Lost: There’s No Place Like Home, Part 1
The Oceanic Six Meet the Press
Photo Courtesy of ABC.com
*SPOILER WARNING*
May 16th, 2008 - The next two weeks are going to be rough. The first hour of Lost’s mammoth three hour season finale seemed to serve as a lot of set up for the final two hours, which we’ll have to wait until May 29th for. Well, it just gives us obsessive types more time to theorize about what goes down.
Let’s start with what’s happening on the Island. Jack is determined to follow the other signal on the satellite phone, because Mr. Has to Save Everyone has taken responsibility for his fellow survivors, and he promised to get them all off the Island. Marching to the helicopter with just Kate isn’t much of a plan, but he doesn’t know just how vicious Keamy and Company are. But that is corrected when they bump into Miles and Sawyer who describe the attack on “New Otherton” and mention that Claire is M.I.A. Jack sends Kate back to the beach with Aaron and Miles, and Sawyer decides to go with Jack to help him secure the helicopter. (Sawyer has become pretty compassionate about his friends lately, which makes it sadder knowing that he doesn’t get off the Island.) Jack and Sawyer find Frank handcuffed to the chopper, but unfortunately there’s a bigger problem – Hurley is with Ben, which means he’s in grave danger. (Of course, neither Jack nor Sawyer are too concerned about Locke at this point.) Once again, Jack is in need of a solid plan.
Sayid has a plan – and he wants to start shuttling people on the raft back to the freighter, and fast. But he decides to go after Jack and Sawyer, who stand to be slaughtered without back-up. So off he goes with Kate, who was on the beach for about one minute before turning right back around. Unfortunately for them (ah, a theme!), Benjamin Linus also has a plan, and it involved him signaling the Others to come out of hiding and help him. While he may not have specifically signaled Richard Alpert and his cronies to capture Kate and Sayid, their paths eventually crossed and guns were drawn. It might not be a bad idea for them to work together to fight Keamy’s men, but you have to wonder if the Others hold a grudge against our Losties for their ambush at the end of last season.
Meanwhile, Faraday, Jin, Sun, Aaron, and a couple of red-shirts make their way to the Kahana, where Jin and Sun reconnect with their old pal Michael, and Faraday heads back to the Island for more survivors. Unfortunately for everyone on the freighter, someone has rigged the freighter with explosives. But who?
So where does that leave our Oceanic Six? Sun and Aaron are on the freighter, Sayid and Kate are being held by the Others, Jack is with Sawyer and Frank by the helicopter, and Hurley is waiting alone outside the Orchid. Of course we know that these six will somehow get together and escape, but the big questions are how, and what happens to everyone else? Yeah, it’s the same questions that we’ve had for a while, but it’s nice to have some momentum to the inevitable showdown.
The flash-forward scene with the Six reuniting with their families was full of emotion; sweet for Hurley, bitter for Kate and Sayid who had no one to greet them, and bitter-sweet for Jack and Sun who basically only have loving mothers. The gang does a great job of sticking with their cover story, despite being grilled on some of the details by the media, like how do they all look so healthy, and how was Kate six months pregnant when she was apprehended? But us viewers have our own set of questions, mainly is ANY of their story true? And why are they so insistent that no one else survived?
The reunion of Nadia and Sayid was a nice one, despite the fact that we know it ends poorly. And Hurley’s parents seem to have their heart in the right place, even if their party theme choice leaves something to be desired. The gift of the restored Corvette was really touching, but darn those pesky numbers! We haven’t seen them in a long time, and it appears that they are the first thing to shake Hurley’s post-Island sanity. Sun has decided to take out revenge on her father by buying controlling stock in his company, which was a great moment. But who else does she blame for Jin’s death? Herself? Widmore? Michael? And is he really dead? Back in L.A., Jack finally finds out his relation to Claire and Aaron, though the dialogue between him and Claire’s mother was rather clunky. Still, it’s good to know that he knows.
A few other thoughts:
• Does that device on Keamy’s arm have anything to do with the C4 in the engine room?
• Does the fact that they weren’t on the plane with the Oceanic Six mean that none of the “non-815’ers” like Desmond and Juliet make it off the Island?
• Will Desmond’s prediction about Claire come to pass? A lot of fans have speculated that she’s dead, but Des told Charlie that if he flipped the switch in the Looking Glass and drowned, Claire and Aaron would get on a helicopter and leave the Island. Given his track record with his flashes, it would seem like a cheat if this doesn’t happen.
The episode ends with Ben being knocked out by Keamy, which was not the greatest final shot of a Lost episode, but it didn’t really matter. These set up episodes can be hit or miss, but this outing had enough happening to keep things interesting, and it succeeded in making me desperately want to see what happens next. It would have been better served going immediately before the next two, but these are just the lingering after-effects of the writer’s strike, and the good news is that we’ll end up with a Lost season shortened by only two hours. The finale has a lot of hype to live up to, but with all that’s happening on and off the Island, it should be able to deliver.
Alan’s Score: 8.3 out of 10
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