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You fine readers of Heidi’s blog can’t tell, but this column is being written on vacation in Western Canada. So, for once, the helper monkey is watching hours after everyone on the net (including the Beat) has been posting and tweeting about tonight’s episode. After the jump… Meet The Candidates (and I don’t mean Robert Redford or Phil Mickelson).The return of the running diary (for one week only)

00:2 – Sure John doesn’t want the surgery now, at the beginning of the episode. Will that still be true at the end of it?

0:03 – The return of the Polar Bear cages. I presume too many people around this time for Sawyer and Kate to knock boots again.

004: Reminder – The guy that looks like Patton Oswald is the kid from Kate & Allie all grown up.

0:07 – Bernard!

0:08 – Bernard is Locke’s dentist! Awesome~~!

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0:11 – Don’t we know that MIB can’t kill any of them? Does Jack know that?

0:12 – If only this teasing of killing Kate was not just a tease?

0:12 – So, the Kwons are finally talking about their daughter.

0:13 – Uh-oh is right.

0:14 – Jeff Fahey – man of action.

0:15 – You may not have seen this commercial, but the Burger King in the Iron Man armor is very, very weird.

0:19 – Is it just me or does Katey Sagal look really different than her Peg Bundy days?

0:20 – Jack. Always trying to fix things.

0:22 – if you are a red shirt, do not eff with the MIB.

0:23 – Isn’t it time we finally found out where Richard, Ben, and Miles are?

0:24 – Why does it seem like Locke may have had that bomb in his bag and is swerving everyone? And isn’t that the same kind of C4 that was on the freighter?

0:25 – Sawyer. The man with the plan(s).

0:31 – Music boxes are always trouble in sci-fi/horror shows.

0:33 – Kate gets shot? They are really teasing me here.

0:36 – Why would MIB need to shoot people when he can just turn into the Smoke Monster? Because he’s all wet?

0:38 – Ha. MIB is a better con-man than Sawyer.

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0:42 – Couldn’t they shoot the bomb out the torpedo tube? Or is that a movie cliche?

0:45 – Let the body count begin.

0:51 – Soft piano music is never good. Everyone grab your Kleenex.

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0:56 – Plane crash? Weird.

0:58 – Who else expected to see Jin running from the hospital room, because something had happened to Sun?

1:01 – Next week…. well, if the rumors are true, some people will probably be missed.

Also, remember when Ben had to drain that water to call the Smoke Monster back in Dharmaville? Will that tie into MIB’s trip into the water tonight?

Does the “no body” run in comics apply here? Is Frank dead? IS SAYID DEAD? Magic 8-ball says yes, but you never know on this show, right?

Popular theory already making the rounds: MIB and Widmore have actually been working together. MIB gets off the island and Widmore gets to keep it.

23 COMMENTS

  1. Frank is not dead. Doesn’t make any sense that they’ve spent all this time with him coming back with next to nothing being revealed about him. Plus, who’s going to fly the plane?

  2. “Frank is not dead. Doesn’t make any sense that they’ve spent all this time with him coming back with next to nothing being revealed about him.”

    Ilana was introduced as this big person meant to watch over everyone, touched by Jacob, and take them where they needed to go; and she got all blown up. SO, with this show (unless you think she’ll be back?) I wouldn’t put them past just killing Frank after all this time. Sadly.

  3. Considering Sayid ran off with the bomb right when it went kablooey, I don’t see how he could have possibly survived unless The Island isn’t done with him yet…for whatever reason the writers have for keeping him around.

    And yeah, Frank’s most likely dead. His whole purpose seemed to be just to make people think he was going to somehow fly that plane out of there and now that seems to be a non-issue.

  4. If Frank is really dead, I’m gonna miss him. So much happened in this episode and so fast, it’s worth watching over to pick up some pieces.

    Great stuff.

    Beau Smith
    The Flying Fist Ranch

  5. Remember, even though they’ve drowned more cast members than a bag of unwanted puppies, they can still appear in the Sideways Flash (which may be the one that continues), or at the very least appear to Hugo.

    With only a handful of episodes left, I expected the body count to start going up.

