Lost [in Translation]

First, I should tell you that it’s very late right now and I am not going to take the time to spellcheck this. I hope it is coherent, or at least entertainingly… not. Thoughts on this week’s episode of Lost, “The Candidate”, after the break:

1. Locke wakes up. Jack tells him he’s a… CANDIDATE. A candidate for fancy surgery to fix his legs. Peggy rushes in and thanks Jack for saving Locke. Then we switch back to the Island.
2. Hydra Island, specifically. All of our friends are being held at gunpoint by Widmore’s friends. But then Sawyer, who really doesn’t want to get back in the bear cages (even though last time he did that he got to third base with Kate), grabs a Patton Oswalt-looking dude’s gun and TURNS THE TABLES! Oh but then Widmore shows up with his own gun and says he will kill Kate, whose name is not on the List. Sawyer gives in because he loooooves Kate, and it’s back into the cages. Widmore says “he’s coming”. He means MIB, right? Credits.
3. Jack visits a dentist who turns out to be Bernard! He’s “Dr. Nadler” and I bet a lot of people make fun of him for that. Dr. Nad! Anyway, Jack’s asking for Locke’s records so he can fix him. So he can fix everything. Anyway, Bernard tells Jack that he was on Oceanic 815 too. They note that the coincidence is pretty suspicious. But I mean, this was just written by human beings. Anyway, Bernard says that “Anthony Cooper” was injured in the same accident as Locke. Hot diggity!
4. Back to the Island, where Jack is waking up in a canoe. Sayid is there and tells him that MIB saved him from last week’s beach bombing. So now it’s just Sayid, MIB, and Jack. MIB shows up to say they’re going to rescue the whole gang from Widmore, then flee on the plane. Jack says he’s not planning on leaving the Island, but MIB says some stuff including that he’s capable of killing Jack and everyone else but he hasn’t done that so Jack can trust him. Yeah, I’m not super persuaded. Sayid seems dubious as well. Anyway, MIB asks if Jack will help and Jack… oh come on. That was the end of the scene? CHEAP STORYTELLING! Relatedly, we still haven’t seen Desmond’s body. It’s almost as if he’s still running around somewhere!
5. Sawyer and Kate talk about the names, and how Kate’s name was crossed out in that cave. So “he doesn’t need you”. Fascinating, really. Jin and Sun chat about how they have a daughter. In English, for some reason that is also cheap storytelling. Sun gives Jin his ring back. They seem happy. Oh but then the power cuts out and Lapidus says “uh oh”. I concur. That means the anti-smoke-monster towers are down also. Smoke monster sounds occur! Smoke occurs! Fake Patton Oswalt gets killed. JUST DESERTS, SIR. Anyway, Lapidus is a badass m-f-er and is going to kick the door down but Jack shows up and lets them out. I guess he’s decided to help. Would have been nice to have seen him reach that decision! Commercial time.
6. The old gang wanders through the woods, to the plane. Jack tells Kate he’s not going to leave on the plane because he’s “not meant to go”. Sawyer thanks him for the help. Then Sayid shows up. He’s wearing all black, you know. Because he’s lost his soul. Anyway, he brings them all to Locke.
7. Back in LA, Jack’s at some office reception area, asking about Mr. Cooper. Oh hey, it’s Peggy! She is surprised to see Jack because she doesn’t know that the entire population of the Earth is down to just the 100 or so speaking roles that have appeared on the last five seasons of Lost. Anyway. Jack says he’s there to see Cooper, which seems to upset Peggy. She tells him to leave, and says John doesn’t want the operation. She asks Jack why saving Locke’s life isn’t enough (good question!). Jack helpfully answers that “it’s not”. Got it, thanks, Doc. They go see Cooper, because Peggy was apparently satisfied with Jack’s non-answer. They come over to the guy Sawyer killed in the Black Rock’s brig! Which is actually not a surprise at all, since we already knew that’s who Cooper was. Apparently he’s profoundly senile. He drools and stares into space and that’s it. He’s probably a FlashForward fan.
