Blog 8; Lost

Finally, it happened. After three years of mystery, the back-story of the ageless Richard Alpert has finally been told. It succeeded to live up to the hype, if not surpassed the expectations of these patient viewers. This episode not only answered so many questions and provided so many clarifications, but it did so in such a way that makes LOST the amazing show that it is.

I do not think it is a coincidence that all of the best episodes of LOST do not follow the normal structure of usual LOST episodes. A standard episode focuses on one character on the island while providing flashbacks of that character off the island. The season three episode titled “Flashes Before Your Eyes” featured Desmond mentally reliving a mistake he made in the past. The season three finale titled “Through the Looking Glass” featured a new format to the show; the flash-forward. The season four episode titled “The Constant” featured Desmond mentally streaming in and out of consciousness in the year either 2004 or 1996. The season five finale titled “The Incident” followed Jacob showing up at vulnerable times in the main characters lives before the island. Finally, the season six episode title “Ab Aeterno” followed the 150 years of Richard Alpert’s life and how he came to be the important person he is on the island.

Ab Aeterno opens up on the Island with team Jacob around a campfire trying to figure out what to do next. A flashback features Jacob visiting Ilana in a hospital and asks her to come to the Island to protect the recruits. She asks him what to do, and he says to ask Ricardus (meaning Richard). Back at the campfire, Richard has no idea what Ilana is talking about and storms off to go join team Flocke. Jack tries to stop him, but Richard reveals the truth about where they are (or at least his theory as to where they are). He exclaims that they are all dead and they are in Hell and have been since they died in the plane crash. After Richard storms off, Jack sees Hurley talking to the air in Spanish. Jack asks him what Jacob is saying, and Hurley said he is not talking to Jacob.

Next, Jacob is wandering through the jungle and we hear a familiar sound that we have not heard in a long time, the flashback sound. We flash back to the late 1800s with Richard Alpert trying to help his sick wife, Isabella. They decide she needs medicine and in order to get that, they must use every last possession they have in order to get the medicine to save her life. She gives him her gold cross, which we interpret to be the last valuable item they own, so he can go off and get this medicine. He rides horseback through the rain and through the night to find this doctor with the medicine. Richard enters this man’s home and offers all of his possessions for the medicine, which the doctor claims will save Isabella’s life. Richard hands the doctor the cross, and the doctor throws it on the ground, implying it is worthless. Richard pleads with him and they end up in a struggle resulting in Richard pushing the doctor into a table, which he hits his head on and dies. Richard takes the medicine and rides back to his village where his wife is nearly dead and he is too late with the medicine. After she dies, Richard is arrested for murder.

Richard is now featured in a jail cell crying in a corner reading the Bible. A priest walks in to get Richard’s confession, and Richard admits to killing someone in order to save his wife’s life. The priest accepts, but cannot offer him forgiveness since murder is unforgiveable. In order to gain forgiveness, he must go through penance; however, unfortunately for Richard, he is convicted of death by hanging and does not have time to gain penance. Richard knows what will happen to him next, he will be hanged and sentenced to Hell. Suddenly, a man comes in, examines Richard’s hands and asks if he speaks English. After being reluctant to respond in English, Richard eventually does and the man takes him prisoner to bring him on to his boat and to be used as a field worker in America. Richard is saved just in the nick of time, coincidence? Of course not, Jacob has intervened and summoned him to the Island.

Getting to the Island is not an easy excursion. The boat Richard is on ends up in the middle of a storm approaching an Island, and the workers at the bottom of the ship are looking out at a gigantic statue that they are heading right into on a huge wave. They end up crashing into the statue (answering our question of how it ended up as a Four Toed Statue) and ending up with the boat landing in the middle of the jungle. After a scene of terrible CGI, something LOST still hasn’t mastered, it is revealed that the boat Richard was on is the Black Rock, the boat that seems to have an endless supply of dynamite. Unfortunately for Richard (how many times have I said that today?), he is chained to the wall along with several other slaves. The captain comes down and starts killing off these men. When he gets to Richard, Richard begs for salvation, but the man says, “It will only be a short while before you try to kill me.” Once again, Richard is saved in the nick of time as we hear the familiar sound of the smoke monster attack the men off of the ship. The captain proceeds to see what is going on and is killed by the smoke monster. The smoke monster comes down into the cargo of the ship, approaches Richard, and scans him in a similar way as he did Mr. Eko in “The 23rd Psalm.” The smoke monster lets Richard live, leaving him chained to the ship.

