Lost Review: “The Candidate”
Whoa. Well, if I’ve ever accused these last few episodes of Lost of moving too slowly, I apologize, because I’m not sure we’ve ever had such an action-packed installment as last night. But with three hours to go, I have to say it’s about damn time.
Either three or four characters died (I’m not positive about the fourth yet), the three for sure were original 815ers the we’ve all grown to know and love over the years. I won’t spoil their names here before the jump for those of you who have DVR-ed the episode, and we’ll discuss their tragic demises later on.
Well, everyone has declared war on everyone. Widmore wants to destroy Not-Locke and the castaways, Not-Locke wants to destroy Widmore and the castaways just want to get the hell out of there.
Widmore has captured Sun, Jin, Frank, Sawyer, Hurley and Kate and trapped them in the polar bear cages that almost ruined the show in season three. But Not-Locke is having none of that, and with the help of Sayid, Jack and his moaning, clicking, smoking alter ego, stages a raid on the camp where he massacres everyone and sets them free.
“Gahhh, I can’t handle these cages agaaaaain!”
They head over to the Ajira plane, but Not-Locke discovers that it’s been wired with C4, and says Widmore was planning on blowing them out of the sky when they took off. I guess he should have hid his wiring better. Not-Locke says the new plan is to take the submarine, something Sawyer is none too happy about as that was HIS plan, but he plays nice and tells Not-Locke how much they owe him for saving their collective asses all time. Anyone who knows Sawyer, could guess this is pretty suspicious behavior.
I really didn’t understand the alterverse episode this week, which centered on Jack and Locke interacting in the hospital after Locke’s recent Desmond-related accident. Jack gets all excited when he tells Locke he’s a candidate (hah) for surgery that could make him walk again, but when Locke refuses, Jack goes on a mission to find out why, like uh, any doctor would?
He traces Locke’s injury to a dentist’s office(?) where (surprise) Bernard works. He tells Jack that Locke was in an accident along with another man, Anthony Cooper. Jack swings by the nursing home where Cooper lives, and it turns out he’s a vegetable. Guess he never had the chance to reveal himself to be a bastard to Locke, or was he legitimately a nice guy? When Jack confronts Locke about this, he learns it was actually a plane crash (a small one with Locke flying) and they have a heart to heart about letting go and moving on, but Locke rolls away in the end, and it seems like he still doesn’t want the surgery so he can keep punishing himself.
This dude does look like EVERY dentist I’ve ever had.
I guess the most interesting part of the alterverse was that Jack is starting to connect the dots about 815, as he finds it odd that Bernard, Claire Locke and himself were all on board, but I’m more surprised that no one I just mentioned is having Desmond-ish flashbacks to the realverse. You would think at least Locke would have after getting nailed by that car.
But back to the real world, the action picks up when the Not-Locke team heads to the sub, which is conveniently guarded by two unaware guys. You would think you’d put a heavier security detail on your only means off a magical island from which there’s rarely escape.
Widmore’s jungle reinforcements attack, and everyone piles into the sub except Jack, Claire and Not-Locke. As per Sawyer’s request earlier, Jack shoves Not-Locke into the water, and books it into the sub. Claire is left behind because she’s too much of an idiot to listen to Sawyer when he’s screaming at her to get in. Also, Kate gets shot. I’m sure she’ll be fine.
The sub dives, Claire flips out for being ditched for like the seventh time this year, but Not-Locke tells her she doesn’t want to be on that sub anyway.
“You guys are jerks!”
The reason? He’s packed the Ajira flight C4 into Jack’s bag, with a countdown timer that makes it impossible to escape. There are a lot of means of transport that would allow you to ditch a bomb like that, but there’s really no avoiding it in a sub. Clever Not-Locke, clever.
Jack wants Sawyer to trust him and not try and disarm it, because he’s stumbled upon the theory that Locke can’t kill candidates directly (previously we thought it was only Jacob), and he must trick them into killing each other. Sawyer is having none of this, and he yanks some wires out, and to his dismay, the countdown timer starts hauling ass toward zero.
Sayid mumbles something about “Jack is the one,” grabs the C4 and sprints down the hallway, where he, and it explode into a million pieces. I think throwing it down there might have achieved the same result, but whatever.
Bon voyage, you crazy Iraqi bastard.
The sub starts leaking from its massive C4-shaped hole, and the remaining castaways start freaking out. Jack tells Hurley to get shot-Kate out of there (he’s buoyant I suppose), and he stays behind to help Sawyer and Jin try to free Sun.
But when it’s clear Sun is going nowhere, Jin kicks Jack and a newly unconscious Sawyer out (he had a rogue encounter with something large and metal on falling from the ceiling) and stays behind to help free Sun.
Unlike Sayid’s speedy WTF death (which spawned the best line of the show, Hurley: “Where’s Sayid?” Jack: “THERE IS NO SAYID!”), Jin and Sun’s last moments are touching in a “Not Penny’s Boat” kind of way. Sun wants Jin to leave, but after just being reunited after years apart, Jin says he’s not going anywhere, and so the two cascade toward the bottom of the ocean, hand in hand. But uh, don’t you have a kid now? I’m sure she’d appreciate at least one of you being around.
One of the series’ better moments.
Jack, Hurley, Sawyer and Kate wash up on shore, and we’re left to assume that Lapedus also sank with the sub, as the last we saw of him he was being whacked in the face with a metal door when the water first burst in. I’ll miss you Frank, you were always a cool cat.