8. MIB walks up to the plane, where a bunch of Widmore’s goons shoot at him, to no effect. Because he’s a supernatural being who cannot be hurt. But maybe one more bullet? Nope, apparently not. He snaps a guy’s neck, then shoots another guy. Why he didn’t just turn into smoke and destroy them all is beyond me. He takes a watch off one of the corpses for some reason and goes into the plane, where dramatic music plays as we learn that the plane has a mysterious wire running through it. A wire leading to… a music box! No, just kidding, it’s obviously explosives. But we don’t see it yet. The rest of the gang comes upon the plane. Lapidus is excited about getting her in flying shape. Then they notice the corpses, and then MIB explains that he’s responsible. He says it’s Widmore’s fault, because he left the guards there to be killed, so the Lostocracy would all get in the plane, “a nice confined space”, together. Then the explosives. Which Locke has in his backpack now. That’s what we in the television call “Chekhov’s Gun”. Anyway, it seems “we can’t be sure there aren’t more explosives on the plane”, which complicates things a bit. So yeah, now we need to take the submarine. “We” including MIB. But Hurley points out that Richard says MIB isn’t supposed to leave the Island. You remember Richard, right? Sawyer says something along the lines of “MIB saved our lives a bunch of times so let’s just do whatever he says”, and despite Sawyer’s known history of lying to people continuously everyone’s like, I guess Sawyer really likes MIB now! C’mon people, be smarter. But yeah, they’re going to have to go after the heavily-guarded submarine, at least until something else comes up and they go after, like, the hovercraft MIB forgot to mention. Claire apologizes to MIB for sneaking away with the gang, and he’s like, no biggie.
9. Oh hey, Sawyer reveals to Jack that he doesn’t trust MIB. Shocker! Anyway, he tells Jack not to let MIB on the sub, no matter what. Jack points out, reasonably, that MIB is an immortal killing machine that cannot be stopped. Sawyer says “just get him in the water and I’ll do the rest”. Ominous!
10. Locke wakes up in the hospital. Jacks’ there. Locke is groggy. He says “push the button” and “I wish you hadn’t believed me”, both of which are important lines from Lost! Except wasn’t the actual line “I wish you had believed me”, like from the suicide note? Oh, maybe I just misheard it and he said the actual line. Claire pops up in the hall. She’s still pregnant. Jack buys an Apollo bar from the vending machine! He apologizes for running away from the will reading to fix Locke. She shows Jack something that Christian “especially wanted” her to have. Say, speaking of coincidences, it’s a music box! Claire asks how Christian died. He apparently drank himself to death and died in an alley in Sydney. Oh, and also Claire was on Oceanic 815. That’s interesting! Jack opens up the music box for some reason. He says he doesn’t know why Christian wanted Claire to have it. Then they make out. No, just kidding. That would be Boone/Shannon inappropriate. But Jack does offer to let Claire stay with him, which will give us another opportunity to meet the mysterious Mrs. Shepherd.
11. Island time. The crew stakes out the submarine, which appears to be unguarded. Maybe Widmore lined it with explosives so he could blow up the crew. You know, like with the plane. These guys don’t seem too worried about it though. Anyway, Sawyer wants to lead the team, minus Jack and MIB, in their assault on the sub. Off they creep through the underbrush. As they approach the dock everything seems calm. A bit too calm… They open it up and hop inside as the music gets tense. Inside the sub, Sawyer and Lapidus sneak around. They find a guy reading something or other and ask for the captain. They lead him there, and the captain is like, I guess I’ll just get it ready to go. MIB and Jack watch and get ready to follow up behind the rest of the group. Locke picks up the backpacks and gives one to Jack. Which has the C4 in it? Which one????
