S6: Happily Ever After

Now that "the package" aka Desmond  has been revealed, it's time for Mr. Widmore to bombard him with electromagnetism.  Why?  It's not revealed, but it's a test that if he passes will result in him being able to save the world from the MIB.

The by product of the test is that Desmond is shown to almost be transported to the flash sideways timeline.  There he has money, power, respected by Widmore, and appears to be happy.  But as fate would have it, Desmond meets Charlie and Daniel who talk about love.  Later on, Desmond meets Penny face to face and falls in love at first sight.

Then he "wakes up".  He's back in the present, but there's something different about him.  His eyes have been opened.  He was only unconscious for a few seconds, but now his mind can travel back and forth between reality and the flash sideways reality.

Desmond episodes have always been pretty great since he is someone that is outside the whole Oceanic 815 story, but very much tied to the island.  He's not a candidate.  He wasn't brought to the island.  He doesn't care who Jacob is or was.  He is a man, who wanted the approval of a father of a woman he loved who wouldn't give it to him.  In trying to prove himself, he ends up where he needs to be and ultimately ends up with Penny again and realizes that he doesn't need her father's approval to be happy.  So hopefully, in the end, Desmond does get to live happily ever after.

S6: The Package

The writers tricked me.  I thought that an episode featuring both Jin and Sun would lead towards their reunion, but it appears that I was wrong, which is a good thing because it's nice to be surprised when watching these episodes a second time.

In Locke camp, not much is going on there.  They are just hanging out and Zoe from Widmore's camp takes it upon herself to kidnap Jin.  At the beach camp, there isn't much going on there either.  They are waiting for Richard.  Meanwhile, Locke meets up with Sun and tries to recruit her but he fails.  So not only do these two soul mates not cross paths, they actually go farther apart in distance now that Jin is on Hydra island.

In the flash sideways, our happy couple is not married but fooling around behind Sun's father's back.  Mr. Paik is on to them, closes Sun's bank account and send Jin on an errand to deliver a watch and money to the Keamy, the hitman, not knowing that the money is payment for Keamy to kill Jin.  But having already seen Sayid's story, we know what happens to Keamy, and thankfully for Jin, Sayid hands him a box cutter before leaving.

So moving the plot forward, it's time for Widmore's group to use "the package" aka Desmond.  He has something important to do with the electromagnetic properties of the island that Zoe seems interested in since that's why she took Jin in the first place.  Thankfully, Richard comes back and he has a plan which is to destroy the plan so Locke/MIB can't leave.  And Sayid is on a covert operation on Hydra island for Locke/MIB.  So the chess pieces are being put in place and we'll see which ones move in the next episode.

S6: Ab Aeterno

Since we, the audience, have first met Richard we've always wondered who this guy was.  Later on when we realized that he doesn't appear to age we wondered even harder, if that's even possible.  Finally in the final season, all (rather, a lot) of our questions about Richard get answered.  What's great about the sad story of Richard is that we get to learn more about Jacob and the MIB as well.

Some great scenes include Jacob "baptizing" Richard in the ocean, seeing the statue again and how it was destroyed, finding out how the Black Rock first arrived on the island and pretty much every sit down scene with the MIB and Richard about Hell and the devil, then Jacob and Richard about evil and the cork, MIB and Richard again with the white rock and lastly with MIB and Jacob revisiting the bottle and the cork.

This episode was pretty much one giant Richard back-story which wasn't a bad thing.  There was nice bookend theme with Hurley being able to talk to Richard's dead wife who through Hurley helped Richard not return to the MIB and stay on the side of good.  I forget how Richard helps in the end, so I'm looking forward to seeing that again.

S6: Recon

Now that the beach crew has assembled, it's time for Locke's crew to do the same.  Locke returns from the Temple to meet up with Sawyer and Jin who appear to have been staying at Claire's home make of sticks.  They proceed to a clearing where they make camp and Locke sends Sawyer on a recon mission to Hydra island.  Sawyer finds that Widmore is setting up a stronghold against the Smoke Monster and works a deal with Sawyer to bring Locke/MIB over and trap him in exchange for safe passage off the island for him and his friends.  Sawyer later reveals to Kate that he plans to pit Widmore and Locke against each other, and steal Widmore's sub.  Good plan, Sawyer!  Hope the sub captain is around when you hijack it.

While island Sawyer is not making the smartest moves, neither is flash sideways Sawyer.  His sideways self is a cop rather than a criminal, but he's still has the same obsession with hunting down the man named Sawyer who caused the murder-suicide with his parents and he plans on killing Sawyer once he finds him.  He even gets a chance with Charlotte but blows it over his obsession.

While this episode was a little fun and a little insightful, overall I wasn't very entertained.  I didn't like the Zoe character, but it was cool to see that everyone else that came in on the Ajira flight was dead, probably killed by the Smoke Monster.

One scene of note was between Locke/MIB and Kate.  He was explaining that he had a crazy mother and he had some growing pains.  He was comparing his mother to Claire.  It was pretty interesting watching this scene knowing that he was actually telling the truth and not just messing with Kate in an attempt to possibly manipulate her like he has everyone else, but in the end that's what he's doing.  As he says earlier in the episode to Sawyer, it's either kill or be killed and he has no intention of dying, but to escape the island once and for all.

