LOST: Week 12

Back as normally scheduled. But LOST will not be next week. In case you haven't heard, LOST will be on break next week (props to Paul Lee for tipping me off on that one). Strange, although it makes more sense than what I originally thought would be the case, where they would have the penultimate showing on May 11th and have us wait 12 days until the Sunday series finale on the 23rd. Now, although we have to wait more than a week until the next episode for the first time since the middle of Season 4, we also have only 5 days between the likely very suspenseful May 18th episode and the 23rd finale. So I'm cool with it... for now. We'll see how I feel next Tuesday when my LOST itch kicks in. As for my Facebook note series, I might take next week as an opportunity to write a big post on a non-LOST topic. I'm not sure how that one will turn out, but I think I'll enjoy writing it, and I think some of you will find it intriguing. Anyway...

SPOILERS AHEAD

The "Previously on LOST" scenes start very LAX timeline focused. They had to remind the viewers of a lot of different scenes to cover the wide range of stories this week. As I sort of suspected, both because of the lack of any talk about a specific character and because it seemed like every character had been given enough concentration and the writers needed to cover various LAX points now, this episode jumped about in the LAX timeline, touching on many relevant plot points. This is important, as it is giving much more urgency and interest in the sideways-flashes. Now, instead of why the heck are we watching Kate and Claire bond like Thelma and Louise, we're wondering when characters are gonna recognize each other and in what situation.

I liked the way connections were crafted. I didn't think at all about Sayid getting caught by the police... I suppose after all the other stuff he's done in the world, like being Ben's assassin, I figured he was immune to that stuff. Sawyer's slick manner of catching Sayid was pretty hilarious. Right there, we'll be seeing a potential mishmash of Sayid, Sawyer, Kate, and Miles. Cool. I dug too how Kate noted that Sawyer must not have arrested her in the airport because he didn't want anyone finding out he went to Sydney. Didn't even think of that one! Two points for you, Kate Austen! And creepin' Desmond bringing Claire to Ilana, connecting her with Jack (or so I assume). Nice, Des. And you're so smoothly in action after hitting a man in a wheelchair! You crazy for this one, Des! Did anyone else like how Ilana asked Jack if he believed in fate, and there was no reply? (I did.) I want to note that Jack learning that Claire was his half-sister at his father's 2nd funeral (when the Oceanic 6 return) is a fave Jack moment of mine. Powerful scene.

Near the end of last week, I decided to accept that Des wanted Locke to flash on his Island life, as many of you and people in general suggested, and that appears to be the case (even though that wasn't yet confirmed). I also decided that it couldn't just be that, that Des coulda done his near-death experience in another way that was less permanently damaging. Charlie put Desmond in a near-death experience, but Charlie was partly crazy and didn't know exactly what he was doing, and that situation wasn't gonna injure Desmond in any serious, permanent manner (outside of, ya know, maybe killing him). Desmond hit Locke knowing that he would get hurt pretty badly one way or another. I decided that Desmond must have wanted Locke to interact with Jack in the hospital and that a serious surgery situation (alliteration!) might be the best way to pull off that kind of thing. That might not be the case, but we'll see.

I was disappointed that there weren't more cool revelations after the Sun recognizing Locke part in the beginning. Even that was too much of a tease, since we don't know yet what context Sun recognized him. Did she think of him as the Man in Black? And for stuff that he did that we haven't yet seen?* Or did she think of him just as Locke and she remembers stuff from the Island and freaks out? To give that to us at the beginning was disappointing with the lack of follow up. We only got five hours left here, people! The timing of Sun recovering and waking up in her bed compared to Locke going into surgery was weird and didn't seem to make sense to me, but whatever.

*Sometimes when I think of how these different timelines flow, it just hurts my head. Like when I think about last season, with the 1977 Dharma timeline going back and forth in story-telling with the 2007 Ajira timeline, and it's like, are these happening at the same time flow-wise, but just in different times? And I get confused. Does anyone else know what I mean?

Let's talk about the Island story.

