Jack: “This is what he wanted. This is what he’s been waiting for. Everything that he has done has been to get us here. He wanted to get us all in the same place, at the same time–a nice, enclosed space where we had no hopes of getting out of.”

• Notice that Jack’s words here directly mirror Anti-Locke’s words to Hugo from earlier in the episode. When Anti-Locke was describing “Widmore’s” plan, he was actually describing his own plan. Devious.

• Jack and Sawyer’s confrontation over the C4 is explosive stuff (see what I just did there?!). I’d argue that it’s the heart of the episode in terms of some of Lost’s larger themes. Jack wants Sawyer to believe in him. Sawyer’s done believing. Their confrontation arguably mirrors the argument between Eko and Locke over the pushing of The Button in Season 2. Interestingly, it also reinforces Jack’s overall position on The Button from that season – if they don’t touch it, nothing’s going to happen.

Jack’s faith in the un-exploding explosives is due to his experience with Richard in the Black Rock, where the dynamite he’d lit failed to kill them. This scene is, essentially, the Richard-and-Jack-in-the-Black-Rock scene all over again. Jack, filled with a strange new confidence, is utterly convinced that he’s right about what will and won’t happen, and thanks to our ringside seat during the Black Rock dynamite scene, we know that he’s probably right. The bomb can’t go off unless they do something to meddle with it. What I love about this moment is that, despite our relative-certainty that Jack’s got the right idea here, it makes perfect, crystal-clear sense for Sawyer to do what he does – because he doesn’t trust Jack, thanks to Juliet’s Jughead demise. The fact that Juliet chose her own fate doesn’t matter to Sawyer, as it probably wouldn’t matter to me in his place. But what pushes all of this into a kind of “moral tragedy” for Sawyer is the fact that Jack has gone a long way toward restoring Sawyer’s trust with his actions this season.

• So….how do these Rules work, exactly? We’ve seen that the Candidates impliedly cannot kill themselves, and we’ve heard that the Man in Black can’t harm them directly. How does planting a bomb on Jack fit with those vaguely-explicated ideas? Some folks voiced some confusion over how all of this fits together, so here’s my take: The Candidates cannot choose to kill themselves proactively (that’s why Jack’s jump attempt in Season 3 is interrupted, and why the dynamite fuse burns out). The Candidates cannot be directly harmed by the Man in Black. That’s it. Why is it then, if the Candidates can’t kill themselves, that the timer speeds up and the bomb explodes once the wires are removed? Because that action wasn’t predicated on a choice to kill themselves – it was a choice to try and save themselves.

The Rules, at least in part, keep the Candidates from leaving the board of life by themselves, and keep the MiB from making them leave it. But in between those parameters, the Castaways are free to hurt and murder each other all they want. That’s how I understand it. And Jack backs me up on this:

Jack: “What if he’s trying to get us to kill each other?”

That’s ultimately the crux of all of this, and its part of what makes this season, and the show in general, so interesting to me. Despite the presence of these pseudo-supernatural entities in the lives of the Castaways, the Castaways remain the architects of their own suffering. They are responsible for, and to, each other.

• Sawyer was damn ticked when Jack got Juliet killed. How’s he going to deal with feeling responsible for the deaths of at least three people?

Jack: “Why are you telling me this?”
Sayid: “Because it’s going to be you, Jack.”

• Just before Sayid makes the choice that defines and reconciles his entire story arc, he downloads a mouthful of important information straight into Jack’s ears. Desmond is still alive, he’s still trapped in the Well, Anti-Locke is going to want to kill him, and Jack must stop him. Why is Sayid telling him all of this? Because it’s going to be Jack. And what does that mean? Well, let’s revisit Ilana’s riddle: What lies in the shadow of the statue?

He who will save us all.

Does this mean that Jack is the true Candidate? Have Anti-Locke or Desmond shared that information with Sayid? It’s unclear, but strongly implied. For now, I’m content with Jack potentially being the “he” that Ilana’s riddle refers to.

• Sayid’s sacrifice directly mirrors Charlie’s sacrifice in The Looking Glass, and much of the Sub scene in general evokes Season 3’s heartwrenching finale. I find it all-too-believable that Sayid would choose to die in an act that might, in some way, redeem him in the eyes of Fate/God/his fellow Castaways. It’s a fitting end for a conflicted character, and I’d love to say that his ending brought me satisfaction as a viewer but I’m not going to sugarcoat things – Sayid’s ending lacked the impact it might have had, had I truly understood what the heck was going on with him all season. Carlton Cuse explained in the Jensen interview I linked to above that “Sayid’s entire season-long arc has basically been, if you tell him that he is evil, you can convince him he is evil. But if you tell him he is good, maybe you can convince him he is good.”

