RECAP: Lost - "The Candidate"

With only three episodes left, Lost is currently scrambling to wrap up as many of its loose ends as it possibly can in the time it has. The finale has been extended by half an hour in order to give them more time to do this, but the fact that they've written themselves into a situation that can't possibly be adequately resolved in three episodes (despite the fact that they've known for like 3 goddamn years exactly how much time they had left) means that a lot of the resolutions that we're going to see are going to be pretty sloppy. And that's exactly how I'd describe this week's episode: sloppy. Yes, it moved the plot along, but it resolved a number of storylines in completely unsatisfactory ways. After the jump I've got the full recap.

In the side-flash universe, Locke awakens in the hospital, where Jack, who is supposed to be this extremely talented spinal surgeon, apparently has nothing better to do than wait around for sleeping patients. Jack explains that Locke is a candidate for a new procedure that could theoretically fix his legs, but Locke refuses. Of course, Jack can't take no for an answer, so he goes barging into Locke's private life to find out what happened to him in the first place. He visits Bernard Nadler (Rose's husband and evidently Locke's dentist) and asks for Locke's dental records from an emergency oral surgery performed at the time of Locke's accident. Bernard refuses, citing doctor-patient confidentiality rules, but then they realize that they were both on Oceanic 815, so he throws those rules out the window and tells Jack that a man named Anthony Cooper had been in the same accident that hurt Locke. Jack visits Cooper in a nursing home, where he runs into Locke's fiancé Helen. Helen tells Jack to leave Locke alone, then immediately changes her mind when Jack gives her some sob story about how saving Locke's life wasn't enough for him. It turns out that in this reality, Anthony Cooper is in a vegetative state, and he was put in that state by the accident that paralyzed Locke.

Returning to the hospital, Jack meets Claire, who shows him that their father left her a music box. Neither of them understand the significance of the box (and neither do we), but Jack invites Claire to stay with him while she is in LA. He speaks to Locke again, and reveals the details of his visit with Cooper. Locke, upset, explains that he lost the use of his legs in a plane crash. He had just received his pilot's license, and he had begged his father to be his first passenger. Immediately after takeoff he crashed the plane, paralyzing himself from the waist down and turning his father into a vegetable. Jack, feeling that it's his place as a near-perfect stranger to give life advice, reminds Locke that in the airport Locke had told Jack that his father was gone, and that Jack needed to let go. Jack tells Locke that Cooper is gone too, and that Locke should let go as well. Locke starts to leave, and Jack tells him he can help, and that he wishes Locke believed him. Locke pauses for a moment, then leaves.

Meanwhile, back on the Island, Jack wakes up on Hydra Island. Sayid explains that Locke saved his life, and Evil Locke says that they have to rescue the others. Jack says that he won't leave the Island, and asks why he should trust Locke. Evil Locke replies that he could kill everyone on the Island and they wouldn't be able to stop him, but instead he has chosen to save their lives and help them escape.

Hurley, Sawyer, Kate, Sun, Jin, and Frank are brought to Widmore's camp and put in the cages. When Sawyer struggles, Widmore puts a gun to Kate's head and explains that her name isn't on the list, so it doesn't matter whether she lives or dies. Sawyer surrenders, and tells Kate that in the cave with all the names, hers was crossed out, thus causing him to believe Widmore.

Jin and Sun talk about their daughter in English for some damn reason. Their reunion is one of the big disappointments of the season for me; back in season 1 when Jin was leaving on the raft, they had one of the most powerful emotional moments in the show's entire run. They've been separated for something like 2 seasons now, and I was really expecting more, but instead we got a 15-second reunion last episode and some baby talk in this one, before their storylines were resolved (more on that shortly). They had the potential to be two of the best characters on the show, and the writers seem to be wasting them.

The power dies in Widmore's camp and the Smoke Monster attacks, killing a number of Widmore's people. Jack lets them all out of the cage, and they run into the forest, where after a commercial it's suddenly the middle of the day (it had been night when they were freed). Locke arrives at the Ajira plane and kills the two guards, stealing one of their watches. He discovers that Widmore had rigged the plane with explosives, and shows several blocks of C4 to the others when they show up, explaining that the plane is no longer safe and that they should take the submarine. Hurley protests, saying that Richard (who we haven't seen in quite some time) had made it clear that Evil Locke was not supposed to leave the Island. They ignore him, but as they leave Sawyer pulls Jack aside and tells him to make sure that Evil Locke doesn't get on the sub.