  6. Worst episode of the show in a loooong time. Sayid goes from soulless badass killing machine to noble hero in the space of half an episode, because Desmond asked him a question? Jin and Sun, two characters we invested in for six years, die meaningless deaths and neither one thinks to mention their INFANT DAUGHTER??? In what world does Sun not tell Jin to get the hell out so he can raise their child?
    Sawyer, a professional con man, again gets conned like he is some naive teenager and makes stupid decisions.
    Widmore spends all that time setting up the one thing that can stop Smokey (the sonic fence) then apparently decides the generator powering the fence isn’t important and his greatest weapon is nullified when Sayid throws the “off” switch?
    Stupid, lazy writing and character actions that make no sense and serve no purpose but to get the plot where it needs to be. Very surprising, because that is one thing that Lost has very rarely done over the years. A big step back for the show, I think.

  7. I agree – I was disappointed in this episode. You spend a few eps running around the island, paying visit to all the various spots on the island, wasting time, letting the sideways timeline be more interesting
    (and I’d argue more Lost like), only to have an episode where 4 people die in less than ten minutes? Come on… this just proves tha the regular timeline was pushed aside to give more weight to the sideline timeline. And how many times are we going to end with a cliffhanger of MIB saying he’s going to do something – and then never does! Ugh! Definitely not one of my favorite seasons.

  8. Sun not telling Jin to go and raised their daughter bothered me too. Another thing that bugged is that when they go to attack the sub, nobody tells smokey to do his smoke thing and take out the guards so that they wouldn’t have to risk their necks. I guess that would have led to an awkward reply that Smokey can’t do that because Kate needs to get shot to motivate Jack to go on the sub. Lost does that from time to time. To love Lost is to accept shit like that.

  9. “Sayid goes from soulless badass killing machine to noble hero in the space of half an episode, because Desmond asked him a question?”

    • Well, yes. Of course. Desmond’s question cut directly to the soul of who Sayid is. Had Sayid not reacted the way he did to Desmond’s question would had been poor writing.

    “Jin and Sun, two characters we invested in for six years, die meaningless deaths and neither one thinks to mention their INFANT DAUGHTER???”

    • Meaningless? Can’t answer that (since I’m not sure if this sub explosion will have an impact in the ending) but the fact that neither mentioned their daughter? The mother LEFT her infant daughter to do WHATEVER it took to find her husband. These two people loved each other intently and selfishly. As much as I’m sure he would have loved raising his daughter, you really expect this man to leave the love of his life, to die alone, to possibly (remember, no plane & sub) get off the island for a daughter he’s had no personal bonding with? That would be poor writing.

    My big question coming out of this episode is, just what does water mean to MIB?
    • When Ben released Smokey a few years ago, he fist drained water out of the catacombs under Ben’s home.

    • When MIB was in the body of F-Locke, he had to take off the shoes of Jack’s father when he crossed the water from Hydra Island to the main island (he was purposely shown putting the shoes back on when he got onto the dock)

    • Last night, after F-Locke pulled himself out of the water (after Jack had pushed him in) he resorted to shooting guns to kill Widmore’s people rather then turn to smoke and kill them.

    • And frankly, when you can turn into smoke, why haven’t you been able to leave the island after all these years. Could it be because you’re surrounded by water?

    So, how exactly does water have power over Smokey?

  10. Richard:

    Sorry, but I disagree. None of your explanations work for me. They spent the entire season building Sayid into a soulless monster and a simple question from Desmond was enough to turn him around? It was too quick and too pat and, to me, was simply done because they are running out of time.

    And while you may have an arguable point regarding Sun/Jin, Jin broke into tears simply by looking at pictures of his daughter the episode before, despite never having “bonded” with her. And the fact that Jin was Sun’s main priority doesn’t mean she would be content to let him drown, unnecessarily, instead of reminding him that their daughter will be an orphan unless he saves himself.

  11. I’m not going to argue with the arguments presented here, but just add a few thoughts of my own re: Sun/Jin’s final moments. I think Sun felt she was dying, and at that point she began seeping into the sideways universe, where she recognized Locke on the gurney and began to realize she and Jin had another life awaiting them. In those final moments she knew they would be together with their child in the sideways universe.