That strikes me as kind of…dumb, because that’s really NOT what Sayid’s season-long arc has been about, at least to my eyes. Arguably, that’s what his character’s series-long arc has been, and as such, Sayid’s decision here really is a moving ending for the character. Sayid’s series-arc has been a struggle to define himself to himself against overwhelming odds. He’s been told, over and over and over (and over) that he’s a killer, that he’s dangerous, and that he’s a torturer. He’s been placed in awful situations where any choice he might have isn’t much of a choice at all (nicely echoing the ways in which Jacob’s choices have been similarly difficult, and thematically playing up the idea that, in life, the really important choices are just as difficult).  He’s allowed those opinions to shape who he is. This kind of behavior is, in a very real and applicable sense, the opposite of the kind of “Good Being” that I’ve argued is so central to this show, and the opposite of the sort of self-definition that the show’s Existentialist heart keeps beating by. By allowing Others to define who he is, Sayid has given up control of his own life.

Desmond’s down-the-Well chat with Sayid appears to have awoken Sayid from his sleepwalking state, appears to have reached him in a very real way and for good reason. There’s a terrible, beautiful simplicity to what Desmond says to Sayid, and there’s a profundity to the moral and ethical situation that Sayid finds himself as a result of their conversation. As I’d written previously: How can Sayid be with the woman he loves if he isn’t honest with her about what he’s done to be with her? And if he’s honest about what he’s done, how can the woman he loves be with Sayid?

If that’s all there were to Sayid’s journey – a man realizing that he ISN’T willing to be what he’s expected to be in order to get what he wants – I’d call Sayid Jarrah’s storyline a stunning success.

But that’s not all there is to his story, and here’s where I get tripped up/genuinely irritated. The above refers to his series-arc. And that series arc is satisfying. But Sayid’s season-arc has not just “basically been, if you tell him that he is evil, you can convince him he is evil. But if you tell him he is good, maybe you can convince him he is good.” It’s been far more spooky, seemingly-supernatural, and obtuse. What of his inexplicable resurrection? What of the fact that he had “a darkness” growing inside him – one that began growing before the Man in Black ever spoke with him? What of his undeniably zombie-ish behavior over a good 8 or so episodes? What about the notion of “infection,” which was so blatantly, intriguingly brought up over and over and over again?

NONE of that is answered inside the show itself. Instead, what we seem to be getting is what I’ve been guessing at for a number of weeks now – Sayid was, in name if not in fact, a Philosophical Zombie. He was a man zombified by a philosophy that controlled him courtesy of a promise to return to him what he wanted most in the world. And while I can totally get behind that idea (and in fact, quite like the idea, since the notion of becoming “infected” by ideas and by philosophies is very much in keeping with Lost’s themes and interests), within the show itself we are never given a clear indication that this is the case. Instead, we’ve gotten what amounts to an enormous build-up over Sayid’s “dark side,” only to see him swiftly switch horses midstream and decide “Hey! I’ll be good again!”

More problematic still, at least for me, is the fact that I’d begun associating Sayid’s “infection” with the other “infections” and “sicknesses” that have popped up throughout the run of the show. Whether it’s right or wrong to do so, it certainly feels natural to conflate the two – especially when we’re in the final season, and are expecting some answers to the mysteries that have come before. Basically, I feel as though the superstitious/creepy aspect of infection was so played up throughout the show via Rousseau, the Swan mural, the hazmat suits, the inoculations, Sayid’s resurrection, testing and diagnosis, and Rousseau’s beachside stand off, that the idea of “thought infection” needs to be confirmed or denied or in some way addressed within the series itself in order to make sense of the past and to makesense of what we’ve learned. Otherwise, all of that wonderfully eerie window dressing essentially means nothing. Speaking for myself, I need a connection between Robert’s attempted matricide/infanticide and Sayid’s condition, or an explanation as to why or how they are different.

Put a different way: I see no reason at all for the writers to have “infected” Sayid in such a wildly-fantastic manner if the point of it all was to show him struggling between what he wants (Nadia) and what he’s willing to do to get it – unless it was also to try and answer the notion of “infection” generally. And so far, in my eyes, they haven’t done so

• Adios, Frank!….? What do you think? Did Lapidus die on the sub? On the one hand, getting beaned on the head by a steel door while you’re sinking in a submarine is not a recipe for continued health and well-being. On the other hand, we don’t see Frank’s body. I’m of the opinion that Frank stuck around this season to serve as a red herring – the pilot needed to fly the Ajira plane. Once that was revealed to be part of the MiB’s con, Frank’s usefulness disappears. Still, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Lapidus’ magnificent leonine mane break the water’s surface soon.

• It was just awful that Hurley couldn’t find the First Aid kit aboard the Sub, I mean…

Where could that First Aid kit possibly be???

Hurley: “I have to go after Sayid..”
Unintentionally Hilarious Jack Line: “There is no Sayid!!!!!!”

Jin (in Korean): “I won’t leave you. I will never leave you again.”

