear.
Fear. Often times it’s the strongest motivator in the lives of our characters. Desmond was afraid he could never live up to what he felt Penny deserved. In “Everybody Hates Hugo”, Hurley feared change and that money would isolate him from the people he cared about. We see it again here. Hurley has insecurities about being fat and it prevents him from even trying to talk to women for fear of rejection.
Because he won’t do it himself, Carmen sets up a little date for Hurley. He’s supposed to meet Rosalita at Spanish Johnny’s, a situation that doubles up on references to the Springsteen album, The Wild, The Innocent and the E Street Shuffle but I’ll leave the dissection of all that to Doc Jensen. I’ll just say I was upset I didn’t pick up on all that myself. But instead of Rosalita, Hurley meets an uber-cute blonde girl named Libby. She says something about believing in soul mates and that she remembers him, but before Hurley can say much, she’s whisked away by Dr. Brooks (who looks like he’s aged about ten years since Season 1, but at least he lost all that Season 4 weight).
Confused and sad, Hurley does what he always does to cheer himself up: he dives headfirst into a family-sized bucket of chicken. He’s lost in that bucket when who comes up to him but the man with order number 42 – Desmond David Hume. Hurley tells him about the crazy girl who told him she remembered him and how she said he should remember her. Well, isn’t that convenient for Des? He tells Hurley that he should try to figure out what she knows him from before giving up on her. That’s just the push Hurley needs. Off to Santa Rosa!
After bribing Dr. Brooks, Hurley gets a little time with Libby at the table next to the Connect Four board. I was hoping for some Leonard action there, but alas, he must have found his sanity in the Sideways world. (Quick tangent: if the Island doesn’t exist in the Sideways world, how did the Numbers drive Leonard crazy? And if they didn’t drive him crazy, how did Hurley play them in the lottery and get rich? I’m not holding my breath on an answer to this one). Hurley confesses to Libby that he doesn’t remember her, but he’s impressed that she had the guts to even come up to him like that. He gets scared just saying hi to a girl. He takes those pity points straight to the bank and asks Libby out. She says yes.
Everyone’s favorite mismatched coupled finally get to have their picnic date! Awwww. And this time he didn’t forget the blankets. Some pleasant conversation, a little cheese, and the two kiss, just like they did at cliff’s edge on the other side. With that, Hurley’s Island memories come rushing back to him. Des watches from his car, smirks, and drives away. Job well done. Onto the next 815er.
With this scene, we see the convergence of fear and love, the two big themes of the episode. Hurley was terrified to go out and meet girls and it was keeping him from being truly happy. Once he overcame that fear, he re-experienced the love that he felt for Libby on the Island and with it came enlightenment. Much like Des and Charlie and Faraday, Hurley’s experience with his loved one, his “constant” if you will, helps him understand himself and his world in a more complete way. That togetherness will allow him to change it and save himself. “Live together, die alone” right? Desmond (Island and Sideways versions) felt this same thing. He was together with Penny, at least in spirit, in both worlds. Armed with the power of love (Huey Lewis and the News, thank you Doc Jensen), he had the confidence and peace of mind to stare down the most terrifying thing of all – John Locke. And he was not afraid. We will see how Jack reacts when confronted with the same man soon enough.
We know how Sideways Des reacts too – he plows into the poor wheelchair-bound bastard at full-speed and leaves him looking as if Anthony Cooper just threw him out of an eighth-floor window. Ben thought he was creeping on the kids, but instead Des was out for blood. Why would he want to take out John Locke in such a crude and painful way? Payback for throwing him down the well on the Island? Was it not really Locke in the first place, but rather the MIB? Or is he carrying on with his mission of “showing something” to all the 815ers, and smearing him all over his windshield was just a means to that end? I like option two the most in terms of shock value, but I’d say option three is the most likely. Either way, it was probably the best cliffhanger since “I’m going to kill Jacob”. I just loved it.
Here’s to an awesome stretch run of episodes. Until next week…
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Happily Ever After
“Please don't give up, Des. Because all we really need to survive is one person who truly loves us. And you have her.” – Penny, “Live Together, Die Alone”
After a few weeks of shoddy recaps, I am determined to make this one good. And long. Bullet points are a thing of the past from here on out. Nothing but hard-hitting analysis and cockamamie theories the rest of the way. To kick off the stretch run of recaps for the final season, here comes more than 3000 words on “Happily Ever After”, a truly great episode and a real game-changer to boot. For the first time I can see the endgame coming into focus and can sense the finish line just out of view. Oh, did I mention Des? And Des? And, oh yeah, Des? Buckle your seatbelts. Here we go.
Desmond David Hume has come a long way since Locke, Jack and Kate stumbled upon him in the hatch three Island years ago. His story was defined by the separation between him and his true love, the beautiful Penelope Widmore. Desmond’s cowardice drove him away from Penny. Charles Widmore kept them apart. The story that followed showed how Desmond focused his insecurities about his botched relationship with Penny toward winning Charles’s approval and how he came to realize being with Penny was the only thing that could make him truly happy.
In “Flashes Before Your Eyes” we learn that Desmond once planned on proposing to Penny only to have Charles Widmore reject his request while rubbing a little salt in the wound in the process. He refused to share his expensive MacCutcheon Scotch, instead saying “To share it with you would be a waste, and a disgrace to the great man who made it – because you, Hume, will never be a great man.” Des may or may not have taken Charles’ criticisms to heart, but either way he used them as an excuse to dump Penny and run away.
Des spent the next five years trying to get his honor back. He’d lost the woman he’d loved and he needed to make up for what he’d done. But because he couldn’t have her back, he set out to prove each of her father’s criticisms wrong. He joined the military, where he was slapped with a dishonorable discharge. Next he set out to win Charles’ favorite race, a solo sailing race around the world, but all that did was take him to the Island. There he spent three long, lonely years thinking about how badly he’d messed up, how much he loved Penny, and how she was the only thing that could make him happy. He would do anything to see her again, and if he couldn’t, he would do anything to keep her safe. She inspired him to perform a truly heroic act: he turned the failsafe key and saved the world. Eventually, after many more trials and tribulations, he and Penny found their way back to each other, settled down and started a family. Desmond found the happiness he’d always wanted.
In the Sideways world, we watch Desmond grappling with what it means to be happy once again. In that world, he has already lived up to Charles Widmore’s loftily expectations. McCutchons is no longer too good for him, but rather the type of luxury the he deserves. Slowly, we start to get the sense that even with the job, the world-travels, and all the money, Desmond still feels something’s missing in his life. With a little help from some dead friends and his Island self, Des figures out what that something is.
Let’s get to the story. Last week, Charles Widmore suggested that Desmond was the key to preventing the MIB from accomplishing his goal of leaving the Island. This week starts off with Des waking up in a bed on Hydra Island. He demands to see Penny. Charles tells him that she’s not here, that he’s actually back on the Island. He tells Desmond that the Island isn’t done with him yet, then instructs Zoe and the rest of his dopey crew to get ready to run “the test”. The sight of white bunnies cued me in right away to what was happening – they were going to try to send Des to the Sideways world. Gaah!
Even after the first dope gets fried in the generator room, they throw Des right in and strap him to a chair. Charles tells Desmond that after all this is over, he’s going to have to make a sacrifice. Incensed, Des asks Charles, “Sacrifice? What the bloody hell do you know about sacrifice?” Charles responds with this –
“My son died here for the sake of this island. Your wife - my own daughter - hates me. And I've never even met my grandson. But if you won't help me, Desmond, all of it will be for nothing. Penny, your son, and everyone else, will be gone forever.”
Now, I’m not sure how much of this Charles can chalk up to a voluntary sacrifice. Yes, he sent Daniel to the Island on the freighter, so the first part of his claim certainly has merit. But the part about Penny hating him? Was that really a choice Charles made for the sake of the Island, or is that just a product his general jackass-ery? I’m not sure I know the answer to that question. I will give him this - I did always get the sense that Charles and Eloise were manipulating more of Desmond and Penny’s lives then we were really let onto. Charles might have thought Des was a perfectly suitable husband for Penny but he knew that he had to push just the right buttons to get him to go to the Island and “do the only truly great thing he will ever do”. So Charles had to keep them apart for the sake of everyone, knowing that if Desmond and Penny ever found their way back to each other, he would lose his daughter forever.
So have I had Charles Widmore all wrong? Is he one of the good guys? Before this season, I firmly believed that Charles had been working with the MIB all along, allying with him against Jacob in order to resume his position of power on the Island. Exhibit A: “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham” when he told Locke that if the Box Man didn’t get back to the Island “the wrong side is going to win”. Today that all sounds like a bunch of poppycock. Locke getting back to the Island allowed the MIB to assume his identity and kill Jacob. Now Charles is fully committed to taking down the MIB and preventing the end of the world. Something’s missing. Either Charles is just a two-timer, or his usually keen prognosticating abilities failed him big-time. I’m going to side with the latter for right now, but I’m very open to arguments for the former. After all, I’ve always thought Charles was just a selfish ass, so if he’s just playing opportunist now to take back the Island, I really wouldn’t be surprised.
Back to the story. The Dope Brigade turns on the generator, sending Desmond to the Sideways world. Much like with his previous travels through space-time, Sideways Desmond recalls nothing of his other life. He “wakes up” at LAX, exchanges pleasantries with Hurley and Claire, and then gets into his limo. The driver of that limo? None other than 2010 Oscar-winner George Minkowski! Des declines an offer of female “companionship” for the evening, but not before Minkowski points out Desmond isn’t wearing a wedding band. Which was strange, because as the fanatics on the boards can tell you after hours of dissecting “LA X” footage, Des certainly was wearing a ring when we saw him on Flight 815. Seems strange that they would draw attention to this if something bigger isn't going on there. However, I don’t have the slightest idea what that could be. Let’s just make a note of it and move on.
Desmond arrives at his boss’s office and we find out his boss is none other than Charles Widmore. Not a huge surprise there. Charles tells Des that his son the musician has put together a concert combining jazz and rock music for one of his wife’s charity events. It’s Desmond’s job to escort one of the rock stars from jail to the concert. Charles acknowledges that such babysitting is probably beneath the esteemed position that Desmond holds, but he needs a man he can trust to get the job done right. They toast over some MacCutcheon, with Charles telling Desmond that even 60-year Scotch isn’t too good for him.
Cool parallels and stark contrasts abound in that scene! Let’s start with the Scotch. Go back to “Flashes Before Your Eyes”, when Desmond visits Widmore’s office to ask for his daughter’s hand in marriage. After Des asked the big question, Widmore sauntered over to his liquor bar, grabs two glasses and the bottle of MacCutcheon, asks Des if he knows anything about whiskey. “No, I’m afraid not, sir”, he replies. Widmore proceeds to tell the story of Andrew MacCutcheon, an esteemed Admiral in the Royal Navy, a great man in every respect. His Scotch was his crowing achievement. To share it with Desmond would be a waste because Desmond, you see, will never be a great man. Stefan’s favorite line in the series “It’s worth more than your life, Hume” fits nicely right here (even though Widmore never actually says that).
Flash back to the “today”. Charles shares his whiskey with Des. He’s entrusted with important work for Charles’ wife and his son. The Jack question would be, “How are these things so different?” But I answer that as Locke: it’s not how, but why? I’m sticking with the theory that Island Charles knew what he was doing when he rejected Desmond’s request for Penny’s hand in marriage in order to get him to the Island. Couldn’t Sideways Charles be acting in a similar fashion? Maybe Charles knows that he needs to keep Des close so one day he would meet is son Daniel, and so Daniel will tell him about his adventures with nuclear bombs, and so Sideways Desmond will know how to save everyone in the Island world. I think I’m on to something here. More on that later.
