Over the weekend, I was checking out the To Do list on my DVR, scrolling through to see how far out it went. My eyes roved past listings of 30 Rock, The Office, Scrubs, Big Love…and then came the jolt of excitement: January 21st. New episodes of Lost queued up, ready to go, teasing me with their brief plot synopses. Three hours of Lost: a recap at 8:00, followed by two brand spankin’ new beautiful glorious wondrous episodes – one at 9:00 and a second at 10:00.
I’m still in the midst of re-watching Season Four on DVD. After the exhaustive write-ups I did last season, requiring two complete viewings of each episode and frequent re-watching of certain scenes, you’d think I have them memorized by now. Well, I do. Come on by or give me a call and I will recite any scene from any episode you’d like, complete with accurate accents and inflections.
It’s nice to be going through the season again, and enjoying the episodes back to back. A couple of days ago I watched The Constant, and though I said it last year, let me reiterate what a great and emotional episode that was. The series has deeply invested us in the Desmond/Penny relationship, helped in no small part by the terrific performances of Henry Ian Cusick and Sonya Walger, who have phenomenal chemistry and just look like two people who belong together. When Penny answered Desmond’s call on Christmas Eve and they talked for the first time in years, well…if you didn’t cry even a little, you should schedule an appointment with your doctor ASAP; you might be dead inside.
I’ll hit you next week with a checklist of my big questions (and my small ones too, who are we kidding?) going into Season Five, but for now here are a few character-related tidbits of what’s to come, just for a tease:
Among the new characters we will meet this season, two in particular are said to be key figures in the overall story, and will factor prominently into the sixth and final season. Remember these names: Caesar and Ilana.
Remember the woman from the jewelry store who explained Desmond’s flashes to him back in Season Three? Remember later that season when we saw her photograph on the desk of the friar in the monastery where Desmond was living before he met Penny? It’s all about connections on this show, people. We’ll be seeing her again….and more connections will be revealed.
We’ll see the reappearance of at least one woman who survived the crash but died on the island of a gunshot wound. I can think of three women who fit that description…
Although she’s not coming back from the dead, we haven’t seen the last of Rousseau.
Although he may or may not be dead, we haven’t seen the last of Jin either.
Helicopter pilot Frank Lapidus left the island at the end of Season Four, along with Desmond and the Oceanic Six. We’ll see him again too, though I don’t know to what extent.
The crazy Lost fanatic who writes for Entertainment Weekly – way crazier than I am – posted a new column online yesterday in advance of the season premiere (and like many in the press, he’s already seen the first two new episodes). In it, he mentions five episodes you may want to re-watch as preparation for what’s to come. They include last May’s finale – which ABC is airing tonight, if you want to check it out. He also includes a YouTube video that was shown at last summer’s Comic-Con, which he advises us to check out. I did…and you should. Here’s a link to page two of his piece, where he names the relevant episodes and places the YouTube clip.
If you don’t have access to the other episodes and want to know about the clues he mentions…just ask me. I’ve got it all memorized, remember?
One of our own, Jen W., alerted me to some kind of new Lost trailer wrapped into a music video for a song by The Fray. The video shows clips from Season Four with new, Season Five clips interspersed. The song is generic, cheesy crap, so I suggest turning your sound off and just watching the picture. I have no idea what the song has to do with the show anyway; it’s probably some bullshit synergy marketing gimmick from ABC.
From what I can make out, and from what looked unfamiliar to me, I think the new footage consists of the following:
A guy in a yellow Hazmad suit coming out of a hatch door, pointing a gun at Faraday.
Hurley by a banister with a gun.
Sayid fighting somebody intensely (it looks like he’s fighting Jack, but these might be two different fights cut together, since the first guy looks to be wearing a purple shirt, and Jack is wearing white).
Ben and Jack at Bentham’s coffin. This must be a new scene that takes place right after the one we already saw in the last finale. There is new dialogue (yes, the very beginning of the video and this moment have dialogue; the rest is just that god-awful song). Jack says, “Why did this happen?” Ben replies, “It happened because you left, Jack.” Oh, and the name of the first episode of Season Five? Because You Left.
Armed mystery men find Charlotte and Faraday in the jungle, and in what might be a different scene, Miles leaps to the ground to avoid something shadowy leaping toward him that I think, based on a freeze-frame, is the Black Smoke.
A clean-shaven, suit-wearing Jack following Ben through a doorway.
Locke picking up a white and blue device. I can’t tell what it is.
Hurley standing by a closed door, looking from an unconscious Sayid on the ground to a small window in the door with stained-glass trim.
The piece concludes with a string of quick-cut Season Five clips:
Locke on the ground with a gun pointed at him
Locke on the ground, with a compass in his bloody hand (The same compass that doesn’t point north? The same compass that was laid before him, along with other objects, in a test from his childhood?)
Juliet and Sawyer running together as the beach falls under attack from….goodness gracious…great balls of fire!
Richard Alpert carrying a torch and finding Locke
Sun in what looks like an office kitchen
Rose, Juliet and Sawyer on the beach
Locke and Juliet staring off into the distance
TV Guide.com, where I found the video, also points out two subliminal flashes of a logo for Ajira Airways (around the 1:34 and 2:25 marks). The name and the image have an obvious Asian tilt. Is this an existing airline that’s been around for awhile? One that perhaps Sun’s father Mr. Paik has a stake in? Or could it be a new airline, the front for some kind of mysterious, oh I don’t know…maybe island-seeking operation put together by Sun herself, in conjunction with Charles Widmore? Don’t forget their meeting from last season’s finale…
What does it all mean?? It means January 21st can’t come soon enough.
Hello friends. The title of this post doesn’t lie; this is just a glimpse…but after a five month drought and with three-or-so more months to go for the full banquet to begin, we’ll take what we can get. So enjoy the first teaser for Season Five.