• Yes, I got misty.

What is there to say about Sun and Jin? Well, I’ll tell you what my wife said: “Yeah, that’s tragic, but they just left their kid to be an orphan.” My wife is smart. That’s pretty selfish. But I bought their decision, selfish or not, and the way that the whole sinking sub scene recalled the flooding of The Looking Glass, Sun and Jin’s drifting hands calling to mind Charlie’s drifting body, gave me chills.

Oh, and Lost? Showing us their hands slowly drifting apart in that final shot? Heartbreaking. Thanks, you miserable bastards.

• Jin reappears, moments after his demise, over in the off-Island universe. Does this make his death “less meaningful”/poignant? I say no. The off-Island Jin is not the Jin we’ve spent six seasons getting to know. If anything, to me, his existence in this Other reality reaffirms Lost’s interest in perpetuity – in cycles without beginnings or endings.

• I found Locke’s tearful confession of guilt to be very moving, and a powerfully-relatable motivator for the man to refuse Jack’s offer. Lost has been underlining, highlighting, and triple-starring the ways in which its characters punish themselves for what they’ve done. Those who’ve hurt others in turn hurt themselves. John Locke doesn’t think that he deserves to walk, because of what he “did” to his father. That’s tragic. Well done, Lost.

• As for Locke’s revelation that he’s an amateur pilot? I have no clue whether that’s going to become important to the show’s endgame.

Jack: “What happened happened and…you can let it go.”
Locke: “What makes you think letting go is so easy?”
Jack: “It’s not. In fact, I don’t really know how to do it myself. And, that’s why I was hoping that…maybe you could go first.”

• Jack’s off-Island maturity reflects the growing maturity of on-Island Jack’s outlook. There’s humility and quiet strength in Jack’s admission here – an honesty about himself that on-Island Jack has just begun to acquire. I love this exchange (I realize I’ve said that a lot in this column, but it’s the truth again), both because it recalls their Season 2 exchange about belief (paraphrased – Locke: “Why is it so hard for you to believe?” Jack: “Why is it so easy for you?” Locke: “It’s never been easy!”) and because it offers a sense of reconciliation for these characters – people who’ve stood in starkly-stubborn opposition for so long.

Jack: “I can help you, John…I wish you believed me.”

• The echoing dialogue in this scene – words and phrases repeated that were first spoken seasons ago – feels to me like the growing pound of Oceanic surf against the shore of consciousness. “Enlightenment” is knocking at the door for both of these men, and they’re close to answering. 

• Yes, I misted up when Sun and Jin bit it, but I full-on teared up watching Hurley break down so completely. Where do we go from here, as Joss Whedon once asked (in song no less), with the same sense of Existential wonderment and fear?

LOCKE: “It sunk.”

Anti-Locke’s awareness, both of the submarine’s sinking and of the survival of some of the Candidates, emphasizes again his supernatural status on the Island. How does he know these things? Next week’s episode, which promises to be the most potentially-divisive and simultaneously-illuminating episode of Lost thus far, ought to help us answer these questions.

*****

If you enjoyed this column, please spread the word using the buttons provided below!

To view the complete Rewatch archive and related articles, please visit Back To The Island.

To talk about/join the discussion about Season Six, jump onto the Message Boards.

• There’s something about Kevin Tighe’s performance in this episode that makes me chuckle. Maybe it’s the fact that he doesn’t blink. In any case, while I found myself chortling over Tighe’s no-blinky-Cooper, I found the revelation of Cooper’s fate to be enormously satisfying in a dark-hearted sort of way, and that makes me feel a little dirty. In another life, this man caused his son no end of misery (granted – much of that misery was ultimately caused by Locke himself, and his inability to “let go” of his desire for a father-figure), and so there’s a certain amount of arguable karmic “justice” to how he’s ended up in the off-Island universe. A man who spent his life taking advantage of the trust of others (Others) is now completely reliant on them for what looks to be everything, including spittle-wiping duty.

If it turns out that my Second Snake theory is correct, this is an arguably-just fate for the incorrigible Cooper. But it’s also a profoundly sad one, and my pleasure over the notion of this being some kind of karmic suckerpunch is what makes me feel dirty.

• It strikes me that any vengeance James Ford may be looking for in the off-Island universe has been rendered moot by the reality of Cooper’s condition. Ford can’t do anything to this man that’s worse than what’s already been done to him. Will that fact enable off-Island Ford to find a path to self-healing? 

• Watching Terry O’Quinn stalk his way through a hail of bullets, snapping necks and gun a’blazing, helps me to appreciate the number of levels on which I enjoy this show. There’s the high-falutin’ philosophical stuff, sure, and I love it; there’s the attention to detail that’s apparent in both the smaller character moments and in the larger “mythology” sense, and there’s the heartstring-tugging efficacy of these plots. There’s also the pure pulpy satisfaction I get from a scene like this one, and from the continually-great acting work done by Terry O’Quinn. Anti-Locke is a scary badass, and he’s tremendous fun to watch. Harp on the season all you want. While you’re doing that, I’ll be enjoying the look on O’Quinn’s face as he dispatches Widmore’s “guards.”

