LOST 6x14: Ocean of tears

The LOSTies try to fly the friendly skies, but instead swim the angry seas. Bernard accuses Jack of making a move on Rose. Sayid makes one hell of a bang as he sacrifices himself. Sun and Jin were apparently on the Titanic. And…well…no snark. This was a sad one.

Lost 6x14: The Candidate

In choking back the tears over Sun and Jin’s sad passing, it was easy to overlook that we also lost Sayid and Lapidus in this episode. But seriously, we spend TWO YEARS of TV time waiting for Sun and Jin to be reunited for them to be together for, what, 12 minutes? LOST writers, you sank lower than the depths of the sub now laying on the ocean floor.

Rough one for you too? Let me know what you thought below in comments...


2004, Los Angeles:
Close up on John Locke in the hospital bed, post-Desmond hit & run, and Jack tells him that he is a candidate (!) for a new procedure to repair the spinal injury and perhaps allow him to walk again, but he refuses. Helen bursts into the room and thanks Jack for saving John.


In his medical office, Dr. Nadler – Bernard – is working on some sort of dental cast when Jack enters and asks to see John Locke’s file. (Bernard had apparently performed emergency oral surgery on him.) Asking why he needs it, Jack starts to explain how he and Locke met, and Bernard spurts out, “Oceanic 815…I sat across the aisle from you. If memory serves, you were flirting with my wife, Rose, while I was in the bathroom.” Jack looks more than a little confused at the coincidence.


Bernard tells him that he can’t share Locke’s records, but he remembered the name of another man in the accident, and hands Jack a slip of paper with Anthony Cooper’s name.


At a nursing home, Jack’s asking about Anthony Cooper when Helen shows up with flowers for him. Helen asks him to leave, but he insists. Sideways Cooper is catatonic in a wheelchair.

Back at his bedside, Locke’s mumbling in his sleep, “Push the button…I wish you had believed me.”

Unnecessary nerd alert: “Push the button” – reference to his on-island Swan Station button pushing. “I wish you had believed me” – a callback to the suicide note he left for Jack when he tried to kill himself.


Claire shows up at the hospital looking for Jack, and they go to a waiting room. Jack gets a candy bar from the machine. She shows him the box that Christian left her asking what it’s supposed to mean, but neither of them have a clue. She asks how he died, and Jack explains he was flying home from Sydney with his coffin, and they realize they were on the same flight. Jack looks at the box, a music box, but neither of them has any idea what the significance is.


Nerd alert: the selection Jack made was #E4, an Apollo Bar.

Question: Was it just me or did the machine make a noise that sounded not unlike either the Smoke Monster or even the hatch button re-setting.

Nerd alert: The box was a music box that played “Catch a Falling Star”, the song that Christian used to sing to her and that she – and Kate – used to sing to Aaron as a bedtime song.

Awaiting Helen to pick him up, Jack tries to convince Locke one last time to consider the surgery. Locke tells him that he’d gotten his pilot’s license and was in an accident with his father as the passenger on board, leaving him unable to walk or talk. Locke’s been punishing himself for the accident in this timeline. Locke’s mind is unchanged. Jack says to him, “I wish you’d believed me”, using Locke’s mumbling – and the suicide note message from the main timeline – to try to convince him. Locke wheels himself out of the hospital.


2007, The island:
Jack awakes in a boat on the shore at Hydra Island. Sayid is keeping watch. UnLocke tells Jack and Sayid that they’re going to have to rescue the other Losties and then make it onto the plane to escape the island. Jack reminds UnLocke that he doesn’t intend to leave the island. He asks for Jack’s help in convincing them to leave with them, but Jack’s not sure he can be trusted. UnLocke reminds Jack that he could kill them any time, but he’s saved his life and wants to save the others.


Widmore’s henchmen are throwing Sawyer, Jin, Sun, Hurley, Lapidus and Kate into the polar bear cages when Saywer grabs a rifle and tries to get free, but Widmore points a gun at Kate. Widmore tells them he's putting them in the cage for their own good. Sawyer challenges him, saying he needs her, but Widmore confirms what that Kate’s name was not on the list.

