Tag: lost

Six years, over 121 hours, and now it’s THE END.

First and foremost I have to say that as a fan of LOST, having watched it from the very beginning, I was completely satisfied with the ending of LOST. It brought a certain level of cohesiveness to this six year journey that I wasn’t really aware of all the way up to the final episode. It treated me, as a fan, in a kind manner and after all was said and done it let me know that it was OK to say good-bye to these characters that I’ve followed all this time. It didn’t try to be overly intellectual but at the same time it was still damn smart television.

I didn’t realize when I was writing my post-LOST wrap up last week that I would be hitting the nail on the head when I said that the flash-sideways world was in many ways coming across as a love letter to the fans. This entire season we’ve been building up to a moment of closure in the flash-sideways world, which I’ll just now refer to as the Gathering, as it got ready to cushion the blow for us that we all knew was coming. We knew that some people would make it to the end of the show, others wouldn’t, but the Gathering is the place where eventually all of our characters would come back together and prepare themselves for whatever the next step is after their journey in LOST would end. As viewers it was a place that reminded us that it doesn’t really matter what characters get off the Island and which ones don’t because eventually everyone dies and after they do they would come to the Gathering and rejoin those that they wanted to be with. This was their reward for entertaining us and this is the place where we know it is OK to wish them well and know that we can all move on now from our LOST experience together.

In a similar line of thought I also found that the Gathering is that special place for us, the viewer, where the characters will always be there for us to enjoy them again later much in the same way our favorite literary characters still reside in our books when we return to them. I’ve never been happy with the eventual death of GLEN BATEMAN in that Las Vegas jail cell but when I come back and read THE STAND again I can always find him sitting by a creek, painting, and waiting for his eventual discovery by STU REDMAN.

Of all of the characters that came to their realizations of where they really were in the Gathering I think the journey that was most interesting was actually that of BENJAMIN LINUS. In many ways I think it is fitting that BEN’s journey stands out for me given that the amazing acting of MICHAEL EMERSON transformed a simple three episode guest spot in the second season into one of the most complicated characters on network television who stuck around for the remainder the series run. In the Island word BEN sought and was granted redemption, so much so that he goes on to act as a confidant to HURLEY, the purest soul on the show. In the Gathering BEN is outside of the church in those final scenes and apologizes to LOCKE for what he had done to him. He further bonds with HURLEY but when it is all said and done he remains outside. I’m sure there are many interpretations why. BEN may have come to bid farewell to all of these lives that he had been involved with but knows that his journey doesn’t continue with them. Maybe BEN is waiting for ALEX and DANIELLE to have their own realizations so they can journey on together as a family. Perhaps his deeds as a man make it so that he can not continue on. I don’t know the answer but I love that the complexity of the character now will live on in perpetuity.

The big bit of enlightenment for me in watching the finale, the bit that much like The Dude’s rug really tied it all together, was the realization that what we had watched for the past six years was at its core one man’s journey. The series began with the awakening of JACK SHEPHERD after the crash. Looking back at the past six years it may be that his awakening was also in more of a spiritual sense. He was a man that was broken and needed to travel his own journey to redemption. When it is all said and done that redemption comes after fulfilling his purpose in restoring balance to the Island so that it can continue on beyond him. For six years we were able to see that journey and travel it with him and bore witness to the sacrifice he made that allowed for his redemption. The fact that it was his story and his journey that we followed is reflected in those that were chosen, or drawn together, to be with him in the Gathering before they all passed on to whatever comes next. This is possibly another reason why BEN wasn’t part of JACK’s Gathering.

I’m sure that there will be those that will simply look to the obvious and cry foul. They will be angered because they still don’t know exactly what the Island is, why babies stopped being born on it, or any number of other dangling questions that may be out there. The truth, however, is that in the grand scope of LOST we won’t be any happier if we actually knew why JULIET was branded by the Others, how WALT was special, or where Kate’s toy plane went. In the big picture these things don’t apply because what we were watching was JACK’s story and these answers just aren’t important to his story being told.

Be aware, as well, of the future because there may still be just a bit more of LOST for us to discover. The series finale breaks the 44 minute average show model and there may be a few scenes we didn’t see to help pad the shows so they can complete and balanced for syndication. Maybe we’ll see how BEN gets out from under that log, how JACK got back to place where the plug had to be put back in the ground, or maybe even a scene where MILES, RICHARD and FRANK are in an outrigger during pouring rain and another outrigger mysteriously appears in front of them and they open fire? This is all just based on conjecture but I can’t see much being trimmed from this finale in order to make it into two clean episodes. I guess we’ll eventually see.

The executive producers have also hinted that they haven’t quite completed telling their story of WALT. I don’t know where they plan on telling more of it so keep an eye out on the Internet, TV, DVD store or local comic book shop for that story possibly wrapping up.

Here is a simple laundry list of all of the things that I came away liking in the finale:

• The Island truly was a cork keeping evil, malevolance, whatever at bay.
• The knowledge that DESMOND was actually given a glimpse into the afterlife and didn’t even realize it.
• The emotion evoked during each of the characters realizations in the Gathering.
• The simple fact that MILES, FRANK and RICHARD actually got off the Island after being dragged there not knowing what they were really getting in to.
• HURLEY taking on the mantle of ISLAND protector after JACK. This made his confidence and knowledge acquired before the Gathering even more meaningful.
• The shock BEN had at being asked by HURLEY to help him in protecting the ISLAND.
• The mutual respect that BEN and HURLEY have for each other at the Gathering.
• The multi-denominational nature of the back room where JACK accepts his own death at the church.
• VINCENT keeping JACK company in the bamboo forest so that our hero would not have to “die alone.”