• So, let’s take a vote – did Widmore’s team of grungy Insurance Salesmen plant the explosives that Anti-Locke discovers in the plane? Were those explosives planted by Ricardus, Benjamin and Miles (and, by the way, where the hell are Richard, Ben and Miles?)? Or have they been placed there by Anti-Locke himself? Whoever wired the C-4 didn’t do a very good job of hiding their handiwork, and the Man in Black seems to know exactly where to find it. For now, I’m chalking this up to the fact that Anti-Locke seems very…sensitive to technology. Recall that back in Season 3, when Ben first takes Locke to Jacob’s Lynchian cabin in the woods, that Ben remarks “Jacob hates technology,” and that the room around them starts to go crazy when a flashlight is turned on. We now know that Jacob wasn’t in the cabin, and that the Man in Black was. We also see that he’s somehow able to sense that the sub has sunk, but that not all of the Castaways are dead. Just how “sensitive” is he? Do you think he cries at romantic comedies?

LOCKE: “They were only guarding the plane for show. If Charles had really wanted to keep me from actually getting on board he wouldn’t have moved his little fences.” HURLEY: “Well… wait, now he wants us to leave the island?”
LOCKE: “No, Hugo. He wants to get us all in the same place at the same time… a nice confined space we have no hope of getting out of… and then he wants to kill us.”

• Remember this exchange, and the words that Locke uses here. We’ll be coming back to them very shortly.

Locke: “Push The Button…I wish you had believed me.”

• As mentioned up at the top, at this point it’s obvious that some kind of “bleed-through” is occurring between the off-Island and on-Island “universes.” Desmond’s whole run-a-dude-in-a-wheelchair-over-to-wake-him-up gambit seems to have been only partially successful. Locke’s only “awake” when he’s unconscious – which is, come to think of it, a nice grace note in a season that’s obsessed with awakening to Good Being and becoming “conscious.”

• Jack gets an Apollo bar out of the vending machine and offers it to Claire, a moment that echoes the Season 5 finale, in which we saw Jacob hand Jack the same candy bar. What’s the significance of this? Well, it further underlines the notion that Jack may be the “new” Jacob, and it also points up again the presence of Apollo in Lost’s narrative. I’ve written about Apollo before, and about some of the ways in which myths about Apollo appear to reflect aspects of Lost’s narrative. You can read yet-more rambling on the topic by clicking this link and scrolling about a third of the way down.

• Jack and Claire finally have their “Hey, we’re brother and sister!” discussion, and I found it curiously affecting – not so much because of anything in the scene itself, but because I’m generally the sort of person who puts an ooky amount of emphasis on the importance of, and the power of, family. Jack and Claire also get another of this season’s now-patented Mirror Moments of Reflection, and in this case, share that moment – something that’s clearly intentional and clearly meaningful. Why? Well, for one, they’re reflected in the music box, a gift from their deceased father. Which, if you wanna get all artsy-fartsy about it, is very apt, since they’re both literal reflections of their father. That they share in the moment makes sense, given their familial connection, and given that Jack continues to reflect on, and connect with, the weird “coincidences” that pepper the off-Island storyline.

But let’s NOT get all arztsy-fartsy. Let’s talk about why this is meaningful on a simple, emotional level. Back in Season 1, when Claire was arranging to have unborn-Aaron adopted, she requested that the adoptive parents sing “Catch a Falling Star” to the baby. Why? Because it’s what her father, Christian, used to sing to her when she was very young. That’s the sort of emotional, subtle grace note that’s easy to overlook when the show is barreling ahead at its current speed.

• “Catch a Falling Star” is a ditty that’s had significance in Lost’s storyline since Season 2. I’ve suggested in past columns that this song may be a literal theme for the show, with the two “universes” we see being represented as “stars,” and with Jacob’s ultimate gambit somehow involving saving (or catching if you will) one or all of these universes as they fall. This symbolism is reinforced by the appearance of Eloise Hawking’s distinct “star” broaches from this season – broaches that represent a clear departure from her previously-favored Ouroboros broach.

Anti-Locke: “Whoever told you you needed to stay had no idea what they were talking about.”
Jack: “John Locke told me I needed to stay.”

• Chills. Serious chills. This exchange ranks up there among my absolute favorites from Lost’s entire run, because it so succinctly and powerfully summarizes Jack’s journey.

