LOST: Whither Must We Wander

Now that's more like it. Things finally look like they are moving toward the final conclusion of the show, in both the Island universe and the alternaverse. With the exception of Desmond, Ben, Richard, and Miles, the entire cast was in 1 location tonight (and Desmond's location was a direct result of Titus). Meanwhile, in the alternaverse, all the characters started to get drawn to a select few locations. So let's start there.

In another showing of near-death experiences "waking up" the alterna-characters, when Sun and Locke are both brought to the same hospital (Sun was hit by a stray bullet), a conscious Sun
reacted in terror to seeing a man who she knew was dangerous, but didn't quite know why (note: 2004 Sun would have no reason to fear 2004 Locke, so altera-Sun's (who is living in alterna-2004) memory of Locke is likely influenced by her 2007 Island self, which is probably good evidence that the existence of the alternaverse is a direct result of the Jughead explosion (as if we didn't have enough of such evidence, which goes against, to the best of my recollection, some things the writers were saying before the season started). Meanwhile, Desmond was able to guide Claire to the office of Ilana Verdansky, attorney-at-law (and yes, I did consider writing alterney-at-law... I have a pun problem). Turns out that Ilana is the estates attorney for the Sheppard family, and she reveals to Jack and Claire that they are siblings. But before they can talk about this, Jack gets called into surgery for a hit-and-run victim: John Locke. A nurse tells Jack that Locke's spine was already pretty messed up (how did he become paralyzed in this reality?), and we see a shot of a surgical mirror showing Locke's face, and then Jack's (more on this later). Finally, Sawyer and Miles interrogate Kate at the police station, and later arrest Sayid.

On the Island, Titus and Widmore both decide to execute their plans. When Zoe (Liz Lemon's twin sister) displays that the Widmore camp has missile capabilities, Titus begins his move to overtake Widmore and commandeer the Ajira plane. But Sawyer also decides the time is right for Operation: Sub Escape. He gets Jack to separate Hurley, Sun, and Lapidus from the group and have them meet up with him and Kate at a boat to take them to Hydra Island. Claire and Sayid aren't invited because they have turned to the Dark Side. However, unbeknownst to the group, Sayid might be on his way back after speaking with Desmond. Titus sent Sayid to kill Desmond, and we are reminded why Sayid is so willing to follow Titus: he promised to revive Nadia. But Desmond pointed out that what Sayid wants comes with a high cost, and points out that Nadia may not be able to accept what Sayid paid for her life. Also, Claire begins to show that she can be redeemed through Aaron, when Kate promises to reunite the 2 of them. Unfortunately for them, upon arriving at Hydra Island, Zoe takes the group prisoner. Except for Jack.

Jack jumped ship midway to Hydra Island, because he started to doubt leaving the Island again, stating that he felt such a deep feeling of emptiness after leaving it the last time. Ever since learning about the purpose of the Candidates, my two prime suspects were Jin and Jack: Jack because he's the de facto protagonist and Jin because he would have to choose between his wife and his duty (by the way, I was so happy to finally see them reunited). This development has given a lot of evidence to Jack being New Jacob, because he is the one who is being pulled the strongest to stay (and return) by the Island. And so we come back to Jack and Locke; Titus was waiting for Jack on the beach, and was ready to continue the trek to confront Widmore when a missile was sent to the beach, killing many of Titus' followers. It also sent Jack flying through the air and landing hard against/near a tree. We saw this minutes after Jack was preparing to operate on Locke in the alternaverse, which led me to believe that the episode was going to end with Jack saying that he couldn't feel his legs, and the camera panning down to his foot, for a similar shot of Locke's foot from Season 1 when he learned his legs had been restored. Instead, Titus told him that Jack was "with him now," and picked him up and slung him over his back. So my theory could still be true. We'll just have to wait 2 weeks to find out. (Most people I've told this to also said they thought Jack got paralyzed in the explosion, but one person who didn't come to that conclusion had an interesting theory of her own: Desmond, the man to whom "the rules don't apply," is Jacob's son...)

Up next: 5 to go...

LOST: Moving the Pieces

I am usually fairly patient with LOST. People complain that the story moves very slowly and that things don't happen in certain episodes. I respond that the show builds over the course of a season, and little things that are not important in one episode come back later to be very relevant. However, this is the final season, and (as of the time I'm writing this), there are 5 episodes (taking the finale as 2, because it is 2 hours) left. I'm starting to get a tad impatient.

Did things "happen" in "Everybody Loves Hugo"? Most definitely. Ilana died when she overzealously dropped a bag containing Black Rock Dynamite. Titus tossed Desmond down a well after realizing that Desmond has no fear left. And Ben, Miles, and Richard split off from the rest of their group when Hurley convinced everyone else to go talk with Titus' camp. And in the alternaverse, Hurley and Libby were (re)united, while Desmond, in an attempt to give Locke a near-death experience, ran him down with a car. But it was another episode with very little actual plot momentum.

Like I said, I would be much more ok with this if we were not in the final season. There are so many story elements to wrap up that I am worried that things will get rushed in the final episodes. I love that this show knows that character development is important, because it is. But sometimes, you can have too much of a good thing, and I feel like LOST doesn't always know how to balance between character and plot.

Oh well. I'm sure that, once the season is over and I know this episode's place, I will be able to see it in a different light.

Up next: Jack vs. Locke...

