See You In Another Life, Brother

Let’s get something out of the way right at the start. Playing the “dog card” at the end of a long, emotional story is dirty pool. You all know what I’m talking about. I’m already barely holding it together and then Vincent shows up and lies down next to Jack to keep him company during his final moments. That was it, game over for me. Hand me the Kleenex! (Warning: sad picture included below!) And thus concluded an extremely satisfying and emotionally heart-wrenching finale to Lost. Let’s dig in and look at what happened, what it means, and what it means to me.

Desmond was wrong

Ever since Desmond returned to the Island and had his breakthrough with the sideways world, I thought that both versions of Desmond were working toward the same goal. But we learned that this was not the case and that the two Desmonds were doing two very different things. When Desmond was put in Widmore’s electromagnetic frying pan, he saw a glimpse of the sideways world. He thought it was an alternate reality and timeline, the by-product of “The Incident,” and he thought he could somehow usher his friends there as an escape plan. He was basically operating under the premise that Jack’s original plan to reset the timeline with a hydrogen bomb had worked and he just needed to help everyone get there. But he was wrong. He had not experienced a flash of consciousness through time and space as he has had in the past. What actually occurred was more of a near-death experience and what he had seen was the after-life (or whatever you want to call it, we’ll get to that later). This led to that great exchange with Jack where Desmond tried to persuade him that they could escape to this other reality. No, Jack told him. There are no cheats, no shortcuts, and everything they do matters. I loved this scene because it was the show telling us, the viewers, that this is for real. For so much of the show, fans have wondered whether the Island was real. Maybe it was hell, or purgatory, or a figment of Hurley’s imagination. The show has played with these theories with a wink in past episodes, but I feel like this entire season, and the entire existence of the sideways storyline, was intended to tell us once and for all that the Island is real and what happened to them there mattered. Jack definitively repeated Faraday’s axiom, “what happened, happened,” and he was right.

The Incident

I’m now personally convinced that detonating the bomb didn’t change the timeline at all. It is, in fact, what always happened. It was always a part of the Incident that led to the building of the Swan Station and the hatch and the button. But the Incident was still successful in that it returned our castaways to the Island present. It’s also still possible that the Incident served as the catalyst that led to the creation of the sideways world. Christian Shepherd told Jack that this was the place that he and his friends had created so that they could all be together again. Instead of a reboot of history, the sideways world was more of a metaphysical place of collective consciousness and memory where they could gather when their lives were over. I’m not sure if that’s what really happened, but I think it’s an interesting theory that is at least consistent with what we know.

Desmond was right

The sideways Desmond, in contrast to his Island counterpart, was operating under a completely different reality. Once he actually met and made contact with Penny in the stadium, he recalled full consciousness of his previous life and realized where he was. It then became his mission to reunite all of his friends from the Island and help them achieve the same total recall of their old lives so that they could experience the joy of being together again.

Jack and Smokey were both right

Smokey thought that Desmond would destroy the Island. Jack thought that Desmond would enable him to kill Smokey. They were both right. When Desmond pulled the stopper (the cork!), the life-giving water of the Island was drained. (Sidenote: I loved the shot of Jack and Smokey looking over the edge of the waterfall and the way it closely mirrored the shot of Jack and Locke looking down the hatch) This had the effect of literally draining the power from the Island. It started to fall apart. Richard had a grey hair! And Smokey was now physically vulnerable in the corporeal form of Locke’s body. After an exciting duel on the cliff and an assist from Kate, Smokey was defeated, but the Island was still crumbling. Fortunately, as we’ve been told a couple of times this season, nothing is irreversible. Jack believed that he could go back into the magic cave and put the cork back in and replenish the water of the Island.

Partings and Meetings

The last act of the episode was punctuated by a series of farewells and reunions. Jack and Kate said goodbye to each other, with each finally and sincerely professing their love for each other. When Kate lamented, “Tell me I’m going to see you again,” it was almost tragic. For anyone that cared about the whole Jack-Kate-Sawyer triangle, it felt that we were given closure that the relationship between Jack and Kate was ultimately the real deal. Then Hurley and Jack said their good-byes, and that was also a heartbreaking. I really liked the symmetry of each telling the other “I believe in you.” I also think Hurley is a fantastic choice to protect the Island. In hindsight, his arc this season clearly prepared him for the role. Ben’s encouragement to Hurley was a very sweet encapsulation of why we love Hurley: “you can start by doing what you do best – taking care of people.”

