I Am DB

Okay, those babies are adorable, but I’ll still come right out with it: this episode, initially at least, pissed me off bigtime. Normally I would have waited until the next night, but I had to watch Glee immediately after in the hopes that some upbeat music and Sue Sylvester quips would wash the bitter taste of disappointment from my mouth. I have never once succumbed to the kind of frustration that led so many Lost fans to abandon ship around the time that Shannon saw soaking-wet Walt materialize in the jungle speaking devil tongue. I didn’t have a problem with Season Three’s extended Hydra Island, prisoner-in-a-polar-bear cage period or the seemingly unnecessary introduction of Nikki and Paulo – things that so many fans still complain about (seriously, was the Bai Ling episode really that bad?). The on-going mysteries that seemed to turn off many others only made me more jazzed to stick around and find out what it all meant. And I’ve waited patiently, enjoying each step on the journey with confidence that an amazing destination lay ahead. And I still feel that way. But I went into this episode with certain expectations of what I thought it would do, needed to do, etc. in getting us to that destination. Instead it did things that didn’t seem all that significant. Jacob and the Man in Black are brothers. Interesting? Sure. Revelatory? Not really.

I know the criticism is not entirely fair when there are still 3 ½ hours that may provide more context and payoff, and I didn’t want to judge the episode too harshly knowing that those hours are still due. But when it ended I felt like this episode which practically came gift-wrapped with the promise of answers instead delivered a whole lotta nothing. In bitching about it during the week with reader Denise B., she asked me if I would have felt better about the episode had it come earlier in the season. It was an interesting question, and my answer was yes, though for different reasons than hers. She said that having it immediately follow the emotional blow of so many deaths was a jarring interruption in the build-up to the finale. For me, earlier would have been better because I wouldn’t have minded so much not getting answers I wanted if I knew there would be several episodes left to address those things. But coming so late in the season, time is too short. At this point, there are too many mysteries from the last six years unexplained for me to have patience with new ones.

I’ll say more later, but for now I’ll stop complaining about what didn’t happen and turn to what did.

UNIVERSAL MOTHER
A pregnant woman of possibly Hispanic origins washes ashore on the island amongst the wreckage of a ship. She is found by a Caucasian woman wearing loose blue and white garments, who offers to help her and brings her to a cave where she apparently lives. They speak to each other in what I guess is Latin and the pregnant woman introduces herself as Claudia. She asks the Woman in White where her people are.

W: There’s only me.
C: How did you get here?
W: The same way you got here. By accident.
C: How long have…
W: Every question I answer will simply lead to another question.

That’s a nice acknowledgment from the writers to sum up Lost in one sentence. I’d have laughed a little harder at it were it not so frustratingly true at this point.

Claudia quickly goes into labor and delivers a baby boy who she names Jacob. But to both women’s surprise, there is another baby. The Woman in White delivers the second child, but Claudia says she only picked one name. After laying both children down, staring lovingly at them as if they’re her own, the Woman in White apologizes to Claudia and then bashes her head in with a rock.

Worst. Midwife. Ever.

Thirteen years later, Jacob and his brother are being raised by the Woman in White, who it appears was incapable of choosing a name for the second born, leaving us to call him the Boy in Black. The boys are close, and all seems well and idyllic, but the Boy in Black has a curiosity that worries his mother. Whereas Jacob is more innocent, accepting things at face value and believing what he’s told, his brother is inquisitive and wants to know why things are the way they are. He finds a box on the beach one day containing black and white stones and a board with drawings, and he and Jacob occupy their time playing this new game. “How do you know how?” Jacob asks the first time.

“I just do,” his brother replies, adding that Jacob shouldn’t tell their mother because she’ll take it away. But she gets it out of Jacob anyway and pays a visit to Boy in Black on the beach. (Later, Jacob will tease him about having made up the rules himself. “One day you can make up your own game and everyone else will have to follow your rules,” Boy in Black smiles. If only he’d known how far Jacob would take that…)

B: Jacob told you what I found.
W: Of course he did. Jacob doesn’t know how to lie. He’s not like you.
B: Why, what am I like?
W: You’re special.

She says she left the box so he’d find it, which disappoints him. He says he thought it might have come from somewhere else; from across the sea. She tells him that there is no place else. There is nothing across the sea. There is only the island. He questions where they came from, and she tells him he came from her and she came from her mother, who is dead now.

B: What’s dead?
W: Something you will never have to worry about.

Ohhhhhkay…….

THE LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL
While running through the jungle chasing a boar, Jacob and Boy in Black discover other men, the first people they’ve ever seen on the island. The boys go unnoticed, and urgently report their discovery to the Woman in White.

J: Where do they come from? They looked like us!
W: They’re not like us. They don’t belong here. We are here for a reason
B: What reason?
M: It’s not time yet.
B: Mother! What reason?
M: Come with me.

She says it’s not time yet more to herself than the boys, and hesitates before telling them to come with her. And then this happens.

“They come, fight, they destroy, they corrupt. And it always ends the same.” We’ve heard this before. It’s exactly what the Man in Black says to Jacob on the beach in the opening scene of Season Five’s finale The Incident, when we first meet both of them. She doesn’t directly answer…well, pretty much any of the questions, but specifically for now the one about why the other people would hurt them. She just says “because they’re people, Jacob, and that’s what people do.” Is this meant to imply that she is not a person? That she is perhaps another kind of being that has taken human form? Jacob and the Boy in Black must be human as they were born to Claudia, but it sounds as if the Woman in White has gifted them with certain powers or protections. How is she able to do that?

So what’s down that golden passageway? Is it Eden? Heaven? Iowa? The Genesis Cave? Boy in Black looks at it with lust, but not greed. The sight plugs directly into his yearning for discovery beyond the simplicity of the island, and a mysterious visit soon fans those flames: while playing the stones game with Jacob, he looks up and sees Claudia standing nearby. She calls out not to be afraid. Off Boy in Black’s startled stare, Jacob turns but doesn’t see anything. Boy in Black say he’s going to the beach alone and runs after Claudia, who tells him that Jacob can’t see her because she’s dead. She asks him to come with her so she can show him where he came from – a place across the island that he’s never seen. So she takes him to a hill overlooking a village and tells him that the people living there shipwrecked on the island thirteen years earlier, the day before he was born. He asks what a ship is, and she tells him it is a way of traveling from place to place. “It’s how we came across the sea,” she says, echoing the exact phrasing he used earlier to the Woman in White.

B: There’s nothing across the sea.
C: There are many things across the sea. You come from across the sea too.
B: No, that’s not true. That’s not what my mother told me.
C: She’s not your mother. I am.

Boy in Black returns to the caves in the middle of the night, wakes up Jacob and beckons him away. In the jungle, he says that he’s gathered their things and that he’s going to live with the people on the other side of the island and wants Jacob to come with him. Jacob repeats their mother’s argument that the people are dangerous, but Boy in Black said she lied to them and that she’s not their mother. That accusation makes the usually peaceful Jacob angry enough to tackle and punch his brother. The Woman in White shows up and pulls them apart, and Boy in Black lays into her with his new knowledge: that she’s not their mother, that she killed their real mother, that he belongs with the people who came from across the sea and that someday he’s going to leave the island and go home. Woman in White is surprised and saddened that he knows these things, but she does not try to refute the facts. She does, however, grab his shoulders and say, “My love, you need to know this: whatever you have been told, you will never be able to leave this island.”

“That’s not true,” he says. “One day I can prove it.” He asks Jacob to come with him one more time, but he says no. Later, Jacob asks Woman in White if she really killed his mother. She admits it, saying she had to do it so that Jacob wouldn’t grow up to be one of the bad people. When he accuses her of loving his brother more than him, she says that she loves them in different ways. So I guess we can add Jacob and the Man in Black to the nearly all-inclusive club of Lost characters with serious parental issues.

ALL GROWN UP AND NO PLACE TO GO
Jacob continues living with the Woman in White into adulthood, and he regularly visits his brother on the other side of the island, where they still play their game. In this meet-up, the Man in Black says he’s found a way off the island and intends to leave.

Jacob returns to the cave and tells the Woman in White, when she asks where he’s been, that she knows where. He tells her that his brother has found a way off the island. So she goes off to see him too, and finds him working alone at the bottom of one of the wells. The reunion brings out mixed feelings for both of them, and brings us back to one of the most mysterious locales on the island.

She gives a look of grave concern when he says that other people from his group saw the light, and when he yells at her that he doesn’t know because she wouldn’t tell him, I wanted to high-five him. As Lost characters go, this Woman in White is about as maddening as Ben when it comes to doling out cryptic non-answers. That night, she brings Jacob back to the tunnel of light for the first time since the first time, where a sort of ceremony takes place.

When Man in Black wakes up the next morning, he is back above ground outside the well, which has been knocked apart and filled in. He sees smoke nearby and follows it to find his village destroyed and burning and his people murdered. The rage on his face is frightening to behold, and he immediately returns to his childhood home and stabs the Woman in White with the dagger he used previously – the dagger which will later pass to Dogen and be used by Sayid in an attempt to kill Man in Locke. As soon as he removes the blade he feels regret, and asks her why she wouldn’t let him leave the island. With her dying breaths she answers, “Because I love you. Thank you…” She dies, and as he kneels over her crying, Jacob arrives. Man in Black is remorseful and tries to explain, but Jacob tackles his brother to the ground and punches him repeatedly in the face, just as he did once in their boyhood. Only this time their mother isn’t there to intervene. In his anger, he drags his brother back to the tunnel of light, where he seems to inadvertently release the island’s great evil.

Jacob goes to what might be another part of the same creek – maybe on the other side of the tunnel – and finds his brother’s body washed up on the rocks, tangled up in branches. He embraces him and carries him back to the cave, where he lays both bodies – the Woman in White and the Man in Black – side by side for their eternal rest, placing with them a pouch containing one black stone and one white from his brother’s game. Centuries later, Jack, Kate, Charlie and Locke will find the bodies, mere days after crashing on the island. Examining them, Jack is able to determine that one is male and one is female, and that they must have been there for a long time. “It takes 40 or 50 years for clothing to degrade like this,” he says

“Our very own Adam and Eve,” Locke muses.

Okay, so one big mystery was answered in this episode, and I thought it was a satisfying explanation, though I probably assumed – like many viewers may have – that the Adam and Eve skeletons would be a pair of Flight 815 survivors who wound up there through some trick of time travel. But the answers offered in this third to last episode of the series stopped there. Knowing that the hour would be devoted to the island, Jacob and the Man in Black, I thought we’d get more about Jacob’s master plan and the how and why around his years of bringing people to the island. I thought we’d learn about the cabin and the scary eye seen twice within. I thought we’d learn about Jacob’s connection to Ilana. I thought maybe Richard would appear and we’d get a look at how he functioned on the island from Jacob’s point of view. And I thought we’d learn more specifics about what could happen if the Man in Black gets off the island.

But we got none of that. Instead, we were left asking more questions. How did the Woman in White come to the island? Why does she tell Boy in Black that he’ll never have to worry about being dead? How has she made it that the boys can never hurt each other? (Which doesn’t turn out to be so true anyway.) Why can’t Jacob see Claudia but the Boy in Black can? Why does Woman in White tell Boy in Black that he will never be able to leave the island? How does she see the two boys: are they a means to the end? If she intends for one of them to protect the island, what does she expect of the other one? And what’s with the tunnel and the light and the black smoke? Why did she say “thank you” to the Man in Black when he stabbed her? Is she relieved to be relieved of her duty to the island?

MEN IN BLACK
There was another plotline I expected to be addressed which wasn’t: the Man in Black and his powers. But there was a surprising twist around this mystery. When we found out early in the season that the resurrected John Locke was really the Man in Black and the Smoke Monster, my reaction was okay, cool…so how does that work? I thought this episode might explain how the Man in Black changes to and from a billow of think black smoke capable of grabbing people and slamming them against trees, walls and cages or else surrounding them and projecting images of their lives in some expression of judgment. In addition, how is this Thing able to appear as other dead people? Obviously we didn’t find out about any of this, but we did find out that the Man in Black as we’ve seen him previously – on the beach with Jacob in The Incident and trying to manipulate Richard when he arrived on the island in Ab Aeterno – is not the original Man in Black. He’s the Man in Black II.

The original Man in Black, it would seem, washed up in the creek after his trip into the tunnel of light and was buried in the caves, where our protagonists found him safely decomposing years later. The Man in Black from The Incident and Ab Aeterno is someone or something else. But what? What happened when Jacob’s brother was carried into that tunnel? Whatever it was, it was quick. Was the power that resides in the Black Smoke always down there, trapped? Did the appearance of a human body somehow set it free? Has it ever been out? Was the Man in Black the first person to enter the tunnel? Was it the Smoke Monster who took on the form of Claudia? (That’s a reasonable guess, considering that most of the later appearances of dead people on the island are really Smokey.) And if that’s true, was the Black Smoke trying all along to lure the Boy in Black into its clutches? Is that why only he could see Claudia?

Once the Black Smoke takes on the appearance of the Man in Black, how does Jacob come to understand what it is? How does his role go from guarding and protecting the light to keeping Man in Black II from escaping the island? How does he know what will happen if Man in Black II leaves?

In Ab Aeterno, Man in Black II rescues Richard from the Black Rock and tells him that the devil – Jacob – took his wife Isabella and that he must kill the devil in order to see her again. Man in Black II says that he was betrayed by the devil, who took his body and his humanity. But really, doesn’t it appear that it was him – the Man in Black II – who took the body and humanity of the original Man in Black? Throughout this episode, Man in Black expressed a desire – a compelling need – to leave the island; to go home. That was consistent with everything we’ve heard him say in his Man in Locke guise all season long (and in Ab Aeterno) except for the now-revealed hiccup that it’s been Man in Black II talking about wanting to leave the island and go home.

Are you with me? Cause I’m barely hanging on by a plot thread.

