Hello Losties. Sorry to disturb your hibernation. No, it’s not January yet. Season Five is still a long way away, but there are signs of stirring around the island. In case you hadn’t heard, the Emmy nominations were announced a few weeks ago, and while the show didn’t fare as well as I’d hoped overall, it did score two major nominations that made me happy.
The show returns to the race for Best Drama Series, where it’s been absent since it won the award for Season One. It faces Mad Men, Dexter, House, Boston Legal and Damages.
And all of my Michael Emerson praise did not fall on deaf ears. How could it? The guy is brilliant. He got his Best Supporting Actor (Drama) nomination, facing competition from William Shatner in Boston Legal, John Slattery in Mad Men, and Ted Danson and Zeljko Ivanek, both in Damages (Ivanek, incidentally, is part of the Lost universe, having guest starred as Juliet’s ex-husband who was mowed down by a bus, Mean Girls-style.) You know my feeling on this; Emerson should have this thing sewn up. But I haven’t seen Damages, and Danson and Ivanek both got a lot of praise, so they have me worried.
I would have liked a couple more acting nominations (Yunjin Kim, Jorge Garcia), and definitely some writing and directing nominations, but oh well. Emerson is my golden boy here, so as long as he’s in the race, I’m happy.
If you’re interested in the other major nominations, check ’em out here courtesey of Entertainment Weekly: Cheers to 30 Rock, The Colbert Report, The Daily Show, Real Time With Bill Maher, John Adams, Amy Poehler and Laura Dern. Jeers to the absence of Big Love‘s actresses and The Wire…which I don’t need to have seen to know deserved some big love of its own.
Anyway, getting back to Lost, you may have heard that a little event called Comic-Con was held recently, and as has been the custom, Damon and Carlton were on hand for a Lost panel to address fans for the first time since the season finale. I was hoping we would get some juicy details about what was to come, but I was disappointed by how little they offered. What they did have to say was succinctly summed up below:
Richard Alpert will figure prominently in Season Five.
The whole notion of “flashbacks” and “flash-forwards” will be reinvented, suggesting that upcoming episodes will span multiple time periods and perspectives.
Jin will be back, but there’s no word if he’s dead or alive.
It was strongly suggested that Faraday survived.
Faraday’s notebook will play a prominent role this season.
We’ll finally get Rousseau’s back-story, but Darlton cautioned that it would be wrong to call it a “flashback” episode.
That’s about it. Not a lot to go on, sadly. Production on the new season starts in less than two weeks, so maybe there will be some new casting news to whet our appetites. Just today, EW.com printed a vague description of two new characters that will be brought on as recurring figures in Season Five, with an option to become regulars in Season Six. And I still want to know if Lapidus is coming back. And what about Walt?? For the love of God, what about Walt????
Sorry. I got a little upset. I’m fine now.
That’s all I’ve got. But if there’s any exciting news…you know I’ll be there for you. Even if you don’t really care.
Tonight’s Episode: How many more months?? Motherfucker!!!
Well my friends, another season of Lost has been capped off by another powerful finale that kept the pulse racing and the mind reeling. Two weeks later I’m still reading articles online and pondering what went down and what’s to come. And of course, twice the episode meant twice the writing time and twice the rambling, so I apologize for the late delivery. You may think you’re over it by now, but trust me – you’re not. So what to talk about first? Jeremy Bentham? The island’s big move? The destruction of the freighter? Perhaps it will be best to start on the island and move forward from there.
“LEADER STUFF”
Back in the season premiere, the survivors split into two camps – some following Jack, and some following Locke. In the season finale, those two leaders are reunited when Jack and Sawyer arrive at The Orchid for Hurley, and Locke asks to speak to Jack alone. After failing to convince him to stay on the island, insisting that he’s not supposed to leave, Locke tells him that he’s going to have to lie. In order to protect the island, he will have to lie about everything since the crash. When Jack fires back that it’s just an island and doesn’t need anyone to protect it, Locke counters that it’s not an island, but a place where miracles happen.
I have always wondered if Locke would ever reveal to Jack – the pragmatic spinal surgeon – the story about his confinement to a wheelchair and how after four years, he regained the use of his legs the moment he landed on the island. I’ve often imagined such a scene – have practically scripted it out in my head – and I thought it might happen here. Maybe Locke was about to go there, but Ben arrived and cut the confrontation short. (Yes, Ben – freed from Keamy thanks to some ass-kicking work by Kate, Sayid, and the Others…headed by Richard Alpert, who didn’t seem wholly thrilled to see Ben. And in fact, Ben seemed a little surprised that Richard even showed up. Hmm…)
The final moments of this scene between Locke and Jack are particularly strong. First, Jack is so obviously curious about what the other two are doing, and Matthew Fox perfectly underplays Jack’s conflict between wanting to walk away and wanting to be in on what Ben and Locke are up to. He can’t stand not knowing; not being in on the secret. I also think that to a degree, he is beginning to see that much of what Locke says and what he, Jack, dismisses or disagrees with, turns out to be true. He’s not able to process this yet – his own pride and stubbornness still guide him – but I think somewhere inside him is a flicker of belief in what Locke tells him about fate and destiny. Their encounter culminates with Locke’s biting comment, “Lie to them, Jack. If you do it half as well as you lie to yourself, they’ll believe you.” He then enters the elevator with Ben, and as the door closes and the elevator descends, the man of science and the man of faith share a final, powerful staredown.
DEAD MAN’S TRIGGER
On the freighter, Desmond, Michael and Jin size up just how dire their situation with the C4 is. The verdict? They are seriously screwed. In an effort to delay a likely explosion, Michael begins spraying the battery with liquid nitrogen to cool it off and prevent the ignition spark from catching. But the nitrogen supply is limited; the plan will buy them minutes at best.
While they sweat over this, departures from the island are underway. Jack, Sawyer, Hurley, Kate and Sayid return to Frank and the chopper and take off. Faraday returns from his first freighter run and prepares to take another group of six. He tells Miles and Charlotte that they need to be on the next raft with him, but Miles opts to stay. As Faraday busies himself, Miles asks Charlotte why she would want to leave the island when she has spent so much time trying to get back there. Charlotte plays dumb – “What do you mean ‘get back here?'” But Miles knows something…and so the groundwork is laid for next season’s deepening of the Charlotte and Miles backstories.
In the end, Charlotte does decide to stay, explaining to Daniel, “Would it make any sense if I told you I was still looking for where I was born?” Daniel says no, and the scene pretty much ends there, playing up Charlotte’s already-implied prior relationship to the island. This open mystery also reminds us that Matthew Abbadon had a purpose for choosing Charlotte, Miles, Frank and Daniel. What interest of Abbadon’s – and perhaps Widmore’s – do these four serve?
Down in The Orchid, Ben immediately goes to work – hitting buttons, turning switches, adjusting knobs – while Locke tries to figure out what the hell is going on. Ben hands him the Dharma orientation video and suggests he take a look. Once again the video is hosted by the familiar Asian scientist, this time calling himself Dr. Edgar Halliwax (his other names are the thematically-similar Marvin Candle and Mark Wickmund). Halliwax never comes out and says “time travel” in explaining what The Orchid is used for, but he does say that the Vault is adjacent to what is believed to be “a pocket of negatively charged exotic matter”…whatever that means. He places a bunny in the vault and explains, “In our first demonstration, we will attempt to shift the test subject 100 milliseconds aheadin four-dimensional space.For the briefest of moments, the animal will seem to disappear. But in reality…” At that point, the video begins to automatically rewind and Locke doesn’t get any further.
They are interrupted when a still-alive Keamy shows up, taunting Ben and explaining the heart monitor/C4 situation with low-key, sadistic mirth. Moments later, Ben emerges from a hiding place, and showing total disregard for the fate of the freighter, knocks him down and stabs him. Locke tries to save him – to save the freighter – but Keamy breathes his last breath. And good riddance. (Actor Kevin Durand deserves applause for his work this season in creating such a wonderfully loathsome son of a bitch.) Ben’s lack of compassion for the people on the freighter – even after he just sent Jack, Kate, Sayid and the others back there – is chilling, and just the latest example of what makes him such an enigma.
BOOM!
En route back to the freighter, the chopper begins losing fuel due to a bullet hole in the tank from the earlier battle to free Ben. Before Sawyer makes his sacrificial jump, he whispers something to Kate (again, my guess is that it involves his daughter Clementine) and plants a hell of a kiss on her. I wondered why, when Jack later confronts Kate about what she’s doing for Sawyer and she refuses to tell him, she does not at least reference this moment. During their argument, Jack tells her that Sawyer made his choice, and that he chose to stay behind, while Jack was the one who came back. But Jack’s take isn’t an entirely accurate or fair characterization of what happened. Sawyer’s choice is a selfless one. Maybe he makes it purely for Kate, or maybe he makes it for all of them, but whatever motivates him, his plunge from the copter into the ocean makes their escape possible; the chopper is able to reach the freighter before running out of fuel. So for Jack to later say that Sawyer chose to stay…sure, it’s true in a sense…but the way Jack uses it to make his point doesn’t honor Sawyer’s sacrifice.
Unfortunately, making it to the freighter doesn’t bring them the relief it should. Keamy’s death has triggered the C4, and the chopper approaches the deck only to find Desmond waving them away and shouting that there’s a bomb about to go off. As for what follows:
1. I gotta say – once again, it seems – Jack pulls a dick move here. And Kate lets it happen. Sun is shouting that she won’t leave without Jin, so while Frank, Jack, Desmond and Sayid rush to re-fuel and patch the hole, Kate hands Aaron to Sun and offers to go find Jin. She starts to run off, but the copter is now about to leave, and Jack comes and grabs her, refusing to leave without her. She says she needs to find Jin, but she lets Jack drag her back. So…it’s okay for you to grab the girl you love, but the man Sun loves is just shit out of luck? Nice, Jack. It’s easy for you to tell Sun “he’s gone” as she watches the flaming pieces of the freighter sink into the ocean; you got what you wanted. But for all your talk about being responsible for everyone on the island and getting them rescued…you stone cold sold Jin out in the end. Not cool. I might cut you a tiny bit of slack, given the fear of such a life and death situation and the uncertainty of how much time you have left…but only a tiny bit.
2. The show didn’t do right by Michael. When his nitrogen ran out, and he started to hear the jungle whispers and Christian Shephard suddenly appeared and said, “You can go now, Michael,” followed immediately by the explosion, I thought that Christian had somehow rescued him; that Michael was taken somewhere else, and Christian’s words meant something like, “I’ll take it from here.” But then I realized what Christian meant, which was, “Okay, you’ve redeemed yourself, the island no longer needs to keep you alive. You can go now.” And then he was indeed taken somewhere else: a watery grave. But Damon and Carlton botched this, and after the unsatisfying exit given to Mr. Eko, which even they admitted was not ideal – they should have learned their lesson. There’s really no excuse for such a screw-up. The simple fact is that there was more to explore with Michael – an opportunity for a stronger redemption; a reunion with more of the people he betrayed and a subsequent look at how those relationships develop from there; and a reconciliation with Walt. Both Michael and Walt deserved that last one. The show does a disservice to the characters, the actors and the fans by sending Michael off prematurely – especially given the hype around his return and how little they gave him to do once he showed up again.