In the sideways world, Desmond’s project was gaining traction and we were treated to multiple reunions of friends long-parted. The grin on Hurley’s face when he first saw Charlie melted my heart, but the reunion between Claire and Charlie and between Sawyer and Juliet really cranked up the waterworks for me. I was deeply moved in a different way by Ben’s contrite confession to Locke and Locke’s offer of forgiveness. By the time we reached the church with Jack, I knew we were close to resolution. Jack’s reconciliation with his father was brief, but still touching and cathartic.

Turned Sideways

I’ll be honest, I didn’t completely grasp that everyone in the sideways world was dead until the same moment that Jack did. I don’t know whether to properly designate this place as heaven, or the after-life, or purgatory. I think I like Christian Shepherd’s description the best: it’s a place where they can all be together again. Beyond my half-baked theory above, I don’t want to worry too much about what the sideways world actually is. I’m more interested in what it means.

The thing I loved the most about the finale is that the show found a way to bring back all the characters that we’ve loved and lost without negating or diminishing all of the tragedies and sacrifices we’ve experienced over the last six seasons. The ending wasn’t a cheat; it was an earned reward for both the characters and the audience. I think that’s why we spent a whole season exploring the sideways world with the characters before we knew what it really was. They didn’t want the ending to feel cheap and tacked on. They wanted this to be an authentic part of the journey. It was also just another fun mystery to explore during the final season. Here’s a new question to explore: why did Jack have a son in the sideways world? My theory is that he was a projection of the kind of relationship Jack wanted to have with his own father. I think you could go through each character’s experience in the sideways world and explore what it tells us about him or her.

Where they left things

For people keeping score, we know that Sawyer, Kate, Claire, Miles, Richard, and Lapidus made it off the Island. We know that Hurley, Ben, Desmond, Rose, Bernard, and Vincent are still on the Island. It’s possible there are a few other survivors still on the Island too who scattered after Smokey’s purge of the temple and Widmore’s mortar attack on the beach. I’d like to think that Hurley found a way to get Desmond home to Penny and Charlie. I’d also like to think that Claire had a happy life with Aaron and that maybe Sawyer even established a relationship with his child. I imagine that Hurley and Ben had a long and successful reign on the Island full of great adventures with new Island visitors (Do I want to see any of those adventures? Okay, sure!).

The End

When Jack emerged from the other end of the cave and started wandering through the bamboo forest, I realized where we were headed. I knew that they were recreating the opening scene of the show. I even guessed that Vincent would probably show up, just as he did in the beginning. It did not matter that I knew, I was still a mess. It was a beautiful scene, and I loved that he got a glimpse of the plane flying overhead so that he had the comfort of knowing he really had saved his friends. Jack had fulfilled his purpose, and he was at peace.

What did you expect?

If you are someone who was frustrated by the finale, I neither share your disappointment nor understand it.  I acknowledge that the show didn’t answer every single mystery. Why was Walt so special? What was up with Jacob’s cabin? Why do women die during childbirth on the Island? Why was there a Dharma supply air drop in 2004? What makes Eloise Hawking so creepy?

This is what I say to that -- So what? Yes, I was hoping for a few more answers to some of those questions too. But having those answers now would not change the way I feel about the finale or the way I feel about the series as a whole. I was more invested in the characters than I was in the questions. Life is full of mystery, and sometimes we don’t get all of the answers. I think the audience has taken for granted just how many questions the show did answer. Furthermore, part of the fun of Lost was debating and theorizing about the unanswered questions. Think of the unresolved questions as a parting gift that allows the discussion to continue. Fittingly, the finale focused firmly on the characters. Isn’t that they way it should have been? Didn’t you want a happy ending? One reason I was so delighted by the episode is that I didn’t actually think we would get a happy ending! Now that the story has been told, do any of those unanswered questions still matter?

Why it matters

To me, Lost has been the best television show of the past decade, and deserves a place as one of the great television shows of all time. The trippy narrative structure, the great cast, the mind-bending mysteries and the cool sci-fi elements all contribute to its greatness. But I think its real greatness lies in the themes and issues it explored. Destiny, free will, faith, redemption, renewal, forgiveness, sacrifice – has any other show explored all of these themes so deeply and intimately? I’m glad that the finale embraced the spirituality of the show.