So how will this resolve itself? I mentioned in my Ab Aeterno write-up that at a press conference, Carlton Cuse had said that Terry O’Quinn “is playing a guy who we’re not going to see until the finale.” That seemed strange to me, since I thought O’Quinn was playing the Man in Black via Man in Locke, and we saw the Man in Black in Ab Aeterno. But now I get it. The guy we saw in Ab Aeterno was not Smokey’s true form, just as John Locke isn’t his true form now. So apparently, one thing we can count on in the final episode is an explanation around what or who Man in Black II really is. And hopefully the answer will be much more satisfying than Men in Black II. Cause that movie kinda sucked.

LOOSE ENDS/FOOD FOR THOUGHT
-It may or may not be important to note that the Boy in Black from this episode is not the same dark-haired boy who Man in Locke saw in the jungle when he was taking Desmond to the well. As I’ve pointed out before, it was in fact the same boy – same actor, at least – as the blonde boy that he saw first while going to Jacob’s cave with Sawyer. That actor is the one who plays Jacob in this episode. So is the Boy in Black from this episode supposed to be the dark-haired boy Locke and Desmond saw, and the role has just been re-cast? Or is the blonde boy from the Locke/Sawyer episode – who we now know to be Young Jacob – supposed to be the same boy in the Locke/Desmond episode, but with dark hair? And if so, why the change in hair color? And does it even matter? Why does Man in Locke keep seeing the boys in the first place? And what does it mean that Sawyer and Desmond saw them too (and that Richard didn’t)?

-The portrayal of Jacob in this episode once again reveals a different side of his personality, just as Ab Aeterno showed us his more violent, aggressive side when he kicked the crap out of Richard on the beach. Here, as I said, we saw him as an innocent, trusting what he’s told and demonstrating fragility even as an adult when he accuses the Woman in White of always having wanted his brother to be the protector of the island. How does he go from the sweet boy who represents goodness to the crafty, confident Dungeon Master of the island, playing a complex game of his own device (just as his brother told him he would one day) that involves bringing scores of people to the island and testing them? Is it the drinking of the wine and his acceptance of the protector role that begins shaping him into the unflappable island god who practically provokes his own murder by coldly saying to Ben, “What about you?” or by telling Man in Black II, “It only ends once. Anything that happens before that is just progress?”

The other unexpected aspect of Jacob we see in this episode is how little he understands about the island, at least at this point in his life. The Woman in White tasks him with guarding the island, but she never explains any of its secrets to him – secrets she possesses and which, oh, I dunno, would probably be important for him to know as he carries on her mission. So how can he be expected to protect the island when he doesn’t understand what it is? Throwing his brother into the tunnel demonstrates a total ignorance of the island’s powers, and suggests that he is actually responsible for the Smoke Monster’s release and for the additional task of having to keep it contained. And by the way, why is it that even the original Man in Black can’t leave the island – was told by the Woman in White that he would never be able to leave – yet Jacob seems to come and go freely?

-Why did Jacob physically age into young adulthood at a normal rate and then stop, living on for who knows how many hundreds of years without ever looking any older? Is that another possible consequence of drinking the wine? Did it stop his aging?

-All season long, Man in Locke has been trying to win over the castaways’ trust and sympathy by painting himself in terms of his humanity, calling on experiences they can understand. When Sawyer asked him on their way to the cave what he was, he answered, “What I am is trapped. And I’ve been trapped for so long that I don’t even remember what it feels like to be free. But before I was trapped I was a man, James, just like you…I know what it’s like to feel joy, to feel pain, anger, fear, to experience betrayal. I know what it’s like to lose someone you love.” Later, after Claire tries to kill Kate, he sits with the latter on a beach and tells her that his mother was crazy. “Long time ago, before I looked like his, I had a mother, just like everyone. She was a very disturbed woman. And as a result of that, I had some growing pains. Problems that I’m still trying to work my way through. Problems that could have been avoided had things been different.” I bring these examples up now because this episode casts them in a new light. While we didn’t know at the time if we could believe him or not, now we know that the things he says are true…save for the fact that they didn’t really happen to him. Or at least, the crazy mother thing didn’t happen to him…because he is Man in Black II and it was the original Man in Black who had the crazy mother. What he said to Sawyer about being trapped – that seems to fit, except that we don’t know who or what the Man in Black II really is, so we don’t know if he really was a man at one point or if he was born a poor black smoke billow. But when Smokey/Man in Black II took on the form of John Locke, it maintained possession of Locke’s memories, so maybe the things he says to Sawyer and Kate are based on his ability to preserve the original Man in Black’s memories.

Is all this babble about Man in Black and Man in Black II coherent at all?

-I don’t know if it was deliberate or not, but I liked that the episode seemed to contain little allusions to Jacob’s game, like when the Woman in White gives him the wine and tells him he doesn’t have a choice. I interpreted that as part of his motivation for bringing people to the island as part of a game where choice is everything. Or there’s the bit where he’s playing the board game with Man in Black, who tells him that it’s easy for him to judge the people of the village when he’s “looking down at us from above” – which is exactly what he seems to have done with those he brought to the island: observe, judge, but not directly interact.

-I don’t know what’s up this year with the Lost gang partnering with the Muppets, but I am so not complaining about it. Here is Crazy Muppet Chang in the latest Lost Untangled, as well as another edition of the Lost Slapdown series, featuring Damon, Carlton and one of my favorites: the Swedish Chef. Ooondi foondi bloo.

-Damon and Carlton have been saying for a while that once the finale airs, they’re going on radio silence and will not be doing interviews or answering questions. Yet. They’ll probably talk about it down the road a bit (the complete series DVD set comes out August 24th and might be accompanied by publicity), but who knows how much they’ll ever be willing to explain or account for. I don’t think that Sopranos creator David Chase has any plans to explain the crazy, controversial, classic ending of that show any time soon. But in this last week of Lost, Damon and Carlton will be popping up here in there. They’ll be giving a live interview on Thursday evening that will be broadcast to select movie theaters around the country; they will be answering questions submitted by Lostpedia fans (though apparently those questions will not deal with the show itself); and they are slated to appear on Jimmy Kimmel Live Sunday night, following the finale – which seems to go against the whole radio silence promise, but maybe their segment is being pre-taped. Or maybe they’re just doing ABC and Jimmy a favor.

FINAL THOUGHT
So to circle back to my opening comments, this episode appears to be one of the most divisive in the show’s history and has generated a heated, love-it-or-hate-it response amongst the fans. The reaction is not lost on Damon and Carlton; Damon said in an interview with the New York Daily News, “We did this episode…some people don’t want to eat the peas in their dish, but it’s there because it’s good for you.” (Bad example. I would argue that the disgusting taste of peas outweighs any health benefits they might offer. But I digress…)

So obviously they feel that the information imparted in this episode is important for what’s to come, and in fairness I’ll say that the content of the episode itself isn’t what frustrated me. It just failed to accomplish what I thought it should, and with precious little time left to make up for that, I enter the final hours of the show with intensified expectations that are probably impossible to meet. Do I need to let go of my expectations and let the show do its thing? Probably. But on the other hand, I didn’t pull my expectations out of thin air. They were set for me, and now I want those who set them to deliver on them. As we return to the aftermath of the submarine trauma and the SidewaysLand coming-together, I’m ready to have my mind blown.

Let’s do this.

Tonight’s Episode: What They Died For

I don’t usually feel the need to say “spoiler alert” in these pieces since they reveal pretty much every detail of what happened. But in case some of you are a week behind and plan to skim this prior to catching up, let me say it now: crazy fucking spoiler alerts. Beginning in the next sentence.

Maybe I’m wrong about this, but I don’t think shows tend to kill off multiple main characters in a single episode; it always seems like the story is rocked at any one time by a death. But as we cross into the true homestretch of Lost, they laid out four, with two so quick and two others so emotional that I could barely focus my mourning in all directions.

There’s no way around it: this episode was brutal. Seeing these characters die is harsh enough, but to lose four series regulars in one episode? That’s right, four. Everyone’s crying over Sun, Jin and Sayid, but what about Lapidus?!? I suppose it’s possible that he made it out and we’ll see him come ashore, but the dude got knocked on his ass by a big metal door that was ejected at him like a bullet by the pressure of flooding water. That thing must have knocked him unconscious…on his back…in a hallway filling violently with water. I don’t see him coming back from that. I may be the only person who gives a damn about Lapidus, but I do. The guy rules, so his death was just as bad for me as the rest of them.

Let’s get into it….

LIKE A SURGEON
At the show’s opening, Locke wakes up from surgery to find a familiar face standing over him: that nice spinal surgeon he met in the Oceanic lost baggage office a week earlier. Jack tells Locke that the surgery was a success, and adds that he was able to see the damage from the original accident that landed him in the wheelchair. He tells Locke that he is a candidate for an experimental surgery that could restore feeling to his legs and maybe even allow him to walk again. To Jack’s surprise, Locke politely refuses.

Unable to let go of his need to fix Locke, Jack learns that three years earlier his patient had received emergency oral surgery. So he seeks out the dentist who performed it, in the hopes of learning about the accident that paralyzed him. That dentist turns out to be Bernard, who tells Jack that he too was on Oceanic 815, seated – along with his wife Rose – right across from Jack. “Pretty weird, huh?” he says. “Maybe you’re onto something here.” Bernard, who has oddly clear memories of Locke’s incident, says that he can’t break his doctor-patient confidentiality in regards to Locke’s records, but he gives Jack the name of a man who was in the accident with him: Anthony Cooper.

Jack tracks Cooper down to a nursing home, and with some help from Helen, learns that he is John’s father. Cooper is wheelchair bound, gazing vacantly at nothing and drooling. He’s hardly the wily conman who pushed Locke out a window or was violently choked to death by Sawyer. Looking at him now, I actually felt sorry for him. And why not? He wasn’t a lying con artist in this timeline. Or was he? In this season’s episode Recon, we saw Detective James Ford trying to track down an Anthony Cooper who had conned his parents years ago. Is this the same Cooper? I doubt it matters at this point, but I wonder.

Back at the hospital, Jack stands over Locke, who is talking in his sleep. “Push the button,” he says first, followed by, “I wish you had believed me.” The latter statement was the lone line in Locke’s suicide note, written to Jack before he attempted to hang himself in The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham. Jack glances up into the hall and sees Claire looking around. They sit down opposite each other in a lounge area, trying to navigate the awkward situation. Claire says she never even met their father (which answers my question from last time about whether or not this timeline echoed the original in that Christian and Claire met after her car accident). Claire opens a cardboard box which contains an elegant wooden music box, which is among the items left for her in Christian’s will. According to Ilana, there will be other things to come but Christian especially wanted her to have this. Claire asks Jack if he might know why, but he doesn’t. When she asks how their father died, Jack explains that he drank himself to death in Sydney. He says that he went down there to bring the body back and the airline lost it. When Claire comments that she just flew in from Sydney herself, he makes the connection that she was on Oceanic 815 too, which freaks them both out (though he doesn’t explicitly say that he was on that flight). Jack sits next to her and the mirror inside the music box’s lid reflects the newly introduced half-siblings. Jack says he’s sorry he can’t help her, and then asks her to stay with him while she’s in town.

C: Stay with you? I mean, we’re…we’re strangers.
J:  No, we’re not strangers, we’re …we’re family.

At some point later, Locke is wheeling himself out of the hospital when Jack approaches to say goodbye, and finally learns how he wound up in the wheelchair.

There’s that line again – “I wish you believed me” – only this time it’s Jack saying it to Locke. The way Locke stops when he hears it…I couldn’t decide if he was just considering the plea, or if the line touched off a memory of his Island-Timeline self (he also had a moment of pause when he passed Jin in the hall).

PRISON BREAK
In the island timeline, Jack wakes up in an outrigger canoe. It’s nighttime and Sayid kneels nearby on the beach and informs him that Locke saved him from a mortar attack and they’re now on Hydra Island. He says those that weren’t killed scattered into the jungle. “It’s just the three of us now.” (So much for Cindy the Flight Attendant and kids Zack and Emma, I guess.)

Further inland, Widmore’s people have moved the pylons from the beach and are re-aligning them around the polar bear cages, which Sawyer, Kate and the others are being forced into by Pudgy Face. Having spent more than enough time in those cages, Sawyer refuses to get in, easily disarming Pudgy and turning the tables until Widmore shows up and puts a gun to Kate’s head. Widmore says he has a list of names that includes Ford, Reyes and the Kwons…but not Austen. He doesn’t care if she dies. Sawyer relents, and they’re all corralled into the cage. “You may not believe it, but I’m doing this for your own good,” Widmore tells Sawyer through the bars. “You’re right,” Sawyer says. “I don’t believe it.” Widmore’s men tell him that the fence won’t be live for an hour, but he insists they haven’t got that much time. “He’s coming,” Widmore says.

And so he is. Back on the beach, Locke returns to Sayid and Jack to report on the predicament facing Sawyer and the rest. I couldn’t find the full clip online, but here’s the first half:

The scene continues with Locke asking for Jack’s help with the rescue, since the others obviously don’t trust him. Jack asks why he should trust him. “Because I could kill you, Jack. Right here, right now. And I could kill every single one of your friends, and there’s not a thing that you could do to stop me. But instead of killing you, I saved your life. And now I wanna save them too. So will you help me?”

In the cage, Kate tells Sawyer that Widmore wouldn’t have killed her, but he says that her name was crossed out on the wall of the cave. “He doesn’t need you, Kate,” Sawyer says. There’ll be more to say about this later…

Those who felt like Sun and Jin’s reunion got the short shrift in the previous episode probably felt better seeing the couple catch up now. They talk about Ji Yeon, and then Sun slides Jin’s wedding ring back on his finger. (I was reminded that on her trip across the island to see Jacob last season, she found Charlie’s Drive Shaft ring in Aaron’s crib. She took it, and I hoped she would have a chance to give it to Claire. Guess that ain’t gonna happen.)

