LOST Revisted: 6-14 “The Candidate”
Hey, it’s Katie Sagal as Helen! I will take my joy where I can find it in this episode.
On the Island, Jack wakes up. He’s in a boat, onshore, with Sayid watching. If you notice, they take a good long time to have him stand up. After spunkybuddy Larry Young convinced me that Jack would be paralyzed by the rocket attack, this was worrisome. Sayid welcomes him to Hydra Island, which is not the same Island they were on at the end of the last episode. Yep, we’ve finally got our whole cast together on one Island. (With the possible exception of Richard, Benry, and Miles. I miss those guys.)
And sure enough, Widmore’s crew leads the Lostaways back to the polar bear cages. That actually got a pretty good laugh out of me. Sawyer overpowers Seamus (I’ve been wavering on whether to call him by his character’s name or to call him “Andrew Schillinger from Oz”. This isn’t going to matter for very long.) and takes his gun, but then Widmore shows up and puts a gun to Kate’s head. Disturbingly, Widmore knows about the list, and he knows who isn’t on it. Namely, Kate. That’s good enough to get Sawyer to give up the gun and return to captivity. At least this time he knows how to get fish biscuits.
In Timeline X, Jack visits a dentist. Dr. Bernard Nadler, DDS! And check out how it blows Jack’s mind that Bernard was on Flight 815. He’s putting things together on his own here. Jack’s looking for information about Locke – neither Locke nor Helen will tell him about Locke’s original accident but he’s been able to uncover that Bernard performed emergency oral surgery on Locke. Since Bernard is a professional, he can’t divulge anything except that there was another man injured in that accident – Anthony Cooper.
On the Island, Jack and Look-a-Locke have a nice little standoff. Jack says he’s not leaving the Island, but he will help rescue the other Lostaways. Look-a-Locke: “I could kill you. Right here, right now.” But as we’ll find out soon, he totally can’t!
Back in the cages, Sawyer tells Kate about the cave and the list of names. He says that her name was crossed out, and that’s a nice detail. There were hundreds of crossed-out names, but he looked for hers. There’s a nice scene with Sun and Jin (stay strong…) where Sun tells Jin about Ji Yeon, and gives him his wedding ring. The power goes out at this point, which is the cue for Smokey to attack.
He kills Seamus, throwing him against Kate and Sawyer’s cage. In one of the most awesome things anybody has done on this show, Frank almost kicks his door open. That’s right – it’s a cage built to contain bears and Frank’s only a solid kick or two away from busting it wide open. Jack gets the key from Seamus’ body and they’re off to the plane. Jack tells Sawyer that he’s “not meant to leave”. Yeah, I seem to remember Locke saying that when he blew up the Dharma sub. Also, Jack’s sure they can trust Sayid, who seems at least a little bit like his old self right now.
Over in Timeline X, Jack’s at the Sun Palms Nursing Home looking for Anthony Cooper. He runs into Helen, and she tries to talk him out of it. “You saved John’s life? Why can’t that be enough?” That’s great, because it fits the Jack of the early episodes. He is going to fix everything whether you want him to or not. Finally she relents, and Jack meets Cooper. He’s in a wheelchair and completely unresponsive.
By the way, that probably explains why Sawyer X couldn’t find him and Jack could – Sawyer was probably limiting his Anthony Cooper search to people who weren’t in a persistent vegetative state.
On Hydra Island, Look-a-Locke approaches the plane and just walks through a hail of bullets from Widmore’s gunmen. He kills one by snapping his neck, and shoots the others. Then he takes the time to take a digital watch from one of the bodies. Because that’s what his look needs. Once he’s on the plane, he notices some wires running along the ceiling and finds what we can guess is a bomb long before they show it to us. (Though I was hoping it would be some leaky dynamite – where the heck are Richard, Benry, and Miles?)
When the rest of the Lostaways arrive on the scene (and note that Frank is completely confident that he can get that plane in the air), the Lockelganger shows them the C4. He says that Widmore set that trap for them, so they’re going to take the submarine instead. Hurley tries to tell his friends that Smokey isn’t supposed to leave the Island, but Sawyer just doesn’t want to hear it. There’s a nice moment (and by “nice”, I mean “kind of creepy”) where Look-a-Locke forgives Claire for running off on him. He has such a weird fatherly vibe with her.
