'Lost:' 'The Last Recruit'

*Warning: Spoilers from the latest episode of Lost ahead.*

Well, not every episode can be a homerun. "The Last Recruit" felt really rushed and superficial, as the “answer” to at least one outstanding question came too easily and didn’t jive with other things we’ve previously seen.

The Man in Black/Smoky Locke told Jack Shephard, in a matter of fact fashion, that he had used the body of Jack’s father Christian to run around the island after Oceanic 815 crashed. So Man in Black's a puppeteer who uses dead bodies at will to run around? What if there were no more bodies for him to inhabit?

Last week, Michael told Hurley that there were dead people who were “stuck” on the island, not counting the people whose bodies the Man in Black was using for fun. Where does that leave someone like Walt who was alive when he appeared to more than one person?

Why have people who did not die on the island appeared before our Losties? Like Ben's mother, who died while giving birth to him in the United States? Or Richard's wife who appeared to Hurley a few episodes ago but never set foot on the island when she was alive?

Aside from the questions about the appearances of the deceased, this warfare stuff, Widmore’s people sending bombs raining down on Man in Black and the people who are “with” him because they won’t give back “The Package” (Desmond who’s likely still alive because I don’t believe Sayid killed him), I'm not fond of this storyline. We've had plenty of wars with The Others and the Losties, with the freighter people and our Losties. It feels old.
The Jack-Sawyer face-off – where Jack got all wishy-washy about whether they should stay and Sawyer acted all keep-that-crazy-talk-to-yourself-or-get-the-hell-off-my-damn-boat – eh, it really did not move me either. Didn’t like this twist, even though it reminded me of the helicopter trip to the freighter where Sawyer jumped into the ocean as the copter was losing fuel, however Sawyer jumped to save the copter from crashing. Did Jack’s jumping from the boat also save our Losties in some way? Also, should we give any weight to Sawyer’s quip, “We’re done going back Kate?” (The Lost Untangled video below had a funny take on this.)

Things I did like from "The Last Recruit:"

Liked that there seems to be a reunion of sorts going on at the LA hospital in the sideways-flashing existence, with Jack being called away from the reading of his father’s will (where he learned Claire was his half-sister after Desmond manipulated her into going to his attorney Ilana's office which happened to be in the same building as the adoption agency) to operate on Locke’s back, while Sun was recovering from a gunshot wound (and her baby’s okay).

Was intrigued by the fact that Man in Black/Smoky Locke called the original John Locke “stupid” because he believed “he’d been brought here for a reason” and “pursued that belief until it got him killed.” “John Locke was not a believer Jack,” Smoky Locke said, “he was a sucker.”

But isn’t the reason why Jack abandoned the boat and returned to the island because Jack believed he’d been called back to the island for something, to finish something? Does that make Jack a sucker too?

The Sun-Jin reunion was sweet, brought tears to my eyes, but it was spoiled when the Widmore zombies raised their weapons a second time. (The whole bit with Sun losing her ability to speak English but suddenly regaining it when she saw Jin was unnecessary, messy madness. Again, I'm right on with what Dr. Chang says in Lost Untangled.)



Overall, I was seeking a little more depth to this episode coming on the heels of two really strong episodes. I wanted emotional resonance instead of the taking sides/“war”/”You’re with me now” thread which just seems like an excuse to have big explosions and gunfire.

The reason I was so drawn to the previous two episodes with Desmond and Hurley was because they seemed meaningful, touched on weighty issues like fate, destiny, free will and bonds between people. They'd started to draw larger issues and questions together as though they might've been slowly closing a larger loop. But then they dropped the string and went astray with the shallow “war” storyline between Widmore and Man in Black/Smoky Locke. If this is how we’re going to spend the last few hours of one of the most intriguing, maddening and clever television shows in history, I’m going to be peeved, I tell you that much.

What did you think of “The Last Recruit?”

Image credit: Mario Perez/ABC.

'Lost's' 'Happily Ever After' is Just What I've Been Waiting For

*Warning: Spoilers ahead from the recent episode of Lost.*

This

is why

I love Lost.

We went back to the stadium where Jack and Desmond initially met eons ago, in the “Man of Science, Man of Faith” episode.

We saw Daniel Faraday Widmore, wearing the same kind of skinny black tie, that stringy hair and carrying a notebook.

There was Penny with her radiant smile.

Oh, and Eloise was there too and she was married to Charles Widmore.

There was a flash of Charlie’s hand, as he was drowning in the Looking Glass station, with, “Not Pennys Boat” written in pen. His band Drive Shaft's hit song.