So there we have it folks, THE END has come, the discussion and arguments will still continue and I’m very glad to say that after the story has been told I’m not really that LOST anymore.

Namaste.

– Will Wilkins

PS: This coming week will also bring the final installment of the comprehensive and witty “The Final Season of LOST as Seen by Someone Who Has Never Seen LOST” and I had the opportunity to interview the author mere hours before the finale for your listening pleasure right here.

I suppose, before I do anything else, I should issue a half-hearted apology to the writers and producers of LOST for the harsh review of ‘ACROSS THE SEA’ that I put out last week. I only say this in context to having seen this week’s episode ‘WHAT THEY DIED FOR’ since there are holes that would have been left unfilled had we not seen ‘ACROSS THE SEA’. I still stand by it being one of my least favorite episodes of the season for many reasons but I can not at least see the logic of what they were trying to accomplish as well as the reason why they placed it exactly where they placed it.

If you have been tracking the number of special LOST columns that I have written for this season than you will notice that I haven’t written one for every single episode. My reason for leaving out certain episodes is the same reason that I almost did not write one for this series penultimate episode. It is very hard to talk about the elements of what happened in ‘WHAT THEY DIED FOR’ because it feels like both a lot happened and a lot didn’t happen in the episode. If I were to sit down and list all of the things that did happen in this episode you would probably think I’m off my nut in saying a lot didn’t happen, but maybe my perception is in the fact that we didn’t see much progress happen in the story.

THREE MEN AND A BADDY
One of the three stories transpiring in this episode was the tale of MILES, RICHARD and BEN going to BEN’s former house to pick up some C4 from his special pantry of disaster in order to blow up the AJIRA plane on the smaller island. This seemingly small and uninteresting story had most of the action and progress in it because the following all happens:

• Before getting to the cabin we find out RICHARD took the time to bury BEN’s daughter ALEX
• Right after getting the C4 the trio find their party crashed by CHARLES WIDMORE and the EVIL TINA FEY (ZOE).
• Right after THAT party crash the party gets crashed further by LOCKE MONSTER (why have I not been calling him this all along?) who tosses RICHARD ALPERT into the jungle (with MILES having ditched the party in favor of living via a jungle jog).
• BEN seems to turn coat pretty quick after in handing over ZOE and WIDMORE over to LOCKE, both of whom wind up dead shortly after WIDMORE reveals that DESMOND was JACOB’s failsafe should all the candidates get made dead.
• BEN accompanies LOCKE MONSTER to the well where DESMOND is supposed to be but find an empty well and a rope instead.

See, lots of action? In the story we’re reminded of BEN’s daughter being ALEX since that will come up in the flash-sideways story also in this episode. WIDMORE and ZOE have to be there in order to tell LOCKE MONSTER why they brought DESMOND to the ISLAND as well as allowing their game pieces to be cleared off of the board. This gets them added to the pile along with FRANK (pilot the AJIRA flight) and ILLANA (get the ashes from JACOB’s death pyre) as characters who enjoyed several episodes on the Island to only fulfill one purpose. WIDMORE is also crucial to either prove to us through his death that BEN is vengeful and evil or just that he’s vengeful and hopefully he’s working the long con on the LOCKE MONSTER in order to simply survive this whole ordeal. I really hope that this is the case because BEN first seems to switch sides again when the LOCKE MONSTER offers him control of the Island after he’s left. By the episodes end, however, he says he is going to find DESMOND and use him to do what he’s never been able to do which is to destroy the Island. This naturally leaves BEN with a LOSE/LOSE situation so if we see him hanging around with LOCKE MONSTER on the Sunday finale it means he’s working the long con or simply trying to survive.

I think the writers really want us to believe that RICHARD ALPERT is dead. I don’t really know if that is the case. RICHARD was trying to use dynamite to off himself a few episodes back because, I’m assuming, that living after you’ve been blown to bits is kind of hard to do. Being tossed into a jungle like a wild foul ball probably bangs you up really bad, probably to the point where you wish you were dead, but RICHARD was given immortal life by JACOB wasn’t he?

During LOCKE MONSTER and BEN’s trip to the well it was nice to have the writers also answer a very simple question that I’m sure many a geek like myself has wondered. He asked LOCKE MONSTER directly, “If you can become smoke whenever you want why do you bother walking?” Turns out LOCKE MONSTER is the granola eating tree hugging type who likes to feel the Earth under his feet. Good on you LOCKE MONSTER!

CAMP FIRE STORIES
The second of the three stories that went on in the 42 minutes and 20 seconds of screen time was the story of the remaining candidates. They grieved over their sunk comrades, they started on their quest to find DESMOND and they ended up all finally meeting JACOB. It turns out that those ashes that ILLANA took from the base of the statue could be used to bring JACOB back one last time when burned in a fire (if I describe any more detail it comes off even crazier so let’s just leave it at that).