Claire learns that the sub sank, and Not-Locke appears to not be giving a shit that everyone knows he’s the bad guy now and says he’s off to FINISH WHAT HE STARTED. Or I guess, HAVE SOMEONE ELSE INDIRECTLY FINISH WHAT HE STARTED FOR HIM. I assume next week Ben, Richard and Miles will shows up again and have something to do with that.
All in all this was a very exciting episode with two unceremonious deaths and two touching ones. Again not too many answers, but I honestly am losing track of what questions even still remain on the show.
There’s actually 4.5 hours left. 2 more 1 hour eps, 2 hour finale, plus they extended the finale by a half hour.
I cried when Frank got hit by the door. He was the only normal one.
I got sort of a bad memory but ummm where did Miles go?
Next week is a Jacob/Man in Black flashback episode titled “Across The Sea” so…we probably won’t be seeing Team Richard until the episode before the last one, “What They Died For”.
and Damn Smokey for making Hurley cry!!
Alt-Locke is having flashes and dreams of the island, he was mubling about a pushing the button in his sleep, and when Jack said that he wished he would have believed him, something clicked in his head before he rolled off.
And Sayid was telling Jack where Desmond was and that he must be important seeing as Not-Locke wants him dead.
Intense episode. Btw Sawyer’s a douche for not listening to Jack.
*SPOILERS*
Supposedly Jeff Fahey (Lapidus) was seen filming on the island for the finale so my guess is he isn’t dead.
This isn’t really a review as much as a linear play-by-play of the entire episode… you didn’t review shit.
Two words equate for bad plot hole here: TORPEDO TUBE. What happened to dumping a backpack in that and just shooting it out? Also…5 minutes to surface? Not the way I’ve seen subs burst up like an Orca Whale jumping on its trainer..
I have a hard time believing Frank’s gone. No body…not dead…didn’t even take time out to show anything after the door hit him…like don’t let that sub door hit your ass on the way out.
Obviously, you don’t follow this show much, since your questions are fulfilled. Not the best review, in my opinion…too easily satisfied with what they presented.
@Mike – How do you know the sub even had torpedo tubes? If it’s not a military vessel then it wouldn’t have them. Also, do you not think the impact of being blown out a torpedo tube would not detonate the BOMB?!?! They’re all dancing around it as if the slightest touch will set it off… and you wanna blast it out a tube? Ya, great plan.
@Captain Balls – I agree. This is not a review, just a recap of shit that happened.
@ Sam -> I love you man. I really hope Frank is alive.
@ Mike -> I know! I kept yelling ‘throw it in the torpedo tube’ until my wife told me to shut up; and then when the driver said five minutes to surface I near shit a brick.
@ Joe -> C4 doesn’t explode from impact, throwing it in a tube and blasting it into the water, hell even just getting it into the water by any means, would be better than simply taking it and running to the ‘far end’ of the sub.
~
Regardless, I am glad shit went down. Looking forward to more candidates becoming dead in the next couple episodes.
Ya I figured Sayid would run to the hall, throw it, then close one of those metal doors. But I guess redemption = death on Lost so whatever.
I agree it’s entirely plausible that Widmore’s sub would not have had a torpedo tube. Anyway a torpedo tube might not have done the job. Torpedoes supply most of their own propulsion and the compressed air that helps them exit the tube works partly because the torpedo fits snugly into the space. Not that they couldn’t play fast and loose with the rules if they wanted too, but it doesn’t seem a glaring plot hole to me.
Yea, right with you on the child of sun and jin thing. I was like, “why isn’t sun telling Jin to leave so he can raise their child”. Selfish parents and their dying together…….
sadly, an east-coast asshole texted me that sun and jin died at like 7pm my time so i was prepared. it was a pretty lackluster event in my mind (maybe because i knew about beforehand) however i feel like they were killed off just to kill someone. this was one of the first episodes that i wasn’t crazy about this season. i wasn’t sad when they died, but i did get teary when hurley cried. man, that got me.
i think next week will be the most pivotal episode and answer any “questions” that anyone has. i’m still confused as to what answers people want as no one has really said what they want to know that hasn’t been at least mostly explained at this point.
i did have the thought that not-locke is trying to kill all the candidates at once, because if there is one left standing alone then they would automatically become the next jacob…. and we all know that MIB can’t kill jacob and can’t leave the island while he’s around.
Actually Sun, Jin and Sayid’s death is pretty damn pivotal considering there are only 3 candidates. Hurley, Sawyer and Jack…and maybe Kate…but…ugh.
It shows that The Man in Black is getting fairly close to his goal and since we’re down to the wire on “Lost” we can afford to bump off a few people.
and yeah, Hurley crying is really difficult to watch…I wanna hug him. n_n;;
@ Captain Balls and joe
That’s what some “journalist” consider a review.
Just tellin us the striaght foward plot of something and then adding maybe a few thoughts.
Bullshit if you ask me.
Anyhow, good episode. Touching moment with Sun and Jin but it left me mad at the way the killed Sayid.
@ Sean
I’d love to know where on the site we call ourselves journalists. It’s a criticism we get from time to time – how as “journalists,” we have a responsibility to do this and that.
We’re just three dudes who happen to like movies, TV, and video games and we like blogging about it. That’s it. We don’t owe you shit, so if you don’t like it, get lost.
@Madison
Hey, I respect your guys decision to post shit about tv shows, video games and commercial movies. But one would expect some type of critical analysis when someone clicks on a post stating that it is a review. Hell, the definition of review is an essay or article that gives a critical evaluation. So I think fans/readers would just want to read something more than a recap.
But I don’t you guys to change anything due to one mans critiscm.
Don’t like it? Don’t read it or visit the site.
Fin.