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Tonight’s Episode: Son of a bitch, bring it back already!!
Hello Losties. Sorry to disturb your hibernation. No, it’s not January yet. Season Five is still a long way away, but there are signs of stirring around the island. In case you hadn’t heard, the Emmy nominations were announced a few weeks ago, and while the show didn’t fare as well as I’d hoped overall, it did score two major nominations that made me happy.
The show returns to the race for Best Drama Series, where it’s been absent since it won the award for Season One. It faces Mad Men, Dexter, House, Boston Legal and Damages.
And all of my Michael Emerson praise did not fall on deaf ears. How could it? The guy is brilliant. He got his Best Supporting Actor (Drama) nomination, facing competition from William Shatner in Boston Legal, John Slattery in Mad Men, and Ted Danson and Zeljko Ivanek, both in Damages (Ivanek, incidentally, is part of the Lost universe, having guest starred as Juliet’s ex-husband who was mowed down by a bus, Mean Girls-style.) You know my feeling on this; Emerson should have this thing sewn up. But I haven’t seen Damages, and Danson and Ivanek both got a lot of praise, so they have me worried.
I would have liked a couple more acting nominations (Yunjin Kim, Jorge Garcia), and definitely some writing and directing nominations, but oh well. Emerson is my golden boy here, so as long as he’s in the race, I’m happy.
If you’re interested in the other major nominations, check ’em out here courtesey of Entertainment Weekly: Cheers to 30 Rock, The Colbert Report, The Daily Show, Real Time With Bill Maher, John Adams, Amy Poehler and Laura Dern. Jeers to the absence of Big Love‘s actresses and The Wire…which I don’t need to have seen to know deserved some big love of its own.
Anyway, getting back to Lost, you may have heard that a little event called Comic-Con was held recently, and as has been the custom, Damon and Carlton were on hand for a Lost panel to address fans for the first time since the season finale. I was hoping we would get some juicy details about what was to come, but I was disappointed by how little they offered. What they did have to say was succinctly summed up below:
Richard Alpert will figure prominently in Season Five.
The whole notion of “flashbacks” and “flash-forwards” will be reinvented, suggesting that upcoming episodes will span multiple time periods and perspectives.
Jin will be back, but there’s no word if he’s dead or alive.
It was strongly suggested that Faraday survived.
Faraday’s notebook will play a prominent role this season.
We’ll finally get Rousseau’s back-story, but Darlton cautioned that it would be wrong to call it a “flashback” episode.
That’s about it. Not a lot to go on, sadly. Production on the new season starts in less than two weeks, so maybe there will be some new casting news to whet our appetites. Just today, EW.com printed a vague description of two new characters that will be brought on as recurring figures in Season Five, with an option to become regulars in Season Six. And I still want to know if Lapidus is coming back. And what about Walt?? For the love of God, what about Walt????
Sorry. I got a little upset. I’m fine now.
That’s all I’ve got. But if there’s any exciting news…you know I’ll be there for you. Even if you don’t really care.
Tonight’s Episode: How many more months?? Motherfucker!!!
Well my friends, another season of Lost has been capped off by another powerful finale that kept the pulse racing and the mind reeling. Two weeks later I’m still reading articles online and pondering what went down and what’s to come. And of course, twice the episode meant twice the writing time and twice the rambling, so I apologize for the late delivery. You may think you’re over it by now, but trust me – you’re not. So what to talk about first? Jeremy Bentham? The island’s big move? The destruction of the freighter? Perhaps it will be best to start on the island and move forward from there.
“LEADER STUFF”
Back in the season premiere, the survivors split into two camps – some following Jack, and some following Locke. In the season finale, those two leaders are reunited when Jack and Sawyer arrive at The Orchid for Hurley, and Locke asks to speak to Jack alone. After failing to convince him to stay on the island, insisting that he’s not supposed to leave, Locke tells him that he’s going to have to lie. In order to protect the island, he will have to lie about everything since the crash. When Jack fires back that it’s just an island and doesn’t need anyone to protect it, Locke counters that it’s not an island, but a place where miracles happen.
I have always wondered if Locke would ever reveal to Jack – the pragmatic spinal surgeon – the story about his confinement to a wheelchair and how after four years, he regained the use of his legs the moment he landed on the island. I’ve often imagined such a scene – have practically scripted it out in my head – and I thought it might happen here. Maybe Locke was about to go there, but Ben arrived and cut the confrontation short. (Yes, Ben – freed from Keamy thanks to some ass-kicking work by Kate, Sayid, and the Others…headed by Richard Alpert, who didn’t seem wholly thrilled to see Ben. And in fact, Ben seemed a little surprised that Richard even showed up. Hmm…)
The final moments of this scene between Locke and Jack are particularly strong. First, Jack is so obviously curious about what the other two are doing, and Matthew Fox perfectly underplays Jack’s conflict between wanting to walk away and wanting to be in on what Ben and Locke are up to. He can’t stand not knowing; not being in on the secret. I also think that to a degree, he is beginning to see that much of what Locke says and what he, Jack, dismisses or disagrees with, turns out to be true. He’s not able to process this yet – his own pride and stubbornness still guide him – but I think somewhere inside him is a flicker of belief in what Locke tells him about fate and destiny. Their encounter culminates with Locke’s biting comment, “Lie to them, Jack. If you do it half as well as you lie to yourself, they’ll believe you.” He then enters the elevator with Ben, and as the door closes and the elevator descends, the man of science and the man of faith share a final, powerful staredown.
DEAD MAN’S TRIGGER
On the freighter, Desmond, Michael and Jin size up just how dire their situation with the C4 is. The verdict? They are seriously screwed. In an effort to delay a likely explosion, Michael begins spraying the battery with liquid nitrogen to cool it off and prevent the ignition spark from catching. But the nitrogen supply is limited; the plan will buy them minutes at best.