Next, we see Richard trying to pull a nail out of the floor in order to set himself free of the chains. After a long time and what we can only assume to be a lot of pain, Richard finally gets the nail and starts to pick his lock. A boar comes along, (It was probably the smoke monster yet again) and after Richard attempts to kill the boar, the nail is knocked out of Richard’s reach (how unfortunate). Next, to Richard’s surprise, Isabella comes down into the ship and convinces Richard that they are in Hell. She tells him that she must set him free before the black smoke, which she claims is the Devil, comes back. Suddenly, they hear the black smoke and Isabella runs back upstairs, only to be taken away by the black smoke. So, what just happened? This was all the smoke monster’s intricate plan to read Richard’s memory. It was to keep him down in the cargo until he is beyond desperate, send his “wife” down there to convince him he is in Hell, and then take away his “wife.” The Man in Black laid out all the tracks for him to seem like the savior, comes to Richard’s rescue and gets Richard to do anything he wants of him.

And finally, the Man in Black, is the same form as he was in the opening scene of “The Incident” that first introduced us to Jacob and the MIB. Richard explains everything that has gone on, and the MIB convinces him it was the Devil. The MIB says he will set Richard free if he kills the Devil, and in return the MIB will bring his wife back to life. This is all a ploy for the MIB to put together another attempt to kill the man he so badly wants to be dead, Jacob. He easily convinces a desperate Richard to kill the “Devil” with the same knife that Dogen gave Sayid several episodes back to kill Flocke. Richard accepts his mission with one more instruction, that Richard must stab Jacob before he speaks or else it will be too late.

Richard finds Jacob outside the Four Toed Statue. Before he can stab him, Jacob starts talking to Richard and asks what he is doing. Richard explains what the MIB said to him, and Jacob starts explaining his side of the story. To start, Jacob attempts to drown Richard to prove to him that they are not in Hell and that he is not the Devil. Then, Jacob reveals a lot of information that finally clarifies the mission and reasoning behind everything that has gone on with this Island. Jacob explains that the man Richard was talking to is an evil man that does not believe that anyone is truly a good person. Jacob brings people to the Island to prove him wrong, but the Man in Black corrupts these people to prove Jacob wrong. This game has been going on for a long, long time we presume, and it is happening with the characters that crashed on the Island from Oceanic 815.

Jacob describes that his role on this Island is to keep the Man in Black from leaving the Island, for he would unleash evil to the world. Jacob uses a metaphor about wine and a cork. The Man in Black is a bottle of wine that can easily spill out of the bottle unless something is stopping it, a cork. The Island is a cork; it is keeping the evil smoke monster/MIB on the Island so he cannot spread to the outside world. Jacob is in charge of keeping him in. This is what the candidates are for. They are here to replace Jacob when he dies in order to keep the Man in Black from leaving the Island. The Man in Black, Flocke, has finally killed the other Man in Black and is now attempting to infect the candidates so he can finally leave the island. Now, we already can assume the outcome of the show. One of the candidates will replace Jacob, my guess being Jack, and the Man in Black, being Locke, will once again not be able to leave the Island and will be stuck playing this game again. Ironically, this will be between Jack and Locke, whose roles will have reversed. I presume that this will be the ending because if the Man in Black leaves the Island, then the world ends and that is not going to happen since that would be a way too open ended ending. This ending is poetic in terms of LOST, and it makes a lot of sense. I still do not know how they are going to get to this point, but I know it will be amazing and finally we will understand the purpose of everything that has happened over the years.

