Thoughts on LOST - What They Died For

Wow...my penultimate LOST recap. Well, sort of...there is still a chance that I may go back and watch from the beginning and do some sort of write-ups armed with the knowledge of how it turns out. Is that something yo may be interested in? If so, let me know in the comments.

- Open on Jack's eye....maybe for the last time?

- The injury on Jack's neck is bleeding again...guess we'll find out what that is about tonight, because I have no idea.

- David talks about "the concert"...I was a little confused, based on what we see later. Is this HIS concert, or the Driveshaft one? Are they the same thing? I think they are, after going back and reading the "Happily Ever After" transcript again. Charles mentioned in that episode that Daniel wanted to combine classical music with modern rock.

- So we are obviously going to find out who the mother is at the concert. I'm starting to believe that it is Juliet, because if it was Sarah I think they would have just told us already. Although...Julie Bowen, the actress who plays Sarah, was in Hawaii to film an episode of Modern Family around the same time this would have been shooting, so who knows?

- Desmond pretends to be an Oceanic representative...not sure what he's trying to accomplish there. We find out later that part of his plan is to get everybody to this concert...I guess this is another part of the plan?

- Nice little callback with Jack sewing Kate up...remember, Kate sewed him up in the Pilot, which is when Jack told her the version of the "Five Seconds" story that leaves out the part about his Dad totally stepping in and saving his bacon.

- Jack tells the others that Sayid told him that Desmond is in a well...remember that for later.

- Ben tries to stop Desmond from running over Locke again...the funniest part was when Ben said he was making a citizen's arrest.

- I think Sideways Desmond remembers Ben, don't you? That was quite a beatdown...almost like Ben was somebody who shot him and tried to kill his wife.

And, as I tweeted that night...Ben takes a beating better than anybody since Colt Brennan! (::rimshot::)


- Glad to have Miles back: "Well, I lived in these house 30 years before you did; otherwise known as last week…"

- And also:

BEN: It’s C-4, Richard. I put some thought into hiding it.

MILES: Let me guess--cookie jar.

Hee.

- Interesting that Richard buried Alex, and yet we have seen Smokey take on her form...I guess that disproves the theory that the reason the Others were so quick to bury their dead was to keep them from being re-animated by the Monster.

- It was good to remind us of that moment when Alex was shot...gives some context to what we see from Ben later.

- VERY interesting quote from Ben: "It’s where I was told I could summon the monster. That’s before I realized that it was the one summoning me."

I'm not sure what to make of this, and it's something that has sort of confused me since we found out what/who Smokey is. We saw Ben go into this closet and pull the little plug, and then we saw Smokey come and kill the mercenaries. That certainly implied that Ben WAS summoning the monster...unless Smokey was just trying to make Ben THINK that he was under his control in order to keep manipulating him. I've said before that I think Ben was being used as a tool of MIB all along, he just doesn't know it...I think he knows it now.

- Now Charles and President Laura Lemon are there....cool that they framed Charles as he came in with the picture of Alex as a child in the background. One more reminder of what Widmore took from Ben.

- Widmore says that Jacob came and visited him, convinced him of the errors of his ways, and sent him back for some purpose that we don't get to hear.

This sort of irritated me for a couple of reasons...the main one being that Widmore has been a big villain throughout most of this series, to the point where I have said over and over that I don't trust him yet, even after we have seen him apparently trying to stop UnLocke. So it turns out there was some lifechanging conversation between Jacob and Widmore....and we just have to take Charles's word for it? That just seemed too quick and easy, and I think it's more of the pacing issues catching up with them.

- Back to the Sideways...funny that Locke refers to Desmond beating down Ben as an "Incident".

And...I think Ben remembers Locke now. Something about the way he is addressing him.

- Desmond turns himself in to Sawyer and Miles, and is locked up with Sayid and Kate...I loved all of these little moments throughout the whole episode. It had a kind of "Ocean's 11", getting-the-band-back-together feel to it, and it was a lot of fun.

- Oh, by the way...Miles will be at the concert. So will Charlotte. I'm starting to think this concert may be important.