Charles Widmore shared that super-expensive 60-year-old scotch with Desmond, the one he wouldn’t pour for Desmond back in the “Flashes Before Your Eyes” episode when Desmond asked Widmore for permission to marry his daughter Penny and Widmore told Desmond he wasn't worth it. But, in the life of a sideways-flashing Desmond, Widmore said, as he gave Desmond the liquor, “Nothing’s too good for you.”

And there was a white rabbit.

This is what I’ve been hoping this final season would be like. Just like this. Things tying back around to earlier Lost threads. Gave me the warm and fuzzies.

Loved hearing sideways-flashing Charlie talking about life's choices and truth and what's real, and Desmond responding, “There’s always a choice, brutha.”

Eloise, seemingly clued-in to all this alternate universe/sideways-flashing stuff, telling sideways-flashing Desmond, who was drawn to Penny and didn't fully understand why, to stop looking for her. “It is, in fact, a violation," she said. ". . . You have the perfect life. On top of it, you’ve managed to attain the thing you wanted more than anything, my husband’s approval.”

Her musician son Daniel, who was suffering from the same sense of déjà vu as Desmond, didn’t understand why he’d written a complex equation into a black notebook, given that he’s "just" a musician. “What if this wasn’t supposed to be our life?” he asked Desmond, a twinkle in his eyes. “What if we had some other life and for some reason, we changed things? . . . I don’t want to set off a nuclear bomb, Mr. Hume, but I think I already did.”

I was loving all of this was so much that I was really disappointed to have Desmond wake up from the electromagnetic sideways-flashing experience and be back on the island with crooked-glassed Zoe, with more gun-toting people and watching “claimed” Sayid ask Desmond to come with him.

I felt thoroughly satisfied after watching “Happily Ever After,” particularly in the notion it advanced: No matter what, people who are meant to be together are going to find one another one way or another.

What did you think of "Happily Ever After?"

Image credit: Mario Perez/ABC.

'Lost:' 'The Package' . . . Unwraps Yet More Questions

*Warning, spoilers from the recent episode of Lost ahead.*

Waaaaiiittt a minute! Hold on just one second . . .

Sun is pregnant in her sideways-flash? With Jin’s baby or Jae Lee’s, the guy who taught her English? (Or did she not know English in her sideways-flash and had never met Jae Lee in the sideways universe? Wasn't clear on her linguistic abilities in the sideways-flash.) Why weren’t Sun and Jin married and what does their being married have to do with Oceanic not crashing? Why was Martin Keamy working for Sun’s father and not Widmore in the sideways-flash? What’s up with Mikhail (previously known as Patchy, a Dharma-ite) escorting Sun to the bank, only to be, ironically, blinded in one eye by Jin, after Mikhail shot Sun in the stomach?

Questions, questions . . . questions to which I fear we’ll never get satisfactory answers in the handful of episodes remaining, especially when new characters (Zoe with the crooked specs) are introduced at this late date.

I’m getting a bit weary from these massive shifts in momentum. First few seasons, here’s how it went: Get off the island. Get off the island! Get OFF the island!! (And stay away from the smoke, and that mean Ben guy.)

Then, it changed: Hey we’ve got to go BACK to the island to save our friends. We’ve got to go back Kate! We’ve got to go BACK! We’ve got to get a specific group of people (the candidates? the people whom Ben & Locke were collecting) to go back to the island TOGETHER. Remember the oldie but goodie: "Live together, die alone?"

Now that they’re all on the island(s), the mantra has become: We’ve got to get off the island! Oh, and we’ve got to get a certain group of people together in order to do this, however, if we do that, hell will be unleashed upon the earth, so, maybe we shouldn't . . . This time, the Man in Black is the people collector, trying to persuade the remaining candidates to replace Jacob to accompany him off the island.

On this subject, I found intriguing the Man in Black/Locke's comment to Claire about needing Kate to persuade the others to leave the island, even though Kate's no longer a candidate(?): “Once she does, whatever happens, happens.” (Another oldie but a goodie.)

Near the end of "The Package," it struck me that Jack -- after all he’s been through and all his mistakes -- had the chutzpah to act as though he’s the one to be trusted, to lead the group. He once led them some of them off the island. Then he led them back on. Now he seems to be leaning toward going to the Hydra island, where the plane is, and, perhaps, stopping the Man in Black/Locke. (Doesn't Jack look like he's blessing Sun in the above ABC photo? Hmm.)