After Jacob explains all of this, he promises Richard that he will give him eternal life, after saying he cannot bring his wife back and denying him forgiveness. Now, Richard cannot go to Hell, and he will act as Jacob’s advisor following all of his orders and intervening when Jacob cannot. Richard returns to the Man in Black, and the MIB already knows what has happened. Richard gives the MIB a white stone from Jacob, probably signifying that Jacob has yet again won, for now. The MIB ends this by telling Richard that his offer still stands and will always stand. Anytime Richard wants to join the MIB, he can, and the MIB’s promise of bringing Isabella will still stand.

The Man in Black disappears and Richard buries his wife’s gold cross. We go back to present time, and Richard is calling out for the Man in Black (in the same spot that they were in the flashback where Richard buried the necklace) only to be interrupted by Hurley, who had been following Richard. Hurley claims that he knows what Richard has to do, because Hurley can conveniently speak Spanish, talk to the dead, and therefore get Richards instructions from Isabella. Hurley convinces Richard that he is truly speaking to Isabella, and passes the message along that Richard has to protect the world from the Man in Black. He must keep doing what he has been doing for the past 150 years, and he cannot lose faith in his mission. They have a last embrace, although it is unclear as to whether they physically touch even though the show portrays it as if they do, when she suddenly disappears and Richard is hugging the air. He digs up the cross, puts it on, and goes off to join Hurley back at the campsite. Flocke is shown looking over at what has just happened, and now seems to have another problem. He has lost Richard once again.

The final scene of the episode is Jacob talking to the Man in Black. This conversation is very similar to the scene on the beach back in the opening scene of “The Incident.” Jacob gives the Man in Black a bottle of wine with a cork in it, and the MIB proceeds by breaking the bottle on a rock.

What a perfect episode! In what has been a shaky final season of LOST, we finally get an episode that restores our faith in the show, and lays out the path that the show is heading. Personally, I love it and cannot wait for more (even though I do not want it to end). We still must have a back-story of Jacob and the Man in Black since we still do not know the origin of them. We also do not know how they came to be and why they can live forever. This strict set of rules that they have to follow is uncertain, but I have faith that they will be explained. With the teams set up, the path laid out, and with Widmore showing up, it seems like pretty soon all Hell will break loose until the grand finale of the greatest show ever. Until next time, I guess all we can do is ponder like we have for the past 5 seasons, even though we are slowly having less and less to ponder.

Blog 7; Lost

It may not technically be “early” in the sixth and final season of Lost; however, the writers have answered enough questions for me to be satisfied with the season so far despite each episode still being focused on a single character this late in the game. I trust the writers to end this show with a bang and to answer as many important questions as possible. While I may not know where the next part of the season is going, the stage seems to be set (even though I said that last week) for the impending war. Any negative feelings I have for this season can easily be redeemed by an episode focusing on Ben Linus and the incredible acting of Michael Emerson. Dr. Linus was another perfect addition to the complex story of the intriguing title character.

The flashsideways of this episode provides us with the life of Ben Linus after leaving the island and abandoning the Dharma Initiative. We already know that he is a European History Teacher at the same school that Locke is working at in this alternate timeline, but we now get to see more about his “new” life. It starts with the principal of the school forcing Ben to supervise detention instead of holding a meeting for his beloved History Club. Ben, excuse me, Dr. Linus is not happy about this and has a hissy fit in the teacher’s lounge, complaining to fellow PhD., Dr. Arzt, who is also not happy with the current budget cuts of the principal. Locke, the substitute, eavesdrops on this conversation and suggests that Ben should be the principal and would have the support of Locke and Arzt. In the next scene, Ben arrives home late and heats up dinner for him and his father, Roger Linus, and changes his father’s gas tank (a very ironic scene in that this gas tank helps him survive and the last “gas tank” Ben used was to kill him). Someone rings the doorbell and Ben answers it to find none other than his dead daughter Alex asking him why history club was cancelled. She needed help studying for her AP Test because she wants to do well so she can get into Yale. Ben offers to help her study the next morning in the library. The next morning during studying, Alex mentions how one day she wasn’t feeling well and took a nap in the nurses office only to overhear the principal and the nurse have sex on school grounds. Ben uses this information to his advantage and asks Arzt to hack into the principal’s e-mail to get evidence that this encounter took place. When he receives the proof, he marches into the principal’s office and blackmails him for his job. The principal has a counter proposal by threatening to write Alex a bad letter of recommendation so she doesn’t get into Yale (now I see why this is necessary for the story but Ben had A LOT more leverage on the principal and could’ve easily won the job and helped Alex out with her future, but we as viewers will let that slide).
The irony of this situation is that Ben, once again, has a choice: save his daughter or save himself. In this case, he is helping a student fulfill her dream or helping himself gain another position of power. We soon learn that this time Ben chooses Alex and gives up the principal position for his student to get into Yale (once again, at this point why couldn’t Ben blackmail him again now that the principal has no advantage? But ok, we’ll let it slide). This sideways Ben got a chance to redeem himself and without the island’s influence, Ben turns out to be a good guy. This makes sense because all of Ben’s choices go back to his father who brought him to the island and treated him badly. He caused Ben to want to run away and join the others. When little Ben got shot, he was brought to the Temple by other people’s choice, not his own. That is when the Ben we know was created, when Richard and the Temple saved him. Since this didn’t happen, we learn that Ben truly is a good guy at heart.