Des heads over to the jailhouse to pick up the rock star. Nope, it’s not the lead singer of Geronimo Jackson. Ever heard of a band called Driveshaft? It’s Charlie Pace, and once again Des is tasked with taking care of him as he walks straight toward death’s door. This time Des has to save Charlie not from a universe bent on snuffing him out anyway possible, but from Charlie himself. The first thing he did after getting out of jail was wander straight into traffic. Des reels him back in and the two head to a local pub like two good British dudes would.
Charlie starts grilling Des on his job, his life and his happiness. Des tells Charlie, “I've got a great job, lots of money, get to travel the world. Why wouldn't I be happy?” But he said it in a way that sounded rehearsed, like he’d said the same thing to dozens of other people who’d asked him the same question. And really, nobody wants to hear about the misery of a good-looking rich dude, so that’s how Des probably thinks he’s supposed to answer. Charlie pressed him further. “Have you ever been in love?” “Thousands of times,” Des jokes. “That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about spectacular, consciousness-altering love. Do you know what that looks like?” After a few more jokes, it’s clear Sideways Desmond does not know what that looks like. So Charlie tells him.
Charlie tells him about how he died onboard Flight 815. Choked to death. But when he slipped into the darkness, he saw a woman. She was blonde and beautiful. They were together and always would be. Just when he’s about to…something…some idiot pulled him back from it. He’s alive again, but what he saw in that dark place stayed with him. It was real. It was the truth. And he desperately wants to get it back.
Des more or less brushes him off. He just wants to do his job and get Charlie to the benefit. They get in the car. The radio’s on. “You All, Everybody” blares. Charlie tells Des that it was his band’s first single, describes it as the start of everything great. He badgers him some more about his happiness. And then he jerks the wheel, taking the car and Des with him into the marina. Des manages to wiggle himself free, comes up for air, then dives back down to save Charlie. As he approaches the car, Charlie puts his hand against the window just like he did in the Looking Glass hatch. Des flashes to the Island – “Not Penny’s Boat” – then back to the Sideways world. It’s happening. He’s feeling it too.
The next we see Des he’s in a doctor’s office, ready for an MRI. The doctor tells him that if he needs to stop, just push the button. This stirs something in Des. “The panic button,” the doctor replies. The MRI machine fires up and Des flashes to Island – Charlie drowning, Penny, his son. Freaked out, Des pushes the button, yells how he has to find Charlie, and runs out of the room.
He finds Charlie running through the halls in his robe (which looked every bit as ridiculous as it sounds on paper), crying out “None of this matters!” like a crazy man. But this crazy man is right! And part of Desmond knows it. “Who’s Penny?” he asks Charlie, but Charlie doesn’t know. He does know that Des felt something, the same thing he felt. That something will be key as we head toward the finale. More on that after I talk about the geek in the skinny tie.
Desmond heads to the benefit to break the news to Mrs. Widmore (or Ms. Hawking or whatever) that Driveshaft will not be attending the event. She’s fine with it. Pleasure meeting you, she says, and ushers him away. As Desmond turns to go, he hears the man with the guest list say, “Milton, Penny”. This sure gets his attention. Before he can press the man any further, Eloise pulls Desmond aside and tells him that he has to let that go. She instructs him that he has the one thing he has always wanted – the approval of Charles Widmore. He’s not ready for where this road leads him.
Confused and angry, Desmond leaves. Just as he’s about to hop into the limo, Daniel Faraday (now Widmore) calls out to him, says the two need to have a talk. Daniel tells him a story about this woman he saw with the most incredible blue eyes, beautiful red hair. When he saw her, he said, he felt like he already loved her. That night he woke up in the middle of the night and wrote down some super-complicated physics formula. He had no idea what it meant. But Daniel’s a bright guy. He put all this together and figured out that – somewhere – he’d done something wrong, that he’d created something that wasn’t supposed to exist. That red-haired woman made him feel something that gave him hope. Now Desmond was feeling it too. He’d tell Desmond where Penny was. And he better go find her.
Wow. That’s a lot to process. What I take from it is this – this Sideways world is bad. The Island world is good. It’s something real. It’s the truth. And now the Sideways characters are starting to experience that truth. Jack looking at his appendix scar, Claire knowing Aaron’s name, Kate and that stuffed whale – those were just the beginning. Those things are all there to jog their memories of their Island lives. It felt like a fantasy world because it was. The Sideways world shouldn’t exist, and the universe is bringing everyone back together to help take it down. It’s not coincidence – it’s fate. Now Des is taking the next step. With the help of Faraday (like always), he’s going to crack the code and eliminate the Sideways world once and for all.
Back on the Island, Des wakes up from his flash. He asks Zoe when they’re going to get started on that important thing they need him for. She and a couple of the other dopes walk Desmond out into the jungle where Sayid quickly confronts them. He tells Zoe to run, but not before killing the other two escorts. (They didn’t even have nametags. They had no chance!) He tells Desmond that Widmore and his people are dangerous and that he needs to come with him. “Aye” Des responds, a little too calm considering he just had a gun pointed at his face. Something is definitely up with Island Des.
Here’s my theory – I think Island Desmond experienced the entirety of his Sideways timeline and is now armed with the knowledge of exactly how it all turns out. He knows that Sideways Des is going to rally all the 815ers so that they feel the same thing that he felt, that Charlie felt, that Daniel felt. But that’s only half the equation.
I’m still of the belief that the MIB has a hand in the Sideways world or somehow caused it’s very existence. There have been too many instances where the MIB has promised our characters one of their deepest desires only to have that very thing show up the in Sideways world (see, Sayid and Nadia, Sun and Jin, possibly Claire with Aaron). His malevolent influences and the absence of the Island have convinced me that Charlie and Faraday are right – the Sideways world isn’t real, it’s bad, and it was never supposed to be. I refuse to accept that a world without the Island is somehow a better one. It’s a special place dammit!
So Sideways Des is going to rally all the Sideways characters so they can see their (yet to be determined) Island destinies. Island Des, enlightened with knowledge of the Sideways timeline, infiltrates the MIB’s camp. He bides his time until he has to make one specific move in order to bring the whole MIB operation down (maybe the sacrifice Widmore spoke of?). The combination of this move (I don’t know what that is yet, but stay with me) and all the Sideways character seeing their Island destinies will somehow disrupt the balance between the two worlds, thereby destroying the Sideways world and, with it, the MIB. Jack becomes the new Jacob and peace is restored on the Island. Happily ever after. The end.
“But wait! You forgot the only happy scene of the episode!” Ah yes, how could I forget? Desmond drives to Aloha Stadium (or whatever the LA equivalent is), and we get a nice mirror image of the scene in “Live Together, Die Alone”, this time with Penny running the stairs and Des is asking her out. It was sweet, and it gives me hope that even if the Sideways world ends up sticking around, Des and Penny still end up together.
The sacrifice hangs over all this like a dark cloud. I see it playing out much like it did in down in the hatch when Desmond turned the key and saved the world. He didn’t know what would happen, but he took a leap of faith with the chance that he could save the one person that he truly loved. It was heroic in every sense of the word. I’m afraid he will have to do the same thing again, taking the chance that he dies in hopes that he saves the world. But what if this one doesn’t just strip him naked and send him on a short little daytrip back in time? What if he dies?
Aside from maybe Hurley, I can’t think of another character that deserves a happy ending more than Des. He kind, genuine, and has a good heart. He’s one of the few characters whose ending I’ve made up my mind about and would be very upset if it ended up differently. Des needs to end up with Penny. Happily ever after, indeed.
Until next week…
After a few weeks of shoddy recaps, I am determined to make this one good. And long. Bullet points are a thing of the past from here on out. Nothing but hard-hitting analysis and cockamamie theories the rest of the way. To kick off the stretch run of recaps for the final season, here comes more than 3000 words on “Happily Ever After”, a truly great episode and a real game-changer to boot. For the first time I can see the endgame coming into focus and can sense the finish line just out of view. Oh, did I mention Des? And Des? And, oh yeah, Des? Buckle your seatbelts. Here we go.
Desmond David Hume has come a long way since Locke, Jack and Kate stumbled upon him in the hatch three Island years ago. His story was defined by the separation between him and his true love, the beautiful Penelope Widmore. Desmond’s cowardice drove him away from Penny. Charles Widmore kept them apart. The story that followed showed how Desmond focused his insecurities about his botched relationship with Penny toward winning Charles’s approval and how he came to realize being with Penny was the only thing that could make him truly happy.
In “Flashes Before Your Eyes” we learn that Desmond once planned on proposing to Penny only to have Charles Widmore reject his request while rubbing a little salt in the wound in the process. He refused to share his expensive MacCutcheon Scotch, instead saying “To share it with you would be a waste, and a disgrace to the great man who made it – because you, Hume, will never be a great man.” Des may or may not have taken Charles’ criticisms to heart, but either way he used them as an excuse to dump Penny and run away.
Des spent the next five years trying to get his honor back. He’d lost the woman he’d loved and he needed to make up for what he’d done. But because he couldn’t have her back, he set out to prove each of her father’s criticisms wrong. He joined the military, where he was slapped with a dishonorable discharge. Next he set out to win Charles’ favorite race, a solo sailing race around the world, but all that did was take him to the Island. There he spent three long, lonely years thinking about how badly he’d messed up, how much he loved Penny, and how she was the only thing that could make him happy. He would do anything to see her again, and if he couldn’t, he would do anything to keep her safe. She inspired him to perform a truly heroic act: he turned the failsafe key and saved the world. Eventually, after many more trials and tribulations, he and Penny found their way back to each other, settled down and started a family. Desmond found the happiness he’d always wanted.
In the Sideways world, we watch Desmond grappling with what it means to be happy once again. In that world, he has already lived up to Charles Widmore’s loftily expectations. McCutchons is no longer too good for him, but rather the type of luxury the he deserves. Slowly, we start to get the sense that even with the job, the world-travels, and all the money, Desmond still feels something’s missing in his life. With a little help from some dead friends and his Island self, Des figures out what that something is.
Let’s get to the story. Last week, Charles Widmore suggested that Desmond was the key to preventing the MIB from accomplishing his goal of leaving the Island. This week starts off with Des waking up in a bed on Hydra Island. He demands to see Penny. Charles tells him that she’s not here, that he’s actually back on the Island. He tells Desmond that the Island isn’t done with him yet, then instructs Zoe and the rest of his dopey crew to get ready to run “the test”. The sight of white bunnies cued me in right away to what was happening – they were going to try to send Des to the Sideways world. Gaah!
Even after the first dope gets fried in the generator room, they throw Des right in and strap him to a chair. Charles tells Desmond that after all this is over, he’s going to have to make a sacrifice. Incensed, Des asks Charles, “Sacrifice? What the bloody hell do you know about sacrifice?” Charles responds with this –
“My son died here for the sake of this island. Your wife - my own daughter - hates me. And I've never even met my grandson. But if you won't help me, Desmond, all of it will be for nothing. Penny, your son, and everyone else, will be gone forever.”