LOST: What Dreams May Come

Has anyone here read Marvel Comics' House of M? It was a crossover event from a few years back, in which the Scarlet Witch created an alternate reality in which various characters' deepest wishes were granted. Peter Parker was married to a very-much-alive Gwen Stacey, Tony Stark's father was alive, Wolverine has all of his memories, and Magneto rules a world in which mutants are the majority, while humans are the oppressed minority. You can get a good enough (and hilarious) summary from Matt Gardner's 4-part series here. The reason I bring this up is because I was reminded of M while watching "Happily Ever After"; in M, just because the characters had their dreams come true didn't mean they were happy. And here, although Desmond had the thing he sought after most in his off-Island life, the approval of Charles Widmore (he had Penny for the relevant times he sought Charles' approval), he was only superficially happy. He soon realized that not knowing Penny was the worse alternative to being a rich playboy who had everything. And looking back on the alternaverse, the characters' lives have been strange inversions that aren't exactly better than the crash universe. Locke and his dad have a good relationship and he is married to Helen, but he's still in a wheelchair and has not learned to be his own man. Jack has a son, but has troubles with him and his ex-wife. Daniel got to pursue his musical talent, but never got to formally meet Charlotte. Sawyer is an honest cop, but is still haunted by the actions of the real Sawyer. Hurley is a lucky person, but I'm sure he isn't as happy as he passes himself off as (I guess we'll find out in a few days).

Also, in House of M, Wolverine having his memories was the alternate universe's undoing because he had the memories of his life as it should have been, not as it was in the new reality. In the LOST alternaverse, Eloise Hawking Widmore seems to remember the world in which 815 crashed... and in which she killed her son without knowing it. And Charlie learned how to access those memories, by nearly dying. And when his suicidal nature (he wants to see Claire again) help Desmond see Penny, Desmond embarks on a quest to find her in that world. He and Daniel, his half-brother-in-law in the 815 universe, talk about the possibility of alternate worlds and nuclear bombs creating split timelines (when Daniel saw Charlotte in a museum, he saw visions of her on the Island). When Desmond and Penny finally meet in the alternaverse, at the stadium where Jack and Desmond first met (and where Desmond and Penny were reunited after Desmond got out of prison), alterna-Desmond got a full-on view of the regular universe.

Meanwhile, the episode began and ended on Hydra Island, with Widmore subjecting Desmond to some weird experiment to see how well he can stand up to a large dose of electromagnetic energy. Desmond survived the Swan explosion, and he was able to survive something that fried an unfortunate Widmore crew member. And when he came out of it, he knew what he had to "do" (apparently, Widmore needs to do something with electromagnetism to kill Titus). But just as Desmond agreed to help Widmore, Sayid showed up to "rescue" Desmond. The suddenly zen Desmond agreed to go with Sayid back to Titus. Is this all part of Widmore/Desmond's plan?

Up next: Alterna-Hurley...

LOST: In Translation

It appears that my post last year about what the lives of the Oceanic 815 survivors would have been had the plane never crashed was even more pointless than if the writers had decided not to do flash-sideways. Each week, the differences between the universe we've watched for 5 years and the alternaverse seem to get bigger and bigger. In "The Package," we are led to believe that Sun never learned English. Oh yeah, and she and Jin never got married.(!) Also, they're happy in this universe (also, Mikhail never lost his eye). At first, I thought the show was telling us that the two of them were not meant to be, but we soon learned that they're having a steamy affair (sexy buttons!) that Mr. Paik would be very angry about if he knew about it. After all, you don't screw the bosses daughter. Unfortunately for the star-crossed lovers, he does in fact know about Jin, Sun, and their forbidden unbuttoning. Turns out, Keamy had Jin locked up because Paik hired Keamy to kill Jin. Fortunately for Jin, the money that got tied up in customs was Keamy's fee. Jin was eventually able to escape, but in doing so, Sun ended up getting shot by a ricocheting bullet, and as Jin carried her away, she announced she was pregnant.

So let's transition to the other universe on that note. Widmore's people kidnapped Jin so that he could explain his mapping system from his days in DHARMA to them, and to convince him to help, Widmore showed him photographs of Ji Yeon, the daughter he is aware of but has never seen. The reminder of her existence led many people to believe that SHE is the Kwon referred to on Jacob's lighthouse and Titus' wall, rather than Jin or Sun. For the past few weeks, I've been thinking that the Kwon is Jin, and that he will end up being the candidate, finally cementing the fact that Jin and Sun aren't meant to be together. Now, this would make me sad, because I like seeing them together (and would want them to get at least a goodbye before Sun is forced to leave Jin behind), but it would make for a good sacrifice story. But what if Jin and Sun had to give up their daughter, knowing that they likely would never have another one? After all, off the Island, Jin is sterile.

Speaking of reuniting Jin and Sun (they haven't been together in the present time of the original universe since the end of Season 4), Titus tried to get Sun to go with him by telling her that Jin was with him. She declined, and ran away from him, and in doing so, hit her head hard against a tree. When she woke up, she could still understand English, but was no longer able to speak it. Jack concluded that she struck the language center of her brain, and that he ability to speak would likely return soon. Miles and Lapidus made a joke about how crazy this development was, as did many in the fan community, but I've heard a story (don't remember how reliable the source was) that an American man who had been unconscious from a car accident woke up speaking in a French accent, so this definitely isn't the craziest thing to happen on this show. In addition, this development will make for an interesting turn on events WHEN (not IF) Jin and Sun are reunited, because, for most of the series, Sun had to be Jin's interpreter. By the way, did Jack and Hurley tell Sun that Jin now knows English?

This was very much a relationship episode rather than a plot episode. We looked at how far Jin and Sun are willing to go to see each other again, even if that means not doing everything possible to stop Titus, who both Widmore and Richard assure us is bad news. But we got a big twist at the end with the return of Desmond Hume to the Island.

Up next: The Island's not done with you yet...