Suddenly the power to nearby lights and the pylons goes down, and the high-pitched roar of a pissed-off smoke billow is heard. Smokey roars into the clearing and starts pummeling Widmore’s men, including Pudgy Face, who it rams into the cage bars right in front of Sawyer and Kate (note that Zoe is conspicuously absent from this attack). Even all of Pudgy’s…pudge…couldn’t stop that from smarting, and he comes to rest in front of the cage. Kate tries to reach for the keys but Jack shows up and takes them himself, letting them all out. “I’m with him,” he says, nodding toward the Smoke Monster.

As they head through the jungle toward the plane, Kate asks Jack if he’s changed his mind about coming. Jack says he’ll help them get to the plane, but he’s not going with them. “I’m sorry Kate. I’m…I’m not meant to go.” Sayid catches up to them, having turned off the power generator to enable to Smokey’s attack, and together they continue toward the plane. Man in Locke is there already, and after taking out Widmore’s armed guards, he climbs aboard and looks around, quickly discovering four bricks of C4 in an overhead bin, wired to the plane’s electrical system. When the others arrive outside the plane, Locke comes out and shows them the C4 he’s removed. He says this is just what Widmore wants. “He wants to get us all in the same place at the same time – a nice confined space we have no hope of getting out of – and then he wants to kill us.” Afraid to risk that the plane hides more explosives, Man in Locke says they’ll have to take the sub instead, which seems to please Sawyer. But as they head away from the plane (Lapidus looking particularly disappointed; I think he was eager to fly again), Sawyer hangs back and talks to Jack.

S: Hey Doc, listen up. You don’t wanna leave this island that’s your own damn business. But I’m gonna ask you for one last favor. I don’t trust that thing one bit, so here’s what I need you to do. Once we get to the dock, you make sure it doesn’t get on the sub.
J:  How am I supposed to do that? You saw what it did back there.
S: Just get it in the water. I’ll take care of the rest.

They all take position in the bushes near the dock, where the submarine appears to be unguarded. They begin their approach, and Sawyer and Lapidus make it safely onboard, where they knock out one crewman and order the captain at gunpoint to get ready to launch. Locke hands Jack his backpack and grabs his own, and the two of them follow the others down to the dock, with Locke telling Jack as they go that whoever told him he had to stay on the island doesn’t know what they were talking about. Jack stops on the dock and says, “John Locke told me I needed to stay.” Then he shoves Man in Locke into the water. Kate suddenly takes a gunshot to the shoulder and topples. They’re under attack from behind and begin exchanging fire. Jack and Sayid help Kate onboard and Sawyer climbs up to the hatch and calls for Claire, who is determinedly shooting Widmore’s people. Locke climbs out of the water looking pissed and also shoots at Widmore’s men, glancing back menacingly at Sawyer as well. Sawyer calls for Claire one last time, but when she continues shooting, he closes the hatch and the sub begins to pull away. When she realizes, she runs toward it but Locke holds her back. His expression has changed to one of satisfaction. “No, trust me. You don’t want to be on that sub.”

INTO THE DEEP
Because he has to treat Kate’s wound, Jack barely has time to be angry that Sawyer has ordered the sub away while he’s still on it. He tells Hurley to go find a first aid kit, but when Hurley comes up empty-handed, Jack goes into his backpack to find a something he can use to stop the bleeding. Instead of his own gear, he finds the block of C4 – wired with a digital wristwatch Man in Locke had removed from one of the dead Ajira guards. They have less than four minutes until detonation, and Jack realizes that they did exactly what Locke wanted. Jin gets on the phone to Lapidus, who is still holding the captain at gunpoint (and who is ironically standing in front of a first-aid kit), and tells him they have to re-surface. When Lapidus reports that it will take more time than they’ve got, Sayid tells them how they might be able to disarm the bomb. But Jack has a theory that they’ll be okay by doing nothing, which he attempts to explain.

With less than a minute to go, Sayid- whose sense of urgency and emotion has returned since his encounter with Desmond – makes a decision.

Lapidus exits the control room to find out what happened, but he lingers for a moment too long in front of a creaking door, which proceeds to fly off its hinges in a burst of water, knocking him down. The sub is rapidly filling with water, and Sun is trapped against a wall by a heavy piece of equipment. They’re enveloped in chaos, and poor Hurley can’t even comprehend what Sayid just did. Jack gives him an oxygen tank and tells him that he has to swim out with Kate through the hole from the blast. “I have to go after Sayid,” Hurley says.

“There is no Sayid!” Jack yells, sending Hurley on his way. Jack, Sawyer and Jin manage to move the wreckage that has Sun pinned, but they quickly realize that her legs are still caught behind some metal below the water. The sub shakes again and something hits Sawyer on the head, knocking him out. Jin tries to free Sun, but she is tightly wedged in. Jin insists that Jack get Sawyer out, which he finally does after sharing a meaningful look with both of them. Sun knows how this is going to end for her and she tells Jin he has to leave, but he refuses. He tries to free her, but they both know it’s hopeless. She says he can’t help her and that he has to go. “I won’t leave you,” he says in Korean. “I will never leave you again.” They hold each other and kiss while the water rises. As the sub drifts to the ocean floor, Sun and Jin’s hands separate while ours reach for a second box of Kleenex.

Dark has fallen by the time Jack pulls Sawyer onto the shore (though I’m not sure which island they’re on). Hurley and Kate stumble over, and fall to their knees over Sawyer, who’s breathing but unconscious. Kate looks remarkably okay for someone who took a bullet to the shoulder, hasn’t been treated and has had to swim out of cold, deep water – even if she was being half-carried. She asks about Sun and Jin, and Jack says they didn’t make it out. She starts to cry, Hurley sobs and Jack walks away to the edge of the water, overcome with grief.

Back on the submarine dock, Man in Locke calmly informs Claire that the sub has sunk. She jumps up, alarmed. “They…they were all on it! Everyone! What, they’re…they’re all dead?”

“Not all of them,” Locke answers, picking up his rifle and his backpack (or is it Jack’s backpack) and striding off. “Wait, wait where are you going?” Claire asks.

“To finish what I started,” he says, leaving her alone and staring after him.

I’m thinking about two things as he heads off to “finish what he started.” First, how does he intend to follow through on that threat if Jack is correct that he can’t kill them himself? Now that the cat’s out of the bag and his true motives are revealed, how will he manipulate them into killing each other, if that’s indeed the only option he has? Reader David Z. was thinking the same thing, and he e-mailed me a theory: “If Kate’s name is crossed out, then I would think FLocke could kill her without any ramifications for his ability to escape the island. Therefore, of the 4 remaining Losties, that makes Kate the only one who is expendable…Since FLocke still wants/needs to kill them, but can’t do it directly, he will need some way to manipulate Sawyer, Hurley and Jack. Enter Kate. I wouldn’t be shocked to see Kate – especially with her injury – somehow fall into the hands of FLocke and see him use her to get Jack and Sawyer to fall in line.”

Second, and this speaks to something David’s comment gets at too, is why does Man in Locke leave Claire alive? Claire’s name is crossed off and he no longer has to pretend that he needs them all (again, assuming we believe Jack’s theory). So why doesn’t he kill Claire right then? Is it because he can’t? Why is he unable to kill them all himself, and does his decision to leave Claire alive mean that the rule applies to all of them, or just those still marked as candidates?

REQUIEM FOR THE FALLEN
When Lost kills off its main characters, I find myself asking whether or not it felt necessary to do so. Each one hurts, but some are easier to understand than others. Boone was the first major casualty, and his death fueled storylines for Shannon, Locke, Jack and Sayid. It was sad, but it made sense. I’d say the same for Ana Lucia and Libby, for Shannon and for Juliet. There was significant dramatic mileage to be had from those deaths. But while watching Sun and Jin’s demise, it didn’t feel like there was a good reason for them to go. It seemed unnecessary and particularly cruel coming right on the heels of their reunion. But watching it a second time, I accepted that sometimes it’s necessary to deal an emotional blow to the audience, as long as it’s not used purely to manipulate their feelings. And this article featuring interviews with Damon, Carlton, Yunjin Kim and Daniel Dae Kim, which was posted on EW.com immediately after the episode aired, shed light on the decision to deal such a blow. (Excerpts from this also made it into the current print edition of EW, which adds that there were “other reasons for killing the trio, too – reasons that will become apparent by the time Lost fades to black on May 23.”)  Oh, and if they thought that showing us Jin in the next scene – the Sideways scene with Locke leaving the hospital – would soften the blow, they were wrong. Sure, everyone is still alive and will be seen again in SidewaysLand, but the island timeline is what feels most real.

Sun and Jin’s deaths were so emotional and drawn out, yet Sayid’s happened so fast that there was barely time to process it. The explosion causes so much craziness that I didn’t even get a chance to absorb what had happened to him (I know how you feel, Hurley). Just like that, after six years, poof! He’s gone. His death was a tad easier to accept initially, only because Sayid seemed fated to meet a grim end. I’ve referred to him before as the tortured torturer because Sayid never gets the happy ending. Shannon: dead. Nadia: dead. Hell, even Sayid himself died already, and when he came back to life, he still seemed to be dead. After killing Keamy in SidewaysLand, he tells Nadia – who he loves but won’t allow himself to be with – that he would have to leave and never come back. With everything that has happened to him, and given the number of people he’s killed, he seemed like the main character most likely to die by the end of the season. Not that that makes it any easier, especially considering that from a pure logic point of view, his death might have been avoided. He didn’t have to run down the corridor with that bomb. He could have chucked it down there and closed the door to the room they were all in. But instead he took no chances, sacrificing himself in a final act of redemption. Sure, it’s a more noble way to go, especially after learning that he didn’t kill Desmond…but screw that! I just want him to live! (Note, by the way, the similarity to Michael’s death. He too died on a boat, trying to stop an explosion from killing his friends). Also note the rare dramatic presentation of an Iraqi blowing himself up to save people rather than kill them. You don’t see that too often.

This logic aspect I spoke of also brought back memories of Charlie’s death. Even more so than Sayid, Charlie’s death seemed avoidable. He could totally have gotten out of that little radio room when it started flooding. He could have escaped the underwater Looking Glass Dharma station with Desmond, but instead he locked himself inside the room and allowed himself to drown, perhaps believing that even though he had accomplished his dangerous task, he still had to die in order for Desmond’s vision of Claire and Aaron getting off the island on a helicopter to come true. (It turned out to be one of Desmond’s only visions – of those we knew about, at least – that never came to pass.) So Sayid’s death echoed both Michael’s and Charlie’s, while Sun and Jin died just as Charlie did too. Even in death, these characters share cosmic connections.

And then there’s Lapidus. When I kept saying in recent write-ups that I wished the writers would give him something to do, I didn’t mean die. Considering that none of the articles or interviews I’ve read in the last week mention his death, maybe it really is possible that he swam out of the sub and will be seen again. But given how hard he went down, I’m assuming the worst. I’ll say this, though: if he does come back, they really better make it payoff, because he’s totally gotten the shaft. When actor Jeff Fahey joined the show at the beginning of Season Four, he was relegated to guest star status while Jeremy Davies, Rebecca Mader and Ken Leung – Faraday, Charlotte and Miles, respectively – came on as series regulars. Finally this season, Fahey got the bump to full time cast member, yet they gave him nothing to do other than flex his awesome-line-delivery muscle. To me, making a character a regular implies that their story is going to deepen, yet Lapidus had less to do this year than in either of the previous two. He hasn’t even shown up in SidewaysLand, though that could still change. (Like Lapidus, Ilana’s death on the island came before we ever got to learn more about her background and how she was connected to Jacob. Perhaps we’ll get some answers in tonight’s big Jacob/Man in Black/Island episode.)

As we work through our grief, I know that some of us are angry at Sawyer for his stubborn refusal to listen to Jack and leave the bomb alone…but let me play devil’s advocate by suggesting that you put yourself in Sawyer’s shoes; the last time Jack proposed a seemingly crazy, suicidal course of action and convinced them all to go along with it, Juliet wound up dead. So can you really blame Sawyer for not trusting him? Now, just as Jack carries the guilt of Juliet, Sawyer will have to shoulder the burden of the deaths caused by his actions. And surely that will propel him through the final hours of the show, for better or worse.

The hardest part about processing these deaths? Knowing that more are likely to come.

LOOSE ENDS/FOOD FOR THOUGHT
-Widmore says that he has a list of names including Ford, Reyes and the Kwons, but not Austen. Sawyer then tells her that her name was crossed out in the cave. That may be true, but we the audience never actually saw her name in the cave. We did, however, see it on the dial in the lighthouse, and it was not crossed off (see #51 below). In a previous write-up, I discussed my assumption that the list of candidates Jacob gives to Ilana and the list he hides in the guitar case that Hurley gives to Dogen must have been the same list, and that Kate must have been on that list since Dogen accepted her into the Temple (along with Jack, Jin, Hurley and Sayid). So were those two lists the same, or did Dogen merely keep Kate around due to her association with the others? Is Widmore’s list the same, or is he working off something different?  Why did Widmore send his people to capture Jin? If his list includes both Jin and Sawyer, why wasn’t Sawyer targeted for capture as well?

-Watching the scene with Jack and Claire at the hospital, I wondered if SidewaysClaire will give birth in the final episode, and if that will have something to do with resolving the two timelines. As I’ve mentioned before, J.J. Abrams said back during Season One that Aaron would come to play a key role in the overall story of Lost. Of course, J.J. Abrams hasn’t had anything to do with the show creatively since that time, plus I think we can all agree that they didn’t know what the hell they were doing in Season One as far as determining the show’s eventual course. So whatever was said about Aaron may not turn out to be accurate any longer, but I’ll be interested to see if he factors into the finish.