Even though HURLEY seemed to find JACOB in a matter of moments some how it takes him all afternoon and evening to finally get his friends back to JACOB’s fireside vigil where he finally let’s them know why their friends died and ‘WHAT THEY DIED FOR’. He cops to accidentally creating the SMOKE MONSTER almost 2000 years ago and how that LOCKE MONSTER wants to destroy the light of all creation at the heart of the Island, and that’s what needs protecting. One of them has to choose to become the new protector of the Island and hopefully dispatch the LOCKE MONSTER because the LOCKE MONSTER is going to be gunning for them. Faster than you can say, “JACK has been building up to this all season” JACK stands up and takes the job. JACOB says an incantation and gives him a mug of river water to chug down and then tells JACK, “Now you’re like me.” I suppose this means that JACK will now speak in vague statements and won’t be able to answer any question posed to him in a direct manner.

This is part of the story that had to happen but it contained the least amount of action and momentum. The torch was passed from one protector to another and that’s about it.

TAKE A WALK ON THE WILD SIDE
The third story that occured in under three quarters of an hour can really be labeled as the adventures of DESMOND the enlightened in the alternate reality. Flash-sideways DESMOND is still on his quest to open the eyes of his fellow Flight 815’ers. The first stop is to prank call JACK to let him know that his Dad’s coffin has been found. The second is to stop off at the school and beat the snot out of BEN. The third is to turn himself in to the cops so that he can be transferred to county with SAYID and KATE and helps bust them out with the help of HURLEY and ANNA LUCIA. His final reveal is that KATE is his date to a concert, which might be the concert that is being hosted by DANIEL FARADAY WIDMORE, even though I thought that was happening the same night that CHARLIE took DESMOND into the bay for a leisurely underwater drive.

The flash-sideways world, in many ways, comes off more like a love-letter to the long time fans of the show. After getting his beat down from DESMOND the very timid BENJAMIN LINUS accepts a ride home and dinner invitation by ALEX’s mom DANIELLE who insists he comes over, “even if we have to kidnap you.” His appearance during this invitation, after the beat down by DESMOND, is almost the same as… well… his appearance after the beat down by DESMOND in the previous season. There’s also a touching scene after dinner where BEN finds out that ALEX thinks of him as a father figure, where he subsequently gets all choked up and we as an audience all are supposed to go “AHHHHHHH.”

Another item that stemmed from BEN’s whoopin’ is the re-installation of faith into JOHN LOCKE. When BEN tells him that the guy that beat him up said he was trying to help LOCKE to “let go” LOCKE has coincidence overload and goes to see JACK to let him know he’s ready to get out of his chair if JACK really thinks that he can help him. This scene has a great call back to a line to one said by MR. EKO in the second season when JACK says to LOCKE that he is, “confusing coincidence for fate.”

I think the most important item of note is probably one of the most subtle. In the very beginning of the episode we see flash-sideways JACK in the bathroom noticing the same bloody neck wound that he had in the first episode of this season as well. Sideways JACK is the only person that we’ve seen a persistent wound on this season, he’s also the only one that seems to notice physical problems or issues with himself (remember the appendix question a while back?). I don’t think that this bodes very well for sideways JACK. I don’t know how and I don’t know why this isn’t a good thing for him but I think that in the series finale things aren’t going to end well for him.

ALMOST TO ‘THE END’
That’s really all that I have to say about this episode. After seeing this episode I think that there is a lot of story to still be told so I’m glad that the broadcast slot for the episode was expanded to 2.5 hours, especially since this actually means roughly 110 minutes of actual show time. That’s just 10 minutes shy of two full hours to have three separate stories converge into one final tale. I still have no idea about what is going to happen and I’m glad I don’t. It means that ht writing isn’t predictable, the story is unique, and the experience will be a memorable one.

See you on the other side.

There are times when I’m watching a TV show that I really love that I sometimes sit in wonder and amazement at how compelling it can be. Other times I can be blown away by the use of imagery and symbolism that require me to think deeper about the message being delivered. Finally there are times that I am watching the show and have the feeling that I’m just completely missing the point because I don’t care for what I’m seeing at all. Sadly the 15th episode of the final season of LOST played out that last case scenario for me. As usual I will warn you that I am about to discuss the episode in detail so if you haven’t watched it yet and don’t want to know what happened than I suggest you return at a later date to read this.

I’m sure both on paper and in concept the idea behind the episode of ACROSS THE SEA sounded great and made the writers feel that they were really going to deliver on answering some questions for fans of the show while also tying up a few loose ends. We the fans would finally know who the skeletons of ADAM & EVE, discovered in the caves in the season one episode HOUSE OF THE RISING SUN, were. We would find out who built the DONKEY WHEEL that when turned moved the Island, and we’d find out the origin story of both JACOB and the SMOKE MONSTER/MAN IN BLACK. Unfortunately, for this viewer and fan anyway, what may have sounded good didn’t come off very good. I think that the Tweet from writer BRIAN LYNCH sums up my viewing experience best:

OK, maybe that doesn’t really sum it up but it made me laugh upon reading. I think fan reaction to the episode is also pretty clear from the Tweet sent out today by Executive Producer Damon Lindelof:

With ACROSS THE SEA what I ended up getting was a rather uninteresting story that lead to more questions than answers, which this late in the LOST game isn’t a good thing. I’m not just talking about a little list either. Here’s all of the questions that got stuck in my head while watching this episode:

• Why did they have to clearly make a point out of the MAN IN BLACK not having a name by never saying his name, a move that just made me want to know his name even more?
• Where did the MOTHER character played by ALLISON JANNEY come from and how did she become (I’m so sorry for this bad cliche) the protector of the light (yes, again, sorry, you read that right but hey I didn’t write the episode)?
• Why throw us a bone by showing us it was the MAN IN BLACK who built the DONKEY WHEEL only to also show us that his job site was collapsed before being finished forcing me to wonder who did in fact finish it? Yes, I get that he probably convinced others that came to the Island to finish the job but still, why even give me that question?
• Why have MOTHER say that she’s made it so that JACOB and MAN IN BLACK can’t harm one another and then have JACOB beat the crap out of him twice in the episode and then either nearly or completely fatally wound him as he’s tossed into the tunnel where the LIGHT is?
• Why the heavy handed inter-cutting of the HOUSE OF THE RISING SUN footage of the skeletons being found in the future while JACOB places the bodies in the past? I know the producers said that this is one of the things that proves that they had the end game planned the entire time but instead it just came off as them finding a solution that fit the scenario they set up six years ago (not to mention JACK said the bodies looked like they could have been there for 30 or 40 years… that’s a bit off the mark from 100’s of years).

I suppose if you break it down to the essentials seeing this episode brought me the same level of frustration I experienced with the introduction of the MAN IN BLACK and the actual appearance of JACOB in the season five finale. Meeting these two characters made me feel like a lot of what we had watched up to this point and the struggles we had seen were diminished by these new players who apparently held a greater importance to the show than we had ever known. It felt like one of those bad mysteries where suddenly the bad guy is revealed and it is a character who was playing a bag handler in the background of the second scene.

Maybe I would feel better about this episode if they had come up with this idea earlier in the season, like immediately after the season premiere where we learned that SMOKE MONSTER and UN-LOCKE were one and the same. It certainly didn’t spoil anything for the rest of the season. I’d probably also feel better about this episode if it didn’t actually make me feel almost sympathetic again for the MAN IN BLACK right after the episode that let us know that he was completely, totally and unarguably the bad guy. In this story he came off more as a victim who doesn’t want to be trapped on an Island where for 13 years he was raised by the crazy woman who murdered his mother. Yes in the end he ends up stabbing his “Mother” but this can also be taken as avenging the death of his real mother and the people he has lived with for the past 30 years as well as freeing himself of the evil that this mother murdering monster clearly seemed to be capable of. Instead of black and white (a metaphor and bit of symbolism used WAY TOO MUCH in this episode) and the struggle of DARK and LIGHT we get dumped right back into shades of grey. From a story telling perspective this sudden shift made no sense.

Another frustrating element of this episode was taking JACOB from the wise and enlightened being we previously viewed him as and reduced him to a whiney little momma’s boy. He didn’t come by the job of protector of the light (ugh) and Island as a noble calling or through trials and redemption. He was handed a job at the family business that he didn’t want and just like so many others in the same role he screwed up on his very first day on the job. All he has to do is protect the light and keep men out of the cave. First command decision? Throw his brother into the tunnel and BAM he makes a smoke monster. Way to go JACOB!

Oh yeah, before I forget, I think we should officially ban any writer from ever using the term “There’s a storm coming” again. I’m calling for a moratorium on this one folks, it’s been overused and is such a heavy handed term used in foreshadowing that it pretty much insults my ears for hearing it. In this episode that was overflowing with symbolism it was pretty much the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Going in to this episode I really wanted to love it but instead it was just too long of a story that did very little to hold my attention long enough to show me who built the DONKEY WHEEL, how MAN IN BLACK became the SMOKE MONSTER and who two skeletons were in the caves. If this episode is any indication for the type of writing we can expect over the next three episodes than I can only tell you one thing folks: There’s a storm coming.

Before I delve into anything about the May 4th episode of LOST I just have to say that there was some very surprising news that I almost didn’t hear on JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE later that same night. I’ve been a long time fan of KIMMEL but haven’t watched or DVR’d the show for a long time because I work and already can’t watch all the TV I’ve already got on my plate (another reason to get the HD TiVO already so I can go portable too!). Yesterday, however, Executive Producer of LOST Damon Lindelof sent out the following Tweet:

Sorry, that’s the one I read in my head after watching THE CANDIDATE. The real Tweet was:

JORGE GARCIA was a guest and just at the close of the interview, almost drowned out by the cheers of the crowd and the band as they go to commercial KIMMEL made the special announcement that LOST’s climax would not take up two hours of television programming time that night. It would actually take up 2 and a half hours of programming time. Yup, the series finale just got 22 minutes longer folks because (I’m assuming and hoping) they just couldn’t cram that much awesome into the time they were given.

Now that we’ve gotten that bit of business out of the way, and since I’m sure you’ve already heard or read the news about the finale, let’s move on to taking a look at what happened on the 14th episode of this final season titled THE CANDIDATE. As always I remind you that I write this with the assumption that you are reading this because you’ve already seen the episode so if you haven’t this is your final warning.

I was really looking forward to sitting down today and writing out the fact that I in fact hit the nail on the head with a prediction I had made. I was all excited and I went back to find out what column I had written it in and much to my own horror it turns out that I never actually seemed to write it. This really bummed me out so let me now tell you the words that I could have sworn that I put down in print.

I don’t like to speculate on what is coming up but I really hope that the ‘Candidates’ don’t some how get tricked into going along with whatever UN-LOCKE/SMOKEY JOE has planned. He’s not ‘allowed’ to kill the candidates so this means that he probably wants and needs to kill the candidates. Every time he says he needs them all to get off the ISLAND the part of the sentence that I hear him purposely leaving out is the word ‘dead’ after all and before to get off the ISLAND.