When Charlie died, sure I was upset because he was a favorite of mine and because I wanted him and Claire to go make babies with cool accents. But nevertheless, I understood the motivation behind killing him. His backstory had played out, his redemption was complete and he was given a heartfelt, emotional exit. It would have been great if he had lived, but there wasn’t a lot of story that still needed to unfold for him. The same can not be said of Michael. There was definitely more story to tell, and with two seasons left, there was time to tell it. In a generally stellar finale, Michael’s unsatisfying resolution stood out as a major misstep.
3. As for the fate of Jin, we never did see a body. I guess we didn’t see Michael’s body either, but Michael was standing right next to the 500 pounds of explosives; Jin was outside on the deck, at the other end of the freighter from where the explosion originates. He could have jumped, or he could have been blown into the water and found something to stay afloat on. One of these scenarios is likely, because every indication from the all-powerful internets is that Jin will be back next season.
Now then, I have another question that’s ultimately meaningless at this point, but puzzled me anyway. Was there anything more to the “secondary protocol” than just going to The Orchid because that’s where Ben would most likely go? I don’t think Keamy was supposed to do anything at the station, or he would have done it when he got off the elevator. If he was just supposed to go there, what was Faraday so nervous about? Was it that he knew Keamy would only go to The Orchid if Ben was there, and if Ben was there, Faraday knows what is about to happen?
JACOB’S LADDER
While the freighter chaos is going down, Ben is preparing for a journey – for as he explained to Locke, the person who moves the island can never come back. Does he mean that the person is transported from the island and then can’t find his way back? Or literally, the island’s forces will prevent that person from returning even if they managed to locate it again? I wasn’t sure how to interpret that, and it will be an important distinction going into next season.
Before he commences with the island moving, Ben bids farewell to Locke, who he instructs to join Richard and the Others. The goodbye between these two is an oddly emotional moment, very nicely and subtly played by Michael Emerson and particularly Terry O’Quinn. For all of Locke’s frustration with and frequent anger toward Ben, I think he sees Ben as something of a friend. Poor John hasn’t had many of those in his life, and he clings to the promise even when it comes in a less than ideal form. I think they’ll each miss each other in their own way, and I’m left wondering if they’ll ever see each other alive again.
After the parting, Ben enters a tunnel in the wall (through the Vault) that looks like the portal into John Malkovich’s head. Instead he finds a ladder and climbs down into a small, frozen chamber with strangely marked pillars and a large gear-like device – or more simply, a wheel – sticking horizontally out of the wall. (Are the hieroglyphic-like symbols the same kind that were on the door he went through before “summoning” the smoke monster? Are they the same symbols that flashed on the hatch’s countdown panels when the button wasn’t pushed after 108 minutes?) We know that whatever Ben is about to do, it immediately precedes the moment when he drops into the middle of the Sahara Desert, which we saw in The Shape of Things to Come. We know this because he is wearing the Halliwax parka he had on in the desert, plus he injures his arm when entering the frozen chamber – an injury that was fresh but unexplained upon his Saharan arrival.
So what is this room? How long has it been here? Why is it frozen? How does Ben know what to do? Is it pure coincidence that A) the room is frozen, B) it transports Ben to Tunisia, and C) Charlotte once discovered a polar bear skeleton with a Dharma tag in the desert of Tunisia? Decomposed arctic-dwelling animals aside, this scene reminded me a bit of The X-Files movie climax, when Mulder and Scully find themselves in an underground arctic cave that turns out to be a massive spaceship which awakens and emerges from its hibernation after being activated somehow. I’m not saying this chamber and the strange markings on the pillar signify an alien component to the show…I’m just saying that my mom has been predicting “aliens” since sometime in Season Two. If the Jane Burnce theory pans out someday, I will have a new respect for her indeed…though I don’t think I like the idea of Lost having an extraterrestrial element.
Ben uses all of his strength to turn the wheel of (mis)fortune, and as he does so, a powerful humming overtakes the island, similar to what was heard when Desmond turned the failsafe key in the Season Two finale. The humming is followed by a blinding light. It starts inside the wall from which the wheel protrudes, and soon it is everywhere, blinding those on the island, and those off it – Faraday with his raft full of nobodies, and the chopper passengers.
And like that, it’s gone. The humming. The light. The island. Ben. Gone.
When talk of moving the island first came up, I assumed that somehow they were supposed to physically move the island; that the island needed to move to a different location. But with all the time travel that’s been played up, I should have realized that the island wasn’t moving in space; it was moving in time. Remember the Orchid orientation video that Locke was watching? Halliwax placed the bunny in the vault and said the animal was being shifted 100 milliseconds ahead and would seem to disappear briefly. The tape stopped there, but we heard enough to clue us into what I believe happened. The island moved forward in time. So to everyone in the chopper, it disappeared from sight. But for those on the island, when the blinding light subsided, they were in the same place they had been…just in a different time. And surely unaware of that, since they’d have nothing to clue them into the change. The only odd thing would probably be that Juliet and Sawyer were looking at the smoking freighter one minute, and the next minute the smoke would be gone.
I think this is why there is a time-lapse between the island and the freighter. The island has been moved before, shifting further into the future each time. Somehow, a narrow fissure must exist that allows one to slip onto the island without passing through this time change – hence the specific bearings mentioned by Ben and Faraday.
But no theory of mine is perfect, so here are the big questions that give me pause.
How many times has the island been moved? When Faraday conducted his rocket experiment early this season, the difference between time on the freighter and time on the island was only 31 minutes. If we assume that the island was once Widmore’s and he now can’t seem to get back to it, does that mean that Widmore personally moved the island once before? Is that the only time it’s been moved? Probably not, if there is indeed a link between that chamber and the polar bear skeleton. Either way, a 31 minute difference seems minor in the scheme of things. How does the person moving the island control how far into the future it moves? Can it be controlled, or is that what Ben meant when he described moving the island as “unpredictable?” How far ahead has Ben moved the island? After he is transported to the Sahara (and how/why does that happen??), he goes to Tunisia and checks into a hotel. If you recall, he confirms the date with the woman at the front desk – she tells him it is October 24, 2005. If Ben was transported from January 2005 to October 2005, is that how far the island itself was transported?
And what happened to the “Alcatraz” island near the big one? Jack tells Frank that there’s another small island he can land on, but Frank sees nothing but water for miles. So where did the small island go? It would make sense that yes, it moved too. Since time on the freighter and time on the island are different, there is a line that exists somewhere out in the space between. That’s why the bearing is so important to keep to; that’s why the freighter’s doctor washed up on the island before Keamy even killed him; and that’s why Minkowski was experiencing leaps through time like Desmond was. I’m thinking it’s pretty damn likely that Faraday’s raft got caught up in the move too. And if Jin survived the explosion, did he swim/drift into part of the water that was transported?
Another possible theory involves wormholes and the idea that the island’s move involved both time and space. Entertainment Weekly‘s Lost guru has spent a lot of time in past recaps talking about wormhole theories which are too complex for me to absorb (me being no good with the whole “science” thing), but he’s had a lot of details to back up his points, so maybe there’s some truth to it. However, I think that the wormhole idea sets the stage for alternate realities, and Damon and Carlton have pretty much nixed the alternate reality notion.
O WHAT A TANGLED WEB WE WEAVE WHEN FIRST WE PRACTICE TO DECEIVE
With nowhere to land and not enough fuel, the chopper goes down almost right after the island disappears. I’m not sure why they all didn’t jump out once their life jackets were on, instead of waiting for the impact. I’m also impressed that Frank survived given that he didn’t appear to be wearing a life jacket at all.
So there they are, the Oceanic Six +2 (Desmond and Frank) adrift in an inflatable raft. As they float, Hurley marvels that Locke actually managed to move the island. “No, he didn’t,” Jack says. But Hurley calls him on it and asks Jack to offer up a better explanation, which of course Jack can’t do. Perhaps because, once again, Jack isn’t ready to acknowledge that voice in his head telling him that Locke is right. But he’s about to take his first step toward enlightenment: when Frank spots another boat that night, Jack suddenly understands that, just like Locke told him, they’re going to have to lie. “Those men came to the island to kill us, all of us,” Jack says – acknowledging what Ben and Locke tried to tell him back before he first radioed the freighter in the Season Three finale. “You said that our plane was discovered at the bottom of the ocean,” he says to Frank. “Well someone put it there; someone who wants everyone to think that we’re dead. So what do you think’s gonna happen to us when we tell them that that wasn’t our plane? What do you think’s gonna happen to the people that we left behind?” Difficult as it may be for them all to process, nobody protests. They must understand that he’s right, though Kate does say that they can’t pull it off. Jack says to let him do the talking. (I wonder though – why are they so sure that there even is anyone left behind? The island friggin’ disappeared in front of their eyes.)
So they come up to the boat, and this one truly does provide rescue…not to mention another of the episode’s emotional highlights. This boat turns out to be Penny’s charter, and her reunion with Desmond is a welcome shot of joy and satisfaction amidst the chaos of the day. The writers, as well as actors Henry Ian Cusick and Sonya Walger, have to be commended for their handling of all things Desmond and Penny. Their scenes always resonate and play so genuinely. A strong story has been constructed around those characters, and now that they are back together, it will be interesting to see where they go given Ben’s pledge to kill Penny. When Jack and Desmond say their goodbyes a few scenes later and Desmond says that as long as he’s got Penny he’ll be fine, I couldn’t help worry that his words were a cruel bit of foreshadowing. If Ben makes good on his promise, what will Desmond be driven to do? Jack says, “Don’t let him find you Desmond.” But he doesn’t know about Ben’s threat – which, in fact, hasn’t even happened yet in the show’s timeline – so what “him” does Jack mean? Charles Widmore? What is Penny’s relationship with her dad even like? Have we ever seen them together? How much does she know about his business – professional and personal?
I liked Jack’s farewell words to Desmond: “I guess I’ll see you in another life, brother,” Desmond’s own sign-off coming back full circle. But hold up – we need to jump back for a minute, to the moment of the rescue. Jack meets Penny and tells her they need to talk….and soon the seeds that will bloom into the Oceanic Lie are planted. Is Jack the one who constructs the cover story? Does Penny offer resources to help make it work? How is it decided that the story will include some passengers who survived the crash but died before the rescue? How are all the particulars determined? During Kate’s trial, Jack testified that she helped them all, took care of them, kept them alive; but why was that role in the story given to her? Did Jack do it deliberately, knowing that Kate faced a trial at home and that a heroic tale might help her case? We still don’t know if Oceanic Airlines becomes involved in creating the cover story, nor is it explained how they account for the six survivors when all of bodies were supposedly already discovered.
