The end has arrived for the survivors of Oceanic 815 and while we’ll never get to follow any more adventures on that mysterious island, here’s what worked (and didn’t work) for us in “The End.”

Robert

“It worked.”

That’s really all I can say about the goings-on in the two and a half hour series finale of LOST.

After multiple viewings of the finale and so much reflection on the series as a whole, I’ve come away with a greater appreciation not just for science fiction or spirituality or even the age-old debate of fate versus free will, but also for the inherent capacity for love and compassion that I believe is in all people. It’s a deeply personal reaction that I only half-expected to glean from a show like LOST. After spending so much mental energy over the last couple of weeks trying to figure out the logistics of the show, I realized after the finale that I still wasn’t seeing the forest for the trees. The mythology, the setting, the much-cherished characters; they all came together to create an elaborate tale based on the simple concept that everything has a beginning and an end. On such an abstract level, I can’t help but relate it to events that have taken place in my own life.

Several years ago, I found myself in a place that brought me together with people from all different walks of life. While everyone brought their own past experiences with them, we also encountered new life experiences as a group as time went on. Although some didn’t last long and others were introduced along the way, the dynamic of the group was always a key factor in the equation. There were good times and troubling times, but we all soldiered on and did what he had to do to keep moving forward. Some stepped up when it mattered most and others provided support and leverage when it was needed. But then our time together began to grow short. Many fell by the wayside and it became so that the only decisions left to make were often the hardest ones. In the end, no one would survive what was in store for us in the larger scheme of things. Everyone fell prey to events that were beyond any of our control and driven by hands more powerful than our own, no matter how much we persevered. The best we could do was take our lumps with pride and do what we felt was honorable and right for our own souls. Ultimately, the point came where the only thing left to do was to simply let go.

Now, none of that took place on an island, and there were never any struggles of life and death. Instead, it was just a job—a job where I got to work with some great people that lasted nearly six years and yet ended with everyone losing out. I don’t have any illusions that there was anything special bestowed upon me, and maybe the people who were a part of it would be surprised to know that I still get choked up about it now and then, but it was a time in my life that I’ll never forget. The point is that whether it’s time on a job, with your family or a group of friends (or even strangers), closing out those special times in life happens to all of us at some point or another. As painful as it is when they end (and they all end eventually), they’re all the more rewarding when you can look back on them with new perspective. Those are the times that enrich us with strength and hope and make us better people, but they don’t last forever. Life simply will not allow it. So that moment of letting go and realizing that you have to move on is a truly powerful thing, and for me, though I didn’t even see it coming, the finale to LOST reflected that in a profound way.

On the surface, this show has been about being lost on an island, lost at sea and even being lost in time, but it’s also about being lost in life. And I don’t just mean that general feeling of “where’s life taking me?” but also in the sense of understanding what matters. At the beginning of the story, our characters are given a new beginning and while it’s rough going at first, they eventually begin to find their way. Knowing what to value and what to stand up for isn’t always easy, and having reason or faith on your side doesn’t always make you right, but everyone has to stand for something. But standing your ground is only worth doing if you can help your fellow man along the way. In my eyes, that’s the story of the survivors of Oceanic 815. Everyone who was in that final scene in the church stood their ground at some point on the island and did what they thought was right for the benefit of others.

As it turns out, the story of LOST is also as much about death as it is about life. In the end, everyone dies. It’s the one inescapable fate that we all succumb to sooner or later, and for those of us who have either lost someone or have nearly lost our own lives, death also becomes a point of higher understanding. Everything you do in your life is up to you, but what you do in death is maybe the most important. Even if you’ve been dealt a bad hand, your life is still yours to make the most of, and when you draw your last breath, the most important time in your life will be the one you look back on with the most vivid, meaningful memories.

All told, if there’s a definite moral to LOST, it doesn’t present itself front and center—and nor should it—but instead lets viewers decide what parts of it mean something to them. Perhaps that’s the beauty of a story like LOST. The meaning and insight that I take away from the show is my own, and if someone else doesn’t get anything at all out of it, I suppose I can’t fault them for it. Maybe they weren’t paying attention, or maybe they weren’t ready to understand. Or maybe, like a cast of strangers on a flight from Sydney, we’ve just lived different lives.

Scott

“The End” was one of LOST‘s best episodes—fun, thrilling, heart-wrenching and mind-expanding—while also being deeply frustrating, failing to sum up any of the series’ long-term mysteries in a satisfying way.

The marketing for this final season used “All will be revealed” as its tagline. After having three full years to wrap up the show, almost none of the LOST‘s big questions — Why can’t babies be conceived on the island? What was Walt’s significance? Where were the supply drops coming from? Why were the Others kidnapping specific people? — were answered. Sure, there was some beating around the bush, but “each question will lead to another question” (still pissed at you about that one, Darlton), and while we kinda sorta learned what the Island was (it has a glowy cave that’s allegedly important) and what the smoke monster was (a mean man who fell into the aforementioned glowy cave or something), none of that means anything to my puny human brain. The answer is, essentially, God did it, or more precisely, anything strange that ever happened was the work of godlike creatures who were manipulating, for good or for bad, the humans who happened upon their playground. This is not a satisfying LOST conclusion for me.

In retrospect, this has largely been a wasted season of Lost. While it was great to see Terry O’Quinn gleefully hamming it up as the Man In Black, the redemption of Ben, and the season-long arc of a newly humbled Jack, it’s more than a little infuriating to hear Darlton tell us that we didn’t need to see the stuff we wanted to see, but it was absolutely necessary to spend 20 minutes on alt-Sawyer’s failed courtship of alt-Charlotte. Worst of all, to me anyway, was the fact that Locke never came back to save the day. While the man of faith’s specter loomed large over the proceedings, with Jack giving the Man in Black a mighty good tongue-lashing about dishonoring his memory by taking his face, I really hate that the show’s best character met a sad and lonely death after living such a sad and lonely life. Characters like Desmond and Sawyer, who seemed extremely important in earlier seasons, were pretty much just long-haired handsome dudes along for Jack’s ride.

Like everyone else in the entire universe, I am very mixed on the flash-sideways, now more than ever. While I heard a lot about people crying during every one of the realization moments, the only one that meant much of anything to me was Sawyer and Juliet’s. Otherwise, you saw one and you saw ‘em all: two people touch, they get a goofy grin on their face, they realize they’re… dead I guess? After the Jin/Sun connection, the rest of them got pretty monotonous. I honestly got pretty angry when I was watching the last scene, but I’ve come around a bit on it in the days since, especially after reading a bit about Tibetan Buddhist bardo states. The idea of a dream realm where you work out your issues of life before moving on to heaven unencumbered by earthly baggage is interesting, and adds a bit more resonance to Locke and Ben’s flash-sideways episodes earlier this year. I think most of us would’ve preferred that the show ended on an earthly note, but it’s not our show, is it?

On a technical level, “The End” was one of the best-made episodes of television ever. The pacing was impeccable, never moving too fast or too slow. Jack Bender’s direction was expansive and cinematic, giving just the right tone and feel to every scene. The climactic final battle between Jack and Locke felt appropriately apocalyptic, particularly when the cliff fell away into the ocean. And the performances left every character with a nice moment, especially Jorge Garcia’s panicked reaction to being the island’s newest guardian.

Still, there are so many holes for longtime fans of the show to overlook. There are actually more mysteries that have been answered than you may realize, but imagine the emotional gut punch this final season could’ve been had Darlton weaved the thousands of loose threads they’ve left dangling over the years into a completed piece. It’s as apples to oranges a comparison as one can make, but compare the final season of LOST to the final few seasons of The Shield. That show began its exit plan in its third season, just as LOST did, and used its fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh seasons to build the series as a whole into an unbearably intense morality play spanning its entire run, culminating in what stands in my mind as the greatest series finale ever. Or compare LOST’s final season to its closer cousin Battlestar Galactica‘s final season. Though some felt the show flew off the rails in its last minutes, the season’s worth of episodes that preceded them were riveting, emotional masterpieces. Way too much of LOST‘s final season feels like *SPOILERS IF YOU PLAN ON EVER WATCHING BSG* Starbuck’s final moments, an unexplainable character who is so unexplainable, in fact, that she ends up completely unexplained, and goes POOF into the wind never to be heard from again *END OF SPOILERS FOR PROCRASTINATING NERDS*.

So, do I feel like I’ve been robbed of six years of my life because the last episode of LOST was disappointing on a mythological level? Absolutely not, and anyone who says so is a complete and total moron. I have never enjoyed a show—and being a part of its fan community—more. LOST is undeniably one of the greatest series in TV history, and I doubt we’ll ever see anything this challenging and bizarre on television ever again. I will miss it terribly.

