We have made it to the last catch up post. Then I will write about the current episode that has just aired. Let’s try to keep this one short and sweet. I say that every time, but I just get to writing and can’t stop. I’m going to start this one by breaking the mold of my usual blogs. This time we are talking original timeline first, then flash-sideways.
The crew minus Jack, Locke and Sayid are locked in the cages by Widmore for their protection. However, like usual, no one tells anyone anything on this show so they escape from Widmore’s cages. It might have been best for them to stay there, but Widmore did not tell them he was on their side (assuming he roughly is) so they escaped when Jack, Sayid and the Smoke monster come and ravage through the cages on Hydra Island.
During their time caged, Widmore says that he has a list of names of people he is supposed to keep safe (the candidates) and Kate is not one of them so it doesn’t matter to him what happens to her or not. (That will probably be big, it at least comes back to play later in the episode.)
Locke then takes his people, which exclusively includes the candidates, Lapidus, Kate and Claire (the rest of Locke’s people scattered into the jungle during the mortar attack), to the plane to leave the Island. He killed Widmore’s guards and inspects the plane to ensure it is safe to leave. (Or was this inspection part of the plan? Was he really expecting to leave the plane or was that all a con from the start?) Locke pulls out some C4 from and tells the people that Widmore just wanted to get them into a small space and blow them up, using the C4 as evidence. He suggests they take the submarine because they cannot be sure the plane does not have more C4 or traps on it.
While walking to the sub Jack makes it clear that he will help them all leave, but he doesn’t feel that he is meant to leave. Sawyer tells Jack that he does not trust Locke at all and is going to get them all on the sub and Jack needs to make sure Locke does not get on the sub. While some of the people are making their way onto the sub, Locke hands Jack a backpack. (Was it just me or was anyone else suspicious from the start that that was not the backpack Jack originally had?)
Mayhem ensues and Kate is shot by some of Widmore’s people while the group is getting on the sub. With all the people about to die (I’m flash-forward referencing here) she actually makes it. Maybe they should have traded her for another person. Oh well. Jack pushes Locke into the water after telling him “John Locke told me I needed to stay.” (You all know I’m going to like that, giving real Locke his credit.)
Unfortunately for “zombie”-Claire’s self-esteem, she is left behind once again by everyone. However, it could be argued that she left everyone else behind back in season four, but she’s crazy so it would be pointless to argue with her about it. However, she feels left behind, but Locke comforts her because he has a plan for that sub, and it’s not good…. (As if you didn’t already know that)
They discover Locke has put a bomb in Jack’s pack and it was his plan, like Locke claimed Widmore had a plan of getting them all in a tight space and blowing them all up. They do not have enough time to surface the sub, so Jack deduces that Locke can’t kill them, that they will be ok. If they mess with the bomb, then it will be death by their hands. (Where did Jack get this knowledge from? It seems that he is probably right, but we have picked this up from numerous other places. We (the audience) are like third-person omniscient to the story line. We know every little bit that the individual characters know, so we can piece the big picture together. However, we still are left in dark quite often in Lost. So are the viewers really third-person omniscient, or are we more “third-person, thinks their omniscient until proven otherwise?”)
I think Jack was right about the bomb, it would not have gone off if they had not messed with it. Any thoughts?
Regardless, Sawyer thinks he has to do something, pulls the wires, which causes the bomb to tick away faster. “Zombie”-Sayid tells them all that Desmond is in a well and that Locke wanted Desmond dead so he must be important and that they will need him. (Obviously the time-flasher-jumper is important, who else is going to “resolve” the timelines. But they did not know that. Score one for us, “the third-person, thinks their omniscient until proven otherwise audience.”) When Jacks asks why Sayid is telling them all this he responds, “Because it’s going to be you, Jack.” (Like they haven’t made that clear enough, Jack is the new Jacob.)