I don’t know what article I completely abandoned and discarded some time after writing that but oh how I wish I still had it to present to you as proof that I saw this one coming. Explained as simply as the way I had before pressing the delete button it’s pretty clear, right? At least I did say in this week’s column for recommendations that with the remaining number of episodes of LOST there was a high probability of an important character body count increase this week, so there’s one for the win column.

Yes, that’s right those of you who didn’t take my warning and have no idea what happened in THE CANDIDATE, main characters died. I knew it was going to happen the very moment that UN-LOCKE/SMOKEY JOE handed JACK his backpack that the previously seen explosives were going to be in that backpack. If UN-LOCKE had a big bad guy soup handle mustache when he handed that backpack over he would have been twirling it with one finger and saying “mwuahahaha” under his breath.

So with most of our favorite LOST-ies stuck in a submarine they found the bomb and did everything wrong. SAYID took a final shot at redemption by grabbing the bomb and running to the other side of the sub before he was blown to bits (which makes sense because SAYID is so bad ass he HAD to go out in a blaze of glory). Our favorite pilot FRANK took a flying door to the face and JIN stayed with SUN after she was trapped behind debris proving that true love means staying with someone so you both can die together. I personally would have had JIN try to break my hip or pelvis so I could be pried out from behind the wreckage but clearly it was time to lighten the load.

This show did leave me with a lot of questions, but not in the usual LOST sense. I wouldn’t say I’m pondering plot holes however there are certain things that don’t add up to me.

• After SAYID some how gets through the sonic fence he cuts the generator power so all the LOST-ies can be un-caged after UN-LOCKE as SMOKEY JOE takes care of the guards. Shortly after there are two guards at the plane. Why didn’t SMOKEY JOE just go all kinds of nuts and make a clean sweep of the whole smaller ISLAND?
• JACK figured the bomb couldn’t go off because UN-LOCKE can’t kill any of them. Just like the stick of dynamite he shared with RICHARD ALPERT he’s convinced that nothing will happen. (Think of it like a mathproblem LOCKE can’t kill Candidate and LOCKE makes bomb so LOCKE BOMB can’t kill Candidate). SAWYER doesn’t believe him, pulls the leads, and the timer stops only to quickly speed up (No Mr. Bond, I expect you to DIE!). How is tampering with a bomb different then JACK lighting the fuse on a stick of dynamite if he too can’t kill himself? I have to believe that JACK’s logic was somewhat flawed because he was able to get out of the situation alive so the magic voodoo power of the ISLAND or whatever didn’t need to intercede. This could mean that JACK is probably going to be there to the very end (and doesn’t bode well for SAWYER since he pulled the wires and ka-BOOM!). This is kind of funny to think about since the original intention was to kill JACK at the end of the show’s PILOT episode.
• Where the hell was CHARLES WIDMORE after the first five minutes? Did he know that LOCKE was coming and made way for the main ISLAND to try to fulfill his electronmagnetic dreams?

The flash-sidewayswhateveritis also pointed out something else that, if allowed to play out, won’t bode very well for flash-sidewayswhateveritis SAWYER since he still has a blood feud with ANTHONY COOPER who it now turns out is a vegetable. Sorry SAWYER, no revenge for you in the other dimension/reality/confusion. This also is the only real revelation to come out of the flash-sidewayswhateveritis other than the fact that LOCKE mutters things about the ISLAND in his sleep and once again JACK is found to be looking into a mirror, this time that of the music box his father left CLAIRE.

Just as many on the Internet have suspected it’s pretty clear that SAYID didn’t in fact kill DESMOND. His little speach about leaving something in a well caused millions of female viewers to cheer all at once.

The one thing that was nice to see was something we haven’t really seen in a while on LOST: actual mourning. After escaping the submarine of doom the quartet of Hurley, Jack, Sawyer and Kate now realize that from all of flight 815 they are all that is left. They’ve just lost two definite friends, 1 kinda friend and 1 dude they shared a secret with. They break down. They cry. All of them (well, except Sawyer because he got bonked on the head and is out of it). It was nice to finally show these characters have a real moment after all hell broke loose. They’re usually running around and dealing with seven types of crazy so they haven’t really had these moments recently. Nice touch.

That’s all I’ve really got to reflect on this week folks. Next week’s episode is titled ACROSS THE SEA and I’m pretty sure it’s going to be an AB AETERNO style flashback look at the life of JACOB and UN-LOCKE/SMOKEY JOE, which is perfectly timed since it’s pretty clear now that even though JACOB isn’t a saint SMOKEY JOE is pretty much THE bad guy.

See you next week!

Welcome to another Wednesday where I sit down and presume that you even care what I think about last night’s episode of LOST, titled AB AETERNO. Even if you don’t yesterday’s Tweet from Damon Lindelof let’s me know that someone out there cares.

I’m sure that this episode is the kind that will divide the LOST fan community in half. The ep was a virtual stand-alone that had very little connection to the current events on the Island. This thing was 95% backstory for the mysterious and non-aging RICHARD ALPERT. We were able to see where he came from, how he came to be on the Island, and why this guy never gets any older. I’m sure there are going to be plenty of people out there that are venting today how this is the last season and they just don’t care about the life of some second stringer and instead want to see some real action go down on the Island. Hopefully next week will really deliver for these people (if they are in fact out there). I’m not one of these people. I really enjoyed this episode.