S6: Dr. Linus

This Ben centered episode takes us back to where it all began, the beach.  It's great that they always seem to return to that spot where they first set up camp when they crashed.  It's almost like going back home.  The best part of this episode was at the end when Jack and Hurley (and Richard) returned to the beach and hugged Sun and shook hands with Lapidus, Miles, and Ilana.

Another great scene was when flash sideways Ben gave up his chance of becoming the new principal just so his student Alex could get a glowing recommendation from the current principal.  I enjoyed the whole flash sideways as it had little nods and inside jokes/references calling "sideways" Ben a killer in a joking manner when in "real life" he was a killer.

I just remembered that the scene between Jack and Richard in the Black Rock was good, but definitely way more tense the first time I watched it.  The island didn't let Jack kill Richard or himself.

Also, the scene where Ben gets the jump on Ilana in the forest where he decides not to shoot her.  He asks to be let go and go to Locke because he's the only one that will have him.  In a moment of forgiveness, Ilana said that she'd have him too, and he makes the right choice and chooses good.  Really good scene.

So while this review may seem very scattered, this episode was full of really good scenes as I recalled them.  I really enjoyed it.

And here comes Widmore....

S6: Sundown

Flash sideways Sayid appears to be a good man.  He's paying the price for his years served in the Republic Guard by not being with Nadia and pushing her towards his brother who she has had three children with.  Unfortunately, his brother takes a loan from Martin Keamy and is now extorting him.  Sayid refuses to help his brother and listens to Nadia.  Keamy's men decide to come and pick Sayid up and force his hand.  Sayid easily dispatches his two henchmen and then doesn't stop himself from killing Keamy.  He then finds Jin in the freezer.  I'm sure that will lead us into Jin and Sun's story soon enough.

On island, Sayid's scale, the balance of good and evil inside of him, is leaning more towards the evil.  It isn't said in so many words, but there is something inside him that brought him back to life and it wasn't from the spring.  So is there part of the MIB/Locke inside of him?  It appears so, and he joins the MIB/Locke.  He kills the leader of the Temple and his side kick.  The Smoke Monster (MIB/Locke) kills everyone else who wouldn't leave the Temple.  Again, he gave them until sundown to leave before you acted.  It's hard not to like the MIB because he gives you a choice.  Unfortunately, if you choose the one he didn't want you to choose, you end up dead.  So he's a pretty bad guy and manipulates just as much as he claims Jacob did.

Suddenly during the slaughter at the Temple, Ilena shows up to save the candidates, but the only two that are there are Kate and Sayid.  Sayid appears to be beyond saving and Kate is still on her mission to take Claire home.   Unfortunately for Kate, Claire is with the MIB.

So to recap there are three groups.  We have the MIB/Locke, Claire, Sayid, Sawyer, Jin and Kate.  In another group we have Ilena, Lapidus, Miles, Ben, and Sun.  And lastly Jack and Hurley are elsewhere and will mostly join group 2 in the coming episodes.

The candidates are all spread out and I look forward to how they converge since it's unclear and I don't directly recall.  Jacob told Hurley in the Lighthouse episode that someone is coming.  Maybe that person will bring our friends back together.  It was great seeing Illena show up because I forgot about that scene.  And the best good news of all is that we finally bid the Temple adieu.

As I mentioned in a different blog post, it feels so weird to wonder about the Temple for so long and when it's finally revealed then to hate it so much.  I blame myself slightly since I built it up in my mind and there was so much mystery that surrounded it that I felt that there would be more answers there.  As it turns out, there were more answers in a cave and a lighthouse than there ever were at the Temple and that's the most disappointing.  I understand that you have to keep people in the dark so they can follow their own destiny and make their own decisions, good and bad, but sometimes there should be some give and take with the ones that are so knowledgeable.  Now, for all the Temple folk did (and didn't do), they lay dead in the water.  I hope that this isn't how I feel in the end after my re-watch and I'm still optimistic that I won't be.

S6: Lighthouse

In this Jack centered episode, we see in his flash sideways that he has a son with a now unidentified wife who he is divorced from and, for some unknown reason, he only sees his son once a month.  Because of this, they appear to be estranged.  Eventually, he works things out with his son and we learn that Jack's father told him that "he didn't have what it takes".  He uses this to bond with his son.

On island, Jacob must have knowledge of this quote as he uses it through Hurley to drive Jack to the lighthouse.  At the lighthouse, it is revealed how Jacob assigned the numbers to the candidates and that Jacob could see where they all lived off island.  A great line is said by Jacob -- "Sometimes you can just...hop in the back of someone's cab and tell them what they're supposed to do. Other times...you have to let them look out at the ocean for a while."  (I googled this quote so I had it exactly right.  Every blog up to this point, I've only used google for spelling purposes.  I mean for these blogs to come from memory and from the heart.)

This quote and this episode tug at the heart strings ever so slightly and overall it was a pretty good Jack episode.  After such a great Locke episode, it made sense for the writers to bring us an equally good episode for Jack.  They did a good job for the most part.  Thankfully this episode took Jack and Hurley (and the audience) away from the Temple as Jacob reveals, shit is about to go down there.  It can't come soon enough!