    Personally, I thought it was a great episode. I have this theory that the Lost Island Universe has been slowly collapsing as more of the characters in the sideways universe become aware of the lives they “left behind,” and “The Candidate” certainly validates my theory so far. Of course, I thought Faraday was going to wind up in the cabin and “become” Jacob, so what do I really know? Everything until it’s disproved. Bring it on!

    Oh, and Smokey is just plain allergic to water. Can’t function in it. That’s why they put him on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean!

  12. I’m a little with Michael on this.

    If not for the triumphant return of director Jack Bender this would have been a fairly lame episode, even with all the epochal deaths. I know I must have missed a line in all the excitement but just WHY is Widmore now not going along with Sawyer’s plan? According to Marc, internet suspicion is that Widmore and Flocke are in cahoots and honest there is no other way to read any of this. Except that all the mystery motivation is now becoming a liability as the lack of goals for the villains is making things seem arbitrary. Like Sun getting her English back.

    I know either Sun or Jin was going to buy it the minute I saw them talking about Ji-Yeon. IN ENGLISH. It should have been subtitled. Having BOTH of them die nobly was a bit of a shocker (and yes I cried) but only logical — their storyline on the island was over. I agree with Joseph that it was fairly meaningless except in the “war is hell” way.

    Now, Bad Sayid — he had to redeem himself and he was gonna die sooner or later.

    This season that the writers only have time for who is important. So we’re down to the core Hurley, Jack, Sawyer and Kate on the “good” side. Only Kate is also of no interest to the writers — notice we didn’t see a “crying” reaction from her as we did with Hugo and Jack. (Or maybe it was just bad acting.)

    On the other side we have Locke and Claire (who knew she was such a demon with the shooting and doesn’t even know how to get onto a submarine), and out in the jungle we have Miles, Ben and Alpert. I guess Widmore and Tiny Fey are still on Hydra, too. Oh and Desmond in the well.

    I predict a meaningless red shirt death for Miles, a heroic redemptive death for Ben, and a Ilyana death for Richard. And Desmond will go spinning through space and time like the Demolished Man.

    There are so many threads that are just being left unraveled as we speed to the conclusion. What happened to Cindy and the kids? And what about the pregnancy thing? They’d better solve that before the end.

    All kvetching aside, the big payoff in this episode was pretty exciting and as Mark noted, Michael Giacchino’s sad piano music was never sadder.

  13. The thought of Widmore working with Smokey crossed my mind as well – it would explain why Smokey was able to turn off the generators so easily. But if that was the case why wouldn’t Widmore just kill everyone once they were in the cages? Why the big, complicated Bond villain-esque machinations to get them all in a sub with a bomb that one of them would have to try to defuse in order to get it to actually blow up? The book that has the island “Rules” in it must be enormous.

  14. I’m going to go with the flow of things, and give the Lost writers the benefit of the doubt right now and believe that all our questions will be answered in the four and a half hours the series has left. After all, they were able to explain why a ship was in the middle of the jungle and how a giant statue was brought to its knee in three seconds. I’ve given up on Cindy and the kids, though. Once you know where they are, they’re gone again.

  15. WOW. I guess the kickoff to the Finale has now begun…

    Three things:

    Bernard in the LAX Alt-verse— yay, the Tailies ARE in the side-flash world afterall! Well, at least Bernard is… and whose cameo meeting with Jack only seems to serve the purpose of clueing him into the unreal/MATRIX-like nature of the Alt-verse where Flight 815 passengers are bound to bump into each other. But was Alt-Bernard also “woken up” by Alt-Desmond?

    MIB/unLocke’s machinations— dude’s playing some complex endgame, playing the 815 Candidates like that! Either he’s THE master manipulator on the Island (take THAT, Jacob, and your insistence on Free Will behavior!)… or Linde(x)Cuse just wanted to rob Ben of the title he’s held for the last 4 years running. Still has to be shown if all that MIB/uL motives micromanagement will ultimately be successful: Sayid seemingly broke free of the programming. The best laid Plans of Mice and Smoke Monster…?