BEND IT LIKE BENTHAM
Moving (mostly) chronologically through the episode now takes us to the first scene we saw, which was an immediate continuation of last season’s mind-blowing final scene. It was definitely a cool way to begin the episode (just like how The Karate Kid Part II picked up right after the fight from the end of the original The Karate Kid! Awesome! Sweep the leg, Johnny!!) After starting to drive away, Kate brakes and comes back to yell at bearded, pill-popping Jack, tearing him a new one for calling her to come out and showing her an obituary for Jeremy Bentham.
I’m sorry…Jeremy who now? I believe my words at the point were, “Who the fuck is Jeremy Bentham?”
Well we know who Bentham turns out to be, so let’s proceed accordingly. It would seem Bentham is an alias being used by a now deceased John Locke. In fact, for my purposes in trying to make sense from all this senselessness, let’s bend chronology a bit and skip to the episode’s final, revelatory scene. After Jack breaks into the funeral home at night and throws open the lid of the coffin – to no particular end that we can see – Ben shows up. Jack tells Ben that Bentham came to see him a month or so earlier and told him that after he left the island, some very bad things happened, that those things were his fault for leaving,and that he had to go back. Ben says the island won’t let Jack come back alone; it has to be all of them, Bentham included. Jack points out the impossibility of this, saying that he doesn’t know where Sayid is, Hurley is insane, Kate won’t speak to him and Sun blames him for Jin’s death (more on this point later). Ben offers to help and says he has some ideas. Jack silently agrees, no longer resisting the idea that the island has its own power and is capable of allowing or not allowing things to happen (an interesting turnaround from an earlier conversation Jack had with Ben – one you may never have seen. See the LOSTUBE section below).
Moving back to Jack’s argument with Kate, she says of Bentham, “When he came to me and I heard what he had to say, I knew he was crazy. But you, you believed him. Him of all people!” To which Jack replies, “Yes Kate, I did because he said that was the only way that I could keep you safe. You and Aaron.” He said what was the only way to keep Kate and Aaron safe? Returning to the island? It would appear that Jack’s resistance to Locke’s notions has finally dissolved. He has stopped lying to himself, and is taking Locke at his word.
Working our way through the group, the institutionalized Hurley receives two unexpected visitors with a Bentham connection. First is Walt. Walt! Actually appearing in the flesh! Not as a dripping wet, backwards-talking devil-boy like Shannon saw! Not as a tall apparition beckoning Locke out of a pit of skeletons! Not as a quickly-glimpsed figure in a window played by some other actor! But Walt! Our Walt, as played by Malcolm David Kelley! It’s crazy how much a skinny little boy can grow up in four years.
Anyway, Walt tells Hurley that Jeremy Bentham came to see him, but he doesn’t say what Bentham told him. Now that we know who Bentham is, I’m incredibly curious about what he had to say to Walt. Was the visit casual – a chance to say hello to an old friend and backgammon companion? Or did he have a more specific purpose in mind? Walt asks Hurley why they’re all lying, and Hurley says it’s to protect the people who didn’t come back. “Like my dad?” Walt asks. “Like your dad,” Hurley says… which is strange, because I didn’t see anything in Hurley’s face or tone of voice to indicate that he was lying about Michael still being alive. He knew that Michael was on the freighter and he saw the freighter explode, so he must be pretty certain Michael is dead. And dead men don’t need protecting. Is it that he just can’t bring himself to tell Walt the truth? How does Walt even know Michael was out there again if they hadn’t spoken and none of the survivors came to see him upon their return to civilization? Maybe Bentham is the one who informs him…but even then wouldn’t Bentham assume Michael died in the freighter explosion? Whatever the answers, I hope this scene was a set-up for Walt to return to the story full-time.
Hurley’s second visit, in one of my favorite scenes in the episode, is from Sayid. Hurley doesn’t show much feeling one way or another about Sayid’s sudden nighttime arrival, paying more attention to his chessboard (and his game with Mr. Eko). Sayid wants Hurley to come with him somewhere safe, but Hurley shows little interest. Then Sayid tells him that circumstances have changed. “Bentham’s dead.” This gets Hurley’s full attention, and he becomes instantly alarmed. Sayid tells him it happened two days ago, skeptically saying, “They said it was suicide.” The “they said” part does not sit well with the big man. Hurley asks Sayid why he’s using the name Bentham, and starts to say his real name, but Sayid quickly and with a trace of bitterness says, “Don’t say it.” (Why won’t they use Bentham’s real name in private, amongst themselves?) He tells Hurley they’re being watched; that he just killed a man who’d been sitting in a car out front for a week. “We’re not going back, are we?” Hurley asks. Sayid says no, they’re just going somewhere safe.
Everybody seems pretty worked up about the death of Jeremy Bentham. How does his death change the circumstances of their secret? Why are they in danger now that he’s dead? What was he buffering them from? And where are Hurley and Sayid going to go?
THE BLAME GAME
Sun goes to see Charles Widmore in London and introduces herself as Mr. Paik’s daughter and the Managing Director of Paik Industries. It seems the hunch I mentioned in my pre-finale message was right, even though there’s no evidence that my specific thought is true. Widmore does indeed know Mr. Paik, however superficial their connection may turn out to be in the big picture. I tell you, all these rich pricks run in the same circles.
Widmore shows no sign of recognizing Sun, but she makes it clear that they both know he knows exactly who she is, where she’s been and what she’s been through. “You and I have common interests,” she tells him. “When you’re ready to discuss them, call me. As you know, we aren’t the only ones who got off the island.” This implies that she is going to help him get to Ben, which puts her at odds with at least three of the Oceanic Six (Kate most likely stands on neutral ground for the time being – though seeing visions of Claire can’t be doing her any good).
Is Sun trying to help Widmore because Ben is the second person – along with her father – that she blames for Jin’s death? What else could she mean by the comment about not being the only ones who made it off the island? Yet how would she have come to blame Ben? She couldn’t know that Ben killed Keamy and therefore triggered the explosion on the freighter? Couldn’t know, that is, unless she too was visited by the one person who was witness to Ben’s act: Locke/Bentham. And what of Jack’s comment that Sun blames him for Jin’s death? Is her blame for real, or is it just in his hero-complex imagination? Without knowing whether or not Bentham told Sun about the dead man’s trigger, it is safer to say that Sun might blame Jack for not trying hard enough to save Jin. Yet her offer to help Widmore makes much more sense if her vengeful sights are set on Ben. Hmm…
OTHER LOOSE ENDS -In my first write-up, I wondered why Jeff Fahey, who plays Frank, was credited as a guest star while the actors playing Faraday, Miles and Charlotte were all listed as regulars. Has Frank’s role in the story come to an end? Jack half-jokingly tells him that he hopes they never meet again. And it would seem that there’s no practical purpose for a chopper pilot anymore. Yet we learned nothing of Frank’s backstory – like why he ended up not flying Oceanic 815, and why Matthew Abbadon recruited him. I have no idea if he is coming back to the show or not…but I certainly hope so. Great character.
-During their tense nighttime meeting, Kate tells Jack, “I’ve spent the last three years trying to forget all the horrible things that happened on the day that we left.” So three years have passed at that point, which is definitely worth noting. Where will their lives pick up next season? That kid playing Aaron isn’t going to stay small forever. And how will their “present” relate to the island’s present? Will we see flashes further forward for the Oceanic Six, or more flashes back?
-In The Shape of Things to Come, Sayid asks Ben how he got off the island. Ben told him that he used Desmond’s boat. Now we know that in actuality, he used a giant frozen wheel and whole lotta elbow grease.
-Poor Juliet, sitting on the beach, downing a bottle of Dharma rum as she watches the smoking freighter, drowning the pain of another foiled attempt to leave the island. When Sawyer emerges from the water looking like a Bond girl, then sees the smoke in the distance and asks if it is “their boat,” she could not have had more perfect delivery with the answer, “It was.” Does this leave Sawyer assuming Kate and the others are dead?
-When the Emmy nominations come out later this summer, I demand a nomination (and subsequent win) for Michael Emerson. And I’d love to see a nomination for Jorge Garcia as well; this season was a divine one for Hurley. There has also been a lot of fan support for Henry Ian Cusick, Yunjin Kim and Matthew Fox. The show hasn’t been nominated for Best Drama since Season One (when it took the prize), so I’d like to see it return to the top category this year. Throw in a couple of writing and directing nominations (perhaps for The Constant or The Shape of Things to Come) and the season will have been justly recognized.
-An interesting piece of news regarding the final two seasons: Claire will not be a regular on the show next year. Emile de Ravin has been placed on a “holding contract.” She will definitely return as a regular in the Season Six, but she will not be seen next year, except for the possibility of some brief cameos like the one she had with Kate in this episode. Looks like whatever happened to her is one of the show’s big, game-ending mysteries. By the way, Damon and Carlton have said the question to ask about Claire is not, “Is she dead?” but rather, “What happened to her?” I’m not sure there’s really a whole lotta difference between those two questions, but there it is.
LOSTUBE
While reading some things online about the season finale, I discovered some video clips floating around out there that might be of interest to you. Oh, how I loves me the YouTube. Check these out…and if you see a sidebar link on some of them that supposedly reveals what Sawyer whispered to Kate in the chopper, don’t bother. I read that the translation is not legit.
-This first clip is an extended version of the Oceanic Six press conference in which a few additional questions are asked, and in which Jack names the three passengers who survived the crash but died before the rescue. So many lies. I wonder how it was decided by Jack that these three people would be singled out. Interestingly, the scene adds new questions but also takes one away; gone is the remark about how healthy they all look considering what they’ve been through, which was followed by Hurley saying, “Is that directed at me, dude?” Quality’s not great, but it will do…
-You may have heard that two alternate endings, with different people in the coffin, were filmed to try and protect the true version in case of any leaks. The day after the finale, Good Morning America aired the fake-outs.
-These next clips aren’t related to the season finale, but I decided to put them here anyway because they’re pretty cool. I’ve mentioned these a couple of times before: these are the “Missing Pieces” that were created last fall as content for Verizon cell phone customers, and were later put online as content available for all. There are 13 of them, each one just a couple of minutes in length, and they take place at various points during the first three seasons. Think of them as deleted scenes which weren’t actually deleted, but instead were shot at the same time as Season Four. Some are just random, funny little moments; some fill in gaps in the story; and others add new and intriguing layers to the mystery. All of them are considered “canon” by Damon and Carlton, which means they are to be taken as seriously as anything in a real episode. Check ’em out:
1. The Watch – A rare moment of warmth between Jack and Christian.
6. Room 23 – Juliet expresses a concern to Ben. This one interests me because, knowing that these were filmed so recently, I’m not sure what the point of it would be other than to foreshadow the return of a character referred to but not seen.