Will Jack be the new Jacob? Yes it seems now that the whole series has been a character arc, transforming him from a man of science to a man of faith but whenever something is so obvious in Lost it’s usually not right. Maybe this is obvious because it is so important, basically the whole crux of the show. I’m hoping for a good twist, maybe there will be. After all, as I said in one of my last two posts, it only says “Shepherd” on the candidate list. Could Christian be a candidate? Remember Christian was talking to someone in “Jacob’s cabin” (is Jacob’s cabin even a good name for it) in the season four premiere. Let’s say one of those is the MIB. Who was the other one? They better answer that, otherwise, that was just a good ole scare tactic for nothing. Maybe David will be the new Jacob, somehow. Is that the purpose of the flash-sidways? It’s looking like Jack will be the new Jacob because Jacob told Hurley he needed Jack to see what was in the lighthouse. However, Jacob could have needed him to see that for another reason. I feel that Jack will probably be the new Jacob, but I think we need to be aware that it could be a different Shepherd. Don’t jump to conclusions yet.
Sayid takes the bomb and runs down the hallway far away, and blows up with it. Now before you think that sounds heroic consider a few things. This was the worst character suicide ever, in a literary sense and a literal sense. He has been zombie-fyed and this, like a few other instances, proves that he had some freewill. Will we ever learn the nature of being “claimed by the darkness?” If we don’t that is a major cheat to introduce something like that so late in the game and not really explain it.
Really, what kind of redemption did he get? He had such a tragic character that always wanted redemption but was always sucked back into things that he did not want to do but felt that he had to do, such as torturing people. Ben also made him kill Widmore’s people for him while he was off the Island. In hindsight, was that really good? I say no. Widmore still seems to be good, but he could pull a fast one in the end.
Also, in the literal sense his death was unnecessary. Could he not have just taken it far and thrown it the rest of the way, maybe even lock it in a room with the door? Yes, it would have exploded, but he would have stayed alive and maybe by locking a door he could have reduced the speed at which the sub sank.
In a same way, I have a bone to pick with Charlie’s death. I mean come on, that little window would have taken a while to fill a room and he stared awhile while Mikhail pulled the grenade. He could have been running towards the door and probably gotten out before it exploded, or at the very least gotten out of the room with like 3 inches of water only in the room. He and Desmond could have shut that door. Even if they couldn’t, Desmond had scuba gear for them; they could have gotten it on before that whole big room even got close to filling with water. Yes, Charlie’s death was a big watershed moment for the series, but come on, how am I to take it seriously when it could have easily been avoided. I mean, why did he think locking himself in the room was the right thing to do? Was it just that his brain was still messed up from all the drugs he had done? I was not a huge fan of Charlie. That, surmounted with his dumb way of handling the flooding of The Looking Glass station, makes it hard for me to sympathize with him. (I will say that I liked him more as I’ve gone back and watched the series with people as they are watching their way through it.)
Sorry for the Charlie bashing but that needed to be said.
With the bomb going off Sayid died and Lapidus most likely did (there was a lot of blood when that door hit him and I’m not sure how he would get out of there). Actually as I watched them getting on the sub I thought to myself, “Frank is really the odd man out here,” and then he died. Do I have that Walt prophecy-like-commanding-like power? Hope not. (I’m referencing when he talked about birds and then one crashed against the window in his first, season one flashback episode, Special.)
Finally, Jack and Hurley escape the sub each taking Sawyer and Kate with them, respectively. This leaves Jin and Sun to die together on the sub because Sun is pinned against the wall. Jin will not leave her and they die together. I really did not think they were going to kill them yet, if at all because they put them together last episode. It seemed cruel to do that to them.
Notice they mentioned that Ji Yeon is currently being cared for by Sun’s mother earlier in the episode. They did not want all the social workers in the world to wonder what was going to happen to her. Now she is going to be raised and spoiled by the corrupt Paik’s. At least Mr. Paik is corrupt. (I’ll admit I got that last part from the producers joking on the podcast. They said this was a hard dilemma because what should Jin have done, left to be a father or stayed with his wife? A lot of people had very different thoughts and reactions to his course of action. Any thoughts on that? What would you have done? If anyone responds to these opinion questions I’m going to psychoanalyze their answers….)
