Not Even The Candidate Is Guaranteed A Happy Ending

Back during Lost Season Three, something surprising happened to me as a viewer; I started to like Charlie Pace, the English burnout has-been rockstar.  It was surprising because he could be very annoying at times and to me, his storyline, recovering from drug addiction, was one of the show’s least interesting.  But during Season Three, Charlie started getting appealing.  He was paired up with Hurley and later Desmond and actually committed a few heroic acts as the season wound down.  Then, in the season finale, Through The Looking Glass (an episode which unleashed the flashforward twist), Charlie died.

After watching that episode, two things hit me about Lost: first, I could not predict where the story was going to go.  Second, no one is guaranteed a happy ending.

So as I watched tonight’s episode The Candidate, these two things hit me again.  I have no idea where the story is going.  And no one is guaranteed a happy ending.

I’m going to get right down to it: they killed off Jimmy Buffet Lapidus, Sayid, Sun and Jin.  Lapidus wasn’t much of a surprise.  As likable as he was, he was never really established.  Sayid, like Hurley predicted, turned away from the dark side in his final minutes.  But Sun and Jin just had their happy reunion.  Jin has never met his daughter and won’t ever get that chance.  It’s disappointing to see them die (even if they are alive in the sideways universe), but the hours of Lost are winding down and unfortunately, people have to die.

Meanwhile, everything is happening just the way fLocke wants.  A number of the candidates are dead.  The remaining candidates (and unfortunately Kate too) have washed up on the beach, helpless and it’s a safe bet that the two alpha males of the group, Sawyer and Jack, want to kill each other.  Which is good for fLocke, because if Jack is to be believed, fLocke can’t directly harm any of the candidates.

However, the Candidates do have a few things going for them.  Jack knows (something he’s known for a while which was recently confirmed by Sayid) that he can and has to stop fLocke.  They also have a time-traveling Scotsman alive at the bottom of a well.

Also, somewhere on the Island, there’s a guyliner-wearing immortal, a ghostbuster and the world’s greatest liar walking around doing nothing at all.

So fLocke still has his work cut out for him.  Yet, there’s no happy ending guaranteed for those opposing him (or anyone on this show).

The pace of storytelling tonight was very quick.  This was one of those episodes that started and felt like only seconds had passed by the time it was over.  Yet a lot happened.  fLocke dealing with the two modes of transport.  The jailing and subsequent rescue of Sawyer, Hurley, Kate, et. al.  All the action on the submarine culminating in the sub’s sinking.  And the story in the sideways universe was actually interesting as well.

As much as the story followed Jack around, we learned much more about Locke.  Locke was close with his father and was responsible for both of them being paralyzed in an airplane crash.  Jack, ever the obsessive, wanted to learn more about Locke and what he could do to get Locke to agree to a surgery which could allow him to walk again.  And even though Jack offered Locke the opportunity to undergo the surgery (and let go of the past together), Locke turned him down.  There was an important tie between the sideways universe and on-Island reality when Locke, while out of it in the hospital, uttered something about pushing the button and wishing someone had believed in him.  Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see what sideways Desmond was up to this week, but we got to see the effects of what he’s done to get the two timelines together.

Some other thoughts:

-Sawyer had this plan to get fLocke in the water.  Why?

-So Widmore wired the Ajira plane to blow.  Why didn’t he just blow up the plane and the sub before fLocke got to Hydra Island?  Widmore’s made it clear he wants the Island.  So why keep the ways to leave.

-Also, if Widmore wanted to keep fLocke out of the Hydra facility, why not use the ring of ash in addition to the sonic barriers?

-If Widmore had shot Kate, that would have reserved my place on Team Widmore.  Speaking of Kate getting shot, why did it have to be just in the shoulder?

What did you think?