"You're The One" - 6x14: The Candidate

Oh, no way. No way.

Did that all just happen in one episode?

After weeks of slower, more "setup" episodes that got the characters where they needed to be, things finally began going into motion. Make no mistake - tonight was part one of the series finale.

Let me try to put it all in some kind of order, because it's all flying through my head right now.

The cages revisited. I was with Sawyer there: no way would I get in there again! But what pissed me off even more was when "doughboy" hit him in the gut with the butt of his rifle. He got what was coming to him, though, courtesy of ol' Smokey. I still love when he shows up! And all of a sudden, they're out of the cages. I have to say, for a multi-millionaire (billionaire?), Widmore hired the most incompetent group of fumbling idiots to run his missions for him. Seriously, Sayid just turned off the power at will? Really? Bang-up job, guys! I'm almost beginning to think that maybe Widmore wanted it to happen this way, but...why go through all that trouble? If you're really in on it with the Monster, why not just let them go with him and let him do his thing? Or is it more of a Mrs. Hawking "course-correcting," or Faraday "what happened, happened," thing?

So they get to the Ajira plane, only to find that the Monster has snapped the neck of one incompetent idiot and shot the other, and (after he takes one of their digital watches...hmmm...) he's discovered that the plane has four blocks of C4 explosive wired to the electrical system. So, on to the sub. Again, Sawyer is whispering to Jack about secret plans and such and "ya gotta do me this one last favor, Doc," you know, even though he kicked him off the boat and all. (I'm not a fan of what they've done with Sawyer this season. The writers seem to have taken all of his cleverness away from him, and that makes him a shell of the character we love. Maybe it's just me. He just seems like he's a dupe for the Monster at every turn now.)

Oh man, the sub - apparently, this was the Monster's plan all along (of course): get all of the candidates in one place, and kill them. I'm giving myself props for being half right: he was planning to kill them all, but since Widmore compromised Ajira (and why wouldn't the Monster just use the explosives-laden plane? Probably because he knew Jack wouldn't get on it), he used the sub instead. He was never going to take the plane off the Island. So, again, what exactly does he want? The Island all to himself? No, because he has always said that he wants to be free, but has that been a ruse all along? While Jacob has been busy finding ways to keep him on the Island, he's been plotting to simply kill everyone so they'll leave him alone. Nah. It's far more interesting to think about what he'd do it he escaped into the world.

Kate is shot. Matt is shocked. But not too much. Once I saw that it was just her shoulder, I yelled, "Just count to five and shake it off!"Total plot device, but I can respect that. I mean, did she seem all that bothered by it later when they washed up on the beach? Did you even remember she had been shot in the first place?

I might be wrong, but I think Sayid tells Jack, "you're the one" - right before he runs off with the bomb to blow it up in a distant section of the sub. (More on that later...) He gives them a chance to survive. Is his sacrifice, finally, his absolution?

Jack's speech on the sub was legendary...except that he was wrong, for the most part. Who knows, maybe it wouldn't have gone off if Sawyer hadn't pulled out the wires, but again, keep repeating to yourself, "Whatever happened, happened..." Just as Jack believed that their destiny was not to be killed on the sub, what actually did happen on the sub was supposed to happen that way, for reasons that we don't know of yet. I really, really like Jack as a believer.

Now we know why Sun freaked when she saw Locke in the hospital. Did she see her fate on the Island at his hands? Did she not speak of it to Jin because she's okay and happy in the Alt. 2004? And what does this possibility mean for what the flash-sideways are? If Sun and Jin are truly okay in the Alt. timeline, can it still be something the Monster created to (sort of) grant their wishes if they came with him? Especially after tonight, that theory seems to have, ahem, sunk.

And was anyone else less than touched at the demise of Sun and Jin? As they were speaking their last words, I was actually going back through seasons past in my mind and remembering them fondly, but there they were dying, and I couldn't muster up too much sadness for them. As much as I wanted Jin to escape because he could, I knew he would never leave Sun. By the way: Titanic much? "I'll never let go, Jin - I'll never let go!" Toniann and I were texting about this, and I heard a really good explanation about this lack of emotion on a podcast: they were apart for so long, and Sun was repeating "Have you seen my husband?" to everyone in earshot for so long, and it took them thirteen episodes just this season to finally reunite them - complete with a really cheesy line from Frank - that we just completely lost any interest in them. By this time, they sort of became caricatures of themselves, and in the face of a far more emotional story like Penny and Desmond's, Sun and Jin sort of fell by the wayside. Toniann had a good point, though, that I as a single man didn't consider and she as a mother of twins did - what about Ji Yeon, their daughter? Couldn't Jin have saved himself for her? So now there will be a child in South Korea with mommy and daddy issues...