-Some fans have argued online that Lapidus must still be alive because he’s the only one who can fly the plane. Others have even said that SidewaysLocke having his pilot’s license will somehow play into the escape from the island. It does seem that the only obvious way off the island is the plane, although it may still be wired with explosives. And even if it isn’t, let’s not forget that Richard, Ben and Miles are still out to blow it up. In fact, could they have placed the C4 on the plane, as opposed to Widmore? I’d guess no. Richard just wants to blow the plane up, period. He seems less concerned with killing the Man in Black than he does in making sure it doesn’t get off the island, so I reason that he wouldn’t hesitate to blow the plane up immediately if he had the chance. And why couldn’t Man in Locke have executed his plan with the C4 on the plane? All he would have had to do is get everyone onboard ahead of him and tell Frank to fire it up while he took a last look around outside. Then boom, it would blow up with everyone but him inside and his plan (as suggested by Jack) would have succeeded.

But I digress. The point I started out wanting to make was that with the submarine gone, the plane seems like the only way off the island. Yet I propose that if something happens to the plane – or maybe even if nothing happens to the plane – there’s one other way that they can leave the island:

Twice this season we’ve been subtly reminded about this. When Jin first wakes up after being captured, Zoe shows him a map of the island and asks him to confirm that certain marked spots represent pockets of electromagnetism. Later, just before Man in Locke throws Desmond into the well, he tells him that this isn’t the only well on the island. So while I have no concrete reason to say so, I’d keep this wheel in mind.

-In last week’s write-up I talked about how we’ve been told that the Man in Black is stuck with the form of John Locke, and how that should mean that when we saw Christian Shephard talk to Sun and Lapidus last season, Christian could not have been the MIB. It occurred to me since then that there was another transformation that seems to defy the stuck-as-Locke logic: Alex. Last season, Man in Locke led Ben to the tunnels near The Temple. Ben fell through the floor into a lower chamber and Locke said he would go find something to help him climb out. But while Locke was gone, the smoke monster emerged from the tunnel floor and enveloped Ben. Then his daughter Alex showed up and told him to do everything John Locke told him to do, or else die. It was pretty clear that Alex was a manifestation of Smokey. But that should not have been possible, since Man in Black had already taken on Locke’s form. Maybe Man in Black did something specific after assuming Locke’s form that made him unable to transform again. If that’s the case, then it’s possible he could have become Christian and Alex before doing whatever that thing is. But I’m guessing this is just another unfortunate plot inconsistency.

-As Sun and Jin shared their last moments, there was no mention of little orphan Ji Yeon, who they did say earlier in the episode is back in Korea with Sun’s mother. Which would be sort of okay if that didn’t also mean that she was back in Korea with Sun’s father. Man, that poor girl is in for a seriously fucked up life.

-If you still feel in need of a Sun/Jin fix, here’s an interview with Yunjin Kim from TV Guide to supplement the one earlier from Entertainment Weekly.

-Alright, so here we are getting down to what Gandalf might call the end of all things, and it’s been a long time since I’ve spat out an ill-formed, half-baked, hole-riddled theory. But I’ve got one now – not fully developed, as usual, but I’ll give to you best I can. Reader Nick P. recently asked me if he had missed a scene where the light-haired boy in the jungle and the dark-haired boy in the jungle were seen walking together, because he thought one of my recent write-ups had included a picture showing that. I said no, the picture I included was a side-by-side comparison of the two boys, who were played by the same actor. Here it is again:

But that doesn’t mean they aren’t supposed to be two different boys in the story. After all, one is light and one is dark. And then I saw a still photo that I assume is from tonight’s episode, of two boys peering through bushes in the jungle (I couldn’t tell if either of them was the same kid as the one above). And then I got to thinking, is it possible that Jacob and the Man in Black are two halves of one whole? That they aren’t just a metaphysical yin and yang, but that they were literally one entity centuries ago and at some point in time, perhaps by a powerful hand, split into two? And that’s why they can’t kill each other? Obviously the light vs. dark theme is central to Lost, but the show has always explored the co-mingling of those forces – the idea that both light and dark exists in us all (not a unique premise, as everyone from George Lucas to J.K. Rowling can attest, but there it is nonetheless). I don’t really know where to go with this…really unformed ideas crowded my head involving Greek and Roman mythology, Adam’s Rib, the castaways being additional physical off-shoots of Jacob and the Man in Black…yeah, I dunno either. But rest assured that if something even remotely like any of this comes to pass, I’ll be trumpeting it like I knew all along and am a total genius.

-I dug that the title of the episode had nothing (overtly, at least) to do with what we expected it to.

-Although I was less able to see the humor after such a dark episode, here is the latest installment of Lost Untangled with Muppet Dr. Chang.

And if he’s just too much of a spaz for you, this Muppet-Lost mash-up might be easier to digest: Damon and Carlton getting sabotaged by a group of fans led by Rizzo the Rat.

-If you haven’t heard, the final episode has been expanded to 2.5 hours. An extra half-hour – or 22 minutes, technically – to wrap it all up. I still don’t think it’s enough, but I’m not complaining.

LINE OF THE NIGHT
If there was one, I couldn’t hear it over the sounds of my gasps and tears.

Tonight’s Episode: Across the Sea

Right off the bat, let me say that I loved this episode, for the way it brought everyone together (in both timelines) as well as for the way it threw the tension into high-gear. My heart was racing for the full hour, which can only mean that the end of the season is fast approaching. Lost always amps up in a season’s final run of episodes…and with this being the end of the series, I have to assume that we’re heading into overdrive.

COME TOGETHER
As I suspected, this episode’s trip to SidewaysLand didn’t focus on one character, but instead kick-started the process of drawing them all together, beginning with Locke arriving at the hospital in the wake of Desmond’s aggressive moving violation. (Locke is accompanied in the ambulance by Ben, and is able to talk to him lucidly during the ride). Another ambulance pulls up to the hospital just as Locke’s does, and this one carries Sun and Jin. Locke and Sun are wheeled in literally side by side, and when Sun turns sideways and sees Locke, she cries out, “No! No! It’s him! It’s him.” An interesting connection between the two timelines. And a creepy one.

Meanwhile, at his police station, Sawyer sits down to talk with Kate about the coincidence of them being on the same plane. “Almost like someone’s trying to put us together,” he says.  Their exchange crackles with the same antagonistic flirting that marked their early island days, and Sawyer is at first bothered by, then turned on by, Kate’s accusation/observation that he didn’t arrest her when he saw her handcuffs at the airport because he didn’t want anybody to know he had been in Australia. Their conversation is interrupted when Miles calls Sawyer away and informs him that there’s been a quadruple homicide at a restaurant. He mentions Keamy by name, and also mentions a female Korean gunshot victim and her non-English speaking boyfriend. They have surveillance video that shows Sayid leaving the restaurant.

Sayid goes back to Omer and Nadia’s and urgently packs his bag. He tells Nadia that things are going to be okay for her now but that he has to leave and can never come back. As she asks what he did, the doorbell rings. She gives it a moment before opening it and letting Miles in. Sayid sneaks out the back, but Sawyer’s on him like hummus on falafel, and arrests him. It seems like Sayid, with all of his training, would think to do something as obvious as look down before sneaking out the door, in case somebody happened to be there holding a hose for him to trip over. But that wouldn’t be narratively convenient.

Claire enters an office building that is home to an adoption agency. As she’s in the lobby signing herself in, Desmond appears beside her. She remembers him from the airport and he walks with her toward the elevators, saying that he noticed she was going to an adoption agency and advising her to have a lawyer with her. He says he happens to be going to see one right now who’s a friend and owes him a favor. Claire seems skeptical that this guy she doesn’t really know is so insistent, but he convinces her. They ascend to floor 15 and into a law office, where Desmond is greeted by his attorney friend – a non-blown-up Ilana. When she gets Claire’s name, she looks taken aback and asks Claire if she’s from Australia. She tells Claire what a coincidence her appearance is, as she’s been looking for her. When she asks Desmond if she can speak to Claire privately, Desmond looks as if he expected this to transpire. Which I suppose he probably did and that’s why he tried so hard to get her into the office: knowing that Claire’s visit to Ilana would put her in touch with Jack. Not sure how Desmond knows about Jack and Claire’s connection, but no matter.

Jack and his son David arrive at the same office building and proceed into the same attorney’s office, where they’re greeted by Ilana (Desmond no longer seems to be there). “Do you believe in fate?” she asks as she ushers them into a conference room and introduces Claire. (If you recall from Jack’s sideways-episode earlier in the season, he and his mother found Christian’s will…in which Claire was named.) “You found her,” Jack says to Ilana. “Actually, she found us.” When Jack asks Claire if she knows why she was in his father’s will, Claire answers that he was her father too (I’m assuming that she’s just learned about this from Ilana, though she may have already met Christian if in SidewaysLand she was still in an car accident with her mother. (It was under those circumstances, prior to getting pregnant, that Claire first became aware of her father.) Jack barely has time to comprehend the news that he has a sister; his pager goes off, summoning him to an emergency at the hospital. He tells Claire and Ilana that he’ll have to reschedule.

Sun wakes up in the hospital, where Jin tells her that she’s going to be fine and that the baby is safe as well. As they savor their good fortune, Jack and David pass by their room, still talking about Claire’s revelation. Jack leaves David waiting while he scrubs in for his surgery, realizing when he gets into the O.R. and catches a view of the patient – Locke – that they’ve met before.

MAN OF SCIENCE, MAN OF SMOKE
What a perfect place to segue into the island action, which picks up right where the previous episode ended: Team Jacob’s arrival at Man in Locke’s camp. Locke tells Jack they have some catching up to do. Sawyer, Kate, Claire and Sayid seem quite fascinated by the arrival of Team Jacob and by Jack and Man in Locke taking off for some male bonding in the woods. They go off on their own, and another one of the series’ great Jack/Locke exchanges unfolds, even if this time Locke isn’t Locke anymore.

The one thing that worries me about the revelation that Jack’s vision of his father in the early Season One episode White Rabbit was really the Man in Black – which therefore leads us to assume that every time we’ve seen Christian Shephard on the island it was the Man in Black – is that it absolves the writers of having to deal with Christian beyond this point. Jack still has some daddy issues to work out and it has seemed for a while like he might have one last chance to hash them over with his father on the island. These issues have been deeply entwined in his journey, not to mention that Christian has been a huge part of the show all along, influencing not just Jack’s life but crossing paths with multiple other castaways as well. So as far as I’m concerned, we need to see actor John Terry return as Christian. He’s been too large a presence for this scene with Jack and Man in Locke to be the resolution. However he’s able to take shape or whatever spectral plane he exists on, we’re owed stronger closure on the curious case of Christian Shephard.

One hopeful sign is that according to the show’s own rules, the Man in Black couldn’t have been Christian every time we’ve seen him. If you recall, earlier this season in The Substitute, Ilana told Ben that the Man in Black couldn’t change his form again now that he had taken on Locke’s appearance. (It hasn’t been explained why that is, but the why is irrelevant to the point I’m about to make; we’ve been told that Man in Black is stuck looking like John Locke.) Yet I take you back to last season, when Ajira 316 crashed on Hydra Island and suddenly John Locke was back from the dead. Except we know now that it was the Man in Black.

Fast forward a few episodes to Namaste, in which Sun and Lapidus travel over to the main island and find the abandoned Dharma barracks at New Otherton. And what else do they find there? Christian Shephard, who shows them the picture with Jack, Kate and Hurley among the Dharma Initiative new recruits from 1977. Therefore…if the Man in Black can’t change his appearance now that he’s adopted Locke’s look, then he couldn’t have been taking on the form of Christian Shephard. So either the writers and producers have once again made a major continuity error – and frankly it wouldn’t be the first time – or there’s evidence to suggest that not every appearance of Christian Shephard on the island has been the Man in Black personally.

WE ARE FAMILY, I GOT MY HALF-SISTER WITH ME
As Man in Locke and Jack make their way back, Locke senses someone following them. Claire steps out of the jungle, and casually says that she’s following them because Jack is her brother. Locke leaves them to catch up. “Did he tell you? That he was the one pretending to be our father?” she asks. “Yeah. Yeah, he told me.” So Claire now knows that Man in Black was pretending to be her father. When did she figure that out? It’s only been a few days since she was in her hut telling Jin that both her father and her “friend” told her the Others had stolen her baby. She kept referring to Locke as her friend, and still referred to her father as if she’d really been with him, yet now she seems to know that they were one and the same.

She tells Jack it’s good to see him, and they embrace – finally with the knowledge of their connection. She says she never had much in the way of family so she’s happy he’s coming with them. When he tells her he hasn’t made up his mind about that yet, she disagrees. “Yeah you have. You decided the moment you let him talk to you. Just like the rest of us. So you know, whether you like it or not, you’re with him now.”

I was glad that Claire’s return was acknowledged by those who hadn’t seen her since she’s been back. She had only a brief moment with Hurley, but that was all I needed. And speaking of Hurley, Sawyer tells him about the submarine and his deal with Widmore, while Kate shares the same with Sun. Sawyer tells Hurley that Sayid isn’t invited, having gone over to the dark side. Hurley cites Anakin Skywalker to argue that people can come back from the dark side. Sayid does seem pretty far gone, and yet…well, we’ll get to that.

Zoe, from The Fightin’ Widmores, marches into Man in Locke’s camp and tells him that he took something from them which they want back. Man in Locke feigns ignorance, just as Widmore did when Locke went to reclaim Jin. Zoe pulls out a walkie-talkie and asks someone on the other end if they have a fix on her position and to show Locke what they’re capable of. A missile sound is heard overhead and suddenly there’s a huge explosion just outside the camp. She tells Locke he has until nightfall to return what he took or the next time the explosion wouldn’t miss. She gives Locke the walkie and leaves. Locke drops it on the ground and smashes it. “Well,” he says, “here we go.”

He gathers everyone together and says that while this is happening a bit earlier than expected, Widmore’s actions have forced his hand and that they’re leaving for Hydra Island. What is it about everyone’s timeline being thrown off? When Zoe and her team kidnapped Jin, Widmore was upset because it wasn’t supposed to happen for days. Then the experiment on Desmond happened earlier than Zoe and Co. were prepared for. Now this. Why is the timing of all this so important?