Dennis

Well, barring any future “Hurley and Ben Run the Island” spin-off, it appears that LOST is finally over. Before I get to my thoughts on “The End,” here’s a little history of LOST and I: I didn’t love this show at first. I remember LOST, Boston Legal, and Desperate Housewives all launched out of the ABC gate the same fateful fall (and Grey’s Anatomy showed up later that very same season), and for some reason I chose the Housewives campy intrigue (hey, the first season was well put together, before it all went to sucksville) over what I assumed would be a dramatic retread of Gilligan’s Island. I (much like Darlton, if rumors are correct) didn’t think LOST would make it past its first season. It seemed too serialized for broadcast television. And then a funny thing happened: It hit it big. REAL BIG. People were sucked in. So, I tried to catch up a few times throughout the first season but still didn’t love it. Then I returned for season 2, still not loving it (I don’t miss Ana Lucia or, blasphemy I guess, Eko). But somewhere in the course of season 2 I really couldn’t stop watching. I’d get angry at the show for not answering questions, and for recurring bouts of lazy writing, and relish in the moments that it got right. All the way up to “The End” (God, that title sounds more and more obnoxious every time I type it) this was true.

Did I like the finale of LOST? Short answer: Yeah, I guess so. I was compelled by all two and a half hours, certainly. Do I still think it lacked answers to some questions? And had logical holes galore? You betcha. I’ve always thought the assurances from Darlton and critics alike that this show was about the characters was a load of bull. I was going to point out that, if that were true, why were some characters (cough, Kate, cough) still 2 dimensional until the very end. But I thought Gawker did an awesome job of conveying that point already. And anyway, some of the characters were important to me.I did rather enjoy when some characters were on screen. It was nice to see Sideways (Heavenways?) Sawyer and Juliet reunite. Still, much like I’ve wondered about much of this show, were Darlton making up the Sideways storyline as they went along? Why give Jack and Juliet a kid? Why put Ben and Rousseau together? If they did know all season long, then were they trying to mislead us so we wouldn’t realize too soon that this was a a Heavenways storyline? It all just seems sort of manipulative. Heartfelt, but manipulative. I guess that’s LOST in a nutshell. I don’t regret the six years I spent watching. It was fun, but like a kid with motion sickness who just got off Space Mountain, I’m just sort of content this ride is over.

We’re really interested to know what you thought of the finale and the show as a whole. Did you find the finale satisfying? Or did it somehow ruin six years of TV? Comment!

Our favorite show about plane crash survivors on a mysterious island kicks things back into gear, after last week’s audience-dividing excursion. Oh yeah, and lots of people died.

Scott

“What They Died For” is clearly the first hour of the series-concluding “The End”, so grading it as a standalone episode would take it out of context. But I did enjoy it a good bit more than last week’s willfully elusive “Across The Sea” on a gut level. The pacing quickly picked up from where it left off with “The Candidate” two weeks ago, and I certainly was on the edge of my seat the entire time. I’m excited about—not dreading—the series coming to an end Sunday night.

When LOST is firing on all cylinders, though, it engages the gut, mind and heart, and I wasn’t feeling a whole lot of the latter two. Jacob’s campfire appeal to the remaining candidates was so low key that I can barely remember it even happening. I wasn’t expecting the sermon on the mount or anything, but I expected a little more poetry and inspiration from a moment the whole series has been leading up to. And I guess asking for answers to plot holes like “Why can everybody see Jacob now?” or “Who told Ben island stuff when he never saw Jacob?” is mostly pointless now because that’s not necessary information according to Darlton.

Heading into the finale, I’m mostly resigned to not getting answers about mythology, since the few that have been provided are sketchy at best and ridiculous at worst. My one remaining hope is that LOST ends by doing right by its characters, and giving them sendoffs that are worthy of people we’ve grown to love over these six long years (as opposed to the ignoble fates of Ilana and maybe Richard). Did John Locke, far and away the series’ best character, really die a poor clueless sap? Did Ben, his weaselly murderer who found redemption in this season’s best moment so far, really turn bad again for no discernable reason (though I think he’s playing double agent to the MIB who conned him)? Will Sawyer, Hurley and Miles find a new path of happiness? Will we care about Kate? We’ll know in 4 days, and then TV won’t be nearly as interesting.

Dennis

Oh LOST. Why do I like you so some weeks and other weeks write long diatribes about how frustrated your episodes make me? Or: Oh LOST, why must your episodes leading up to the end of your seasons (or in this case, series) always be the consistently awesomest (totally a word, no matter what the red squiggly spell check thingy tells me) episodes you have to offer? There’s a whole bunch I enjoyed here: Sidways Ben romancing Sideways Danielle. Yes, please! Hell, I even got excited about Ana Lucia busting Sideways Desmond and Friends out of the prisonmobile (maybe, after seeing her in the credits, I was just relieved she didn’t turn out to be SideJack’s baby mama?).

And speaking of miracles, Kate(s) didn’t annoy me as much (probably because the writers don’t have time to make her the show’s Gilligan-esque muck-er-up-er anymore) either. And Zoe and Widmore finally died! And Ben’s a badass again (though I still hope he ends up with Sayid-esque redemptive martyrdom at the very least, by the finale). Why, oh why LOST, couldn’t you have spread some of this awesomesauce out into some of the previous episodes? Whatever. I now can’t wait until the finale. My advice to the writers, in the words of RuPaul (that’s the second time in one season I’ve managed to mention LOST and RuPaul in the same thought process —  quite a gift I know): “Don’t fuck it up.”

Robert

Last week I spent so much energy laying out everything I thought about this show and how everything would end up fitting together (which you can read here), that if this episode wouldn’t have been as revelatory (and kind of shocking) as it was, then I might have just lost my mind. Seeing Jacob sit down and try to explain the island and the Losties’ purpose there was hardly as painful as I had expected it would be if the moment ever came. Wondering what would happen when the Man in Black and Widmore finally stood toe-to-toe was answered swiftly, and yet, not quite in the way I’d expected. And seeing Ben play his shifty card one more time was maybe the creepiest of all.

In fact, I hope that anyone who had problems with “Across the Sea” and why it even existed can look back and see how it makes a bit more sense now. If we hadn’t had that episode to tell us about the light or Jacob and the Man in Black’s past or Jacob’s life-changing mistake, having all that crammed into the main narrative—as opposed to a standalone episode in some ancient past where it’s a little more forgivable—would’ve made it seem all the more ridiculous. Or had Jacob murmured his incantation, passed the cup of water to Jack and said “Now you’re like me,” and we were given no further explanation…whoo-boy!

But I’m glad that the show’s back on its feet. In flash-sideways world, it’s still not clear to me what Desmond’s setting up—perhaps some kind of trippy rave where they all drop acid and take a ride on the Wonkatania to the island?—but the moments with alt-Ben and alt-Locke as two suffering men who discover a new future awaiting them (or do they?) were definitely highlights. On the other hand, not only did the action on the island heat up, but it’s about to boil over. The Man in Black is on the warpath and takin’ no shorts while Jack makes the choice to become the Gandalf to his Balrog. Tell me you don’t want to see that showdown! It seems like there’s still a lot of ground to cover, and two and a half hours of TV is easily a feature film in itself, but I have a feeling this Sunday’s finale is going to be one hell of a ride towards the finish line.

Only two and a half hours left! Have any other thoughts on this episode before the finale?

The day we got to learn more about Jacob and the Man in Black has been a long time coming, but was this the right time and the right way to do it? Fans that we are, we try to gleam something of note from it all.

Robert

One thing’s for sure—the people that make this show have quite the brass pair. There have been plenty of moments throughout this series that made me think that a line had been crossed, but none like what I experienced with “Across the Sea.” The moment when we discover that Jacob and the Man in Black are actually brothers, even the moment when we find out what happened to their real mother, didn’t prepare me for the reveal of The Light. It crossed my mind for a split-second that I’d been duped. Frankly, the whole conceit of “a mysterious light that is the heart of the island and possesses the key to life or some such thing” is almost too pie-in-the-sky for me; it just seemed to come out of far left field. And yet, thinking about it afterward, I suppose it’s a reasonable explanation for what the DHARMA Initiative ended up calling an electromagnetic anomaly. I say if you can buy one then you should be able to buy the other.

Otherwise, I was happy to get some context for who Jacob and the Man in Black are and why they’re doing what they’re doing to our Losties–even though it might have been nice to have gotten it sooner. I’m just hoping that it’ll pay off in the final hours of the show. But more than that, I came away from this episode appreciating it for all the things it made me consider. I’ve seen reactions all season about how this show doesn’t answer anything but it finally dawned on me this week when we never learned the Man in Black’s name–something I totally expected would be revealed–that LOST as a television series isn’t about what you get out of it. It’s about what you put into it. You want to know the Man in Black’s name? Pick one. I think that open-ended-ness is meant to encourage the viewer to use some imagination and fill in the blanks where they see fit.

For example, when Locke first saw the smoke monster in Season 1, he described what he saw as a “beautiful bright light”, and in most religion, Satan (AKA the Lucifer or the Morning Star) is, in fact, sometimes referred to as the bearer of light. So could it be that our bad guy the Man in Black, after going into the heart of the island, came out as Satan and ages later showed his true nature to Locke? I’d say maybe so. (Actually, I’ll have a lot more to say on this soon.) You might feel differently, and it’s possible that neither of us would be spot-on.

