Previously, on Lost: Jack looks in his bag and finds a bomb that can't kill everyone on the submarine unless they mess with it. Sawyer messes with the bomb. Everyone frets about what to do with the bomb. Sayid grabs the bomb and runs. The bomb explodes. Sayid dies. Frank Lapidus dies. (Never forget!) Jin decides to drown with Sun rather than live life as a single parent. Jack, Kate, Sawyer and Hurley wash up on the beach.
Only one more episode left, gang. Let's not waste any more time in preamble before turning the Frozen Donkey Answer Wheel to handle the latest batch of questions Lost has posed to us.
What did Damon Lindelof have to tweet about last night's episode?
Perhaps sensing that "What They Died For" would not be nearly as polarizing as last week's "Flashback ExpositionFest '10," Lindelof seemed not as preoccupied with winking at the rioting masses.
Before we really dive in here, are we angry at Lindecuse Darltonof again this week, or are we just sitting back and enjoying our precious few remaining moments together with them and the surviving castaways?
Our collective, often irrational anger is not unlike the Smoke Monster: it appears seemingly out of nowhere, emits a sound like a freight train sodomizing a polar bear, and then disappears into the distance as quickly as it came. So we're all just enjoying ourselves until the finale. Right? Right.
Is opening a box of cereal technically making breakfast?
We're going to agree with Jack on this one: It is not technically making breakfast. But to his credit, he decided to just eat the cereal flash-sideways son David "prepared" for him, rather than muttering, "I can fix this," and then cooking up a feast of pancakes, eggs and homemade chorizo. This was a crucial character moment we'll return to later.
OK, but wasn't Jack fixing Kate on the beach mere moments later?
First of all, that was regular Jack, not sideways-Jack. Secondly, Kate had a bullet wound that needed sewing up. And "This is the best I can do," is a lot less God-complex-y than what the old Jack might have said: "I can travel back in time and slap that bullet right out of the air. I can pre-fix you." This was also a crucial character moment, which we'll touch on later.
So what should they do about "Locke"?
They have to kill him. Because of the bomb on the submarine, and other sound killing-reasons.
What do all those sad life preservers washing up on shore represent?
They represent the friends lost on the submarine: Sayid, Jin and Sun. And perhaps most poignantly, Lapidus, because there would be no way he'd put one of those things on. He'd rather drown than look like a total p*ssy.
What might happen if a mousy high school teacher tries to make a citizen's arrest of a burly Scottish guy who recently used his curiously unbranded BMW* to run over a guy in a wheelchair?
That high school teacher would catch a beating so severe he'd flash back to an identical beating he was dealt in an alternate reality for trying to kill the burly Scottish guy. And then the Scottish guy would tell him some surprisingly convincing story about his altruistic motivations for playing wheelchair demolition derby.
(*Come on, BMW, pony up the product placement cash. The show's almost over, get a piece of the action before it's gone.)
What's in Ben's seeeeecret walk-in closet?
A bunch of nice clothes he needed to hide from Ethan, who was always borrowing Ben's various "looks" without asking. Enough C4 explosive to blow ten planes to ten separate hells. Oh, and a tunnel to the place where he used to summon the monster, before it finally dawned on him that perhaps it was actually the monster who was summoning him.
Did Ben look emotionally devastated when he accused Widmore of never having met Jacob, and then Widmore threw it right back in his face that he had totally met Jacob, who came to Los Angeles for a visit after they blew up his barge?
Seriously, why did EVERYONE get to meet Jacob but Ben? He's trying to move past the fact that he dedicated his life to serving his absentee god, but it's really hard when people keep taunting him with their meaningful Jacob encounters.
So what have Straume & Ford: Crimefighting Buddies been up to?
The usual. Joshin' around about the crazy red-headed chick Jimbo Ford boned, hanging at the station, and locking up virtually every flash-sideways cast member who was on Oceanic 815. Oh, hey, here's another one! Some guy who's turning himself in for steamrolling a cripple and beating up a nerd. Throw him in the cell with the other passengers. He'll never convince them he can help them escape, then awaken them to the lives they've already lived on a mysterious island.
Why didn't Lockeford W. Smokenheimer just kill Desmond if he wanted him dead, instead of all this grab-assing with throwing him down a well and expecting to politely stay down there until can he find someone to do the dirty work?
If you, like Jack, were inclined to think that It's probably another one of those "rules" that governs why a character doesn't take the most expedient route to what they want, allowing something as seemingly simple as murdering a helpless guy in a well stretch on for several episodes, we couldn't blame you. There was no way to know that Smokey had plans for Desmond. Big plans. Nefarious plans.
Is there anything funnier than Hurley running through the jungle, chasing a blonde kid who stole his Jacob ashes?
Not this week! And that lead us to the very important Jacob line, "You should get your friends. We're very close to the end, Hugo." Indeed we are. [A beat, as we stare out into the distance.] Indeed we are.
No? It wasn't funnier when Miles took every possible opportunity to say he'd much rather go hide in the jungle than get murdered by a rampaging Smokey?
