The Candidate

Wow.... just holy smokes.... wow... this show continues to, I mean, it absolutely continues to impress and stupefy and just amaze me... and based on some of the responses you guys sent me, you're in full agreement...
So let's cut right to the chase...some things were CLEARLY made obvious in this episode:

Locke is EVIL.....
He had a plan this whole time to get all of the candidates together...put them in a situation where they CHOOSE to make a decision to get them killed.. Jack was right that Fake Locke/Smokey wasn't allowed to kill them...based on some sort of "rules"... which is how he got Ben to kill Jacob and Sayid to kill Dogen... I know I've been on the fence on whether or not his intentions were pure...maybe he really just wants to get off the Island, but I think more importantly, Fake Locke just wants "out"... he wants to be done with the game.... look for more answers on the "game" next week...but more on that later...
Sayid is the MAN....
He found the "light" and grabbed that bomb like Archie Griffith.... "He...could...go...all... the...wa..." BOOM!
Probably the single most heroic act seen on LOST...it was a little reminiscent of Desmond turning the fail safe key but with a lot more impact... I loved the way Sayid went out... I don't want to see the baddest dude on the Island suffer some crappy drawn out death...live by the sword, die by the sword... the only thing that might have been better would have been a hail of bullets...or with a knife in his teeth, jumping onto the back of a fire breathing dragon...wait...that was Matthew McConnaughy in "Reign Of Fire"..... but that still would have been just as cool...
as it stood, Sayid knew he wouldn't get far with the bomb but he knew he could get far enough to buy some time... super, SUPER sweet redemption...
But before he went, he laid the lines of the night on Jack:
(I'll paraphrase because every time I watch this scene I get an adrenaline rush and I can't go 2 nights in a row waking up from cold sweats)
Basically he tells Jack that Desmond is in the well and that Jack is going to need him because obviously Locke wants Des out of the picture.
Jack says "why are you telling me this?"
Sayid: "Because it's going to be you, Jack"

Jack is the Chosen One...
Now this could still be a switcheroo on the part of the writers..."Look at what's in this hand!!"...meanwhile they are stealing your wallet with the other... meaning, based on the hit movies of the last couple of years, this thing could have an ending NO ONE saw coming, like The Usual Suspects...or The Departed...or No Country for Old Men...or the Sixth Sense.... for all we know, the damn dog could be the next Jacob...but the fact that Sayid said it, leads me to believe that Jack is the One...at least for this week... lol....

Sun and Jin are Charlie...
I'm all for duel deaths...its a great way to thin the herd in an ensemble cast... it raises the stakes of the story and makes it more real...it gets the tear ducts working and it really speaks to the essence of partnership, watching 2 people die simultaneous under water deaths.... that being said: We've seen this before with Charlie, except he did something heroic which lead to his death...I felt like with Sun and Jin, they kind of ran out of story... they were finally reunited and it feels so good, but then it was "ok..now what?"... I know! Let's have them drown together!....now I'm not totally heartless...when Jin used Korean to tell her he'd never leave her, well ol El Prez let a tear drop... I'm not going to lie... Then I got over it by getting all high and mighty about seeing another underwater death...
Of course now I'm watching it again, and seeing the exchange of looks between Jin and Jack, as Jin knows its not going to work out his way...well that was just priceless...

Locke knows how to fly a plane....
Well wasn't that an interesting reveal? It kind of seemed random, but as we know, there is nothing on this show that's not carefully planted... is it at all possible that Fake Locke will "tap" into this knowledge and light the fires on that plane? I mean, they just have easily could have said Locke was injured in that old VW bug he had back in the day... those things were notorious for catching on fire...but no, it had to be a plane.....
But the shared moment at the end between Sideways Jack and Locke was really just a great scene.. They both are trying to get the other one to jump first...something tells me when these 2 realize they are connected, something powerful is going to happen to the Island versions...
and then Jack laid the line on Locke: I wish you believed me....which is what Locke put in his suicide note to Jack...CRAZY....

The beach scene where Kate Jack and Hurley all cry... I truly believe that those were real emotions from the actors about how their time on this amazing show is coming to an end...that may seem a little hokey but these people are artists...highly emotional... you gotta tap into that to make a scene feel real...and Jack standing in the ocean, about to just curse whatever God or what brought him to this place... that was a great scene... you have to feel Jack's pain and think, really...what's this ALL FOR???