I don’t know about you folks, but I’ve found Jack’s evolution this season to be nothing short of inspirational. That’s the sort of comment that makes me an easy target for potential mockery, but I’m entirely comfortable with that. I frankly love the way that Jack’s story-arc has progressed, and I’ve found his Island-awakening to be moving in a way that’s genuinely unexpected. I’ve never seen the conversion from doubt to faith portrayed as well as it’s been portrayed on this show.

It puts me in mind of the Road to Damascus. And before you object, and point out that there’s nothing in the episode itself that refers to that particular Biblical event, let me say that you’re right. There isn’t. But that doesn’t mean I can’t draw some useful parallels, hopefully illustrating the depth and profundity of Jack’s transformation from Man of Science to Man of Faith. I promise that this’ll be (relatively) quick.

“I am sending you to them to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light.” – Acts 26: 17-18

• The Road to Damascus is the road upon which Paul, formerly Saul, got himself a new religion. It’s also, by the way, the subject of a painting by Caravaggio – the same painter who created “The Incredulity of Saint Thomas,” which is the painting that Ben and Jack discuss in the church where Dharma has hidden it’s Lamppost Station.

It was on the Road to Damascus that the man formerly known as Saul underwent an “enlightenment” that transformed him so thoroughly that he chose for himself a new name which reflected that transformation – from that point forward he would become known as Paul. Paul’s mission, as quoted in part above, was to help to lead people toward literal and figurative “enlightenment,” to turn them “from darkness to light.” This was an especially ironic turn of events, because prior to his conversion moment, the man known as Saul of Tarsus had spent a great deal of time and energy brutalizing and persecuting Christians. It makes no real logical sense that such a man would be chosen to be a servant of God, but it makes complete sense if we accept that part of the Christian God’s New Testament mission involved a number of “rehabilitation projects,” people who were, in the eyes and minds of Others during that time period, considered “unclean,” or “common,” or, in Saul’s case, brutal torturers and killers.

The choice to pick a persecutor of a religion to receive the “enlightenment” associated with that religion is essentially a mirror of the way in which Jack, a formerly-avowed Man of Science, has been seemingly chosen to champion the idea of Faith in the Island. It’s a reversal, arguably caused by the same kind of blinding white light that Saul was supposed to have seen on the Road. Only, in Jack’s case, that blinding light was courtesy of a Hydrogen Bomb. Note also that, more generally, the people who Jacob has chosen as his potential replacements are, just like Saul/Paul, “rehabilitation projects.” They are not “good” people in the standard, moral sense. They are, each and every one, deeply flawed.

• Some folks have been pointing out that dunking the MiB didn’t “do” anything to him, and I suppose this is being pointed out because it’s been so heavily implied that the water surrounding the Island keeps him trapped there. Speaking for myself, I don’t believe that the MiB is allergic to water, or supernaturally-repelled by the stuff, or prone to melting ala the Wicked Witch of the West. I just think that his “Smoke Form” is incapable of traveling over bodies of water, which means he’s stuck on the Island(s). Anti-Locke could, potentially, swim back and forth all day between Hydra Island and the main Island, but the sheer expanse of water beyond that would defeat his human form, and the existence of it would defeat his smoke form.

That’s how I see it at this point.

• So, were you hoping that Kate was going to bite it too? I know I was. No offense to Evangeline Lily – I’d have preferred her death over any of the others that were served up during this episode. But no, Kate needs to stick around looking pouty, continuing the “love triangle” that I continue to tolerate.

• In an interview with Jeff Jensen over at Entertainment Weekly, Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse reveal their thoughts on this week’s Reaper-driven installment of Lost, and they confirm something for us that, frankly, should be obvious by the time you’ve finished the episode: Anti-Locke is badder than Bad, Bad Leroy Brown. He needs to be stopped.

…Well, yeah.

If you’ve been following along with these columns, and/or following along with the season in general, I think you’ve probably come to the same conclusion. I’ve never fallen for the Man in Black’s hella-convincing line of patter, but it’s been clear why these characters might do so. The ambiguity of Anti-Locke’s mission throughout this season has been, I think, one of its biggest strengths, helping to viscerally illustrate the difficulty of maintaining any kind of faith in the unseen/unexplained when there’s a reasonable-seeming devil on your shoulder asking you why you’d bother. Now the truth is out. I’m thrilled. While I genuinely enjoyed the ambiguity, I’m very ready to see Anti-Locke unleashed.

• Someone on Chud’s Lost thread made the comment that trying to kill the Candidates now, and in this fashion, makes the Man in Black seem stupid, since he’s had years to try and trick the Castaways into killing each other/themselves. I’m no expert, and I’ve got no access to the creators’ thoughts or intentions, but it seems to me that he’s been trying for years to get them to do just that. Go back to White Rabbit and watch as Jack almost tumbles from a cliff as he’s pursuing his father, or to Season 2, and how the Swan conflict resulted in an explosion that should have killed Locke, Desmond, Charlie and Eko, or to the freighter explosion that almost wiped Jack, Kate, Sun, Sayid, Jin, Desmond and Hurley off the map, or to the episode “Dave,” in which a malevolent specter attempts to convince Hurley that his life on the Island is a hallucination of sorts, and that killing himself will allow him to “wake up.” These hints have been with us for a loooong time, and when you go back to rewatch the show some of you are going to be surprised by the ways in which the MiB’s gambit has been sewn throughout the show’s storyline. If you’re curious to revisit those moments now, you can always read/re-read my Lost: The Rewatch columns.