Now, I’m not sure how much of this Charles can chalk up to a voluntary sacrifice. Yes, he sent Daniel to the Island on the freighter, so the first part of his claim certainly has merit. But the part about Penny hating him? Was that really a choice Charles made for the sake of the Island, or is that just a product his general jackass-ery? I’m not sure I know the answer to that question. I will give him this - I did always get the sense that Charles and Eloise were manipulating more of Desmond and Penny’s lives then we were really let onto. Charles might have thought Des was a perfectly suitable husband for Penny but he knew that he had to push just the right buttons to get him to go to the Island and “do the only truly great thing he will ever do”. So Charles had to keep them apart for the sake of everyone, knowing that if Desmond and Penny ever found their way back to each other, he would lose his daughter forever.
So have I had Charles Widmore all wrong? Is he one of the good guys? Before this season, I firmly believed that Charles had been working with the MIB all along, allying with him against Jacob in order to resume his position of power on the Island. Exhibit A: “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham” when he told Locke that if the Box Man didn’t get back to the Island “the wrong side is going to win”. Today that all sounds like a bunch of poppycock. Locke getting back to the Island allowed the MIB to assume his identity and kill Jacob. Now Charles is fully committed to taking down the MIB and preventing the end of the world. Something’s missing. Either Charles is just a two-timer, or his usually keen prognosticating abilities failed him big-time. I’m going to side with the latter for right now, but I’m very open to arguments for the former. After all, I’ve always thought Charles was just a selfish ass, so if he’s just playing opportunist now to take back the Island, I really wouldn’t be surprised.
Back to the story. The Dope Brigade turns on the generator, sending Desmond to the Sideways world. Much like with his previous travels through space-time, Sideways Desmond recalls nothing of his other life. He “wakes up” at LAX, exchanges pleasantries with Hurley and Claire, and then gets into his limo. The driver of that limo? None other than 2010 Oscar-winner George Minkowski! Des declines an offer of female “companionship” for the evening, but not before Minkowski points out Desmond isn’t wearing a wedding band. Which was strange, because as the fanatics on the boards can tell you after hours of dissecting “LA X” footage, Des certainly was wearing a ring when we saw him on Flight 815. Seems strange that they would draw attention to this if something bigger isn't going on there. However, I don’t have the slightest idea what that could be. Let’s just make a note of it and move on.
Desmond arrives at his boss’s office and we find out his boss is none other than Charles Widmore. Not a huge surprise there. Charles tells Des that his son the musician has put together a concert combining jazz and rock music for one of his wife’s charity events. It’s Desmond’s job to escort one of the rock stars from jail to the concert. Charles acknowledges that such babysitting is probably beneath the esteemed position that Desmond holds, but he needs a man he can trust to get the job done right. They toast over some MacCutcheon, with Charles telling Desmond that even 60-year Scotch isn’t too good for him.
Cool parallels and stark contrasts abound in that scene! Let’s start with the Scotch. Go back to “Flashes Before Your Eyes”, when Desmond visits Widmore’s office to ask for his daughter’s hand in marriage. After Des asked the big question, Widmore sauntered over to his liquor bar, grabs two glasses and the bottle of MacCutcheon, asks Des if he knows anything about whiskey. “No, I’m afraid not, sir”, he replies. Widmore proceeds to tell the story of Andrew MacCutcheon, an esteemed Admiral in the Royal Navy, a great man in every respect. His Scotch was his crowing achievement. To share it with Desmond would be a waste because Desmond, you see, will never be a great man. Stefan’s favorite line in the series “It’s worth more than your life, Hume” fits nicely right here (even though Widmore never actually says that).
Flash back to the “today”. Charles shares his whiskey with Des. He’s entrusted with important work for Charles’ wife and his son. The Jack question would be, “How are these things so different?” But I answer that as Locke: it’s not how, but why? I’m sticking with the theory that Island Charles knew what he was doing when he rejected Desmond’s request for Penny’s hand in marriage in order to get him to the Island. Couldn’t Sideways Charles be acting in a similar fashion? Maybe Charles knows that he needs to keep Des close so one day he would meet is son Daniel, and so Daniel will tell him about his adventures with nuclear bombs, and so Sideways Desmond will know how to save everyone in the Island world. I think I’m on to something here. More on that later.
Des heads over to the jailhouse to pick up the rock star. Nope, it’s not the lead singer of Geronimo Jackson. Ever heard of a band called Driveshaft? It’s Charlie Pace, and once again Des is tasked with taking care of him as he walks straight toward death’s door. This time Des has to save Charlie not from a universe bent on snuffing him out anyway possible, but from Charlie himself. The first thing he did after getting out of jail was wander straight into traffic. Des reels him back in and the two head to a local pub like two good British dudes would.
Charlie starts grilling Des on his job, his life and his happiness. Des tells Charlie, “I've got a great job, lots of money, get to travel the world. Why wouldn't I be happy?” But he said it in a way that sounded rehearsed, like he’d said the same thing to dozens of other people who’d asked him the same question. And really, nobody wants to hear about the misery of a good-looking rich dude, so that’s how Des probably thinks he’s supposed to answer. Charlie pressed him further. “Have you ever been in love?” “Thousands of times,” Des jokes. “That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about spectacular, consciousness-altering love. Do you know what that looks like?” After a few more jokes, it’s clear Sideways Desmond does not know what that looks like. So Charlie tells him.
Charlie tells him about how he died onboard Flight 815. Choked to death. But when he slipped into the darkness, he saw a woman. She was blonde and beautiful. They were together and always would be. Just when he’s about to…something…some idiot pulled him back from it. He’s alive again, but what he saw in that dark place stayed with him. It was real. It was the truth. And he desperately wants to get it back.
Des more or less brushes him off. He just wants to do his job and get Charlie to the benefit. They get in the car. The radio’s on. “You All, Everybody” blares. Charlie tells Des that it was his band’s first single, describes it as the start of everything great. He badgers him some more about his happiness. And then he jerks the wheel, taking the car and Des with him into the marina. Des manages to wiggle himself free, comes up for air, then dives back down to save Charlie. As he approaches the car, Charlie puts his hand against the window just like he did in the Looking Glass hatch. Des flashes to the Island – “Not Penny’s Boat” – then back to the Sideways world. It’s happening. He’s feeling it too.
The next we see Des he’s in a doctor’s office, ready for an MRI. The doctor tells him that if he needs to stop, just push the button. This stirs something in Des. “The panic button,” the doctor replies. The MRI machine fires up and Des flashes to Island – Charlie drowning, Penny, his son. Freaked out, Des pushes the button, yells how he has to find Charlie, and runs out of the room.
He finds Charlie running through the halls in his robe (which looked every bit as ridiculous as it sounds on paper), crying out “None of this matters!” like a crazy man. But this crazy man is right! And part of Desmond knows it. “Who’s Penny?” he asks Charlie, but Charlie doesn’t know. He does know that Des felt something, the same thing he felt. That something will be key as we head toward the finale. More on that after I talk about the geek in the skinny tie.
Desmond heads to the benefit to break the news to Mrs. Widmore (or Ms. Hawking or whatever) that Driveshaft will not be attending the event. She’s fine with it. Pleasure meeting you, she says, and ushers him away. As Desmond turns to go, he hears the man with the guest list say, “Milton, Penny”. This sure gets his attention. Before he can press the man any further, Eloise pulls Desmond aside and tells him that he has to let that go. She instructs him that he has the one thing he has always wanted – the approval of Charles Widmore. He’s not ready for where this road leads him.
Confused and angry, Desmond leaves. Just as he’s about to hop into the limo, Daniel Faraday (now Widmore) calls out to him, says the two need to have a talk. Daniel tells him a story about this woman he saw with the most incredible blue eyes, beautiful red hair. When he saw her, he said, he felt like he already loved her. That night he woke up in the middle of the night and wrote down some super-complicated physics formula. He had no idea what it meant. But Daniel’s a bright guy. He put all this together and figured out that – somewhere – he’d done something wrong, that he’d created something that wasn’t supposed to exist. That red-haired woman made him feel something that gave him hope. Now Desmond was feeling it too. He’d tell Desmond where Penny was. And he better go find her.
Wow. That’s a lot to process. What I take from it is this – this Sideways world is bad. The Island world is good. It’s something real. It’s the truth. And now the Sideways characters are starting to experience that truth. Jack looking at his appendix scar, Claire knowing Aaron’s name, Kate and that stuffed whale – those were just the beginning. Those things are all there to jog their memories of their Island lives. It felt like a fantasy world because it was. The Sideways world shouldn’t exist, and the universe is bringing everyone back together to help take it down. It’s not coincidence – it’s fate. Now Des is taking the next step. With the help of Faraday (like always), he’s going to crack the code and eliminate the Sideways world once and for all.
Back on the Island, Des wakes up from his flash. He asks Zoe when they’re going to get started on that important thing they need him for. She and a couple of the other dopes walk Desmond out into the jungle where Sayid quickly confronts them. He tells Zoe to run, but not before killing the other two escorts. (They didn’t even have nametags. They had no chance!) He tells Desmond that Widmore and his people are dangerous and that he needs to come with him. “Aye” Des responds, a little too calm considering he just had a gun pointed at his face. Something is definitely up with Island Des.
Here’s my theory – I think Island Desmond experienced the entirety of his Sideways timeline and is now armed with the knowledge of exactly how it all turns out. He knows that Sideways Des is going to rally all the 815ers so that they feel the same thing that he felt, that Charlie felt, that Daniel felt. But that’s only half the equation.
I’m still of the belief that the MIB has a hand in the Sideways world or somehow caused it’s very existence. There have been too many instances where the MIB has promised our characters one of their deepest desires only to have that very thing show up the in Sideways world (see, Sayid and Nadia, Sun and Jin, possibly Claire with Aaron). His malevolent influences and the absence of the Island have convinced me that Charlie and Faraday are right – the Sideways world isn’t real, it’s bad, and it was never supposed to be. I refuse to accept that a world without the Island is somehow a better one. It’s a special place dammit!
So Sideways Des is going to rally all the Sideways characters so they can see their (yet to be determined) Island destinies. Island Des, enlightened with knowledge of the Sideways timeline, infiltrates the MIB’s camp. He bides his time until he has to make one specific move in order to bring the whole MIB operation down (maybe the sacrifice Widmore spoke of?). The combination of this move (I don’t know what that is yet, but stay with me) and all the Sideways character seeing their Island destinies will somehow disrupt the balance between the two worlds, thereby destroying the Sideways world and, with it, the MIB. Jack becomes the new Jacob and peace is restored on the Island. Happily ever after. The end.
“But wait! You forgot the only happy scene of the episode!” Ah yes, how could I forget? Desmond drives to Aloha Stadium (or whatever the LA equivalent is), and we get a nice mirror image of the scene in “Live Together, Die Alone”, this time with Penny running the stairs and Des is asking her out. It was sweet, and it gives me hope that even if the Sideways world ends up sticking around, Des and Penny still end up together.
The sacrifice hangs over all this like a dark cloud. I see it playing out much like it did in down in the hatch when Desmond turned the key and saved the world. He didn’t know what would happen, but he took a leap of faith with the chance that he could save the one person that he truly loved. It was heroic in every sense of the word. I’m afraid he will have to do the same thing again, taking the chance that he dies in hopes that he saves the world. But what if this one doesn’t just strip him naked and send him on a short little daytrip back in time? What if he dies?
Aside from maybe Hurley, I can’t think of another character that deserves a happy ending more than Des. He kind, genuine, and has a good heart. He’s one of the few characters whose ending I’ve made up my mind about and would be very upset if it ended up differently. Des needs to end up with Penny. Happily ever after, indeed.