And finally, Locke knew they weren't all dead....I think he knew because maybe something is supposed to happen to him when that happens...when all the "good" is gone, he will change....will he get his body back?... will he no longer be tethered to the Island and "feel" that?....I don't know...
Next week we should get a LOT of answers, Ab Aeterno style, as we see the back story of Jacob and the Man in Black... I cannot wait!!!
That's my time tonight...I gotta go back and watch it again...lol..
Later!

The Last Recruit

I'll be honest...I'm late on this particular episode and now I've seen The Candidate and it was such an amazing episode that I'm fixated on it and unable to really get into the meat and potatoes of this episode...
I will say that I had some favorite moments:
Jack willingly jumping off the boat when Sawyer told him to... that was so cool...
And then the mortar attack and Jack blowing clear up in the air..

That was pretty much it.. I hate to slack off on this post but I want to get to the one above this one...which you may have already read.... so sorry again..

Everybody Loves Hugo

Well I must admit that this final season hasn't really produced my best work... I don't know if it's the kid, the wine shop, the full time job, the wife, the trips to Argentina tracking down former Special Ops-turned-bad guys who sell secrets to Russia, the house or what....but we are near the end and I think the over arching theme for ol El Prez this year has been to sit back and just take it all in...
The mysteries are essentially over...I don't need to dive into the secret meaning of some obscure, cool sci-fi book from 1950 in order to enjoy the show..I appreciate the effort on the part of the writers but nowadays, with the end coming soon, I really just want to see stuff blow up....
And in this episode we got a lot of cool stuff blowing up, specifically Ilana... I'll be honest: these disciples of Jacob have met some pretty crappy endings, considering all of their sacrifices in his name... Remember the guy Ben put 2 in the chest in? Yeah...He was with Team Jacob... That dude who ate smoke in the statue? Dogen? The guy with the glasses? All these fools have had their moment in the sun, only to lose out....
Which makes me wonder about who is really in charge? Is it Jacob? Is it the Man in Black?

I don't think it's either... My answer is going to be a little more... environmental. I am proposing a new-ish theory of who is in charge....The Island itself... I think Jacob and MIB are merely agents of the Island.. I don't know if even they have total control... so in my mind, I think Fake Locke is the only sane one on the Island...The only one who wants off the damn rock.. I don't know.. that may just be the theory of the day...the more I think I know, the less I actually do...

But this episode was about Hurley's road to love..very well played by the always sweet Cynthia Waltros..another character that met an untimely, kind of crappy way to die off the show... it was nice to see her again...and she has magic lips, cause she made Hurley see another world... but what does it mean?? I DON'T KNOW!!!!!!! aarggg....

The other highlight of the show is that Desmond took particular enjoyment in running down Locke.. I'm not sure if he caught a glimpse of Locke throwing him so carelessly into that well and that's why he did it, or if he really likes running over handicapped folks... I don't know how he spends his free time..

A mystery was sort of solved in this episode: the whispers.... Michael identified them as spirits who can't "move along"..I'm sorry, but didn't we already see the episode where the Island let him know that it was done with him and blew him to smithereens on the boat? Was that Jacob who used Michael back then? Or was it MIB? I mean, one of those damn people needed him and then used him and then blew his butt shy high...somebody has to answer for the fact that they can pull him back anytime they want to!!
And that somebody is the Island.. I think Jacob needed Michael, used him and then let him die....but the Island wasn't done with him... so now the Island is using him before it lets him move on...confused yet? I sure am!
But the other thing that this whisper explanation eluded to was the fact that the Island was some sort of limbo land between heaven and hell or the afterlife or what have you... that sounds a LOT like Purgatory and the writers have adamantly stated numerous times over that it's not Purgatory... I mean, adamantly.. so I'll allow them to tell their story before I cry foul... I've made it this long and been entertained, so I'll give them a little more rope...hell, there are only 4 more episodes... I think I can hold out..
That's really all I had on this episode...that's not to say I didn't see a bunch of other things but with all the excitement in my life these days, this episode was 3 weeks ago and I'm doing my best to remember it...
I did love the end and the reunion of the 2 groups, finally... hijinks from the old gang, sure to come!