I admit that AB AETERNO was a welcome change of pace for me. There was no flash sideways in the episode to distract me. There wasn’t a lot of back-and-forth action between different groups and trying to keep track of what is going on between them. Once the writers got us from JACOB to CANDIDATES to RICHARD they sent us into a view of his life and they did not break from it at all until near the end of the episode. They dropped us into a romantic tradgedy that, at the end, held the potential for redemption.

I really enjoyed being able to see more of the range of NESTOR CARBONELL in this episode. I am one of those people that actually watched and enjoyed SUDDENLY SUSAN during it’s brief run on NBC and for me NESTOR was one of the highlights. His performance of BAT MANUEL on the short lived live action version of THE TICK for FOX was a pleasant surprise as well. These two instances, however, were the most memorable performances that I’ve caught of MR. CARBONELL so seeing him truly act in AB AETERNO was incredible. During this episode he had to deliver desperation, loss, pain, suffering, confusion and even a little bit of a man on the brink of insanity. One of the best moments of the episode for me was his near psychotic giggle that he gives when asked by Ilana, “What do we do now?” CARBONELL did a great job of stepping off of the side lines and taking a strong lead in this episode.

Even though we did not see a lot of action in the “present” on the Island we did get an explanation of what might be the real reason why people eventually find the Island and why exactly JACOB has been shopping around for his replacement.

During a conversation between RICHARD and JACOB the latter explains, with the aid of a wine bottle, the reason why he is there. The bottle contains pure evil, the kind that will dangerously spread if not kept in check. The Island that we’ve all been in wonder of for the past five years is the cork that keeps the evil in the bottle. JACOB’s role is to protect the Island to make sure the cork stays in place and keeps evil in the bottle. This, of course, makes me wonder if the writers of the show came up with this final idea about what’s going on while hitting the sauce pretty hard one night in quiet desperation in the writer’s room knowing they had to wrap this show up.

All kidding aside that wine bottle description is great in that we finally understand why JACOB is there, why the SMOKE MONSTER is there, and what the struggle is. Makes perfect sense. JACOB also tells us that he keeps drawing people to the Island because the SMOKE MONSTER believes that people are easy to corrupt because it is in our nature to sin and JACOB wants to prove him wrong. We also already know from the first few opening minutes of last season’s finale episode THE INCIDENT that SMOKE MONSTER really wants to kill JACOB. Exactly where does bringing people to the Island so ol’ SMOKEY JOE can try to turn them into JACOB killing machines fit in to the whole “keep the cork in the bottle by protecting the Island” equation? Seems like playing a risky game just to prove a point. I’ve tried doing this kind of thing during arguments with my wife but it always ends with the fight going longer than I wanted and every time I start to do it I know it won’t be worth the effort. Maybe JACOB should have tried arguing with my wife to see how much his effort to prove his point wouldn’t be worth it.

I really shouldn’t have brought up that opening of THE INCIDENT because it, coupled with the final moments of AB AETERNO, just makes me confused in the world of continuity. In the beginning of THE INCIDENT we find JACOB and the MAN IN BLACK/SMOKEY JOE watching a boat on the horizon. The statue is still intact and SMOKEY JOE asks JACOB, “Do you know how badly I want to kill you?” This tells us that this conversation had to have happened prior to the BLACK ROCK showing up since the ship rode a gigantic wave into the island that made it smash the statue to bits before bending the laws of phsyics and coming to rest well inland (that was one big wave). After everything in AB AETERNO we find JACOB coming up to the MAN IN BLACK and stating to him, “So you tried to kill me.” Either JACOB has a very bad memory or he some how was arrogant enough to think that there was no way that SMOKEY JOE could actually harm him with the people that he brings to the Island. I don’t know which, but that bit kind of bothered me.

I think a lot of us assumed that the boat they were watching in THE INCIDENT was the BLACK ROCK. Since she ran aground during a big storm during the night it would seem they were just watching some other boat. Then again they may have been seeing her as she passed the Island and the storm could have later forced her crew to turn around to head for the safety of dry land. I suppose it doesn’t really matter.

It was nice to also see some things come in to play that we’ve seen already this season. The knife given to RICHARD by SMOKEY JOE was the same one given to SAYID to kill SMOKEY JOE. We now know why the term, “It’s nice to see you out of those chains” was the trigger for how RICHARD knew who our Island LOCKE really was. Seeing where the white rock that LOCKE throws into the ocean in THE SUBSTITUTE (if it was the same one) was both amusing and made me raise questions on whether the cave was really JACOB’S cave or SMOKEY JOE’s (since if it was the same rock it was given to SMOKEY by JACOB).

We also learned that ILANA’s true mission, in coming to the ISLAND was to protect the six remaining candidates. I have no idea why protecting the candidates included bringing the dead body of LOCKE to the statue to show JACOB. I would think that her time would have been better spent looking for the candidates. I guess JACOB must have told her to drop by the statue and say hello to let him know she was there and she thought the dead body might be a nice gift to bring. We also learn that she knows the names of the remaining six candidates so unles FRANK is actually a candidate she must like his company or needed someone to help lug around her housewarming gift for JACOB.