Also, after seeing how this all played out ages ago, I finally see the parallel to the struggle between God, Satan and Job front and center. It’s not necessarily a direct translation of it, but all of the important pieces are there. Think of the island as of God, the Man in Black as Satan and each of the Losties as a take on Job. Everyone that has come to the island has been confronted with their sins and transgressions and been forced to come to terms with why their fortunes have taken a turn for the worse.

And yet, the show never seems to take a definite moral stance and allows room for judgment by the viewers. It all speaks to larger themes of LOST and if nothing else, I think “Across the Sea” was important to help us understand this as we head into the finale next week.

Scott

There seem to be a lot of angry LOST fans out there today. This surprises me a little. All anyone’s wanted this season is answers, answers, answers and there were certainly a lot of answers in “Across The Sea”. Except, we didn’t really get any answers at all, we got stuff happening without any explanation of the how or why. After spending the whole season building up “Across The Sea” as the episode that answers all, we got what we always get with LOST: murky, cryptic question-raising that deliberately frustrates us with the empty promise of answers later. Except, there’s no more later. We’re five-sixths of the way through the final season. The show will end up running 118 1/2 hours and 115 of them have aired. Do you feel satisfied yet?

Worse still, Darlton employed some surprising smugness towards the show’s devoted fans that, at least to me, crossed the line between good-natured ribbing and outright mockery. They know we’re expecting a lot from this episode and confound those expectations right out of the gate with a bitchy one-two punch (“Every question you ask will be answered with another question” and “I only had one name”). That’s not playful, that’s being an asshole. I have been eminently patient with LOST and have had unshakable faith that there was some sort of method to the madness, but there were too many glaring missteps in this episode for me to overlook, the first of which is the placement of the episode in the season as a whole. After building up an incredible amount of tension in recent weeks, the action grinds completely to a halt to explain some backstory from thousands of years ago. Wouldn’t this episode work a lot better as the season premiere, dovetailing nicely with the Jacob threads introduced in the season five finale? Even if you’re able to overlook the issue of who Alison Janney’s character was, why she knew what she knew, how she got there, why she’s so prone to lying and deception, and so on, shouldn’t Jacob be a little more inquisitive as to what exactly his mission as island caretaker is before he devotes all of eternity to doing it? Does she, and later Jacob, have some kind of magical power that would enable her to fill in a well and kill an entire village full of burly dudes overnight? And seriously, the Man In Black has no name? Really? Even after living with a group of people for 30 years, you have absolutely no handle. Well if Darlton won’t give him a name, I will. I’m calling him Timmy from now on.

But none of that holds a candle to the show’s possible jump-the-shark event, a scene we may look back on as the moment when LOST crossed from the sublime to the ridiculous… the donkey wheel. Boy did I feel sorry for Titus Welliver, the incredible actor playing Timmy who once delivered David Milch’s golden dialogue on the late, great Deadwood. Let me get this straight. You’ve found this unexplained, important light source that’s magnetic. There are “smart men among you” in your village. So you decide to dig into the ground, insert a donkey wheel that will manipulate the light and water, and somehow that will teleport you off the island? And you know all this because you “just know”. Because you’re “special”. That, ladies and gentlemen, is a gigantic plot hole covered up with sloppy, sloppy writing. I know this is the ancient version of the hatch, but the writing and introduction of this element of the story was so mishandled and strange that I was taken completely out of the show.

I get what Darlton are going for with this cryptic writing and labyrinthine mythology. They want us in the state of mind of the characters, ordinary people who stumbled across something extraordinary. They don’t fully know or understand what’s going on, so we don’t either. They’ve also said that the idea of laying it all out there is terrible because it would be like the Architect scene in The Matrix Reloaded, a boring and obvious way of laying out the secrets behind something big and confusing. But it doesn’t have to be that way. For example, in the donkey wheel scene Alison Janney’s character could’ve said to Timmy, “This is wrong! You’re special! You can [insert abilities here]. You’re supposed to be [insert what his destiny is]. If you keep doing this, you’ll [insert stakes here]!” Normal people don’t talk like that, but they also don’t speak in the cryptic non-sequiturs LOST’s writers are ever so fond of. Which would you rather have, LOST fans?

There are things I liked about this episode. The outlines of the action felt like a Bible story, and I like the idea that Jacob and his mother are imperfect, sometimes murderous beings who nonetheless appear to be the good guys. I’m a little fuzzy on what exactly happened there at the end when Jacob threw Timmy into the water and down the…. whatever, but I’m a little intrigued by the theory that Timmy is dead and Jacob’s wrath unleashed whatever evil creature was down there which is now taking Timmy’s form, in other words, that Jacob has spent thousands of years protecting the world from his own angry mistake. That being said, we’re another episode closer to the end and I’ve never had less faith in the show.

Chris

Clearly, just looking at my Twitter and Facebook feeds, many people loved this episode. So I’m gonna go against the popular tide. I didn’t love it—not for where this ended up in the run of the series. Placed where it was in the run of Season 6 I thought it unnecessarily diverted attention from where I wanted it to be—in the ‘present,’ on-island. This would’ve been a nice side-story to run between Seasons 5 and 6 but since we have just 3.5 hours of show left, I felt it was just a distraction. While I like the mythology side of LOST and have been interested in the Jacob/Flocke story, that’s not where I wanted to be right now. And that’s kind of how I feel about “Ab Aeterno” as well on second thought. Just as I think they spent a little too much time futzing around with The Temple, I feel like we’re taking detours here in Season 6 that just aren’t all that interesting to me.

Now, that said…it sure solidified the direction of this season (also something I wish had come earlier) and the end-game. A lot of ground was covered here that frankly had to be before the final-final chapter, like the origins of Smokey, the bodies in the caves, the back-story of Jacob and (did they mention what his name was?) Smokey, the building of the donkey wheel. And in true LOST fashion this episode opened up plenty more question threads I’m sure will never see solved. But hey, that’s LOST huh?

Where the story’s kind of losing me this season is in how many things we just have to “believe” about this show. Like the mystical light that emanates out of some hole you could search for for years and never find. Where did Allison Janney’s character come from? Why’d she kill Claudia? Obviously she’s in tune with the island but what’s all that about? How much did she know about other people being on the island? Why didn’t she kill them before they corrupted ‘her’ son?

I guess where I’m coming from with this episode is that I’m much more interested in the mythology when it is more closely intertwined with the personality conflicts of the characters we’ve been following for 6 years rather than people we’ve barely met and completely new characters. Not saying that this episode doesn’t have its place, but with 3.5 hours left to go…come on!

Tensions are high, but maybe that’s the mindset that’s required going into the final leg of the LOST saga. Which side of the coin are you on?

Chris Johnston talks about video games old and new at Player One Podcast.

After a week away, LOST returns anew and drives us straight into the deep end—literally. We hope you’re caught up because, ahoy, sailor, there be major spoilers ahead.

Robert

I have to admit that I initially had a hard time sticking with this episode, and I couldn’t help but think that not having a new episode last week broke some of the momentum that had been building. From the first scene with alt-Jack and alt-Locke in the hospital to the action on the island, it all seemed to fly by in rapid bursts and none of it seemed to matter. Jack wakes up and Sayid tells him something, Sawyer gets feisty and Widmore tells him something, Locke needs Jack’s help and tells him something. Blah, blah, blah.

Even the developments in the flash-sideways, while filling in some blanks about alt-Locke and his alt-Dad, felt less compelling than if they would’ve been revealed earlier in “The Substitute.” Although, having alt-Locke mutter “Push the button…I wish you had believed me.” in his sleep—a nod to Locke’s pleas from Season 2 and suicide note from Season 5—was a nice reminder of the  character we’ve come to know for the last five years.

And then, in an inspired move, all hell seemed to break loose back on the island. Smokey storms Widmore’s camp and frees the Losties, then rolls up to the the Ajira plane, kills Widmore’s guards and tells the Losties that they’ll have to make for the sub to leave the island. It all happened so fast that I thought—for a moment, at least—when there was no resistance at the sub that they would all actually board it and Smokey would find his way off the island, but no dice. Bullets start flying, Kate takes one to the shoulder and everybody dips into the sub leaving Claire and Smokey behind. And after that, it only got worse.

It wasn’t the way I’d imagined the episode going at all, but I thought it was a bold move, and judging by the shocked reactions from viewers, I think it was a strong finish on our way towards the finale. While it’s sad that we won’t get to see a more-rounded Sayid, who apparently found his moment of redemption in the clutch, it’s a lot more sad that we won’t see a better end for Sun and Jin. I think back to my theory that maybe they got their happy ending in the flash-sideways after all.

Scott

So Jack is the new Jacob, huh? I never coulda guessed, given that Matthew Fox is the top-billed star of the show and the name “Jack” is basically the 21st century version of “Jacob”. I think everyone is probably pretty impressed with “The Candidate”, an episode that unfurled at a breakneck pace, delivered lots of forward movement, and killed about a half-dozen characters. I wasn’t all that impressed though. Even with that body count, I wanted a tad more blood. I would’ve loved to see Kate die, though I now think she’s in Jack Bauer ridiculous immortal territory: this character who’s made absolutely no development since episode 2 of season 1 took a bullet to the chest and somehow made her way out of a sinking submarine several hundred feet underwater by being dragged to the surface by a 400 pound man. I also really wanted Smokey to completely decimate Widmore’s camp and kill that mean ol’ coot once and for all.