I’ve been a fan of Lost from the very beginning. Although I still consider the first season to be the very best of the series, the last two seasons of Lost have been particularly resonant for me. We’ve watched as Jack has evolved into a Man of Faith. As he began his quest to return to the Island, he never understood exactly what he was doing or why he was doing it, but he took a leap of faith and believed that there was a purpose behind it and that he was fulfilling a calling that was entrusted only to him. In the last 18 months, I’ve experienced circumstances in my own life that have led me to grapple with the same questions that Jack faced. Do things happen for a reason? Do we have a purpose? Will these present trials be woven together like one of Jacob’s tapestries into a greater whole? I’ve always believed that the answer to these questions is “yes,” but watching Jack’s journey has been a great source of comfort and encouragement. I’ve seen online multiple stories of others who have faced their own life struggles and have found the same kind of consolation.

I will miss many things about Lost. I will miss Sawyer’s nicknames. I will miss Michael Emerson’s alternately creepy and hilarious portrayal of Ben Linus. I will miss the love story of Desmond and Penny. I will miss the amazing music by Michael Giacchino. But most of all, I will miss the current of hope that consistently ran through the show. Whether it was the hope of rescue, the hope of redemption, or the hope of chasing destiny, the show was at its best when the characters looked beyond their present tribulations to the promise of something beyond. Perhaps nothing embodies this sense of hope better than the launching of the raft in the first season, one of my all-time favorite scenes from Lost. As the survivors celebrate the raft’s departure and the music swells, the emotion is palpable. They believed in each other and in their collective ability to overcome. In a small church somewhere in the beyond, their hope was realized.  They were no longer lost, because they had found each other.

The End is Nigh

At the end of 2008’s The Dark Knight, Commissioner Gordon states that “sometimes people deserve to have their faith rewarded.” And after this week’s penultimate episode, “What They Died For,” I believe that my faith has been rewarded! This was another great, eventful episode that has me giddy with anticipation about what the finale will bring.

Although he’s been so passive on the sidelines for much of this season, I was ecstatic to see Ben step back into the fray. The painful reminder of Alex’s death, followed so closely by his encounter with Widmore, the man Ben holds responsible for that death, clearly set him off. I have no idea what his true motivations are, but I want to believe that ultimately Ben will find some sort of redemption. How fantastic was his story in the sideways world? The new suburban, single-mom Rousseau was a delight and a genuine surprise for me. I’m also completely hooked on Desmond’s quest to draw everyone together. Of all the things I’m looking forward to in the finale, I’m perhaps the most excited to see what happens to the sideways world. Also, who do you think Jack’s ex-wife and David’s mother will be (assuming that we will get to find out)? A lot of people think it will be Juliet, but I’m personally hoping that we’ll get to see Sarah (Julie Bowen) again.

Back on the Island, the remaining candidates dealt with the aftermath of the submarine. Josh Holloway has played grief really well this season, and Sawyer’s conversation with Jack about his culpability for the deaths of their friends was heartbreaking. I was very satisfied by the candidates’ confrontation with Jacob. I spoke with a fellow fan who was disappointed that they didn’t ask more questions about, well, everything. But I found their conversation to be very natural and believable. At this point in the story, I don’t think they’d be very interested in bombarding Jacob with a laundry list of questions. I did enjoy part of Jacob’s answer to Kate as to why her name was crossed off. “It's just chalk on a wall, you can have the job if you want it.” It was a nice reminder to the audience that not every mystery on the Island has earth-shattering significance. And then came the moment that so many of us have anticipated, when Jack embraced the mantle of Island protector. Again, I liked the understated way they handled this scene. A lingering question: How did Desmond get out of the well? Was it Jack and the gang or someone else (Miles? Rose and Bernard?)?

Now it’s time to predict what happens next. What are your grand predictions for how it all ends? Here is my half-brained prediction: Fake Locke will pursue his mission to destroy the Island…and succeed. But the castaways will turn the tables on him so that he is trapped and destroyed too. Meanwhile, Desmond will “rescue” everyone by bringing them over to the sideways world, with one significant exception. Because of Jack’s status as Island protector, he will be unable to cross over and will have to sacrifice himself to defeat Fake Locke. I also have a high level of confidence that I am probably wrong.

What else do I want to see on Sunday? I want to see Vincent again! I’d also love for them to solve a few more mysteries, such as why women die during childbirth on the Island and why Desmond’s vision of Claire and Aaron getting rescued off of the Island (recall that this is why Charlie chose to embrace his death) never happened. But I’m pretty much okay with whatever they choose to answer or not answer.