- Nice scene between Jack and Sawyer as they are trying to find the well. Sawyer is feeling the guilt of knowing Jack was right about the bomb on the sub (and I think he was right, too). I think that the "old Jack" would have gone totally self-righteous and "told-you-so" on him, especially considering how Sawyer treated Jack after the disastrous Jughead plan. Instead, he absolves Sawyer, and keeps everybody focused on what the new goal is...stop UnLocke.

- OK...I have tried to wrap my mind around the whole Teenage Jacob thing, and I can't figure it out. How/Why is Jacob manifesting himself as a youth? Any ideas? I think if Adult Jacob had just showed up and asked Hurley for the ashes, he would have given them to him, right?

- Back in New Otherton. Laura Lemon and Widmore are going to hide, Miles is exiting stage left...but not before Ben stops him and tells him to take the walkie talkie. Remember that for our later "What Are Ben's Motives" discussion.

- Richard is going to talk to the Monster. That....doesn't seem like much of a plan.

- Yep.


- I really do not think Richard is dead...I think Jacob's rules still exist as long as Jacob does, and Jacob is still hanging around right now. I don't think there is any way the writers would have Richard die so abruptly and with so little fanfare...but I could be wrong.

- I totally understand Ben giving up Widmore's hiding place. I think he would have done that even if UnLocke didn't promise to give him the Island (the same Island that he later promises to destroy).

- Back in the Sideways. Funny that Alex tells Dr. Linus that he's "like, the nicest guy EVER"...right after we see him basically give Charles Widmore a death sentence. A death sentence, by the way, resulting from her own death.

- YES!! Rousseau is back! And looking very cougar-y all cleaned up!

- "Even if we have to kidnap you."

Hee.

- Coq au vin night at the Rousseaus...I think Ben got choked up when Danielle says that he is the closes thing to a father that Alex has ever had because he has some awareness of what happened to her on the Island, maybe even a subconscious awareness.

- LOCKE: Wait out here. . . You don’t need to see this.

BEN: I want to see this.

Yeah...like I said, I am totally with Ben on his motivations up this point.

- President Laura Lemon joins the increasingly growing list of Season 6 characters who were introduced to do a whole lot of nothing and then die.

- Of COURSE we don't get to hear what Widmore's plans are for Desmond, other than that he is a measure of "last resort" due to his ability to withstand large amounts of electromagnetic energy.

- Ben: Did you say there were some other people to kill?

I think Ben is trying to play UnLocke, and his plans have something to do with the walkie talkie he gave to Miles. I am truly hoping that we are not going to just toss the "Ben Linus Redemption" story, and I don't think that's where we're going with this.

- Our remaining candidates meet up with Jacob at the campfire (loved the little moment when Hurley thought he was going to have to translate), and Kate is NOT happy.

I don't think Jacob really answered her question, though...she asked him if Jin, Sun, and Sayid died because their names were on the wall, and Jacob responds with "I'm very sorry." That is...not what she asked.

- Back in the Sideways. There is absolutely no way for me to do justice to the scene between Locke and Jack in Jack's office...it is yet another scene that Terry O'Quinn can add to his Emmy reel. I love how he played his explanation to Jack about why he had changed his mind about the surgery...awkward pauses, sheepish and embarrassed looks. Like he's saying "I know how crazy this sounds...but I feel like I have to go for it".

Jack tells him not to mistake coincidence for fate...I guess that's the closest we are going to get to a Mr. Eko return.

- Jacob sits the candidates down and gives them the reasons why they are here. There was a lot about this that I liked...the notion that what was "special" about them was just the opposite..they were flawed and lonely, just like Jacob (and most of us, at least at times). The fact that having a choice is so important to Jacob because he doesn't feel like he ever had one. The fact that Kate wasn't "disqualified"...she still could choose to take the Protector role, but Jacob didn't want her to have to leave Aaron.

The one thing I didn't like is also the part of this season that is bothering me the most. Jacob tells them that if they don't stop UnLocke, then they and everybody they care about will die. I have NO idea what that means.

It annoys me that we are heading into the very last episode of this show, and I still don't know what I am rooting "for" or "against". Why can't MIB leave? What happens if he does? What does "everybody dies" mean? How is Jack (or anybody else) supposed to stop him? What is Widmore trying to do? How does Desmond figure into that? What is Desmond trying to do in the Sideways, besides get everybody together in one place and hope for some mass awareness to take place (sort of like Woodstock)?