It’s all part of my slow LOST comedown, an experience that’s a bit like watching The Matrix Revolutions. The endless possibilities that the first installments offered are now narrowing down to a smaller and smaller cone, and when that final moment comes I have less and less confidence that it’ll be the whammy that washes all my doubts away. Now that we’re at the end, it’s hard to look back on the early parts of this season without thinking about just how much time has been wasted. How many new characters and set pieces were introduced when we could’ve been bringing closure to the old ones? Why introduce another entire group of Others when almost nothing is explained about who they are or why they’re there? The list of explanations that are due in the remaining 4 1/2 hours of this series grows longer and longer and the show seems less and less interested in answering them.

All that aside, I absolutely loved Terry O’Quinn in full blown villain mode. He has clearly relished playing the bad guy this whole season, but seeing him walk into a hail of gunfire to snap a henchman’s neck and sporting an evil grin while telling Claire that she doesn’t want to be on the sub was truly fantastic. The show has lacked a strong antagonist since Ben was Henry Gale, and seeing Smokey’s true colors gives the show a strong baddie to root against. Jin and Sun’s sad farewell felt a tad rushed to me, but it definitely tugged at the heartstrings. Imagine how we would’ve felt if we’d had a whole episode devoted to them leading up to it.

Dennis

I kind of feel like Sodapop Journal’s resident cranky old man when it comes to this show. Another of LOST’s final episodes, another episode I didn’t necessarily love. RIP Jin and Sun? That was a touching moment, watching Jin refuse to leave her side (or her blockaded front, as the case may be) in the sub. But I have a hard time mourning anyone on this show at this juncture, after they’ve spent all season trotting out dead characters in the Sideways World.

It’s like on 24 or Heroes when someone “dies.” We all know they’ll be back, so it’s just “ta-ta for now.” (Ironic, then that Walt is like the one character that didn’t get fatally written off and we won’t necessarily see him again). And being that a “Kwon” is a candidate, we still can’t cross that name off DarkLocke’s wall since as everyone’s pointed out since we saw the last name (instead of say, a first) on the wall, there’s still their kid.

But, in other LOST reactions: What’s this, Jack actually has some brains and some balls all of a sudden? And super grifter man Sawyer managed to get conned by a Smoke Monster, and boarded a sub full of explosives? If I wanted characters to start acting abnormally, I would’ve watched LOST’s timeslot competitor Glee instead. Still the episode wasn’t all bad. We saw Katey Sagal again! And Kate got shot! Yaaay! …But she didn’t die. Booo. Meh, it’s OK, nobody dies for long anymore anyway. Next week: Jacob flashbacks? I hope we find out that the only thing he and The MIB can agree on is their love of black and white cookies.

Armando

Danger Island. There was a show I watched growing up called “The Banana Splits” (greatest kids show ever—YouTube is your friend) and they showed a live action, short cliffhanger serial called Danger Island. It was action packed and it would jump right in to where it left off every week, and if you didn’t know where it started or how they got there, you were pretty much out of luck. But yet, while incredibly cheesy, it would suck you right in and you wanted to watch the snapshot of these characters stories. I don’t think I ever really watched or know how that story ended, and it didn’t really matter. It was fun to watch. No matter what happens in the last LOST episode, there is no way all of us are going to be totally satisfied with the way the story ends—or doesn’t end—or whatever will happen right before that last frame goes dark. And honestly, it won’t change the way I feel about the show.

Now, I am not saying that LOST and that incredibly cheesy and fabulously lame (in a good way) cliffhanger serial are one in the same but this week’s LOST episode gave me that same feeling and vibe I had watching Danger Island. If I had never watched one single episode of LOST and “The Candidate” was my first experience with it, it would make me want to go and find and watch the rest of the series to how we got to this point.

Did we just see Locke be defined as the “Bad” finally? I was leaning that way myself. He was just helping a bit too much with everything; trying too hard to convince everyone that he was on their side. Although, the scene with the smoke monster being shot at/taking out Widmore’s troops and Jack saying “I’m with him” almost had me thinking he might be the “Good”. I was actually kind of cheering for Superman Locke when the bullets did nothing to him and he walked towards the airplane, but the second he handed Jack the backpacks, my first thought was he gave him the explosives and he wanted them dead.

In the alt-timeline, everything is still coming to a head. Jack finding out everyone was on this Oceanic 815 flight along with the characters all almost being drawn together by fate to be connected and in the same place at the same time. It’s looking like there will be a flashpoint where something clicks and maybe happens that ignites how the story ends.

Regarding the little mirrored music box, I wonder if the mirrors in it are somehow a connection to the mirrors in The Lighthouse? When Locke was sleeping and talking about things which seemed to be connected to the Island timeline, I couldn’t help but think, are dreams going to be somehow connected to the back and forth of the timelines? Or how one can see the other?

I think it’s also becoming quite clear that Jack seems to be The One. The catalyst to whatever happens in the end. How awesome was Sayid when he took the bomb and ran? Go find Desmond and you are the one Jack and then BOOM! And poor Jin and Sun—at least they were together. But as I sat there watching their demises, I couldn’t help but think we haven’t seen the last of them. Or is that the end for those characters?

All in all this was an action-packed, thrilling episode that was far from some of the bridge episodes we have had of late. I enjoyed it quite a bit. Even shed a tear or two when I saw the tear roll down Hugo’s cheek.

How will it end? Can’t wait to find out. Still the best show ever.

Quite the difference in opinions over “The Candidate.” Some positive, some not-so-positive. As always, we’re interested to know what you thought!

Things are starting to come together and move forward for our Losties—both on the island and in the flash-sideways. This week, Jack is at the center of most of the action, but there’s a bigger picture starting to form.

Chris

Wow last night’s episode went by fast. Maybe too fast. Tons of little things happened. To me, the most interesting detail of this episode was one of the smallest. When Sun was being wheeled into the hospital alongside Locke, she looks over and starts freaking out. I don’t know if that moment means that’s when she got her Island memories back, but it definitely stood out to me as a significant moment. Timelines merging and whatnot! Have we decided that Desmond knows everything and is just helping things along by getting people where they “need” to be?

Now I’m going to jump around as wildly as last night’s episode and bring up a few further moments that were awesome/unexpected. When Claire found everyone leaving on Sawyer’s boat I thought for sure she was going to go postal on Kate. I was worried it’d be the end for her. But surprisingly, she didn’t (maybe as referenced by Hurley’s “you can always be brought back from the dark side dude” comment?). Or when you see her watch everyone leaving including her brother, I thought ‘hey, maybe she’s gonna shoot Jack too—after all he did help raise Aaron with Kate.’

And it looks like the con man got conned by Widmore, huh? “Deal’s off!” Oops. I did love the reunion of Jin and Sun though, with the exception of Frank’s painfully obvious “now she’s talking” line. Did we really need that? Even more than before I’m wondering why we needed the Temple episodes at all since Widmore just exploded the lot of Others that remained. And I’m left wondering who the hell that mysterious kid in the forest that we saw last episode is. When will we know? Great episode, went by too quickly. I’ll have to watch the last three over again in the near future just to let everything soak in.

Scott

Ah, the “chess pieces moving into place” LOST episode, how I will sorta miss thee. Set-up episodes like “The Last Recruit” have a hilarious amount of transportation: hiking, sailing, ambulances, elevators. And while we all love narrative pay-off, you’ve got to have slower episodes like these to ratchet up the tension so the stakes feel that much higher.

Set-up episodes don’t always do that tension-ratcheting part so effectively; just look at last month’s fairly yawn-worthy “Recon”. “The Last Recruit”, though, felt like it was in hyper-drive, crashing characters into each other left and right. There were a lot of potentially fascinating allusions to past seasons last night—Jack jumping off the boat echoing Sawyer’s jump off the helicopter in season 3, “We’re done going back”—but the ones that impressed me most involved the episode’s A-story relationship between Jack and Locke. The series as a whole, especially in the first three seasons, has played up the “Man of Science, Man of Faith” angle with these two so much that it was overtly laid out as a title in Season 2. But as both have slowly switched sides in that fight, with Jack now the weary soul who reason failed and Locke (though we’re not sure who’s pulling his strings) preaching atheist nihilism despite being an immortal who can turn into a murderous cloud, it seems possible that Locke will be cured by science in the flash-sideways while Jack is paralyzed on the island. Yes, that last part is a bit of a leap on my part, but I think his perspective switched to Locke’s from season 1 in that final scene for a reason, and he was being dragged around very conspicuously. Guess we’ll get an answer in two weeks (WHAT WILL I DO NEXT TUESDAY NIGHT?!).

One last note, it looks like the rest of what was left of the Others probably got blown to bits tonight, which will conveniently release the show’s writers from explaining one of the strangest and most haunting mysteries of season 2: how and why did the Others bring Cindy and other Flight 815ers into their ranks? Great dodge, guys.