SPECIAL ASSIGNMENTS
Locke gives Sawyer a hand-drawn map and points out a spot where there’s a boat anchored. He tasks Sawyer with getting the boat and meeting the rest of them at another spot on the map for the trip to Hydra Island. Sawyer says he could use another pair of hands, and asks Kate to accompany him. Locke then calls Sayid away, and as they exit together, Sawyer approaches Jack and gives him the map. He says they aren’t meeting Locke. First chance Jack gets, he’s to grab Hurley, Sun and Lapidus and make for another point where there’s a dock. He says they’ll sail over to Hydra together and cash in on the deal with Widmore. Jack asks about Sayid and Claire. Sawyer says Sayid’s a zombie and Claire is nuts. “She gave up her ticket when she tried to kill Kate.”

Meanwhile, Locke instructs Sayid to go out to the well where Desmond is and kill him. (We’ll ignore the fact that Desmond’s head-first plunge into that well should have killed him already.) In their encounter, Desmond just looks up – still unafraid, but showing a little more emotion than he has since his incident in the wooden shack. Sayid, on the other hand, remains completely devoid of emotion.

Sayid doesn’t answer Desmond’s last question, or rather we don’t see him answer. But I like how the question recalls Michael and the way he alienated Walt by telling him about killing Ana Lucia and Libby (we never see that, but it’s referred to in Season Four’s Michael-flashback, Meet Kevin Johnson).

Also, we never did find out how Sayid came back to life and became infected with what Dogen referred to as “poison.” How did Man in Locke, who was nowhere near The Temple at the time, manage to infiltrate Sayid’s body with the illness Dogen diagnosed him with?

Although it happens later in the episode, the clip also includes the scene with Man in Locke finding Sayid, who may well have been on his way to rejoin Locke’s crew, though I got the feeling something else was afoot. He seemed to be looking up, at the trees. I’m sure the fact that we didn’t see the outcome of his encounter with Desmond for ourselves means we can safely assume he didn’t carry out his orders. And if we’re right, what’s his plan now? Did Desmond manage to reach the fading glimmer of humanity that might still be alive inside Sayid? Is it possible he even helped Desmond out of that well? My guess is that when Locke found him, he was looking for something that he could lower down to Desmond to help him climb out. (I was surprised by the outcome of their scene, considering that in the preview for this episode that aired the week before, Sayid fired his gun into the well. Maybe the “exploding bullet” effect was just added to the preview to throw us off.

As Desmond and Sayid are having their tense moment, Sawyer and Kate arrive at the shore near the boat. Sawyer lets her in on his plan, and she notes that his list of fugitives doesn’t include Claire.

S: She ain’t comin.’  The Claire you came back for is gone.
K: I promised I would bring her back.
S: That’s before she started drinkin’ Locke’s kool-aid. She’s dangerous; you really want her around Aaron?

Kate isn’t comfortable with the decision, but there’s no time to argue now. They head into the water and make for the boat – which, if you’re wondering, is Desmond’s boat – the Elizabeth. If you recall Season Two’s finale Live Together, Die Alone you may remember that the boat is named after Libby – who gave it to Desmond after a chance encounter in which she shared the story that her husband died before ever getting to sail it.

BEST LAID PLANS
As Man in Locke’s group marches across the island, Jack asks Claire how long she’s been with Locke. “Ever since you left,” she says.” When he asks if she trusts him, she says yes, because he was the only one who didn’t abandon her. To which I just have to say – let’s be fair, Claire Bear: nobody abandoned you. Let’s recap what happened:

a) You walked off into the jungle with your inexplicably island-occupying father, leaving your baby behind. Sure, he probably cast some funky voodoo on you, seeing as he wasn’t really your father, but still.

b) Your friends, after failing to locate you, tried to get to the freighter, with the intention of coming back to the island on the helicopter to look for you. But then the helicopter got shot and was leaking fuel…

c) …which doesn’t matter anyway, because the island DISAPPEARED in front of their eyes. And then they crashed.

So while your circumstances are genuinely regrettable, let’s not be passive-aggressive toward your friends and family. The only abandoning that happened was you abandoning your baby – again, under the influence of a force powerful enough that we can’t blame you. And now that you know “Locke” was pretending to be your father and that he’s the one who lured you away from your baby, from your friends, from rescue…isn’t he pretty much the last person who deserves your trust at this point?

When Locke leaves the group to go look for Sayid, Jack – acting without having time to think, as he still hasn’t made up his mind about his intentions and what he thinks Man in Locke is up to – quickly gathers Hurley, Sun and Lapidus and leads them away from the pack unnoticed by all…except Claire, who watches with an understandable look of anger and hurt on her face: that, Claire, is being abandoned.

Jack, Hurley, Sun and Frank find Sawyer and Kate docked and waiting. As they board, Frank assumes they’re using the boat to get away, but Sawyer says they can’t do that without the proper bearing. For three years the only way Dharma folk got on or off the island was via submarine, so that’s what they’re doing. But they’re barely all onboard when Claire shows up, rifle pointed. Kate moves toward her and attempts to reason with her.

K: We’re leaving the island.
C: Then why aren’t you waiting for John?
K: Because that’s not John, and whoever he is, he’s not one of us. Claire, come with us. I can get you back to Aaron.
S: Wait a damn…
K: Sawyer, shut up. She is coming or I’m not. Come with us, Claire.
C: John promised me…
K: I’m promising you. I was there when he was born. And I never should have raised him. It should have been you. I came back to get you so you could be with him again. That’s the only reason I came back to the island, Claire. So please come with us. Let’s go home.

Claire agrees to go with them, allowing Kate to take her rifle. But she warns, “He finds out we’re gone, he’s gonna be mad.”

As they make for Hydra Island, Jack sits alone on the other side of the boat from the others, and Sawyer goes over to talk to him…

I think this may be the first time that Jack has ever called Sawyer by the name James. After Sawyer tells him to get off the boat, Jack looks toward Kate and then jumps anyway. When he and Sawyer square off in last season’s finale, Jack tells Sawyer that part of his reason for wanting to reset the timeline and stop 815 from crashing is that he’d had Kate and he lost her. When Sawyer reasons that they probably won’t even meet if the plane lands safely in Los Angeles, Jack just says that if it’s meant to be, it will be. So it’s a sign of his current state of mind that he’s no longer motivated by a desire to be with Kate. He’s now making decisions based on what his gut is telling him is right for him. He chooses the Island over Kate because he’s now being driven by a sense of destiny, or some other force inside him. (On the other hand, he told Kate in the same episode that detonating Jughead felt more right than anything he’d ever done. He knew it was what he was supposed to do…so that decision may have come out of both heartache and a sense of destiny. And we may yet find out he was right.)

Jack makes it back to shore, where Locke and a few of his people are standing. “Nice day for a swim,” he says, scanning the ocean. “Sawyer took my boat, didn’t he?” Jack confirms it. I wonder if Locke thinks that Jack came back because he’s chosen his side.

REUNITED AND IT FEELS SO…GOOD?
Sawyer and Co. arrive on Hydra Island, where the pylons run along the beach. No sooner have they stepped ashore do Zoe and some of Widmore’s team pop up pointing guns. Zoe recognizes Sawyer and radios Widmore. As this is happening, Jin arrives on the beach and he and Sun see each other. It’s been three years since they’ve been together, and they run into each other’s arms for a welcome reunion. Now I know many people feel that the reunion felt short. I’ve also heard comments that it felt anti-climactic. I didn’t think it seemed too short. What more could they have done really, other than strip down and begin making sweet love on the beach like Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr in From Here to Eternity?

I can go with the anti-climactic argument a little more easily. For me, the reunion was dampened by the fact that I was terribly afraid something awful was going to happen in that moment. I thought maybe the pylons were turned on to some deadly frequency like the full-sized ones near New Otherton, and that when Sun ran toward Jin and crossed behind them they were going to fry her brain and she would collapse in Jin’s arms, dead. Or that one of them was going to get shot. Or that a terribly animated CGI shark was going to jump out of the water totally unexpectedly and eat Lapidus.

There was a really cool moment that I missed upon first viewing: two brief shots of Sawyer reacting to Sun and Jin’s embrace. The second one, especially, is a great moment where Sawyer’s own loss crosses his face, and we see that while he’s happy for Sun and Jin, he’s heartbroken for himself and the fact that no similar reunion awaits him and Juliet.

Opinions that the reunion was anti-climactic might also have to do with Zoe receiving her instructions from Widmore and telling Sawyer and the rest to get on their knees. When Sawyer protests that he had a deal with Widmore, she tells him the deal’s off.  She then radios someone else, asking if they have a lock on Locke. She orders a fire, and back on the main island’s shore, Jack and Locke look around as a missile sound is heard. Jack leaps out of the way as an explosion rocks the beach. He lands in the sand, a little bloody and disoriented, and Locke runs over and pulls him out of the way before another explosion hits right where he was lying. Locke carries him just into the jungle and sits him against a tree, where he tells him not to worry. “You’re with me now,” he says reassuringly.

Wish I knew whether or not that was really so reassuring.

LOOSE ENDS/FOOD FOR THOUGHT
-So if the deal is off, what is Widmore’s intention with them? What are all of Widmore’s intentions? What was Desmond supposed to do for him?

-Damon Lindelof recently gave an interview to The Hollywood Reporter in which he talked about the end of the season and said that while the finale will definitely serve as an end to the story, it will be open for interpretation and debate, just as Lost has always been. So whatever mysteries from the past six years get solved in the next few weeks, expect there to be one that we can debate and puzzle over for the rest of our natural lives.

-That link above contains this link, but I wanted to call it out separately. It has scans from a TV Guide feature with the final official cast photo of the show, along with a fun bonus of each actor naming another TV show to which their character might be well suited.

-A friend passed on this link to the Flickr page of an artist who has created posters for every single episode of Lost (or is continuing to create them. It looks like he’s only gotten about halfway through Season Five). These are pretty cool, especially if you can actually recall episode titles and what occurred in each given installment; or to put it another way, especially if you’re sick like me.

-And here is Muppet Dr. Chang with Lost Untangled’s breakdown of The Last Recruit.

If you just can’t get enough, this one is essentially a rap video about the life and times of John Locke.

These things are like watching Muppets on steroids.

-Will you please, for the love of GOD, give Lapidus something to do in these last four episodes?

LINE OF THE NIGHT
“We’re gonna ditch Locke. You, me, Jack, Hurley, Sun and that pilot who looks like he stepped off the set of a Burt Reynolds movie.” – Sawyer

Tonight’s Episode: The Candidate

CRAZY HEART
This episode’s title, in addition to invoking Ray Romano, recalls the Season Two episode Everybody Hates Hugo. This time around, off-island Hurley is not cursed by his lottery numbers, but is happy and celebrated as a generous philanthropist who has used his fortune as owner of the world-famous Mr. Cluck’s Chicken to support all manner of charitable causes. The episode begins with Dr. Chang speaking at a benefit dinner honoring Hurley as Man of the Year for his donation of a new Paleontology wing to Chang’s (and Charlotte’s) museum. But as he leaves the ceremony with his mother, she complains that he needs a woman in his life and tells him that she’s set up a blind lunch date for him with the daughter of a neighbor.

She delivers the message with her typical hilarious, tough love chutzpah. In case this is the last time we see her, let’s acknowledge how great she’s been every time she’s showed up. I toast you, Lillian Hurst! I wish Cheech Marin had made it on as Hurley’s dad, but we can’t have everything.

Hurley sits alone at a restaurant awaiting his lunch date’s arrival when a woman approaches and says, “Hugo?” He looks up and sees Libby. A little floored by how pretty she is, he invites her to sit down, thinking she’s his date. She says she’s not his date; she saw him and had to come talk to him. She takes his hands and asks if he believes people can be connected, like soul mates. He says he supposes so, and she looks at him with sad, searching eyes. “You don’t remember me, do you?” she asks.

Suddenly a man – who astute viewers may have recognized as one of Hurley’s doctors during his stay in the mental hospital back in Season Two’s Dave – comes up and asks Libby if she’s bothering Hurley. He leads her away, apologizing to Hurley and saying that she isn’t well. But before he goes, Libby tells Hurley that she meant everything she said. Hurley follows them out and sees the doctor loading Libby and others into a minivan labeled Santa Rosa Mental Health Institute.

The next day, Hurley goes into a Mr. Cluck’s and orders a whole bucket, which he proceeds to sit down and eat by himself, looking miserable all the while. He looks up when he senses someone watching him, and standing by the counter is Desmond.  He walks over and tells Hurley that he recognizes him – that they were on same flight the week before. He sits down while waiting for his order and comments on the amount of chicken Hurley is packing away. Hurley says he eats when he depressed. Assuming it must be about a woman, Desmond asks about it. Hurley tells him about Libby and how she thinks she knows him but is literally crazy. Desmond leans in. “Did you believe her when she said she knew you?” he asks. When Hurley says he kinda did, Desmond suggests he go with his gut…at least long enough to find out where she thinks she knows him from. He gets up when his number – 42 – is called. “It was nice bumpin’ into you,” he says as he leaves.

So this must be what Desmond wants to show his fellow Flight 815 passengers…or at least the ones whose names he probably recognizes from the manifest he asked for. Is he simply trying to bring the 815ers together in order to trigger these flashes to the island world? How does he know what will set off those flashes, and if they’ll even occur at all? His “memories” came back to him when Charlie made a gesture similar to one he’d made before. But to hear Faraday’s story in the previous episode, all it took for him to know something was up was seeing Charlotte across a room. And for Charlie, it happened in a state of unconsciousness. So it can’t just be sight recognition; we’ve seen too many encounters in SidewaysLand that haven’t yielded any flashes to “bizzaro alternate universe,” as Hurley calls it. Hurley and Locke have interacted, as have Locke and Rose, Locke and Ben, Locke and Jack, Jack and Sayid, Sayid and Jin, Claire and Kate, and Kate and Sawyer (whose Sideways storyline we still need to pick up on; last we saw them, Kate had just been caught by Officer Ford after slamming into his car and trying to flee on foot.)