Until next week…
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
The Package
I liked "The Package" but there wasn't a ton that left me thinking this week (except for the Des-centric preview). It was a really good episode though. Definitely entertaining throughout. It going to be a short recap this week due to my travels to DC to check out GW, so lets get straight to the bullet points.
- The first of four highlights for me this week - Sun trusting Jack. It's been a long time since Jack's had the respect and trust of the group, so it was good to see Sun back on board the Jack train. The contrast between her reaction to the MIB and Jack could not have been more clear; they both reached their hand out to her, but she run from the MIB but grabbed hold of Jack. Loved it. Jack has his mojo back in full-force. I just want to see him driving some of the action once a gain.
- The second highlight was the less-than-triumphant return of Mikhial! I couldn't believe we saw that cycloptic bastard again and I was way more excited than I probably should have been. The bullet to his eye was just the icing on the cake. I let out a chuckle after that one. The universe course-correcting perhaps?
- The third highlight was the return of Room 23. When we first saw this place in "Not in Portland", it was like Easter egg porn for the boards. There was a ton to read into, but not really much in the way of substance or hints to any greater mystery. Still, it was awesome then and it remains awesome now. A nice trip down memory lane.
- The final highlight should be obvious - Des! Des! Des! It's been far too long since our favorite Scotsman treated us to an "aye" or a "brotha", but this week's episode "Happily Ever After" promises to fix that. I couldn't be more terrified of Sayid lurking in the water, ready to do the bidding of the MIB. He didn't try to put a stop to Claire as she attempted to plunge a knife into Kate's throat; I doubt he has any sympathy left in there for Desmond either. He said it himself: he feels nothing. But one big question remains - How is Des supposed to stop the MIB? We know he's "miraculously special" in some way that has to do with time, that the rules don't apply to him. So how does that apply here? I can't wait to find out.
- The Sideways world was interesting enough this week, but unlike the other flashes this year, I felt like it didn't tell a complete story. We're left totally hanging with what happens with pregnant and shot Sun. I can't imagine there's going to be another Jin/Sun episode this year, so we're going to have to find out the conclusion of that story from some other character's flash. I've been predicting for a while that all those sideways stories are going to converge and I believe that now more than ever.
- Poor Sun and Jin. Like Keamy said, they're just not meant to be together. But if we can listen to the newly sage-like Jack Shephard for a minute, his little tomato metaphor suggests there might be hope for them yet. They have been stubborn in their commitment to one another even though all the circumstances in the world have tried to tear them apart. And now they're closer than ever to reaching each other. If they can just hold out a little longer, if they can avoid the seductive persuasions of the MIB (whom both seem rather repulsed by), I think they're going to be okay.
- One last note, and it's just something that popped into my head when thinking about old episodes: We used to explain everything that happened on the Island in terms of the Island's own agency. Now, we almost assume that either Jacob or the MIB are the ones pulling the strings on all the mysterious stuff that happens (visions, etc.). Think back to "Further Instructions" - Locke lost his voice after the hatch explosion. It seems unlikely that either Jacob or the MIB was anywhere near him to make that happen. Same deal with when he landed on the Island in the first place and regained control of his legs. We used to explain these things as the Island's will. We haven't done that in a while. It's just interesting. Maybe we're right to drift away from these types of explanations. But maybe we're wrong. Jacob said the Island acts as a cork to keep evil from spreading around the world. Not him. The Island. I'll predict that by the end of the this story, we will have more clearly defined differences between Jacob, the Island, and the Monster. I just don't know what those differences are right now.
Here's to hoping I'm more inspired to write next week. My guess is Des will have that effect on me. Until then...
- The first of four highlights for me this week - Sun trusting Jack. It's been a long time since Jack's had the respect and trust of the group, so it was good to see Sun back on board the Jack train. The contrast between her reaction to the MIB and Jack could not have been more clear; they both reached their hand out to her, but she run from the MIB but grabbed hold of Jack. Loved it. Jack has his mojo back in full-force. I just want to see him driving some of the action once a gain.
- The second highlight was the less-than-triumphant return of Mikhial! I couldn't believe we saw that cycloptic bastard again and I was way more excited than I probably should have been. The bullet to his eye was just the icing on the cake. I let out a chuckle after that one. The universe course-correcting perhaps?
- The third highlight was the return of Room 23. When we first saw this place in "Not in Portland", it was like Easter egg porn for the boards. There was a ton to read into, but not really much in the way of substance or hints to any greater mystery. Still, it was awesome then and it remains awesome now. A nice trip down memory lane.
- The final highlight should be obvious - Des! Des! Des! It's been far too long since our favorite Scotsman treated us to an "aye" or a "brotha", but this week's episode "Happily Ever After" promises to fix that. I couldn't be more terrified of Sayid lurking in the water, ready to do the bidding of the MIB. He didn't try to put a stop to Claire as she attempted to plunge a knife into Kate's throat; I doubt he has any sympathy left in there for Desmond either. He said it himself: he feels nothing. But one big question remains - How is Des supposed to stop the MIB? We know he's "miraculously special" in some way that has to do with time, that the rules don't apply to him. So how does that apply here? I can't wait to find out.
- The Sideways world was interesting enough this week, but unlike the other flashes this year, I felt like it didn't tell a complete story. We're left totally hanging with what happens with pregnant and shot Sun. I can't imagine there's going to be another Jin/Sun episode this year, so we're going to have to find out the conclusion of that story from some other character's flash. I've been predicting for a while that all those sideways stories are going to converge and I believe that now more than ever.
- Poor Sun and Jin. Like Keamy said, they're just not meant to be together. But if we can listen to the newly sage-like Jack Shephard for a minute, his little tomato metaphor suggests there might be hope for them yet. They have been stubborn in their commitment to one another even though all the circumstances in the world have tried to tear them apart. And now they're closer than ever to reaching each other. If they can just hold out a little longer, if they can avoid the seductive persuasions of the MIB (whom both seem rather repulsed by), I think they're going to be okay.
- One last note, and it's just something that popped into my head when thinking about old episodes: We used to explain everything that happened on the Island in terms of the Island's own agency. Now, we almost assume that either Jacob or the MIB are the ones pulling the strings on all the mysterious stuff that happens (visions, etc.). Think back to "Further Instructions" - Locke lost his voice after the hatch explosion. It seems unlikely that either Jacob or the MIB was anywhere near him to make that happen. Same deal with when he landed on the Island in the first place and regained control of his legs. We used to explain these things as the Island's will. We haven't done that in a while. It's just interesting. Maybe we're right to drift away from these types of explanations. But maybe we're wrong. Jacob said the Island acts as a cork to keep evil from spreading around the world. Not him. The Island. I'll predict that by the end of the this story, we will have more clearly defined differences between Jacob, the Island, and the Monster. I just don't know what those differences are right now.
Here's to hoping I'm more inspired to write next week. My guess is Des will have that effect on me. Until then...
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Ab Aeterno
My face told the whole story about this one. From the “whoooosh” of the traditional flashback sound up until the “boomLOST” at the end, I never once had my face in the neutral position during “Ab Aeterno”. I either had a dopey grin on my face (Richard riding horseback with “Canary Islands, 1867” on the bottom of the screen; the mention of Magnus Hanso), a frowny sad face (Richard discovering his wife, Isabella, dead; the padre telling him his soul was beyond salvation, many others), a eyes-wide, awestruck face (the Black Rock crashing into the statue), a cringing, agonized face (Richard struggling and failing to reach the raindrops falling through the vent; ditto with the nail; as he lay dying from starvation/dehydration) or a mix of them all. “Ab Aeterno” ran the full gambit of emotions and gave us one of the best self-contained stories Lost has ever told.
While “Ab Aeterno” might not fall atop my list of favorite episodes, I can certainly appreciate its greatness and I expect that I’ll grow to love it more with repeated viewings. Right now, my excitement after this episode probably doesn’t match the Lost communities as a whole, not because I didn’t really, really like this episode, but because the general delirium of the fan base is just so high right now. (Last I checked, it was second on DarkUFO’s episode rankings, barely trailing “The Constant”.) Either way, we were treated to a kick-ass episode last night and, as always, I’m going to focus on the positive. I’m going to say it again: I really really liked this episode, but it’s just not as good as “Through the Looking Glass” and it shouldn’t be rated as if it is.
We start off on the Island with the beach team sitting around the campfire trying to decide what to next. We learn from a continuation of Ilana’s flashback scene with Jacob that once she rounds up all the candidates, she needs to get in touch with Richard. He will know what to do. But when she suggests to him that he has all the answers, he flips out, tells everyone they’re actually dead, and takes off into the jungle to find the MIB.
This was a situation we’ve seen many characters encounter throughout Lost – the crisis of faith. Locke refusing to push the button. Sayid shooting young Ben. Desmond ready to kill himself in the hatch. Now Richard doubting Jacob. Sometimes they come out the other side with renewed faith (Locke, Des), other times it’s the beginning of a long spiral toward damnation (Sayid). Richard was ready to throw away his century-and-a-half long commitment to Jacob and the Others and join the MIB, but Hurley pulled him back from the dark side. I wish I had the mental capacity right now to go into this one more, but I think this whole “crisis of faith” discussion will have to wait for another time when I’m more clear-headed (and hopefully in a different line of work). It looks as if, like Ben, Richard will be able to resist temptation and continue on a better path.
I really liked the scenes on the Black Rock. I’ve said stuff like this before, but if you would have told me after Season 2 that we’d get a scene where the Black Rock arrives on the Island and smashes the statue in the process, I would have responded like Jerry Krause winning the draft lottery. My joy would have been expressed through violent neck-fat shaking.
But that wasn’t all. Next thing you know it, the Monster’s ripping threw the hull of the ship, devouring everyone in sight. Except Richard. Smokey snaps a couple pictures of him and books it. It was a clear parallel to the scene in “The 23rd Psalm” where Smokey sizes up a defiant Mr. Eko. And wouldn’t you know it, just like Yemi appeared to Eko, Isabella appears to Richard. She tells him they’re both dead, that they’re in hell, and that the devil could come back at any moment. Like with Yemi, it’s one of the MIB’s long cons. He’s putting Richard in a very vulnerable position so he can take advantage of him – a strategy that was successful with Sayid, Sawyer, and of course, Locke.
The theme of imprisonment stood out most to me this episode. Richard was held prisoner for murder, held prisoner on the Black Rock, and finally held prisoner in his own body. His chains kept him from escaping the Black Rock and then just out of reach of the rainwater and his nail file. His metaphorical chains kept him from ending what he began to feel was a pointless existence and joining his wife in whatever afterlife they would share together. What he once saw as Jacob’s gift became his biggest burden. Richard was chained to the Island in the exact same way he was chained to the Black Rock; he was doomed to suffer there until the end.
My favorite scenes were those of Richard alone in the Black Rock. Chained to the wall, he constantly found himself just out of reach of what he was trying to grasp. First it was the raindrops, then the nail he’d be using to saw himself free. I found these moments so incredibly painful to watch (see the descriptions of my face above), but that’s the kind of stuff Lost does so well. It takes me to very dark places. My favorite scenes are often the saddest – Jack’s “sick of lying” speech, Locke pounding on the hatch door, Ben watching Alex get shot, Sawyer strangling Anthony Cooper – all of them powerful and moving, but all of them showing the characters at their lowest. It’s the hope that out of the pit of despair there will be light, out of tragedy, triumph, and out of sin, redemption, that doesn’t just keep me from crying myself to sleep every night, but connects to something inside me that gives me hope in my own life, and maybe the world as a whole. I relate to Jack and his need to prove he doesn’t need anyone’s help. I relate to Ben’s need for control. I relate to Locke’s need to become something special. I can’t imagine another show hitting all these notes ever again.