Fine, we'll call it a tie between Hurley running and Miles doing his best Shaggy impression.
Is Richard dead after getting blasted into a tree by the Giant Black Smokefist Of Straight-Up Coldcocking?
We need to believe that Jacob smokeproofed him as part of the process of becoming his eternal sidekick. Cuse and Lindelof have to know there can be no satisfying finale without a touch of Guyliner.
Whose outrigger is that at the dock?
[Please say it belongs to the people who shot at the other canoe, then FINALLY TELL US who those Outrigger Marksmen were!!!]
Damn, it's just Widmore's. How about a nice glass of lemonade to wash down your frustration?
Why does Smokey bother walking when he can fly around everywhere, or slice open the throats of foxy geophysicists when he could more easily smite them with his Smokefist?
He likes his feet on the ground, or his knife slicing through a carotid artery; it reminds him of when he was a regular-walking, throat-slashing human being, just like you.
OK, Jacob's finally decided to come back for a visit and unambiguously answer some questions around a Ticking Clock Campfire. What are you going to ask him?
a) Why did you think you could mess with our lives, which were so great, you strangely godlike jerk?
b) Why did you cross Kate's name off the wall?
c) It's clear we need to kill Smokey. Is that even possible?
d) Who are you going to pick as your replacement?
e) Why did your magic telescope only point at Los Angeles?
Great questions! Now what are the answers?
a) Hold on, Shirtless McThousandCrunchesADay. Were your lives really so great to begin with? Or were you all lonely and flawed? Did you ever stop to think that maybe you needed a higher purpose, and that you needed the island as much as it needed
you?
b) Freckles, can he call you that? Hey, it's just a line of chalk in a cave. It's not some kind of mystical Candidate Cancellation ceremony. He just figured you suddenly had better things to do, like be a mom to that baby you stole from Claire.
c) He hopes so! Cuz he sure as hell is gonna try to kill you!
d) Oh, come now. Isn't it obvious he's all about free will? Sure, Jacob will pluck you from your lives, crash your plane on his island, and refuse to answer any questions until the penultimate episode of your adventure, but in the end, you have to choose to be the Protector of the Golden Light in the Magic Cave at Heart of the Island. So who's up for it? [Jack's hand immediately shoots up.] Great! This will complete your arc from inept, God-complex-addled, wannabe leader (shut up, Sawyer, we know) to humble, self-sacrificing light-keeper. Poof! You're so much more likable now.
e) Because L.A. has the highest density of lonely, unfulfilled people grasping for immortality on the planet? Seems obvious.
How long is Jack going to have to do this Protector Of The Golden Glow gig?
Remember that crusty Knight of the Templar who spent centuries guarding the Holy Grail in that cave protected by elaborately deadly puzzles in the third Indiana Jones movie? Jacob used to change that guy's diapers. But let's just say, "As long as you can," so that Jack doesn't suddenly back out with the finale in, like, four days. We don't have much time to trick someone else into taking the job.
Where's the Decanter Of The Wine Of Immortality that Jacob drank to become like Mother? What's up with this tin cup and water bullsh*t?
Don't you see? It's not about magic wine. It's about the choice to sacrifice oneself for the sake of humanity. The liquid and the vessel are just symbolic. (It gets a little lonely being the Eternal Security Guard Of The Golden Lightbulb. Let's just say that sometimes it feels like that jug o' godjuice is your only friend, and then one day you look down and realize you've polished it all off, so you'd better come up with a story about the wine not being important.)
It looks like Homicidal Ben is back. He's not really going over to the Smoke Side, is he?
Ben had some score-settling to do with Widmore, so pumping him full of lead while he tried to save Penny from Smokey's wrath was a necessary, if personally satisfying, way to deceive him into thinking Ben wants to join the Smoketown Crips. At least that's what we'd like to think. Dr. Ben's so cuddly and redeemable in the flash-sideways (for Jacob's sake, he cried because Rousseau said Alex sees him as a father figure! Isn't that heart-wrenching?) that we can't bear to think he'd go back to killing and lying and general-slippery-weasling just to get the island all to himself. Or would he?
How much does it take to buy off Ana Lucia Cortez: Crooked Flash-Sideways Cop?
$145k, and not a dollar of Hugo's lottery winnings less.
Is Desmond the "last resort" or the "failsafe"?
He's Widmore's last resort and his failsafe, an electromagnetism-resistant magic bullet that the inscrutable billionaire hoped to fire into Smokey's heart if all the precious candidates were killed. But! Smokey's now going to use Desmond to do what he could never do on his own: DESTROY THE ISLAND! [Fifteen uninterrupted seconds of maniacal laughter, growing in intensity from "amused cackle" to "unhinged bellowing," cut to LOST logo, cut to Bad Robot title card, roll end credits.]
More dangerous to the world: Smokey with the cork out of the bottle, or Michelle Rodriguez with the cork out of the bottle?
See you after the finale, everybody!