Lost: It Was All a Dream!

Just kidding, it wasn’t all a dream. As far as we know so far, anyway. But the rest of this post is 100% spoilers so heads up, people. Thoughts on this week’s episode of Lost, “What They Died For”, THE SECOND TO LAST ONE EVER, after the break:

1. Last week on Lost: some characters we hadn’t ever heard about until earlier this season did some crap that we didn’t care about. But it was all worth it because, uh, now we know the Island’s mystical powers emanate from a moist glowing golden cave. Which, you know, there’s no symbolism one could find in that. Anyway, let’s just go ahead and move onto this week’s episode, which might include a scene or two containing the characters we’ve been watching for the last six years.
2. Okay, so first of all you should know that Erin Andrews is still on Dancing with the Stars. Sorry, Chad Ochocinco :( Okay now on to the actual show.
3. Oh right, they have to show us all the bomb stuff in flashback because WE DIDN’T SEE ANY OF IT LAST WEEK. So yeah. Jin and Sun died. So did Sayid. Kate got shot. Lapidus is almost certainly toast. On with the show.
4. Jack opens his eyes in LA. He has a big bleeding cut on his neck. That’s weird! His son made breakfast. They love each other. His son has a concert that night. His ex-wife is going too. Her name is… MIB? Because they pull the same shit with her name. So annoying. Anyway, Claire is there and has breakfast with them. No squirrel-baby to be found. Oceanic Air calls to say they found Christian’s coffin! It’ll be arriving by the end of the day. Only…
5. It was Desmond! In an American accent! Anyway, we cut to the beach where…
6. Jack stitches up Kate. Apparently the bullet went straight through so, sorry folks, she’s not gonna die. But she babbles to Jack about Jin/Sun’s baby girl. We’re sad too, Kate. Oh wait, she’s not sad. She’s angry. We have to kill Locke, Jack! Jack concurs. Shouldn’t these people be calling him something else now?
7. Commercials, during which Drew asks a series of dumber and dumber questions indicating that he has no idea at all what’s going on, either on Lost or in the world at large.
8. Stuff washes up on shore. Life preservers, severed limbs, etc. Jack and Kate and Sawyer and Hurley look on sadly. Guys, that was TWO WEEKS AGO. Get over it. Anyway, Jack says they’re off to find Desmond “in a well”. That narrows things down… marginally.
9. LA X. Desmond watches Locke wheel through the high school parking lot. Where Desmond ran him over before. Which Ben remembers. Desmond punches him a bunch which is fun. Not for Ben really. But Ben does kinda flash back to the memory of getting his ass kicked by Desmond by the pier when he (Ben) tried to kill Desmond. Remember?
10. Ben and Miles and Richard walk through the jungle and chat about explosives and stuff. Apparently Ben hid a bunch of C4 somewhere, which they’re going to get so they can blow up the plane. Which is… wired with C4 already? They approach the Others’ village, where Miles senses some “dead stuff”. He’s picking up Alex’s deaththoughts or something, because Richard buried her there. Ben killed Jacob because he was so sad that Alex died. Remember? But that’s it for that, because they have to go into a house to get the C4 from Ben’s secret hiding place! So yeah, Ben finds the C4 and they take enough to blow the plane to hell. Then they hear noises outside! It’s gotta be Jack et al, right? Oh, it’s just Tina Fey. And Widmore. CHARLES Widmore. Ben’s surprised by his appearance. More ads.
11. Widmore helps himself to a glass of water. Great plumbing they’ve got on this Island. He sends Tina off to do something or other and asks Ben what they’re up to. He mentions to them that he already rigged the plane. Doofuses. He says Jacob visited him and told him how to get back to the Island “for this exact purpose”. Guess what purpose we don’t get to hear about before we’re interrupted by the news that MIB is on the way and they have to hide!
12. In LA, Ben gets treated by the school nurse for his getting-his-ass-kicked. Locke stops by to say hello, and Ben tells him about Desmond’s vicious assault upon his person, and his subsequent remembrance of things past. So basically the memory of the alternate timeline is getting a little more obvious lately.
13. Desmond stops by the police station to see Sawyer and/or Miles. Sawyer. Desmond tells him that he’s the guy who ran down Locke and beat the crap out of Ben. They lock him up. With Sayid! And Kate! He’s a time-traveling genius, man.
14. Sawyer and Jack wander the woods. Sawyer asks Jack about his cockamamie “the bomb can’t kill us” idea. Jack admits that he’s been wrong before. Great, maybe consider this before putting these ridiculous plans into action?Hurley and Kate walk throuhg the forest. Hurley seeks an apparition of young Jacob! Young Jacob asks for the ashes Hurley took from Alana a couple episodes back. He snatches them and runs off! Hurley runs after him! But Hurley is not a great tracker so he loses him immediately, then wanders deeper and finds… grown-up Jacob! He’s wearing white. Anyway, Jacob says he’s burning up his ashes, after which he’s gone for good. Jacob says that Hurley needs to get his friends because it’s “very close to the end”. That’s a double entendre, which is French for “incredibly unsubtle phrasing”. Ads. Does the Karate Kid remake look terrible? Answer: not no. Also, Drew has no idea what Yo Gabba Gabba is. Um, hello?
15. MIB walks around on the pier. He seems perturbed. Back at the village, everybody is going to flee. Except Ben Linus, who seems to be on a suicide mission and wants to stay to chat with MIB. Richard seems of an equal mind. Miles is like, I’d rather not get killed by the supernatural being who gives not a whit for human life.