End of overdramatic tangent.
“Ab Aeterno” pulled on the heartstrings like few other Lost episodes. And once again, I feel like I haven’t fully done it justice here. There was so much to discuss, so let’s move to some quick hits for the rest of it:
-Jacob likened the Island to a cork in a wine bottle keeping evil from reaching the world. This was a huge revelation, but it didn’t hit me quite so hard. Didn’t we already know that Jacob was preventing the MIB from leaving the Island? Yes we did. And that’s how I took Jacob’s little metaphor. But the Island preventing the MIB from leaving? That’s new. Maybe it’s just semantics. Maybe not. I for one never expected to get an answer to “What is the Island?” but this could be a hint that one is coming.
-The amount of Jack in these last few episodes has been unacceptable. There was that badass scene where he starred down the lit stick of dynamite, but other than that, bupkis. I hope this changes soon. And while we’re at it, I want more about what happened with Sayid. I realize he’s “evil” now, but what does that mean? Just more sitting on logs watching people try to kill one another?
-The scene where Jacob beats the crap out of Richard made me very uncomfortable. I didn’t like seeing that side of the Magnificent Man one bit. Up until now, he’d been this tranquil Wiseman who just went with the flow with this sense of confidence that everything would work out well in the end. This Jacob was angry and it totally clashed with my belief (hope?) that Jacob would turn out to be the “incarnation of good”, if you will. I didn’t expect that kind of rage, even if Richard was there to kill him.
-Along the same line, why did Jacob respond so violently to Richard’s attempted murder while he just stood there as Ben plunged a knife into his chest? That difference must be significant. I just can’t figure out what that significance is yet.
While “Ab Aeterno” might not fall atop my list of favorite episodes, I can certainly appreciate its greatness and I expect that I’ll grow to love it more with repeated viewings. Right now, my excitement after this episode probably doesn’t match the Lost communities as a whole, not because I didn’t really, really like this episode, but because the general delirium of the fan base is just so high right now. (Last I checked, it was second on DarkUFO’s episode rankings, barely trailing “The Constant”.) Either way, we were treated to a kick-ass episode last night and, as always, I’m going to focus on the positive. I’m going to say it again: I really really liked this episode, but it’s just not as good as “Through the Looking Glass” and it shouldn’t be rated as if it is.
We start off on the Island with the beach team sitting around the campfire trying to decide what to next. We learn from a continuation of Ilana’s flashback scene with Jacob that once she rounds up all the candidates, she needs to get in touch with Richard. He will know what to do. But when she suggests to him that he has all the answers, he flips out, tells everyone they’re actually dead, and takes off into the jungle to find the MIB.
This was a situation we’ve seen many characters encounter throughout Lost – the crisis of faith. Locke refusing to push the button. Sayid shooting young Ben. Desmond ready to kill himself in the hatch. Now Richard doubting Jacob. Sometimes they come out the other side with renewed faith (Locke, Des), other times it’s the beginning of a long spiral toward damnation (Sayid). Richard was ready to throw away his century-and-a-half long commitment to Jacob and the Others and join the MIB, but Hurley pulled him back from the dark side. I wish I had the mental capacity right now to go into this one more, but I think this whole “crisis of faith” discussion will have to wait for another time when I’m more clear-headed (and hopefully in a different line of work). It looks as if, like Ben, Richard will be able to resist temptation and continue on a better path.
I really liked the scenes on the Black Rock. I’ve said stuff like this before, but if you would have told me after Season 2 that we’d get a scene where the Black Rock arrives on the Island and smashes the statue in the process, I would have responded like Jerry Krause winning the draft lottery. My joy would have been expressed through violent neck-fat shaking.
But that wasn’t all. Next thing you know it, the Monster’s ripping threw the hull of the ship, devouring everyone in sight. Except Richard. Smokey snaps a couple pictures of him and books it. It was a clear parallel to the scene in “The 23rd Psalm” where Smokey sizes up a defiant Mr. Eko. And wouldn’t you know it, just like Yemi appeared to Eko, Isabella appears to Richard. She tells him they’re both dead, that they’re in hell, and that the devil could come back at any moment. Like with Yemi, it’s one of the MIB’s long cons. He’s putting Richard in a very vulnerable position so he can take advantage of him – a strategy that was successful with Sayid, Sawyer, and of course, Locke.
The theme of imprisonment stood out most to me this episode. Richard was held prisoner for murder, held prisoner on the Black Rock, and finally held prisoner in his own body. His chains kept him from escaping the Black Rock and then just out of reach of the rainwater and his nail file. His metaphorical chains kept him from ending what he began to feel was a pointless existence and joining his wife in whatever afterlife they would share together. What he once saw as Jacob’s gift became his biggest burden. Richard was chained to the Island in the exact same way he was chained to the Black Rock; he was doomed to suffer there until the end.
My favorite scenes were those of Richard alone in the Black Rock. Chained to the wall, he constantly found himself just out of reach of what he was trying to grasp. First it was the raindrops, then the nail he’d be using to saw himself free. I found these moments so incredibly painful to watch (see the descriptions of my face above), but that’s the kind of stuff Lost does so well. It takes me to very dark places. My favorite scenes are often the saddest – Jack’s “sick of lying” speech, Locke pounding on the hatch door, Ben watching Alex get shot, Sawyer strangling Anthony Cooper – all of them powerful and moving, but all of them showing the characters at their lowest. It’s the hope that out of the pit of despair there will be light, out of tragedy, triumph, and out of sin, redemption, that doesn’t just keep me from crying myself to sleep every night, but connects to something inside me that gives me hope in my own life, and maybe the world as a whole. I relate to Jack and his need to prove he doesn’t need anyone’s help. I relate to Ben’s need for control. I relate to Locke’s need to become something special. I can’t imagine another show hitting all these notes ever again.
End of overdramatic tangent.
“Ab Aeterno” pulled on the heartstrings like few other Lost episodes. And once again, I feel like I haven’t fully done it justice here. There was so much to discuss, so let’s move to some quick hits for the rest of it:
-Jacob likened the Island to a cork in a wine bottle keeping evil from reaching the world. This was a huge revelation, but it didn’t hit me quite so hard. Didn’t we already know that Jacob was preventing the MIB from leaving the Island? Yes we did. And that’s how I took Jacob’s little metaphor. But the Island preventing the MIB from leaving? That’s new. Maybe it’s just semantics. Maybe not. I for one never expected to get an answer to “What is the Island?” but this could be a hint that one is coming.
-The amount of Jack in these last few episodes has been unacceptable. There was that badass scene where he starred down the lit stick of dynamite, but other than that, bupkis. I hope this changes soon. And while we’re at it, I want more about what happened with Sayid. I realize he’s “evil” now, but what does that mean? Just more sitting on logs watching people try to kill one another?
-The scene where Jacob beats the crap out of Richard made me very uncomfortable. I didn’t like seeing that side of the Magnificent Man one bit. Up until now, he’d been this tranquil Wiseman who just went with the flow with this sense of confidence that everything would work out well in the end. This Jacob was angry and it totally clashed with my belief (hope?) that Jacob would turn out to be the “incarnation of good”, if you will. I didn’t expect that kind of rage, even if Richard was there to kill him.
-Along the same line, why did Jacob respond so violently to Richard’s attempted murder while he just stood there as Ben plunged a knife into his chest? That difference must be significant. I just can’t figure out what that significance is yet.
Monday, March 29, 2010
The Wish List - Halfway Home
Shockingly, and perhaps also sadly and excitingly, “Ab Aeterno” brought us to at the halfway point of the season. Only 9 more hours of Lost remain. I figured it would be a good time to check back in with the wish list I came up with before Season 6 began and see what mysteries have been answered, which ones we appear to be working toward answering, and which ones have fallen way off the radar. And I’m going to try to keep it under 2,500 words this time. Here we go.
23) Why wasn’t Lapidus flying Flight 815? – ANSWERED – In “Dr. Linus”, Frank told Ben that he was supposed to be piloting Oceanic 815 on September 22, 2004, but missed the flight because he overslept. I gotta say, that was kind of a yawner. I’m just going to assume that happened due to all the scotch he drank the night before. Also, it looked like Frank isn’t on the list of candidates, so I really don’t know what he’s going to be up to the rest of the season. Maybe he’ll help execute MIB’s brilliant plan of flying everyone off the Island on Ajira 316. Aaaaand we’re off to a snarky start. Satisfaction: 3.
22) How did the Dharma Initiative find the Island? – Nothing much new here. We did get a mention of Magnus Hanso, but nothing actually about the Dharma Initiative. We do know with (I think) more certainty that Jacob was responsible for bringing everyone to the Island, so I’m banking on the idea that he brought the DI there as well. I doubt they’ll go back to this. Old likelihood: 4. New likelihood: 2.
21) Where did the food pallet drop come from? – SPOILER ALERT: Damon and Carlton mentioned on the podcast that they will answer this at some point this year, but that it might not happen on the show. Very cryptic. Either way, I believe them. Old likelihood: 3. New likelihood: 10.
20) Who was in that cabin in "The Man Behind the Curtain"? – I rewatched that episode after “Dr. Linus” and thought I had it all figured out, but really, I didn’t get anywhere. It was like Jerry sneaking up on Rob Schnieder and then going back to Elaine thinking he’d solved the hearing aide mystery, but when she asks him if he knows anything of use, he says “actually, no”. I had almost the exact same conversation with my dad. The more I see of Jacob, however, the more it seems that he has always kept up residence at the base of the statue, so I’m going to say it was the MIB in the cabin. If we get any sort of MIB/Jacob flashback, that will probably provide an answer. And I think we will. Old likelihood: 9. New likelihood: 9.
19) Who's the father of Sun's baby? – Sun has only had, like, 6 lines this whole season and none of them have had to do with her child. So there has been no progress on this mystery whatsoever. I don’t think there will be any in the future either. Likelihood stays at 1.
18) Why was Libby in the mental institution? – Aside from this week’s Richard episode, there haven’t been any flashback episodes this year at all. I don’t think there will be any in the future either, and without flashbacks, I can’t imagine how we would find out how Libby ended up at Santa Rosa. Sorry Sophomore Ceddy and Malato watching Season 2. Old likelihood: 3. New likelihood: 1.
17) The Whispers – ANSWERED – At least for me they have been. In “LA X”, as Jack, Kate, Hurley and the gang dragged Sayid through the temple, we heard whispers, then saw some Others run across the dark hallway. Couple that with Ben’s warning to Rousseau last year that whenever she heard whispers she should run the other way and I think that’s as conclusive of evidence as we’re going to get that the Others are source of the whispers. Satisfaction: 8.
16) What happened to Claire and Aaron getting on the helicopter? – Not looking good for this one. Claire’s totally crazy, we haven’t seen Aaron, and as far as I know there isn’t a helicopter on the Island. I don’t know how I was so high on this one before this season, but right now it’s looking like this one’s going to get lost in the shuffle. Old likelihood: 6. New likelihood: 1.
15) A Jin and Sun reunion – At least they’re back in the same time period now. All either of them do is ask other characters if they’ve seen the other. Nikki and Paulo had more meaningful lines than these two have had lately. So this better happen soon. I think it will. Old likelihood: 10. New likelihood: 10.