12. MIB tries once more to convince Jack to leave. Why is he so insistent? Who cares what Jack does? Anyway, he says “whoever told you you needed to stay had no idea what they were talking about” and then he stands like 3 inches from the edge of the dock, an easy pushing-into-the-water distance. Jack says “John Locke [whose likeness you have been creepily inhabiting for a while] told me to stay” and I think that’s supposed to be some kind of incredible argument but I’m not actually sure why. And then Jack takes advantage of MIB’s dock-standing decision and crosschecks him into the Pacific. Everyone freaks out. But before they can say anything, shots ring out from all around them! Kate gets effing shot! Jack starts shooting off into the jungle. Then they grab Kate and hurry to the sub, as Claire keeps shooting back and as MIB crawls back onto the dock. He seems angry. Then, instead of smoking out and destroying all the people shooting at them, he pulls a pistol out and goes after them one at a time. Seriously, his insistence on not taking advantage of his otherworldly superpowers is a little distracting. But yeah, he kills a bunch of dudes with a pistol. Jack carries Kate around, asks Hurley for a first aid kit. Sawyer goes back for Claire. MIB approaches, and Sawyer decides to abandon Claire, which I’m sure she’ll handle well. He slams the hatch (see what I did there?) and gets on the intercom. He commands Lapidus to “DIVE!” Uh, was that your brilliant plan for escaping the Island without letting MIB go? Really? But okay, I guess that’s the plan we’re going with.
13. The sub slowly pulls away from the dock because, uh, MIB can’t turn into the smoke monster near a periscope or something. Claire notices them leaving and is, shocker, not happy about being left to die on a dock with a bald poltergeist. MIB pulls her back and is like, chill out, this was all part of my plan. He doesn’t say that exactly but I’m pretty sure he’s going to soon. Oh, here it is. “Trust me, you don’t want to be on that sub”. Ass.
14. Anyway, back inside the sub, they dive, as Kate says they can’t leave without Claire. They leave without Claire ALL THE TIME though, so she should just relax. Sawyer asks if Kate’s going to be okay. Hurley can’t find the first aid kit. Jack asks Jin to get a shirt from Jack’s pack. Say, isn’t that the pack with the explosives in it??? Yeppers. Oh, and they’re beeping. Apparently they’re going to go off in 4 minutes. Jack says “we did exactly what he wanted” and the audience responds “we knew you would, you dumbass”. Commercial time, so we can all think about what we’re doing with our lives.
15. Okay, we’re back, and we’ve reevaluated our priorities. So now Jack is like, we need to get to the surface post-haste. Up we go, with 3:30 left. Oh, it looks like the bomb timer is that watch we saw MIB take off the corpse by the plane. Clever. Sayid explains that he can’t defuse it because if he could all tension would be drained from the scene. Or because it’s jury-rigged in some really clever way so that if they don’t pull out the wires just right it’ll go off. Jack tells Sawyer to relax, though, because the bomb won’t go off. MIB “can’t kill” them, because uh, I truly can’t follow his explanation. It goes something like “MIB probably can’t leave the Island unless we’re all dead. So he got us all into the sub so he could blow us all up, so he could leave the island. But he can’t leave the Island! So he can’t kill us all!” Jack, what are you talking about. I think you just made the opposite of your point? But anyway, nobody else is quite buying Jack’s ravings so they yell a bit. Jack says “we are goign to be okay, you just have to trust me”. That kind of thing never seems to work out. Sawyer agrees with me, so he pulls the wires out just right and the timer stops. But then it speeds up a lot. Whoops. Sayid says he left Desmond in a well on the Island. He tells Jack that Jack will have to go get him. Then he grabs the bomb and runs out of the room! He jets to the far side of the sub with the bomb, and then it explodes a lot (just as Jack said it wouldn’t). So I guess that’s Sayid earning his redemption, Charlie-style. Everybody gets tossed around, like the bridge of the U.S.S. Enterprise on Star Trek. The sub’s in trouble. Lapidus gets to his feet and climbs down to see water seeping through. Then he gets whacked in the face by a door! Ow. Jack pulls Kate out of the water. Sun’s pinned against a wall by a big metal thing. Jin and Sawyer work on helping her. Jack gives Kate to Hurley, who asks about Sayid. Jack says “there is no Sayid”, which is as true and direct a statement as has ever been uttered on this show. Jack tells Hurley to swim Kate up out of the blasthole. Blasthole, heh. They work on getting Sun un-pinned. This is all very reminiscent of Charlie’s sacrifice, you know. Sawyer gets knocked out by a falling thingy. Jin works to get Sun out. She tells him to just go without her. He refuses, of course. Jin tells Jack to save Sawyer, so he leaves with him. Seems kind of like Jin is deciding to die with Sun rather than abandon her. Damn.