I do know one thing: I’m going to be sad. It’s hard to put into words just how emotional the end of Lost will be for me. Check back on Monday (hopefully) for some final, concluding thoughts about the finale, what I think it all means, and what this show had meant to me for the last six years. In the meantime, what are your predictions for the finale? What questions do you still want to see answered?

Keeping the Faith

When a show has been on the air for six seasons like Lost has, it’s inevitable that there will be a few episodes that just flat-out disappoint you. I don’t know about the rest of you, but last week’s episode, “Across the Sea,” was exactly that kind of episode for me. I even tweeted that I considered it “The Midichlorian Episode.”

For those who have no idea what I’m talking about, executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse have regularly compared the audience’s demand for answers to all the various mysteries of Lost to the midichlorians of Star Wars. For those who still have no idea what I’m talking about, in the 1999 Star Wars prequel The Phantom Menace, George Lucas came up with a extraordinarily lame explanation for what “The Force” is and how it works. Their point was that they could give you answers to all of the Lost mysteries, but you probably wouldn’t like them and the questions are more fun than the answers anyway.

So with last week’s episode, depicting the origins of Jacob and the Man in Black, I felt that the show crossed over into the territory of trying too hard to come up with answers that weren’t really necessary. Some of it was cool, but a lot if just didn’t work for me (the faux-mythic melodrama, the occasionally cheesy effects). It almost felt like a bonus episode that you would find later on the DVD. I was perfectly content with the information that we got from “Ab Eterno,” where Jacob explained to Richard that the Island was a cork. I also didn’t like the placement of the episode. We’re really at the end of the show now. Smokey/Fake Locke is waging war on the candidates and has killed half of them and so now we’re going to take a time out for an Island history lesson? It really disrupted the momentum of the show. We’ve been told all along that the focus of the show is the characters, not the mythology, and this episode, coming so close to the end, contradicted that.

But I’m not writing to just dump on the show I love. And I genuinely do love this show, even if this final season has occasionally left me frustrated. I knew going into this season that I had to let go of my expectations and let the producers tell the story they want to tell. I’ve listened to a couple of podcasts this week where the Lindelof and Cuse have discussed the polarizing response to “Across the Sea.” They’re general response is that they were pleased with the episode and that “this is what answers look like on Lost.” So I’m choosing to trust these guys and trust that there is a reason why they wanted to tell this part of the story at this point in time. There are only three and a half hours left in this story, and I want to enjoy them to the fullest. I’m still invested in Jack and Kate and Sawyer and Hurley and everyone else who’s left, and I want to know what happens! I still have faith that these last few hours will be thrilling, satisfying, and yes, probably a little perplexing too.  I can’t wait.  What are your thoughts on this season as we reach the end?  What questions do you still want answered?

Lost recap: KABOOM!

Oh, fellow Losties.  Only an incredibly frustrating episode like last night's "The Candidate" could push me out of blogging hibernation.  So let's get right to it.

Sayid, Jin, Sun.  Dead.  (And apparently Lapidus too!)  Sayid's death felt appropriate and earned.  He has spent the last two seasons wrestling with light and darkness, and with his final act he decided once and for all that he wanted to be one of the good guys.  I had no problem with that.  I would still like to know what the "infection" was that Dogen referred to, but I guess that mystery will remain unresolved.

Sun and Jin's deaths?  I had three major problems.  First, (and this applies to Sayid as well) the show has spent the entire season trying to get us to believe in this sideways world that was apparently created when Juliet detonated the bomb.  It finally clicked for me during the Desmond-focused episode from a few weeks ago.  I'm invested in it, I believe it's real, and I believe it's relevant and even critical to how the grand saga of Lost will end.  So now that they've won me over on the sideways world, they have created a real dilemma.  How am I supposed to take these deaths seriously?  They're not entirely dead!  In fact, moments after Sun and Jin's watery demise, I saw Jin alive and well in the hospital on his way to visit Sun!  I think I'm of the mind that unless you die in both realities, I'm just not going to accept that you're really dead.  Second, their deaths were not in any way emotionally satisfying.  This poor couple has been separated from each other since season four.  They were finally reunited as almost an afterthought at the end of the last episode.  And now they've been killed off.  If the show doesn't even care about the Kwons anymore, how am I supposed to care?  Third, did they suddenly forget that they were parents?  "I'm going to die with my wife" is a noble sentiment, but it simply doesn't ring true when there's a child back in South Korea.  Did you notice that neither of them mentioned Ji Yeon in their final moments?  I think it's because the writers knew it wouldn't be believable if they talked about her!  As tragic as Sun's death would be, they would BOTH want Jin to escape to take care of their daughter.  I just don't buy it any other way.

