I am still reeling. It is no lie when I say that my heart was still racing when I went to bed a full hour an a half after I finished watching. Was "The Candidate" a good episode? Um, I think so. The massacre at the end has kind of obliterated, for now, the forty minutes that came before it. Oy!
Before I get to last night's episode, a few brief words about the one I neglected,
The Last RecruitTwo weeks I've had, and I still didn't manage to get a post up for this episode, and I am really sorry about that. It was a solid episode that spent a lot of time moving people around like pieces on a chessboard, and blowing up a lot of stuff. While it felt a bit too brief and/or understated at the time, after last night Sun and Jin's reunion at the end of "The Last Recruit" will probably play a little better upon rewatch. They barely had time to say hello when the guns got whipped out again.
I loved how we got to see all of the players finally come together. This show always works well when everyone plays a part, imo.
I don't really have too much else to say about this one. If you'd like to delve more deeply, please check out Alan's review and its comment section.
Now, on to last night's soul-crusher...
The CandidateSayid: "Because it's going to be you, Jack."
Me, after it was over: "I wish Sawyer had believed him."
My God, where do I start? Honestly, I have no idea where this thing is going anymore. Well, I never actually KNEW, but I felt I could give an educated guess. Not anymore. And I'm sort of afraid. That's not necessarily a bad thing - it probably means that the writers are doing a good job - but it's scary to be afraid!
(Warning: If you couldn't tell already, this thing is going to be all over the place because that's what the inside of my brain is like now)
With the end so near, I was preparing myself for the inevitable shocking deaths but Jiminy Cricket! FOUR people in ten minutes?! That's more shock than my heart can take, thank you very much.
Frank Lapidus - My favorite wise-crackin', honorary LOSTie. There's no way he survived getting hit by that bulkhead and drowning. Is there?
Sayid - The one thing that MIBLocke did not count on, and that was a human being's capacity for good, for choosing to do the right thing, even if he is a zombie with an infected soul. Like Hurley said, you can always come back from the Dark Side. I was pretty confident that there would be no other ending for Sayid but death, and I am glad that it was a redemptive one.
Sun and Jin - I don't know what to say. I think I'm still processing it. This is not the ending I wanted for them, not by a long shot. Their story, however, was done being told, and I suppose there is comfort in the knowledge that they died together, at last. *sniff* Doc Jensen at EW posted a short interview with Lindelof and Cuse in which they talk about some of the stuff that went down in "The Candidate". This is what they said about the Kwons' death:
“Because now you know this show is willing and capable of killing anyone,” says Damon Lindelof...Why was it so important for Lost to prove that it can be downright homicidal during its last season? To establish once and for all that the Locke-ness Monster is the true villain of season 6 and quite possibly all of Lost. “There is no ambiguity,” says Cuse. “He is evil and he has to be stopped.”
Point well-made.
I'm just going to put everything else into a bullet point list because I just can't be prosy right now.
- I don't think Widmore put the C4 on the plane. I think it was Richard, Ben and Miles - isn't that what they went to do? Get explosives from Dharmaville and rig the plane to blow? No? Whoever put it there, MIBLocke already knew it was on board - why else would he have taken the dead guy's watch before he climbed into the plane?
- Jack was 100% correct about MIBLocke's intention with regard to the bomb. If they let the clock run out, the bomb would not have gone off (just like the dynamite in the Black Rock). MIBLocke was counting on Sawyer doing exactly what he did, including his betrayal.
- I enjoyed all of the alt-timeline, watching the veil between the sideways world and the real world slip away a bit more as Jack starts making connections between Oceanic 815 people (Bernard!) and more of the real world begins to seep into their subconscious minds ("I wish you'd believed me", "Push the button", "What happened, happened", Catch a Falling Star playing on the music box). Great shot of Jack and Claire in the music box mirror, btw. Terry O'Quinn was amazing in the final scene between him and Jack in the hospital hallway.
- That final scene on the beach killed me. Killed me! To see them all so devastated, to hear Hurley sobbing and to see the pain in Jack's face...Jesus, show!
I need to wrap this up because, in my real world, I'm supposed to be working. Like I can concentrate now.
What did you think?
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3 comments:
I am still holding out hope for Frank!!
I agree, this was a total surprise and a total game changer. Now we know the end is near.
I will check out some of your links. Do you read Doc Jensen's column in EW online?
I do sometimes, but I find that he's a bit overwrought in some of his analysis. He does make you think, though!
I was re-reading my recap from "Everybody Loves Hugo" and I was pretty impressed with myself re: this snippet, in light of the events in "The Candidate":
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).
Go me! ;-)
Good call, Gina! lol I was happy to see Sayid redeem himself, too.
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