Armando

I love LOST—real hard. Its pacing and episode “types” remind me of another favorite of mine, The Wire. There were times when I was watching The Wire (like the first two or three episodes of season 2 after an awesome season 1) that I wondered why they would have these set-up episodes.

I always compare it to reading a book. In books, every detail and every character can be fleshed out as much as the writer wants them to be. You know, like the shenanigans Stephen King likes to pull (which I enjoy), but his last two books were over 700 and 1000 pages respectively. That kind of fleshing out is pretty hard to do in a TV series.

But both The Wire and LOST are two of the best TV shows at doing the best they can without losing the “common man” fan and the hardcore geeks like us. “The Last Recruit” was just that. A bridge. Quite a few of the episodes this season are going to make watching the series on DVD quite enjoyable.

I was glad to see Sun and Jin reunited and then kind of punched in the stomach by the subsequent, Widmore-commanded prisoner taking. It reminded me they first found the Others and I was half expecting a “white flash” and a time jump to seal the deal. Jack has come full circle. He is now a Man of Faith. His character has been to fun to watch progress. And I am also intrigued with what happened to Desmond at the hands of Sayid.

Two weeks until the ride continues? This may be a good time to go back and watch some of the earlier episodes.

Robert

With each passing episode, my early theories about the flash-sideways and their meaning seem to fade further and further away. I’m not fully convinced yet—and I don’t think I will be until the finale—but watching both of the timelines bring characters together in new and strange ways is pretty fun to watch. There wasn’t much to say about the characters that we don’t already know, but everyone’s on the move and the endgame is near.

Still, seeing Kate and Sawyer banter back and forth again whether in the police station or on the island hatching their plan, or seeing Locke and Jack break away for a little confab over who “believes” and who doesn’t, or even just seeing Sayid driven by his heart again (despite all outward appearances)—it all made me think of episodes past when things were much different and the stakes weren’t so high. You know, back when LOST was just a show about survivors of a plane crash, i.e the good times.

There are only a handful of episodes left and I still can’t imagine how it’s all going to end, but these last few episodes have really driven it home that we’re coming to a conclusion. Last week I went off on a Willy Wonka tangent about how the show’s going to be getting faster and crazier (and how less-invested viewers might be wise to tune out), and that appears to be the case after watching “The Last Recruit.” If this episode was any indication by how fast as it flew by, I’m only a little worried that we won’t have time to really soak it all in as the series comes to an end. But I’ll still watch and love it.

Our reactions were fairly positive, but ratings put this episode at one of the least-watched episodes in the series. Was it a big strive forward or just “ho-hum” for you?

Chris Johnston talks about video games old and new at Player One Podcast. Armando Reyes talks comics, music and life on the road on Twitter.

One of the show’s most beloved characters finds out he has the power (he has he touch!) to control his own future and be an important part of what happens on the island. Plus, a certain love interest returns.

Scott

As perhaps the only person in the world who wasn’t bonkers about “Happily Ever After”, I am thrilled that this week’s “Everybody Loves Hugo” renewed my faith in the final stretch of a show that I’ve devoted entirely too much time and mental energy to. If “Happily” provided a (labored, hokey, frankly lazy) bridge between season 6′s two worlds, “Hugo” went hog wild with it, finding our titular hero getting in tune with his other side by kissing the girl of his dreams as Desmond plays omniscient Jiminy Cricket watching the star-cross’d lovers with a smirk and expensive shades. Then Des gets all gangsta on alt-Locke, running homeboy down in a high school parking lot! DAYUM!

On that note, while the A-story focused on the beloved Hugo, I couldn’t stop thinking about Locke tonight, and I DO mean Locke. We’ve grown used to seeing Terry O’Quinn as Smokey purposefully moving forward with a sinister glint in his eye. But when we first see him this week, he’s calmly whittling, “waiting”, and generally acting a whole lot like… John Locke. Then he comes across Desmond and asks if he knows who he is. “John Locke,” he replies, seemingly knowing the full weight of such a pronouncement. Smokey is not amused.

So why does Des pull a hit on a poor dude in a wheelchair who’s finally found the woman of his dreams and a nice job as a substitute gym teacher? My guess is he’s trying to force Locke’s consciousness back into his body, either exorcising Smokey or maybe obliterating him altogether. He’s acting very Dr. Manhattan since the closing moments of last week’s episode, unafraid of Widmore and Smokey’s threats because he knows how this song ends; he’s just got to hit the right notes.

Three final thoughts. While it was nice to see Hurley and Libby get the date they never had, this episode seems like a strange waste of Cynthia Watros’ time. I think I speak for all of human civilization when I say that I’d rather have seen how a woman goes from being in a mental hospital to being an eccentric billionaire who funds Desmond’s sailing expedition around the world. And is anybody happy with this explanation of what the whispers are? I once theorized that Smokey was a whirling vortex of all the lost souls on the island, and while I was wrong about the specifics, I was on the right track. But why can everyone hear them but not see them? And why were they used to announce the presence of the Others? It’s a bit of a half-assed explanation. Finally, Ilana’s death (can’t believe I’m discussing the season’s first big death as an afterthought) was unworthy of a great and still-mysterious character who gave this season its best scene so far: Ben’s redemption through a simple act of faith and forgiveness.

Chris

Episodes like this seriously make me wonder why the hell we were spending so much time futzing around at The Temple earlier in the season. THIS is the good stuff. THIS is what I was waiting for. All that temple stuff feels like deleted scenes – a worthless distraction. Kinda like Richard’s crusade to get rid of the plane. I don’t see the point of that story thread except as momentary distraction. But I’m really happy that they’re finally kicking the alt-timeline-merging into high gear and that’s more like the LOST I loved in Seasons 3 and 4.

Last week’s and this week’s episode feel like we’re getting to the final curtain call with all these cameos and alt-timeline hijinks. You’ve got Charlie’s bit from the previous (awesome) episode and then Michael and Libby in this one. Great to see them back, especially Libby. It’s fluffy fan service where the only real point is to move the on-island characters where they need to be but I’m loving it. Not to mention that they’re starting to pseudo-explain that Hurley’s seeing dead people that are “trapped” on the island – an interesting revelation that in my mind seems to clash with him seeing Charlie or playing chess with Mr. Eko in Season 5. Though maybe there’s a theory to that since he hasn’t seen dead-Charlie or dead-Eko on the island. Hm.

Back to Hurley/Libby. I thought their interactions in this episode were great. It was fun seeing Alt-Timeline Lucky Hugo still have the character traits that makes him such a likable character. His sheepishness around women (both his mother and in general), his giving nature, his insecurity. Their beach date (aww, just like they were supposed to have in Season 2! Fan service!) was a touching moment and a nice little wrap-up to the Libby/Hugo story. Maybe it’s not completely over for them but I feel like we’ve got a little closure with their beach-date and ghost-Michael’s apology.

Yet through all this lovey-dovey touchy-feely fun stuff there was Locke and Desmond. Was Desmond running over Locke in the Alt-World payback for pushing him down the well on the island? How cold were both of those things? Pretty amazing. I gotta say I was not expecting Alt-Des to hit and run like that. Completely awesome ending to the episode. How much does Alt-Des know about what’s happening on-island? I guess he knows that he gets pushed down a well but he only vaguely knew Hurley “from somewhere.”

One last thing. The way they got rid of Ilana felt cheap. Rushed. And like The Temple stuff suddenly I’m wondering why they had to have that story branch with her at all. I still don’t know how they’re going to wrap this whole thing up with just a few scant episodes left. It seems like there are a lot of chess pieces to get moving before things can end. But – finally, LOST is getting super-awesome again.

Armando

For me, this episode was pretty much an extension of last week’s Desmond-centric (and in my opinion, great) episode. While I am not as crazy about it as last week’s, I still thought it was very good. The two timelines are inching ever closer together and I am no longer thinking the alt-time line is the new “true” time line. (Whatever that means) Slowly all the Losties paths are crossing in the alt-verse and it looks like them coming together well may be the clashing of the time lines and what ingnites the climax of the series.

One of the saddest moments of the series for me was Libby’s death, and it was good to see Hurley and Libby together again. And speaking of death, I’m starting to wonder if dying on the island is really dying. I’m sensing a Buddhist type undertone (along with quite a few Buddhist symbols, i.e. the  frozen wheel that was used to “move” the island looking like a Dharmacakra) in regards to the making of right choices and the subsequent results of Karma. I’m not sure how, but maybe dying on the island is somehow connected to reincarnation?

The whispers explanation? Meh. I guess. Hopefully this is fleshed out a bit more in the SIX HOURS OF LOST THAT ARE LEFT!!!  *tear*

It was interesting to see Smocke drop Desmond and then see Desmond drop—OK, run the hell over—Locke. A little bit of the timelines connecting? Will it “knock” Locke (see what I did there?) back into his island body? Did Desmond hit Locke to get him to Jack to further along the beginning of the end of the alt-verse and LOST as we know it? Can this story be wrapped up (as much as it can at this point) in just six more hours? Hmmmm.