STILL MORE LOST, RIGHT AFTER THE PAGE BREAK!

The Candidate (S6, ep. 14)

“Shout it aloud, do not hold back; lift up your voice like a trumpet. Declare to my people their rebellion and to the house of Jacob their sins. For day after day they seek me out; they seem eager to know my ways, as if they were a nation that does what is right and has not forsaken the commands of its God….Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife, and in striking each other with wicked fists. You cannot fast as you do today and expect your voice to be heard on high. Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter— when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard…Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations; you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.” – Isaiah 58:1-12

Jack: “James – we are going to be okay. You just have to trust me.”
Sawyer: “Sorry, doc. I don’t.”

Trust isn’t an easy thing to give someone, even when we’d like to think that it’s something that we’re capable of granting. Trust is essential in any community, whether it’s your home, your neighborhood, your office, your government, or a ragtag group of Castaways forced to live together on a weirded-out Island. Trust depends on faith, and faith can be false or true, shallow or deep, earned or unearned. To survive in this world, we need to learn how to trust, who to trust, and above all, we need to learn the value of that trust. The above passage from the Book of Isaiah has much to say about the quality of faith and trust that the God of the Bible demands – a faith that inspires each of us turn to our fellow man and help them in their hour of need, that inspires each of us admit to our sins and “let go” of them. It demands Communion from us, in the simplest, most human sense of the word. It’s that Communion – a sharing of trust and resources and basic compassion – that will allow the Castaways to repair their broken selves, and perhaps, repair the “Broken Walls” that seem to exist between the off-Island and on-Island universes.

Before we launch into this week’s typically-ramshackle ramblings, I’d like to take a moment to say a sincere thank you to everyone who reads this column every week. It’s largely because of your responses and comments that I find this gig so rewarding, and I’m happy to announce that when Lost leaves the airwaves (so to speak) I’ll be sticking around on Chud’s main page. Exactly what I’ll be doing will remain a mystery for now since, like Lost, I enjoy leading people around all willy-nilly in the hopes of some sort of eventual revelation. Here’s what I will tell you: it’s going to require your participation, and it’s going to be a lot of fun for me (and, I hope, for you). If you’ve enjoyed my ramblings on this show I think you’ll be pleased. If you haven’t enjoyed them, I can promise you renewed pain and discomfort. Special thanks to the Marvelous Eileen Bolender, who works each week to take these ramblings and get them up on the site for you to read, and to Chud’s Benevolent Despot, Nick Nunziata, for allowing me to hang around and harangue you all for the foreseeable future.

And since I’m in blatant self-promotion mode, might I suggest that you shoot me an email and express your interest in my to-be-self-published book on the philosophy, theology, literary references and themes of Lost? You will not be bound in any way by doing so, and you’ll make a frazzled, sleep-deprived obsessive very happy.

Enough of this. On with the show!

Thoughts:

• Congratulations, Lost. You have wrecked me. Not content to limit the carnage to one, or two or three people, The Candidate swept Sayid Jarrah, Sun and Jin Kwon, and (probably) Frank Lapidus off of the game board and into death’s arms.

I haven’t been this angry with my television since the 2004 election.

But there’s “I’m so angry ‘cause you’ve let me down,” and then there’s “I’m angry ‘cause you’ve frankly reminded me of my emotional susceptibility to fictional characters on a television show designed, ultimately, to sell soap.” My anger falls definitively into the latter category. In other words, I’m still very much enjoying this ride despite the show’s apparent intentions to kick my feelings around like a soccer ball at recess.

As the final season winds its way to the finish line (already? Really?), the general sense I’m getting is that some folks are continuing to love this ride, unabashedly, without reservation. Some folks are still enjoying it, but with reservations. Lastly, some folks have soured thoroughly on the whole enchilada. That’s as it should be. Art is subjective, after all, and that’s one of its greatest strengths.

Maybe this isn’t working for you. Maybe this whole season is a wash, and Lost is done for you. That’s just fine by me. As I’ve said before, a story is what it is, and you either dig it or you don’t.

I mean, let’s be honest: this is a television show. It’s not a cure for cancer, and it isn’t Infinite Jest (i.e. an entertainment so viscerally, mercilessly, perfectly entertaining that it renders us a nation of drooling Anthony Coopers, unblinking and transfixed). Whether it’s “great television” or “a disappointment” at this point is subjective and infinitely arguable. What it is, inarguably, is ambitious. With a capital A.