While they sweat over this, departures from the island are underway. Jack, Sawyer, Hurley, Kate and Sayid return to Frank and the chopper and take off. Faraday returns from his first freighter run and prepares to take another group of six. He tells Miles and Charlotte that they need to be on the next raft with him, but Miles opts to stay. As Faraday busies himself, Miles asks Charlotte why she would want to leave the island when she has spent so much time trying to get back there. Charlotte plays dumb – “What do you mean ‘get back here?'” But Miles knows something…and so the groundwork is laid for next season’s deepening of the Charlotte and Miles backstories.
In the end, Charlotte does decide to stay, explaining to Daniel, “Would it make any sense if I told you I was still looking for where I was born?” Daniel says no, and the scene pretty much ends there, playing up Charlotte’s already-implied prior relationship to the island. This open mystery also reminds us that Matthew Abbadon had a purpose for choosing Charlotte, Miles, Frank and Daniel. What interest of Abbadon’s – and perhaps Widmore’s – do these four serve?
Down in The Orchid, Ben immediately goes to work – hitting buttons, turning switches, adjusting knobs – while Locke tries to figure out what the hell is going on. Ben hands him the Dharma orientation video and suggests he take a look. Once again the video is hosted by the familiar Asian scientist, this time calling himself Dr. Edgar Halliwax (his other names are the thematically-similar Marvin Candle and Mark Wickmund). Halliwax never comes out and says “time travel” in explaining what The Orchid is used for, but he does say that the Vault is adjacent to what is believed to be “a pocket of negatively charged exotic matter”…whatever that means. He places a bunny in the vault and explains, “In our first demonstration, we will attempt to shift the test subject 100 milliseconds aheadin four-dimensional space.For the briefest of moments, the animal will seem to disappear. But in reality…” At that point, the video begins to automatically rewind and Locke doesn’t get any further.
They are interrupted when a still-alive Keamy shows up, taunting Ben and explaining the heart monitor/C4 situation with low-key, sadistic mirth. Moments later, Ben emerges from a hiding place, and showing total disregard for the fate of the freighter, knocks him down and stabs him. Locke tries to save him – to save the freighter – but Keamy breathes his last breath. And good riddance. (Actor Kevin Durand deserves applause for his work this season in creating such a wonderfully loathsome son of a bitch.) Ben’s lack of compassion for the people on the freighter – even after he just sent Jack, Kate, Sayid and the others back there – is chilling, and just the latest example of what makes him such an enigma.
BOOM!
En route back to the freighter, the chopper begins losing fuel due to a bullet hole in the tank from the earlier battle to free Ben. Before Sawyer makes his sacrificial jump, he whispers something to Kate (again, my guess is that it involves his daughter Clementine) and plants a hell of a kiss on her. I wondered why, when Jack later confronts Kate about what she’s doing for Sawyer and she refuses to tell him, she does not at least reference this moment. During their argument, Jack tells her that Sawyer made his choice, and that he chose to stay behind, while Jack was the one who came back. But Jack’s take isn’t an entirely accurate or fair characterization of what happened. Sawyer’s choice is a selfless one. Maybe he makes it purely for Kate, or maybe he makes it for all of them, but whatever motivates him, his plunge from the copter into the ocean makes their escape possible; the chopper is able to reach the freighter before running out of fuel. So for Jack to later say that Sawyer chose to stay…sure, it’s true in a sense…but the way Jack uses it to make his point doesn’t honor Sawyer’s sacrifice.
Unfortunately, making it to the freighter doesn’t bring them the relief it should. Keamy’s death has triggered the C4, and the chopper approaches the deck only to find Desmond waving them away and shouting that there’s a bomb about to go off. As for what follows:
1. I gotta say – once again, it seems – Jack pulls a dick move here. And Kate lets it happen. Sun is shouting that she won’t leave without Jin, so while Frank, Jack, Desmond and Sayid rush to re-fuel and patch the hole, Kate hands Aaron to Sun and offers to go find Jin. She starts to run off, but the copter is now about to leave, and Jack comes and grabs her, refusing to leave without her. She says she needs to find Jin, but she lets Jack drag her back. So…it’s okay for you to grab the girl you love, but the man Sun loves is just shit out of luck? Nice, Jack. It’s easy for you to tell Sun “he’s gone” as she watches the flaming pieces of the freighter sink into the ocean; you got what you wanted. But for all your talk about being responsible for everyone on the island and getting them rescued…you stone cold sold Jin out in the end. Not cool. I might cut you a tiny bit of slack, given the fear of such a life and death situation and the uncertainty of how much time you have left…but only a tiny bit.
2. The show didn’t do right by Michael. When his nitrogen ran out, and he started to hear the jungle whispers and Christian Shephard suddenly appeared and said, “You can go now, Michael,” followed immediately by the explosion, I thought that Christian had somehow rescued him; that Michael was taken somewhere else, and Christian’s words meant something like, “I’ll take it from here.” But then I realized what Christian meant, which was, “Okay, you’ve redeemed yourself, the island no longer needs to keep you alive. You can go now.” And then he was indeed taken somewhere else: a watery grave. But Damon and Carlton botched this, and after the unsatisfying exit given to Mr. Eko, which even they admitted was not ideal – they should have learned their lesson. There’s really no excuse for such a screw-up. The simple fact is that there was more to explore with Michael – an opportunity for a stronger redemption; a reunion with more of the people he betrayed and a subsequent look at how those relationships develop from there; and a reconciliation with Walt. Both Michael and Walt deserved that last one. The show does a disservice to the characters, the actors and the fans by sending Michael off prematurely – especially given the hype around his return and how little they gave him to do once he showed up again.
