Another perplexing episode filled with a few answers and yet more questions. This week’s Jack-centric “Lighthouse” shows us what’s different about Jack’s life after landing safely at LAX and also brings two other oft-neglected characters to the forefront for big developments on the island.
Scott
Another week, another fine final LOST episode. Like last week’s “The Substitute”, the flash sideways provided a happy but not idyllic alternate path for one of the show’s most tortured characters. Though Jack didn’t get the perfect career and family he yearned for, he had a good kid who loved him. In an early scene, we also got a bit of the two timelines beginning to merge with Jack unable to remember getting an appendectomy as a kid. I’d be surprised if we didn’t start seeing a lot more of this.
We also got a loud reminder of the petulance that makes Jack such a frustrating character when he encounters an ageless, mystical lighthouse that seems capable of incredible things and, within three minutes of the discovery, flies into a rage, physically threatens an especially charming Hurley, and smashes it all to hell. Though Jacob suggests Jack’s temper tantrum is no big deal, it’s yet another moment when it seems a firm, hard pimp slap would do Jack a world of good. There will be a lot of talk about the additional locales we glimpsed as Hurley adjusted the mirrors, but I really think it’s just Darlton showing us the massive global, time-bending reach of the lighthouse, which is now useless thanks to Manchild Shepherd.
The biggest development of this week, though, is the weirdness related to Clairesseau. Season 6 is serving as a mirror image to Season 1 in many ways, with biggies like Maggie Grace and not-so-biggies like Greg Grunberg being brought in to stage revisionist scenes from LOST’s extremely popular first season, so I’m currently re-watching it to get the full effect. I’d forgotten what a sweet, sunny presence Emilie de Ravin was early on, so it’s great to compare that to who she is now, a rugged survivalist who kills in cold blood and pals around with terrorists like Smokey. I’m hoping we get more clarification next week as to this season’s most confusing element to me, the difference between Smokey’s assuming the appearance of dead bodies and the “darkness” that literally reanimates dead bodies, like Sayid, Christian and I’m guessing Claire (I knew she didn’t make it out of that Season 4 house explosion unscathed!).
Chris
I’m just gonna say it — how great is Hurley this season? Providing awesome comic relief plus acting as the spokesman for the audience and asking some pertinent questions like the whole “You mean I did this and it didn’t work but it doesn’t matter?” exchange with Jacob at the end. I cannot wait until they get to a Hurley-centric episode because I know it’s going to be completely epic. Jorge Garcia is the man.
Overall, this episode felt like a bridge. Reintroducing Claire as a crazy person (shades of Stephen King’s Misery there, I think), Hurley and Jack leaving the temple…that was all that happened on-island right? Not a whole lot there. But what I think we did get in the flash-sideways is Jack’s realization/acceptance/healing of his “daddy issues” that the show’s been steeped in since Season 1. I wonder if that’s going to be a trend for these sideways flashes. Last week we had Locke’s acceptance of his situation instead of “don’t tell me what I can’t do” as well — very interesting stuff. The dominoes are being set up, but I wish it was clearer when things were going to start getting knocked down. I’m not really getting the point of the Temple stuff or Dogen’s usefulness other than to get Hiroyuki Sanada in the show.
Couple more random observations: I thought for sure when Jack was in his son’s room that he was gonna grab those photo booth pics and we’d have a Back to the Future style look at them later where the son was half-disappeared, but then it didn’t happen. Aw. Is Sarah David’s mom? One would assume so and I was hoping we’d get a better shot of those family photos while Jack went up the stairs but no-go. Would’ve been great to see Julie Bowen come back for a cameo. Oh and how about that appendix scar popping up, huh? That happened on-island—timelines merging?
Robert
For me, the biggest surprise (no pun) of this episode was just how instrumental Hurley was to driving the action on the island. I don’t think it’s ever been clear why only Hurley can communicate with the ghost of Jacob (or Dave or Charlie or Ana Lucia) but that’s not stopping the writers of LOST from running with the idea. I’m just glad that it actually served a purpose this time. My only problem with it came in the conversation near the end when Jacob tells him that he had to bring Jack to the lighthouse and couldn’t know why or else he wouldn’t do it in the first place and yadda-yadda-yadda. Moments like that are about as frustrating as this show has ever been.
On the other hand, getting Jack to the lighthouse is important because Jack needs to realize something about himself. What that something is exactly isn’t clear, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it could be a clue to how the show might end. Something tells me that ultimately Jack will have to sacrifice himself. Thinking back through all the seasons, Jack has always been the stubborn “fixer” that just can’t seem to actually fix anything. His determination to keep his fellow survivors safe and get them off the island drove much of Seasons 1 through 3, his regret and longing to go back drove much of Season 4 and his belief that he could “reset” everything drove us toward the climax of Season 5 to end up where we are now. For Jack, none of it has worked as he’d hoped. Most of the original survivors of Oceanic 815 are dead, only six were actually rescued with his help, he could only convince Kate to come back and nothing’s back to the way it should’ve been.
Just like the last two episodes, the flash-sideways are proving to be important to how the characters are evolving. We find out that alt-Jack’s life is almost completely different than the one we knew. He had his appendix removed when he was age 7 and has a teenage son named David who he’s having as hard a time as ever trying to figure out. And when it seems like Jack might have pushed it too far causing him to disappear, he finds out that David is only trying to live up to his father’s expectations—just like Jack did with his own father. For alt-Jack, it’s only through understanding and acceptance that he’s able to truly set things right and find a bond with his son, and since LOST famously deals in parallels and metaphors, I think it stands to reason that this is where on-island Jack might end up as well. The quest to the lighthouse to find/confront/slap Jacob turned up fruitless and ended in a fit of rage and frustration, only to cause Jack to finally stop and reflect. Wouldn’t it be something if all Jack was ever supposed to do was die (die-hard fans know that Jack was supposed to die at the end of the very first episode) rather than try to steer everything that’s happened since Oceanic 815 crashed?
So what’d you think? Not clear on what this is all leading up to, or do you have it figured out already? Discuss!