Tag: Lost blog (Page 8 of 9)

Anyone that’s been watching “Lost” consistently for the past four seasons knows that no matter how bad the actual season may be, the season finales (and the episodes leading up to them) are always money. Though the pre-finale episodes tend to be more set-up than actual progression, I was surprised to discover that tonight’s episode (the first of a three-part season finale) also filled in a lot of gaps via a flash-forward that documented the Oceanic Six’s rescue and the beginning of their post-island lives.

The night opened with the Oceanic Six on a plane back to Hawaii. After Jack coaches the group on their “story,” they arrive to discover an Oceanic Airlines-moderated press conference set up to allow reporters to ask the survivors questions. Among the topics covered included the fate of Jin (Sun says he died when the plane crashed), the birth of Aaron (he’s being played off as Kate’s biological child), and confirmation that no other people could have possibly survived. But that wasn’t the juicy part.

Following their re-entry into society, Sayid is reunited with Nadia (no, not that Nadia, but his ex-flame), Sun uses her settlement money to purchase a controlling share in her father’s company, and Hurley receives a classic car as a birthday present. Unfortunately, the dreaded “numbers” just happen to be the reading on the speedometer, and he isn’t at all entertained. Finally, there’s Jack. After delivering a eulogy at his father’s funeral, Jack is approached by Claire’s mother, who informs him about Christian’s secret daughter, and the fact that she too was aboard Flight 815. Hmm. Maybe now we have a better understanding as to a) why Jack wants to take care of Aaron, and b) why he’s so depressed in the future.

Meanwhile, on the island, all of the major players are being positioned for the season’s final masterstroke. Jack and Sawyer have control of the helicopter (only to discover that Hurley’s in trouble), Sun, Jin and Aaron are on the freighter (thanks to Faraday, who has volunteered to begin ferrying people off the island), Sayid and Kate have been captured by Richard Alpert, and Locke and Hurley have just witnessed Ben’s surrender to Keamy at the Orchid station – the proposed location of the “secondary protocol” (i.e. Operation Blow Up the Island). It’ll be interesting to see how the Oceanic Six, who are seemingly in four different places, will manage reunite and get off the island.

We’ll find out in two weeks, along with why they’re the only survivors who escaped, what happened to Lapidus after he rescued them, as well as who was in that coffin at the end of season three. For those that simply can’t wait to find out the latter, feel free to check out this spy report here, where the deceased character has supposedly been outed by a spoiler-happy fan.

It only makes sense that following last week’s awesome episode, tonight’s show would be comparably worse. Them’s the rules of “Lost,” I’m afraid, and though we got some more insight into the events leading up to Jack’s eventual post-rescue breakdown, the action on the island was considerably tame.

I mean, does Jack’s appendicitis really qualify for that level of dramatic tension? Hardly, but when Juliet announces that she’s going to have to operate, everyone freaks out, including Jack, who becomes so unruly during the actual surgery that Bernard eventually just knocks him out with some chloroform. Before all that, however, Faraday and Charlotte head to the medical hatch to pick up some supplies for the surgery, and since everyone has decided that they’re no longer to be trusted following Bernard’s Morse code trickery last week, Jin and Sun tag along with orders that if they try to run away, they’re to shoot them in the legs. That’s always a nice way to make someone feel at home, no?

Of course, I honestly believe that none of the original freighter folk (Faraday, Charlotte, Lapidus and Miles) are bad people, but that doesn’t change the fact that they’ve been placed in an incredibly awkward and high-tension position. For all the hoo-hah caused about their possible disloyalty, however, it seems like the only reason that entire subplot was written was so that Jin could approach Charlotte about her ability to speak Korean. Charlotte denies it at first, but when Jin threatens (in Korean, of course) to break Daniel’s fingers, she gives in. And what exactly does Jin want in trade for keeping Charlotte’s secret? A promise that when the helicopter arrives, she’ll take Sun away from the island.

Meanwhile, Sawyer, Claire and Miles are still making their way back to camp, and with the exception of their discovery of Danielle and Karl’s bodies half-buried in the ground, it was a pretty pointless subplot. Sure, we got to see Sawyer verbally attack Miles like he was the second coming of Hurley, but it wasn’t really going anywhere until Claire mysteriously wandered into the jungle, supposedly with her father. Sawyer goes looking for her, but all he finds is evidence of bad parenting at its absolute worst – poor Aaron all alone underneath a tree.

Claire wasn’t the only one seeing visions of Dr. Christian Shepherd, though. In Jack’s flash-forward, the good doctor discovered that not all good things last forever, and after a brief romantic stint with Kate, he eventually breaks things off following her admission that she went behind his back in order make good on a promise to Sawyer. Was Jack jumping to conclusions perhaps a little too quickly? You bet, but wouldn’t you too if you were seeing your dead father walking around your workplace? Of course, and though Jack gets some happy pills from a friend of his (cue bushy beard and mental breakdown), he’s still understandably freaked out by a recent visit from Hurley who claims that all of the Oceanic Six are really dead. I’m not exactly sure how to react to this sudden increase in the supernatural (Miles can talk to dead people, Hurley can see Charlie, Jack and Claire can see their father), but I’m definitely looking forward to finding out.