The only other thing I can say about it is this: over the last six seasons, this show has reduced me to tears and puddles of emotion on numerous occasions -- Charlie's death, Desmond's phone call with Penny on the freighter, Sawyer losing Juliet, Jin telling Sun why he has to go on the raft to save her way back in season one -- but last night's deaths did not move me.

Unfortunately, I have one other significant frustration with last night's episode.  The episode finally confirmed that Fake Locke/Smokey is a real bad guy.  But I always thought he was a bad guy, so why did they spend so much narrative energy trying to trick us into thinking that he might be morally ambiguous?  It just seems like they wasted alot of time.  At least now Flocke's agenda is out in the open for the last few hours of Lost that we'll ever see.  Here are a few lingering questions to ponder going forward: what have Richard, Ben and Miles been up to?  What role will Desmond and those pockets of energy play in the endgame?  Will Sawyer now feel the weight of responsibility for the deaths of Sun, Jin and Sayid the way that Jack does for Juliet?  Sideways Jack and now Sideways Locke keep flirting with an awareness of the Island reality but they haven't quite broken through -- what happens when they do?  For my sake, can we please get a Sideways reunion of Claire and Charlie?

I really like what's going on with Jack.  In Sideways World, he is confessing to Locke that he has to work on letting go, and in the previous episode we saw how he was reaching out to Claire and how his relationship with his son is already blossoming.  On the Island, he admitted to Hurley that he is learning to trust other people and that he doesn't have to try and fix everything.  I think that while other characters will choose to "cross over" to their sideways life, Jack is going to have to make the tough choice to forsake this alternate life where everything is pretty good to take his place as Island protector.  Remember Sayid's last words, "Because it's going to be you, Jack."  There are just 4.5 hours left of Lost.  Despite last night's hiccup, I'm still looking forward to a satisfying conclusion.

Destined to be Apart?

Have you ever had a great idea or prediction in your head, but you never told anyone about it? And then a few weeks later your prediction comes true, but now nobody will believe that you thought of it first? That’s me! The moment I saw Sawyer walk past that locked door on Widmore’s submarine during the episode “Recon” I thought to myself, “I bet Desmond is locked in that room. I bet Widmore had to use him to get back to the Island.” But I haven’t blogged in a while so I didn’t get to share my awesomeness with all of you and now, well, whatever. But I totally called that.

So as I was saying, I’ve been absent for a bit. I didn’t get a chance to talk about the fantastic buddy cop show with Sawyer and Miles that debuted in “Recon” (can we please make that into a spin-off?) or the mind-blowing mythology download we were given in “Ab Aeterno” (note: to all the people still complaining that they aren’t giving us any answers, they ARE giving us answers, lots of them, just maybe not the way you pictured it in your head). But I’m here now, so we can talk about “The Package,” the episode where Sun and Jin were finally reunited. Oh wait, that’s right, they weren’t reunited. In fact, they were moved further apart. BLURG! Seriously, what’s up with this? They’ve been doing everything possible to keep these two apart since season four; can we give it a rest already? I’m ready to wrap this thread up. Alas, I have a feeling the show is committed to dragging it out until the end or very nearly the end. And like their Island storyline, the Kwons’ storyline in the sideways world left us hanging too. What else happened in this episode? We got some nice “walk down memory lane” moments with Mikhail, Sun’s garden and Room 23. FLocke confronted Widmore face-to-face (as a diversion for Sayid’s covert op), we learned that Claire still kinda wants to kill Kate (and FLocke kinda really wants her to), and Jin finally got to see his daughter. This was the real emotional gut punch moment of the episode for me (you can’t help but think that Widmore was just using the pictures to manipulate Jin).