We start right with the Jack-Locke scene. Excellent. Nice to clarify about the Christian Shephard thing, although this is slightly disappointing. Does this mean that we won't have a pivotal scene between Jack and Christian later on this season? Hmm. I was looking forward to that. But Jack-Locke is also pivotal. Following that, we have another scene I wanted to see, which was the Jack-Claire "hey, we're siblings!" scene. I liked how Claire seemed to be at her most humane this season. Family and familiarity gave Claire some memory of a regular self, it seems. At the time, it weirded me out a lot too. Poor Claire. She just got screwed over by Man in Black leading her away in her weird haze.

I appreciated Hurley's line about Anakin Skywalker, how "you can always bring people back from the dark side". I was pretty devastated to see Sayid supposedly go bad for sure when he killed Dogen, but Hurley's reasoning and this episode reminded me that Sayid (and even Claire) might not be out just yet. Sayid didn't kill Desmond (or if he did, then that's a disappointing narrative move), and really, would we expect him to take down anyone like Jack, Hurley, or Jin/Sun? I don't. We'll see. Perhaps that just means I'll be emotionally punched in the gut harder.

This is murky territory, really, to try to decide who might actually be bad. I mean, really, most LOST main characters haven't gone bad in the past. Michael did, but even he had that circle of redemption in Season 4. Here, my feeling and probably my hope is that Sayid and Claire both find redemption and that the only true bad guy is someone outside the main circle, ala fake Locke or Widmore. Again, I'll probably be wrong and sad. Either way, Desmond made a very good point to Sayid about what he would say to Nadia if he got her back (I wish someone had pointed that out to Anakin before he killed a bunch of Jedi boys and Samuel L.).

I really liked the Jack-Sawyer boat scene too. I think part of the reason that I like a character like Jack so much over a character like Sawyer, even though I still like Sawyer a lot, is that I probably have a hope for what lies ahead with characters sometimes, and so I make excuses for some of their short-term actions, i.e. Jack being a jerk or a douche, for hopes and expectations for the future. Jack always struck me as a character who would be the good hero and the redemptive soul. I feel like that's starting to show more and more.

This episode showed his likely correct determination that Man in Black wants them to leave the Island and that they should reconsider (I mean... really... would Locke not realize how easy it would have been for them to slip away? Or I could be wrong). Sawyer's plan was probably wrong, and that likely shows with what happens at the end of the episode. Jack is a little too passive here, which comes off as both likable (he isn't a jerk, which is what some people complain about), but it also would have been better if he did a coup on the boat for leadership! So... tell me people, which Jack do you prefer? I wish he had stopped Sawyer, even though, well, this is the story as is.

The Jin/Sun reunion was nice but not as emotion-evoking as I expected. I think I was more moved by Jin looking at the camera pictures of Sun and his daughter. Plus, them speaking in English was just strange, even though it showed that Sun gained her English speaking abilities back. That just didn't sound right between the two of them.

We ended the episode on a suspenseful cliffhanger for sure. ARE OUR FAVORITE CHARACTERS ABOUT TO BE EXECUTED (no)? Jack back in the hands of Locke, and the explosion making things all crazy and TBA on the shore. What the heck is Widmore's deal? I'll leave the theorizing up to you guys. For now I think I'm done writing. I will probably follow up with thoughts in the comments.

Notes:

-Some more great lines in this episode. One was definitely Sawyer listing the people to bring on the boat and describing Lapidus as "that pilot who looks like he stepped off the set of a Burt Reynolds movie".

-Can someone remind me if we ever got an explanation for why certain people jumped with the Island and certain people stayed? Juliet, Faraday, Charlotte, and Miles jumped around. Claire didn't. Why? She might not be a candidate, but neither were those aforementioned folk or Bernard/Rose or the random other castaways who got killed/separated (RIP Frogurt).

-I guess Julie Bowen didn't have time away from Modern Family. Unless Jack's ex-wife is... dum dum dum... ANA LUCIA. Just kidding. Or who knows.

-Sawyer's line about how "we got pills for that, doc" was amusingly naive. Uh yeah...Sawyer, you see, Jack's already gone down that route...

-Are we gonna see Boone anytime soon, or was he just a cameo in the premiere episode? Guesses, anyone? My bet is on the next episode for our man, Mr. Carlyle. Yes, I had to Google that last name.