Okay I admit it… I’m LOST

May 14, 2009 in Television 4 Comments

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After last year’s devastating season finale of LOST, I honestly had low expectations. How could anyone top blowing up the Kahana freighter, killing Michael and (presumably, at that time) Jin? What could possibly be more shocking than watching the Island vanish with a giant “bloop?” (if I may quote Hurley.) And what could be a more ominous lead-in to season 5 than Ben telling Jack that they need to take Locke’s dead body back to the Island?

Season 5 Recap

Season 5 had tough shoes to fill. But overall, LOST delivered and then some. The season began with those who were left behind when the Island moved, including Locke, Sawyer, Juliet, Faraday, Miles, Charlotte, and a miraculously surviving Jin. They found themselves flashing through various time periods, witnessing and participating firsthand in past events hinted at in the previous four seasons. Locke used the situation to secure a future seat for himself as leader of the Others by introducing himself to the ageless Richard Alpert in the 1950’s. After discovering the existence of a hydrogen bomb on the Island in that period, the group kept flashing through time. Dying from time-travel side effects, the group followed Locke to the Orchid. Although the Dharma station wasn’t there in whatever year they were currently in, they found a well that allowed Locke to descend to the frozen donkey wheel that Ben previously turned to move the Island. Turns out Ben left the wheel unsecured, rocking back and forth, and thus the flashes ensued. Jack’s dead father, the allegorically-named Christian Shephard, appeared and told Locke to gather the Oceanic 6 and take them to Eloise Hawking in Los Angeles. Locke finished turning the wheel and was transported to the Tunisian desert in 2007. Meanwhile, the rest of the group was left in 1974, where they encountered the Dharma Initiative and were forced to try to blend in.

In 2007, Locke was rescued by Charles Widmore, who gave him medical treatment and funding to go convince the Oceanic 6 to return to the Island. But Locke failed to convince any of them that they need to go back. Distraught, he decided to follow Richard’s advice and die. But Ben intervened and tricked Locke into telling him that he’s supposed to collect the others and find Eloise Hawking in Los Angeles. Finding out what he needed to know, Ben kills Locke and stages a suicide.

Locke’s death galvanized Jack, and with a little manipulation Ben was able to draw the Others to Los Angeles and Eloise Hawking. She explained that they needed to return to the Island to fulfill some role in events, and that Ajiria Airways flight 316 would travel directly through a “window” that would transport them to the Island. By various means, each of them found a personal reason to get on the plane and go back. During the flight, Jack, Kate, Hurley and Sayid disappeared during a flash. Ben, Sun, and a haplessly unlucky Frank Lapidus crash landed on the smaller island where the Hydra station is located.

Those who disappeared traveled in time back to 1977, joining up with those who had infiltrated the Dharma Initiative. Their arrival threw the situation into chaos, after Sawyer and Juliet had fallen in love and established an ideal life in Dharmaville. Sayid was captured and suspected of being a “hostile,” which is what Dharma called the Others in the ’70s. Imprisoned, Sayid received visits from a young Ben Linus, whom Sayid perceives as the cause of everything. Ben created a diversion and released Sayid, demanding that he be allowed to defect to the Others. Sayid led Ben into the jungle, stole a gun from Jin, and shot young Ben in the heart. In what was either a highly controversial gaff or a yet-unexplained delusion, Ben’s bullet wound change sides between episodes, leaving him alive but badly injured.

To save dying little Ben, Kate and Sawyer kidnapped him and took him to the Others. They gave Ben to Richard Alpert and asked him to heal the boy. Richard agreed, but said that Ben would lose his innocence and become eternally loyal to the Others. Thus, the Oceanic 6 actually became the cause of everything that’s happened on the Island, rather than averting it.

Daniel Faraday then returned to the Island, having gone to Dharma HQ in Ann Arbor, Michigan on the Galaga submarine for mysterious reasons. Previously Faraday stated that their actions in the past couldn’t change anything. However, he returned from his trip hell-bent on changing history by detonating the hydrogen bomb from the ’50’s at the Swan station dig site. He believed that averting the “incident” mentioned in the Swan orientation film would change the future, which was their past, and that flight 815 would never crash on the Island. Jack latched onto the idea immediately, and he and Kate followed Faraday to the Others’ camp. Faraday’s plan was to find his mother, Eloise Hawking, leader of the Others in the ’70s, and force her to give him the bomb. But in another highly controversial moment, Eloise shot and killed Faraday, her own son. Whatever Faraday discovered in Ann Arbor that fueled his motivations may never be known, leaving a huge plot hole. Convinced by the evidence of Faraday’s journal, Eloise believed that Farday was indeed her son, and turned to Jack for answers. Having drank the kool-aid, so to speak, Jack  full on believed that he could change everything and avert Faraday’s death (and the death of everyone else on the show) by following the plan to detonate the hydrogen bomb at the Swan dig site.

Meanwhile, those who remained on the Island in 2007 found John Locke mysteriously alive and well, and seemingly imbued with a new sense of destiny. Locke, Ben, and Sun returned to the main Island, where Locke made Ben summon the smoke monster. Notice that while Ben was doing this, Locke was mysteriously gone at the time. Ben then led them to the outer wall of the Temple, an ancient Egyptian-style edifice that appeared to be the Others’ base and cemetery. Descending into the chamber beneath the Temple wall with Locke, Ben fell through the floor into a deeper chamber. While Locke conveniently disappeared to “find some rope,” Ben encountered the shape-shifting smoke monster, who took the form of his adopted daughter Alex. The monster ordered Ben to follow Locke’s every order, or it would hunt him down and destroy him. Terrified, Ben followed Locke to the Others’ camp, where he took charge and ordered the entire group to take him to Jacob. Unknown to them, they were pursued by a strange group of Ajira 316 survivors that toted a large cargo container around and asked everyone odd questions like “What lies in the shadow of the statue?”

Next: Finale Recap!

Lost

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