So where do we go from here? For all his personal growth, Jack is still over-promising. He promised Sun he would reunite her with Jin AND get them both off the Island, no matter what. Are you sure, dude? Maybe he should have said something like, “I’ll do whatever it takes to find Jin, but I can’t guarantee you what will happen after that.” Something along those lines. Oh well. The stakes for Jin and Desmond are extremely high. They are both separated from the one they love and they both have a child waiting for them back in the real world. If the show screws either one of them out of a happy ending, I think there will be rioting in the streets. As anxious as I am to see Sun and Jin reunited, I am equally anxious to see Ben and Widmore together again. The last time they confronted each other, they were equals of sorts contending with one another for control of the Island. Widmore is still driven and powerful. Ben is now pretty much neutered, a shell of the man he was before. And why is Widmore interested in identifying all of the pockets of electromagnetic energy on the Island? I do think this season is moving slower than I would like, but that’s been true of previous seasons too. We are now running downhill in the second half of this final season, and I think we’ll start to see the pace pick up a little faster from here on out. Did I miss anything big? What did you think?

Catching Up

After a regrettable delay, I wanted to offer a few thoughts about the past two episodes of Lost before tonight's new episode.

I was very saddened, but not surprised, to see Sayid's fall into darkness in "Sundown".  More surprising to me was my sadness at the abrupt departure of Dogen.  I was just starting to really enjoy that character.  The most chilling moment of the episode was the exhange of looks between Ben and Sayid at the very end.  Ben look positively terrified, while Sayid almost had a smile of glee.

I think it's very interesting to see how Fake Locke/Smokey approaches and tempts his potential recruits.  For Sayid, he promised a reunion with his beloved Nadia.  And for Ben, Flocke offered a chance to once again be the leader/protector of the Island.  In each instance FLocke identifies the thing that cuts to the core of what the person desires most. 

I absolutely adored the episode "Dr. Linus".  I am intrigued by the idea that there may yet be redemption for Ben, who for so long has taken the role of "villain" on this show.  I particularly enjoyed his storyline in the parallel world.  We got our first hint of the new Island history, as we were told that the Dharma Initiative existed in this timeline and that Ben was a part of it.  Why did he and his father leave?  And did it have anything to do with the Incident?  It was nice to see Alex again (and Dr. Arzt).  And I was delighted to see that Jack has once again embraced a sense of destiny.  That guy definitely goes all-or-nothing, and he has once again declared that he is all-in and firmly on Team Jacob.

Last thought, I love the beach reunions on this show.  We've had a few of them over the years.  You know what I'm talking about -- after a long separation, our castaways reunite at the beach camp in slow motion, exchanging hugs and handshakes while happy/sad music plays over the scene.  For some reason, the one at the end of "Dr. Linus" felt particularly cathartic.  When Hurley gave Sun a big bear hug, I think a little dust got in my eye.  I bet that Ben, standing off by himself, was secretly wishing for a big Hurley bear hug too.

Lots of other stuff happened -- Smokey cleans out the temple, Widmore is back -- but I'll hold everything else until tonight's new episode.  Back with more soon!

Very Old School

Now that was more like it.  Last night's episode of Lost, "The Lighthouse" was everything I had been waiting for this season.  As Hurley said to Jack, it was "very old school."  About the only thing missing was Julie Bowen, but c'est la vie.  Before we get into the details of last night's episode, a brief addendum about last week.  In my recap, I complained that Sawyer seemed way too gullible.  But Doc Jensen at EW.com has set me straight.  In his analysis of that episode, he posits that Sawyer is just going along with FLocke's plan so that he can ultimately protect his friends.  He's in fact hatching a long con of his own.  I like this theory, and its very consistent with the new "hero" Sawyer that we saw last season.  Sawyer may be in a really dark place right now, but I just don't see him selling out his fellow castaways, even Jack and Sayid, but especially Kate and Hurley.

But forget Sawyer, this episode was about JACK.  Finally, Jack was front and center again, the way he was throughout the first season.  I'm convinced that he, not Locke or anyone else, is the central character of the show.  In fact, I'll go out on a limb and predict that Jack is not only a "candidate," he is the candidate, whatever that turns out to actually mean.  The man who has spent the whole series fighting against the Island will ultimately find redemption when he fully embraces the Island and accepts the role that Jacob has for him.  And last night we saw that Jack has come along way, but he also has a long way yet to go.

