This is ABC's official description of tonight's Lost episode, "The Candidate":"Jack must decide whether or not to trust Locke after he is asked to follow through on a difficult task."
Here is how Brian interprets the promo on his excellent Lost...and Gone Forever blog:
Logic tells us that SmokeLocke is going to pick up right where he left off last week, heading to Hydra Island to reunite with his Candidates and to take on Widmore in “The Battle for the Island." Does Jack trust SmokeLocke? Of course not. Will he go along for the ride in an effort to try and understand SmokeLocke’s true intentions and figure out how to stop him? Most definitely. What is the “difficult task” that SmokeLocke tasks Jack with? The last time an episode description was worded like this, it was when SmokeLocke was convincing Ben to murder Jacob – could it be that this time it’s about Jack murdering Widmore? Maybe SmokeLocke promises to save all of his friends if he agrees to go along with him. Maybe he claims that the only way to save the Island is to go along with him. Either way, it’s going to be something that makes Jack question what his true purpose on the Island is, who he can trust, and what he should do. He’s going to be all alone in this decision, and it’s finally going to see if all that time spent staring out at the ocean paid off.
Time is getting very, very short for our favorite series. The Lost cast has wrapped shooting on Oahu; the producers have edited the two-hour finale, "The End," which will air on Sunday, May 23. We have heard that next week's episode, "Across the Sea," will be mythology-loaded and quite different from any episode of Lost that we have ever seen. And the series' penultimate episode that airs on May 18? Frankly, its title is so scary, so loaded, that I don't even want to mention it here.
Come back tonight and talk about "The Candidate" in the comments; I have a feeling there will be a lot to talk about. And don't forget, the ep runs a couple of minutes long, so be sure to set your recorders accordingly.
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9 comments:
One word: Bloodbath.
The Island story this week was far more compelling than the Sideways story. And far, far sadder.
The Lostaways, captured by the Widmorons, were herded into the polar bear cages, surrounded by a sonic fence for protection from Smokey. But Sayid knocked out the generator and Smokey attacked, wiping out Widmore's guards. Jack showed up, helped the Losties out of the cages and, with Sayid, led everyone to the Ajira plane.
There, UnLocke already had killed a couple more Widmore guards and discovered the plane was rigged with C4 wire into the electrical system. So instead of flying out, the group trekked to the sub dock. Sawyer and Jack planned to knock UnLocke into the water so they could board the sub without him. They did so, clambered aboard the sub and commandeered it from the two-man crew. Jack was the only one who planned to stay behind after helping the others escape.
But then Widmore snipers opened fire on Locke and the Losties. Kate (who's not a candidate, remember) took a bullet to the chest. More urgently, Jack discovered that UnLocke had rigged a bomb and planted it in his backpack. With seconds ticking away, Sayid grabbed the bomb and ran to the far end of the sub, taking the blast directly and dying his redemptive, heroic death.
Frank was whacked by a damaged sub door or window blowing inward. Sun was pinned to the wall, and Jin stayed with her, refusing to save himself as the water rose. They died together, holding hands to the same sad music that played when Charlie drowned at the end of Season 3.
Sawyer took a blow to the head, but Jack dragged him out and to the surface; Hugo meanwhile got the wounded Kate out. The four of them met up on the beach and everyone wept together.
Meanwhile, back at the dock, UnLocke told Claire (left behind once again!) that the sub had blown up, but that not everyone was dead, and he set off with rifle in hand to "finish what I started."
In LA-X, alt-Jack failed to talk alt-Locke into experimental surgery that might help him walk again. Doc also snooped around (with some help from Bernard Nadler, DDS) and discovered that Locke's dad, Anthony Cooper, lives in a nursing home, but is so disabled that he sits vacant-eyed in a wheelchair. (No wonder LAPD Detective James Ford hasn't tracked him down.)
Locke finally told Jack that he'd gotten a pilot's license three years ago and took his acrophobic dad for a ride, but the plane crashed, and it's all his fault that they are both as they are.
So who's the Candidate? Sayid told Jack that "You're the one," and told him where to find Desmond on the main island.