CONNECT FOUR
Hurley goes to see Dr. Brooks at the mental institution and asks if he can see Libby. Brooks doesn’t think it’s a good idea, explaining that Libby has issues with reality. So Hurley whips out his checkbook and offers a $100k donation. That buys him entry into the rec room and a visit with Libby. When she sits down with him and he asks where she thinks she knows him from, she tells him how crazy it will sound. She says she saw him on TV and suddenly felt she’d been hit on the head; memories came washing over her, but they were memories of a different life – one in which they were in a plane crash, then on an island, and where they knew and liked each other. Then when she came to the institution, she felt like she’d been there before and had seen him there as well. He says he’s never been in a mental hospital. She says that she approached him in restaurant because she thought that if he remembered too, she would know she wasn’t crazy. Looney tunes or not, he likes her and asks if she’s allowed out on day passes. She says she’s there voluntarily and can leave at any time, so he asks her out on a date.

They get together for a picnic at the beach, which she describes as being like a date they never had. When she kisses him, he suddenly gets hit with flashes just like Desmond did in the MRI machine. Moments of him and Libby from the island appear to him, and he pulls away from her, looking a little freaked out. When she asks what’s wrong, he tells her that he’s remembering stuff. Then we see Desmond sitting in his car, watching them. He must know somehow that his work there is done, and he drives off.

This whole thing with Libby was a creative way to come back around to her unresolved storyline…even if it doesn’t really resolve it. I doubt that when Libby was revealed to be a fellow patient with Hurley at Santa Rosa (also in Dave) that this sideways premise was Damon and Carlton’s plan, but since the  mystery turned out to be one of the most consistently asked questions among the fans, they might have felt obligated to deal with it. But it still doesn’t explain Libby’s backstory. Nothing we learn in this episode addresses why she was in the mental institution to begin with…and that was what the fans kept asking about, especially since when she was revealed as a patient there, she seemed to be watching Hurley from across the rec room. So this was pretty much a cheat – but it’s a cool cheat, so I’ll let it slide.

After moving on from spying the beach scene, we find Desmond in a school parking lot, where he watches Locke roll himself toward his van. A knock at the window distracts him, and Desmond finds Ben standing there, suspicious of this man who has been parked at a school for a while, watching. Showing no sign of recognizing Ben, Desmond says he’s new in the neighborhood and looking for a school for his son. After a brief chat, during which Desmond never looks away from Locke for too long, Ben moves on. And as Locke enters the middle of the parking lot, Desmond drives toward him and then slams on the gas and smashes into Locke, who goes flying out of his wheelchair, over the car and onto the ground. Desmond keeps driving as Ben and others rush to Locke, who lies on the ground bloody and battered.

My initial reaction to this was probably the obvious one: that Desmond was trying to kill Locke. I figured the idea was that if he killed Locke in SidewaysLand it would somehow affect Man in Locke’s state on the island. But then I wondered if the point of running down Locke wasn’t to kill him, but to bring him in contact with Dr. Jack Shephard. If that was the true motive, again, it seems to be relying on an awful lot of chance. Chance that Locke won’t just die from being struck; chance that Jack will be the doctor to work on Locke; chance that the two of them coming together will result in one or both of them accessing “memories” of the island. And hell, isn’t there a better way to get Locke and Jack together without resorting to a hit and run? If Locke and Jack do end up crossing paths in the hospital, might they also run into Sun and Jin, who could wind up there for Sun’s gunshot wound?

ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST
Hurley is visiting Libby’s grave when he hears the jungle whispers and suddenly sees Michael standing there, dressed as he was when he died in the freighter explosion. He says he’s there to make sure Hurley doesn’t get everyone killed, claiming that a lot of people will die if they blow up the Ajira plane and that it will be Hurley’s fault because people are starting to listen to him (thanks to his increasingly relevant gift for bringing out the dead). Michael makes Hurley realize that maybe he can exert some influence.

Ilana soon returns to the camp after a visit to the Black Rock, and she carries in her bag four sticks of dynamite, enough to destroy the cockpit of the plane. Hurley suggests this isn’t the best course of action, but Ilana insists that she has been training all her life to protect them and he has to trust her. Jacob said Richard would know what to do, she reasons, and Richard said to blow up the plane. Richard makes clear that his determination hasn’t wavered. But Hurley says Jacob never told him that, and suggests Richard might be wrong. He argues that the plane is their only way off the island, and also worries about how unstable the dynamite is…a fact that Ilana is clearly not respecting as she swings the bag around casually, loading a water bottle inside – on top of the dynamite – and removing the bag from her shoulder and placing it roughly on the ground…where it blows up.

Paging Dr. Arzt…

Ilana’s death was as shocking as it was inevitable, as she showed no care with that bag of explosives. Given that she handled it with no regard for the danger it posed, I was almost waiting for it to blow. I guess I didn’t know if it would because killing her off now seems premature. It feel like there’s still unfinished story there, seeing as we haven’t gotten her full backstory detailing her relationship with Jacob and how she wound up in the hospital where he gave her this assignment. With six hours of show left, will we find out any of these details? Maybe they’re still to come…

Hurley finds the sack filled with Jacob’s ashes among Ilana’s things. I’m not sure if he knows what it is, and we don’t see whether or not he takes it with him, but my guess is that he does. I feel like it might be important later. Richard says they have to get more dynamite or Ilana will have died for nothing. “Maybe she died to show us to stay the hell away from dynamite,” Jack says. Richard says he’ll take his chances. (And from his failed suicide attempt we can glean that if anyone can handle the dynamite safely, it’s Richard. And probably Jack too.) Jack has concerns about the plan, but Hurley now says Richard is right and asks Jack to trust him. So Jack agrees and they set off for the Black Rock. As they walk, Ben ponders Ilana’s fate.

B: Kinda makes you think, doesn’t it?
J: What’s that?
B: Ilana. There she was, handpicked by Jacob, trained to come and protect you candidates, and no sooner does she tell you who are then she blows up. The Island was done with her. Makes me wonder what’s gonna happen when it’s done with us.

Maybe that’s it. Ilana’s death seems premature to me, just as Dogen’s did, but perhaps their only real purpose was to serve as vessels for the delivery of information.  On a side note, I felt like Ben’s tone of voice had the old ring of manipulation, but he was probably just expressing a legit concern. Still, has Ben played his last Machiavellian card yet?

LINE IN THE SAND
When they arrive at the Black Rock, Richard tells the others to wait while he goes in alone, but then he notices Hurley isn’t there. They discover his whereabouts roughly three seconds later, when he comes running out of the ship’s hull yelling at them all to get back…and then the ship blows. Richard ain’t happy, but Hurley said he was protecting them. When Miles asks why he did it, Hurley says that Michael – “one of the people who come back and yell at me after they die” – told him to. Miles, the one person who can understand what Hurley is talking about, asks if that happens a lot. “It happens enough,” Hurley says. Miles asks if he just does whatever the dead tell him to do. “Dead people are more reliable than alive people,” Hurley responds…in what may be the most depressing line in the history of the show.

Richard asks Ben if there are still grenades at the Dharma barracks. Ben says yes, and so Richard wants to go there. When Jack suggests they talk about it, Richard says there isn’t time. He asks if Jack has a better idea, and Hurley says he knows what to do: they have to go talk to Locke. “Are you trying to get us killed?” Ben asks. Hurley says he’s taking his direction from Jacob, and points to indicate that Jacob is there. Richard tells Hurley to ask Jacob what the island is. He says that Jacob told him once what the island is, and wants Hurley to ask him now. Hurley tells Richard he doesn’t have to prove anything to him; he can either come with him to see Locke or keep trying to blow stuff up.

“He’s lying,” Richard says. “Jacob isn’t telling us what to do, because Jacob never tells us what to do. I’m gonna make this simple. If that thing leaves the island, that’s it. It…it’s over.

“What’s over?” Miles asks.

“Everything,” Richard answers. “I’m destroying that plane. And I can use all the help I can get. Who’s coming with me?”

Ben gets up to go with him. Miles does too, saying to Hurley, “I’ve seen that thing in action, man. It doesn’t wanna talk. Sorry.”

Richard looks to the others, but Frank shakes his head no (he’s the pilot, of course he doesn’t want to blow up his baby) and Sun stays put. Jack, having sat passively the whole time as Hurley pointed to Jacob and challenged Richard’s direction,  says if Jacob told them to go talk to Locke, that’s what they should do. He sticks with Hurley. “Don’t get in our way,” Richard warns as he, Ben and Miles leave.

The “what the island is” bit is interesting, since Damon and Carlton have said that’s one question they are unlikely to answer before the series ends. Their position has been that there would really be no satisfactory answer to that question, and to even try offering one would be akin to Star Wars Episode I’s ill-advised deconstruction of The Force through the introduction of midichlorians (I think I’ve made this point before. Forgive the double-dipping). On the other hand, Jacob’s illustration to Richard using the wine bottle and the cork sort of did answer what the island is, without getting down to the details, so who knows. Maybe we will get a more direct answer. I also like how Richard knows Jacob isn’t really there because Jacob doesn’t tell people what to do. That was the whole reason Jacob offered Richard a job to begin with (although at this stage in the game Jacob has been giving explicit directions to Hurley: go to The Temple, give Dogen the guitar case, bring Jack to the lighthouse, etc.).

SPIRITS IN THE MATERIAL WORLD
The groups keep sub-dividing, so we now have four island crews to follow: Widmore, Jin, Zoe and their gang; Locke and his gang; Richard, Ben and Miles; and Team Jacob. As the latter group continues on their way, Hurley and Jack talk.

H: So what do you think we should say to Locke when we get there? I mean…how do you break the ice with the Smoke Monster?
J:  Don’t worry about it. Something tells me he’s gonna do most of the talking.
H: Or he could just kill us all.
J:  Yeah. He could.
H:  I didn’t see Jacob back there. I just said it ‘cause I wanted everyone to listen to me.
J:   I know.
H: Then why’d you come with me?
J:  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 have 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…maybe I’m supposed to let go.
H: Unless you letting go gets us killed. Going to see Locke was my idea, not Jacob’s.
J:  Hurley, you asked me to trust you. This is me trusting you.

Maybe Jack can fix it. Maybe Jack will succeed in keeping all the promises he’s made – the promise to get Sun back together with Jin and get both of them off the island, the promise that detonating Jughead would work – and the cost will be either his life or his staying behind. Maybe Jack will remain on the island and hang out with his dad…who’s bound to show up again soon, what with only six hours left.

Team Jacob hears the jungle whispers, but this time Hurley thinks he knows what causes them. He tells Jack, Sun and Frank to wait and then goes around the corner and calls out for Michael, who steps out from the trees.

H: You’re stuck on the island, aren’t you?
M: ‘Cause of what I did.
H: And there are others out here, like you, aren’t there? That’s what the whispers are?
M: Yeah. We’re the ones who can’t move on.

Michael points out where Locke’s camp is, and when Hurley Joel Osment asks if there’s anything he can do to help, Michael tells him not to get himself killed. “And Hurley? If you ever do see Libby again, tell her I’m very sorry.”

So it looks like we just crossed off another big Lost mystery: the whispers. Did anyone else find it to be kinda anti-climactic? I don’t mind that the concept of the dead being unable to move on has been done before (Poltergeist, Ghost and The Return of the King leap to mind); it’s more that the revelation felt rushed and tacked on. I wish it had been explained with a little more weight to it. So anybody who dies on the island (or in its vicinity, as was the case with Michael) and who did some pretty heavy-duty sinning while there is doomed to remain in spiritual limbo? And collectively these lost souls cause the living to hear ominous whispers? Is there any rhyme or reason to when the whispers occur? When Ben kidnapped baby Alex from Rousseau, he gave her a warning: “If you want your child to live, every time you hear whispers you run the other way.” But if Hurley and Michael’s explanation for the whispering is all there is to it, what was Ben’s statement supposed to mean? If you think back over the series to all the times the whispers were heard, the sound didn’t necessarily portend anything “happening.” Sometimes it preceded a strange occurrence, but sometimes it was the strange occurrence and nothing else happened. I guess at this point in the game beggars can’t be choosers; if they solve a mystery, I’ll take it. I just hope they’ve put a little more thought and care into the answers than they seem to have put into this one (and if there’s more yet to learn about the whispers, then I’ll stand corrected. I hear that episode #15 is going to be a big “Island” episode, so maybe we haven’t heard the last on the subject).

Also, while I’m griping, I wish Michael’s return had been a little more substantive. I’m glad we saw him, but I was hoping he’d have a bit more to do, and that he might pop up in SidewaysLand. I still think that his story arc was badly mishandled when they brought him back in Season Four, and so I hoped this episode would finally see them make amends for that botch job. Even if Hurley had told him he had seen Walt when he left the island and that Walt was doing alright, allowing Michael to take that in, that would have been something. After all, he killed Libby and Ana Lucia in order to save Walt. (Ahem…WALT!) He’d probably be moved to know that he really did manage to save his son. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case. Maybe there’ll be more with him in the remaining episodes. (Yeah, I know I keep saying that even though we’re running out of time.)

A WALK IN THE WOODS
Sawyer and Kate approach Man in Locke as he carves a long wooden stick. Sawyer is increasingly impatient with the lack of activity. (When Man in Locke asks if he can do something for them, an exasperated Sawyer shoots back, “How about anything?”) Man in Locke says that waiting is not the same thing as doing nothing. When Kate asks what he’s waiting for, he points out that she and her Ajira flight companions were only able to come back to the island because they did it together. He says the same goes for leaving, and so they need Jack, Sun and Hurley. Kate says she doesn’t see that happening.