In the polar bear cage, Kate is annoyed and tells Sawyer that Widmore wouldn’t have killed her. But Sawyer tells her she was on the cave wall, but her name was scratched out, meaning he was done with her. Kate gets knocked down a peg or two.


Jin and Sun are speaking to each other – in English (why?) – and he tells her that he saw pictures of Ji Yeon, and she gives him his ring that she’s been carrying. Just as they’re about to get snuggly, the power goes out on the sonic fence and Smokey arrives, wreaking vengeance against the henchmen. They try to free themselves from the cage, just as Jack shows up and they all run after Jack explains, “I’m with him.”

In the jungle, Jack tells Kate he’s not leaving the island with them because he’s not meant to go. Sayid arrives and they rush to UnLocke.


The fate of the henchmen guarding the Ajira jet is no better than those by the cages. UnLocke snaps one of their necks and shoots the other. He steals the watch off the one who’s been shot and boards the plane, only to find it rigged with explosives.

The UnLocke flock arrives at the plane and he walks off the plane explaining that Widmore wanted them all to get on the plane so they would die. Assuming there might be other explosives on the plane, UnLocke says that they need to take the sub. Hurley reminds the flock that Alpert said UnLocke can’t leave the island, but Sawyer says they’re going. Sawyer apologizes for not trusting UnLocke, and Jack offers his help, but says he won’t be leaving the island. Sawyer pulls Jack aside and tells him that they’re getting off the island without UnLocke and to push him into the water when they get to the dock.

The dock appears to be unguarded, and a handful of them run ahead to the sub. Sawyer and Lapidus climb into the sub and surprise the captain at gunpoint. The remaining bunch head to the sub, and UnLocke hands Jack his backpack. They make it onto the dock and UnLocke is trying to convince Jack to go, but he pushes UnLocke off the dock and into the water. They get fired upon, and Kate is hit. The rest climb into the sub, but Claire and UnLocke are still outside. Saywer climbs up and tries to get Claire into the sub, but he has to close the hatch when UnLocke makes a run toward the sub. Claire looks despondent, but UnLocke is perfectly content.


Looking for a first aid kit, Hurley hands Jack his backpack. UnLocke put the bomb in it. (Did anyone not see this coming when UnLocke handed him the backpack?)

Nerd alert: The watch used as the timer was the one UnLocke stole off the dead man.

With less than 4 minutes left, the only way to get the bomb off is to get to the surface. Lapidus tells the captain to take them up. As they try to figure out what to do to diffuse the bomb, Jack tells them that nothing will happen and that UnLocke can’t kill them, and that UnLocke wanted them to leave without him. Sawyer doesn’t buy it and pulls the wires out of the bomb, which unfortunately only speeds up the timer.

Sayid tells Jack where to find Desmond. Jack asks why he’s telling him this, and Sayid replies, “Because it’s going to be you, Jack.” Sayid grabs the bomb and runs ahead into another compartment of the sub, where the bomb goes off.


RIP Sayid. :(


Still in with the captain, the hatch door blows off, and knocks Lapidus down.

RIP Lapidus. :( (we assume)

The sub is filling with water, and Sun is pinned behind a cabinet. Jack tells Hurley to take the injured Kate and swim to the surface. He gives them a rescue canister of oxygen. Jack and Jin shift the cabinet, but Sun is still trapped behind some metal. Jin tells him to take Saywer up, and he stays to try to free Sun. Jack and Sawyer swim up.


Sun demands that Jin leave, but he refuses to go. (Shouldn’t one of them have gone for the sake of Ji Yeon?!) Finally speaking in Korean, Jin tells her “I will never leave you again.” And in a Titanic-worthy scene, we see their clasped, submerged hands separate, and Kleenex stock goes through the roof.


RIP Jin-Soo Kwon. :(

RIP Sun-Hwa Kwon. :(




Jack, Sawyer, Kate and Hurley make it to the island. Jack tells them that Jin and Sun didn’t make it and Kate and Hurley bawl like the rest of us watching at home.

UnLocke tells Claire that the sub sank. She asks if they’re all dead, and he says no, grabs a rifle and heads off to finish what he started.


I know my wife cried herself to bed. What about you? Drop the comment love below.