Dennis

Hey look, someone found a copy of Alice in Wonderland. And then Desmond fell down a well. Oh, LOST. Sometimes you have the subtlety of a Twilight movie. After wanting to marry last week’s episode (though I’m not sure if Human/TV episode has been legalized yet anywhere), I was bound to not love this episode as much.

Still, Hurley is really one of those characters I’ve grown to love over the course of the seasons, so it was nice to see another, and presumably the last Hugo showcase here. I’ve always enjoyed Cynthia Watros (from her days on the Fox sitcom Titus) and was bummed when LOST went and killed her off (and at the same time as the dreaded Ana Lucia?! Not cool!).

I was happy Sideways Libby and Sideways Hurley could come together and that their magical kiss could awaken Island Hurley memories in Sideways Hurley! Wow, this soulmate crap is starting to sound more and more like a Disney movie on crack. Well, I guess ABC is owned by the Mouse House, and if the glass slipper fits…

Robert

Of all the double-take moments I had watching “Everybody Loves Hugo” maybe the biggest and most inspired wasn’t even in the episode itself. I’m talking about the disturbing and yet so fitting promo for next week’s episode “The Last Recruit” which included voiceover taken from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. I’m sure the others here will recap many of the same points of the episode just fine (although I bet nobody mentioned how boring Sayid is now), so indulge me for a few minutes while I digress.

In that film, Gene Wilder’s charming-but-devilish Willy Wonka invites his guests for a ride in his boat (check out a video clip). “‘Round the world and home again! That’s the sailor’s way!” Wonka says as they enter a mysterious tunnel. As the boat picks up speed and trippy images flash on the walls of the tunnel, the passengers—Charlie, Grandpa Joe, Veruca Salt, Violet Beauregard, et al.—become alarmed. Some want to turn around; some get sick and want to get off. Mr. Salt claims that Wonka can’t possibly see where he’s going while Charlie and Grandpa Joe remark on how strange but fun the ride is. And amidst it all, Wonka breaks into a most telling song/tirade:

There’s no earthly way of knowing
Which direction we are going.
There’s no knowing where we’re rowing
Or which way the river’s flowing.

Is it raining?
Is it snowing?
Is a hurricane a-blowing?

Not a speck of light is showing
So the danger must be growing.
Are the fires of hell a-glowing?
Is the grisly reaper mowing?

Yes, the danger must be growing
For the rowers keep on rowing
And they’re certainly not showing
Any signs that they are slowing!

Someone at ABC understands how much fans are willing to go on the ride but are becoming increasingly frustrated and anxious about where things are going. I’m noticing some fellow LOST fans are either confused, annoyed and/or somehow bored with the way this final season has been going. This promo tells us not-so-subtly that we are now in the final stretch where it’s going to pick up speed and get even more hectic—and it’s going to test our resolve as fans to hang on until the very end. And if you’re already having hard time, it might be best to get off the ride now.

But this is LOST, and there’s bound to be more to it than that. During that psychedelic ride in Wonka’s boat, Charlie and Grandpa Joe also see an image of Wonka’s fierce rival, Arthur Slugworth, who offers Charlie (and other golden ticket winners) a reward if he can help steal the secret formula to the Everlasting Gobstopper (cork, anyone?) during his visit to Wonka’s factory—and in effect, put an end to Wonka’s reign as candy king. In the end, it’s revealed that Slugworth actually worked for Wonka and was sent to test Charlie and the other guests’ virtues. As a reward, Wonka gives the factory to Charlie to live happily ever after in. Could Smokey be Slugworth to Jacob’s Wonka? Or is it the other way around? Who’s Charlie in this equation? Mind blown yet?

After that boat ride, maybe avid couch potato and fellow golden ticket winner Mike Teevee summed it up best when he said “Now why don’t they show stuff like that on TV?” Looks like he got his wish.

That was a pretty satisfying episode by all accounts, and with the final season of LOST now down to half a dozen episodes, how are you liking it so far?

Chris Johnston talks about video games old and new at Player One Podcast. Armando Reyes talks comics, music and life on the road on Twitter.

This week we find out how the long-suffering Desmond Hume may be the key to the rest of LOST’s final season.

Robert

As much as I like Desmond and wish everybody could just leave him and Penny to their life of happiness together, I’m glad he’s back for another stint. And so far this season, I’ve invested in the theory that the flash-sideways are the true destinies that await all of our characters, and even if some of them weren’t so uplifting, I’ve been comfortable with how they’ve all turned out because on one level or another they’ve stayed true to the characters. Not so in the case of Desmond.

I didn’t like alt-Desmond (hell, I didn’t even like alt-Charlie) because at this point in the series, I’ve counted on Desmond to be the stand-up guy who struggles through every adversity to be with the woman he loves; the man who knows where his heart belongs and fights every step of the way to get there. To suddenly see him as a Ryan Bingham-type clean-up man who has no need for attachments just felt false, nay, if felt wrong, and while I suppose it was necessary, bringing him back to the Desmond we know by the end of the episode in turn felt a little cheap. Still, by the end, I was steeped in the touching moments of past Des-centric episodes and caught up as he caught flashes of his previous/original life with Penny and Baby Charlie.

There were also two pretty big scenes in this episode that shaped what we should expect for the rest of the season. Charlie’s discussion with Desmond about “spectacular, consciousness altering love” and what he felt after seeing the blonde woman on Oceanic 815, and Daniel’s love at first sight of Charlotte and talk of familiarity and “another life”; they both mirrored each other and set up the idea that Desmond has the ability to change things if he chooses to. In those scenes, they’re referring to love and finding Penny, but as is the LOST modus operandi, it also applies to the rest of the show as a whole.

In fact, thinking back, talk of “choice” has been pretty rampant throughout all of the episodes lately, and it wouldn’t surprise me if that’s what the finale came down to—who chooses to stay on course and who chooses to take their alternate life. Could that even be the deal that Jacob and Smokey put on the table? Did Locke make the deal with the Devil to have a better life with Helen? Maybe Ben’s choice to submit to retribution will be rewarded with a life where he can see Alex again? As Charlie put it, maybe the flash-sideways don’t matter, but only if you don’t want them to.

As far as the electromagnetic mumbo-jumbo, I can’t help but think that LOST is teetering between pulling off a truly ballsy move and falling flat on its face. Widmore’s electromagnetic experiment made me recall a conversation I had a couple of years ago with Scott about Watchmen and how Desmond might be a Dr. Manhattan-esque character that can transcend time and space as we know it. Having Desmond hopping between points in time (a la “The Constant”) is one thing, but having him transcend two entirely different timelines is almost too preposterous. And yet, if Desmond can change the fate of the island and all of our characters by choosing neither Jacob’s nor Smokey’s offer (because he can experience both lives anyway), that could be pretty spectacular, I think.

Scott

Hmm. Something’s not sitting right with me about last night’s rapturously-received “Happily Ever After”. Since I’ve loved every other episode this season besides the obligatory Kate borefest, I’m a little surprised I feel this way. I should warn you now that the rest of what you’re about to read will mostly be a rambling free association about the nature of mystery itself.

LOST is a show that means many things to many people. Most people watch only to have its weirdness unraveled, caring surprisingly little about characters they’ve spent six years with. Some watched (in the first season at least, I doubt they’re still around) for the adventure elements inherent with a desert island show. Some watched for the Kate/Jack/Sawyer love triangle, especially in the years it was paired up with Grey’s Anatomy. I’m most interested in A) the bizarre, far-reaching mythology that touches on strange experiments, hippie communes, slave traders, gun runners, fate vs. free will, and something about the eternal battle between God and Satan, and B) the handful of extremely original characters who I still love (Locke, Sawyer, Ben, Desmond, Richard, Hurley, Jin, Sun, Jacob, The Man In Black). These characters may take long leaps off the logical deep end in the finale, but I doubt it.

The mysteries being solved, though, that’s another story. I’ve long said that our hopes will be dashed by whatever happens in the final episode of LOST, because solving mysteries is inevitably disappointing. It’s a process in which an endless array of ideas and possibilities is slowly whittled down to a single idea that pleases few. Think The Matrix, or Battlestar Galactica, or Twin Peaks: all exciting, unique, enigmatic worlds that ended with a thud. David Lynch nailed this perfectly when discussing the end of Twin Peaks. He wanted Laura Palmer’s murder to go unsolved, a central mystery that a universe of interesting characters swirls around. The network intervened and forced the writers to solve the murder, killing a national phenomenon after just a season and a half. The idea of the unsolved mystery (a concept that LOST creator JJ Abrams has also discussed at length as “the mystery box“) continued to fascinate Lynch, inspiring the scattershot Twin Peaks postscript Fire Walk With Me and the more fleshed-out Lost Highway, a film that infuriates many but succeeds wildly at its ambition of exploring mysteries without ever fully solving them.

