Lost Web site | Photos

Lost Recap: Put Your Pants On

Posted Feb 17, 2010 by Courtney Cairns Pastor

Updated Feb 17, 2010 at 11:44 AM

I should have guessed it would be a wild ride from the beginning of the episode last night when we got Smokey Cam. Supercool! The episode was titled “The Substitute” – and substitutes did play an important part, from the Man in Black using Locke as a substitute body to Engaged Locke living a substitute life when the plane didn’t crash. But the more interesting component was “The Candidate.” Or candidates.

We got some answers last night, if by answers you count explanations like “It’s just a damn island” and “Jacob has a thing for numbers.” But it’s Lost, and for every “answer,” we got more questions.

The alternate timeline seemed a little sleepy compared to the mythology, drama and grumpy Sawyer on Island Time, but it’s worth paying attention to – Damon and Carlton have said the differences in the characters are important. The episode started with a big one: Locke has a girlfriend! We see him in suburbia, living with Helen, who is planning their wedding. In the original timeline, he and Helen had broken up by the time the plane crashed.

His boss, Randy, at the box company is still a smarmy little weasel and fires Locke when he learns Locke lied about attending a box conference (there are box conferences?) in Sydney. As if he wasn’t having a bad enough day, he can’t even get into his van to leave because some jerk has parked his Hummer too close. That jerk turns out to be Hurley, who tells Locke he owns the box company and will talk to Randy, a “huge douche,” (heh) if Locke wants. Locke does not want, so Hurley says his temp agency can hook him up. Alt-Hurley is clearly doing well and not haunted at all by unlucky numbers (no island, no Numbers, right?).

At the temp agency, Locke gets interviewed and asked a bunch of silly questions by Lynn Karnoff – if she looks familiar to you, it’s because she showed up in Season 3 as a fortune teller, who tells Hurley the Numbers are cursed. This may be important or may just be an Easter Egg.

The temp agency supervisor turns out to be Rose. Locke is huffy that Rose won’t send him out to a construction site, and she confides in him that she has terminal cancer. She says she had been in denial but is living life to the fullest.

Back home, Locke fesses up to Helen that he got fired and tells her he tried to go on a Walkabout in Australia and they wouldn’t let him. Helen had been urging him to call Jack for a spinal consult, and Locke says he’s done waiting for miracles and there’s no such thing. This is not a Man of Faith. But Helen insists miracles do exist.

And then we see Substitute Locke. He’s teaching about the reproductive system. He heads to the teachers lounge, where an uptight European History teacher is ranting about the coffee maker. The teacher turns to face the camera, and – of course – it’s Ben.

Cool connection, but more importantly, Ben is alive, and he shouldn’t be if the island sank in 1977 with him on it. Chew on that.

Back on the island, Richard is having a terrible day. UnLocke has him bagged in a tree. He cuts him down and says it’s “time to talk.” He says he wants what he has always wanted, that Richard should come with him. He confides that John was a candidate but says he won’t tell Richard any more unless he comes with him. Richard can think of about 20,000 other things he’d rather be doing. UnLocke threatens, “people seldom get a second chance” but then gets distracted by a vision of a blond boy (photo from Lostpedia). He leaves.

Ben, meanwhile, is with Ilana in the foot statue and tells her Locke killed her men. And because he’s Ben, he throws in a little lie that Locke killed Jacob, too, and that he burned in the fire. Ilana starts collecting the ashes. She tells Ben that unLocke wants Richard because “he’s recruiting.”

They head outside, where Sun and Frank are hanging out. Everyone else has fled to the Temple (do they know where the Temple is? I’m confused about that). Ilana said they should go to the Temple, too, and that it’s Sun’s best shot of finding Jin. Sun seems willing but wants to bury The Real Locke first. Ilana tells them unLocke is stuck in Locke’s form.

They bury the body amid other graves and Ben gives the best eulogy ever. He says John was a believer: “He was a man of faith. He was a much better man than I will ever be, and I’m very sorry I murdered him.”

To which, Frank is all, WTH?

During all this, unLocke has returned to the Barracks to a house in disarray with a record blaring. Sawyer is slumped in the bedroom, drinking. He gives unLocke the side eye because he thought he was dead. He is dead, unLocke says. “I don’t give a damn if you’re dead, or time-traveling or the Ghost of Christmas Past,” Sawyer says, giving him a drink. And I immediately think of “Scrooged” where Bill Murray’s dead boss appears and takes a drink, which squirts out of his decayed body.