Notice that they did go back and show their lifeless bodies floating. They have tried to make the audience think they have killed Jin so many times that it would have been ridiculous to pretend to kill him, or at the very least, leave his fate uncertain another time. Think about it, the season one finale ends with the raft being blown up. We soon saw Michael and Sawyer, but it is a little bit longer until we see Jin. For a bit of the season three finale they want you to think he might have been killed along with Sayid and Bernard when Ben ordered his people to kill them. Luckily his people did not follow his orders. In hindsight was that candidate intervention? The Island and/or Jacob was not done with them yet. I think we need to ask these questions often when we look back on the past episodes of Lost. Also, when the freighter blew up in the finale of season four it appeared that Jin might have died. It was not until the fourth episode of season five, The Little Prince that we learned he was alive. Sorry Jin, you were just Lost’s whipping boy. Now you can rest in peace with your wife.
The episode ended with everyone upset that so many of their friends had died. I was amazed that they killed so many people this episode with a few more episodes to go. I knew a lot of people were going to die, but I thought that would mainly happen at the finally. I’m sure we will still lose a lot then as well.
Locke somehow knows that his plan was not fully successful and intends to get everyone killed so he can leave. How would he have known if his plan had worked? Would he have just felt it? Would Eloise Hawking teleport to the Island and say, you are free to go now? She does seem to know a lot, maybe she could help him out…maybe she is helping him out. As stated in my last blog or so, I’m curious how she knows so much. Is she a guardian of the rules? Hopefully we will learn more about her role before the end.
Man this is already a long post. Let’s address the flash-sideways real quick. I really liked this flash-sideways because it was very reminiscent of season one between Locke and Jack and philosophies they espouse. However, this time their roles were basically reversed. This time Jack is trying to convince Locke he can fix him. He throws in a couple of regularly spoken phrases from the show such as “Let it go” and “Whatever happened, happened.” Jack even said to him, “I wish you believed me” which was almost exactly what Locke wrote on his suicide letter to Jack in the original timeline. It read “I wish you had believed me.”
Did anyone else think it was a little ironic that Locke became paralyzed in a plane crash in the flash-sideways while a plane crash helped him get the use of his legs back in the original timeline? However, I’m still holding out that Jack will do the surgery, make Locke able to walk, the timelines will “resolve” and because of the flash-sideways world, that is why Locke can walk. We will see. I’m starting to think that prediction won’t come true for a few reasons but I won’t waste your time with that here.
Also, Locke is responsible and blames himself for his father’s condition whereas in the original timeline, Anthony Cooper is responsible for Locke’s condition. Now ,Cooper is brain dead. Is this why Sawyer is having a hard time hunting him down? Talk about total jerk if Sawyer found him and still wanted to kill him, a brain dead person.
Perhaps the most interesting connection is that in the sideways world Jack wants to help Locke because he considers him a candidate. (Glad they used that word there.) In the original timeline we know that Locke wants to kill Jack and the others because they are all candidates. Hmmm.
While Locke was recuperating in the hospital he mumbled in his sleep, “Push the button….I wish you had believed me.” Was that just a dream or was he seeing his other life? The characters are starting to realize things are weird. Even in this episode Jack meets with Bernard to discuss Locke’s previous condition that put him in a wheelchair and they determine they were all on Oceanic 815. (I want to know who remembers their flight numbers. I mean yeah, if you crashed you would learn it. However, I have never remembered a flight number of one I was on. Many times I never look at it. I just go to the right gate and see if the destination and time match up. Risky? Probably not.) This is getting very interesting. I’m looking forward to learning what the point in the sideways world has been. Hopefully we will get our answers soon.
In the words of Smoke-Locke “You are so close; it would be such a shame to turn back now.”
Please feel free to leave your comments and theories. I'd love to hear from you.
“Can’t change the past. Can’t do it. Whatever happened, happened. All right? But then I finally realized…I had been spending so much time focused on the constants, I forgot about the variables…We’re the variable. People. We think. We reason. We make choices. We have free will. We can change our destiny.”- Daniel Faraday, “The Variable,” episode 5.14
Until next week when we have seen a little bit more Lost, Namaste.
Steven
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