One last item that I haven’t really discussed is the whole CANDIDATE business. For some reason I never really wondered who the remaining candidates were. I realized last night, however, that they are trying to get us to wonder who they are since they really went out of their way to specifically say that there are six remaining candidates. Some candidates are already given since KATE, SAWYER (as FORD), JACK, SAYID and HURLEY have already been identified. That only leaves one of the two KWON’s (JIN or SUN)? I’m sorry I ever thought about this since most of the other failed candidates are failed because of the inconvenience of death. I really hope there might be an exception in this case since without it there would be a very unhappy ending for the KWON’s. (Man, I’m really sorry I bothered to stop and think about this.)

So, in conclusion, we may have learned the following with AB AETERNO:

• RICHARD ALPERT has been on the Island since 1867.
• JACOB protects the Island because it is the only thing that is keeping a pure kind of evil trapped from infecting the entire world.
• THE SMOKE MONSTER/MAN IN BLACK is what JACOB believes is that pure kind of evil.
• JACOB keeps bringing people to the Island to try to prove his point that all of man isn’t completely corruptable with sin (and doesn’t mind that the people he brings keep dying).
• JACOB made ALPERT his spokeperson because he didn’t want to directly influence the people that he brings to the Island.
• THE BLACK ROCK is what broke the big statue on the Island while coming ashore.
• HURLEY once again seems to be fighting on the side of good by convincing RICHARD to not join the evil LOCKE/SMOKE MONSTER.
• The knife that SAYID tried to kill evil LOCKE with was the same knife that the MAN IN BLACK gave to RICHARD to kill JACOB.
• The white rock that evil LOCKE threw into the ocean may have been the one that JACOB gave to RICHARD to give to the MAN IN BLACK.
• JACOB sent ILANA to the Island to protect the remaining six candidates and she doesn’t like to show up without a gift.

From the preview for next week’s episode, THE PACKAGE, it would seem that evil LOCKE is either going to drop in on the JACK camp to try to lure SUN away with promises of taking her to her husband. Based on his past tactics this can’t really be his real intention. THE PACKAGE also marks our start of the ‘back nine’ as there are only 9 hours of LOST ever. If my predictions are correct than from this point out it is just going to be a roller-coaster ride until the finale. I really hope I’m right.

– Will Wilkins is a little less LOST than he was last week.

Well once again it’s Wednesday and I’m left wondering what exactly it was that I watched last  night. Thankfully Damon tried to let me know in advance what I should be thinking about:

Last night’s episode of LOST was titled RECON. Originally I would think of this as an abbreviated form of the word reconnaissance. After seeing the episode last night I would think that my interpretation would have been more on the money. SAWYER goes over to the smaller island at the request of UN-LOCKE to see what is up with the people from the Ajira plane crash. Reconnaissance, right?

It could be that what Damon was eluding to was that they were in fact conning us again. The whole flash sideways thing gave us another glimpse of the world where flight 815 safely landed. SAWYER and MILES are actually LAPD. Before this reveal we’re lead to believe SAWYER is the same grifter that we saw in the crashed 815 reality when suddenly ‘surprise’ he’s a cop! Congrats guys, you got me!

I don’t like to dwell in the flash sideways world very much, mostly because I don’t know a lot of what is going on there or where that side of the story is going. I do like, however, if you connect the dots one piece from the premiere actually does make a little bit of sense. SAWYER didn’t turn in fugitive KATE when he had a chance to in the elevator. Kind of makes him a bad cop, right? In the episode last night, however, it turns out SAWYER was keeping his little trip down under real hush-hush so he wanted to stay low profile. Turn in a fugitive and you’ve got questions to answer. Not very high profile.

So what about life back on the Island? Did we learn anything new? Turns out that ol’ SMOKEY JOE UN-LOCKE had a mother that was crazy, just like how CLAIRE is crazy. I’m sure that there are all kinds of LOST-philes on the Internet now trying to figure out how to connect the dots to prove that CLAIRE is the one and the same mother and UN-LOCKE is actually AARON. I don’t buy into it.

I was kind of shocked last night to discover that we were actually given a payoff from the final moments of last week’s episode when we learned that CHARLES WIDMORE and his non-yellow submarine has stopped and set up base on the smaller island (I feel silly calling it the Hydra island, sorry). I was even more shocked when SAWYER revealed the first real logical plan from any person on the Island: there’s two sides at war and he’s just going to stay out of the way, let them duke it out, and try to slip out the back door. BRILLIANT! I suppose this is the first time this type of plan can actually happen, however, since the LOST-ies for the first time aren’t actually in the center of the conflict. Still I bet the people that died by flaming aarow on the beach last season had wished they had given up their beach life a few seasons ago and just stayed in the caves instead of getting involved in all of JACK’s whacky shenanigans.

In speaking with a co-worker a few weeks ago I made the analogy that the beginning of this season is like the starting point of a roller coaster. You’ve got that long slow climb to the peak before you are moved along slowly to the first big drop and the ride goes all kinds of crazy, you lose your hat or sunglasses, kids scream (maybe some puke) and in the end everyone loved the ride. Right now we’re about up to the peak. Soon we’ll be carted over and then all hell is going to break loose. No sense in over-dissecting what is going on. Just try to get through it so we can be where we are supposed to before the big drop, right?

I’m looking forward to next week where we (hoepfully) see more of what’s going on with JACK and his crowd and maybe we get to see some of these split up people coming together. Next week marks the official half-way point in this final season so they just HAVE to crank things up, right?

Welcome back folks to another TV or Not TV morning after for LOST.

Last week I opted not to say very much about the episode “WHAT KATE DOES” mainly because of the following tweet from Damon Lindelof.

