Lost 5.5: This Place Is Death

Can I just say how delicious last night’s episode was?! I know there’s a little talk about Lost’s ratings being down–but I couldn’t love the show more! We’ve had four seasons of character driven craziness. I have fallen in love with all of our Losties (and even our baddies) and if Lindelof and Cuse bring us the freakiest sci-fi they can muster, I’ll still love it! If we had seen this time travel in season 1, the show would have never made it. But bringing it to us this late in the game is making sci-fi fans out of regular folk.

Anyway, I could crush on them all day. Let’s get to the episode! This one was remarkably straightforward as far as time goes, so let’s go by location, ok?

The Los Angeles Losties (aka The Oceanic Six)

We pick up where we left off last week and Sun is about to whip out her gun to shoot…WHO? Well, before she can muster up the courage, her daughter calls. Sweet little baby girl says, “Come home soon, I miss you.” Sun ends the conversation with a good-bye laden with emotion and possibly foreshadowing.

She finally hops  out of the car with gun raised and heads straight to BEN. (I don’t know. I thought this was a little contrived…or maybe a letdown. I was so hoping Sun had this great ulterior motive and secret knowledge about something. Instead she just wants to do off Ben? Well, yeah. Who hasn’t wanted to off Ben? I’ve wanted to do that since he was Henry Gale.)

Kate goes all mommy on her and runs to get Aaron. As she stuffs the sleepy boy in the car, she reiterates the fact that they are all insane for wanting to go back to The Island. Then she speeds away. (Flat boring Kate. Insanely skinny but still boring.)

Sun gives a mini-speech about how it’s Ben’s fault that Jin is dead. Then in usual Ben-style he retorts, “Jin is alive and I can prove it.” He explains that someone in LA can give her the answers she needs. (Hmmm…who could that be? *cough* Mrs. Hawking *cough*) He has to take her there immediately. She says yes and hops in the car with Ben and Jack. (Not sure why Jack stays with them…)

Sayid delivers the best line of the night as he walks away from Ben, Sun and Jack, “If we meet again, it will be unpleasant for all of us.” (Not sure if that’s an exact quote. Handy Manny is ruling the tivo right now. But regardless, isn’t that so Sayid? The most polite, “I’ll break bad on you!” I’ve ever heard!)

On the way to this mysterious person in LA, Jack gets all noble and starts apologizing to Sun for Jin’s death. And suddenly Jack says, “After what he did to Kate, if you don’t kill Ben, I will.” (Since when have all these people turned into murderers?) Ben pulls the van over and says (with typical wild eyes), “You don’t know what I’ve done for you. If you knew how much I was protecting you and your friends, you’d never stop thanking me.”

After that very strange outburst they continue to the church (!) to get Sun’s answers. In the parking lot, Ben hands Sun Jin’s wedding ring. He explains that Locke gave it to him (while Locke was being Jeremy Benthem in LA). He asks Sun if she will return to The Island with him. She barely hesitates before saying yes and just then we hear, “What are you doin’ here?” from our favorite hatch-dweller, Desmond.

Ben says, “The same thing you’re doing, obviously.”

Desmond, “Oh, you’re here to see Faraday’s mom?”

And for a Lost first, BEN IS SHOCKED. He walks wide-eyed and uncharacteristically quiet into the church where they are greeted by Daniel’s mom, Mrs. Eloise Hawking. (We were right! We were right!) She greets Ben with, “Where is everyone?” Ben responds, “This is many as I could get on short notice.” (Wait, I thought he had 72 hours! And isn’t Hurley going to be released in the morning? And where is Locke’s body? And LOOK! Desmond is there! He’s not an Oceanic Six! Does that mean Walt needs to come back, too?!)

So, the creepy Mrs. Hawking says, “It will have to do. Let’s get started.”

Holy Cow.

Now, let’s get back to The Island because we need to find out how and why Locke has Jin’s ring…

Jin is still in the same time with young Rousseau. He discovers it’s 1988. (Which by the way, the Frenchies hairstyles and clothes do not look REMOTELY 1988.) The Frenchies have a radio-type thing and Jin says he will lead them to the radio tower. But on their way they are greeted by…

SMOKEY.

(The black smoke monster? Whoa. I’d kinda forgotten about him. Does he have anything to do with the time travel? Or is he just another strange sci-fi addition to The Island. Like maybe The Island is a resting place for sci-fi characters a la The Island of Misfit Toys. I kid.)

Smokey kills one of Rousseau’s friends and then drags another of them into a hole under some ruins leaving his arm on the ground. (Have we seen these ruins before?) The Frenchies mistakenly believe that they can rescue their friend from Smokey and all descend into the hole to retrieve him. Jin won’t let Rousseau go because she’ pregnant. After another flash, Jin sees two of the Frenchies dead (with gun shot wounds!) and a stand-off between Rousseau and her boyfriend, Robert.