16. Jack drags Sawyer out through the blasthole. I’m pretty sure they’re going to make it. Although who knows! Sun tells Jin that he has to go. She cries. He says he won’t leave her, and keeps trying to unpin her. She cries some more. They’re still just speaking English, by the way. She begs him again to go. Finally, finally, they switch to Korean. Jin says he’s never going to leave her again. Oh, and then he says “I love you, Sun”. IN ENGLISH. Come on! They kiss and then I guess that’s about it for them. The camera pans through the flooded interior of the submarine and we see Sun and Jin floating apart. That is pretty rough, especially considering how underwhelming their reunion was last week. Commercial.
17. LA again. Locke’s getting wheeled out in the hospital. Jin walks by with flowers. Then Jack shows up to say goodbye and try once more to convince Locke to get the surgery. He says he went to see Anthony Cooper, to understand the accident. Then Locke decides to throw the audience a bone and just actually say what happened! “I was in a plane crash.” But not the one(s) we’ve seen! Locke had a pilot’s license for a week, and was flying with his father, who was terrified of flying. He says he told Cooper that he could trust Locke. But they barely got off the ground before Locke crashed the plane and knocked all the sense out of his own dad. Rough. Jack says that Locke’s dad is gone, and punishing himself will never change that. “What happened, happened.” Locke giggles and says goodbye. Okay… Jack says “I can help you, John. I wish you believed me.” That seems to ring a bell with Locke, but not enough for him to agree to the surgery. He wheels off as we swoop along to…
18. The Island. The beach, more specifically. Jack manages to get Sawyer out of the water. He’s okay. Hurley got Kate too. She hugs Jack tenderly. He lets everyone know that Jin and Sun are hanging out with Charlie now. Hurley cries, which is sad. Jack wades back into the water and does a little crying of his own.
19. At the dock, MIB stares off into the ocean and says “it sunk”. Claire’s worried. “They’re all dead?” MIB says, “not all of them”, and walks into the jungle with a gun, “to finish what I started”. So, okay, I guess my theory that he’d turn out to be the good guy and Jacob the bad guy is looking pretty unlikely at this point.
20. LOST

Final thoughts: Well, a lot happened this week! Pretty exciting. My only real complaint is there seemed to be a lot of classic Lost decision-making and “surprise” twists that were visible a mile away. But if I’m being honest I don’t really mind — it’s part of the fun, really, mocking the silly plots and trying to come to grips with the hilariously shoddy plans the Losties come up with. My other gripe is that it would have been nice to have checked in with Miles, Ben, and Richard at some point. Didn’t they set off to blow up the plane? Actually, doesn’t it seem like that’s the one thing everybody but the Losties themselves was trying to do? Maybe they’re all on the same team, trying to blow up our buddies. Anyway, yeah, would have been nice to see what Ricardus was up to while all this was happening. Overall, however, this was a very good episode. Stuff actually happened on the Island, and we saw a little more about how the pieces fit together in LA. Some meaningful sacrifices were made because Jack is such a gullible idiot. Kate got shot.

But I’m a little concerned that I still don’t quite know what we should be rooting for here. I mean, what do we want? If the Losties do manage to get off the Island, and to keep MIB bottled up safely, is that really such a great outcome? A bunch of people have been killed already (and I’m pretty sure that in order to get off the Island quite a few more are going to have to die). At this point it seems like the Island timeline is not a great situation for most (maybe all) of the characters, but that’s the one the audience is emotionally invested in. So should we be hoping for them to switch over to the LA timeline, where most of them are alive and (relatively) well but where nothing we’ve seen over the last 6 years actually matters? I guess we should, and I guess the argument is twofold: 1) everything we’ve seen over the last 6 years was necessary to create the LA timeline; and 2) the characters in the LA timeline are the characters from the Island timeline — even if they don’t end up remembering it, which is still a definite possibility, the choices they made on the Island appear to have affected who they are and how they act in LA. It still feels kinda weak, though, and makes the many hard choices we’ve seen on the Island feel much less important.

Also, still no Shannon. I’m starting to think she’s not going to be the critical factor in the finale!