The on island story was also very good in this episode, featuring a return to where things all began - the beach camp. Ilana, as with EVERY OTHER CHARACTER ON LOST, is extremely secretive with who she is and what her purpose is. She asks Miles to do his speaking to the dead people thing on the ashes of Jacob. This is when Ilana learns that Ben is actually the one who killed Jacob, not Flocke. Of course Ben tries to talk his way out of it, as well as buy his way out of it by offering Miles 3.2 million dollars (even though Miles digs up the 8 million dollar diamonds that were buried alive with Nikki and Paolo). Miles turns down the offer but tells Ben about Jacob’s last thought being that he hoped he was wrong about Ben. Ilana forces Ben to dig his own grave, and he does so. Sun starts asking Ilana questions about finding Jin, and Ilana says she wants to find Jin as well, since either him or Sun is one of Jacobs 6 candidates. Another interesting thing here is that Ilana says there are SIX candidates, which we know. However, she knows that Locke is dead and taken over by the Man in Black, so is this an error or are there still 6 candidates, one of which being number 51, Kate. Anyway, Sun goes on to ask Ilana what a candidate is, and she answers with info we already know, a candidate will replace Jacob. Somewhere in the jungle, Jack and Hurley are walking towards the Temple. Hurley is trying to avoid walking there by tricking Jack into going the wrong way. They run into Richard who leads them to the Black Rock slave ship (the ship Richard got to the island on perhaps?). It is here that Richard talks about how he served his life to Jacob and has wasted his time and that he is cursed by Jacobs touch, as is everyone he has touched. He asks Jack and Hurley to kill him because Richard can’t kill himself and Jack proceeds to light a stick of dynamite. Jack is confident that the dynamite won’t blow up because Jacob needs Jack to survive, so Jack uses this to ask Richard for some overdue answers (but of course we don’t get to actually SEE the scene in which Richard answers his questions). Back at the beach, Flocke visits Ben who is still digging his grave, and tries to convince Ben to meet up with him and his posse on the Hydra Island. In return, Ben can replace Flocke as the leader of the island. Flocke sets Ben free and tells him there is a rifle against a nearby tree that he’ll have time to get to before Ilana catches up to him, but he can’t hesitate to shoot her because she won’t. Ben does so but instead of shooting Ilana, they have a heart to heart. He tells her how he has given everything he has to this island, and was rewarded by getting a tumor and the death of his daughter. That is why he killed Jacob. He asks for Ilana’s permission to go to Flocke’s side because Flocke is the only one who will have him. Ilana says she will have him, and walks away. Ben is faced with another tough decision, a position of power or the righteous path. He chooses the righteous path and stays on team Jacob (get it? Ugh Twilight). There is yet another reunion montage scene on the beach when Jack and Hurley return with Richard, to join up with the “good” side as well. During this reunion, we see a submarine arrive looking at this reunion through the scope, and who else but Charles Widmore is on it.
So now it finally seems like the two teams have formed, all the pieces are in place, and now the war has to begin. Now what’s unknown is which side is Charles Widmore on. Is he following the Island side with team Jacob or has he always been following the orders of the Man in Black? Things look like they are finally about to get interesting, but to reiterate, I did in fact say that last week. However, things have to start to erupt soon considering only 9 episodes remain, right? Until next time, I guess all we can do is ponder like was have for the past 5 seasons.