-Sean Salo

Move over Judge Judy - Make way for Judge Smokey

Locke kicked Ben’s ass. Desmond kicked Ben’s ass. The Temple’s floor kicked Ben’s ass. Smokey, strangely, showed Ben some home movies. And then Alex kicked Ben’s ass. And somehow, although this weasely mofo deserved an ass whupping more than anyone – ever – I wound up feeling a little bad for him. He’s a manipulator, and he manipulated me from the screen. Bastard. Someone get Michael Emerson an Emmy. Pls.

Lost 5x12: Dead is Dead

Island, 1977:
Charles Widmore, looking more like a Mediterranean soap opera star than a conniving Brit, fumes as he enters what looks like it could be an encampment in any time. In fact, I think it was intended to appear that it could have been Black Rock, native inhabitants, or earlier. However, it’s 1977, and Richard has just returned from The Temple with Little Ben. Charles accuses Richard of potentially blowing their cover, but he says that Jacob wanted it that way.

Island, 2007:
John gently wakes Ben, who looks a little panicked – “Oh God! You’re alive!”. He says, “because it’s one thing to believe it, John. It’s another thing to see it.” He says he was going to the main island to be judged – by the smoke monster – for breaking the rules. (Judge Smokey, coming to ABC, Weekdays at 4pm.)

Ben makes his way out to the beach, and some of the Ajira survivors are trying to carry a metal crate. No idea what is in the crate.

Guesses from the interwebs and friends on what’s in the crate:
• John Locke’s unopened coffin
• Nuclear warhead
• Ammunition for the “war” that’s about to come to the island
• The body of Charles Widmore
• Marcellus Wallace’s soul
• Gwyneth Paltrow’s head
• Obama's stimulus package for the island

Caesar approaches Ben to ask what he knows about Locke. Ben denies knowing him. (Like Simon denied knowing Jesus before he was crucified? He did look at John when he woke up and said, “My God!”)

Island, 1988:
Ben with an era-appropriate new wave ‘do (and looking frankly a little Pee Wee Herman-esque with dark hair) and young Ethan are poised to go after Rousseau – apparently on orders from Charles. When he enters her hut, though, he’s startled to see she has a baby. He takes Alex and says, “If you want your child to live, every time you hear whispers, you run the other way.”


Question: Why would she need to run away from the whispers to keep Alex – and not herself – alive? Would the whispers somehow otherwise reunite her with Alex?

Island, 2007:
Ben is in his office, looking at a picture of him and Alex. He folds it and puts it into his pocket. (Call back to Desmond and his pic of Penny. John chides Ben for being a little corporate for leading from behind a desk, and then looks badass as he sits in Ben’s chair and demands they talk about the elephant in the room – why Ben killed John. Ben pauses. It seemed to me that he was trying to come up with the answer. He says it was the only way to get John back to the island, that otherwise the rest of the O6 wouldn’t have gone back. He stopped him from killing himself because he needed the information. He seems like he’s nervous and coming up with the story on the fly. Not like Ben really. John says he’s going to help Ben be judged and is going with him.

Geek alert: On and behind Ben’s desk are some unusual items – including an animal skull, a stuffed bird (a hawk? Hawks were commonly associated with the Egyptian god Horus, who had a hawk's head), and a what looks to me, anyway, like a leather-bound ledger (Could this be Tovard Hanso’s ledger from the Black Rock that Widmore won at auction?).

Back on the beach, Ben shoots Caesar for trying to stop them from taking the outrigger. Ben shoots Caesar when he demands more answers and then throws John the shotgun. Ben is back. As they reach the dock, John methodically puts on his – Christian’s – shoes. I assume he took them off because they had to walk the canoe out into the surf, but it seemed very pointed.

Question: Wasn’t the dock destroyed when Locke “blew up” the sub?

Island, 1988:
Charles is frustrated with Ben that he didn’t kill Rousseau, but he shoots back that Widmore didn’t tell him that she had a baby. Widmore says he should have killed her too, and Ben offers the baby to him for him to do it. Charles walks off and he and Richard look at each other knowingly.