After a few slow weeks threatened to ruin everything that Carlton Cuse and Co. worked so hard to build to this year, “Lost” returned from its month-long break with both guns literally blazing. Tonight’s episode wasn’t particularly revealing, but it did feature more action than I’ve seen in an entire season, and if this is any indication of how a “Lost” movie might turn out, count me in. Of course, the fact that I enjoyed it so much while simultaneously battling an unexpected sickness speaks volumes of just how good it really was, and while I’d usually follow that up with a play-by-play breakdown of the episode, I’ve decided to take the easier route by pointing out some of my favorite moments:

– The expression on Sawyer’s face when Ben handed him the shotgun was priceless. He went from “Holy shit, Ben’s going to shoot me” to “Holy shit, Ben’s my ally” in a matter of milliseconds.

– Sawyer’s Vietnam moment was equally enjoyable. It had bullet-ridden redshirts, picnic décor-turned-battle shields, and even a rocket launcher. Now we know where all that extra money from the strike went.

– Not to be upstaged by a bunch of Army men, Ben called upon the powers of the Black Smoke Monster to open up a can of SFX-powered whoop-ass. It’s been a while since Smokey last showed his amorphous face, but boy was it awesome.

– Not only is Ben a Jedi Master when it comes to mind games, but he’s apparently pretty handy with a retractable baton as well. Kudos to Michael Emerson for channeling his inner Neo, but now I want more.

– Ben used Desmond’s boat to get off the island? Fair enough, but then where the hell is Desmond? Hmm… maybe he’s on the island with Penny.

– We already knew that Sayid was a card-carrying member of the Dharma Assassin Death Squad (DADS), but the fact that Ben tricked him into thinking it was his idea really tickles us.

– Emerson is the king of the intimidating one-liner, but when he told Charles Widmore that he was going to track down his daughter (Penelope) and kill her, well, I couldn’t help but cheer him on. Could he really have been a good guy all this time?

– “That’s not what he said.” Bernard knows morse code? Ruh-roh, a certain paranoid physicist is in trouble…

If you were sad to see Michael go at the end of season two, well, tonight was your night. If you were like me, however, and felt like his departure couldn’t come any sooner, then you were probably cursing the TV gods for bringing him back. In what quickly became a special “Lost” version of “Where Are They Now?,” tonight’s episode did little more than run through what Michael has been up to since leaving the island. It was a major departure from the basic narrative structure of the series (though they’ve done something like this once or twice before), and it was easily the worst episode of the season.

After failing to commit suicide by driving his car into a dock container (is that really the best he could come up with?), Michael goes to visit Walt at his mother’s house. Unfortunately, Walt won’t talk to his father after what happened on the island, and so Michael tries to kill himself (again) using a gun he swapped Jin’s watch for at a local pawnshop. Before he can pull the trigger, though, Michael is visited by an unexpected guest in the alley. It’s Tom (AKA Mr. Friendly), and he doesn’t waste any time in letting Michael know that Ben has been keeping tabs on him since his departure. He also insists that Michael can’t kill himself because “the island won’t let [him].”Nevertheless, being the sorry-ass idiot that he is, Michael decides to test this theory out, and the gun jams.

Whether or not this means Tom was actually telling the truth is a moot point, because after seeing footage of the wreckage on TV, Michael is quick to agree to go undercover and play hero to his “friends.” Given a new identity (Kevin Johnson) and a job as a deckhand on the freighter, Michael’s first day on board brings him a present from Ben. It’s a giant fucking bomb, but after activating it, he discovers that it doesn’t quite work. Instead, Ben wants Michael to simply sabotage the ship so that it will never reach the island, but when Michael relays his tale to his fellow Losties, Sayid turns him over to the boat’s captain as a traitor.

Now, you’re probably asking yourself, “Is that it?” In so many words, yes, it is. There was also a brief subplot involving Ben’s sending away of Alex, Karl and Rousseau to the island’s Temple station, but after Alex’s beau and mommy were gunned down in the jungle, who actually thought it was the freighter folk doing the shooting? It’s obviously Ben’s people doing what they do best – killing innocents – and I could give a rat’s ass what happens to his daughter. Get back to the good stuff already!

In the end, I don’t believe there was a single thing the average viewer actually learned from watching this episode, aside from the revelation that writing a character off a show and then bringing him back is never a good idea. I mean, did we really need Michael to return? Ben’s spy could have just been some random dude they’ve never met before – at least then we wouldn’t have to sit through an entire episode filling in the gaps. I have faith (little as it may be) that the writers know where they’re going with this angle, but if Michael doesn’t make it out alive this season (and part of me wishes he won’t), I’m going to be pissed off. It’s ultimately lose-lose, but if I had to choose, I’d rather waste a single night than put up with that whiny bitch for the rest of the series.