Blog 6; Lost

"Sundown," the fifth episode in this 6th and final season of Lost, is what I will call a transition episode into the next phase of season 6 (hopefully). Lost is and always will be a show that is driven by its characters, and I’m glad this so far formulaic season hasn’t drifted away from that principle. While the objective of the ‘flashsideways’ is not yet clear, I have faith in the writers that it will all make sense in the end and will make each episode of the season better after having found out the end result. However, for now, we have to sit through the repetitive episode breakdown of focusing on one character on and off the island, and then there will be a major disclosure at the end of the episode (with some subtle hints or revelations sprinkled throughout). Some people may be against this, considering the slow pace this season is going at, but I am okay with it as long as it all makes sense in the end. As for "Sundown", the character of focus and the main theme was the emergence of the two sides: good and evil, light and dark, Flocke and Jacob, and the realization as to which side Sayid is on.
The flashsideways wasn’t as intriguing as the past two have been about Locke and then about Jack; however, it seemed to parallel what was happening on the island more so than the previous episodes have. The episode opens up with Sayid in a taxi in front of a house. He takes a while to get out of the cab but eventually does and walks up to the house and who other than his love Nadia opens the door. For any Lost fan, this seems to finally be the gratifying reunion of Sayid and Nadia; however, once again the writers stabbed us in the heart and revealed that Nadia was already married to someone else, Sayid’s brother Omer. This can only suggest that Sayid and Nadia truly are not destined to be together because every time they are close, something splits them apart. Whether it’s Sayid getting in a plane crash, Nadia getting hit by a car, or Nadia already being married, it seems like while they obviously share a love for each other, fate does not allow them to work out. Even Sayid’s brother can see this attraction, and therefore uses it to get Sayid to help his brother out by “taking care” of some people who Omer owes money to (and when I say, “take care” I mean Sayid destroying them). Sayid claims he isn’t that person anymore and refuses to do it. However, when Omer is “mugged” by the people he owes money to, Sayid decides to take care of some business. He ends up in a kitchen talking to some men and their boss to try to resolve this debt. We see this boss man cooking up some eggs, and it is later revealed that this man is Martin Keamy. He is the same man who came to the island in the other timeline to find Ben Linus, and kill everyone else on the island. He was then stabbed by Ben setting off the C4 on the freighter. This is because of Keamy’s “life insurance policy” of having a trigger on his arm that sets the C4 off if Keamy’s heart rate hits zero. On the subject of destiny, it seems that people on Lost who are bad, end up bad, no matter what timeline they are in. Keamy may not have ended up on the island, but he ended up as a boss of what would appear to be an organized crime group. As for Sayid, he claims he’s a good man yet he is an assassin at heart. Sayid in the past ends up going against his “values” and kills all of the men, including Keamy, who surrendered. We’ve seen this in the past many times. Sayid came to the island with a new slate and claimed he would never torture again, only to torture Sawyer. Then claimed to never do that again, only to torture Ben in the hatch. Then got off the island and seeked revenge on the men who killed Nadia by killing ALL of them. Then refused to go with Locke back to the island, only to return and break Hurley out of the mental institution and killed everyone else in his way. Then he came back to the island, realizing he is a killer no matter what, and shot Ben as a child. And now, in this episode, he is once again claiming that he is a good person, only to once again end up on the dark side, and this time for good (more on that later). After killing all of the men in the kitchen, Sayid hears screaming and follows the noise to the freezer to find Jin locked in there tied to a chair with tape over his mouth. Um ok? I guess we’ll find out more in a later episode.