Island, 2007:
Locke and Ben make their way up to New Otherton. John questions why they moved up there in the first place instead of living in the jungle – that it doesn’t seem like something the island would have wanted. Ben says, “you don’t have the first idea what this island wants.” John replies, “Are you sure about that?” John is Ben now. He seems in control and connected to the island and with a deeper understanding of the island than Ben has.

They see a light in Ben’s old house and he enters. Sun and Lapidus are inside. Lapidus shows them the photo Christian gave them and Ben seems genuinely surprised to see it. She says that Christian told them to wait there for John Locke. Ben tells them to look outside.

Geek alert: The Risk game was still on the table where it’d been left, and the portrait of Ben’s mom, Emily, was on the bedroom wall.


Locke explains his presence to them as best he can, and Lapidus is dumbfounded and says he’s going back to the plane to try to get help. But Sun stays to have Locke help find Jin. Locke tells Ben to “get to it” and on with the judging. Ben reveals his secret hieroglyph-adorned chamber and descends into it. He comes upon what looks like a murky cesspool and uncorks it. The muddy water drains and Ben says he’s waiting.

Island, 1988:
Ben’s pushing a young Alex on the swing. I’m guessing she’s about 4 years old. Richard says Charles is about to leave. Widmore is being escorted to the sub in cuffs. He’s being banished because he broke the rules – having a family off the island. But Ben says he’ll protect the island at all costs. Charles says that the island may want Alex dead one day. And then he leaves with a dismissive, “I’ll be seeing you, boy.”

Island, 2007:
Sun says that Jack must have lied about John being dead. Ben says Locke was indeed dead, but then lies and says that he had no idea John would come back to life- that he’s never seen anyone come back to life here.

John emerges from the jungle and Ben says the monster hasn’t come – it’s not a train – but John says he knows where to find it. Ben’s bug eyes bug even further.

Island, 2007:
Ben asks how John knows, and Locke says he just does. Locke says that Ben doesn’t to blindly follow others on faith and Ben agrees. They arrive at the wall surrounding The Temple. Locke says they’re not going in, they’re going under it. Ben asks Sun to tell Desmond he’s sorry if he doesn’t make it back. Ben descends into the hole.

Los Angeles, 2007:
Desmond sees Ben on the dock and Ben shoots him. He approaches Penny and says "My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die." “Hello, my name is Benjamin Linus,” as he's about to shoot her. But Ben is surprised to see little Charlie. He hesitates and appears to re-think it, but Desmond jumps him and beats the crap out of him and dumps him into the water.


Island, 2007:
Lapidus makes it back to the Hydra Island and he confronts Ilana. She says, “What lies in the shadow of the statue?” He doesn’t understand the question and she cold cocks him with the butt of her rifle. She tells one of the other Ajira survivors that they’re all going.

Question: Ilana’s “What lies in the shadow of the statue?” question. Was this a security question/test, like Desmond's “What did one snowman say to the other?” joke.


Under The Temple, Ben tells Locke that he killed Alex – that’s what he will be judged for. Ben walks ahead, but falls through the floor and lands in a chamber below. Heiroglyphs abound. He walks up to what looks like it might be an altar and looks at a glyph of what appears to be the Egyptian god of the afterlife, Anubis, staring down the smoke monster. Just then, Judge Smokey enters the court and surrounds Ben. He sees scenes of his life and primarily of Alex, including the betrayal of her. And just as mysteriously as it entered, Smokey disappears.








Geek alert: Rather than subtle and hidden, the effects played out almost a little cheesily. Could this be them paying homage to The Wizard of Oz, and the scene with Dorothy in the tornado, when people fly by Dorothy's window? After all, Ben did name himself Henry Gale, Dorothy's uncle's name, when he was still lying about his past, and said he arrived on the island in a hot air balloon.

Geek alert: I have the internets and a poster on Ack Attack's page to thank for this, but could Smokey be Ammit, Egyptian bringer of divine retribution, a creature that devoured those heavy with wrongdoing.


Suddenly Alex appears. Ben apologizes and she grabs him by the neck and demands that he listen to and follow John Locke. Ben starts to cry and Alex is gone. Locke arrives with some vines to pull him up he tells John, “it let me live.”