Where I did lose it was after Jack, Sawyer, Hurley, and Kate washed up on the beach. When Hurley realized that he lost his friend Jin - friends since the early days of Season 1 - and he broke down, so did I. God, I love Hurley.

I was convinced that once the Monster acknowledged that the sub sank (but didn't blow up - no smoke, eh?), and Claire was like "WTF?" that he was going to simply kill her. I thought Claire was done for in an episode that we already had to deal with the death of Sun and Jin, but of course, she's not a candidate, so why would he waste his time? Besides, as he says, not all of them are dead, and he has to go finish the job. So does he sense that the four remaining Losties made it to the beach? Is he referring to Miles, Richard, and Ben?

Hey, wait a minute, I just realized - did Frank die on the sub? Oh man, that suuuuucks! I get it - now that the ruse of flying the plane off the Island is over, he has no purpose, and they wasted no time offing him. I loved Lapidus, too bad.

Okay, on to the flash-sideways. 

First, Dr. Bernard Nadler makes an appearance! This is the first "hey, we were both on Oceanic 815 - what a kawinky-dink!" moment of several in the episode. He gives him the name of Anthony Cooper, who - shocker! - was in the same accident that paralyzed Locke. So now we know they seemingly had a truly good relationship in this Alt. 2004.

About the Jack and Claire scene - hey, um, do you guys maybe, um, want to, um, exchange phone numbers or something? I get that it's awkward, but still, you are family. At least Jack finally offered to let her stay with him. 

Jack still has not flashed, and neither has Locke, but he seems to be close. (More on that later...) Does it have something to do with what happens on the Island? When Jack and Claire were looking in the mirror at the same time, it still didn't break through to Jack. Claire apparently had her moment in the hospital with the panic about Aaron in "LA X" and that's all she needed to have. But Jack, besides a few inklings, has yet to have that major breakthrough that I'm expecting him to have due to his importance in the story. They keep tempting us with a connection to Locke, but tonight, yet again, John balks at the chance for surgery and leaves.

The Jack and Locke conversations in this episode were classic LOST. This was Season 1 caliber Jack and Locke. John was just throwing out lines from episodes past as he slept in the hospital: he said "push the button" and another line that I can't remember, and Jack busted out with "whatever happened, happened" and "I wish you would've believed me," which is what Locke wrote to Jack before he attempted suicide and then Ben killed him. Who's going to flash first? Or will they still need each other to do so, and it will happen at the same time? Jack still can't convince Locke to have the surgery because Locke is punishing himself for his father's vegetative state as a result of crashing a John-piloted plane. I couldn't help thinking of Locke's responsibility in Boone's death, also from a small plane falling to Earth.

Anthony Cooper is in a wheelchair, too, but is in much more dire circumstances than his son. That's karma for you. He can't smooth talk his way out of things this time.

So in reference to the title, who is the candidate? I have two main contenders (besides Hurley, who I still think is going to have a major part to play, but it doesn't seem like they're setting him up to be the candidate). These will come as no surprise to anyone:

1. Jack. Based on what Sayid said in the sub before the bomb went off, and his total Jacob-like attitude, and that he's the hero of LOST, and that this episode, "The Candidate," was centered on him, they are almost telegraphing that he's the man. But...

2. Kate. Sawyer tells her (and notifies those in the audience that hadn't read about this on various blogs) that her name was indeed on the cave wall, though it was crossed out. We know her name is on the lighthouse wheel, and it's not crossed out. This seems to mean that Jacob, who most agree was in control of the lighthouse, has Kate as a candidate, and the Monster, who controls the dark cave, has her off the list. Which means that maybe Jacob knows something that the Monster does not. I've said on the blog before that Kate could be Jacob's wild card - that she is in fact the #1 candidate. Is this likely? I dunno. Is the Island where she has been running to all her life? Is this where she proves that she is a good person? Do we take into account "behind the scenes" facts about the show such as how Jack was originally supposed to die in the Pilot episode, and Kate was going to be the main character/leader of the Losties?

What do you think?

I'm off to spend a few minutes on the Fuselage to see what others are talking about. (Or not - I just tried to check on something and the site is getting hammered right now - the page won't even load. Oh well...)

Until next time,

Namaste & Good Luck,

~ Matt