LOST Rewatch: What They Died For

LOST Rewatch: What They Died For April 28, 2015

LOST What they died forThis penultimate episode begins, as the first episode of the first season of LOST did, with Jack’s eye opening. This is in the afterlife, and Jack notices bleeding in his neck and seems puzzled by it, just as he did in the first episode of this season. He gets a call that Oceanic has found his father’s coffin. But the call is actually from Desmond. Later, Desmond fights with Ben, and as he is punching him, Ben remembers. In the school infirmary, Ben tells John that the man with whom he fought had told him he wasn’t trying to hurt John, he was trying to get him to let go. Desmond then goes to the police station and turns himself in to James Ford. He is put in a cell with Sawyer, next to Kate’s cell. Ben gets invited to Danielle and Alex’s home for dinner. John goes to see Jack in his office, thinking that all the things that are happening for a reason. Jack says he thinks he is mistaking coincidence for fate. John says he is ready to get out of his wheelchair. Desmond, Kate, and Sayid are sent in a police van to county jail. Desmond says that they will stop soon and be freed and he asks them to promise to do something for him. Ana Lucia lets them go, and then Hugo brings money to her. Hugo is surprised that Ana Lucia isn’t coming with them, but Desmond says she isn’t ready yet. Sayid goes with Hugo and Kate goes with Desmond.

On the island in the present day, Jack gives Kate stitches. Kate talks about the need to kill “Locke” who had caused the death of Sun and Jin, the latter never even having had the chance to meet his daughter. Jack says he knows. They then set off to find Desmond, with Jack saying that, if “Locke” wants Desmond dead then they are going to need him. Later, Jack and Sawyer talk. Sawyer says he killed Sayid, Sun, and Jin, but Jack says no, “Locke” did. Then young Jacob asks Hugo for the ashes he took from Ilana. The ashes are then placed on a fire, and adult Jacob appears, saying that when the fire burns out he will never see him again. They can all see Jacob. Kate says she wants to know what all those people died. Jacob says that he brought them there because of a mistake he made a long time ago. He is responsible for making the “monster” that way. Jacob says he didn’t pluck any of them out of a happy existence, they were all like him, alone, looking for something they couldn’t find out there. They needed the island as much as it needed them. Jack says he will do it. Sawyer quips, “And I thought that guy had a god complex before.” Hugo says he is glad it isn’t him. Jacob takes Jack to water and performs the same ritual his adoptive mother had, giving him a drink, and then saying, “now you’re like me.”

Ben, Richard, and Miles go to the Dharma barracks to get explosives. Ben makes reference to the room where he was told he could summon the monster, before he realized that it was summoning him. Then Charles Widmore and Zoe show up. Charles says that Jacob visited him not long after his freighter was destroyed, showing him the error of his ways and inviting him to return to the island. Locke is on his way. Charles and Zoe hide in the secret room, Miles runs, and Richard goes out with Ben to talk to “Locke.” “Locke” then kills Richard and then sits down to talk to Ben. “Locke” tells Ben that he needs him to kill some people for him, when he asks why he should do that, “Locke” says that once he leaves the island, Ben can have it. Ben tells Locke that Charles Widmore is hiding in his closet. Locke says Ben doesn’t have to see what he is about to do, but Ben says he wants to see it. Locke asks why Charles came back, wit his daughter’s life threatened, and he says that he came to bring Desmond as a measure of last resort, a falsafe, because of his unique resistance for electromagnetism. Ben shoots him, saying he doesn’t get to save his daughter. Locke and Ben go to the well to where Desmond was. Locke says that he is going to use Desmond to accomplish the one thing he was never able to: to destroy the island.

While there is something deeply satisfying about Jack embracing this as his destiny, while in the afterlife he revisits elements of conversation that John Locke had with Mr. Eko. The explanation of why it is dangerous for the smoke monster to leave the island, however, ought to have been more compelling. While having a smoke monster roaming around is an inconvenience, the dwellers on the island managed OK most of the time. And so more ought to have been said about this e.g. that he had become infused with the light of the island, and his departure would put it out, or something like that. (See my earlier proposal for the “Midi-chlorian ending” for LOST).

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