Sawyer pulls Jack aside to talk about the plan. If Jack doesn’t want to leave, that’s all well and good. His job, then, is to knock Look-a-Locke in the water once they get to the dock. I like how their goals are gradually getting more realistic – they know they can’t kill him, so now they’re going to settle for getting him wet.
In Timeline X, Locke is mumbling while asleep in the hospital. “Push the button – I wish you had believed me”. So that’s his reason for existence in Season Two and the text of his suicide note. Locke X is definitely peeking over into the other world. Jack spots Claire outside the room and goes to talk to her. He buys an Apollo Bar from the vending machine, which is a neat reference. We’ve seen Apollo Bars in the past – notably, they’re the only non-Dharma brand stocked in the Swan Station. Even more notably, Jacob gave Jack an Apollo Bar when they met off the Island. I love how Lost incorporates product placement for products that don’t actually exist.
Claire shows Jack the music box that Christian left her, and neither knows if it has any significance. I have a terrible ear, but contextually I have to assume the song is “Catch a Falling Star”, which is the lullaby that comes up time and time again. Feel free to straighten me out if I’m wrong about that. Jack invites Claire to stay with him, and it’s nice to see them getting used to the idea of being a family.
The Lostaways reach the (strangely unguarded) sub. Sawyer gives everybody their positions and has Jack and Look-a-Locke hang back. The Lockelganger hands Jack his backpack, which is probably not significant, right? They don’t encounter resistance on the way, so Sawyer and Frank take the sub. Everybody follows, and as they’re boarding, Jack knocks Look-a-Locke into the water. Unfortunately, that’s when Widmore’s people pop out of the woods and start shooting. Kate gets hit, while Sayid and Claire return fire. Jack brings Kate into the sub to get her to safety, while Look-a-Locke pulls himself out of the water and starts killing people.
Sawyer closes the hatch, leaving Kate and Locke behind, but bringing Jack along for the ride. Frank commands the captain to start the sub, and it pulls away from the dock. I don’t know if submarines “pull away”, or if the guy at the wheel was actually a captain. Nautical terms are not my strong suit. Claire tries to run to the sub but Look-a-Locke holds her back. He assures her that she doesn’t want to be on that sub.
None of this seems right to Jack, and he checks out his backpack. The bomb is in there, wired to that digital watch. They have less than four minutes. Sayid, acting more and more like himself, looks it over and finds a way to defuse it. But Jack stops him. You know why? Because Jack has clearly been reading the Pre-Game Reports. He reasons that Smokey can’t leave the Island unless everyone is dead. That’s why he wanted to get them all in a small area that had no means of exit. But Jack Shephard, spunkybean reader, also realizes that Smokey can’t kill them. He can’t kill the candidates. He’s had the chance, but he’s kept his hands and tendrils off of them. The bomb won’t go off unless they tinker with it.
Here’s an interesting thing to think about. Look-a-Locke took the digital watch before he found the bomb. Doesn’t that seem like he knew about the bomb beforehand? Is he that good at anticipating what everybody’s going to do, or is Widmore in on it? I mean, this gets a bomb into Smokey’s hands and convinces everybody he can be trusted. And Widmore had gunmen hiding at the sub, waiting to shoot until after the Lostaways were on board. (And who did they shoot? Kate, the non-candidate.) In the Pre-Game, spunkybuddy Julie suggested that Widmore has been Smokey’s pawn since before he left the Island, and I think that’s what the evidence indicates here.
Sawyer doesn’t believe him, though. He pulls the wires as Sayid instructed, and the timer stops. As Jack prepares to post a comment about how I don’t know what I’m talking about, the timer suddenly starts counting down faster. Sayid picks up the bomb, and tells Jack that Desmond is in the well. So he spared Desmond! That is our last piece of good news this week. And then Sayid, who has been Infected, who has had his soul corrupted, he runs away with the bomb. Jacob’s right about free will here. Based on the rules, Sayid shouldn’t have any emotions. He shouldn’t have spared Desmond, and he certainly shouldn’t have sacrificed his life without hesitation. Sayid redeems himself. As Hurley put it last week, he was saved from the Dark Side. The fact that we’re seeing this happen is awesome and exciting, right up until the bomb goes off in Sayid’s arms.