When Charlie died, sure I was upset because he was a favorite of mine and because I wanted him and Claire to go make babies with cool accents. But nevertheless, I understood the motivation behind killing him. His backstory had played out, his redemption was complete and he was given a heartfelt, emotional exit. It would have been great if he had lived, but there wasn’t a lot of story that still needed to unfold for him. The same can not be said of Michael. There was definitely more story to tell, and with two seasons left, there was time to tell it. In a generally stellar finale, Michael’s unsatisfying resolution stood out as a major misstep.
3. As for the fate of Jin, we never did see a body. I guess we didn’t see Michael’s body either, but Michael was standing right next to the 500 pounds of explosives; Jin was outside on the deck, at the other end of the freighter from where the explosion originates. He could have jumped, or he could have been blown into the water and found something to stay afloat on. One of these scenarios is likely, because every indication from the all-powerful internets is that Jin will be back next season.
Now then, I have another question that’s ultimately meaningless at this point, but puzzled me anyway. Was there anything more to the “secondary protocol” than just going to The Orchid because that’s where Ben would most likely go? I don’t think Keamy was supposed to do anything at the station, or he would have done it when he got off the elevator. If he was just supposed to go there, what was Faraday so nervous about? Was it that he knew Keamy would only go to The Orchid if Ben was there, and if Ben was there, Faraday knows what is about to happen?
JACOB’S LADDER
While the freighter chaos is going down, Ben is preparing for a journey – for as he explained to Locke, the person who moves the island can never come back. Does he mean that the person is transported from the island and then can’t find his way back? Or literally, the island’s forces will prevent that person from returning even if they managed to locate it again? I wasn’t sure how to interpret that, and it will be an important distinction going into next season.
Before he commences with the island moving, Ben bids farewell to Locke, who he instructs to join Richard and the Others. The goodbye between these two is an oddly emotional moment, very nicely and subtly played by Michael Emerson and particularly Terry O’Quinn. For all of Locke’s frustration with and frequent anger toward Ben, I think he sees Ben as something of a friend. Poor John hasn’t had many of those in his life, and he clings to the promise even when it comes in a less than ideal form. I think they’ll each miss each other in their own way, and I’m left wondering if they’ll ever see each other alive again.
After the parting, Ben enters a tunnel in the wall (through the Vault) that looks like the portal into John Malkovich’s head. Instead he finds a ladder and climbs down into a small, frozen chamber with strangely marked pillars and a large gear-like device – or more simply, a wheel – sticking horizontally out of the wall. (Are the hieroglyphic-like symbols the same kind that were on the door he went through before “summoning” the smoke monster? Are they the same symbols that flashed on the hatch’s countdown panels when the button wasn’t pushed after 108 minutes?) We know that whatever Ben is about to do, it immediately precedes the moment when he drops into the middle of the Sahara Desert, which we saw in The Shape of Things to Come. We know this because he is wearing the Halliwax parka he had on in the desert, plus he injures his arm when entering the frozen chamber – an injury that was fresh but unexplained upon his Saharan arrival.
So what is this room? How long has it been here? Why is it frozen? How does Ben know what to do? Is it pure coincidence that A) the room is frozen, B) it transports Ben to Tunisia, and C) Charlotte once discovered a polar bear skeleton with a Dharma tag in the desert of Tunisia? Decomposed arctic-dwelling animals aside, this scene reminded me a bit of The X-Files movie climax, when Mulder and Scully find themselves in an underground arctic cave that turns out to be a massive spaceship which awakens and emerges from its hibernation after being activated somehow. I’m not saying this chamber and the strange markings on the pillar signify an alien component to the show…I’m just saying that my mom has been predicting “aliens” since sometime in Season Two. If the Jane Burnce theory pans out someday, I will have a new respect for her indeed…though I don’t think I like the idea of Lost having an extraterrestrial element.
Ben uses all of his strength to turn the wheel of (mis)fortune, and as he does so, a powerful humming overtakes the island, similar to what was heard when Desmond turned the failsafe key in the Season Two finale. The humming is followed by a blinding light. It starts inside the wall from which the wheel protrudes, and soon it is everywhere, blinding those on the island, and those off it – Faraday with his raft full of nobodies, and the chopper passengers.
And like that, it’s gone. The humming. The light. The island. Ben. Gone.
When talk of moving the island first came up, I assumed that somehow they were supposed to physically move the island; that the island needed to move to a different location. But with all the time travel that’s been played up, I should have realized that the island wasn’t moving in space; it was moving in time. Remember the Orchid orientation video that Locke was watching? Halliwax placed the bunny in the vault and said the animal was being shifted 100 milliseconds ahead and would seem to disappear briefly. The tape stopped there, but we heard enough to clue us into what I believe happened. The island moved forward in time. So to everyone in the chopper, it disappeared from sight. But for those on the island, when the blinding light subsided, they were in the same place they had been…just in a different time. And surely unaware of that, since they’d have nothing to clue them into the change. The only odd thing would probably be that Juliet and Sawyer were looking at the smoking freighter one minute, and the next minute the smoke would be gone.
I think this is why there is a time-lapse between the island and the freighter. The island has been moved before, shifting further into the future each time. Somehow, a narrow fissure must exist that allows one to slip onto the island without passing through this time change – hence the specific bearings mentioned by Ben and Faraday.
But no theory of mine is perfect, so here are the big questions that give me pause.
How many times has the island been moved? When Faraday conducted his rocket experiment early this season, the difference between time on the freighter and time on the island was only 31 minutes. If we assume that the island was once Widmore’s and he now can’t seem to get back to it, does that mean that Widmore personally moved the island once before? Is that the only time it’s been moved? Probably not, if there is indeed a link between that chamber and the polar bear skeleton. Either way, a 31 minute difference seems minor in the scheme of things. How does the person moving the island control how far into the future it moves? Can it be controlled, or is that what Ben meant when he described moving the island as “unpredictable?” How far ahead has Ben moved the island? After he is transported to the Sahara (and how/why does that happen??), he goes to Tunisia and checks into a hotel. If you recall, he confirms the date with the woman at the front desk – she tells him it is October 24, 2005. If Ben was transported from January 2005 to October 2005, is that how far the island itself was transported?