Don't expect to see what happens to the Losties next week. The previews gave nothing away -- no new footage was shown -- but clips made it clear that "Across the Sea" will be all about Jacob and the Man in Black.
And now: a moment of silence for Frank Lapidus,, Sayid Jarrah, and Sun and Jin Kwon.
Rest in peace. :-(
P.S.: This morning, I see that a number of LOST bloggers wonder if Frank Lapidus is really dead or not. Yeah, he got whacked by the flying sub door, but did he die? We didn't see it happen, actually. In LOST land, that often means that the "presumed dead" person isn't really dead. At least, not yet. So we'll wait and see. Maybe Frank will turn up again. The Ajira plane's still there, after all. And if whoever wired it to explode (Widmore? Richard?) can de-wire it, Frank would do his best to fly it out with whoever is left to leave.
Wow. I think this was the deadliest Lost ever. Well, at least deadliest for those who aren't red shirts.
It was great to see that Sayid regained his humanity to save his fellow Losties (or at least some of them.) It was sad to see him go, but it seems that he has now redeemed himself. And, he also told Jack where to find Desmond and that Desmond is the key. And that Jack is the one. The Candidate? Is Sayid now worthy of Nadia? Will he now see her?
I cried when Jin and Sun died. (Very Titanic, btw). I began crying when he was trying to save her. I'm not sure if Jin not leaving was the ultimate sacrifice or ultimate selfishness. He refuses to let Sun die alone but yet is leaving their daughter without either parent.
I can't help but wonder if there is a happily ever after even for those who died. After all, they are still alive in the sideways world. Does what they do on the Island affect the Sideways World? Or does what they do in both worlds affect a yet unknown third world?
I'd love to get your thoughts on this.
Do we really know for sure that Jin is dead? Could she have convinced him to leave after we last saw them? Probably not, but we didn't actually see him died, did we?
It was an incredible sad episode, but that's somewhat mitigated by the fact that we have the Sideways people. They are still alive somewhere.
That was a huge reveal about UnLocke. So, he can't kill them directly, only indirectly through manipulation? That certainly gives the remaining Losties a stronger hand to play.
I was also fascinated by the reverse about leaving the island. We thought UnLocke needed them all to leave, but I assume this really means that he needs them all to die for him to leave.
With the Widmore rigged plane, that bring up the question about whether Widmore understands what's really happened and what UnLocke needs to leave.
Jeff, I think it is possible that Widmore did NOT rig the plane with dynamite. Remember that the last we saw of Richard, he was heading to Dharmaville with Miles and Ben, hoping to find some kind of explosive and destroy the plane so UnLocke could not leave on it.
Hey, I just re-watched "The Candidate," and I noticed a couple of things.
One: There IS new footage in next week's previews. At the beginning, there are two brief clips of Jacob and MiB playing a game of some kind, one played with sticks and black and white rocks.
Two: I think Bernard already knows a lot more than he let on. Almost everything he said to Jack gave me that impression. Especially the way he called Jack "Doc" at the end of their conversation.
Joyce -- I agree about Bernard. I think he has been enlightened about the island. I wonder if we'll find out how? And, will we find out if Rose and Bernard are married in the Sideways World?
I'm curious about Desmond's role in this. If he does know about both worlds, he is definitely a threat to UnLocke. But I'm thinking there's more to it than that. Not sure what, though.
Also, what do you think about Widmore? Good? Evil? Somewhere in the middle?
Jen, remember we saw alt-Rose in "The Substitute." And she introduced herself to al-Locke as "Rose Nadler." Since Rose and Bernard already are each other's Constants, I think that's why they survived any time shifts on the Island --and also why they are alredy enlighted in Sideway World.
I don't think Widmore is evil, and I think he's working against Smokey, but he's a hard-ass who will do whatever he must to make things go his way, and he is only interested in two things: protecting the Candidates and in getting Smokey back into the bottle! And just maybe, he wants to make Sideways world the new reality...one in which he has not sacrificed so much.
I had not thought of the possibility that Widmore wants to make the Sideways World a reality. I'm not sure if the Sideways Widmore knows about the island. But I think it's very possible Island Widmore knows about the Sideways World.
Thanks for the Rose reminder. I had forgotten about that.
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