7. Arzt & Crafts – Doctor Arzt lives to kvetch another day.
8. Buried Secrets – An emotional encounter between Michael and Sun nearly turns romantic, suggesting a storyline that I think was considered for Season One but ultimately abandoned.
-And finally, this clip is from The Daily Show – but any Lost fan should appreciate it. Keep watching…it gets more Lost-y as it goes.
Vodpod videos no longer available.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Each season of Lost, while contained within a six-season storyline, has had its own overarching theme. As Damon and Carlton have described it, Season One was about the survivors of Flight 815; Season Two was The Hatch; Season Three was The Others; and Season Four was The Freighter, or The Rescue. Reading the E! News gal’s column, she laid out the final two season arcs, though I wasn’t clear if she was just assuming this, or if she had been told by official sources at the show. Either way, what she said seemed to make sense. If her report is accurate, Season Five will focus on the efforts of the Oceanic Six (and a few others, it seems) to return to the island, and Season Six will be about what happens when they do.
Well, now that you are probably bleeding from your eyeballs, I guess that’s about it for what has been an outstanding season of Lost. As hard as it will be to wait until next January or February, I admit that I’m relieved to have a long break from these damn write-ups. I don’t know what I got myself into, but the last several have sucked up an absurd amount of my evening time. Still, I’ve already got notes in place for the first Season Five e-mail, so I’ll see you all back here in eight months or so…and maybe even much sooner than that.
Hulllo, what have we here? No, your eyes are not playing tricks on you. I’ve whipped up an extra message to be delivered ahead of tonight’s episode. Consider it a bonus…with the understanding that the word “bonus” suggests not only something in excess of the norm, but also something worth getting excited about. Your general interest in reading these tedious messages will determine whether or not this is a bonus or just another message from me to ignore.
The purpose of this is A) to bring up a couple of the things that I was thinking about after the recent “Cabin Fever” episode; and 2) to toss out some theories – albeit, extremely fragmented ones full of holes, and each covering just a small corner of the massive quilt that is the story of Lost.
First: Cabin Fever, an episode which spawned a lot of talk about Ben and Locke, Jacob, and that ‘ol Doc Brown classic we like to call the space-time continuum. It definitely seemed worth pointing out that Ben and Locke came into the world in similar fashions. Both were born to mothers named Emily who did not stick around to raise them – Ben’s died, Locke’s abandoned him; both were born prematurely; and both, as children, encountered Richard Alpert. Richard’s encounter with Ben was by chance, or so it seems at this point. But it was on the island, and happened when Ben was…I don’t know how old. Maybe 12? Conversely, Richard actively tracked Locke, which means it was off the island, and it began when Locke was a newborn.
Do these early-life similarities say anything about Locke and Ben? Both seem to share a connection to the island, and their own personal relationship is complex, to say the least. Does time travel come into play here? Is it possible that when Richard seeks out baby Locke, he is doing so from a future in which Locke has already been to the island? Perhaps a future in which Ben has recognized something in Locke that he believes is vital to the survival of the island, leading him to send Richard back to a time when he might be able to bring Locke to the island earlier, for a purpose that could thwart Charles Widmore’s island intentions? And if by some stretch this is remotely accurate, it would mean that Ben and Richard have a fair amount of control over the use of time-travel. So far, such control has not been in evidence. If moving the island involves any sort of time travel, then it has been described by Ben as “dangerous and unpredictable” and “a measure of last resort.” Of course, this whole notion does nothing to explain the things Ben and Locke have in common. But this is Lost. There are no coincidences.
Now we also have to remember that Richard Alpert was not the only familiar face to turn up in Locke’s pre-island life. He also met Matthew Abbadon. How does that factor in? Well let’s suppose that there’s some truth to the Alpert/Locke/time travel theory. What if Widmore and Abbadon were able to access similar technology? Abbadon might then be able to visit Locke in the rehab center and encourage him to go on the walkabout. If somehow Widmore knows about Locke and his connection to the island, then perhaps he tries to get Locke on Flight 815, knowing that it will crash and knowing that once Locke is there, he will discover its power and want to stay. But what if he were taken off the island against his will? What if he were the object of an “extraction mission,” as Captain Gault said to Keamy – an attempt by Widmore to remove him from the island so that he could be forced to share its secrets, or lead the way back if the island were to “move” after his removal? Serving Widmore in this way might be fulfilling Abbadon’s pledge that when he and Locke meet again, Locke will “owe him one.”
If there’s any credence to this, and if Ben became aware of Widmore’s intentions, then it would be extremely important to him to get to Locke himself before Widmore could. Important enough to send him trekking across the island alone in search of Locke (eventually getting caught by Rousseau and claiming to be a balloon-traveler named Henry Gale); important enough to build Locke up and make him believe in his kinship to the island while at the same denying him many truths and revelations – truths and revelations he would not want Widmore to be able to access if he did get hold of Locke; important enough to shoot him in a misguided attempt to keep him from being any good to Widmore (he admits later that he hadn’t thought the shooting through, and should have known it wouldn’t have done any good); important enough to convince Locke that Widmore is an enemy of the island and that he must work with Ben to protect it. When Widmore fails to get Locke off the island – via Naomi – he begins targeting the Oceanic Six and trying to get them to lead him back to the island…hence Abbadon’s visit to Hurley in the mental institution.
I realize that this theory is quite shaky, full of holes, and casts Locke in probably too central a role in the overall mythology while totally ignoring Jacob, the various lists of survivors that once seemed like a key plot point but haven’t been mentioned lately, and other things. It also assumes that Widmore and Ben have access to each other’s information, suggesting a double-agent or who-knows-what other form of treachery. This is why I don’t spend much time spinning theories, but instead try to keep track of the questions. Still, I found myself piecing the following together as well. While it too has holes and doesn’t fully add up, I do think it’s more solid than the preceding, and likely has elements of accuracy to it. So here goes:
It would seem that Charles Widmore once had possession of the island, but lost it to Ben. Ever since that happened, he has been trying to find it again and regain control. Knowing of the island’s electromagnetic properties, he’s had multiple crews deployed in the South Pacific – the closest approximation he has of the island’s location – looking for electromagnetic anomalies. One of these crews notifies him of such an anomaly on September 22, 2004 (caused, unbeknownst to him, by his own daughter’s beloved). The same day, he learns – along with the rest of the world – that a huge passenger airplane flying from Sydney to Los Angeles disappeared from radar somewhere in the South Pacific. Connecting the two dots, he believes that if he finds the plane, he can find the island. Determined to keep other search parties from discovering the plane before him for fear that they might discover the island and its powers, he stages a fake crash site in order to distract the world and draw other search parties away from wherever the plane really is. Of course, if he did this, he would have to either ensure that no survivors – if there were any – ever made it back to tell their story…OR he would have to create the story himself and get any possible survivors to go along with it. (We might find out tonight if this last piece is at all valid.)
Okay, that’s pretty basic stuff – I don’t claim to be breaking new ground with this theory; I’m sure it’s out there somewhere. But I think it’s pretty solid. From here, I’m much less confident, but let me try to fill in some possible details.
For whatever reason, Widmore has an obsession with the Black Rock. In an attempt to locate the remains of the ship itself, he discovers an island which may or may not be inhabited at the time. Soon after, he is approached by The Dharma Initiative, which is seeking funding to launch a remote commune for studying. He offers this island, which is useless to him other than being the final resting place of the Black Rock. Maybe he has purchased the island…although that would leave a paper trail, so maybe not. Or perhaps he purchased it through some sort of shady business deal with a certain powerful Korean businessman who was his closest business contact in that part of the world (the island isn’t too close to Korea, but considering the size of the whole planet, they’re kind of in the same ballpark). Anyway, in keeping tabs on the work of the Dharma Initiative, he discovers that this island has powerful properties which he wants to exploit.
The theory gets even hazier here, because there are parts I haven’t figured out yet, but Ben comes into the picture around this time. Maybe Widmore somehow enlists his aid, and since Ben has his own issues with the Dharma Initiative, he agrees to help Widmore destroy it…ergo, The Purge. But Ben does this not with the intention of letting Widmore have his way, but instead with taking control of the island for his own reasons – reasons which run contrary to Widmore’s desires and which therefore put the two men at odds. Yet how does this fit with Ben’s comment to John (made just before shooting him last season) that the Dharma crew couldn’t co-exist with the island’s original inhabitants? Given that young Ben encounters Richard Alpert in the jungle, does that make Richard one of the original inhabitants? By the time The Purge takes place, Richard seems to be taking orders from Ben, so something there doesn’t add up. Maybe The Purge doesn’t have anything to do with Widmore. Like I said, this theory gets less sound as it goes, and is riddled with holes and flaws. But I feel like portions of it could be on the right track. (Another problem is that I think the Dharma Initiative was already studying electromagnetism, which would mean that they probably had the island already as opposed to Widmore giving it to them. Also, if Ben acted on his own in betraying Widmore after The Purge, where does Jacob factor in? And how would Widmore even get to know Ben, who has been living on the island for years before The Purge?)
I’ll end the speculation for now, and see what the season finale leaves me thinking. Just thought I’d share…
PRESENT TENSE
Forgive me for stating the obvious, but this season has been building toward an explanation of how six Oceanic 815 survivors were rescued. With tonight’s season finale set to answer that question (to an extent, at least) I’m left asking something I asked after last season’s finale as well: when will we be when the next season begins? Throughout Season Four, Island-Time has still been the present, with flashbacks and flash-forwards filing out the story. But with the rescue about to be explained, will the future become the present when Season Five comes around? Island-Time, aka The Present, is about to catch up with the rescue, so what we’ve seen as The Future is about to be The Present. Next year, what will the Oceanic Six’s flashes show us?
And what about those who remain on the island? Will we continue to see flashbacks for them? For Ben, there is plenty of story left to tell on both sides of the clock (past – his childhood friend Annie, The Purge, relationship with Richard Alpert; future – pursuing Penny, warring with Widmore, protecting the island).
I bring this all up now because the way this episode was put together, it felt to me like the flash-forwards were being presented as The Present. Plenty of episodes over the years have begun with a flashback or flash-forward before we move to the island, and this episode was similar in that it began with the Oceanic Six’s arrival home, settling on Kate before cutting to the island action. I can’t say what it is, as it may have been a completely personal interpretation, but something about the rhythm of this episode suggested to me that the post-island scenes were the present, and the characters in those scenes were flashing back to the island. I’ll see if I get that feeling again tonight. Otherwise I just wasted three paragraphs.
COMING HOME
The members of the Oceanic Six are strapped in the back of a cargo plane, about to land on a private air strip in Hawaii where they will be reunited with their families (finally the show gets to use a Hawaiian location without trying to make it look like London, New York, Los Angeles, etc.). An Oceanic rep tells them the press will be there, but that they do not have to speak. Jack tells her it’s okay; they’ll answer the reporters’ questions. The others stay silent, look skeptical. After the rep leaves, Jack says that they all know the story and it’s better to get it over with. He says if there’s something they don’t want to answer, pretend they can’t remember; everyone will think they’re in shock. “We are in shock, Jack,” Sun tells him.