And what happened to the “Alcatraz” island near the big one? Jack tells Frank that there’s another small island he can land on, but Frank sees nothing but water for miles. So where did the small island go? It would make sense that yes, it moved too. Since time on the freighter and time on the island are different, there is a line that exists somewhere out in the space between. That’s why the bearing is so important to keep to; that’s why the freighter’s doctor washed up on the island before Keamy even killed him; and that’s why Minkowski was experiencing leaps through time like Desmond was. I’m thinking it’s pretty damn likely that Faraday’s raft got caught up in the move too. And if Jin survived the explosion, did he swim/drift into part of the water that was transported?
Another possible theory involves wormholes and the idea that the island’s move involved both time and space. Entertainment Weekly‘s Lost guru has spent a lot of time in past recaps talking about wormhole theories which are too complex for me to absorb (me being no good with the whole “science” thing), but he’s had a lot of details to back up his points, so maybe there’s some truth to it. However, I think that the wormhole idea sets the stage for alternate realities, and Damon and Carlton have pretty much nixed the alternate reality notion.
O WHAT A TANGLED WEB WE WEAVE WHEN FIRST WE PRACTICE TO DECEIVE
With nowhere to land and not enough fuel, the chopper goes down almost right after the island disappears. I’m not sure why they all didn’t jump out once their life jackets were on, instead of waiting for the impact. I’m also impressed that Frank survived given that he didn’t appear to be wearing a life jacket at all.
So there they are, the Oceanic Six +2 (Desmond and Frank) adrift in an inflatable raft. As they float, Hurley marvels that Locke actually managed to move the island. “No, he didn’t,” Jack says. But Hurley calls him on it and asks Jack to offer up a better explanation, which of course Jack can’t do. Perhaps because, once again, Jack isn’t ready to acknowledge that voice in his head telling him that Locke is right. But he’s about to take his first step toward enlightenment: when Frank spots another boat that night, Jack suddenly understands that, just like Locke told him, they’re going to have to lie. “Those men came to the island to kill us, all of us,” Jack says – acknowledging what Ben and Locke tried to tell him back before he first radioed the freighter in the Season Three finale. “You said that our plane was discovered at the bottom of the ocean,” he says to Frank. “Well someone put it there; someone who wants everyone to think that we’re dead. So what do you think’s gonna happen to us when we tell them that that wasn’t our plane? What do you think’s gonna happen to the people that we left behind?” Difficult as it may be for them all to process, nobody protests. They must understand that he’s right, though Kate does say that they can’t pull it off. Jack says to let him do the talking. (I wonder though – why are they so sure that there even is anyone left behind? The island friggin’ disappeared in front of their eyes.)
So they come up to the boat, and this one truly does provide rescue…not to mention another of the episode’s emotional highlights. This boat turns out to be Penny’s charter, and her reunion with Desmond is a welcome shot of joy and satisfaction amidst the chaos of the day. The writers, as well as actors Henry Ian Cusick and Sonya Walger, have to be commended for their handling of all things Desmond and Penny. Their scenes always resonate and play so genuinely. A strong story has been constructed around those characters, and now that they are back together, it will be interesting to see where they go given Ben’s pledge to kill Penny. When Jack and Desmond say their goodbyes a few scenes later and Desmond says that as long as he’s got Penny he’ll be fine, I couldn’t help worry that his words were a cruel bit of foreshadowing. If Ben makes good on his promise, what will Desmond be driven to do? Jack says, “Don’t let him find you Desmond.” But he doesn’t know about Ben’s threat – which, in fact, hasn’t even happened yet in the show’s timeline – so what “him” does Jack mean? Charles Widmore? What is Penny’s relationship with her dad even like? Have we ever seen them together? How much does she know about his business – professional and personal?
I liked Jack’s farewell words to Desmond: “I guess I’ll see you in another life, brother,” Desmond’s own sign-off coming back full circle. But hold up – we need to jump back for a minute, to the moment of the rescue. Jack meets Penny and tells her they need to talk….and soon the seeds that will bloom into the Oceanic Lie are planted. Is Jack the one who constructs the cover story? Does Penny offer resources to help make it work? How is it decided that the story will include some passengers who survived the crash but died before the rescue? How are all the particulars determined? During Kate’s trial, Jack testified that she helped them all, took care of them, kept them alive; but why was that role in the story given to her? Did Jack do it deliberately, knowing that Kate faced a trial at home and that a heroic tale might help her case? We still don’t know if Oceanic Airlines becomes involved in creating the cover story, nor is it explained how they account for the six survivors when all of bodies were supposedly already discovered.
BEND IT LIKE BENTHAM
Moving (mostly) chronologically through the episode now takes us to the first scene we saw, which was an immediate continuation of last season’s mind-blowing final scene. It was definitely a cool way to begin the episode (just like how The Karate Kid Part II picked up right after the fight from the end of the original The Karate Kid! Awesome! Sweep the leg, Johnny!!) After starting to drive away, Kate brakes and comes back to yell at bearded, pill-popping Jack, tearing him a new one for calling her to come out and showing her an obituary for Jeremy Bentham.
I’m sorry…Jeremy who now? I believe my words at the point were, “Who the fuck is Jeremy Bentham?”