I liked the way that Jack has come to terms with his flaws and failures.  He confesses to Hurley that he's "broken" and accepts that he wrecked his relationship with Kate.  He can openly admit that he chased his father's ghost to the cave (in the past, he wouldn't even admit to himself that he had seen visions of Christian Shepherd).  On the other hand, while he was drawn back to the Island in pursuit of his destiny, he is once again doubting the Island's significance.  But he is clearly searching for answers, as evidenced by his eagerness to follow Hurley once Hurley passed along Jacob's message.  And Jacob has Jack's number.  He definitely knows what buttons to push to get under Jack's skin, and he seems to have a limitless faith that Jack will eventually end up where Jacob wants him.  So what is the Lighthouse?  Is it really a signal to outsiders, or simply Jacob's spyglass to the world?  Or could it be something that reflects the person using it?  Maybe it only exists to provoke Jack.  Are there really people coming to the Island or was that part of Jacob's ruse?  I was reminded that Jacob whispered to FLocke when he died that "They are coming."  I assumed he was referring to our time travelers, but maybe not.  Regardless, I thought the Lighthouse was far more impressive and fascinating than the cave that FLocke took Sawyer to last week.

In the parallel world, Jack was dealing with the same father issues that have haunted him on the Island, but with a twist.  Jack's a Dad!  That's crazy!  (Who's the mom -- Sarah, or someone else?).  Jack was determined to escape the shadow of his father and forge a new path.  He told his son that he didn't want to pass on the same lofty expectations and fear of failure that Jack felt burdened with from Christian.  In that moment, Jack seemed to make peace with his father in a way that he has never been able to in the other timeline.   For the second straight week, I loved the parallel storyline.  I loved that Jack seems so discombobulated, as if his Island memories are lurking in his subconscious somewhere.  He couldn't remember when his appendix was removed.  Was it when he was a 8 or 9 years old, as his mother reminded him, or was it on the Island when Juliet removed it in the tent?

So many other great things to touch on in this episode.  Hurley is quickly becoming the MVP of the season.  He makes every scene better.  I love the dry comedy of his conversations with Jacob, and I love that he worked in both an Indiana Jones reference and an Obi-Wan Kenobi reference.  I chuckled when Hurley echoed fan hypotheses regarding the Adam and Eve skeletons in the cave.  And then there's Claire.  She's just all kinds of crazy.  What does her association with FLocke signify?  Did FLocke/MIB/Smokey lure her into the jungle that night so that she would be "infected"?  Did he prevent her from time travelling with the other castaways?  Does this confirm that the Christian that we've seen on the Island is just another manifestation of FLocke?  Do we need to be nervous for Jin?  My hunch is that FLocke will use Claire and Jin to infiltrate the Temple.

All in all, I thought this was a packed episode that really moved things forward.  The roller coaster has begun, and I'm definitely ready for the rest of the ride.

Lost: Recruiting Class

Last night's episode of Lost, "The Substitute," was a definite improvement over the previous week, but I'm still concerned about the glacial pace that continues in the plot unfolding within the Island timeline.  On that front, the entire episode can basically be reduced to "Fake Locke/MIB/Smokey recruits Sawyer."  That's really the only thing that happened.  Oh sure, there were some interesting scenes with Richard Alpert, and that weird little boy that FLocke kept seeing (Jacob's ghost?), and they teased a few of the big Island mysteries (Jacob's Lists!  The numbers!) without really providing any real answers, and more people are headed to the Temple (that place is going to get old real quick), but it was really all about FLocke seducing Sawyer.  Which was pretty easy for him to do.  I'm actually pretty surprised that Sawyer, the consumate con man, was so easily won over.  I did, however, dig Sawyer's complete nonchalance with the idea that some thing was inhabitating Locke's form.  Didn't phase him a bit.  I guess the Dharma whiskey helped (and his excellent observation that the real Locke was always afraid, even when he pretended not to be). 

So what do you think is the ultimate endgame for FLocke?  When he tells Sawyer that they have to leave the Island together, does he mean all the 815ers have to leave together, much like the criteria for the Oceanic Six to return to the Island, or does he just need one recruit to assist him?  And why were only the men's names written in Jacob's cave?  We know that Kate and Ilyana were also touched by Jacob in the season 5 finale, so where were their names (I'm therefore also concluding that "Kwon" referred only to Jin and not to Sun)?  And is there a greater significance to FLocke acting as a substitute for Locke beyond getting access to Jacob?