The reunion scene is a touching one. I’m sure I’m not the only one who in the last four years has imagined a scene where a rescued survivor is reunited with family (though the one I had most often envisioned was Charlie and his reformed-junkie brother, or Claire going to see that brother after Charlie died). Sayid and Kate have no one to greet them, but Sun’s parents are there, as are Hurley’s. Jack’s mother, who we’ve seen only once, early in Season One, is on hand too.
MEET THE PRESS
The Oceanic rep makes a brief presentation about the circumstances of the crash and the rescue, saying that the crash site was in Indonesia. The eight survivors were carried by the current to a small, unpopulated island. On Day 103, the remains of an Indonesian fishing boat washed up on shore, with basic supplies and a survival raft. On Day 108, the remaining six survivors used that raft to travel to the island of Sumba, where they were found by local fisherman and taken to a village. A photograph showing their arrival is displayed. (Am I the only one who thinks it strange that someone in that fishing villagehad a camera? Maybe those places are more modern than I’m giving them credit for.)
The timing sounds about right, and would put the rescue at sometime in January 2005. And for those whose geography is a little rusty, as mine was, Indonesia is northwest of Australia; Fiji, near which the fake plane and all its dead passengers was found, is well off the east coast. In other words, the two sites are not even close. And neither of these sites necessarily come close to where the island actually is. Exhibit A…
The press questions quickly get tricky. A Korean reporter asks Sun if her husband was one of the people who died on the island. She hesitates. Jack looks at her with concern. Finally, she says that her husband never made it off the plane. Sayid answers a question about the possibility of there being other survivors still out there with a defiant, “Absolutely not.” Jack gives a look at that point, to no one in particular – a shrug that seems to say, “Well that’s not exactly true.” Another reporter questions how pregnant Kate was at the time of the crash – i.e., at the time the U.S. Marshal apprehended her in Australia. Was the arresting Marshal the only person who saw her in custody at that time, leaving no one else to contradict her claim of pregnancy?
So let’s see if the season finale explains how the Oceanic Lie is constructed, and by whom; how the Oceanic Six are convinced to play along; why they are the only ones who make it off the island; if they believe that the lie is temporary and that the truth will eventually come out, or if they expect to have to stick with this story and take the truth to the grave; and how the lie is spun in light of the fake wreckage being discovered and all bodies accounted for.
LIFE AFTER DEATH
The early days of the Oceanic Six’s return seem to go well enough. Nadia seeks out Sayid and finally this star-crossed couple comes together (Shannon who?), but by and large the group is never far from fate’s reach. Hurley enters his house one day to find it deserted, and though he quickly realizes he’s the recipient of a surprise birthday party, that discovery comes after we hear a familiar whispering throughout the house which we usually hear in the island’s jungles. When his father presents him with his old Camaro, finally restored, he is excited to take it for a spin…until he spots the readout on the odometer – 481516, with a trip meter reading of 2342. This was the first time in ages the numbers had been evoked, and it added a nice “classic Lost” vibe to the episode. Hurley runs from the car and says he doesn’t want it…though he must have a change of heart eventually, seeing as he uses it to lead the cops on a high speed chase.
Sun paid her father a visit at his office, where he was upset by a business deal gone wrong. Prior to her arrival, as Mr. Paik was yelling at his people, something occurred to me that never has before, and I was embarrassed that it had never crossed my mind. Like Charles Widmore, Paik is a wealthy, powerful, sinister bastard. What if he had some connection to the Big Picture as well? The details we witnessed just before Sun showed up seemed almost too specific to have no deeper meaning. As I rolled that over in my mind, the scene played out. Seeing Sun stand up to her father and put him in his place by revealing that she used her Oceanic settlement to buy a controlling interest in his company? Well all I can say is an enthusiastic, “You go, girl!” That was bad-ass (though I was surprised the settlement was that large). In light of her revelation, and the way Mr. Paik was condescending to her when she first walked in, saying that the argument was part of his business and nothing she’d understand, I reconsidered my initial thought about his involvement in the larger events. I’m not ruling out that possibility, but after Sun showed him what’s what, I thought the argument was just there to set-up his attempt to belittle her. Still…
Another curiosity: Sun told her father that two people were responsible for Jin’s death, and that he was one of them. Who does she consider the other to be?
And then there was the post-island scene that delivered the biggest blow: Jack learning of his relationship to Claire. After spending at least a couple of years in a coma, Claire’s mother has now been awake for some time, and approaches Jack after his father’s memorial service. She explains to him that she believes the reason his father was in Australia was to see her daughter; his daughter. Jack tries to say that his father didn’t have a daughter, but the woman makes it clear that yes, he did…and that in an unbelievable coincidence, that daughter was also on Flight 815 – one of the passengers who died when the plane hit the water. She tells Jack that his sister’s name was Claire, and it’s all Jack can do to hold it together when he realizes that she was his sister, and that Aaron – who Kate is holding just a few feet away – is his nephew. Whoa.
I gotta say, I didn’t see that coming. In “Something Nice Back Home” a few weeks ago, Jack was arguing with Kate and yelled that she wasn’t even related to Aaron, after she referred to him as her son. I commented on the phrasing in my write-up, but thought that the writers were being ironic. I didn’t think he knew about his connection to Claire. I’ve been assuming that for all his success at moving on with his life and selling the Oceanic Lie, the passing off of Aaron as Kate’s daughter was the one part of the fiction that really weakened his resolve; the one part of the tale that he could never get comfortable with. But it appears that his issue all along has been knowing the truth about the baby – a fact which is easier to see now that we’ve learned of this memorial service for Jack’s father, taking place well before Kate’s trial (Aaron is still a small baby at the service, whereas he has grown noticeably by the time the trial ends – he has a head full of blond hair, is sleeping in a bed rather than a crib, and says, “Hi mommy” to Kate).
It’s also worth noting that at the beginning of the eulogy for his father, Jack says that it was ten months earlier, at the airport in Sydney, when he first wrote down what he planned to say. Ten months. If he was on the island for roughly four months, that means the memorial service is taking place six months later. So Kate’s trial must be well after that. And based on the conversation Jack had with Hurley in his room at the mental hospital in “Something Nice Back Home,” Jack and Kate probably got together sometime after Hurley’s freeway chase and subsequent return to the hospital.
So Jack knows about his connection to Claire, but he has apparently not shared his knowledge with Kate. In their argument where she calls Aaron “my son” and he points out that she’s not related to him, she shows no sign of understanding his loaded meaning, and the way she says “my son” shows total ignorance of the kid’s true relationship to Jack. When Jack and Kate speak outside of the courthouse just after her trial ends, she says to him, “I understand why you don’t want to see the baby.” But my guess is that she really doesn’t; she assumes what I did – that Jack is simply not comfortable with the Aaron piece of the Oceanic Lie.
FOLLOW THAT COPTER
Now that we’ve covered the future – or is it the new present? – let’s look at the old present…or rather, the new past. In other words, the island and the freighter. Despite having his appendix removed less than two days earlier, Jack is determined to follow the chopper using the satellite phone that was tossed out (he assumes by Sayid and Desmond). Faraday uses the phone to call the one being tracked, and they overhear Keamy ordering Frank to set the chopper down and telling his men about their deployment to The Orchid. Juliet doesn’t know what The Orchid is (which seems a little odd considering her time as an Other. I think she’s done playing both sides, so her ignorance seems genuine. Given The Orchid’s implied power, perhaps it wasn’t a Dharma station to which Ben easily shared access). Faraday, on the other hand, does know what The Orchid is. When he overhears Keamy, he tells Charlotte with deep concern that Keamy is using the secondary protocol, and that they have to get off the island as soon as possible.
Why do some people know about the secondary protocol while others don’t? Keamy knows about it, but Gault did not. Faraday knows about it, but Charlotte doesn’t. Why is that? In his notebook, Faraday has a drawing of The Orchid logo, surrounded by various equations and the words, “Space Like Factors.” What does he know, and why don’t others in seemingly equal positions know it too?
Juliet tries to make Jack stay and rest, but Jack is in full-on hero mode, saying that he promised to get these people off the island and that he has to go after the copter. She storms off, and after telling her he’ll see her in a few hours, he and Kate lock and load and head into the jungle.
COMINGS AND GOINGS
In the jungle, Jack and Kate encounter Miles and an Aaron-toting Sawyer. He explains that they “lost” Claire – that she walked off in the middle of the night, left the baby behind and that they spent a day looking for her unsuccessfully. Jack and Kate don’t know what to make of this, as Sawyer hands Aaron to Kate. When Sawyer learns they’re after the copter, he tells them what Keamy did to New Otherton. Still, Jack feels he can’t turn back, saying that he put Desmond and Sayid on that copter. It was his call, he says…which is interesting because, no, actually, it wasn’t. Sayid and Desmond each made their own way onto the copter – Sayid to learn more about the people on the freighter, and Desmond to get answers about Penny. Jack had nothing to do with it. Was this sloppy writing, or a deliberate move to showcase how deep Jack’s hero-complex runs? I’m going with the latter. Either way, after some fun, old-school bickering with Sawyer, Jack moves on. Sawyer goes with him, and Kate, Aaron and Miles head back to the beach.
Soon afterwards, Sayid arrives on the island in the freighter’s zodiac raft. He tells everyone that he needs to ferry them off the island in groups of six, because Keamy’s team is going to kill everyone. Juliet tells him that Jack and Kate thought he was on the chopper and went after it. Kate arrives with Aaron and Miles, and offers to help Sayid track Jack and Sawyer. She hands Aaron to Sun, and goes back into the jungle with Sayid, who has left ferrying duty to Faraday. Sun and Jin are in the first group to leave (so Jin gets off the island. Hmm…) Even icy Charlotte looks concerned for Faraday as he heads off with the first group.
When they arrive at the freighter, Desmond helps them all aboard (and seeing Sun holding Aaron, doesn’t think to inquire about Claire. I’ll chalk that up to the fact that there’s kind of a lot happening at that moment). Faraday heads back immediately, and Sun and Jin are met by a shocking site: Michael. He explains to them how he got back to New York. Following Ben’s bearing took him and Walt to an inhabited islandwhere he was able to sell the boat and buy fare back to New York, where they couldn’t tell anyone who they were. His explanation fills in some holes…and frankly, fills them in quite shoddily. Is this really all there was too it? Michael explains it almost dismissively. I feel like there should be more to it, and I’m not sure if that’s just me looking for mysteries where there are none (could you blame me?), or if we’re really meant to take it at face value, as if Damon and Carlton have heard fans ask the question and threw this in as an attempt to settle the issue. Either way, when Sun asks if he’s now working for Ben, Michael gets immediately defensive, and says he’s not working for Ben, but is trying to make up for what he did; trying to help them. That may be true, but given your actions Michael, you don’t get to be defensive. You haven’t earned back anyone’s trust just yet, so settle down.