16. Richard and Ben idle in the courtyard, waiting to get killed. The smoke monster SLAMS INTO RICHARD and yeah, I think that’s it for him? Assuming he’s not still immortal or whatever. Anyway, Ben takes it in stride and sits down to wait for MIB to stop murdering and say hi. Which is what happens next. MIB pulls out his knife and says he needs Ben to kill some people for him. In exchange, he offers Ben the Island. Ben says okay but he’s obviously lying. Locke asks where Widmore is, and Ben says “he’s hiding in my closet”. How will this subvert our expectations, I wonder?
17. LA. Ben drops his keys. Alex, the daughter he lost in the other timeline, comes over to help! Sniff. She offers to have her mom drive him home. Her mom… Rousseau! Except she’s not crazy here! She’s even wearing a dress. It’s implied that they will fall in love, possibly over coq au vin, which he shares with the ladies that night. Rousseau suggests to Ben that he serves as a father figure to Alex, which he quietly enjoys hearing. He kinda almost cries actually, just like Lauren does while watching. What a baby.
18. Suicidal Linus leads MIB to the hidden chamber where Widmore and Tina Fey are hiding out. Or is it? It is. Guess Ben really did sell them out! MIB asks Tina a question, which she responds to, and then MIB cuts her throat! So now MIB says that he’s going to kill Penny unless Widmore tells him what he needs to know. Which is why Widmore came back. Widmore says he brought Desmond back to the Island as a measure of last resort. He won’t say more in front of Ben, so MIB asks Widmore to whisper it to him. As Widmore tries to whisper it to MIB, Ben shoots him! “He doesn’t get to save his daughter”. Badass. But apparently he’d already told MIB what he needed to know so it didn’t really matter, aside from an old rich guy getting killed. That was eventful.
19. Kate and Sawyer and Hurley and Jack walk through the jungle. They come upon good ol’ Jacob. I guess they can all see him this time. Here come more answers! He wrote everybody’s names on the wall. Apparently that’s why they’re dead? Or something. Jacob says he’ll explain what they died for. I hope it’s ratings. Anyway, he’ll say why he chose them, and why he chose Jack etc., and what they have to do to protect the Island, which apparently one of them will have to do once Jacob’s ashes die out. I guess that’ll be the “Candidate”. But first, commercials for stuff. I’m getting the impression that we’re in for a lot of Toy Story 3 commercials (and commercials for other stuff leveraging Toy Story 3 characters).
20. Locke finally goes to see Jack for that consult. Ben’s story about getting his ass kicked obviously got to him. They have some small talk and then it’s time to get down to brass tacks. Locke notes that they were on the same flight from Sydney, then Locke threw away Jack’s card, then Locke got hit by a car and ended up with Jack, who saved his life and asked to fix his walking problem. Then Desmond beat the crap out of Linus and told him that he was there to help Locke “let go”. Which is exactly what Jack said to him the last time they saw each other! It’s… it’s like this is a television program! But no, Locke just thinks it all happened for a reason. Maybe Jack’s supposed to fix him! Anyway, Locke is there and wants to get out of that chair. SWEET.
21. Around the fire. Jacob says he brought them all to the Island because he made a mistake (probably the whole golden vagina cave thing). “You call him ‘the Monster’”. Uh no they don’t. But whatever. So yeah, because of that, he eventually killed Jacob, and because of that one of them has to replace him. Sawyer complains about how he was doing fine before he got dragged to the Island. But Jacob notes that none of them were happy before; they were all flawed; “all alone, all looking for something”. He chose them because they needed the Island as much as the Island needed them! Also, apparently he crossed out Kate’s name because she became a mommy and Jacob didn’t want her to take the job. Anyway, he says the job is to protect the shiny golden cave, and the only way to do that is to kill MIB. Jacob says he’s not going to pick who’s taking over for him; he wants them to have a choice. So basically one of them will have to volunteer. Guess who does it. Jack! He says that’s why he’s there; that’s what he’s supposed to do. Jacob seems happy about it.
22. Now, some more ads. One more adorable attempt to get people to give a shit about V.
23. Jacob and Jack walk around while the rest of the gang watches. Jacob tells Jack where to find the cave of glory. He tells Jack that he needs to get there before MIB. But first, he needs to drink some God Water. Jack asks how long he’ll need to do this job, and Jacob says “as long as you can”. Meanwhile Lauren asks questions that will obviously only be answered in the finale. Anyway, Jack drinks and now he’s like Jacob. But he’s not wearing white!
24. LA X; prison. Sawyer says they’re shipping everyone off to county. Kate asks him to let her go, because she’s innocent. He doesn’t buy it. Kate and Sayid and Desmond hang in the transport van. Desmond says “I think it’s time to leave”. They all agree they’d like to leave the van. He says he will only let them go if they promise to do something for him (which he won’t specify til… next week, I reckon). So the van stops and ANA LUCIA opens the door! She let’s them all out! Drew asks “who’s she?” Here comes Hurley in his big yellow Hummer! He remembers Ana Lucia from the other timeline; she doesn’t remember him though. Looks like there’s a plan! Kate goes with Desmond in the Camero parked nearby; apparently they’re going to a concert. Charlie???? Hurley and Sayid are off to who knows where?
25. Ben asks MIB why he walks around all the time when he can just get smokey. MIB says some nonsense about wanting to feel human, but c’mon. We know the answer is the special effects budget. They find the well where Desmond isn’t dead (or even present). Ben asks MIB what Widmore said to him. Apparently Desmond was a failsafe; one final way to ensure that MIB couldn’t leave even if a candidate survived. Apparently, though, Desmond is also the only one who can do what MIB wants to do — destroy the Island!
26. LOST