The conversation here is interesting. She accuses him of being sick. She says the smoke monster changed him. He defends Smokey, saying it’s not a monster but a seruity system for the ruins. (HUH?) Rosseau lowers her gun and dear old Robert cocks his to kill Rousseau. But he’s not fast enough. Rousseau shoots him in the head.

{for more Rousseau back story & specifics from season 1 head over to Lostpedia}

When Jin makes himself known, she tries to shoot him, too. A time travel flash saves him and suddenly he’s looking down the barrel of another gun…only this time it belongs to our present day hero– SAWYER!

They reunite with happy hugs and try to catch each other up on what’s been going on. Now our Losties are headed to The Orchid. They experience several more time travel flashes and each one is worse than the one before. The nosebleeds are getting worse. CS Lewis is especially affected. During one brain slip, she looks at Jin and says, “Don’t bring her back! This place is death!” She then becomes so incapacitated that she and Faraday stay behind in the jungle. It’s obvious her mind is traveling through time because she starts spouting phrases from her childhood, etc. (Oh, if only I had transcribed all that. I wonder if it was foreshadowing? Or had any special meaning?)

Suddenly, she confesses something to Faraday…she lived on The Island as a child. Her mother took her away (leaving her father there…who’s her daddy?) and convinced her The Island was make believe. CS Lewis became an anthropologist to see if The Island existed. And then shocking discover #2, she says, “When I was a little girl on The Island, there was an old man. He scared me. He told me I must leave The Island and never come back. And if I do return, that I will die. And I think…that man was you, Daniel.” *shiver*

After one more time shift in CS Lewis’ mind, she dies. Daniel is heart broken.

But our Losties are still on the move to The Orchid. In one of CS Lewis’ brain jumps, she says something about looking in the well. When our Losties get to The Orchid (which looks like the ruins), Locke discovers a well and decides to head on down. (Miles is confused as to why Charlotte would know this about the well. But didn’t he ask her last season about living here previously?)

Jin doesn’t want Locke to go. He takes CS Lewis’ warning to heart and makes Locke promise not to tell Sun that he is alive. He gives him his wedding ring and says, “Tell her I’m dead.” Locke promises he will.

Just as Locke is halfway down the well, a time travel flash happens and to our Losties, the well is covered and Locke effectively buried alive. Sawyer tries desperately to dig him out. (Could this man be any more of a hero?!) But, The Island must have known what Locke was doing because Locke is alive and well in the cave of the frozen donkey wheel. And is greeted by none other than Christian Shepherd. Looking surprisingly clean and well-pressed.

Christian tells Locke many things that I’m not remembering at this moment. But the two most important things are 1)Locke is going to be a sacrifice and 2)Locke must turn the wheel to get his friends back. Locke does so, a light flashes and Christian says, “Say hello to my son.” Locke: “Who’s your son?!”

THE END.

STUFF TO TALK ABOUT
1. I just realized that Locke didn’t know who Christian Shepherd was in the shack. So, Locke thinks Christian is Jacob. Is Christian Jacob? I guess I missed that part. If so, he’s been on The Island at least as long as Sexy Eyes. And that means JACK has an Island-ness to him, too.

2. I’m pretty sure Jin and Sun are never going to see their daughter again. Sun’s good-bye was a final good-bye. *sigh*

3. What in the world happens to make Locke become Jeremy Benthem? Is Locke going to materialize exactly three years later in LA?

4. Why oh why do they have to keep messing with Locke’s legs? When he fell into The Orchid, he broke his leg. He had a gunshot wound yesterday. Good grief. The man was paralyzed. Leave his legs alone!

5. Did Locke keep his promise to Jin? Why did Locke give Ben the ring? Or did Locke give Ben the ring? We know how great of a liar Ben is…maybe he took it?

6. Faraday. He is OBVIOUSLY going to try to fix everything that’s gone wrong. He’s going to try to change time. Including saving Charlotte. But how? When? How does his mama fit into this?

7. Are we going to hear more from/about CS Lewis? Or is her story over? Was her memory there to propel the story and that’s all? I’m still wondering about her Daddy AND about her line “This place is death!” becoming the title for this episode.

8. Need more talking points? Try Lost Soup. Or Doc Jensen’s recap.

Conclusion
Last night’s episode was great. It was different—there were no flashbacks, per se. Just a few creative time shifts. They also moved the story up significantly. I’m very surprised that there are already with Mrs. Hawking and about to “get started”. I’m not certain where this season is going. They’re going much faster than I thought they would. What do you think? Where is this season headed? What do you want to see happen next?

(I’ll be contemplating this and more at my daily blog ohamanda.com)