14) How are people on the Island miraculously healed? – MOSTLY ANSWERED – Well, we know how Ben was healed after Sayid shot him. It was the magic healing pool at the center of the temple. How that pool became magical is still up in the air, and after Smokey’s rampage during “Sundown” wiped out the remaining temple residents, I’d be surprised if we heard more about it. The mystery of John Locke’s cured paralysis still remains, as does Rose, Ben and Jack’s respective ailments. It could be as simple as the special “energies” that each person has that can heal them, like Isaac of Ulru said. I’m not too confident they’ll completely solve this one, but I’m optimistic. Old likelihood: 8. New likelihood: 7.
13) What are the "rules"? – The only thing resembling progress we have on this one was the bloody kid in the jungle who told the MIB that he’s not allowed to kill “him”. We don’t know who “him” is (although I’m guessing he meant Sawyer and, more generally, the candidates), and even if we did, that probably wouldn’t tell us anything. Having Widmore back in play on the Island renews my hope that a more clear definition of the rules will present itself. Old likelihood: 7. New likelihood: 6.
12) Kate picks a side – In “Recon”, Sawyer took a big whiff of the dress Kate was wearing during their little time in captivity of the Others. She logged some tough hours smashing rocks in that dress, and I can’t imagine it smelled good, but he seemed to enjoy it. Now all I’m thinking is “skateskateskateskate”. Having said that, I think “neither” is the leader in the clubhouse. We’ll get an answer one way or another though. Old likelihood: 8. New likelihood: 10.
11) Adam and Eve – When Hurley and Jack stumbled back into the caves, it was mainly to remind us of two long-dormant mysteries. This was one of them. I liked Hurley’s theory that Adam and Eve could be two of the Losties, a nice nod to all the fan speculation guessing the same thing. I think that means that won’t be the answer. But there will be an answer. Old likelihood: 10. New likelihood: 10.
10) What's the deal with Richard Alpert? – ANSWERED – One of the best episodes of the season gave us all the answers we’ll ever need about Richard. How did Jacob make him ageless? Richard asked for it in exchange for his loyalty in the Great Island War. How did he arrive on the Island? He was a prisoner on the Black Rock, as slave who turned his life over to Magnus Hanso to avoid being hanged. Does he see his agelessness as a burden? You betcha, especially after Jacob died and he figured his life was meaningless. Now, with his renewed faith, that could have changed. It was awesome having Richard’s history shrouded in mystery, but I like him even better now that we understand how he became the Island’s permanent Number 2. The story about his wife dying and the 150 years of suffering he’d endured since then was just heartbreaking. I loved it. Satisfaction: 10.
9) Why do pregnant women die on the Island? – No progress whatsoever on this one. My Taweret theory appears to be out the window, though. We saw Ethan’s birth on the Island in 1977, so we can safely say the pregnancy problems began after that. And since the Black Rock destroyed Taweret in 1867, it can’t be the statue’s destruction that caused the problem. But my crazy theory likening it to a psychosomatic symptom remains un-debunked! Or fully bunked. Whatever. I’m downgrading the likelihood here, but I’m not scared about this one. It’s too important. Old likelihood: 7. New likelihood: 6.
8) The Numbers – ANSWERED – After a trip to Jacob’s (or is it the MIB’s?) cave and then another to the lighthouse, we know that each of the Numbers correspond to one of our beloved Losties. Awesome. Even though some people still have questions about the Numbers – why these numbers, why do they show up everywhere - it’s way more info than I expected and way cooler too. It was like finding out Jacob had been following all the characters around for their entire lives – it just made sense. Satisfaction: 10.
7) How many hot dogs can Hurley eat in 10 minutes? – I like our chances. We haven’t had a Hurley Sideways story yet, so there’s a tale to be told there. From what we’ve seen of that world, he’s just some rich businessman/philanthropist. And he’s still fat. I could totally see him hitting the competitive eating circuit and just demolishing everyone in his path. But maybe hot dogs aren’t his specialty. Burgers? Jalapenos? Cake? It could be anything. I’m bumping up the likelihood here from 1 to 3.
6) Walt –The way I see it, there are two paths to Walt. The first is if he somehow gets involved in the Sideways world. The problem here is that with the Island out of the picture I don’t know how much they can dive into his specialness. Option two: he’s the one locked down in Widmore’s sub. I’m holding out hope for this one. I think I’d be more excited about finding Walt in there than Des at this point. I’m going to bump this one up too. Old likelihood: 2. New likelihood: 3.
5) Where is Christian Shephard's body? – They alluded to this one in “Lighthouse” when Jack told Hurley the story about the time he chased Christian through the jungle only to find the caves, water, and his empty coffin. I totally thought we were getting some Christian that episode. I guess we’ll have to hold out a little longer. Quick side note – I think the fact that Christian’s body is missing and Locke’s is not is critical to deciphering what it is we’re seeing when we see Christian around the Island. You want a theory? Get back to me in a couple episodes. Old likelihood: 9. New likelihood: 10.
4) Who is Jacob? – PARTIALLY ANSWERED – We’ve learned a lot of new stuff about Jacob this year, but I’m not ready to call this one completely answered just yet. I am ready to declare him the good guy in the fight, however. Old likelihood: 10. New likelihood: 10.
3) A showdown between Jack and Christian / Jack and Locke – Like I said, I thought we were getting a Jack/Christian showdown in “Lighthouse”. I’m not sure Jack was ready for it then, though. Now that he’s starred out at the ocean for a while, he’s getting there but I’m starting to think the showdown won’t come until the finale. Same with Jack and Locke. “LA X” gave us that juicy conversation between the two in the airport lost-and-found where Jack dropped this little ditty – “Nothing is irreversible”. That’s the theme of the season, and when it comes to these two characters, it’s about as loaded as three words can be. Locke’s paralysis, Jack’s Jughead plan, Locke’s death, their broken relationship, their wounded souls – it could apply to any of those. I can’t imagine that will be the last time we see these two face-to-face. But have you noticed Jack is one of the few who haven’t seen Locke as MIB? New likelihood stays at 10.
2) What is the Monster? – PARTIALLY ANSWERED – This question has morphed from “What is the Monster?” to “Who is the MIB?” We know that the Monster was once a person who was trapped on the Island at some unknown time, possibly by Jacob. He’s the “incarnation of evil” and the Island functions like a cork in a wine bottle plugging the path to his escape. He’s a slick operator with a troubled past who’s now recruiting everyone in sight – especially Jacob’s candidates – with the ultimate goal of leaving the Island. But what is that troubled past? And what exactly does he have against the Island? When did his rivalry with Jacob begin? How did it begin? Who is his crazy mother? And how did he become the Black Smoke? We’ll get the answer to all those questions. Old and new likelihood: 10.
1) Why are the Others on the Island? – Gotta say, I’m a little discouraged about this one. Some of those little questions I brought up in my preview, like why they speak Latin, how they built the statue, etc., look like they’re moving further and further off the radar with each passing episode. However, we did get a good look at the temple and with it came a few hints at the Others’ larger purpose. From what I’ve gathered to this point, the Others protect the Island from Smokey. Or they help keep Smokey cooped up on the Island. I can’t decide on which theory I prefer. I don’t think any of them are native to the Island, mainly because if an old-school dude like Dogen wasn’t, than I can’t imagine well-manicured men like Goodwin or Tom were either. So Jacob brings people to the Island to serve him in the war against the MIB, some of whom become candidates to replace him. That’s the best theory I have and I’m down it. I still hope we get a little more concrete of an explanation about it all. Old likelihood: 9. New likelihood: 8.
So if you’re scoring at home, that’s four answered, two partially answered, a bunch on the verge of happening, and only a couple looking grim. Not too shabby, if you ask me. Now, if we could only get some more info on the Hurley bird, Annie, the volcano, and the Tampa job, everyone would just shut the hell up. If only we were so lucky.
23) Why wasn’t Lapidus flying Flight 815? – ANSWERED – In “Dr. Linus”, Frank told Ben that he was supposed to be piloting Oceanic 815 on September 22, 2004, but missed the flight because he overslept. I gotta say, that was kind of a yawner. I’m just going to assume that happened due to all the scotch he drank the night before. Also, it looked like Frank isn’t on the list of candidates, so I really don’t know what he’s going to be up to the rest of the season. Maybe he’ll help execute MIB’s brilliant plan of flying everyone off the Island on Ajira 316. Aaaaand we’re off to a snarky start. Satisfaction: 3.
22) How did the Dharma Initiative find the Island? – Nothing much new here. We did get a mention of Magnus Hanso, but nothing actually about the Dharma Initiative. We do know with (I think) more certainty that Jacob was responsible for bringing everyone to the Island, so I’m banking on the idea that he brought the DI there as well. I doubt they’ll go back to this. Old likelihood: 4. New likelihood: 2.
21) Where did the food pallet drop come from? – SPOILER ALERT: Damon and Carlton mentioned on the podcast that they will answer this at some point this year, but that it might not happen on the show. Very cryptic. Either way, I believe them. Old likelihood: 3. New likelihood: 10.
20) Who was in that cabin in "The Man Behind the Curtain"? – I rewatched that episode after “Dr. Linus” and thought I had it all figured out, but really, I didn’t get anywhere. It was like Jerry sneaking up on Rob Schnieder and then going back to Elaine thinking he’d solved the hearing aide mystery, but when she asks him if he knows anything of use, he says “actually, no”. I had almost the exact same conversation with my dad. The more I see of Jacob, however, the more it seems that he has always kept up residence at the base of the statue, so I’m going to say it was the MIB in the cabin. If we get any sort of MIB/Jacob flashback, that will probably provide an answer. And I think we will. Old likelihood: 9. New likelihood: 9.
19) Who's the father of Sun's baby? – Sun has only had, like, 6 lines this whole season and none of them have had to do with her child. So there has been no progress on this mystery whatsoever. I don’t think there will be any in the future either. Likelihood stays at 1.
18) Why was Libby in the mental institution? – Aside from this week’s Richard episode, there haven’t been any flashback episodes this year at all. I don’t think there will be any in the future either, and without flashbacks, I can’t imagine how we would find out how Libby ended up at Santa Rosa. Sorry Sophomore Ceddy and Malato watching Season 2. Old likelihood: 3. New likelihood: 1.
17) The Whispers – ANSWERED – At least for me they have been. In “LA X”, as Jack, Kate, Hurley and the gang dragged Sayid through the temple, we heard whispers, then saw some Others run across the dark hallway. Couple that with Ben’s warning to Rousseau last year that whenever she heard whispers she should run the other way and I think that’s as conclusive of evidence as we’re going to get that the Others are source of the whispers. Satisfaction: 8.
16) What happened to Claire and Aaron getting on the helicopter? – Not looking good for this one. Claire’s totally crazy, we haven’t seen Aaron, and as far as I know there isn’t a helicopter on the Island. I don’t know how I was so high on this one before this season, but right now it’s looking like this one’s going to get lost in the shuffle. Old likelihood: 6. New likelihood: 1.
15) A Jin and Sun reunion – At least they’re back in the same time period now. All either of them do is ask other characters if they’ve seen the other. Nikki and Paulo had more meaningful lines than these two have had lately. So this better happen soon. I think it will. Old likelihood: 10. New likelihood: 10.