And that’s to be celebrated, goshdarnit.

You don’t have to like Lost’s final season to admire its ambition – and you don’t have to give up any critical faculties in order to do so. Yes, there’ve been missteps, mistakes, and decisions made that you, hypothetical-and-nonspecific-reader, may be up in arms about. But (and this is just me and my humble opinion talking here) its okay that Lost is imperfect. It’s okay that Sun and Locke end up at the hospital at the same time, despite that apparently not working out chronologically for some reason or another. You can always find mistakes in art. There’s nothing profound or earth-shaking about that. It’s like finding Nicholas Cage in a questionable film. You don’t question it, you just accept it. Art, like Nic Cage, is imperfect. And art, like Nic Cage, sometimes enjoys punching people in the face while wearing a bear costume.

…What was I saying?

Oh. Right. The essential point is this: I won’t try and talk you out of deciding that you don’t like Lost anymore. But I will encourage you to try and enjoy it while it lasts, warts and all. It’s going to be a while until something as interesting as Lost comes down the network pipeline again.

Locke: “I know you.”

• Crossed consciousnesses continue to get sizable play in this episode. Locke’s line here is obviously designed to remind us that off-Island Locke “knows” Jack more deeply than his brief, knife-retrieving airport adventure might suggest. Throughout this episode it feels as though Locke is coming close to an Oceanic realization, close to understanding just why it is that he knows Jack Shephard – but he perhaps intentionally denies that Oceanic connection the same way that he denies Jack’s help. He resists Jack’s offer of “Candidacy” for a new procedure because, as we’ll learn here, he’s punishing himself.

This is a powerful idea, and it’s one that Lost conveys powerfully well over the course of this episode. What phrase have I been peddling, here and yon, back and forth, since this whole darned column began? Physician, heal thyself. Locke can’t heal, emotionally or physically – in any way – until he allows himself permission to “let go.” Ironically, it’s Jack that underlines this for us at the episode’s end.

• Jack’s been taken to Hydra Island, where Sayid patiently awaits his return to consciousness. Notice that theme popping up here again – Jack literally awakens, arising from unconsciousness, and that act mirrors the ways in which he spends this episode slowly “awakening” to the coincidences of the off-Island universe, and to the “destiny” he senses on the Island.

• Sayid seems more himself in this episode than he has in any other. Is it strict coincidence that his gun-cleaning stance so clearly recalls his prayer stance from seasons’ past? Recall the last time you saw Sayid knelt like this.

Sawyer: “No way I’m gettin’ back in those cages.”

• Widmore intends to place Sawyer and Kate back in the Bear Cages that they inhabited back in Season 3. Sawyer seems….nonplussed about returning. Remember the Bear Cages? Listening to Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof talk about it, you’d have thought that those episodes of Lost represented their direst hour. But I disagree. I mean, I’m not going to argue that the six-episode “pod” of Season 3 episodes that featured Sawyer and Kate in Bear Cages represented some high-point in the show’s narrative. But what I will argue is that the Bear Cages represented a moment wherein the show’s fascination with imprisonment, self-determination, Skinner Boxes, and manipulation was made extra-explicit, in ways that have deepened the thematic power of Lost’s central narrative. Given how Jack’s arc has progressed this season, I suspect people are going to get some added value out of his Shark Tank Incarceration scenes.

• Sawyer’s line here speaks to the advancement of the Castaways in general. They’re tired of being caged – in many senses of the word. In that way, they share something in common with the MiB.

Widmore: “You may not believe it, but I’m doing this for your own good.”

• Widmore’s actions in this episode seem to put him back on the side of the apparent-Angels, as he attempts to keep the Smoke Monster from reaching the Candidates. His brand of heroics allows for saving Kate’s life, but it’s made clear that he doesn’t “need” her. Why doesn’t he need her? Because her name’s been crossed out. We have no clue at this point just why it is that her surname was taken out of competition on the cave walls (and we get confirmation from Sawyer that her name was on the walls – something that we didn’t see firsthand when he and Anti-Locke were down there), but it seems as though you can lose your Candidacy without dying in the process.

Jack: “That was three years ago… you just remember that?”
Bernard: “Of course I do, Jack.”

• Jack goes looking for clues to Locke’s surgery aversion and runs into good ol’ Bernard, who has been so capably played by Sam Anderson over five seasons. I’ve always loved his character, and it’s good to see him popping up here. Like Charlie and Desmond, Bernard acts somehow “enlightened” during his conversation with Jack – he gives the impression of someone who knows more than he’s letting on, someone who has, perhaps, experienced a dip in the waters of Oceanic feeling. Are Rose and Bernard married in the off-Island universe? Has the combination of True Love and Tragedy (Does Rose have cancer?) rendered him capable of seeing that he and Rose have found “the good life,” together on the Island? Or is Bernard simply “aware/awake” enough to know that he should help the Good Doctor continue on his road?