All my babbling leads me to this: “Happily Ever After” might be my first taste of disappointment with the finale of LOST. The typical reaction seems to be that this is an instant classic that unites what’s happening on the island with the flash sideways, merging the two timelines through Desmond’s demigod-like powers that he acquired by turning the key in the hatch. While this is blowing minds left and right, I’m just not that impressed. To me, it’s no different than the resolutions to any of the previous alternate timeline escapades like Season 4′s attempts to get back to the island or Season 5′s time-traveling Dharma stuff, except that this time, it’s THE END. It may be interesting to see Desmond informing each Oceanic 815 passenger that they have the free will to choose to live in one timeline or the other. But it also feels like a bit of a cheat since free will doesn’t come with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight. I think many of us would take different paths in our lives if we could look at things from a distance, but to me the power and poetry of free will is choosing one path over another without knowing what lies ahead.

And I feel like I’ve seen this before. Deja vu? A feeling that something’s amiss with the world? Alternate universes and realities? And what cuts through it all, like a sword of truth through a veil of lies? The power of love. This is pretty conventional sci-fi storytelling, and though LOST’s Jacob/MiB mythology deals with archetypal religious stories we’ve heard a million times, it still feels like the fate of the universe is at stake (at least in my Bible Belt-raised mind). “Happily Ever After” just feels like reheated Philip K. Dick with a heaping spoonful of Hollywood sentimentality.

Then again, I think there’s a big chance that my pissiness about this episode is 100% related to my complete and total aversion to anything having to do with Eloise and Chuck Widmore at this point. I am a very Zen LOST-watcher. I don’t get angry because it moves slowly. I digest the plot as Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse want me to because I believe in what they’re doing. But there’s something about these two that drives me completely up the wall. We’ve got six episodes left. Six. Out of 121. And these old folks are still spouting cryptic bullshit that would’ve angered me in season 2. Tell us what you know and die already.

But there’s a really good chance that I’m wrong about all of this.

Dennis

As “The Constant” and “Flashes Before Your Eyes” have taught us in the past, Desmond episodes are always a good time. I find Desmond and Penny’s relationship to be the most compelling of the show’s and it got some nice moments here. Not exactly surprising, but Widmore and the Tina Fey lookalike (Tina Faux?) Zoe sent “special” time (and universe) jumping Desmond to the alternate timeline, thus finally tying the two worlds together.

From the opening credits, seeing Dominic Monaghan/Sonya Walger/Finnolua Flanagan/Jeremy Davies/Fisher Stevens as guest stars, I knew this was going to be at least a decent episode. Is it me or did Dominic Monaghan get cooler since Island Charlie died? (See also: Ian Somerhalder as laid back Sideways Boone in the season premiere). Despite my recent LOST crankiness I really liked this episode! Good job, LOST.

One pet peeve though: Does everyone on this show have to have a soulmate? I mean Desmond and Penny are great, but Richard and his dead ladylove a few episodes back, Locke and Helen, Charlie and whoever he saw in his hallucination (Claire perhaps?), whoever Daniel saw that made him get all sciencey (Charlotte perhaps?). Can no one move forward in life or have a grand epiphany without help from their respective ladies? Maybe only Tom Friendly, and we’ve yet to see his Sideways Self…

Armando

What an absolute joy it was to watch this episode unfold. When the full magnetics hit Desmond and the screen went to the panning of the clouds, I knew right then that we were in for a ride. I thought back to how I felt when watching the live series premiere of LOST back on September 22, 2004. While I was fully invested in what was happening on the screen and thinking to myself what direction they were going to take this show about stranded plane crashes survivors in, I never for once thought that six years later we would be here.

What an incredible ride. Finally, I feel like we are in the home stretch of the story. This episode was like a reward for sticking with the show. There were moments in it that connected to various past points in the storyline that now made those moments even better than they were the first time. This series should be fun to watch again, knowing what we now and what we may (or may not) know when it is over.

We finally got to see that absolutely, something is “not right” in the alt time line and now, we are seeing characters who are feeling and reacting to this. We also see that the Widmore’s seem to know what exactly is true and isn’t true and also seem to be the ones who have determined and/or control what the alt time line versions of the characters have become. How great was Faraday with his formulas that he wrote when he woke up? This scene could be seen as a nod and a wink to my favorite movie of all time, Back To The Future. (Doc hits his head on the toilet and when he comes to, he has a vision of the flux capacitor!)

You can see the feeling and sense of disconnect from this alt “reality” that the characters are having. I loved the surrealistic undercurrent in the tone and rhythm of this episode. It was right on point and well played. It tugged just enough.

The scenes where Charlie was waxing poetic on seeing love at first sight were to me, the most surreal. It’s something we can all relate to. Even if you don’t fully understand how these instances of enlightenment are connected to their “true” lives, it was still something we can connect with as people when we have those moments. We’ve all had those feelings. Deja vu? Have I been here before? How come I feel so comfortable here? I feel like I already know you.

This connection between those true emotions and the underlying overall story of what is happening to these characters is brilliant. It’s what makes it so easy to invest in the show. At this point, I am so emotionally attached to these characters and their story that I am now sure I will absolutely be leaking at the eyes when the last episode ends and goes black. But alas, we still have five more episodes left and I will savor every minute of it.

Next week’s episode looks like it will be more of this same ride to the finish line. The way Sayid showed up all kick-ass at the end of the episode was a jolt to my system after the Zen-like state it put me in. Perfectly timed. Well done.

Well, look at that. Give us a Desmond episode and all kinds of reactions come about! What did you think, LOST fans?

Armando Reyes talks comics, music and life on the road on Twitter.

This week, we find out what happened to the Kwons after Oceanic 815 and discover the contents of “The Package.”

Robert

After last week’s mythology-laden “Ab Aeterno” I was almost convinced the show was about to shoot straight to the heart of the matter on the island, foregoing any more flash sideways and taking us straight in a prolonged endgame. Boy, was I wrong.

Whenever I talk to someone who doesn’t watch LOST, I tend to point out the Kwons’ story as a great example of how the show builds characters that are more than what they appear to be. And something about the fact that the Kwon-centric episodes being heavily subtitled—meaning no looking away lest you miss an important bit of dialogue—makes their episodes feel more intimate and personal to me. I thought it was unfortunate that it had been so long since we’d spent time with these characters (and last week’s break from the action altogether didn’t help) that for a moment, I was genuinely taken aback by the two of them not being married. Still, we’re treated to an alternate version of their lives where they’re still in love with each other against all odds, but with very different consequences descending upon them. It’s sweet and I love it, but I wish we would’ve seen it sooner rather than now.

Maybe more importantly, this was also the second time we’ve seen flash-sideways intersect and go unresolved; first Sawyer catching Kate in an alley, and now the Sayid/Keamy/Mikhail/Jin kitchen nightmare leaving Sun with a gunshot wound. I’m guessing that’ll be another thread that gets revisited in the finale, where we’ll find out either how everyone’s flash-sideways intersect with each other or, more fantastically, converge with the original timeline.

Meanwhile, the action on the island had my attention for the second week in a row now. Between Locke literally testing the fences with Widmore, Sawyer showing his cards ever-so-slightly to Kate and Sayid doing his best Capt. Willard impression just in time to see Desmond “The Package” Hume being pulled out of the sub, things on the island are moving faster than they were at the top of the season. That whole thing with the temple seems like such a long time ago now doesn’t it?

Armando

I hate to say it but last night’s LOST was my first “meh” episode of the season. Even more so than the Kate episode. Did I hate it? No. Did I feel like this whole hour of LOST could have fit into another episode in pieces? Yes.

At this point, I personally feel like the Sun and Jin separation has done to death. I’m over it. I felt like the flash sideways was just beating us over the head with the same type situations we’ve seen before in their “previous” time line. I was feeling like Sun last night. Who cares? Just get to the good stuff or leave me alone!

And Desmond? I mean, who DIDN’T see that coming?

In the end, I still enjoyed watching the characters interact but if I would have missed the episode, I could have gotten just as much impact from the recap in regards to story progression. Maybe I’m missing something. Maybe it was just me. I hope my fellow Getting Losties can me out………

Scott

“In one week, the conversation is going to change,” tweeted LOST mastermind Damon Lindelof yesterday, teasing next week’s supposedly Desmond-centric “Happily Ever After”. As a placeholder between last week’s almost universally-beloved “Ab Aeterno” and an always-reliable Desmond episode, “The Package” was sure to disappoint a lot of people. I am frankly shocked to learn that most LOST fans aren’t too fond of Jin/Sun episodes, as they’ve always been the heart of the show for me. Apart from making series regulars out of an Iraqi Republican Guard and a pair of sultry con murderers, the show’s most surprising and unexpected character reveals have been Jin’s shift from conservative, abusive and vaguely racist to loyal, lovelorn and impoverished and Sun’s shift from gentle, sad and mistreated to sophisticated, adulterous and sometimes manipulative. Season 4′s “Ji Yeon” — one of LOST’s only episodes that felt like a genuine cheat — aside, episodes revolving around Jin and Sun really get to me. Along with Claire, they’re the only original castaways who’ve really got something to lose.