Since I have no interest in watching NCIS: Los Angeles I opted to stay mum. Not a lot happened last week so there wasn’t very much to actually expand on. There weren’t many revelations or unique thoughts that popped in to my head. I can’t say the same for this week. As always I will warn you that I do not hold back on information that we were given in the episode and I’ll be taking that a step further based on the preview that we were given for next week. If you haven’t seen the episode “The Substitute” yet and you continue to read please be aware that you are volunteering to get SPOILERS thrown at you.

The Substitute had the same method of story telling that we have seen in the episodes prior. We have the on Island story and the “sideways flash” storyline. This week that story line was about our dearly departed (but now alive in the sideways flash) John Locke.

I have to admit that these sideways flash story lines have done very little to hold my interest but this week I bought in to the concept completely. I don’t know if it is because we are seeing the story of a character that is now dead in the time line/reality that we’ve come to know on the show or not but I was very eager to learn of John Locke. This particular John Locke has some differences than the other John Locke we knew. It turns out he is engaged to be married to Helen Norwood and, in a very interesting twist, it would seem that he is on speaking terms with his father (which a keen eye may notice a picture of the two together on a hunting trip displayed on his cubical wall just below a picture of he and Helen together). We also find out that this John Locke did try to go on Walkabout and was told that he couldn’t. Unlike the John Locke we are used to, however, by the end of this episode we find out that this John Locke is finally ready to accept that fact that there are some things that he just can no longer do.

The sideways flash also caused a bit of a spark in my head when we discovered that the temp agency that Hurley sent Locke to had Rose (of Rose & Bernard) working there. She reveals to Locke, during their discussion, that she has terminal cancer but decided to keep living the life that she had. This made me realize that this other Locke may not have quite such a good future going for him since, as seen in last season’s LIFE AND DEATH OF JEREMY BENTHAM, Helen may die of a brain aneurysm in 2007. I doubt we’ll see that far ahead into the sideways flashes, however, so that probably won’t happen. Oh yeah, I almost forgot, Benjamin Linus works at the school where Locke goes to as a substitute teacher as the European History teacher. WHOAH!

Back on the Island, after much drama and discussion we were given a pretty big reveal. Jacob, it would seem, has been drawing people to the Island as potential replacements for him to serve as the protector of the Island. This process, it would appear, involved Jacob touching people some time in their past (even though in Hurley and Sayid’s case it was AFTER they landed on the Island). Suddenly some of the subtle differences in the sideways flash reality are starting to make a little bit of sense. Cindy, the flight attendant, only gives Jack one extra mini-bottle of alcohol instead of two because this Jack won’t need the second to sterilize the needle (and cleanse the wound) in his side right after the plane crash. Maybe this means that the sideways flash John Locke some how wound up in his wheelchair through another incident as it seemed pretty clear that Jacob revived the “my daddy pushed me out the window” John Locke.

When it comes to Jacob’s list and what it means I have to ask the same question that Sawyer does: What does the Island need protecting from? According the the Evil Locke nothing, but we know that can’t be true. We also learn that Jacob seemed to have a thing for numbers and assigned each candidate with a number. It just so happens that all of our Flight 815 candidates were assigned the same numbers used in the hatch, stamped on to the hatch, and transmitted from the Island prior to Russo changing the recording. All of this was revealed to Sawyer (also known as James Ford) and after learning all of this he appears to be willing to help Evil Locke in getting off the Island in an attempt to go home.

There were other tid-bits thrown our way during the episode.

• Ilana was crying inside of the base of the statue in the same way that someone who has lost someone important to them might. Right after this she collects some of Jacob’s ashes. I don’t know if this is because Jacob was the someone that was important to her or if it will be used some how later as a protection method against the Evil Locke/Smoke Monster. Time will tell on this one.
• Evil Locke is now stuck in the appearance of John Locke. We don’t know why, it’s just what Illana told us.
• Evil Locke is not immune to seeing things on the Island. He had a vision of a young blonde boy with blood on his hands that Richard Alpert couldn’t see.
• There still appear to be rules in place and Evil Locke is not allowed to kill any of the chosen candidates (as revealed by the same young blonde boy who’se hands this time were not bloody and who was able to be seen by Sawyer). This may mean that the candidate’s job won’t be protecting the Island so much as making sure that the Evil Locke/Smoke Monster doesn’t get to leave the Island.

So the above is everything I was able to take away from the episode. What are we in store for next week?

Next week’s episode title is “The Lighthouse.” If we can believe the previews that they showed us at the end of this week’s episode (since we’ve seen some of these same clips in a briefer form after the two prior episodes) it would appear that we are going to find out how Jin is faring with Claire Gone Wild. From the many glimpses of Jacob in the preview and from the quick shot of Jack yelling at Hurley about “What does he want from me?!?” followed by the subsequent smashing of glass I think that Jack is taken to some sort of lighthouse and Hurley is being a communication conduit for Jacob. I don’t know if the Lighthouse is a literal lighthouse or if it is instead some mystical lighthouse (it does, after all, look like it’s been carved out of stone) but whatever it’s function Jack must not like it enough to smash some glass (unless he’s just irrationally pissed). I have no idea.

This being the last season I don’t really like to dwell too much on what the end game plan is for the show. Last week’s episode aside I like that the momentum is picking up again and the direction that they are heading seems to be a good one. I just hope it doesn’t get too confusing over the next few episodes.