Well we know who Bentham turns out to be, so let’s proceed accordingly. It would seem Bentham is an alias being used by a now deceased John Locke. In fact, for my purposes in trying to make sense from all this senselessness, let’s bend chronology a bit and skip to the episode’s final, revelatory scene. After Jack breaks into the funeral home at night and throws open the lid of the coffin – to no particular end that we can see – Ben shows up. Jack tells Ben that Bentham came to see him a month or so earlier and told him that after he left the island, some very bad things happened, that those things were his fault for leaving,and that he had to go back. Ben says the island won’t let Jack come back alone; it has to be all of them, Bentham included. Jack points out the impossibility of this, saying that he doesn’t know where Sayid is, Hurley is insane, Kate won’t speak to him and Sun blames him for Jin’s death (more on this point later). Ben offers to help and says he has some ideas. Jack silently agrees, no longer resisting the idea that the island has its own power and is capable of allowing or not allowing things to happen (an interesting turnaround from an earlier conversation Jack had with Ben – one you may never have seen. See the LOSTUBE section below).
Moving back to Jack’s argument with Kate, she says of Bentham, “When he came to me and I heard what he had to say, I knew he was crazy. But you, you believed him. Him of all people!” To which Jack replies, “Yes Kate, I did because he said that was the only way that I could keep you safe. You and Aaron.” He said what was the only way to keep Kate and Aaron safe? Returning to the island? It would appear that Jack’s resistance to Locke’s notions has finally dissolved. He has stopped lying to himself, and is taking Locke at his word.
Working our way through the group, the institutionalized Hurley receives two unexpected visitors with a Bentham connection. First is Walt. Walt! Actually appearing in the flesh! Not as a dripping wet, backwards-talking devil-boy like Shannon saw! Not as a tall apparition beckoning Locke out of a pit of skeletons! Not as a quickly-glimpsed figure in a window played by some other actor! But Walt! Our Walt, as played by Malcolm David Kelley! It’s crazy how much a skinny little boy can grow up in four years.
Anyway, Walt tells Hurley that Jeremy Bentham came to see him, but he doesn’t say what Bentham told him. Now that we know who Bentham is, I’m incredibly curious about what he had to say to Walt. Was the visit casual – a chance to say hello to an old friend and backgammon companion? Or did he have a more specific purpose in mind? Walt asks Hurley why they’re all lying, and Hurley says it’s to protect the people who didn’t come back. “Like my dad?” Walt asks. “Like your dad,” Hurley says… which is strange, because I didn’t see anything in Hurley’s face or tone of voice to indicate that he was lying about Michael still being alive. He knew that Michael was on the freighter and he saw the freighter explode, so he must be pretty certain Michael is dead. And dead men don’t need protecting. Is it that he just can’t bring himself to tell Walt the truth? How does Walt even know Michael was out there again if they hadn’t spoken and none of the survivors came to see him upon their return to civilization? Maybe Bentham is the one who informs him…but even then wouldn’t Bentham assume Michael died in the freighter explosion? Whatever the answers, I hope this scene was a set-up for Walt to return to the story full-time.
Hurley’s second visit, in one of my favorite scenes in the episode, is from Sayid. Hurley doesn’t show much feeling one way or another about Sayid’s sudden nighttime arrival, paying more attention to his chessboard (and his game with Mr. Eko). Sayid wants Hurley to come with him somewhere safe, but Hurley shows little interest. Then Sayid tells him that circumstances have changed. “Bentham’s dead.” This gets Hurley’s full attention, and he becomes instantly alarmed. Sayid tells him it happened two days ago, skeptically saying, “They said it was suicide.” The “they said” part does not sit well with the big man. Hurley asks Sayid why he’s using the name Bentham, and starts to say his real name, but Sayid quickly and with a trace of bitterness says, “Don’t say it.” (Why won’t they use Bentham’s real name in private, amongst themselves?) He tells Hurley they’re being watched; that he just killed a man who’d been sitting in a car out front for a week. “We’re not going back, are we?” Hurley asks. Sayid says no, they’re just going somewhere safe.
Everybody seems pretty worked up about the death of Jeremy Bentham. How does his death change the circumstances of their secret? Why are they in danger now that he’s dead? What was he buffering them from? And where are Hurley and Sayid going to go?
THE BLAME GAME
Sun goes to see Charles Widmore in London and introduces herself as Mr. Paik’s daughter and the Managing Director of Paik Industries. It seems the hunch I mentioned in my pre-finale message was right, even though there’s no evidence that my specific thought is true. Widmore does indeed know Mr. Paik, however superficial their connection may turn out to be in the big picture. I tell you, all these rich pricks run in the same circles.
Widmore shows no sign of recognizing Sun, but she makes it clear that they both know he knows exactly who she is, where she’s been and what she’s been through. “You and I have common interests,” she tells him. “When you’re ready to discuss them, call me. As you know, we aren’t the only ones who got off the island.” This implies that she is going to help him get to Ben, which puts her at odds with at least three of the Oceanic Six (Kate most likely stands on neutral ground for the time being – though seeing visions of Claire can’t be doing her any good).
Is Sun trying to help Widmore because Ben is the second person – along with her father – that she blames for Jin’s death? What else could she mean by the comment about not being the only ones who made it off the island? Yet how would she have come to blame Ben? She couldn’t know that Ben killed Keamy and therefore triggered the explosion on the freighter? Couldn’t know, that is, unless she too was visited by the one person who was witness to Ben’s act: Locke/Bentham. And what of Jack’s comment that Sun blames him for Jin’s death? Is her blame for real, or is it just in his hero-complex imagination? Without knowing whether or not Bentham told Sun about the dead man’s trigger, it is safer to say that Sun might blame Jack for not trying hard enough to save Jin. Yet her offer to help Widmore makes much more sense if her vengeful sights are set on Ben. Hmm…
OTHER LOOSE ENDS -In my first write-up, I wondered why Jeff Fahey, who plays Frank, was credited as a guest star while the actors playing Faraday, Miles and Charlotte were all listed as regulars. Has Frank’s role in the story come to an end? Jack half-jokingly tells him that he hopes they never meet again. And it would seem that there’s no practical purpose for a chopper pilot anymore. Yet we learned nothing of Frank’s backstory – like why he ended up not flying Oceanic 815, and why Matthew Abbadon recruited him. I have no idea if he is coming back to the show or not…but I certainly hope so. Great character.