I understand that we will (hopefully) find all of this out in the finale...it just feels like everything that is happening now is extremely rushed, and I can't help but think that all of that time in the Temple and in the Sideways (before we saw any type of connection with what is happening on the Island) was...well, wasted.

OK...rant over. I really did love this episode, I just wish that we didn't have to rush through so many important events.

- So, the inevitable happens and Jack steps up as the Leader that he (and we) have been told over and over that he is...as bad as "Stranger in a Strange Land" was (and it was bad), I still really like what Jack's tattoo said: "He walks among us, but he is not one of us." That's called foreshadowing.

I'm just going to point it out, just in case...Hurley's line of "I'm just glad it's not me". I think it's just further evidence that Hurley REALLY doesn't like being the leader, but it also seemed like the kind of line that may come back to haunt him.

- Jacob takes Jack aside and tells him where the heart of the Island is...as if there needed to be more confirmation that it was "always" going to be Jack, how about the fact that he is the only survivor that landed next to the Magical Cave of Glowy Goodness?

- Nice work by Matthew Fox after he drinks from the cup...he looked like, for the first time, everything made sense.

- Was I the only one who thought that the sight of Kate in that cell was going to be what brought on Sawyer's Island awareness? What would have been funny is if it only happened to him and not her: "We're supposed to be having sex in these cages...I swear! Seriously!"

- Loved this whole exchange:

DESMOND: Think it’s time to leave.

KATE: What?

DESMOND: I said, I think it’s time to leave. You ready to get out of here?

KATE: I’m sorry. Who are you?

SAYID: He’s a crazy person who turned himself in.

KATE: What’d you turn yourself in for?

DESMOND: I ran over a guy in a wheelchair.

SAYID: You see what I mean?

Hee.

- Ana Lucia is back...you know, as much as I couldn't stand her during her run on the show, I have really enjoyed her in the small doses we have seen since then.

- Hurley is apparently experiencing more memories: "Hey, you didn't tell me Ana Lucia was going to be here....Oh, no. We've never met."

- Like we have said...everybody is going to the concert. Not sure why Locke would be there...or how Jack is going to have time to do back surgery on his back. But pretty much everybody else has a reason to be there, including Sawyer (who will probably show up looking for his fugitives). Not sure about Bernard and Rose...but it is a charity event, so maybe they are coming with donations.

- UnLocke (I think I like that one better than Smocke now) mentions that he likes to feel his feet on the ground because it reminds him of his humanity...interesting. And maybe something that may come back to haunt him? Don't know...it was just sort of weird that the writers inserted that little exchange here.

- They get to the well...and Desmond is gone. Somebody helped him out...but who? It wasn't Sayid. He told Jack that he was still in the well. So..who? Richard? Jacob? Miles? How about VINCENT?

By the way...if it's Vincent, then I don't care what else happens in the finale, it will be the most awesomest episode EVAH.

- UnLocke vows to destroy the Island. But...didn't he JUST promise it to Ben, like, five minutes ago?

And how about the fact that the first time we saw the Sideways timeline, the Island was at the bottom of the ocean? Does that mean that UnLocke succeeded? If so...why don't we see any effects in that universe?

Well...the good news is that we don't have to wait long to find out.

FINAL THOUGHTS:
This episode felt very much like so many of the LOST episodes that I have loved in the past. Great character moments, huge mythological storyline development, some typically stupendous acting...just everything we have come to expect out of a penultimate LOST episode leading into a finale.

As I mentioned, I have had some issues with some of the storytelling decisions that have been made this season. But, above all else, I go into this finale full of gratitude and appreciation for everybody involved in bringing this show to us over the past six seasons. I have enjoyed the 120+ hours of entertaining and thought provoking television and, even more so, the countless hours of discussions with friends (and online strangers), the ways that it has enriched my knowledge by forcing me to read up on authors and subject matter that I would otherwise never have been exposed to...just so many ways that this little television show has brought a little extra joy into my life.

No matter how it ends, it's not going to take away from the ride.

Namaste.