LOST: Episode 6.12

Everybody Loves Hugo

"What's that, girl? Desmond's in the well?"

You can really feel it now, can't you? The push to the end, the sensation that the story has built some serious momentum and is now hurtling toward the finish line. So much happened in this episode. Here are some of my erratic thoughts on it.

Island

"Dude. You've got some Ilana on you." Holy crap! Before you could say, "I wouldn't toss that bag of unstable dynamite around so casually" -- BOOM! Ilana blew herself up. I guess the Island was finished with her, huh? It was a great WTF moment, mostly because I really thought she still had a part to play in the story. Huh.

Speaking of things blowing up, bye-bye Black Rock. I guess you won't be on the LOST Location Tour, huh?

I liked Hurley in his leadership role, and Jack as a follower. I'm thinking that Hurley, contrary to appearances, does have a plan of some kind for dealing with MIBLocke: He has Ilana's bag of Jacob's ashes, which he knows can be used to contain the smoke monster. I think Hurley will try to do just that. Unfortunately, I don't think he's planned things out any further than that.

It was surprisingly nice to see Michael again, especially since he wasn't screaming about WAAAAALLLT! And because he was doling out the info: According to him, the Whispers are actually the souls of people who in life have done wrong (to the Island? on the Island?) and so are unable to move on in death.

It's very sad what's happened to Sayid but you know what? ZombieSayid is kind of cracking me up. He embodies the term "dead pan", don't you think? I'm still holding out hope that there's some small bit of the good part of him deep down inside and that he will ultimately come down on the side of the good guys in the end (although it will most likely be at the expense of his own life, and that makes me sad).

OK, here's a question: Was that the same kid as the one we saw in The Substitute? Because I'm not so sure. His face is sort of the same, but the hair color is totally different. Check out these screencaps (click on the image for larger size):





Could he be getting older? Is the dark-haired boy just an older version of the blonde? Or are they two different boys? Perhaps the blond boy is Jacob and the dark-haired boy is Esau (MIB)? Jacob and Esau were brothers in the bible, after all.

As soon as I saw that well, I KNEW MIBLocke was going to toss Desmond in there. GAH! Here's the thing, though: Isn't this well one of the EM pockets on the Island? Has MIBLocke inadvertently deposited Desmond exactly where Widmore wants him to be? By the way, I think Desmond was totally telling a lie when MIBLocke asked him if he knew who he was and Desmond said, "Yeah, John Locke." I think Desmond knows very well that Locke is not Locke anymore. And that brings us to...

Alt-Timeline

...the whopper of a final scene in the alt-timeline. First, though, a few words about the alt-story.

I was so happy to see the Hurley/Libby relationship, for all intents and purposes, "consummated". I got all teary when they showed him spreading out the blanket on the beach, the way he would have on their original picnic date if Michael hadn't murdered Libby the way he did. It wasn't a near-death experience that awoke Hurley's memories of the real timeline, like it was for Charlie and Desmond, but a kiss from someone he was in love with, much like Daniel seeing Charlotte brought on his visions of the the real timeline. So it would seem that there are two triggers that "wake" people up: 1) almost dying and 2) re-connecting with the person you were in love with in the original timeline.

If that's the case, then I suppose the most obvious reason for Desmond RUNNING OVER A WHEELCHAIR-BOUND MAN, was that Locke was already with his true love and only a near-death experience would do the trick. I couldn't believe it when I saw it! Here's the thing, though: How could Desmond know he wouldn't kill Locke? My first thought was that he was trying to do just that because Alt-Locke's death would somehow affect MIBLocke...but I'm not sure how that would work. I do know one thing: Alt-Locke is totally headed to Jack's hospital, where Sun and Jin probably are, too.

Bits:

I chose this photo for my Desmond screencap this week because, well, let's just say he's right where I want him.



And finally, the fabulously AWESOME, Wonka-fied preview for next week's episode (turn it up loud!):



I can't WAIT.