-During their tense nighttime meeting, Kate tells Jack, “I’ve spent the last three years trying to forget all the horrible things that happened on the day that we left.” So three years have passed at that point, which is definitely worth noting. Where will their lives pick up next season? That kid playing Aaron isn’t going to stay small forever. And how will their “present” relate to the island’s present? Will we see flashes further forward for the Oceanic Six, or more flashes back?
-In The Shape of Things to Come, Sayid asks Ben how he got off the island. Ben told him that he used Desmond’s boat. Now we know that in actuality, he used a giant frozen wheel and whole lotta elbow grease.
-Poor Juliet, sitting on the beach, downing a bottle of Dharma rum as she watches the smoking freighter, drowning the pain of another foiled attempt to leave the island. When Sawyer emerges from the water looking like a Bond girl, then sees the smoke in the distance and asks if it is “their boat,” she could not have had more perfect delivery with the answer, “It was.” Does this leave Sawyer assuming Kate and the others are dead?
-When the Emmy nominations come out later this summer, I demand a nomination (and subsequent win) for Michael Emerson. And I’d love to see a nomination for Jorge Garcia as well; this season was a divine one for Hurley. There has also been a lot of fan support for Henry Ian Cusick, Yunjin Kim and Matthew Fox. The show hasn’t been nominated for Best Drama since Season One (when it took the prize), so I’d like to see it return to the top category this year. Throw in a couple of writing and directing nominations (perhaps for The Constant or The Shape of Things to Come) and the season will have been justly recognized.
-An interesting piece of news regarding the final two seasons: Claire will not be a regular on the show next year. Emile de Ravin has been placed on a “holding contract.” She will definitely return as a regular in the Season Six, but she will not be seen next year, except for the possibility of some brief cameos like the one she had with Kate in this episode. Looks like whatever happened to her is one of the show’s big, game-ending mysteries. By the way, Damon and Carlton have said the question to ask about Claire is not, “Is she dead?” but rather, “What happened to her?” I’m not sure there’s really a whole lotta difference between those two questions, but there it is.
LOSTUBE
While reading some things online about the season finale, I discovered some video clips floating around out there that might be of interest to you. Oh, how I loves me the YouTube. Check these out…and if you see a sidebar link on some of them that supposedly reveals what Sawyer whispered to Kate in the chopper, don’t bother. I read that the translation is not legit.
-This first clip is an extended version of the Oceanic Six press conference in which a few additional questions are asked, and in which Jack names the three passengers who survived the crash but died before the rescue. So many lies. I wonder how it was decided by Jack that these three people would be singled out. Interestingly, the scene adds new questions but also takes one away; gone is the remark about how healthy they all look considering what they’ve been through, which was followed by Hurley saying, “Is that directed at me, dude?” Quality’s not great, but it will do…
-You may have heard that two alternate endings, with different people in the coffin, were filmed to try and protect the true version in case of any leaks. The day after the finale, Good Morning America aired the fake-outs.
-These next clips aren’t related to the season finale, but I decided to put them here anyway because they’re pretty cool. I’ve mentioned these a couple of times before: these are the “Missing Pieces” that were created last fall as content for Verizon cell phone customers, and were later put online as content available for all. There are 13 of them, each one just a couple of minutes in length, and they take place at various points during the first three seasons. Think of them as deleted scenes which weren’t actually deleted, but instead were shot at the same time as Season Four. Some are just random, funny little moments; some fill in gaps in the story; and others add new and intriguing layers to the mystery. All of them are considered “canon” by Damon and Carlton, which means they are to be taken as seriously as anything in a real episode. Check ’em out:
1. The Watch – A rare moment of warmth between Jack and Christian.
6. Room 23 – Juliet expresses a concern to Ben. This one interests me because, knowing that these were filmed so recently, I’m not sure what the point of it would be other than to foreshadow the return of a character referred to but not seen.
7. Arzt & Crafts – Doctor Arzt lives to kvetch another day.
8. Buried Secrets – An emotional encounter between Michael and Sun nearly turns romantic, suggesting a storyline that I think was considered for Season One but ultimately abandoned.
-And finally, this clip is from The Daily Show – but any Lost fan should appreciate it. Keep watching…it gets more Lost-y as it goes.
Vodpod videos no longer available.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Each season of Lost, while contained within a six-season storyline, has had its own overarching theme. As Damon and Carlton have described it, Season One was about the survivors of Flight 815; Season Two was The Hatch; Season Three was The Others; and Season Four was The Freighter, or The Rescue. Reading the E! News gal’s column, she laid out the final two season arcs, though I wasn’t clear if she was just assuming this, or if she had been told by official sources at the show. Either way, what she said seemed to make sense. If her report is accurate, Season Five will focus on the efforts of the Oceanic Six (and a few others, it seems) to return to the island, and Season Six will be about what happens when they do.
Well, now that you are probably bleeding from your eyeballs, I guess that’s about it for what has been an outstanding season of Lost. As hard as it will be to wait until next January or February, I admit that I’m relieved to have a long break from these damn write-ups. I don’t know what I got myself into, but the last several have sucked up an absurd amount of my evening time. Still, I’ve already got notes in place for the first Season Five e-mail, so I’ll see you all back here in eight months or so…and maybe even much sooner than that.
