I think I need to come to terms with what I just saw.
So obviously some pretty significant stuff happened this episode, and I really don’t want to ruin that for people who haven’t seen it yet. So, in order to ensure that spoilers won’t appear in my Twitter feed, how about a joke? Enjoy:
One rainy Sunday afternoon, a young couple were on their way to their Church to get married. On the way there, their car lost control and slammed into a telephone pole – killing them both instantly.
The couple soon found themselves standing in front of St. Peter at the Pearly Gates, welcoming them to Heaven. The young woman asks Peter if they could get married in Heaven, since their time on Earth was cut short. He replies that he’ll get back with them on that request.
A month later, St. Peter finds them and announces that they can – in fact – get married in Heaven. To his surprise, the woman asks “Just wondering, if things don’t work out will we be able to get a divorce?”
With a stern look in his eye, Peter blurts out “Look lady, it took me a month to find a preacher up here… you really think I’m gonna find a lawyer?”
Well that lightened the mood a bit. But before things get too jovial…..f’n hell, what the crap did we just see?
As most of you know, I avoid spoilers like the plague. In fact, it drives me crazy that Inside Pulse puts ANYTHING in their spoiler headings. I, and I assume many others as well, don’t want to know ANYTHING about the upcoming episode. But even I was unable to avoid finding out that, in all likelihood, we’d find out that somebody would be dying tonight. And as such, I was even MORE at the edge of my seat throughout the episode. Every single scene in which weapons were drawn, or conflicts arose, or things got a little too unsettling, I would think to myself, “Dammit, is it going to happen now?” I’m not sure if it was the episode itself or if it was me constantly expecting something to happen, but holy cow, this was an exhilarating hour!
And I had my suspicions throughout the episode, and they were torn between Jack, Kate, and Sayid. Let me explain why. For one, I feel like when a central character dies, he or she is often the person the episode was centered around. So I thought it might be Jack. Having said that, I also thought the episode set up early on the idea that Kate was expendable. So I wondered to myself, “Is this foreshadowing?” And finally, I felt like Sayid had served his purpose as a character. I feel like every single finale I’m predicting his death, but it never seems to happen. And this season they reached a point where they really had no choice but to kill him, either in a heroic fashion to redeem himself for the evil he had committed, or in the final showdown alongside Locke.
The strongest factor leading me to believe that it wasn’t going to be Jack is the fact that he’s essentially the star of the show, and so a death of that caliber would almost certainly have to be in the finale. Plus, unlike those that we did lose this episode, his story couldn’t be tied up in just one hour.
So, in the end, Sayid, Sun, Jin, and possibly Frank were killed. I gotta tell ya, the second we saw the Locke Ness Monster hand Jack his backpack and they focused on him putting it on, I knew they were screwed (and how much did you love that Jack used John Locke’s name in his defiant act to stop him from getting onto the sub?)
While I did argue the merits of just letting a character go bad without any redemption in my Revisited column, I actually enjoyed Sayid’s final moments. Perhaps I appreciated that they weren’t too heavy handed about it. They didn’t have him apologize for all he had done, or attempt to justify it. In the end, he just did a really selfless deed and showed who his true allegiance is to. This was a wonderful example of less being more.
Plus, I think if they had devoted too much time to Sayid’s death, it would have taken away from Sun and Jin’s demise. Honestly, I thought this scene rivaled Charlie’s sacrifice. It was just beautifully done. You had two people who loved each other so much that they would rather die together than be separated again. It was just a lovely scene – right down to Jin briefly speaking in Korean, and their lifeless hands drifting apart. If I had ONE complaint, and it’s a minor one, I do wish one of them brought up their, ya’ know, daughter. But I understood the desire to keep the focus on their love for each other. It was also nice seeing all of the characters have a legitimate emotional breakdown upon hearing about this loss. In hindsight, I think the writing was on the wall for them when they had their little scene together, where it was conveniently revealed that their daughter is just fine with Sun’s mother right now.
