LOST
Season 3 Episodes 22 & 23
(WARNING: SPOILERS)
“Through the Looking Glass” 1 & 2

Gentlemen, I asked you to dazzle me after enduring “Stranger in a Strange Land.”
Well, I’m officially blinded.
That has to go down as not just the best Lost season finale thus far, but also one of the most kick-a$$ season finales in all of TV history. When they said that this finale would change everything, that wasn’t just hyperbole.
I could go on about the twisty-turns of the episode itself (and it had that in spades), but the ultimate twisty-turn is that brilliant climax, of Jack, by the airport, as Kate drives away, because “he” might be wondering where she’s gone to.
Once again, Lost deftly toys with the show’s story structure, as what we assume to be the flashbacks (of a depressed and suicidal Jack hooked on prescription meds), turn out to be the present, and all the Island stuff is actually the flashbacks.
I said there were spoilers, didn’t I?

So it seems as if the Flight 815 crash survivors were indeed saved and rescued from the Island (at the cost of Charlie, who drowned in the Looking Glass station, just as Des saw in his flashes*).
Just before the off-screen rescue though, three crucial points:
1) Ben says that Naomi is “one of the bad guys,” and that she’s part of a group that’s been looking for the Island for a really long time, and that they would kill Jack and the survivors, not rescue them.
2) When Charlie gets the transmission from Penny at the Looking Glass, she does not know who Naomi is, and has no idea about any boat.
3) Locke actually kills Naomi and threatens to shoot Jack, since contacting Naomi’s people is the wrong thing to do.

And then of course, in the “flashbacks,” Jack is clearly a lost soul, and in his clandestine meeting with Kate, he says they should never have left the Island, and that they need to go back.

This is such a crackerjack finale, “brilliant” seems like an understatement. That ultimate twisty-turn opens the door to a whole host of possibilities, and raises all sorts of questions. (My head is doing a Linda Blair even as I type this.)
Whose viewing did Jack attend? A viewing apparently no one else from 815 went to. Locke’s? Michael’s? (Yes, I still hate the a$$hole’s guts.) Ben’s?
What happened to all the rest of the 815ers? Is Jack the only one who feels something is wrong, or are some of the others “lost” as well? (Heh. “Others.” “Lost.”)
Rousseau said she would stay on the Island since that was where she belonged. Is she still there? Is Alex? Is Locke? (If he wasn’t the one in that casket.)
As Jack suffers, where is Juliet? They did do the kissy-face back on the Island, so where is she in Jack’s time of need?
And did Kate really end up with Sawyer?
So many questions…

And of course, the other reality here is, Lindelof, Cuse, and company have again (for the time being) managed to evade addressing long-standing Island questions, among them one from all the way back to the Pilot (What is the Monster Alternately Known As Smokey?), to ones of more recent mint (Who is Jacob?), to the Mother of all Lost questions (What is the Island?**).

Having said that though, I cannot deny the guts it took to make that leap. I also cannot deny the skill with which that leap was made.
That was explosive television, gentlemen. The storytelling on this show continues to be some of the best on the cathode ray horizon, and as Carrie Fisher said over On The Lot, “My hat, wherever it is, is off to you.”

And thanks for not having Sun die horribly in labor on the Island. (Of course, for all I know, she and her baby have been abducted by Dharma or some other mysterious organization to undergo insidious tests. Her baby, after all, is the first child to have been conceived on the Island in what I guess is a very long time, assuming of course that the baby is alive and well.)
Speaking of babies, when exactly will Jack find out that Claire is his half-sister and that Aaron is his half-nephew? I mean, wasn’t that bit of info in the files the Others had on the 815ers? Didn’t Juliet read that? Surely Ben did.

Let’s just toss that on the massive pile of Lost questions, shall we?
I’ll admit it: I love this show, but it’s the biggest tease on television.
Onward ho! Season 4!

* Incredibly moving, but couldn’t Charlie have squeezed through that porthole, once the room was filled with water? And did he really need to shut the door in the first place?

** I’ve got a theory which grew over the course of season 3, and burst into my consciousness as I watched the 2-hour finale. But somehow I’d still feel like a raving lunatic if I voiced it here.
Tell you what. When Lost finally does that reveal, I’ll admit whether I was right or wrong.

COUNTDOWN: 48.
COUNTDOWN TO RESUME IN 2008.
THE DHARMA INITIATIVE NEEDS YOU.

(Season 3 promotional image courtesy of atnzone.com.)