Sawyer says he knows unLocke isn’t Locke because Locke was always scared and this dude is not. UnLocke says he’s the guy who can answer the most important question – and he seems to be talking directly to the audience here. He can answer why they’re on the island, if Sawyer comes with him. Sawyer says he’ll put his pants on.

They head through the jungle and the blond boy pops up again. UnLocke is shocked that Sawyer can see him as well. Blondie tells unLocke, “You know the rules. You can’t kill him.” And unLocke says – say it with me – “Don’t tell me what I can’t do.”

While unLocke is yelling at children, a freaked-out Richard appears and urges Sawyer to come to the Temple. Sawyer says unLocke has answers. Richard says he just wants everyone dead. He runs off as unLocke returns.

Sawyer, who clearly needs a book club, asks if unLocke knows “Of Mice and Men.” Realizing most of us haven’t read this since high school, Sawyer recaps the plot and says how (spoiler!) George shoots Lennie. Sawyer pulls a gun on unLocke, who is unfazed. UnLocke says he once was a man but now is trapped and doesn’t remember what it’s like to be free. He convinces Sawyer to stick with him.

They head to a cliff with scary ladders down the side. After some drama, where Sawyer almost plummets to his death, they arrive at the bottom and enter a cave. Anyone else think of Dumbledore and Harry in the last movie here?
But this is where it gets very cool. The cave has a scale, with a white stone and black stone on each end. UnLocke chucks the white stone (Jacob) away. Inside joke, he tells Sawyer.

His torch illuminates all the names. And numbers. Some of them are crossed out. Sawyer is No. 15. There’s also Shephard (23), Reyes (8), Jarrah (16), Kwon (42) and Locke (4). UnLocke crosses out Locke. He says “Jacob had a thing for numbers” but the names are because Jacob considered them all candidates to be the island’s protector.

He manipulated them, unLocke says. The choices they made weren’t their own. Now Sawyer has a choice. He can do nothing and see what happens. He can take over for Jacob and protect the island (from nothing, unLocke says). It’s just a damn island!

The third choice, unLocke says, is to leave the island. Together. “Are you ready to go home?” he asks. “Hell, yes,” Sawyer says.

---

Mock Locke: Lost Tonight

Posted Feb 16, 2010 by Courtney Cairns Pastor

Updated Feb 16, 2010 at 12:37 PM

We’ll see more of Locke tonight in the episode “The Substitute,” which makes me happy because Terry O’Quinn’s evil side is becoming so fun to watch (“Let’s not resort to name-calling”). ABC’s description is that Locke “goes in search of help to further his cause,” which sounds like it might focus on unLocke tromping around the island. But maybe we’ll see some of kinder, gentler, pre-dead Locke off-island.

His former girlfriend, Helen, is listed in the credits. We don’t really know what happened to her – last time she came up in Season 5, Abaddon was taking Locke to her alleged grave, but I wouldn’t put it past Widmore and Co. to fake her death (hello, staged underwater plane crash) to make sure Locke didn’t get distracted from his mission to get everyone back to the island. And even if she dies in 2006, she’s still rocking in 2004, so Alternate Timeline Locke might get to hang out with her again. Originally, they had broken up when Locke left for the Walkabout, but if Hurley can be a lucky lotto winner, maybe Locke can keep a girlfriend.

The title is also interesting. The Man in Black is using Island Locke as his substitute body, but it’s not the first time Locke has been a substitute. Eloise Hawking brought it up to Jack in Season 5 when she was telling him to get back to the island. She said Locke had to be a proxy/substitute for Christian on the return flight and that Jack should give Locke something of his father’s (the shoes). Does this mean Christian is the Man in Black? Did Eloise expect the Man in Black to take over Locke’s body? Does this put Widmore on the Man in Black’s side, too? Pass the ibuprofin.

---

Flash Sideways and Ahead

Posted Feb 10, 2010 by Courtney Cairns Pastor

Updated Feb 10, 2010 at 03:56 PM

Curiouser and Curiouser. The date on Claire’s ultrasound is Oct. 22, 2004—one month after Flight 815 was supposed to land. So when we flashed sideways, we somehow jumped a month ahead.  Image from Lost-Media.com.

 

---

Smoke Monster is Hazardous to Your Health

Posted Feb 10, 2010 by Courtney Cairns Pastor

Updated Feb 10, 2010 at 03:58 PM

Last night, Dogen (the bilingual Others leader) referred to Sayid as being “infected,” which sounds a whole lot like the Sickness that poisoned Rousseau’s team. Dogen later said Sayid had been “claimed,” that there was “a darkness growing in him” and it had happened to Claire as well.

Rousseau’s description made it sound like her team had gone kind of crazy, so she shot them. Dogen wanted to poison Sayid, but Jack saved his life – this could be bad news if Dogen is right. And we left Claire with Jin, which could put him in jeopardy, too.