Of all the scenes in "The Package," the one with Jin looking longingly at the digital photos of his daughter, whom he’d never seen, made me tear up. So while I was feeling great sympathy for Jin, Widmore dropped this nugget into the mix: “If that, thing, masquerading as John Locke ever got off this island, your wife, your daughter, my daughter, everyone we know and love would simply cease to be. I came here to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

“How?” Jin asked.

“Come with me,” Widmore said. “I think it’s time for you to see The Package.”

“What 'package'?”

“It’s not a what, it’s a who.”

Could he be speaking about Desmond? Ack! I allowed myself fall into the trap of trying to figure out what’s happening and trying to make it make sense, even though I vowed I wouldn’t do this. Damn, my head hurts now.

Image credit: Mario Perez/ABC.

'Lost's' 'Dr. Linus' Made Me Smile (Except for the End)

*Warning, spoilers ahead from the recent episode of Lost.*

For several weeks now, I’ve felt let down and disgruntled by the time I reached the end of each new installment of Lost. (If you've been following along here on the blog, you know why.) But I was thrilled that I did not feel that way after watching the “Dr. Linus” episode and witnessed the redemption of Ben Linus in BOTH of his realities, in his uncrashed life and in his post-crash/post-Jughead life. Such dualities haven’t occurred for the other characters whose sideways-flashes we’ve seen.

After Locke – who’s dead and whose body has been claimed by the Man in Black/Smoky -- my favorite character on Lost was Ben Linus because he was so deliciously evil and unpredictable, yet he also had a vulnerable, insecure underbelly which I found intriguing. So it was a shock to see him, in this final season, rendered largely impotent, a bug-eyed spectator as post-crashed/Man in Black/Smoky Locke assumed control over the island after conning Ben into killing Jacob. Even Lapidus seemed to have more authority than Ben and that was depressing.

The full depth of Ben’s feeling of betrayal hadn’t been explored until this latest episode where he confessed to Jacob’s “bodyguard” – a character about whom I could care less about -- that he’d sacrificed and given everything he had to the island because he had faith in Jacob and that he was doing what he had to do to protect the island. Ben had even allowed the evil Widmore freighter guy to shoot to death Ben’s daughter in front of him because he thought that’s what Jacob would have wanted, for Ben to remain alive to take care of the island even as he had to sacrifice his child to do so. (My guess is that, before he killed Jacob, Ben would’ve justified his actions by quoting scripture about sacrificing a child for God.)

But to see Ben, tearful, exposed and utterly defeated -- like the story he told his history class about Napoleon in exile on the island who might as well have been dead because he was powerless -- because he believed he’d dedicated his life and allowed his daughter to be killed for nothing, was a revelation. It humanized the little nut job, in a good way.

Ben’s sideways-flashing high school history teacher did what the post-crash/post-Jughead Ben could not: Do right by Alex and make sure that she got what she needed to succeed in life, or at least get into Yale. Though still deceptively manipulative in his sweater vest -- as evidenced by the way he persuaded the biology teacher to hack into the school nurse’s e-mail account – this version of Ben had a heart that superceded his ambitions.

The uncrashed Ben was even taking care of his father, making him meals and changing his oxygen tank; by contrast, the post-crash Ben killed his father and donned a gas mask to protect himself from the poison gas he had gotten someone else to release across the Dharma compound in order to stage a coup and put himself in charge. (Get the irony, killed by poison gas in one scenario, made more comfortable with oxygen in the other.) The uncrashed Ben was still Ben, but hadn’t been twisted by the island, hadn't been brought to the Temple when he was mortally wounded as a child after Sayid shot him in order to be "saved," something that likely darkened Ben's heart.

So does this mean that the island – and the presence of the Man in Black/Smoky – twists people, takes the darker parts of themselves that already exist and amplifies them by forcing people to choose between the common good and a selfish good? Do you have to have had contact with Smoky, like child Ben did, in order for this to happen? Who knows?

I haven’t yet read up on the other blogs to see other folks’ reactions to “Dr. Linus,” but I’ll venture to guess that the reactions to the redemption of Ben are mixed. In my own house, my spouse was unimpressed. “I don’t like Redeemed Ben and Bad Sayid,” he grumbled. I’m not a fan of Bad Sayid either – though I’m not totally convinced he’s bad, I HATED Dogen and his weasel sidekick – but I was a fan of last night’s Ben-centric episode.
 
Do you think Ben will remain redeemed for the rest of the series or will Evil Ben rear his scheming head again? Did you roll your eyes at the poorly executed scene with the sub rising out of the ocean and spying on our Losties with Charles Widmore inside of it like I did?

Image credit: Mario Perez/ABC.