14) How are people on the Island miraculously healed? – MOSTLY ANSWERED – Well, we know how Ben was healed after Sayid shot him. It was the magic healing pool at the center of the temple. How that pool became magical is still up in the air, and after Smokey’s rampage during “Sundown” wiped out the remaining temple residents, I’d be surprised if we heard more about it. The mystery of John Locke’s cured paralysis still remains, as does Rose, Ben and Jack’s respective ailments. It could be as simple as the special “energies” that each person has that can heal them, like Isaac of Ulru said. I’m not too confident they’ll completely solve this one, but I’m optimistic. Old likelihood: 8. New likelihood: 7.
13) What are the "rules"? – The only thing resembling progress we have on this one was the bloody kid in the jungle who told the MIB that he’s not allowed to kill “him”. We don’t know who “him” is (although I’m guessing he meant Sawyer and, more generally, the candidates), and even if we did, that probably wouldn’t tell us anything. Having Widmore back in play on the Island renews my hope that a more clear definition of the rules will present itself. Old likelihood: 7. New likelihood: 6.
12) Kate picks a side – In “Recon”, Sawyer took a big whiff of the dress Kate was wearing during their little time in captivity of the Others. She logged some tough hours smashing rocks in that dress, and I can’t imagine it smelled good, but he seemed to enjoy it. Now all I’m thinking is “skateskateskateskate”. Having said that, I think “neither” is the leader in the clubhouse. We’ll get an answer one way or another though. Old likelihood: 8. New likelihood: 10.
11) Adam and Eve – When Hurley and Jack stumbled back into the caves, it was mainly to remind us of two long-dormant mysteries. This was one of them. I liked Hurley’s theory that Adam and Eve could be two of the Losties, a nice nod to all the fan speculation guessing the same thing. I think that means that won’t be the answer. But there will be an answer. Old likelihood: 10. New likelihood: 10.
10) What's the deal with Richard Alpert? – ANSWERED – One of the best episodes of the season gave us all the answers we’ll ever need about Richard. How did Jacob make him ageless? Richard asked for it in exchange for his loyalty in the Great Island War. How did he arrive on the Island? He was a prisoner on the Black Rock, as slave who turned his life over to Magnus Hanso to avoid being hanged. Does he see his agelessness as a burden? You betcha, especially after Jacob died and he figured his life was meaningless. Now, with his renewed faith, that could have changed. It was awesome having Richard’s history shrouded in mystery, but I like him even better now that we understand how he became the Island’s permanent Number 2. The story about his wife dying and the 150 years of suffering he’d endured since then was just heartbreaking. I loved it. Satisfaction: 10.
9) Why do pregnant women die on the Island? – No progress whatsoever on this one. My Taweret theory appears to be out the window, though. We saw Ethan’s birth on the Island in 1977, so we can safely say the pregnancy problems began after that. And since the Black Rock destroyed Taweret in 1867, it can’t be the statue’s destruction that caused the problem. But my crazy theory likening it to a psychosomatic symptom remains un-debunked! Or fully bunked. Whatever. I’m downgrading the likelihood here, but I’m not scared about this one. It’s too important. Old likelihood: 7. New likelihood: 6.
8) The Numbers – ANSWERED – After a trip to Jacob’s (or is it the MIB’s?) cave and then another to the lighthouse, we know that each of the Numbers correspond to one of our beloved Losties. Awesome. Even though some people still have questions about the Numbers – why these numbers, why do they show up everywhere - it’s way more info than I expected and way cooler too. It was like finding out Jacob had been following all the characters around for their entire lives – it just made sense. Satisfaction: 10.
7) How many hot dogs can Hurley eat in 10 minutes? – I like our chances. We haven’t had a Hurley Sideways story yet, so there’s a tale to be told there. From what we’ve seen of that world, he’s just some rich businessman/philanthropist. And he’s still fat. I could totally see him hitting the competitive eating circuit and just demolishing everyone in his path. But maybe hot dogs aren’t his specialty. Burgers? Jalapenos? Cake? It could be anything. I’m bumping up the likelihood here from 1 to 3.
6) Walt –The way I see it, there are two paths to Walt. The first is if he somehow gets involved in the Sideways world. The problem here is that with the Island out of the picture I don’t know how much they can dive into his specialness. Option two: he’s the one locked down in Widmore’s sub. I’m holding out hope for this one. I think I’d be more excited about finding Walt in there than Des at this point. I’m going to bump this one up too. Old likelihood: 2. New likelihood: 3.
5) Where is Christian Shephard's body? – They alluded to this one in “Lighthouse” when Jack told Hurley the story about the time he chased Christian through the jungle only to find the caves, water, and his empty coffin. I totally thought we were getting some Christian that episode. I guess we’ll have to hold out a little longer. Quick side note – I think the fact that Christian’s body is missing and Locke’s is not is critical to deciphering what it is we’re seeing when we see Christian around the Island. You want a theory? Get back to me in a couple episodes. Old likelihood: 9. New likelihood: 10.
4) Who is Jacob? – PARTIALLY ANSWERED – We’ve learned a lot of new stuff about Jacob this year, but I’m not ready to call this one completely answered just yet. I am ready to declare him the good guy in the fight, however. Old likelihood: 10. New likelihood: 10.
3) A showdown between Jack and Christian / Jack and Locke – Like I said, I thought we were getting a Jack/Christian showdown in “Lighthouse”. I’m not sure Jack was ready for it then, though. Now that he’s starred out at the ocean for a while, he’s getting there but I’m starting to think the showdown won’t come until the finale. Same with Jack and Locke. “LA X” gave us that juicy conversation between the two in the airport lost-and-found where Jack dropped this little ditty – “Nothing is irreversible”. That’s the theme of the season, and when it comes to these two characters, it’s about as loaded as three words can be. Locke’s paralysis, Jack’s Jughead plan, Locke’s death, their broken relationship, their wounded souls – it could apply to any of those. I can’t imagine that will be the last time we see these two face-to-face. But have you noticed Jack is one of the few who haven’t seen Locke as MIB? New likelihood stays at 10.
2) What is the Monster? – PARTIALLY ANSWERED – This question has morphed from “What is the Monster?” to “Who is the MIB?” We know that the Monster was once a person who was trapped on the Island at some unknown time, possibly by Jacob. He’s the “incarnation of evil” and the Island functions like a cork in a wine bottle plugging the path to his escape. He’s a slick operator with a troubled past who’s now recruiting everyone in sight – especially Jacob’s candidates – with the ultimate goal of leaving the Island. But what is that troubled past? And what exactly does he have against the Island? When did his rivalry with Jacob begin? How did it begin? Who is his crazy mother? And how did he become the Black Smoke? We’ll get the answer to all those questions. Old and new likelihood: 10.
1) Why are the Others on the Island? – Gotta say, I’m a little discouraged about this one. Some of those little questions I brought up in my preview, like why they speak Latin, how they built the statue, etc., look like they’re moving further and further off the radar with each passing episode. However, we did get a good look at the temple and with it came a few hints at the Others’ larger purpose. From what I’ve gathered to this point, the Others protect the Island from Smokey. Or they help keep Smokey cooped up on the Island. I can’t decide on which theory I prefer. I don’t think any of them are native to the Island, mainly because if an old-school dude like Dogen wasn’t, than I can’t imagine well-manicured men like Goodwin or Tom were either. So Jacob brings people to the Island to serve him in the war against the MIB, some of whom become candidates to replace him. That’s the best theory I have and I’m down it. I still hope we get a little more concrete of an explanation about it all. Old likelihood: 9. New likelihood: 8.
So if you’re scoring at home, that’s four answered, two partially answered, a bunch on the verge of happening, and only a couple looking grim. Not too shabby, if you ask me. Now, if we could only get some more info on the Hurley bird, Annie, the volcano, and the Tampa job, everyone would just shut the hell up. If only we were so lucky.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Recon
“Recon” might not have been the strongest effort of the season, but it was still a solid episode of Lost. I wasn’t as invested emotionally as I was expecting to be in the first Sawyer episode of the season – and maybe the last ever (gah!)– but between the Island and the Sideways world, there was plenty to sink your teeth into. I’ll give this one everything I’ve got, but I kind of feel like Chad Fox taking the mound for the 10th day in a row right now. Work has worn me down. I’m not expecting any brilliant insights or even the usual level of mediocre analysis, but we’ll see what happens. Let’s get to it.
The Island happenings had two points of focus for me. I’ll begin with the first – Sawyer’s motives. The last we saw him he had just agreed to join the MIB in his quest to leave the Island. He restated that position to Jin at the beginning of this episode. The promise the MIB made to get him the Island really sucked Sawyer in. But to borrow words from Ben Linus, “What is it you’re so desperately trying to get back to?” Clementine? Did Kate mention something to him about her at some point? I can’t remember. Juliet? Does he think “It worked” means that she might exist somewhere off the Island in 2008? Could it be that the 2008 off-Island world is the Sideways world?
That would go nicely with my Season 2/3/4 way of thinking about the Island. Things like Ben saying “God can’t see this Island any better than the rest of the world,” led me to believe there was some bubble surrounding the Island. Other people theorized that pushing the button actually was sending the Island back in time 108 minutes with each push. And the weird time shifting we saw in Season 4 with Faraday’s rocket test and the doctor showing up dead on the Island days before he actually died lend even more credence to that line of thinking. So let’s go back to that bubble idea. Juliet blows up the bomb. “It worked”, so somewhere Juliet is still alive. The explosion activates the same energy that moves the Island with the donkey wheel, sending our Losties forward in time to 2008. But the “bubble” somehow preserves everything from the original timeline on the Island while the outside world exists as if the Island sunk. Maybe? Bueller? See, I told you I was worn out.
So we know Sawyer wants to get off the Island, but we don’t know why. Fine. But how is he going to do it? Is he really going to go along with the MIB? The rest of the episode works toward an answer to that. After a nice little heart-to-heart, the MIB sends Sawyer over to Hydra Island to check everything out over there, expressing his confidence in him by saying, “You are the best liar I ever met”. How nice. After a scene on an outrigger where I was 25% sure Sawyer was going to get shot, he lands on Hydra, scopes out the scene, get’s captured by some annoying woman named Zoe, and drops my favorite line of the episode, a perfectly smug “Take me to your leader”.
Surprisingly, Zoe obliges and leads Sawyer onto a submarine. This eliminated all the suspense about who the leader might be, as we saw Charles Widmore aboard a submarine just last week. Whatever. Our mystery itch was scratched when Sawyer commented on a locked door inside the sub (Who could it be? Penny? DES? My favorite guess? Walt.). We get some solid banter between Widmore and Sawyer, before Sawyer offers him this deal: he lies to the MIB and brings him to Hydra Island with his pants down in exchange for a trip off the Island. Deal. But when Sawyer gets back to Camp MIB, he spills the beans, telling him everything about Widmore, his men and his Sonic Fences, Travel Edition.
Wait, what? So he’s really with the MIB? Not so fast. After he walks away, Sawyer walks over to Kate. She asks him the same thing, “What are you doing running errands for Locke?” Sawyer says he’s not running anybody’s errands. He has a plan (he is a thinking man after all), and that plan is to let Widmore and the MIB and whoever else fight it out while he and Kate sneak off the Island. In the submarine.