Speaking of substitutes, for the first time this season I can say that I was genuinely more engaged by the storyline in the alternate timeline, because we finally got spend some time with the REAL John Locke again.  Honestly, I didn't realize how much I missed him, but his absence is definitely felt.  In the new off-Island timeline, John is actually very much the same man we've always known.  Although some of the details of his life are better -- he and Helen are engaged, and apparently his relationship with his father is different this time around -- he is still secretly raging against his limitations.  "Don't tell me what I can't do!" is still his refrain, and he once again unsuccessfully tried to embark on his Walkabout in Austrailia.  But then, something changed.  An encounter with the ever-pragmatic Rose convinced him to accept his reality and move on with his life.  He seemingly affects his fate and is content to become a substitute teacher (I guess it beats working for Randy at Hurley's box company). 

And so Lost's resident Believer, its Man of Faith, was actually buried twice last night.  Will he ever return?  I continue to believe that the real Locke has some important role to play in the resolution of the show.   Ultimately, I think there is no adequate substitute for this essential character.  But I also continue to be distracted by the winks at the audience that laden the new timeline.  Ben Linus the European history teacher was hilarious, raging about the coffee maker in the teacher's lounge, but isn't a little much to think that Locke would encounter Hurley, Rose, and Ben all in rapid succession like that?  All in all, it was a much more satisfying episode, but I'm still looking forward to a little more plot progression.

Last Night's Lost

After a brain-cooking, lightning-paced 2-hour season premiere, my hopes were set high that the final season of "Lost" would unfold like a freight train of tight plotting and answers to burning questions.  Alas, following last night's episode I was initially left with this disappointing thought:  "Wow, they just burned off an entire episode simply to set up the return of Claire."  With so few episodes left in the series, this is nothing to take lightly!  But upon further reflection, I recalled the producers declaration that they would be much more concerned with resolving the characters than they would be with resolving mysteries and mythology.  So what did we learn about our characters last night?

The episode title, "What Kate Does," is a play on the title of theseason 2 episode "What Kate Did."  It is also, I think, a reference to the fact that what Kate does, and has always done throughout the series, is run.  Last night she was on the run again, in both of the parallel storylines.  In the Island Present, Kate was running after Sawyer, only to discover that her "backup plan" was completely uninterested in her.  Sawyer was heartbreaking in this episode.  He quickly moved on from his bitterness (toward Jack, and even Sayid) and settled into brokeness.  He no longer blames Jack for Juliet's death, he blames himself. And he's not getting over it anytime soon.  He's clearly a man with nothing to live for and nothing to lose, and based on the preview for next week, it looks like he is perfectly positioned to listen to the pitch for whatever it is that Fake Locke/MIB/Smokey is selling.  I also liked that Jin got a few brief moments to shine as he confronted Kate on her motivation for leaving the temple.  Another highlight -- Miles telling Jack he'd be "waiting in the food court."   I like that this place has become so bizarre that everyone just takes it in stride now.

In the New Timeline, Kate actually stopped running and took a brief detour to assist Claire, who was experiencing premature labor after Kate hijacked her taxi.  Of course, we remember that Kate was also with Claire when Claire gave birth to Aaron on the Island, and I get the symmetry that Kate and Claire and Aaron are all connected to each other, no matter what reality we're in.  But was there anything else significant about this?  That was my big problem with this episode.  For an episode that was centered on Kate, I don't feel like they really they did anything to advance her character.  She was not brought any closer to the resolution that this last season is promising.

Two other thoughts in closing:  First, the inclusion of Dr. Ethan "I don't want to stick you with any needles unless I have to" Goodspeed was hilarious, but it highlights another problem.  I have to think that the audience is supposed to believe that this new rebooted timeline has consequence and significance.  But the Ethan bit is such an obvious wink-wink joke that it really undermines the reality of the reality, if you will.  It causes me to view this storyline as just an amusing "what if," which is probably not what the show wants us to be thinking.

Second, what do we make of Sayid?  After the premiere, some fans speculated that he was now the reincarnation of Jacob.  I think it's pretty clear now that that is not the case.  But what of the "infection" and "darkness" that he has?  It reminded me of Rousseau's description of what happened to her colleagues.  I suppose we'll learn more about what is happening to Sayid as we learn what happened to Claire during the last three years.  My guess is that this will culminate with Sayid having to make a big moral choice about who he really is -- is he really a killer or will he embrace the better angels of his nature?  In conclusion, this episode primarily focused on re-positioning some of our castaways for future events.  Instead of running, "Lost" was really just running in place.  I'm hopeful it regains its forward momentum next week.