So even though “The Package” wasn’t the clearing house of mythology that many want from a final season episode (is that really all you haters care about from this towering achievement of a show?), I thoroughly enjoyed it. Season 6 has done a great job winking at memorable scenes from past seasons and this contained two of the best: the very obvious eyeball killshot for the two-eyed Mikhail, and the more subtle (and genuinely seductive, coming from this usually chaste show) unbuttoning bedroom scene that slyly references the famous Season 1 moment when Jin yells at Sun to button her shirt to the top when Michael comes around. And for you answer-zombies, a very early scene answers which Kwon is a Candidate, in my mind at least, when the hotel clerk announces Sun as “Paik” and then points right at Jin and says “Kwon”.

In closing, consider this next week with Desmond’s episode. The show has essentially introduced two forms of time travel, Desmond’s “unstuck in time” shifts of consciousness between his body in several different eras, and the donkey-wheel controlled time travel that made the entire island and everyone on it to go elsewhere. In essence, the island became unstuck in time too, but that would require a rock in the ocean to have a consciousness of its own (and to somehow drag the consciousnesses of all those other people with it). Strange.

Dennis

When I was watching this episode with one of my friends, he remarked that he always hated Jin/Sun flashbacks in season 1. Well, the LOST writers must really be taking this full circle thing seriously because I couldn’t care less about Sideways Jin and Sun (admittedly two of my favorite characters on the Island). How long do we have to wait before we figure out what these Flash Sideways have to do with overall mythos of the show? I can’t help but wonder if Sideways Sun and a suddenly Korean-speaking Island Sun are merging into one person or something. Merge faster! In fact, LOST writers, can you do EVERYTHING faster? With six episodes left until the finale, the slow build thing is getting old. Hopefully next week’s episode is both Desmond-filled and answer-filled, brotha.

That was a doozy, huh? Did this episode work for you as we head for the final stretch?

Armando Reyes talks comics, music and life on the road on Twitter.

Richard. Ricardus. Ricardo. We’ve known him by several names and he’s clearly an important player in the LOST saga, but everything else about him has been a mystery. This week’s “Ab Aeterno” fills in all the blanks.

Robert

Ever since I heard about this episode, it was easily my most-anticipated of the entire series. An hour devoted to Richard Alpert that explained his role in everything—and presumably some history of the island itself—was an exciting proposition, and for a show that’s been steadily building towards a monumental finale, it turned out to be a striking contrast to the action we’ve been following thus far. And personally, it brought me back into the fold of what’s happening on the island. I’d been saying that the flash-sideways are the final resolutions for all of the main characters and what we should be focused on, but when this episode threatened to destroy that theory altogether by proclaiming that they were all dead and in Hell, I was forced to think again.

Two important ideas that permeate LOST are that 1) there are no absolutes and 2) there are forces larger than ourselves perpetually at work. This episode operated almost entirely on that level with the Man in Black (who’s inferred to be the Devil) simply looking to escape his prison, and Jacob (who might be seen as God) testing mankind’s ability to stay on the straight and narrow—and thus keep the Devil on ice—time and time again. The one thing that religion has taught us is that the Devil can never be trusted, but his subterfuge as Isabella is just clever enough to get a devastated Richard into action again. But when Richard confronts Jacob we’re finally told his reason for being on the island and that he must help Jacob keep the Man in Black in this prison for all of humanity’s sake.

On an even larger scale, it’s a whopper of a conceit (even for LOST) to play with the concept of moral dualism and intertwine it with common Judeo-Christian beliefs, resulting in a scenario where the Devil can actually kill God, but it reminds me once again that with this show there are no absolutes. The Devil found a loophole to kill God (Locke), but God employed murderers (Ben and the Others) in his fight to contain the Devil. Can even God and the Devil be morally interchangeable? Or is it more likely that these agents of good and evil are not who they say they are? Oh, my aching head…

Also, a couple of weeks ago, I commended Michael Emerson on his seemingly effortless work as the ever-shifting Ben Linus, but really, Nestor Carbonell brought a whole new level of humanity to a character I had previously considered almost entirely inhuman. For a character that began as a guest role, I’m kind of amazed that LOST has been able to turn him into such a crucial element in the lore of the series. The sorrow of his loss, the desolation of being the sole survivor of the Black Rock, even the painful desperation of trying to get out of those damn chains; it all made for a poignant, wonderfully told tale of one character’s story amidst all of other chaos that’s going on.

Armando

Wow. That was a pretty good episode of LOST. It was an episode where someone who hasn’t really been keeping up with LOST could have enjoyed.

I was totally captivated by the “out of the norm” backstory. Not only was it in Spanish but it was almost as dramatic as a Spanish soap opera. Almost. Not quite. And that’s a good thing. Now we pretty much know why the Losties are on the island and the reasons for them being there. Do we know all the intricate details of Jacob and MIB? No, but it isn’t bugging me in the least.

The dark, creepy factor was played up quite a bit as well. Some are complaining that the scenes with Alpert trapped on the ship were a bit long in the tooth. While I agree they were a bit long, I was totally invested in it. We see now how tortured a life Alpert has lived.

The one scene I did/didn’t enjoy was the ”ghost” scene with Hurley. I thought it was good but I just couldn’t stop thinking of Ghost while watching it.

Overall, I thought this was one of the best episodes that clearly answered the foundation of the series, and it finally seems like they are working towards a conclusion. If they can keep this momentum up, the series finale should be a smash.

Chris

I enjoy episodes like this one that break the formula that LOST is so known for. The extended flashback answered some questions and definitely expanded Richard’s character a whole lot. Before the episode aired I thought they might kill him off, that this might be Richard’s swan song. Kinda like how the promo for “Dr. Linus” implied that Ben was going to kick the bucket. But I’m glad that they didn’t do either of those things.

This is one of the very few LOST Season 6 episodes that I think new viewers could watch and maybe actually get some entertainment out of. Richard’s journey to the island and positioning him as a tragic figure made the hour fly by. Very surprised by Nestor Carbonell’s performance here as he’s been mostly subdued every other time Richard’s made an appearance.

So the whole devil/god good/evil thing. Will this ever actually be made clearer? Maybe in the runup to the finale but I feel like each side could potentially be making up their stories. MIB told Richard that they were in hell and that Jacob was the devil; Jacob told Richard that MIB was evil and there’s a cork and some junk. Meanwhile in the present-day island time MIB is telling all sorts of tales to the Losties that they’ll see their loved ones again and blah blah blah while also doing plenty of killing. Jacob’s whole thing is that he brings people to the island to prove that not everyone can be corrupted (but I guess since everyone dies has anything really been proven ever?). Hm. What to believe? I want to know the real backstory of Jacob/MIB and how they got to the island originally and all that. But at this point I’m not sure we’ll get that.

I’m still not clear on how the whole candidate/Ilana/Frank thing will work out. But hey, that’s why this is LOST. I’m always left wondering how they’re going to resolve big story points. And eventually they do. They don’t have much time to explain Ilana’s story but maybe we’ll get something. Good episode, though not my favorite ever. We’ve got seven more and I can’t wait!

Scott

I think we all had our own vague notions of what we’d get from last night’s long-awaited Richard-centric episode. I was expecting an entire hour of revisited scenes involving Richard from the past three seasons, with new material from a fresh POV. But that’s why I’m but a lowly peasant while the writers of LOST have turned the task of creating a weekly drama knockoff of Survivor into a billion dollar franchise that’s equal parts The Prisoner and the Torah.

“Ab Aeterno” was LOST’s most religious installment ever. While all its characters’ stories can be stretched into Abrahamic parables, Richard’s was straight out of the Old Testament (or the Twilight Zone): a poor man accidentally kills a rich man, is saved from hanging at the last minute only to live a life of servitude, is ushered into what amounts to the Garden of Eden by an act of God, is tempted by Satan, overcomes his own guilt and wrath, then accepts an eternal life of penance (and servitude) to atone for his sins. Richard (or Ricardo, or Ricardus) has been a humble servant of Jacob for 150 years, carrying out his will without asking many questions. His faith wavers in the wake of Jacob’s death, but just as he’s about to embrace the Man In Black, the forces of good step in.

I for one found the episode incredibly moving, a perfect marriage of LOST’s mythology and adventurousness. And boy, did it have guts; I don’t even think those artsy hippies at HBO would allow one of their signature shows to spend 55 minutes of an hour in the belly of a crashed ship in subtitled Spanish without a single series regular in sight. It’s a great self-contained story, but becomes more ambiguous when contextualized within the series as a whole. While Richard is on the side of white-shirted Jacob, this IS the guy who manipulated a sad kid with an abusive father to carry out genocide on the DHARMA Initiative in a gas attack. And I still wonder if Jacob is the good guy after all. It seems a little too easy for LOST’s six years of shifting allegiances and ambiguous character motives to come down to a guy in a white shirt who’s God and a guy in a black shirt who’s Satan. And why doesn’t he have a name? What if he has a pretty recognizable name, something like “God”? What if he’s grown tired of humanity’s wickedness and wants to wipe us all out? And what if right before he did, a fallen angel called Jacob was able to trap him in the Garden of Eden, and wants to convince him that humanity can be redeemed?

We had to dig deep to tackle all the metaphysical/spiritual/moral undertones working their way throughout this episode, but try we did. What say you, LOST fans?