Just then, Sayid returns and asks to speak to Man in Locke privately. He takes him into jungle not far away and says that he returned from Hydra Island with Widmore’s package. Locke lays eyes on Desmond, tied to a tree but seemingly not bothered by that fact. He’s just chillin.’ Locke unties him and asks why Widmore brought him to the island. Desmond says he was kidnapped, so Widmore would have to answer that question. He says that Widmore put him into a wooden shack and blasted him with electromagnetism (which he says he recognized from experience). He answers Man in Locke’s questions with an eerie calm. He seems almost as devoid of emotion as Sayid has been since killing Dogen and Lennon. When Man in Locke asks if Desmond knows who he is, Desmond says, “Of course. You’re John Locke.” But he says it in a strange way, almost mockingly straightforward, as if he’s playing along but knows that Man in Locke knows he’s playing along. Locke sends Sayid back to the camp and asks Desmond to take a walk with him; he wants to show him something.

L: Remind me Desmond, how long were you down in that hatch pushing that button?
D: Three years.
L: And here you are, back for more. If I didn’t know better I’d think this island had it in for you.
D: Do you know better?
L: Excuse me?
D: There’s nothing special about me, brotha. This island has it in for all of us.
L: Yes it does.

And then Man in Locke sees a boy standing in the jungle, watching them. He’s dressed like the boy Locke saw when he was on his way to Jacob’s cave with Sawyer. But that boy was blonde, and this one has dark hair. (It is the same boy, however. I wasn’t sure, so I looked it up. Same actor.) Desmond sees him too and asks Man in Locke who it is. Locke says to ignore him. Desmond asks if he knows the boy and Locke repeats himself, angrily.

That first boy spoke to Locke on his trek with Sawyer and said, “You can’t kill him.” Some of you took that to mean Locke couldn’t kill Sawyer, whereas I thought otherwise (because I didn’t think Locke was even planning to kill Sawyer…at least, not on that journey). But here is Locke taking another person for an island show-and-tell, and this time his intentions are…well I’ll get to it, but if you saw the episode you know what Man in Locke does. So is this lost boy trying to stop Locke from killing his fellow travelers, or is he trying to send some other message? Who was the blonde boy talking about that Man in Locke can’t kill? Note that neither Sawyer nor Desmond were on Ajira 316. Maybe Man in Locke really only needs the ones who were on it in order to leave the island. Why did he recruit Sawyer, then? Perhaps he thought Sawyer would be leverage for getting Kate…and with both Kate and Claire he could get Jack.

Man in Locke and Desmond arrive at a clearing with a well in the middle of it. This is not the same well as the one at The Orchid with the island-moving wheel at the bottom, but apparently it shares a connection with that one.

How much easier it would have been for those people if they could have had Gatorade instead of having to dig wells to get energy. Anyway, when he gets back to camp, Sayid asks what happened to Desmond.

LOOSE ENDS/FOOD FOR THOUGHT
-In an interview with TV Guide after this episode, Jorge Garcia said something that raised my eyebrows: “[The Man in Black] did give them his word that he wasn’t going to do anything. It’s been established that he has to keep his word. So if he gives his word, then he’s bound to it.” Umm…really?  I don’t ever recall seeing or hearing that established. Does anyone else?

-Also in TV Guide, there was a viewer mail question that caught my interest. The question was, “Do you think Lost’s sideways timeline occurs concurrent with island events or after?” To answer the question, TV Guide cited this quote from Yunjin Kim: “Obviously Jin was infertile on the island, but in the flash-sideways he’s perfectly healthy. I don’t know if that’s because we spent time on the island, even though it’s a different lifeline, and the island cured his infertility, therefore in the flash-sideways he’s completely healthy. That’s what I assumed when I read the script.” (Far be it from me to correct one of the stars of the show, but for the purposes of this discussion it should be clarified that Jin was infertile before going to the island. Somehow the island fixed that little problem.)

For my part, I’ve assumed a little of both, especially more recently. I’ve been operating off the idea that the two timelines are running basically concurrently, with the understanding that the sideways stuff is taking place days after Flight 815 whereas at this point in the island timeline it’s been three years since Flight 815. Hence people who died on the island – like Charlie and Faraday – are alive in SidewaysLand. But also, the fact that people in SidewaysLand are making the connection to the island timeline means that in a weird, bending-the-space-time-continuum sort of way, the sideways timeline is happening after the island events. Kind of. Maybe the best way to say it would be that the timelines are concurrent, but the sideways line is informed by the island line. That’s my take, anyway.

-Oh, and supposedly we will find out why/how Jin was initially infertile in the original timeline vs. fertile in the sideways timeline.

-I often bring up Ghostbusters, Star Wars and Back to the Future (hmm, you don’t say) as touchpoints for Lost, but there’s another one that has come up this season which I keep neglecting to mention, though some of you have talked to me about it: Willy Wonka. The only way that Jacob bringing people to the island to find the one candidate worthy of replacing him as its protector could be more Wonka-esque is if the jungle was made of candy and the waterfalls were chocolate. Still, I found it surprising – and pretty awesome –  that the “Next Week on Lost” clip at the end of this episode directly referenced the classic Gene Wilder film by using the creepy song that Wonka sing-speaks to the children and their parents when they’re boating down the chocolate river and enter that crazy psychedelic tunnel with freaky images projected all over the walls.  I wonder if Jacob’s chosen candidate will get a lifetime’s supply of chocolate.

-Speaking of the preview for next week’s – tonight’s – episode, I’m not giving anything away to say that we know Desmond survives the fall into the well, because we see him sitting down there. (And if surviving that fall isn’t further evidence that the Island has a higher purpose for him, what is?) But it also shows us Sayid walking up to that well with a gun and firing it down at Desmond. So…we’ll get another chance to see just how special he is. Or isn’t.

-One last thing about the episode we’re about to see: now that the camps have come together, I really hope Hurley, Sun and especially Jack acknowledge that Claire is there, as they haven’t seen her since she disappeared in Season Four. I’ll be annoyed if they don’t bring some attention to that reunion. Jack doesn’t have to address their connection in his episode necessarily, but I don’t want the fact that she’s back to be treated casually by them.

-At this point, I’m pretty sure there has been a sideways-centric episode for every main character (Damon and Carlton said earlier that Lapidus, Claire and Miles would not have centric episodes of their own). If that’s the case, then tonight either starts repeating people, or doesn’t focus on just one of them but rather on Desmond’s efforts to bring them all together.

-I know that we should celebrate Hurley’s philanthropy and what the expansion of the Mr. Cluck’s Chicken franchise has allowed him to do for charity, but seeing a Mr. Cluck’s in view of an Egyptian pyramid or the Eiffel Tower is just kinda obnoxious.

-As I mentioned, Dr. Chang made a brief appearance at he beginning of this episode. If you’ve been missing him, he’s featured prominently in this week’s once-again wacky Muppet recap from the Lost Untangled series. (It appears that the puppet Dr. Chang was indeed constructed by The Jim Henson Company, though based on the way they word this, I’m not sure if Henson has anything to do with actually making the episodes. Thanks again, Lorelei.)

LINE OF THE NIGHT
Hurley: What’s she like?
Mrs. Reyes: Willing to meet you.

Tonight’s Episode: The Last Recruit (and the last episode for two weeks. After tonight, no new Lost until May 4. Bastards…)

THE POWER OF LOVE
Last week I made an accusation. I said that Lost has made a sport out of tearing couples apart, and proceeded to offer a long list of examples. But perhaps the comment wasn’t entirely fair. For one thing, as reader David Z. pointed out to me, I overlooked one couple that has stayed together through many ups and downs:

One thought on your discussion of Sun & Jin perhaps not being meant to be together – you list nearly all of the “romantic” relationships we’ve seen in the 6 seasons of Lost, all of which in one way or another, to some degree, failed, but neglect to mention the one very obvious instance of love seeming to conquer all – Rose and Bernard. They managed to re-unite despite being separated in the Oceanic crash, and they managed to make a peaceful life for themselves in the jungle back in Dharma times…well, up to the point they were (presumably) nuked in the Incident. No matter – the point still remains that their love was true and they were allowed to enjoy their lives together. While that appears to be the exception rather than the rule, I think it does leave some hope that Sun & Jin will ultimately meet again.

You’re right, of course, David. How could I forget Rose and Bernard? The fact is that while Lost has been cruel to some of its couples (and may be again), it has allowed others to triumph, and all have been handled with great tenderness and poignancy. I may have expressed concern over Desmond and Penny’s future in my write-up of The Package (based largely on the “next week” clip at the episode’s end in which Widmore was heard saying, “I’m going to ask you to make a sacrifice”) but so far their relationship has been one of the emotional high points of the series. The scene in The Constant when they re-connect by phone after years of separation – of him being trapped on the island and her searching for him – is one of Lost’s best moments ever.

My comment may also have been premature, what with love playing such a crucial role in this episode. It seems to be the link between SidewaysLand and the original island timeline, and with a little help from his old friends Charlie and Daniel, Desmond may be the key to exposing that link.

ONE OF A KIND
Desmond wakes up to find Zoe tending to his IV. He thinks he’s still in the hospital, so apparently at the time he was taken by Widmore’s people he was still recovering from the gunshot wound he suffered at Ben’s hands. Seems strange that he would still have been in the hospital – a bit of time has passed since that happened – but then I’ve never been shot, so I can’t really say what recovery times looks like. Nor do I know how long it takes to travel by submarine from Los Angeles to…wherever the hell this island actually is. Widmore assures Desmond that Penny and his son are perfectly safe, and apologizes for taking him away from them and not having time to explain why, though he assumes Desmond wouldn’t have come with him even if he’d been asked nicely. When Widmore says that he brought him back to the island, Desmond’s lip quivers with rage. A moment later he’s bashing Widmore in the head with his IV stand before being restrained by a couple of lackeys. “The island isn’t done with you yet,” Widmore says – the same thing Eloise Hawking said to him at The Lamp Post station last season.

Widmore tells Zoe he wants to run “the test,” which Zoe says isn’t supposed to happen until the next day. But Widmore wants to do it now. With a confused Jin in tow, she heads to a large generator room that is one part of the island’s Hydra Station. Behind the station is some kind of pen – a small wooden shed with huge cables running back into the station itself. Zoe enters the main building and tells Pudgy-Face that Widmore wants to run the test now, throwing them all into a panic. They start flipping switches, dials and levers but something isn’t working properly. Pudgy-Face sends a crew member into the pen to check for possible problems. On each side of the small room is a huge circular coil – or what people who understand science call “solenoids.” As this crew member examines them, another technician back in the station figures out the problem and flips a switch that apparently activates these “solenoids,” unaware that somebody is in the pen. Zoe and Pudgy-Face scream and tell him to turn it off, which he does…but it’s too late. They can only watch on the monitor as their colleague gets caught in some kind of energy burst from the solenoids. When it turns off, they run to check on him. The poor dude is on the ground, charred and smoking like a well done steak fresh off the grill. Despite the accident, Widmore wants to proceed…with Desmond.

What is the sacrifice he wants Desmond to make? I don’t get the sense that it’s a sacrifice of his life, but I’m not sure what else it could be. Also, how does Widmore know about Desmond surviving a “catastrophic electromagnetic event?” Has he finally had a long talk with his old flame Eloise? Last season, they saw each other outside the hospital where Desmond was being treated for his gunshot wound. In that encounter, she too scoffed at him bringing up sacrifice:

E:  Your daughter’s in there. Why don’t you go in and say hello?
W: Unfortunately Eloise, my relationship with Penelope is one of the things I had to sacrifice.
E:   Sacrifice? Don’t you talk to me about sacrifice, Charles. I had to send my son back to the island, knowing full well that…
W: He’s my son too, Eloise.

She slapped him in the face when he said that, and then left. How long had it been since they’d seen each other at that time? I’ve asked more than once in these write-ups how it is that Widmore was never able to find the island again after his exile even though Eloise seemed to know the way back all along. Perhaps at some point after she slapped him and left he finally got her to talk to him. And maybe she’s the one who told him of Desmond’s unprecedented survival and how he could get back to the island. But I’m not sure…there are still some things about Eloise we need to get cleared up on, including her relationship with Widmore. I hope we get those answers in the remaining seven hours of the show. More on Eloise later, of course…

Watching Desmond caught between the solenoids brings two things come to my mind: Egon’s warning to his fellow Ghostbusters about crossing the streams (“Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light”)…

…and the accident that creates Dr. Manhattan in Watchmen.

I think Desmond could rock this look, don’t you?

Oh, and if you actually want to know what a solenoid is, Wikipedia is always here for you.

RIGHT HAND MAN
Next thing we know, Desmond is in SidewaysLand, picking up his luggage at LAX after Flight 815 lands. He briefly interacts with Hurley, and then helps Claire with her luggage and chats with her, offering her a ride when her own doesn’t seem to be there. (If she knew that her cab would be commandeered by a fugitive, she might have taken him up on it.)  He proceeds to find his hired limo driver, who turns out to be George Minkowski, the freighter’s communications officer who died in Desmond’s arms when his brain couldn’t handle the jumps in time it was suffering. If only he’d had a constant…

George drives him to work, which is actually Widmore’s office. Desmond enters and greets “Charles,” who welcomes him warmly and gives him a hug before they get down to business. Widmore explains that his wife is holding a large charity event at which their son – a talented classical musician – is set to perform with the rock band Drive Shaft. Unfortunately a member of the band – who happened to be on Desmond’s flight – was arrested on a drug charge. Widmore is arranging his release, but needs Desmond to babysit him.  Widmore says his wife will “destroy him” if he doesn’t get the kid to this event.