And all of my Michael Emerson praise did not fall on deaf ears. How could it? The guy is brilliant. He got his Best Supporting Actor (Drama) nomination, facing competition from William Shatner in Boston Legal, John Slattery in Mad Men, and Ted Danson and Zeljko Ivanek, both in Damages (Ivanek, incidentally, is part of the Lost universe, having guest starred as Juliet’s ex-husband who was mowed down by a bus, Mean Girls-style.) You know my feeling on this; Emerson should have this thing sewn up. But I haven’t seen Damages, and Danson and Ivanek both got a lot of praise, so they have me worried.
I have always wondered if Locke would ever reveal to Jack – the pragmatic spinal surgeon – the story about his confinement to a wheelchair and how after four years, he regained the use of his legs the moment he landed on the island. I’ve often imagined such a scene – have practically scripted it out in my head – and I thought it might happen here. Maybe Locke was about to go there, but Ben arrived and cut the confrontation short. (Yes, Ben – freed from Keamy thanks to some ass-kicking work by Kate, Sayid, and the Others…headed by Richard Alpert, who didn’t seem wholly thrilled to see Ben. And in fact, Ben seemed a little surprised that Richard even showed up. Hmm…)
Down in The Orchid, Ben immediately goes to work – hitting buttons, turning switches, adjusting knobs – while Locke tries to figure out what the hell is going on. Ben hands him the Dharma orientation video and suggests he take a look. Once again the video is hosted by the familiar Asian scientist, this time calling himself Dr. Edgar Halliwax (his other names are the thematically-similar Marvin Candle and Mark Wickmund). Halliwax never comes out and says “time travel” in explaining what The Orchid is used for, but he does say that the Vault is adjacent to what is believed to be “a pocket of negatively charged exotic matter”…whatever that means. He places a bunny in the vault and explains, “In our first demonstration, we will attempt to shift the test subject 100 milliseconds ahead in four-dimensional space. For the briefest of moments, the animal will seem to disappear. But in reality…” At that point, the video begins to automatically rewind and Locke doesn’t get any further.
BOOM!
After the parting, Ben enters a tunnel in the wall (through the Vault) that looks like the portal into John Malkovich’s head. Instead he finds a ladder and climbs down into a small, frozen chamber with strangely marked pillars and a large gear-like device – or more simply, a wheel – sticking horizontally out of the wall. (Are the hieroglyphic-like symbols the same kind that were on the door he went through before “summoning” the smoke monster? Are they the same symbols that flashed on the hatch’s countdown panels when the button wasn’t pushed after 108 minutes?) We know that whatever Ben is about to do, it immediately precedes the moment when he drops into the middle of the Sahara Desert, which we saw in The Shape of Things to Come. We know this because he is wearing the Halliwax parka he had on in the desert, plus he injures his arm when entering the frozen chamber – an injury that was fresh but unexplained upon his Saharan arrival.
So they come up to the boat, and this one truly does provide rescue…not to mention another of the episode’s emotional highlights. This boat turns out to be Penny’s charter, and her reunion with Desmond is a welcome shot of joy and satisfaction amidst the chaos of the day. The writers, as well as actors Henry Ian Cusick and Sonya Walger, have to be commended for their handling of all things Desmond and Penny. Their scenes always resonate and play so genuinely. A strong story has been constructed around those characters, and now that they are back together, it will be interesting to see where they go given Ben’s pledge to kill Penny. When Jack and Desmond say their goodbyes a few scenes later and Desmond says that as long as he’s got Penny he’ll be fine, I couldn’t help worry that his words were a cruel bit of foreshadowing. If Ben makes good on his promise, what will Desmond be driven to do? Jack says, “Don’t let him find you Desmond.” But he doesn’t know about Ben’s threat – which, in fact, hasn’t even happened yet in the show’s timeline – so what “him” does Jack mean? Charles Widmore? What is Penny’s relationship with her dad even like? Have we ever seen them together? How much does she know about his business – professional and personal?
Anyway, Walt tells Hurley that Jeremy Bentham came to see him, but he doesn’t say what Bentham told him. Now that we know who Bentham is, I’m incredibly curious about what he had to say to Walt. Was the visit casual – a chance to say hello to an old friend and backgammon companion? Or did he have a more specific purpose in mind? Walt asks Hurley why they’re all lying, and Hurley says it’s to protect the people who didn’t come back. “Like my dad?” Walt asks. “Like your dad,” Hurley says… which is strange, because I didn’t see anything in Hurley’s face or tone of voice to indicate that he was lying about Michael still being alive. He knew that Michael was on the freighter and he saw the freighter explode, so he must be pretty certain Michael is dead. And dead men don’t need protecting. Is it that he just can’t bring himself to tell Walt the truth? How does Walt even know Michael was out there again if they hadn’t spoken and none of the survivors came to see him upon their return to civilization? Maybe Bentham is the one who informs him…but even then wouldn’t Bentham assume Michael died in the freighter explosion? Whatever the answers, I hope this scene was a set-up for Walt to return to the story full-time.
Widmore shows no sign of recognizing Sun, but she makes it clear that they both know he knows exactly who she is, where she’s been and what she’s been through. “You and I have common interests,” she tells him. “When you’re ready to discuss them, call me. As you know, we aren’t the only ones who got off the island.” This implies that she is going to help him get to Ben, which puts her at odds with at least three of the Oceanic Six (Kate most likely stands on neutral ground for the time being – though seeing visions of Claire can’t be doing her any good).
-In my first write-up, I wondered why Jeff Fahey, who plays Frank, was credited as a guest star while the actors playing Faraday, Miles and Charlotte were all listed as regulars. Has Frank’s role in the story come to an end? Jack half-jokingly tells him that he hopes they never meet again. And it would seem that there’s no practical purpose for a chopper pilot anymore. Yet we learned nothing of Frank’s backstory – like why he ended up not flying Oceanic 815, and why Matthew Abbadon recruited him. I have no idea if he is coming back to the show or not…but I certainly hope so. Great character.
I Am DB 