Now, this was the second time a character said he was going to leave the Island in a way that seems a little crazy. First, Locke said he was going to fly away in Ajira 316, which CRASH LANDED on the Island. Now Sawyer’s going to pilot a submarine. I don’t think of these plans were too well thought out. No matter. I was thrilled that Sawyer wasn’t just the MIB’s errand boy anymore. He was being true to his character, living his motto – “Every man for himself”. But this is post-Dharma Sawyer, a man that once went by the name LaFluer. He cares about other people and knows that he needs them in his life, not just to help him when he needs it, but also to make him feel like a whole person. He’s going to bring Kate with him and I’d bet at least Hurley and Miles too. The scene at the Hydra cages where he picks up Kate’s dress was a reminder to him how much she used to mean to him and how much he still cares for her. I wouldn’t go out and say “SKate” is back in business, but you never know…
The second Island point I’d like to cover is the recent character development of the MIB. I thought that his line from “LA X” where he said “There’s no need for name-calling” was just a throwaway joke. Instead, it seems to be part of his obsession with order and manners, respect and subservience. He didn’t like it when Sawyer questioned him in front of the others, even though it was a rather harmless remark, and he made a point of accepting Sawyers sarcastic apology. His response to Claire was like that of a father scolding a misbehaving child. And he made a sincere apology to Kate after Claire attacked her. All strange. And then there was the whole story about his crazy mother. At first, I was thinking he was speaking as John Locke, but he wasn’t. He said he still had “issues” he was sorting through. Well, he’s on the Island, the best place in the world to sort out issues! Look around you MIB! But no, he wants to leave. I’m not going to pretend to know what any of this means, just something that needs to be noted and remembered.
I’m only going to touch briefly on the Sideways world because I’m running out of gas. It started off with Sawyer (or is just James Ford?) in a situation we’ve seen him in many times. In bed with a hottie, conveniently late for some important meeting, he rushes out the door, but as he grabs his briefcase it pops open and spills stacks of cash all over the bed. It’s the same con we’ve seen him pull numerous times, but this girl doesn’t bite. She pulls a gun on him, he pulls one on her, and like last week with Ilana and Ben, we’ve got ourselves a standoff. But instead of bearing his soul, Sawyer tells the lady he’s a cop and that when he says the magic word, a SWAT team will barge in and takes her down. She doesn’t believe him, but when he says, “LaFluer”, that’s exactly what happens.
The rest of the Sideways stuff was entertaining enough, but I don’t have a ton to say about it (and my train is getting close to Cary). I loved the Sawyer-Miles partnership. I mean, Miles is probably the best friend Sawyer’s ever had. He had always been a loner, but he spent 3 years with Miles in Dharmaville, and it seemed like they’d gotten pretty close. He asked about him in the Island story this week too. It was nice to see them together off the Island. And I loved that Sawyer chose to open up to him with his Anthony Cooper secret almost as much as I loved the scene where he was calling everyone he could find with that name (Oh, the blood-thirst is unquenchable!).
This was critical for me. I’ve had a growing concern that this Sideways world was getting a bit too cute. Between Alex being a student of Ben’s, Ethan working at Claire’s hospital, and Keamy extorting Sayid’s brother for a loan, I started getting afraid that the Sideways world was just a fun excuse to bring everyone back together and to throw crazy curveballs at the audience (Woah, Jack has a kid!). But instead of saying, “Look! Instead of being a bad guy, Sideways Sawyer’s a cop! It’s the opposite!”, it showed us that Sawyer’s still the same guy; he just happened to make one different choice in his life. The same anger and hate still drives him, but he’s following through on it in a different way. Loved that. If this Sawyer-Cooper showdown is half as good as the one in “The Brig”, we’re all in for a very big treat.
So will Sideways Sawyer get his revenge or let his anger go? I was of the opinion back in Season 3 that Sawyer didn’t need to kill Cooper to put his mind at ease, that he’d already turned the page by bonding with the rest of the group. He became a dependable and selfless man at some point in Season 3, and the effects of that played out in Season 4 and in his time as LaFluer. I’ve wavered on when that page was actually turned over the years, but either way I think he could find a similar, non-vengeful, path to peace in this Sideways world. Live together, die alone, right?
Richard episode this week. It’s going to be redonkulous. It’s titled “Ab Aeterno”, which apparently means “Since the beginning of time”. That means these flashbacks could do anything. Literally cover any point in history. I’m doing my best to control my expectations, but I’m having no luck doing so with my excitement.
Until next week.
The Island happenings had two points of focus for me. I’ll begin with the first – Sawyer’s motives. The last we saw him he had just agreed to join the MIB in his quest to leave the Island. He restated that position to Jin at the beginning of this episode. The promise the MIB made to get him the Island really sucked Sawyer in. But to borrow words from Ben Linus, “What is it you’re so desperately trying to get back to?” Clementine? Did Kate mention something to him about her at some point? I can’t remember. Juliet? Does he think “It worked” means that she might exist somewhere off the Island in 2008? Could it be that the 2008 off-Island world is the Sideways world?
That would go nicely with my Season 2/3/4 way of thinking about the Island. Things like Ben saying “God can’t see this Island any better than the rest of the world,” led me to believe there was some bubble surrounding the Island. Other people theorized that pushing the button actually was sending the Island back in time 108 minutes with each push. And the weird time shifting we saw in Season 4 with Faraday’s rocket test and the doctor showing up dead on the Island days before he actually died lend even more credence to that line of thinking. So let’s go back to that bubble idea. Juliet blows up the bomb. “It worked”, so somewhere Juliet is still alive. The explosion activates the same energy that moves the Island with the donkey wheel, sending our Losties forward in time to 2008. But the “bubble” somehow preserves everything from the original timeline on the Island while the outside world exists as if the Island sunk. Maybe? Bueller? See, I told you I was worn out.
So we know Sawyer wants to get off the Island, but we don’t know why. Fine. But how is he going to do it? Is he really going to go along with the MIB? The rest of the episode works toward an answer to that. After a nice little heart-to-heart, the MIB sends Sawyer over to Hydra Island to check everything out over there, expressing his confidence in him by saying, “You are the best liar I ever met”. How nice. After a scene on an outrigger where I was 25% sure Sawyer was going to get shot, he lands on Hydra, scopes out the scene, get’s captured by some annoying woman named Zoe, and drops my favorite line of the episode, a perfectly smug “Take me to your leader”.
Surprisingly, Zoe obliges and leads Sawyer onto a submarine. This eliminated all the suspense about who the leader might be, as we saw Charles Widmore aboard a submarine just last week. Whatever. Our mystery itch was scratched when Sawyer commented on a locked door inside the sub (Who could it be? Penny? DES? My favorite guess? Walt.). We get some solid banter between Widmore and Sawyer, before Sawyer offers him this deal: he lies to the MIB and brings him to Hydra Island with his pants down in exchange for a trip off the Island. Deal. But when Sawyer gets back to Camp MIB, he spills the beans, telling him everything about Widmore, his men and his Sonic Fences, Travel Edition.
Wait, what? So he’s really with the MIB? Not so fast. After he walks away, Sawyer walks over to Kate. She asks him the same thing, “What are you doing running errands for Locke?” Sawyer says he’s not running anybody’s errands. He has a plan (he is a thinking man after all), and that plan is to let Widmore and the MIB and whoever else fight it out while he and Kate sneak off the Island. In the submarine.
Now, this was the second time a character said he was going to leave the Island in a way that seems a little crazy. First, Locke said he was going to fly away in Ajira 316, which CRASH LANDED on the Island. Now Sawyer’s going to pilot a submarine. I don’t think of these plans were too well thought out. No matter. I was thrilled that Sawyer wasn’t just the MIB’s errand boy anymore. He was being true to his character, living his motto – “Every man for himself”. But this is post-Dharma Sawyer, a man that once went by the name LaFluer. He cares about other people and knows that he needs them in his life, not just to help him when he needs it, but also to make him feel like a whole person. He’s going to bring Kate with him and I’d bet at least Hurley and Miles too. The scene at the Hydra cages where he picks up Kate’s dress was a reminder to him how much she used to mean to him and how much he still cares for her. I wouldn’t go out and say “SKate” is back in business, but you never know…
The second Island point I’d like to cover is the recent character development of the MIB. I thought that his line from “LA X” where he said “There’s no need for name-calling” was just a throwaway joke. Instead, it seems to be part of his obsession with order and manners, respect and subservience. He didn’t like it when Sawyer questioned him in front of the others, even though it was a rather harmless remark, and he made a point of accepting Sawyers sarcastic apology. His response to Claire was like that of a father scolding a misbehaving child. And he made a sincere apology to Kate after Claire attacked her. All strange. And then there was the whole story about his crazy mother. At first, I was thinking he was speaking as John Locke, but he wasn’t. He said he still had “issues” he was sorting through. Well, he’s on the Island, the best place in the world to sort out issues! Look around you MIB! But no, he wants to leave. I’m not going to pretend to know what any of this means, just something that needs to be noted and remembered.
I’m only going to touch briefly on the Sideways world because I’m running out of gas. It started off with Sawyer (or is just James Ford?) in a situation we’ve seen him in many times. In bed with a hottie, conveniently late for some important meeting, he rushes out the door, but as he grabs his briefcase it pops open and spills stacks of cash all over the bed. It’s the same con we’ve seen him pull numerous times, but this girl doesn’t bite. She pulls a gun on him, he pulls one on her, and like last week with Ilana and Ben, we’ve got ourselves a standoff. But instead of bearing his soul, Sawyer tells the lady he’s a cop and that when he says the magic word, a SWAT team will barge in and takes her down. She doesn’t believe him, but when he says, “LaFluer”, that’s exactly what happens.
The rest of the Sideways stuff was entertaining enough, but I don’t have a ton to say about it (and my train is getting close to Cary). I loved the Sawyer-Miles partnership. I mean, Miles is probably the best friend Sawyer’s ever had. He had always been a loner, but he spent 3 years with Miles in Dharmaville, and it seemed like they’d gotten pretty close. He asked about him in the Island story this week too. It was nice to see them together off the Island. And I loved that Sawyer chose to open up to him with his Anthony Cooper secret almost as much as I loved the scene where he was calling everyone he could find with that name (Oh, the blood-thirst is unquenchable!).
This was critical for me. I’ve had a growing concern that this Sideways world was getting a bit too cute. Between Alex being a student of Ben’s, Ethan working at Claire’s hospital, and Keamy extorting Sayid’s brother for a loan, I started getting afraid that the Sideways world was just a fun excuse to bring everyone back together and to throw crazy curveballs at the audience (Woah, Jack has a kid!). But instead of saying, “Look! Instead of being a bad guy, Sideways Sawyer’s a cop! It’s the opposite!”, it showed us that Sawyer’s still the same guy; he just happened to make one different choice in his life. The same anger and hate still drives him, but he’s following through on it in a different way. Loved that. If this Sawyer-Cooper showdown is half as good as the one in “The Brig”, we’re all in for a very big treat.
So will Sideways Sawyer get his revenge or let his anger go? I was of the opinion back in Season 3 that Sawyer didn’t need to kill Cooper to put his mind at ease, that he’d already turned the page by bonding with the rest of the group. He became a dependable and selfless man at some point in Season 3, and the effects of that played out in Season 4 and in his time as LaFluer. I’ve wavered on when that page was actually turned over the years, but either way I think he could find a similar, non-vengeful, path to peace in this Sideways world. Live together, die alone, right?
Richard episode this week. It’s going to be redonkulous. It’s titled “Ab Aeterno”, which apparently means “Since the beginning of time”. That means these flashbacks could do anything. Literally cover any point in history. I’m doing my best to control my expectations, but I’m having no luck doing so with my excitement.
Until next week.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)