LOST
Season 3
Episode 21
(WARNING:
SPOILERS)
“Greatest Hits”

Now this is Lost at its best, when the emotion which accompanies the focused character’s story is potent and incredibly moving, while the Island story’s plot is cruising at a rapid clip. The success is all the more notable in that the Island story isn’t just “cruising at a rapid clip” in this particular episode, it’s careening into overdrive as we speed on towards this season’s finale.

Charlie’s the focus this time out, as he learns from Des that he needs to die in order for Claire and Aaron to get on board a helicopter, apparently to get rescued. It seems Charlie will flick a switch, and then drown, and this event has to take place, in order for the “rescue” to occur.
So, facing his impending death with as much courage as he can muster, Charlie sets out to write a list of the 5 best moments of his “sorry excuse for a life,” his Greatest Hits, spurred on by Naomi mentioning that his “death” in the Oceanic 815 crash caused a big stir, and even led to a new DriveShaft album, a Greatest Hits package.

And herein are some of the most moving bits in Charlie’s story thus far. Weighted by all the emotional baggage that his character carries (and which we’ve been privy to over the past 3 seasons), we’re in on the process of letting go, just as Charlie is. The journey is astoundingly moving, and I guess I should’ve been psyching myself out for that goodbye, given that Charlie’s death has been in the cards since early on in this season, but there you go.
Man, this was a toughie to get through, what, with all his goodbyes, to Claire, Aaron (you left the ring in the crib! Doofus!), and Hurley.
And then, the apparent last minute reprieve, as Des offers Charlie an out, but Charlie opts for the Ferro Lad Gambit. (Sorry, comic book reference. In case that went over your head, Bruce Willis pulled the Ferro Lad Gambit too, in Armageddon.)
And then!
Oooh, these sneaky little buggers!
You get all worked up and prepare yourself for Charlie buying it at episode’s end… and he doesn’t! Some gun-toting women are in the Looking-Glass Station and they’ve got Charlie in their sights.
Great. Now I’ll have to go and psych myself out from square one all over again…

Parting shot 1: I’m sure the Lost people know this, but Michael Giacchino is such a prize. Man, he does know how to rachet up the suspense with that score.

Parting shot 2: That was Nadia, right? In Covent Garden, with Charlie? If that was, then she’s crossed paths with 3 survivors thus far: Sayyid, of course, and Charlie, and Locke. I guess she really must’ve gotten around in her life as a fugitive.

Parting shot 3: Wow. I didn’t even get to talk about the Island story…
Okay, Lemme just say, I apologize for not trusting Rousseau and her motives for raiding the Black Rock’s store of dynamite. Apparently, it was for Jack’s scheme to get back at the Others (Jack, who I also mistrusted for a spell back there; sorry, the Island doesn’t really foster trust, if you know what I mean).
Oooh, we’re leading up to a doozy, aren’t we? With the shooters staying behind, and the rest hiking to the radio tower…
Next up, the two-part finale, with Jack as spotlight character.

COUNTDOWN: 50

(Image courtesy of sparklies.org.)

LOST
Season 3
Episode 18
(WARNING:
SPOILERS)
“D.O.C.”

Crackerjack cliffhanger right there!
But let’s backtrack, shall we?

So Eyepatch Dude is still alive?! And Desmond makes a deal with him to help Parachute Girl (who’s apparently multi-lingual like nobody’s business). Urg. These people.
And what does Eyepatch Dude do? He tries to steal the satellite phone thingie. And they still let him go!
Why do I think Charlie’s supposedly impending demise will have something to do with Eyepatch Dude? If so, it’ll all be on Des’ head, for letting the bugger go.

Meanwhile, Juliet helps Sun by bringing her to the medical station, where an ultrasound machine is kept in a secret room. The size of the fetus can help them determine when Sun conceived. If it was off the Island, then fantastic; if it was on, then she’s in the deep doo-doo I mentioned in my review 2 episodes back.
And in the flashbacks, we see Sun as a newly-married woman, approached by Jin’s mother, whom Jin was told was dead. Well, not only is she alive, she’s also an ex-prostitute! So Sun is blackmailed into getting the woman a hundred thousand dollars (I think was the sum) to keep her mouth shut regarding her former profession, money Sun asks from her father.
Interestingly enough, the price of her father giving her the money is that he’ll “promote” Jin, which is how Jin ended up being Mr. Paik’s enforcer!
In all of this, there are a bunch of really great scenes: Sun secretly meeting her father-in-law; Sun and her father, making the deal that will get all that blood and guilt on Jin’s hands; Sun and Juliet, in the medical station, where she confesses to her infidelity with bald hotel owner guy.
Man, I’ve always loved Sun, and this episode was a motherlode of Sun Moments.