The other question is whether the Sickness Sayid and Claire have is what Dharma was vaccinating their recruits against. It seems like it might be unrelated (can you vaccinate against the Smoke Monster?) but if it is unrelated, we need an explanation of that illness.

---

Lost Recap: Capsules, Carats and a Crazed Claire

Posted Feb 10, 2010 by Michele Sager

Updated Feb 10, 2010 at 09:17 AM

The episode is called “What Kate Does” but finally gives us answers to what happened to Claire.
We start in the temple with everyone amazed to see Sayid alive. Well, everyone but Sawyer who is busy scoping his escape route. When Kate asks exactly what he has planned, Sawyer replies he plans to run. Cue the flash sideways of Kate running from the marshal.

We are where we last saw Kate, commandeering a cab by gunpoint with Claire as her unwilling passenger. As they make their getaway, that darn Dr. Artz gets in the way giving Kate a chance to look at Jack with puzzled recognition. Shortly after, the driver bolts and Kate dumps Claire before driving off.

Back in the Temple, Sayid thanks Jack for saving his life. The Others want to chat with Sayid, but Jack isn’t down with that plan. Just before Jack gets pummeled by some beefy body guards, Sawyer starts waving his gun around. His mission isn’t to save Jack but to leave the Temple. The others beg him to stay, but he walks out anyway.
Kate and Jin go after him.

Flash sideways: Kate finds a friendly mechanic who is more than happy to remove her handcuffs for $200. When Kate goes to change clothes, she opens Claire’s bag to find a Polaroid of the pregnant mom and some baby items.

Temple: Remember when Sayid wondered in the last episode what would happen to a torturer after he died? Well he found out. The Others shock Sayid with electric wires before sticking him with a hot poker. They claim it’s not torture, but a test. The Others tell Sayid he passed the test, but later reveal they lied.

Flash sideways: Kate, the courteous carjacker, goes back to where she dumped Claire to return her bags and ends up offering her ride to the house of the couple that planned to adopt Claire’s baby. It seems they forgot to pick her up at the airport.

Island: While Kate and Sayid trek through the jungle looking for Sawyer, they learn three important facts: 1) an Other lets it slip they know about the Ajira plane crash (and possibly the location of Sun) 2) There are still Rousseau-style traps all over the island 3) When you knock an Other out with the butt of your gun, he holds a grudge three years later.

Back in the Temple, Jack demands answers after learning how Sayid was tortured. He’s told that Sayid is “infected” and that he needs Sayid to take a capsule willingly. When Jack wavers on helping with the plan, the Asian man lays a major guilt trip on our favorite doc for getting Sayid shot and some of his friends killed.

Meanwhile, Hurley asks Sayid the question we were all wondering – “You aren’t a Zombie, right?” (Whew, cross that one off my mounting questions list.) Jack reveals to Sayid he didn’t fix him, but Sayid says he’ll still take the mysterious capsule if Jack recommends it because he trusts him.

Flash sideways: Kate and Claire discover the adopting couple has split up and they no longer want the baby. Claire decides this is a good time to have labor pains. In a later flash, we see Claire at the hospital where the doctor is her old pal Ethan. He says she can deliver her baby or have the choice of trying to stop Aaron’s early arrival. This kinder gentler Ethan isn’t prepared to plunge her belly with syringes like he did on the island saying “I don’t want to have to stick you with needles if I don’t have to.”

Island: Kate reveals to Sawyer she came to the island to find Claire so she can reunite her with Aaron. She consoles a sad Sawyer who blames himself for Juliet’s death and reveals an engagement ring for Juliet that he had hidden in his old Dharma digs. (Is there a Kay Jeweler’s on this island?) He tosses the ring into the sea.

Back in the Temple, the Asian leader reveals his name, Dogan, and tells Jack the secret of his leadership is to remain separate from his people because he has to make the tough decisions. Jack says he won’t give Sayid the pill until he knows what’s in it but Dogan refuses to say, so Jack pops the pill himself. Dogan forces him to spit it out, revealing it’s a capsule full of poison. Later, Dogan tells Jack he is trying to kill Sayid because a darkness is taking over him and that’s he’s seen this before – in Jack’s sister.

Over in the jungle, the Others catch up with Jin and the angry Other is pretty ticked and wants to kill Jin even though he’s “one of them.” Just before Jin gets shot, someone shoots the angry Other. Who was the gunman behind the grassy knoll? It’s Claire looking a bit crazed and like she had been to Rousseau’s hairdresser.

 

 

 

---