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?