This was the sort of Lost episode that made paying the price of watching last week's sort of episode bearable, even though I still suspect that last week's episode only "advances the story" towards red hearings and dead ends. This week's episode advances the story towards ... excitement, mystery, intrigue, and the sort of acting that is hard to find on prime time, thanks to Terry O'Quinn. It's the sort of week that made me glad that I had decided to host this series for the next three months.
I've decided that this Intro bloc should have a link to the three other discussions I (somewhat) follow on the topic: at the Onion's analytical "AV Club" (which has excellent comments), the effusive Entertainment Weekly site, and the Oh so bored duo (plus the damn good Chadwick Matlin) at Slate (which is worth visiting for the "Previously on Lost" video feature.)
If you head to any of them, or after the jump, please bear in mind that there are:
SPOILERS BELOW
As I was saying:
SPOILERS BELOW
This was the "Locke" episode that will be known throughout the end of time (and however often it loops back) as the one where Terry O'Quinn played three versions of Locke, twice generating characters that don't seem like they were coming out of the same actor who played what is now Corpse Locke (complete with crab scuttling off his forehead.) By the way: we are so being set up to think that Corpse Locke -- finally buried by an unlikely quartet of characters including an aggressively and self-indulgently contrite Ben (yes, Michael Emerson does make it work!) -- is a-comin' back someday, though apparently it will have to be through six feet of dirt.
I'm still standing by my perception (which seems to be tacitly accepted by many) that the Island is a prison for ... what shall we call him today? ... Smokey/Esau/UnLocke/Man in Black/Set/the Lockeness Monster. One of the brilliant things that the episode did was to give us an opening shot from Smokey's POV (tikka-tikka-tikka!) and other shots that showed that if Smokey is a kind of god being held in prison on the Island, he is far from an omniscient or omnipotent one. His dealings with the young and occasionally red-handed apparition of a rules-spouting tow-headed boy -- whom, until someone convinces me otherwise, I shall call "Jay-cub" -- show his uncertainty and continued vulnerability, and they are just delicious.
Locke does seem like he's fixing a way to leave the island, which apparently requires the company of a human companion -- or the husk of one! -- which Sawyer is either willing to be or willing to pretend to be. Who's conning whom among this pair? That will keep me watching, although I have this horrible premonition of the final episode involving a big group hug between Jack, Kate, Sawyer, and Juliet, as they are respectively vindicated, saved, redeemed, and exhumed. Meanwhile, the revelations from the "Jacob's ladder" cave in which the scorecard showing the players by number is scrawled on the cave walls -- and, by the way, Sun rather than Jin is the final candidate, because all of the candidates left the island for a time before being called back, and no I do not know why Kate's name wasn't listed -- were a lot of fun. "Jacob was into numbers," indeed! Now that was "advancing the plot"!
Two observations here: (1) when UnLocke (rather than, I'm guessing, previously only Jacob) crosses out a name, we cannot assume that that means that the character is dead, and (2) yes, of course UnLocke knew that Sawyer was going to fall and that he would build trust with Sawyer by saving him. Except, this is Sawyer -- does he trust, pre- and post-Julia?
Meanwhile, in the Sideways universe, we find a Locke who is not quite the Locke who we knew before. Opinions differ on whether Locke's father still threw him out a window in this universe, but it matters less because he has a fiancee who sounds like Leela from Futurama and is just as level headed: Katey Sagal's Helen is back, and she is a joy. More of this, please! The cameos by Sideways Hurley, Ben, and Rose -- maybe especially Rose, somewhat to my surprise -- were also wonderful. Does the continued entanglement of these characters in the Sideways universe have any special cosmic significance, beyond that it boosts ratings and they have to pay the actors anyway? Probably so -- and theories abound. I don't have one myself yet other than that the universes do seem likely to converge.
I don't have a lot of new theory to present this week -- I love the vulnerability of UnLocke and the introduction of Jay-cub, and I still think that this ends up being mostly about a prison break in which many will perish for the greater good blah blah blah -- but I feel that we are in good storytelling hands. Unfortunately, next week we return to the "infection/claiming/ plot thread with Poorly Coiffed Claire, and that suggests that next week may not be as good as this one.
Here's a final thought to share with you: if someone is supposed to be there to "protect the Island," what do we make of the revelation from the opening episode that in the Sideways universe, the Island is submerged deeply under water (something hard to achieve in the best of circumstances)? Is someone going to get fired for that?
Previously on "Lost Friday Night": Week 1 and Week 2.