    The deaths of Jin, Sun, Sayid— completely UNEXPECTED; would’ve played money on “secondary” characters like Ben, Miles, Desmond or Lapidus to go before ANY of the 815ers would [oh wait]. That underwater shot of the drowned Kwons’ hands slowly drifting apart not only confirmed the “bodies shown = yup, DEAD” rule… but also implies that that ‘Love will Save All’ theme showing up in the last couple of episodes might not be true? As for Sayid’s sacrifice: yeah, having a hard time buying his character’s turnaround from zombie-MIB follower to renewed loyal-815er. That conversation with Desmond-in-a-well that apparently reconverted him back smacks of this season’s annoying “I changed my mind”/’We weren’t looking for the Lighthouse”/”Maybe it’s aphasia?”/”He changed his mind” Linde(x)Cuses to summarily explain abrupt plot-demanded developments of this Final Season…

    (An adjunct to the last above: Sayid, Sun and Jin killed off? What— is it time for purging the LOST cast of anyone “ethnic”? I mean, seriously: WTF?? Ana Lucia, Eko, Nikki and Paolo, Rousseau’s daughter, Michael, Ilana, and now Sayid and the Kwons vs. Arzt,
    Claire’s bro, Libby, Charlie, Juliet and Lapidus? Added weight on Michael, Sayid and the Kwons BECAUSE they’re/were central 815ers; meanwhile, Kate and Sawyer survive.
    There must be something about the Island that makes this so… and now I’m worried about Hurley. ;) )

  16. I couldn’t help but notice that no sooner had Jin & Sun shuffled off this mortal coil then: cut to Jin shuffling back into the other mortal coil- Sun’s hospital room with a little bouquet of flowers.
    And Sayid always played it close to the vest so it seemed pretty clear that, as always things weren’t as the appeared…

  17. Not to belabor the point, but this is from an interview with Daniel Dae Kim:

    So to me that says the writers wrote the death scene forgetting there even was a baby. And someone said “ummmm…what about Ji Yeon?”. So they inserted a half-assed scene with Jin basically saying “Oh so the baby is with your mother and heartless gangster father? No worries then!” which somehow allowed him to choose suicide over parenthood?

    Very disappointing

  18. Fail. Don’t know what happened. This is what I was trying to insert above:

    Q: And yet I have to ask about Jin’s motivations. Obviously he really loved Sun, but how do you justify in your own mind that Jin would stay with Sun, knowing that he was orphaning his daughter Ji Yeon?
    A: That’s an excellent point. I can tell you that we received [new script] pages as we were shooting the episode that added a scene in the bear cages where Jin asks what happened to Ji Yeon. And you hear Jin asking Sun who’s taking care of the girl. And so that was deliberately put in there so that he would know that she wasn’t completely an orphan. Also, in the sub, there’s a moment that’s not scripted where I looked away from Sun toward the door and I wondered, “Should I go?” That was my moment for Ji Yeon. I thought to myself, “Can I do this?” But the decision I made at that point was that even if I tried to leave I wouldn’t have made it, because I had no oxygen and the submarine was so far under water. All I can say is that I’m sure Damon and Carlton took the concern of Ji Yeon to heart when they wrote the episode.

  19. Missed it live, had to see it on Hulu. After the scene with Jin and Sun holding hands there, they cut to commercial. It was a PSA for hunger in America. The song repeats the lyrics, “I’ll never let go of your hand.” What the hell, Hulu, what the hell?

  20. My guess is Widmore is concentrating on trapping or killing MIB by using the electromagnetic energy on the island and doesn’t care what MIB does on Hydra Island.

    As for Jin and Sun, Jin did say he would never leave Sun again, although in real life, I think he certainly would have left to raise his child, which is why the writers didn’t mention Ji Yeon in their final scene.

  21. The Beat–

    I agree that the lack of guards around the sub looks suspicious, but if Widmore and Smokey are in cahoots, for whose benefit is their verbal sparring through the pylons in whatever episode they “first” meet?

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