Of course, she’s got about two months left to live, so… arrrggghhhh!!!
As it turns out, the baby is Jin’s. (Apparently, just as the Island is particularly brutal to pregnant females, it also ups a guy’s sperm count into the stratosphere; in Jin’s case of being infertile, well, it apparently just made him fertile. What a chauvinistic Island!)
So Sun’s got this death sentence on her now. (First Charlie, now Sun!)

And Juliet’s making tapes for Ben. And apparently remorseful about it.
Okay. Sorry for calling Juliet a “two-faced lying slag.”
Still.

And back to that cliffhanger.
Parachute Girl comes to and says that Oceanic 815 was found, and that there were no survivors…
Hmmmmm…

Parting shot: Fine. If Juliet really busts her a$$ to save Sun’s life, then maybe I’ll consider getting her off my Sh*t List.

(Image courtesy of sparklies.org.)

LOST Season 3 Episode 14 (WARNING: SPOILERS)
“Expose”

It’s interesting that I’ve got a lot to say about an episode that does nothing whatsoever to forward the island plot threads…
Lots’a pluses, though.

So we find out Nikki and Paulo’s stories and end up with an interesting CSI on the island/morality tale/re-working of an old TV show convention.
A) the “murder mystery” was passable, though the second Artz (hey, dude! Good to see ‘ya!) talks about the Medusa spider, bam! There’s your culprit, Grissom. Though I must admit, I didn’t catch the whole “Paulo lies”/”paralyzed” thing. Sneaky…
B) again, passable, in that we have seen this sort of morality tale before (ultimately, they both end up getting what they want, and they can’t even enjoy it).
Also, I’m not entirely convinced this sort of side story has a proper place in Lost, given that at the end of it, both characters are (apparently) dead.
Lost flashbacks have always helped me understand characters and motivations better; once I’d seen where these people were coming from, it would become clear why they did certain things. But in this particular case, Nikki and Paulo end up dead. So what if I understand them better now? Thing is, I didn’t really know them at all. And perhaps that’s one of the points of this episode, that we never really know people, the way the other 815ers had no idea what this couple was up to.
But because they were introduced in Season 3, and hardly did anything at all in the past 13 episodes, I had no feeling for them one way or another, other than to hope that they contributed something significant to the show’s narrative before they died (as has sometimes happened in the past).
Well, if their ultimate contribution was this little morality tale, I’m not so sure it was all worth it.
C) Remember how your favorite TV shows of yesteryear would have those episodes where characters would reminisce, and we would see recycled clips from episodes past (among other things, a strategy to control a show’s budget, since you essentially shaved off the production cost of one entire episode)?
Well, this episode does it in grand style, not just by bringing back the dead (yay, Maggie Grace! And Evil Blush-On Man* himself, Ian Somerhalder!! And Leslie!!! I mean, Artz…), but by astoundingly inserting Kiele Sanchez into the amazing footage of the crash wreckage from the pilot.
Additionally, now that we know their story, it also becomes apparent why we never really saw a lot of them in the first two seasons, as they apparently had their own agenda, searching the island for a little black bag… (And didn’t they pull the old “someone hid something in the bathroom/oh, that’s why he went to the bathroom in that episode” trick with Charlie already?)

So, all in all, it was an enjoyable episode, though ultimately, it feels like a diversionary tactic, not having moved the island story forward and not really making me understand Nikki and Paulo any better. (What it did was neatly explain to me why I hadn’t seen them before.)
I don’t really see any long-lasting ramifications of this episode, unless 1) either or both of them pull a Beatrix Kiddo and somehow manage to dig out of their graves, or 2) that despite Sawyer’s poetic gesture, the contents of the little black bag become a plot point for the future… (And not in some hokey sort of “Here, Ben and the Others, take this and let us go, please” “Oh, sure, why not? I’ve always wanted these…” way, either.)
We’ll just have to see, won’t we?

* What I named Somerhalder after his recurring role in Smallville, where he played Adam Knight, one of those guys who gets involved with Lana, only to get Clark jealous, only to reveal himself to be a baddie. (Also, see Jensen Ackles, currently on Supernatural.)