So what did you think? I was thrilled with this episode. Awesome story, tons of mythology, and lots of Ben getting his ass kicked. Post below with your thoughts.

- Sean Salo

Sayid and Ben cuddle up for Valentine's Day

Last night’s flash forward heavy episode of LOST was a grower, not a shower. We learn little bits of Sayid’s post-island life building up to the knock-you-on-your-ass cliffhanger moment. For instance, Flash-forward Sayid is: 1) dapper; 2) an assassin; 3) suave with the ladies; 4) able to pull it together after being shot; and…oh yeah, 5) working for Ben!

Really, we could end it right here, because it’s tough to recall most of what happened after seeing Ben in the room with Sayid in Berlin. How did Ben get off the island? And more importantly, why would Sayid be working for him? What do you think? Comment below with your thoughts.

LOST 4x03: The Economist


Sayid stares at Naomi’s corpse for a bit and admires her jewelry. (Inscription said “N – I’ll always be with you – R.G.”) Sayid makes a deal with the pilot, Frank, to deliver Charlotte back to the chopper team in order to snag a coveted exit row seat on the first flight back to the freighter. Sayid, Kate and Miles set off to get Charlotte. Frank asks Jack about Sayid. If Frank knew the passenger manifest so well that he knew Juliet was not on the flight, wouldn’t he have likely known where Sayid was from?

Team Locke can’t find Jacob’s cabin where he and Ben had visited it. Ben digs at John, saying he needs someone to ask what to do next. Clearly Ben’s mindgames are putting doubts out there. Hurley asks Locke to let Charlotte go as an act of “good faith.” Locke, always the man of faith, calls that an act of foolishness.

Sayid’s crew find Hurley bound and gagged in a closet in Juliet’s house in Otherville. But Hurley was swayed to pretend to have been left behind by Locke and crew. Sayid’s crew split up, and Sayid finds Ben’s secret room. Is this the “Magic Box?” There there are several international passports, including a Swiss one has a name of Dean Moriarty on it, and a drawer filled with various currency. An out-of-circulation ₤20 note with the image of Michael Faraday – physicist Daniel Faraday seems to be named after – topped one stack of cash. (Photo from losteastereggs.blogspot.com)

Much like Ben did earlier, Locke separates Sayid’s crew. Sayid is held with Ben in the Recreation Center, Kate with Sawyer in Ben’s house. The scene mirrors the one from last season’s “Man From Tallahassee” episode where Kate is held after trying to rescue Jack.

With all these scenes, it’s almost as if The Losties’ are transforming into The Others: Now they know the island, they ambush newcomers, they withhold information, they keep the rest of their teams in the dark, and they use people as bargaining chips.

Sayid returns to the chopper with Charlotte and says he traded Miles for her. But we didn’t see the transaction. What was it that we didn’t see?

Geek alerts:

• George Minkowski – The guy back on the freighter. Predictably, his name’s not just a name. Hermann Minkowski was a German mathematician who in 1907 theorized that in Einstein’s special theory of relativity, space and time aren’t separate dimensions, but are intertwined in what is known as the space-time continuum. Confused? Don’t worry. All you need to know is that Minkowski is a clue that perhaps space and time don’t follow the typical patterns here on the island. This theory seems to be a clue to solve Daniel’s experiment where the clock from the rocket “payload” was 31 minutes ahead of the clock he had on the island. But I’m betting that the island isn’t just 31 minutes off from the rest of the world.


• Here’s a brainbreaker for you: Jack asks Frank if the Red Sox really won the World Series, and Frank says yes. However, if time moves differently on the island, could it be that Frank was replying yes about 2007’s Series, not 2004’s, when the Losties crashed?


• Elsa was wearing the same type of bracelet as Naomi. Was Elsa actually Naomi’s “RG”? Or did Elsa and Naomi both work for the same people?
  

LOST news: The producers announced that we’ll get five more episodes this season, for a total of thirteen. The remaining three we would have gotten will roll up into a future season, meaning we will still get the planned episodes of LOST. Of course this means that we’ll get an accelerated story leading up to the season finale. I’ll take it. - Sean Salo