Desmond, meanwhile, has made a grim discovery. He runs to fetch Michael, who follows him – with Sun and Jin right behind – into a room that is wired with enough C4 plastic explosives to blow the ship sky high. Now we know what that device on Keamy’s arm was. (Can I get an “Oh shit,” please?) Jin tells Sun to leave the room, so she heads back out on the deck, with a loaded, fatalistic glare back at the door closing behind her. Are Jin and Desmond going to die trying to dismantle the explosives? I can’t decide if I think Jin is really dead or not. On the cargo plane home, Sun did not seem as upset as I’d expect her to be if he were truly gone, so that gives me hope. On the other hand, would she be any less upset if he was alive but she had to leave him behind, knowing it was unlikely or perhaps even impossible that she’d ever see him again?
Is the freighter going to blow? Is Faraday going to have to start taking people back to the island? Will that explain why some people, like Rose and Bernard, remain on the island? Sawyer specifically chooses to stay, or so we’ve been told, but are people who had a choice in the matter a minority? I still can’t fathom how Jack, Kate, Sun, Hurley and Sayid could be talked into leaving everyone else behind. Is Widmore responsible for their rescue and the Oceanic Lie? Does Ben orchestrate it? Is Oceanic itself complicit in the conspiracy?
Back on the island, Jack and Sawyer find the copter. Frank has been handcuffed to it, but they set him free and he’s prepared to fly everyone off the island…until Sawyer realizes that Keamy’s crew is headed for Ben, and that in Frank’s words, “nothing good” is in store for anyone who’s with him: namely Hurley. Jack and Sawyer now must go after their friend.
Kate and Sayid, meanwhile, find themselves ambushed by Others – led by Richard Alpert. We haven’t seen most of the Others since Ben and Alex set off for the radio tower at the end of Season Three. They’ve apparently been hiding out in The Temple, whatever that is. Is that where they are now marching Kate and Sayid? For what it might be worth – probably nothing – they’re dressed in their “jungle chic,” which was their most oft-seen costume in the Season Two days.
MAN WITH A PLAN
In the previous episode, Ben was feeling like his time as a leader was over, but he was back in charge after Locke told him that Jacob’s instructions were to move the island. This sets Ben, Locke and Hurley on a course for The Orchid, which Ben describes only as a greenhouse. He says the process of moving the island is “dangerous and unpredictable. It’s a measure of last resort.” Hurley raises a good point: if the island moves, won’t Keamy and his people move with it? Ben says yes, they probably would – a problem that he’s working on.
On the journey, Ben stops and uncovers a hidden box that contains binoculars, a small mirror…and 15 year-old Saltines. He holds the mirror to the sunlight and makes some kind of signal up toward the trees off in the distance, on higher ground. A similar signal is sent back. “Alright” says Ben, “now we can go.” What was that all about? Was that The Temple? Was Ben communicating with Richard, telling him to take a crew out into the jungle and see what or who they find? Was his message – which he refuses to share with Locke – something to protect his own interests, or do I dare to say that it was also aimed at protecting those with him and all others on the island?
They finally arrive outside The Orchid, but see that Keamy’s men are already there, much to Ben’s frustration. So Ben gives Locke instructions on how to get into the greenhouse and find the elevator that will take him down to the actual Orchid station. And to cause a distraction that allows Locke to do this, Ben marches right down to the greenhouse and hands himself in. Before he goes, Locke asks him what he’s going to do. Ben turns around and looks at Locke like he’s an idiot. “How many times do I have to tell you, John? I always have a plan.”
THE COFFIN
Whew. What does the season finale have in store for us? Among other likely surprises, we’re supposed to learn who was in the coffin that Future-Jack visited in the Season Three finale. Who could it be? Several people in this episode were left in a position that could spell their end, but none of them seem to fit with the puzzle pieces that were laid out last year: someone whose death would merit a mention in the paper; someone who neither Kate, nor anyone else, would have a desire to pay respects to; someone whose death would hit Jack hard at a time when he’s hell-bent on returning to the island; someone who would be in a funeral home in what looked like a lower income, dirty L.A. neighborhood. Could it be Ben? Not unless this takes place after Ben stitched up Sayid’s arm in a Berlin animal hospital. Locke? That would mean he’s off the island – and getting written about in the newspaper. This doesn’t seem likely. Michael? Again, why would his death make the news? Besides, Michael is from New York, not L.A. Maybe it is someone completely out of left field; someone we thought was a friend, who has committed some yet-to-be-seen treachery, such that nobody except Jack cares to see them anymore. Or maybe, as I had considered in an earlier write-up, the death is a ruse and the body inside the coffin is not who Jack thinks it is. Maybe Ben fakes his death. Jack didn’t look at the body, so he wouldn’t know for sure who is in the casket.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Aside from the coffin revelation, this episode surely has a death or two in store for us, as well as a kiss that is supposed to be quite the shocker. Also, word is that we’ll see the pilot of Flight 815 in a flashback (could we learn how and why Frank was supposed to be flying the plane that day?). And I wonder whether or not we’ll see Claire again, or if we’ll have to wait until next season for more information about her move to Jacob’s cabin. Will Abbadon show up? How about Naomi? We’re only hours away…
Tonight’s Episode: There’s No Place Like Home (Parts II and III)
I gotta tell you, the crazier this show gets, the harder these things are to write. There was a lot I wanted to bring up this week – things that dated back to some of the earliest episodes from Season One – but I just didn’t have time to get it all down and pop some of those old episodes into the DVD player to check my facts. So while this is already longer than you can probably bear to endure, it’s much abbreviated from what I’d hoped to assemble. As it is, I won’t tell you how long it’s taken me to write this friggin’ recap – one that is, frankly, not at all up to my personal standards. Anyway, I’ll revisit some of the episode’s most intriguing moments soon.
Try to contain your excitement.
PREMATURE
This pivotal episode began with an initially puzzling flashback that turned out to be the furthest trip yet into a character’s past. So far back, in fact, that the character wasn’t born yet. A pretty teenager named Emily dances to a Buddy Holly LP, preparing for a date with a boy twice her age. When the rebellious girl runs from the house to avoid her disapproving mother, she gets hit by a car and winds up in the hospital, forced to give birth to the baby she’s been secretly carrying for five or six months. The preemie survives against all odds, leading the nurses to dub him a miracle. Unable to face the responsibility of motherhood, the girl gives her special boy up for adoption. Thus begins the lonely life of John Locke.
BLASTS FROM THE PAST FUTURE
Baby John is only a few months old when he attracts the attention of a stranger. That’s right my friends: the enigmatic Richard Alpert resurfaced in this episode. He is first seen staring at baby John through a window as a nurse speaks to Emily’s mother. He returns a few years later, when John is a small boy living with a foster family, and introduces himself as a man “who runs a school for kids who are extremely special.” He believes John may be such a child (and notes with interest a picture John has drawn of what looks like a man being attacked by a whirl of black smoke). Richard proceeds to give John a test, not unlike the one Buddhist monks have used through the centuries to locate the boy who possesses the reincarnated soul of the Dalai Lama. According to the book Magic and Mystery in Tibet by Alexandra David-Neel, “A number of objects such as rosaries, ritualistic implements, books, tea-cups, etc., are placed together, and the child must pick out those which belonged to the late tulku [Tibetan Buddhist master], thus showing that he recognizes the things which were his in his previous life.” (Thank you Martin Scorsese, director of Kundun, for teaching me of this ritual. And thank you Wikipedia, for confirming my memory 11 years later.)
Similarly, Alpert lays out an array of objects on a table in front of young John, and asks the boy to look at them and think about them. Then he asks, “Which of these things belong to you already?” John seems to understand, and carefully peruses the items, which include a Mystery Tales comic book, a baseball mitt, and a tome titled “Book of Laws.” John selects a vial that contains non-descript granules, as well as a compass. Richard seems pleased, until John chooses a knife. For me, the moment when little Locke picks up that knife is like when Harry Potter identifies the wand for which he is destined; fate is clicking into place. But Richard is disappointed. In fact, he seems quite put-out, telling John that the knife does not belong to him and abruptly collecting the objects and leaving, saying that John is not quite ready for his school.
John gets one more chance years later. Now a bullied high-school student, his science teacher informs him of an exciting opportunity. The teacher has been contacted by a Dr. Alpert, from a company in Portland called Mittelos Laboratories, which is doing cutting edge work in chemistry and new technologies. They want John to attend their summer camp, but John rejects the idea, frustrated that things like this are the reason he gets picked-on. His teacher tells him that while he may not want to be the guy working in the lab, surrounded by test tubes, that’s who he is, like it or not. “You can’t be the prom king,” he says. “You can’t be the quarterback. You can’t be a superhero.” Locke’s retort is one we’ve heard him use before: “Don’t tell me what I can’t do.”
So it seems that Richard Alpert, always defying the aging process, has been watching over John Locke for his whole life. But on whose behalf? And what is Alpert’s connection, if any, to another familiar figure who shows up in John’s pre-island life?
The fourth flashback captures John at the physical rehabilitation facility where he is living after being paralyzed. After a trying workout, an orderly wheels him back to his room. We don’t see his face at first, but the distinct voice registers immediately as he engages Locke in conversation. Soon enough we get a look at him: Matthew Abbadon. He calls Locke’s survival from an eight-story fall a miracle, and then suggests that Locke go on a walkabout, insisting it will do him good. Locke points out that he’s a cripple, ill-suited to walking about anything. Abbadon tells him, “I went on my walkabout convinced I was one thing, but I came back another. I found out what I was made of; who I was.” Before leaving John, he adds, “When you’re ready Mr. Locke, you’ll listen to what I’m saying. And then, when you and me run into each other again, you’ll owe me one.”
I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait until they run into each other again.
xxxxxx
MARTIAL LAW
Let’s switch gears for a bit and focus on the freighter. It was a big night for Lost‘s Number One asshole, Martin Keamy, who returned to the freighter with his smoke-ravaged crew. Apparently, the Black Smoke did some pretty intense damage after all. When the freighter’s doctor (still alive despite already washing up dead on the beach) asks Keamy what attacked the most severely injured man, Keamy replies, “A black pillar of smoke. Threw him 50 feet in the air. Ripped his guts out.” He says this rather nonchalantly, without the slightest trace of surprise or bewilderment that he’d been attacked by a mass of thick smoke. Maybe because he wasn’t surprised? Maybe because he knew about the smoke? If Widmore knows about the Black Smoke – which seems conceivable – then maybe Keamy had been warned about it. Widmore seems to be keeping his man well-informed, considering that Keamy knows that the safe in Captain Gault’s office contains something he calls a “secondary protocol.” He opens the safe despite Gault’s objections that he’s breaking what I guess would be firstprotocol. Inside he finds a packet of papers that includes a Dharma logo. He tells Gault he’s looking for the one safe place on the island that Ben could go to if he expected the island to be torched. This place must be what Ben referred to as The Temple when he tried to send Alex to safety. I wonder if The Temple is the same place as the Dharma station known as The Orchid. I mentioned that station a couple of weeks ago, along with a link to a Dharma orientation video that sheds some light on just what the Orchid is equipped to study. Did you watch that video? Seriously…you should.