Desmond gladly accepts the task. “You really do have the life, son,” Widmore smiles as he pours them a drink. “No family, no commitments…ahh to be free of attachments.” Desmond notes with surprise that Widmore is pouring from his bottle of 60 year old whiskey. “Nothing’s too good for you,” Widmore says. Of course in the original timeline, when Desmond came to Widmore asking for his blessing to marry Penny, Widmore made a sport of pouring them each a glass from that same bottle only to tell Desmond that he was unworthy of drinking such a fine spirit. Here though, Widmore hands Desmond the glass and toasts to Desmond’s “indispensability” – a characteristic he seems to possess in both timelines.

I wondered after watching this episode if Widmore knew all along that Desmond had an important role to play on the island and if that was why he treated him so badly and tried to keep him away from Penny. What if Desmond does need to die for the sake of the island and Widmore always knew it, and therefore made an act of disliking him because in truth he was trying to spare Penny from losing him? I like that idea, but as with every other possible scenario I come up with, it has holes. For starters, there’s the time last season when Desmond, after learning that Widmore had funded Faraday’s research, burst into Widmore’s office demanding to know where he could find Faraday’s mother. After giving up the address surprisingly quickly, Widmore issued Desmond a warning. “Deliver your message, and then get out of this mess. Don’t put Penny’s life in danger. You’re getting yourself involved in something that goes back many, many years. It has nothing to do with you or my daughter. Wherever you were hiding, go back there.” If that advice was sincere, then Widmore didn’t know at the time what the island had in store for Desmond, nor is it likely he would he have known about Desmond’s close encounters with electromagnetism. Furthermore, if he really was determined to keep Desmond and Penny apart, he would probably not have given Penny’s address to Desmond when he came looking for it in The Constant. And then there’s just the general fact that Widmore doesn’t seem to have had insight into what the future has held for those in the island’s orbit, unlike Eloise, who seems plugged directly in to whole notion of fate and what is “supposed” to happen.

O BROTHA, WHERE ART THOU?
Desmond arrives at the courthouse to pick up his charge, and of course out comes Charlie, who walks right past him and out into the street without a thought of oncoming traffic. Cars screech their brakes to avoid hitting him, but he pays no attention and walks into a bar directly across the street. Desmond follows and joins him for a drink, during which Charlie shares a story that explains his current state of mind.

So…he’s talking about Claire, right? Though he mentions Kate at the beginning of the story, his description of a blonde woman that he knows and is “with” must be Claire, mustn’t it? In this moment he’s describing, he made some sort of connection with the original reality, yes? And while he doesn’t understand it and can’t make literal sense of it, he knows that it means something.

Desmond politely mocks him, but Charlie can’t be deterred. “I’ve seen something real. I’ve seen the truth,” he says. Later, as Desmond is driving him along the marina en route to a hotel, Charlie offers to show Desmond what he was talking about…

I love seeing Dominc Monaghan back on the show, and the moment Charlie and Desmond share underwater goes into my Lost hall of fame. The way Charlie comes to and looks at Desmond almost as if he’s been faking it or as if he’s not affected by being underwater, then slips back into unconsciousness as if nothing happened. Awesome.

At the hospital, Desmond is told that he needs an MRI to ensure no brain trauma. He’s anxious to find Charlie, but the doctor insists he be examined. The MRI technician asks if he has any metal on him or in his body – a question which Widmore’s men asked him while they were strapping him into chair. Desmond slides into the machine and as the scan begins and he stares into the light above him, another barrage of images hits him – Charlie with his handy message again, but also images of him and Penny. Desmond hits the panic button and tells the tech that he has to find the man he came in with. At the admittance desk, he can’t get the info on Charlie’s whereabouts, but then he sees Jack walk by and recognizes him from the flight. Jack remembers him too, and Desmond explains his dilemma. As Jack questions the coincidence of someone from their flight being in the hospital, Charlie comes running down hall in a hospital gown and runs past them. Jack tries to stop him, but the camera doesn’t linger on him to show whether or not he registers that the fleeing man is the same guy he saved on the plane. Desmond chases Charlie and finally corners him.

D: Why’re you running?
C: Cause no one here can help me. Let me go.
D: Why’d you try and kill me?
C: I wasn’t trying to kill you. I was trying to show you something.
D: You wanna show me something, show me your hand.
C: What?
D: Your hands. Show me your bloody hands now!
C: You saw something didn’t you? In the water. What was it? What are you looking for, mate?
D: Who’s Penny?
C: I don’t know. Ahh…you felt it, didn’t you?
D: I didn’t feel anything.
C: Then why are you accosting a man in a dressing gown?
D: Alright, c’mon we’re leaving.
C: Whoa. You think I’m gonna go play a rock concert after this? This doesn’t matter. None of this matters. All that matters is that we felt it. You wanna try and stop me? Good luck.
D: Wait, where you goin’?
C: If I were you, I’d stop worrying about me and start looking for Penny.

So do you think Charlie has regained some awareness of his life on the island, or does he only think he’s experienced some kind of life-altering phenomenon that he’s trying to recapture? What I’m getting at is, does he think that by driving Desmond close to death Desmond might experience a general sensation similar to what Charlie himself did on the plane, or is it more precise than that? Is he specifically trying to make Desmond aware of the island timeline? His behavior underwater – when he suddenly seems to regain complete clarity and puts his hand up against the glass – seems pretty damn specific. Maybe Charlie knows what he’s doing, or maybe he’s being guided – even manipulated – by some cosmic force greater than himself.

WEIRD SCIENCE
When Desmond calls Widmore to say that Charlie escaped, Widmore is displeased and tells him that if he sees it as no big deal, he can go tell Mrs. Widmore about it personally. So George drives him to the charity event, where Mrs. Widmore – aka Eloise Hawking – is working with caterers and event planners. Desmond approaches her, and when she first sees him there is a flicker of alarmed recognition – a sort of, “Wait, WTF are you doing here?” expression. You could argue it’s just the brief surprise of seeing a well dressed man with a fresh gash on his forehead, but given what comes I don’t think that’s it at all.

Ha! “…a certain unpredictability comes with the territory.” Know what else has a degree of unpredictability? The space-time continuum. So…okay. Eloise appears to have full knowledge of both the island timeline and the sideways timeline. How is that? She seems surprised to see Desmond there at all, and then tries to get rid of him as quickly as possible. But the moment he shows an inkling of awareness of the original timeline, she becomes agitated and tries to deter him from his line of questioning. What is she worried about? Why is she trying to preserve the integrity of SidewaysLand? And why isn’t he ready to see the list? When will he be ready? What does he need to do in order to be ready?

I also think it’s important to say here (I touched on it earlier, but I want to be clear) that while Eloise seems to know about both timelines, I do not think that Charles does. When he locks Desmond in the pen on the island, all he’s trying to do – I believe – is see if Desmond can withstand the electromagnetic exposure. But I don’t think he has any idea of what Desmond’s previous contact with such energy did to him. I don’t think he’s expecting his little experiment to send Desmond’s consciousness traveling across space and time, and unlike Eloise, I don’t think SidewaysWidmore is aware of the other timeline. Anybody think otherwise?

Bewildered and frustrated by his encounter with Eloise, Desmond returns to the limo and pours himself a drink. A moment later, there’s a knock on the window.

THE TIME TRAVELER’S WIFE
Desmond goes to the same stadium where we once saw him running as he trained for his solo race around the world (and where he first met Jack) and there he finds Penny, doing some running of her own. As she finishes, he approaches her with the glow of a lovestruck teenager. He introduces himself, shakes her hand…and at that moment wakes up on the floor of the pen, back on the island. Widmore, Zoe and Pudgy-Face run inside, where the latter two seem freaked out that he’s fine. Widmore smiles. Desmond looks up at him and asks how long he was out. Just a few seconds, Widmore tells him.

W: I’m really sorry we had to do this to you, Desmond. But as I told you, your talent is vital to our mission. So if you just let me explain…
D:  It’s alright. I understand.
W: What?
D:  I said I understand. You told me you brought me here to the island to do something very important.
W: Yeah.
D:  When do we start?

Widmore smiles again, pleased that maybe this will be easier than he thought. But will it? Do you think that whatever Widmore has planned for Desmond – whatever sacrifice he wants Desmond to make – is the same thing Desmond wants to do now that he has established a connection between his island self and his sideways self? Hang on, we’ll come back to that in a moment.

Zoe, accompanied by the lackeys, is leading Desmond to…I don’t know where…when she asks what happened to him – why 20 minutes ago he was hitting Widmore with an IV stand and is now “Mr. Cooperative.” When Desmond tells her a lot can happen in 20 minutes, she suggests that the device fried his brain. Desmond, all smiles and optimism says, “Did it?”

“Whatever,” Zoe says. “It doesn’t change that we’re gonna…”

Just then Sayid jumps out of the bushes, snaps the lackeys’ necks and tells Zoe to run. She doesn’t need to hear it twice. “Desmond, I don’t have time to explain,” Sayid says, “but these people are extremely dangerous. We need to go now.” Desmond agrees (“Of course. Lead the way.”), as if that’s exactly what he wants. Is it what he wants, or is he just rolling with it? It goes back to the question from a moment ago, about whether his plan is the same as Widmore’s. He very much seems to have a plan now, but we don’t know what it is and if it involves following Widmore’s agenda or his own. Either way, he appears completely cooperative. He looks like a post-hypnosis Peter in Office Space.

Back at the stadium in Los Angeles, he wakes up with Penny leaning over him and saying that he passed out when she shook his hand. “I must have quite an effect on you,” she laughs. He asks if she’ll have a cup of coffee with him. Maybe she just likes handsome, vulnerable men or maybe she too feels a connection that she can’t explain, but she agrees to meet him in an hour, after she freshens up.

Desmond returns to the limo, where despite his newly retrieved memories he shows no sign of recognizing Minkowski from the freighter. He asks George to take him to the coffee shop Penny indicated, and asks him for one other thing as well: a copy of the Flight 815 manifest. “Just the names of the passengers.” Minkowski says he can get it but is as to why Desmond wants it. “I just need to show them something,” Desmond says.

LOOSE ENDS/FOOD FOR THOUGHT
-What was Zoe going to say? It doesn’t change that we’re gonna…what?

-This episode leaves little doubt that the original, “island” timeline and the sideways timeline are going to converge, and as I’ve said before, I expect that Juliet’s random dying words about meeting for coffee and going dutch will come back into play. Also, I’m sure that one of you said to me (during an actual, in-person conversation) earlier in the season that Desmond would be the connection between the two timelines. So if that was you, good call.

-Just to help me keep this straight (and I think others may find it helpful too, since it’s come up in conversations during the last week), here is the extremely condensed history of Desmond’s “uniqueness” as I can trace it from memory:

• Locke stopped pushing the button just as Desmond realized that his failure to push the button once before caused the crash of Flight 815. Locke then destroyed the computer, so Desmond crawled below the floor and turned a failsafe key.

• As a result of his exposure to the electromagnetism, he started seeing things before they happened (Locke giving a speech, Charlie’s death, etc.). Related to that, his mind also started time-traveling, so that he was re-living days in London with Penny but seeing flashes that his past-self didn’t realize were from the future (going to Widmore’s office to ask for Penny’s hand, hearing Widmore say that his foundation is sponsoring a solo race around the world and suddenly being hit with images of his boat crashing on the island).

• He leaves the island on the chopper, and when Frank accidentally veers off Faraday’s bearing, Desmond no longer knows where he is or recognizes anything about his present day (2004) circumstances. His 1996 consciousness seems to have taken over his mind, and though his consciousness travels between ’96 and ’04, his mind doesn’t recognize anything about ’04 even when he’s physically there. With Faraday’s help in both years, he is able to establish communication with Penny in ’04, thereby restoring his present-day awareness.

• His mind continues to carry the capability to experience time-shifts, as when Faraday knocks on the hatch door while Desmond is still alone inside and tells him to go to Oxford and find his mother – which results in Desmond waking up in 2007 and having a “memory” of that encounter.

-Last season’s The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham featured the long-awaited return (and sadly premature dispatching) of Matthew Abaddon. As he chauffeured Locke from one member of the Oceanic Six to the next (and to Walt…ahem…WALT), he explained to Locke that his purpose was to get people where they need to go. “That’s what I do for Mr. Widmore,” he said. I found it interesting – if probably irrelevant – that Desmond seems to fill that role in SidewaysLand. The assignment he’s given to look after Charlie fits the bill, but I’m also thinking about his statement at the end – that he needs to show something to the Oceanic 815 passengers. Now there is the question of whether that has anything to do with Widmore, but even if it doesn’t Desmond still seems to be playing an Abaddon-like role. I sure hope he doesn’t end up meeting a similar fate.

-Now that Desmond has seen what it was Charlie was trying to show him, do you think we’ll see Charlie again? Will Desmond enlist him in whatever he’s trying to do with the passengers on the plane? What about Faraday? Have we seen the last of him? The fact that Desmond bridges so many planes in space-time makes it fitting that this episode would bring back so many old favorites: Charlie, Faraday, Eloise, Penny and Minkowski. Cool to see them all again.

-Reader Lorelei D. turned me onto something this weekend that is too neat and bizarre not to share. The Lost website on ABC.com is posting weekly recaps of each episode that are hosted by what appears to be a Muppet version of Dr. Chang. The series is called Lost Untangled, and I’ve seen it a couple times during past seasons, done with action figures and comic book panels. We’re not sure if this season’s editions are official Jim Henson Company-produced material or not, but it sure looks like it. And if you know me, you know I love me some Muppets. I’ve only watched the recap of the last two episodes so far, but I’ll tell you: this thing is goofy even by Muppet standards, and Muppet Chang seems to be on the world’s largest caffeine dose ever. There is some seriously random humor in this, but I have to share it so you can see for yourself if you’re so inclined. Wokka wokka wokka and Namaste.

-Dear Lost,

Please give Frank Lapidus more to do. He’s way too good a character to waste, and he’s been sitting on the sidelines all season long.

Sincerely,
DB
Supergeek Fan

LINE OF THE NIGHT
Desmond: Is there any alcohol in this car?
Minkowski: Oh yeah.

Tonight’s Episode: Everybody Loves Hugo