As I mentioned before, this episode seemed to parallel the flashsideways story in a way that the previous episodes have not. Sayid’s “on island” story opens up with him marching into Dogen’s office to get answers as to why they tortured him and what they were finding out. Dogen tells him that they were testing to see if he was good or bad and that he failed the test. Sayid proceeds by saying that he is a good person, only to end up fighting Dogen for a good two minutes and would have lost the fight if not for Dogen’s mysterious baseball falling to the floor (possibly a signal from Jacob that Sayid is a candidate and Dogen can’t kill him). Dogen tells Sayid to leave and never return but on his way out, Claire comes marching into the temple to tell Dogen that HE wants to talk to him. Naturally, Dogen uses Sayid to prove that he is in fact a good person by sending him out there to kill “HIM” (who we know is Flocke). Dogen gives him a knife and tells Sayid that he will come as someone he knows to be dead and that he must dig the knife into this man’s chest before he even speaks or it will already be too late. Sayid treks into the jungle, hears the familiar smoke monster noises, stops to take a drink, and then sees John Locke. Flocke speaks to Sayid and Sayid immediately stabs Flocke in the heart, yet nothing happens to Flocke (uh-oh!). Flocke doesn’t kill Sayid, yet tells him that if he comes to Flockes side (presumably the dark side), then Flocke could give Sayid anything he wants, even raising Nadia from the dead. Sayid goes back to the Temple and warns everyone that Jacob is dead and that HE (Flocke) will come at sundown and whoever is still at the Temple at that time will be killed. Sayid again has a conversation with Dogen, and this time Dogen reveals why he is on this island. Jacob promised him that he could bring his dead son back to life if Dogen comes to the island and does EVERYTHING that Jacob says. The baseball is significant of how his son died. Sayid talks about the similar offer that Flocke made, and then grabs Dogen and drowns him in the special pool. Then Lennon comes in and tells Sayid that he has doomed them all because Dogen was the only thing keeping HIM out. Sayid says, “I know” and slits Lennon’s throat and throws him in the pool. Meanwhile, Kate finds Claire in a pit in the Temple and tells her that she has been taking care of Aaron, not “The Others.” Claire doesn’t seem to have listened to Kate, but warns Kate that HE is coming and suggests that Kate hide in the pit with Claire to be safe. At that moment, the smoke monster comes roaring over them both and tears the temple apart. After what would seem to be another episode continuing at this slow pace of Lost, things finally come together in the final ten minutes of this episode. Flocke, as the smoke monster, comes roaring through the temple and killing everyone in his way. The group from the statue, led by Ilana, also arrive at the temple and Sun, Frank, and Ben are with her as she is leading them to safety. Miles finds them and tells them that Sayid is in the pool room. Ben runs over there to find Sayid sitting on the steps and tries to convince him to come with them, as Sayid says, “It’s too late” signifying that he has already been converted to the dark side. Ilana finds a stone on the Temple wall and leads the group into a secret room as the smoke monster zooms past it. The final scene is a slow motion scene set to a creepy version of Claire’s lullaby “Catch a Falling Star.” The scene shows Sayid walking out of the Temple as everything is burning to the ground. He looks very dark (showing the “sun” has also set on Sayid and he has not more “light” in him anymore, he has completely turned evil and truly has no more good in him). He finds Flocke and a group of followers, as Claire (with Kate) also meets up with them. Flocke gives a head nod to Sayid, a head nod and smile to Claire (and she creepily smiles back), and then looks at Kate. Kate is confused as Flocke turns around and leads his group of evil followers, and of course, yet again, Kate does what she does best and follows the majority.
As I mentioned before about the parallel between the flashsideways and the on island story, the flashsideways had Sayid progressively getting closer and closer to doing the deed that was asked of him by his brother. On the island, he gets progressively closer to being completely evil, and it seems that as things happened to him on the island, they pushed him into being bad again off the island. This is a very, very dark installment to add to the intriguing yet slow moving sixth season. However, this episode finally has everyone coming together and as I said before, is a transition into the next phase of the season. What is the objective? I have no idea. What I do know is that the writers insist the show is about the characters so I have faith that this show will not end as good (Jacob) prevailing over evil (FLocke), which would be unrelated to everything we’ve seen over the past 5 years. Overall, "Sundown" was a good episode with a lot of action and an incredible ending. It seems to have set the tone for the rest of the season. Once again, I have no idea what is going to happen next but I could not be more excited. Until next time, I guess all we can do is ponder like was have for the past 5 seasons.