The group arrives at the submarine, which isn't guarded for some reason, and Sawyer, Frank, Jin, and Sun board it. As the rest of the group heads for the sub, Evil Locke tries to reason with Jack, saying that whoever told him he needed to stay on the Island didn't know what they were talking about. Jack says that John Locke told him to stay, then pushes Evil Locke off the dock into the water. He turns to get on the sub, when suddenly Widmore's people start shooting at them from the shore. They shoot Kate, and Jack picks her up to get her on the sub. Evil Locke climbs out of the water and starts killing the shooters with impossible shots from a handgun. Sawyer realizes that he won't be able to let Claire on the sub without letting Locke on, and closes the hatch. As the sub dives, Claire starts to freak out, but Evil Locke tells her "Trust me, you don't want to be on that sub."

On the submarine, Jack tries to help Kate by reaching into his pack to find a shirt to stop the bleeding. Instead, he finds the C4 that Evil Locke had put there. He had rigged a timer using the dead guard's watch, and there are only 4 minutes left before the bomb goes off, but it will take 5 minutes for the sub to resurface. He realizes that they have done exactly what Evil Locke wanted. Sayid tells Sawyer how to disarm the bomb, but Jack stops him, saying that nothing is going to happen and they're going to be fine. He explains that he believes Evil Locke can't kill them, suggesting that perhaps he isn't allowed to kill them. He thinks that rather than needing them to all leave together, Locke needs them all dead before he can leave the Island. Since he can't kill them, he has to get them to kill each other. Pulling the wires from the bomb, Jack says, would do just that. After a brief pause, Sawyer says that he doesn't trust Jack, and pulls the wires. The timer stops, but then starts running extremely fast. Sayid quickly tells Jack about the well that Desmond is in, and explains that he's telling Jack this "because it's going to be you, Jack." He takes the bomb and runs to the far end of the sub, where it explodes, killing him.

The sub starts filling with water, and Frank is hit by a flying door and falls under the water. It isn't clear whether he's dead or not, but he's probably fine since we didn't actually see his body, and that's the way deaths work on Lost. In the explosion, Sun is pinned to the wall by pieces of the submarine. Hurley takes Kate and escapes, and Jack, Sawyer, and Jin try to free Sun. A falling piece of the submarine hits Sawyer and knocks him unconscious, causing Jack to have to carry him out of the sub and to the surface. Jin and Sun realize that they won't be able to free her from the wreckage, and Sun begs Jin to leave. Jin says that he will never leave her again, and they kiss, then drown together.

Jack, Sawyer, Hurley, and Kate make it to the shore, then all (except for Sawyer, who's still unconscious) mourn the loss of their friends. Back on the dock, Evil Locke tells Claire that they aren't all dead, and he dramatically walks toward the camera, saying he's going to finish what he started.

So I guess the writers have decided that the easiest way to resolve certain of their storylines is just to kill the characters off. We lost three main characters in one episode, and although they hadn't been doing anything worthwhile with any of the characters (Sun and Jin had just kind of stayed in the background for most of this season, while Sayid's been moping around like an emo kid without a Lady Bic to rub on his wrists) their deaths still felt cheap. Yes, it was noble of Sayid to sacrifice himself, and it did offer some redemption for his character, but I had been hoping that he would help them in the final confrontation with Evil Locke. Yes, it was admirable that Jin refused to leave Sun's side, but at the same time I thought it odd that neither one of them seemed to think that maybe Jin should leave because they have a goddamn daughter to think about. On the other hand, it would be difficult to have Jin leave her, even with the excuse of a daughter, without it seeming like he was abandoning her again. Additionally, it would have created yet another mopey character for the rest of the season. Having read an interview with Daniel Dae Kim (Jin), it does seem like they will reappear in the finale, so it'll be interesting to see how they handle that (whether they'll just be in the side-flashes, or be brought back to life on the Island). The problem I have with these episodes is that it's impossible for them not to feel rushed. The writers knew how much time they had left, but apparently were too busy sniffing each other's crotches to stop and think "Hey, maybe we should stop creating new mysteries and start resolving the ones we have now so that our fans won't completely hate us when the show ends." Then again, I've hated them for quite a while, so there's probably not a lot they could have done to change that. Fuck you, Lost.