Anyway, Captain Gault is alarmed to hear of Keamy’s plan to “torch” the island. “That was not the agreement! I agreed to ferry you here for an extraction mission,” he says. Growing increasingly wary of Keamy’s intentions, Gault offers to help Sayid and Desmond protect their people by readying the freighter’s inflatable, motorized raft for them to take back to the island and start rescue runs. Desmond declines, telling Sayid “I’ve been on that island for three years. I’m never setting foot on it again. Not when Penny’s coming for me.” So Sayid heads off alone, keeping in mind Gault’s warning to stay on Faraday’s bearing.
Keamy’s comment about torching the island made me wonder: does he intend to wipe out the island’s inhabitants, or actually destroy the entire island? Because the latter agenda wouldn’t seem to be in Widmore’s best interest…unless Widmore, through the methods of time travel that seem to be taking on more significance, could then travel back to a time before Ben “stole” the island from him. Man, my head is spinning.
When night falls, Keamy begins loading up the chopper with his crew and a whole lotta heavy artillery. But Frank refuses to pilot him back to the island, objecting to Keamy’s mission and explaining that he was hired to fly scientists. Knowing that killing Frank won’t help his cause, Keamy instead tries to motivate him by slitting the doctor’s throat and tossing him overboard. (A mystery solved!!!) That’s when Gault shows up pointing a gun at Keamy and threatening to fire if doesn’t stand down. Keamy shows off some kind of device, which looks like a small radio or walkie-talkie, strapped to his arm. He warns that shooting him would be a bad idea. What is this device, and what will happen if Gault shoots? Keamy manages to shoot first, and Gault falls to the deck, apparently dead. Now properly motivated, Frank boards the chopper and discreetly starts wrapping a satellite phone in a backpack. From afar, Desmond watches this all unfold.
When the chopper flies over the island, the beach crew hears the propellers approaching and gathers to see what they hope will finally be their salvation. The chopper continues flying over the island, but as it passes the beach, a package is tossed out. It smashes the roof of what I believe is Claire’s tent, (the crib is visible next to it – the crib which still contains Charlie’s Drive Shaft ring). Jack retrieves the package, which turns out to be the backpack in which Frank put the satellite phone. Jack looks at it and sees the copter’s signal moving further across the island. He infers that they are supposed to follow. (Minor point, but I’ll mention anyway that Dan and Charlotte were nowhere to be seen when the chopper flew by. Given the grilling they’ve received from everyone on the beach, you’d think they’d be right there with everyone else watching the approach.)
One more note about the freighter activities. When Keamy discovers that Michael revealed his identity to Ben, he goes down to Michael’s room and finds him chained to the bed. Keamy tries to shoot him…but doesn’t. Did the gun jam, or was it empty? More to the point, is Michael still under the “protection” of the island? Is he, for the moment, unable to die? When Keamy learns that Michael is also responsible for wrecking the engine room, the beating begins. Sayid, starting to feel guilty for turning him in, later asks Gault if Michael is dead. “No,” the captain replies, “but not for lack of bloody trying.” How long will the island keep Michael safe? And when Frank went to help him out of his room later, was he really planning to take him down to the engine room as he told Keamy, or was he trying to help him get somewhere safe?
WE’RE OFF TO SEE THE WIZARD
We’ve talked so far about Locke’s past and two mysterious figures who have attempted to manipulate it. Let’s turn our attention to the man’s present as he, Ben and Hurley continue their search for Jacob’s cabin. While the others sleep, Locke dreams of an encounter in the woods with a Dharma mathematician named Horace. We’ve met Horace before, of course. He and his wife happened upon Roger and Emily Linus after she went into early labor while on a hike outside of Portland. They tried to get her to the hospital, but she died by the side of the road with her newborn baby, Ben, in her arms. Some years later, Horace brought Roger, with Ben, to the island to work for the Dharma Initiative. That didn’t turn out so well for Horace, who was eventually killed when Ben and his followers – including Richard Alpert – gassed all things Dharma in a massive purge (an act which Ben cryptically tells Hurley was not his decision. “But I thought you were their [the Others’] leader?” Hurley asks. “Not always,” Ben says). When last we saw Horace, he was sitting on a bench, dead, blood trickling down from his nose. Now Locke encounters him in the jungle, chopping wood to build a cabin for him and his wife. “You gotta find me, John. You gotta find me. And when you do, you’ll find him,” Horace says.
“Who?” Locke asks.
“Jacob,” answers Horace. “He’s been waiting for you a real long time.”
Is Horace going to take on more significance as the mystery of Jacob evolves? Did Horace really build the cabin that Jacob now calls home? If so, when did Jacob take possession of it? Was he on the island before the cabin was built? How long has Jacob been on the island?
Reinvigorated by his dream, Locke leads his companions to the Dharma mass grave, where he was shot by Ben not long before. He starts poking through the bodies until he finds the one wearing Horace’s uniform. Sure enough, he finds a map to the cabin in Horace’s pocket. The quest continues. All the while, Ben is unusually subdued. He appears to recognize that Locke’s role in the island’s future is growing while his own is dwindling. When John wakes from his dream with Horace, Ben is staring at him knowingly (in yet another perfectly-played moment by Michael Emerson – how does he do it??). “I used to have dreams,” he muses. When they finally find the cabin, accurately portrayed on Horace’s map, Ben declines to enter with Locke. “The island wanted me to get sick,” he says, referring to his spinal tumor. “It wanted you to get well. My time is over, John. It’s yours now.” But he has also warned John about what lies in store for him. “You’ll understand soon enough that there are consequences to being chosen. Because destiny, John, is a fickle bitch.”
Does Ben really believe that the sun is setting on him? Or perhaps he is once again manipulating Locke, bolstering his sense of purpose only to soon deliver another shot to the gut (if not literally, this time). As always, Ben is impossible to read. When Locke offers Hurley a chance to go back to the beach, but does it in a way that makes staying more attractive, Ben is impressed. Locke responds to Ben’s suggestion that he tricked Hurley into staying, telling him, “I’m not you.” And having just commended him, Ben brings him back down a notch, saying, “You’re certainly not.”
DEAD OR ALIVE?
Or something in between? Locke enters the cabin and does not find Jacob, but a man who says, “I can speak on his behalf.” That man is Christian Shephard…and he’s not alone. Oh no. As Locke soon realizes, Claire is in the cabin too! She seems quite calm, almost bemused, and certainly not quite herself. She also seems to share the level of knowledge that Christian has, which would mean she knows a lot more about what’s happening than Locke does. He asks why she’s there and where the baby is, but Christian assures him that “the baby is where he’s supposed to be,” and redirects Locke’s attention to the topic of urgency: Keamy’s imminent return to the island. “How do I save the island?” asks Locke – a question which I think will, in large part, define the final two seasons of the series.
Whatever happens next, we don’t know. We move outside to Hurley and Ben, who silently share a chocolate bar in a moment perfectly played, yet again, by Emerson and Jorge Garcia. (I’ve already made my case for Michael Emerson winning an Emmy this year, but Jorge Garcia has definitely earned a nomination for his stellar Season Four work). When Locke emerges, they ask him if Jacob told him what to do. Locke answers, “He wants us to move the island.”
Oh, is that all? Shouldn’t be a problem, right? If the cabin can move from spot to spot, why not the island? Does the island shift around with regularity? Is this why it is so hard to find? Why is the island so hard to find? Why is Ben so sure that Widmore won’t be able to locate it?
Hell, forget that. The real question? What is Claire doing in that cabin?!!? Some speculation I’ve read online suggests that she did not survive the explosion when Keamy blew up her house at New Otherton. If that’s true, then she continued to exist in some sort of in-between state – still corporeal enough to carry Aaron and be seen by Sawyer, but ghostly enough to attract some extra attention from Miles. If she is dead, what does that say about the vision Desmond had of her and Aaron leaving the island in a helicopter? Is that just going to be left unexplained? Charlie died for that vision, damnit! And all of Desmond’s other visions came true, at least until he personally interfered with the outcomes. So why should this one be any different? On the other hand, if she is alive, what does that say about Christian? How real is he if Claire is quite comfortably hanging with him in Horace’s love shack? For four seasons, Claire has too often been relegated to the sidelines. With this head-scratching new development, let’s hope her story arc is about to become more pertinent to the show’s mythology. (I don’t think it was an accident that the writers had Frank’s backpack crush Claire’s tent. Seeing the crib served as a reminder of what waits there for her if she ever gets back to find it…and if she did die in the explosion, the destruction of her beach house is a clever way of hinting at that fate.
xx
FINAL THOUGHTS
As I said at the beginning, there are a lot of things I want to point out about the events of this episode, but I ran out of time. There is a week off between tonight’s episode and the two-hour-finale; bad news for our drug habit, good news for my writing habit. I’ll use the week off to address all that I couldn’t fit in here, and I’ll leave you with this tease of some things on my mind: backgammon, premature babies and the mothers who birthed them, and the compass.
Tonight’s Episode: There’s No Place Like Home (Part I)
And all of my Michael Emerson praise did not fall on deaf ears. How could it? The guy is brilliant. He got his Best Supporting Actor (Drama) nomination, facing competition from William Shatner in Boston Legal, John Slattery in Mad Men, and Ted Danson and Zeljko Ivanek, both in Damages (Ivanek, incidentally, is part of the Lost universe, having guest starred as Juliet’s ex-husband who was mowed down by a bus, Mean Girls-style.) You know my feeling on this; Emerson should have this thing sewn up. But I haven’t seen Damages, and Danson and Ivanek both got a lot of praise, so they have me worried.
I have always wondered if Locke would ever reveal to Jack – the pragmatic spinal surgeon – the story about his confinement to a wheelchair and how after four years, he regained the use of his legs the moment he landed on the island. I’ve often imagined such a scene – have practically scripted it out in my head – and I thought it might happen here. Maybe Locke was about to go there, but Ben arrived and cut the confrontation short. (Yes, Ben – freed from Keamy thanks to some ass-kicking work by Kate, Sayid, and the Others…headed by Richard Alpert, who didn’t seem wholly thrilled to see Ben. And in fact, Ben seemed a little surprised that Richard even showed up. Hmm…)
Down in The Orchid, Ben immediately goes to work – hitting buttons, turning switches, adjusting knobs – while Locke tries to figure out what the hell is going on. Ben hands him the Dharma orientation video and suggests he take a look. Once again the video is hosted by the familiar Asian scientist, this time calling himself Dr. Edgar Halliwax (his other names are the thematically-similar Marvin Candle and Mark Wickmund). Halliwax never comes out and says “time travel” in explaining what The Orchid is used for, but he does say that the Vault is adjacent to what is believed to be “a pocket of negatively charged exotic matter”…whatever that means. He places a bunny in the vault and explains, “In our first demonstration, we will attempt to shift the test subject 100 milliseconds ahead in four-dimensional space. For the briefest of moments, the animal will seem to disappear. But in reality…” At that point, the video begins to automatically rewind and Locke doesn’t get any further.