Final thoughts: That was predictably much better than last week’s episode. A lot happened, much of it especially rewarding for dorks who have been obsessing over the show for years. Jacob answered a bunch of questions, and we didn’t have to watch child actors running around in tunics to get the answers this time. Things are tightening up in both timelines, and everybody’s doing their part to move things toward some kind of a resolution. Which is really all we can reasonably ask for at this point.

Of course it looks like we’re in for a classic Lost season finale in which two or three groups of people traipse around the Island trying to get to one or two places and destroy/save stuff/people. But this time they’ll be doing it in two timelines! Also, Jack will apparently be blessed with god-like powers. I wonder how that will play out. I’m pretty confident that it will be entertaining and interesting and some more people will get killed. But if Jack is successful in killing MIB and saving the Island/world, won’t that mean that we’re stuck with the Island reality and all those dead people stay dead. Which, actually, is exactly what I want — for the various sacrifices we’ve seen over the last six years to really mean something. It does call into question exactly what the purpose/fate of the LA X timeline is, though everyone in LA’s burgeoning awareness of their Matrixitude suggests that we’ll see them accomplish some necessary stuff over there in order to save the Island. So, in sum, I thought originally that the Island people might have to sacrifice themselves to make the LA X reality permanent, but it’s now looking more like the LA X folks are going to have to accept their own evanescence in order to secure the world we, the audience, have been watching since September 2004. Which is a good thing.

Next week: 2.5 hours!