Lost: There’s No Place Like Home, Part 2 & 3
The Fourth Season, and a Certain Ship, Go Out With a Bang
Photo Courtesy of ABC.com
*SPOILER WARNING*
May 30th, 2008 - Lost’s fourth season has ended, and like the Island, we are left wondering where it all disappeared to. There is a lot of ground to cover, so I think I’ll cut the pre-amble short and get right to the dissection. Before we get to the flash-forward future (which now might be considered the present, but let’s not worry about that yet), there is first the matter of what happened on the Island.
Jack and Sawyer go after Hurley, and apparently catch him relieving himself, which added a little humor to a very serious situation. I was surprised that Jack was willing to talk to Locke at all, but he must have been, on some level, curious about what he had to say, because otherwise he could have quickly left with Sawyer and Hurley. Locke wants Jack to stay on the Island, but on some level, he must want him to go, because otherwise he would have done more to prevent Jack from leaving. Of course, his prediction that Jack will have to lie and that he will regret leaving the Island are accurate, but I detected an air of smugness in Locke as he said goodbye to Jack, like he was relishing in a future “Nah nah nah nyah nyah” type of moment. The interplay between these characters, and their opposing views of life and the Island, of science and of faith, of belief and disbelief, have long been a theme on Lost, but this scene so beautifully illustrated that as different as these men are, they each have a streak of the other in them. And that, had they each been less stubborn, a future catastrophe could have been averted.
Meanwhile, Keamy and his men lead Ben to the helicopter, where Kate and Sayid helped the Others ambush his mercenaries. This scene was well played for tension, and the fight between Sayid and Keamy was great. Both men are trained soldiers, so it made sense that it would be an even fight. Given the way Kate was helping Ben, it wasn’t a shock that she was doing so because of a deal made with the Others. But this leads to Alan’s Pretty Big Question #1: If no one is supposed to leave the Island, why would the Others give Kate, Jack, and there buddies the helicopter and allow them to go?
On the beach, Dan is still ferrying people to the freighter. He is eager to get off the Island, but Miles, and ultimately Charlotte decide to stay. Perhaps Miles wishes to spend more time at a place where he can get in plenty of speaking to the dead. Charlotte’s remarks were pretty cryptic, that nothing is forever, and that she doesn’t know where she was born. But she has apparently been on the Island before – does she suspect she was born on the Island?
Back at the Orchid, we finally get confirmation that DHARMA was doing time-travel experiments, although wouldn’t you know it, the lousy 3/4 tape got stuck in the machine before we got to see the time traveling bunnies. (Although more of this video can be seen here.) Ben writes off the DHARMA initiative for conducting silly experiments, and apparently there is far more interesting stuff going on behind and underneath their chamber that Ben destroys by putting a whole lot of metal inside. Keamy, who was wearing some high grade body armor when Richard shot him in the back, is still alive, and comes down to the Orchid looking for Ben. Keamy tells him about his “dead man’s trigger,” but Ben stabs him anyway out of rage for his murder of Alex. His response to Locke informing him that he had just killed everyone on the freighter, by simply saying “So?” was by far the most chilling we have ever seen him, and that is certainly saying something.
Alas, I am forced to ask Alan’s Pretty Big Question #2 here: Why would Keamy rig such a device? What if he was killed in action, but one of his men was able to capture Ben? Isn’t the mission always more important than the man? I get that he values his life more than anyone else’s, but he had help wiring everything together, which means that his men are incredibly stupid, very easily intimidated, or both. And while I’m on the subject, here’s APBQ #3: Why would Keamy think that Ben, a man he has been told is a ruthless murderer, would be swayed by the threat of killing innocent people? Remember, the captain told Sayid and Desmond that Ben was responsible for the fake 815 wreckage, so Keamy must have believed Mr. Linus to be a cold and calculating villain, making his threat inherently weak. Ben calls his bluff, Keamy is killed, Ben and Locke shake hands, and Ben sets off to move the Island while Locke goes to lead his new flock.
On the helicopter to the Kahana, Frank notices that they are losing fuel, surmising that a bullet punctured the chopper’s gas tank. Sawyer, who has not been all that keen on the prospect of getting off the Island, whispers something to Kate, gives her a big ole smooch, and dives into the water below. It seems like a safe bet that he asked Kate to look after his daughter, and that’s the favor she was talking about in the flash-forward in “Something Nice Back Home.” Even though the chopper is able to make it to the freighter, the ship is not the safe place they thought it was. Now that Keamy is dead, the explosives are set to go off, despite the best efforts from Michael, Desmond, and Jin. Michael’s idea of freezing the battery bought the gang some extra time, but Jin should have stopped playing hero long before he did and gone up to be with his pregnant wife. Alas, he does not, and he, Michael, and a bunch of extras apparently all meet their Maker when the Kahana goes boom. It sure was nice of Christian to show up and tell Michael that the Island was finished with him now, and he could die, but APBQ #4 is this: What did the Island need Michael to do in the first place? What was his role in helping the Island? Or Ben for that matter? All he did was provide some intel back to Ben about the crew and shut down the engines and communications. Was that it? When he tried to detonate what he thought was a bomb, a note popped up saying “Not yet.” Why not yet? Wouldn’t it have been better to blow up the freighter before Keamy and his army came to the Island, shooting everything in sight? Why did the ship “need” to blow up when it did? And it wasn’t even Michael’s doing when it did happen. Was Michael’s purpose simply to delay the explosion for a few moments with his liquid nitrogen plan?