LOCKE: “If we move right now, we can break your people out, run for the plane, and be off this island before Widmore knows what hit him.”
JACK: “They’re not my people. And I’m not leaving the island.”

• In an episode that’s chock-a-block with interesting snippets of dialogue, Jack’s response to Anti-Locke here is the most interesting to me, personally. This is a huge, seismic shift in Jack’s character. Through six seasons of this show, the Castaways have without a doubt been “Jack’s people.” He led them like Moses, attended to their woundings and their crises. Shephard watched over the Castaways like a Shepherd watches over his flock, and that hyper-attuned concern led to quite a lot of suffering, both for himself and for the Castaways as a whole. Jack’s heart has always been in the right place but he’s been the equivalent of a driven-to-the-brink helicopter-parent.

And it’s through Jack, primarily, that we as an audience can wrestle with and ultimately understand – even appreciate – Jacob’s hands-off philosophy. Jack’s always been a hands-on guy, but his journey over the past two seasons has been about letting go – about realizing that his desire to fix everything himself is both self-destructive and just plain destructive. We’ve taken a good hard look at Doesoyevsky’s Notes from the Underground this season, and I’d like to bring your attention back to that novel’s narrator, who insists that human beings will do the opposite of what’s “good” for them simply to assert free will. Humanity will choose to do the opposite of what it’s told, because it’s in our very natures to want to shake off the “chains” of expectation and command. Jack’s experiences this season are backing this up in a major way (we’ll get further into this a little further down in the column).

Jack: “Why should I trust you?”
Locke: “Because I could kill you, Jack. Right here. Right now. And I could kill every single one of your friends. And there’s not a thing that you could do to stop me. But instead of killing you, I saved your life. And now I want to save them too.”

• That’s a terrible reason to trust someone. You should trust me because I haven’t tried to kill you?

And yet, that line of reasoning is perfect for what Anti-Locke’s true game plan really is. His words are a mixture of reassurance and menace, and he’s painted himself overall as someone who won’t hurt the Candidates – for now – but shouldn’t be trusted worth a lick. That’s a perfect combination to spur the Castaways into trying to abandon him.

Sawyer: “Feel like we’re runnin’ in circles?”

• That’s because you are, Sawyer. Lost’s narrative is circular on any number of levels (like an Ouroboros, one might say), from the fact that it’s characters spend three seasons getting off the Island, then working to get back, then attempting to leave again, to the way in which they “loop” backward through time to the 70’s, to the ways in which the characters’ arcs loop, taking them back to the people they were before allowing them to move on again. It’s clearly intentional, and it’s impressive for the way in which the journeys of the characters, circling and “reincarnating,” evolving or refusing to do so, also reflect the structure of the show itself, and the circular nature of the narrative.

SUN: “I have your ring.”

• Sun and Jin get a quiet moment together in the eye of the storm, just before fate (otherwise known as the merciless pen of Lost’s writers) separates them forever. Sun’s comment here reminds that, if I’m recalling things correctly, she also has Charlie’s Dexter Stratton ring. I guess she’s never going to get a chance to deliver it to Claire, who’s probably too crazed to care about it at this point anyway.

• And can I take a moment here to address those of you bemoaning the fact that “all” Sun and Jin have done is search for each other over the seasons? I don’t get this complaint. At all. To my eyes, Sun and Jin Kwon have been one of the best-realized and most inspiring married couples I’ve ever seen on television (Zoe and Wash from Firefly also spring to mind, as do each of the couples on ABC’s genuinely-terrific Modern Family). I don’t particularly care that they weren’t given much else to do, because I felt (and feel) that what they were attempting to do – reunite and finally spend five frickin’ minutes together – was so universally-relatable. On an Island full of Polar Bears, Smoke Monsters, talking Hurley Birds, mysterious Hatches, and age-old secretive battles between opposing philosophical forces, the first and last thing on my mind would be “where’s my wife?” It would NOT be “what is the meaning of these strange occurrences?” Why? Well, because while I’d certainly be interested in that weirdo Smokey thing that keeps flitting around and killing folk, if only in the how-do-I-avoid-dying-at-the-hands-of-sentient-smoke sense, all I’d truly CARE about would be ensuring that the person I love is safe. And with me. Because who’s going to make my life worth living on the weirdo tropical Island? It ain’t no bear, that’s for sure. As always, your mileage may vary.

Great Hurley Line: “Annnnd…we’re dead.”

• Smokey and his Bandits attack Widmore’s Hydra compound, and if you were hoping for a drawn-out or protracted battle at this point you were disappointed. I never tire of seeing the Smoke Monster rip through Redshirts.

MORE LOST, RIGHT AFTER THE PAGE BREAK!