And how’s this for coincidence? In Part 2 of my last Revisited column, I alluded to two prior deaths when predicting the fate of our current cast. Ilana, who died in an explosion, and Charlie, who drowned. Of course, I was referring to the build to their deaths (Ilana was immediate and unexpected, Charlie was built up and shot beautifully), but the deaths that occurred this episode happened via explosion and drowning. So I guess I was right.
But anyway, can we all finally accept that Smokey IS the bad guy here? No gray. No ambiguity. He’s an evil dick.
On the other hand, has Jack brought the awesome recently or what? I loved the way he pieced everything together in the sub – that this was a trap by the Locke Ness Monster and that he wanted to put them into a seemingly perilous situation so that he could leave the island. It was a legitimately thrilling scene watching Jack attempt to convince everybody that Locke isn’t “allowed” to kill them, so that if they just let the timer go to 0, they’ll be fine. But if they interfere, Locke is no longer the one doing the deed, so they’re screwed. It was really a lot of fun seeing Jack put together the pieces, much like the viewers have been for throughout the season.
And while I have NO interest whatsoever restarting this old argument, but am I the only one who sensed that Jack/Kate is going to be the end game here? When I was verbally assaulted by all those Sawyer/Kate fans, virtually every single one of them brought up the cage sex. Yet when the two characters once again found themselves in that cage again this episode, Kate didn’t seem the least bit sentimental. And when the all of the characters were together, the focus was placed on Jack and Kate. It was Jack who rescued her when she was shot. And it was Jack again who rescued her following the explosion. And when Jack and Sawyer swam to shore, she ran to Jack, crying that she “couldn’t find him.”
Again, I’m not looking for a mean spirited argument. This is just one guy’s observation. But for those of you keeping score, Jack’s decision got Juliet killed. Sawyer’s decision got Sayid, Jin, Sun, and possibly Frank killed. And this is coming from somebody who likes Sawyer.
Okay, some final things to touch upon. Yes, I’m sure that there were loads of little tidbits going on in the sideways world that I likely missed, but this week it just took such an extraordinary backseat to what was happening on the island that I don’t really have a whole lot of insight into it. There’s one question I will ask, though: We now know what happened to Locke and why he has a healthy, loving relationship with his father. And I’d say the two are certainly related – in the island world Locke’s dad conned him into giving up a kidney. I would venture to assume the same thing (or something equitable) would have happened in the sideways world (we have every reason to believe Anthony Cooper is still a conman based on the fact that he’s responsible for Sawyer’s parents’ death in both universes), but the opportunity simply didn’t arise because he was put in a catatonic state before the big turn could happen.
And on a related note, I’m still a sucker for those Locke/Helen sideways scenes. John Locke is a guy who has been bullied, screwed, and manipulated by pretty much every single person he’s ever come across. Sure, he’s responsible for a lot of that, but it’s just nice seeing him get to be happy.
Remember in my last review and my Revisited column when I talked about how the Jack/Claire reunion just didn’t hit the right emotional chords (which may have been intentional)? Well, I feel like their sweet little sideways scene rectified that somewhat. When we found out these two were related, it was a pretty monumental moment. After years of watching these characters, we suddenly discover they’re brother and sister. That’s pretty damn big. But so much had happened with the characters and the series that when they finally reunited, it just couldn’t resonate the way it could have. In my view, their sideways interaction showed us the tender hearted version of what could have been. And it was sorta nice.
And my final question: What do we make of Widmore? He claimed that he was protecting the candidates and their allies. Do we believe him? Or do we believe the Locke Ness Monster, who argued that Widmore intended on killing all of them in one fail swoop?
Matt Basilo has been writing for Inside Pulse since April 2005, providing his insight into popular television shows such as Lost, 24, Heroes, and Smallville. Be sure to visit his blog at [a case of the blog] and follow him on Twitter.