Regardless, the Oceanic 6 plus Frank and Desmond are all on board the chopper, and as Sun mourns her husband, the chopper runs out of gas and crashes in the ocean. At the beach, a gratuitously shirtless Sawyer swims up to Juliet, and they stare out at the smoke from the ship on the horizon. In the Orchid, Ben tells Jacob he hopes he’s happy, and pushes the frozen wheel that makes him travel through space and time to the Sahara Desert in 2005, while the Island seemingly disappears. Unfortunately, we don’t get to see any more of the Island or the people on it, so their whereabouts, and possibly whenabouts, remain unknown.
The O6+2 make contact with a boat, that eerily evokes memories of the first season finale, when the Losties think they have found rescue on their raft, but instead encounter the Others who abduct Walt. This boat, however, is infinitely friendlier, and it turns out to belong to none other than Penelope Widmore. The reunion of Desmond and Penny was a long time coming, and their love story is always handled beautifully. Desmond’s goodbye to Jack was also bittersweet, as Jack warned him to not let “them” find him, and then turning Desmond’s catchphrase around on him: “See you in another life, brother.” It is hard to imagine that is the last we have seen of Desmond and Penny, especially given Ben’s threat to kill Penny in retribution for Alex.
In a sudden brainstorm, Jack decides to take Locke’s advice and start lying about what happened on the Island, as a means to protect the people still there. But how can Jack not believe that the Island has moved, given that he saw it disappear with his own two eyes? And more importantly, as APBQ #5, why does Jack think that lying will protect those left behind? He knows that whoever sent the freighter wanted to kill the 815’ers, but he must also realize that they managed to find the Island once, and they could probably find it again. If they had the means to fake the wreckage and orchestrate the Kahana’s search in the first place, clearly they are pretty motivated, so the O6’s lie is not going to stop them. Nor should it prevent Widmore from going after the survivors to find out what they know about the Island and what happened to his crew. Still, with their cover story in place, the O6 catch up to where they were at the beginning of Part 1 of the finale.
With that story wrapped up in a neat little package, the flash-forwards begin right where the Season 3 finale left off, with Bearded Jack telling Kate that they have to go back to the Island. Apparently they are now three years after their “rescue,” and Jeremy Bentham, aka John Locke, had been paying visits to the O6, urging them to go back to the Island. Jack seems to agree with this idea, while Kate has no interest in returning. A vision of Claire even went so far as to warn Kate that she better not bring Aaron back to the Island.
Hurley is paid a visit by Walt, who wonders why no one came to see him, except for Bentham. Hurley says they are all lying to protect the people they left behind, including Michael. Doesn’t Hurley know that Michael is dead? Does he not want to tell Walt that his dad bit the dust? Or does he suspect that even though he may be dead, he is still around in some way on the Island? Sayid also swings by the mental institution, kills a guy who was waiting outside, and tells Hurley they need to go somewhere safe - but not back to the Island. Hurley doesn’t want to be paranoid, but Sayid says that is exactly what is keeping him alive. Hurley finishes his chess game with a long dead Mr. Eko, and goes with Sayid. Is Eko telling Hurley that he needs to go back to the Island? And who is watching the O6? Is it Widmore, looking for answers about the Island? Are these the same people who killed Bentham/Locke? Sayid seems skeptical that it was a suicide as indicated by the obituary.
Sun confronts Widmore directly, calling him out on his knowledge of the Island. (Hurley must have filled everyone in on the details while they were killing time on the raft, I suppose.) Sun says the two have mutual interests – does she want to help him find the Island? Does she think Jin is still alive there? Widmore asks why she would want to help him, and that is a good question. Does she really just want to get revenge on him for his role in Jin’s (apparent) death?
The finale ends with Jack returning to the funeral home, breaking in, and encountering Ben. Bentham/Locke told Jack that Ben was off the Island, and that after the O6 left, bad things happened on the Island, that it was Jack’s fault, and that he had to return to the Island. Ben clarified that it was not enough for Jack to journey back alone – he had to bring everyone. Including Locke. Why? Would Locke be resurrected if he is returned?
A few other thoughts/Pretty Big Questions:
• Does Ben mean to include Aaron in the “everyone” that has to return to the Island? Then why is Claire saying that Kate shouldn’t bring him back? Are the Island’s will and the visions two different things?
• I know I’ve mentioned this before, but we still have not seen Claire and Aaron get on a helicopter and leave the Island as Desmond predicted. Was Des wrong? Lying? Or is this an event that will happen later in the series?
• What are Ben’s motivations? Does he want to help the Island, get revenge on Widmore, or both? Can he really not return to the Island? Maybe with Locke dead his banishment is revoked. And how is Ben going to convince the rest of the Oceanic 6 to go back?
• And the biggest question of all: WHY does the Island need Jack and company to come back?
Overall, this was an extremely eventful two hours. The “present” caught up to the beginning of the flash-forwards, a lot of loose ends were tied up, and new questions have been posed. The finale still fell short of last year’s, which was simply superb, but to be fair, those were extremely big shoes to fill. That finale not only beautifully continued threads from the season, but also threw us a whopper of a game changer in the introduction of the flash-forward. This year’s season ender didn’t end with as dramatic a punch, no true “WTF?’ moment that made jaws drop everywhere. The reveal that it was Locke in the coffin was a nice twist, but it felt like more of an answer to last year’s “Who’s funeral is it” question than an answer married to a new mammoth question, which is what Lost does at its best. That said, the mystery of how Locke went from leader of the Others to a corpse in L.A. is still interesting enough to keep people theorizing.
It’s a long wait till 2009 and more new Lost, and I’m curious as to what the format of the show will be next year. Will the O6 have flashbacks to their lives post-rescue but pre-Bentham/Locke’s death? And what of the people still on the Island? Will they get flash-backs, flash-forwards, both, or neither? What do you think? Have any answers to my PBQ’s? Post your comments, thoughts, theories, answers, and questions below!
Alan’s Score: 8.6 out of 10
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