BOOM!
After the parting, Ben enters a tunnel in the wall (through the Vault) that looks like the portal into John Malkovich’s head. Instead he finds a ladder and climbs down into a small, frozen chamber with strangely marked pillars and a large gear-like device – or more simply, a wheel – sticking horizontally out of the wall. (Are the hieroglyphic-like symbols the same kind that were on the door he went through before “summoning” the smoke monster? Are they the same symbols that flashed on the hatch’s countdown panels when the button wasn’t pushed after 108 minutes?) We know that whatever Ben is about to do, it immediately precedes the moment when he drops into the middle of the Sahara Desert, which we saw in The Shape of Things to Come. We know this because he is wearing the Halliwax parka he had on in the desert, plus he injures his arm when entering the frozen chamber – an injury that was fresh but unexplained upon his Saharan arrival.
So they come up to the boat, and this one truly does provide rescue…not to mention another of the episode’s emotional highlights. This boat turns out to be Penny’s charter, and her reunion with Desmond is a welcome shot of joy and satisfaction amidst the chaos of the day. The writers, as well as actors Henry Ian Cusick and Sonya Walger, have to be commended for their handling of all things Desmond and Penny. Their scenes always resonate and play so genuinely. A strong story has been constructed around those characters, and now that they are back together, it will be interesting to see where they go given Ben’s pledge to kill Penny. When Jack and Desmond say their goodbyes a few scenes later and Desmond says that as long as he’s got Penny he’ll be fine, I couldn’t help worry that his words were a cruel bit of foreshadowing. If Ben makes good on his promise, what will Desmond be driven to do? Jack says, “Don’t let him find you Desmond.” But he doesn’t know about Ben’s threat – which, in fact, hasn’t even happened yet in the show’s timeline – so what “him” does Jack mean? Charles Widmore? What is Penny’s relationship with her dad even like? Have we ever seen them together? How much does she know about his business – professional and personal?
Anyway, Walt tells Hurley that Jeremy Bentham came to see him, but he doesn’t say what Bentham told him. Now that we know who Bentham is, I’m incredibly curious about what he had to say to Walt. Was the visit casual – a chance to say hello to an old friend and backgammon companion? Or did he have a more specific purpose in mind? Walt asks Hurley why they’re all lying, and Hurley says it’s to protect the people who didn’t come back. “Like my dad?” Walt asks. “Like your dad,” Hurley says… which is strange, because I didn’t see anything in Hurley’s face or tone of voice to indicate that he was lying about Michael still being alive. He knew that Michael was on the freighter and he saw the freighter explode, so he must be pretty certain Michael is dead. And dead men don’t need protecting. Is it that he just can’t bring himself to tell Walt the truth? How does Walt even know Michael was out there again if they hadn’t spoken and none of the survivors came to see him upon their return to civilization? Maybe Bentham is the one who informs him…but even then wouldn’t Bentham assume Michael died in the freighter explosion? Whatever the answers, I hope this scene was a set-up for Walt to return to the story full-time.
Widmore shows no sign of recognizing Sun, but she makes it clear that they both know he knows exactly who she is, where she’s been and what she’s been through. “You and I have common interests,” she tells him. “When you’re ready to discuss them, call me. As you know, we aren’t the only ones who got off the island.” This implies that she is going to help him get to Ben, which puts her at odds with at least three of the Oceanic Six (Kate most likely stands on neutral ground for the time being – though seeing visions of Claire can’t be doing her any good).
-In my first write-up, I wondered why Jeff Fahey, who plays Frank, was credited as a guest star while the actors playing Faraday, Miles and Charlotte were all listed as regulars. Has Frank’s role in the story come to an end? Jack half-jokingly tells him that he hopes they never meet again. And it would seem that there’s no practical purpose for a chopper pilot anymore. Yet we learned nothing of Frank’s backstory – like why he ended up not flying Oceanic 815, and why Matthew Abbadon recruited him. I have no idea if he is coming back to the show or not…but I certainly hope so. Great character.
Now we also have to remember that Richard Alpert was not the only familiar face to turn up in Locke’s pre-island life. He also met Matthew Abbadon. How does that factor in? Well let’s suppose that there’s some truth to the Alpert/Locke/time travel theory. What if Widmore and Abbadon were able to access similar technology? Abbadon might then be able to visit Locke in the rehab center and encourage him to go on the walkabout. If somehow Widmore knows about Locke and his connection to the island, then perhaps he tries to get Locke on Flight 815, knowing that it will crash and knowing that once Locke is there, he will discover its power and want to stay. But what if he were taken off the island against his will? What if he were the object of an “extraction mission,” as Captain Gault said to Keamy – an attempt by Widmore to remove him from the island so that he could be forced to share its secrets, or lead the way back if the island were to “move” after his removal? Serving Widmore in this way might be fulfilling Abbadon’s pledge that when he and Locke meet again, Locke will “owe him one.”
The theory gets even hazier here, because there are parts I haven’t figured out yet, but Ben comes into the picture around this time. Maybe Widmore somehow enlists his aid, and since Ben has his own issues with the Dharma Initiative, he agrees to help Widmore destroy it…ergo, The Purge. But Ben does this not with the intention of letting Widmore have his way, but instead with taking control of the island for his own reasons – reasons which run contrary to Widmore’s desires and which therefore put the two men at odds. Yet how does this fit with Ben’s comment to John (made just before shooting him last season) that the Dharma crew couldn’t co-exist with the island’s original inhabitants? Given that young Ben encounters Richard Alpert in the jungle, does that make Richard one of the original inhabitants? By the time The Purge takes place, Richard seems to be taking orders from Ben, so something there doesn’t add up. Maybe The Purge doesn’t have anything to do with Widmore. Like I said, this theory gets less sound as it goes, and is riddled with holes and flaws. But I feel like portions of it could be on the right track. (Another problem is that I think the Dharma Initiative was already studying electromagnetism, which would mean that they probably had the island already as opposed to Widmore giving it to them. Also, if Ben acted on his own in betraying Widmore after The Purge, where does Jacob factor in? And how would Widmore even get to know Ben, who has been living on the island for years before The Purge?)
The reunion scene is a touching one. I’m sure I’m not the only one who in the last four years has imagined a scene where a rescued survivor is reunited with family (though the one I had most often envisioned was Charlie and his reformed-junkie brother, or Claire going to see that brother after Charlie died). Sayid and Kate have no one to greet them, but Sun’s parents are there, as are Hurley’s. Jack’s mother, who we’ve seen only once, early in Season One, is on hand too.
LIFE AFTER DEATH
And then there was the post-island scene that delivered the biggest blow: Jack learning of his relationship to Claire. After spending at least a couple of years in a coma, Claire’s mother has now been awake for some time, and approaches Jack after his father’s memorial service. She explains to him that she believes the reason his father was in Australia was to see her daughter; his daughter. Jack tries to say that his father didn’t have a daughter, but the woman makes it clear that yes, he did…and that in an unbelievable coincidence, that daughter was also on Flight 815 – one of the passengers who died when the plane hit the water. She tells Jack that his sister’s name was Claire, and it’s all Jack can do to hold it together when he realizes that she was his sister, and that Aaron – who Kate is holding just a few feet away – is his nephew. Whoa.
FOLLOW THAT COPTER
When they arrive at the freighter, Desmond helps them all aboard (and seeing Sun holding Aaron, doesn’t think to inquire about Claire. I’ll chalk that up to the fact that there’s kind of a lot happening at that moment). Faraday heads back immediately, and Sun and Jin are met by a shocking site: Michael. He explains to them how he got back to New York. Following Ben’s bearing took him and Walt to an inhabited island where he was able to sell the boat and buy fare back to New York, where they couldn’t tell anyone who they were. His explanation fills in some holes…and frankly, fills them in quite shoddily. Is this really all there was too it? Michael explains it almost dismissively. I feel like there should be more to it, and I’m not sure if that’s just me looking for mysteries where there are none (could you blame me?), or if we’re really meant to take it at face value, as if Damon and Carlton have heard fans ask the question and threw this in as an attempt to settle the issue. Either way, when Sun asks if he’s now working for Ben, Michael gets immediately defensive, and says he’s not working for Ben, but is trying to make up for what he did; trying to help them. That may be true, but given your actions Michael, you don’t get to be defensive. You haven’t earned back anyone’s trust just yet, so settle down.
On the journey, Ben stops and uncovers a hidden box that contains binoculars, a small mirror…and 15 year-old Saltines. He holds the mirror to the sunlight and makes some kind of signal up toward the trees off in the distance, on higher ground. A similar signal is sent back. “Alright” says Ben, “now we can go.” What was that all about? Was that The Temple? Was Ben communicating with Richard, telling him to take a crew out into the jungle and see what or who they find? Was his message – which he refuses to share with Locke – something to protect his own interests, or do I dare to say that it was also aimed at protecting those with him and all others on the island?
THE COFFIN
BLASTS FROM THE 
xxx
When night falls, Keamy begins loading up the chopper with his crew and a whole lotta heavy artillery. But Frank refuses to pilot him back to the island, objecting to Keamy’s mission and explaining that he was hired to fly scientists. Knowing that killing Frank won’t help his cause, Keamy instead tries to motivate him by slitting the doctor’s throat and tossing him overboard. (A mystery solved!!!) That’s when Gault shows up pointing a gun at Keamy and threatening to fire if doesn’t stand down. Keamy shows off some kind of device, which looks like a small radio or walkie-talkie, strapped to his arm. He warns that shooting him would be a bad idea. What is this device, and what will happen if Gault shoots? Keamy manages to shoot first, and Gault falls to the deck, apparently dead. Now properly motivated, Frank boards the chopper and discreetly starts wrapping a satellite phone in a backpack. From afar, Desmond watches this all unfold.
WE’RE OFF TO SEE THE WIZARD
Whatever happens next, we don’t know. We move outside to Hurley and Ben, who silently share a chocolate bar in a moment perfectly played, yet again, by Emerson and Jorge Garcia. (I’ve already made my case for Michael Emerson winning an Emmy this year, but Jorge Garcia has definitely earned a nomination for his stellar Season Four work). When Locke emerges, they ask him if Jacob told him what to do. Locke answers, “He wants us to move the island.”
x
I Am DB 