Rest in Peace, Sayid Jarrah. You embodied the idea of personal redemption on Lost, and you will be missed.
The sub starts taking on water. Frank leaves the control room to see what’s going on, and he gets to a door just as it blows. The metal door flattens him and water rushes in. The one thing I want to say here is that Frank has the greatest reaction here. Check it out – he knows what’s coming, and his reaction is one of irritation. For Frank Lapidus, death is just another inconvenience that he has to deal with.
Farewell, Frank Lapidus. You just may have been the coolest guy in the world. Though to be honest, I’m sort of expecting you to show up in the finale, alive and well and slightly waterlogged.
As the sub fills with water, we see that Sawyer’s been knocked out, and Sun is pinned by some equipment that’s broken loose. Jack tells Hurley to bring Kate to shore, and gives him one of two oxygen tanks to bring along. Jack and Jin manage to move the equipment, but Sun is still stuck – her legs are trapped and they can’t pull her loose. I think she knows that she’s not going to get out of this. Jin sends Jack away – he says to get Sawyer out of there. Jack tries to give Jin the last oxygen tank. Yeah, of course Jack thinks he can get to shore without oxygen. Jin refuses it, and finally Jack swims off with Sawyer.
Sun wants Jin to leave her behind, but he tells her that he won’t leave her. As he said last week, they will never be separated again. And then they just hold each other as the room fills with water. If you keep it together through this scene, you are a monster.
You guys, Jin is never going to meet his daughter.
Jin and Sun Kwon – You fought your way through time and space to be together. Amidst the time travel and moving Islands and parallel timelines, your love has endured and grown. I don’t think there’s anybody in the audience who wasn’t rooting for you, and you’ve been the heart of Lost.
I am seriously losing it all over again.
OK, in Timeline X, Locke prepares to leave the hospital. Jack intercepts him to say good-bye, and tells him about how he saw Anthony Cooper. Finally, Locke tells him what happened. Locke X was in a plane crash. He just got his pilot’s license, and he took his dad up on a flight.
“I don’t remember what I did wrong.”
Now if your heart’s not broken yet, consider this. If Timeline X is meant to be Smokey’s World of Wish Fulfillment, then Locke chose to live with the guilt of maiming his father rather than ever have to deal with what an SOB the man is. And we know he’s a bad guy in this world, because Sawyer’s parents are dead and it’s Anthony Cooper’s fault. Locke would rather hate himself forever over a mistake and keep an untarnished image of his father. The more I think about it, that absolutely kills me. He’d rather hate himself than hate his father, and that is just brutal.
This whole conversation is equally relevant in both times, with both men trying to come to grips with their father issues. “What happened, happened” says Jack, which we’ve heard a couple of times, and he encourages Locke to come to terms with everything. And as I quoted above, Locke sums up what the entire audience is thinking. Letting go is not easy. As he wheels away, Jack calls out “I wish you believed me!” The way Locke pauses makes it seem as if he knows those words are important.
On the Island, Jack and Sawyer get to shore and meet up with Kate and Hurley. Hey, it’s exactly the same group that assembled on the dock in New Otherton back at the end of Season Two. They all mourn their losses, and if you’ve been holding up this whole time, then Hurley’s reaction should put you over the top. Wow.
Our final scene is Look-a-Locke and Claire on the docks. He knows that sub sank, but some of them survived. So he heads off into the night “to finish what I started”.
I’ll have more to say later, but this episode packed an incredible emotional punch. I know I tend to give most of my acting praise to Terry O’Quinn and Michael Emerson, but the whole cast shined this week. And let’s give it up for the writers of this episode, Elizabeth Sarnoff and Jim Galasso. Except for the part about how they made almost everybody I know cry tonight.
I really need that hug now.
