I’ve been reading a good deal of posts and tweets and other sorts of status updates about this episode, all from people who were absolutely devastated, reduced to a blubbery mass of tears, over what transpired in the second half of this episode.
Me? Not so much.
It upset me, for sure (my refrain last night was “THAT WAS NOT OK”), but just as I wasn’t terribly moved by Sun and Jin’s reunion a couple weeks ago, their deaths didn’t have much of an emotional impact on me. I couldn’t really figure out why until Alan Sepinwall offered a succinct reason: “the show lost sight of the two as individual characters.” (Read the rest of his review here. After I read it last night I had half a mind to simply link to it for this post.) I’ll add this: after they were brought back together, the show didn’t have anything else for them to do. Ji Yeon, as with so many TV babies, is a complete afterthought (the second-most popular reaction to this scene, after “noooooooooo!”, is “What about your daughter?”). I had a feeling in the last episode that one or both of them were doomed. And the show could not sustain just ONE of them dying. That would’ve been worse. So while I don’t think killing of Sun and Jin was fair, I do recognize it as a sort of necessary thing. And while I don’t think it was the most amazing piece of storytelling that Lost’s ever done, Yunjin Kim and Daniel Dae Kim were both incredible.
There were other things that got to me more, including but not limited to:
Hurley breaking down on the beach. That was more gutting for me than watching Sun and Jin die. (Conversely, Jack crying at the ocean? Seemed gratuitous and strange.)
The brief glimpse of Jin in the hospital in the Sideways world, just after he dies in the real world.
Sayid’s exertion of free will. That was a noble death. Or second death. All the zombie-like behavior he’d been displaying paid off in that brief moment when Sayid was himself again.
Sideways Jack and Locke’s scene at the end of the episode, when Jack quotes Faraday (“what happened, happened”) and Locke (“I wish you had believed me”) and talks about how it’s OK to let go even though he hasn’t quite figured out how yet. I could watch that scene over and over. It’s just beautifully acted.
And other things that I thought were awesome:
Sideways Cooper’s fate was more satisfying to watch than Real Cooper dying. Even though Sideways Cooper was apparently a helluva guy. I love the spin that the Sideways world gives that fraught relationship, making Locke responsible for his father’s condition rather than the other way around.
The bomb countdown SPEEDING UP after Sawyer removes the wires. For all the times that countdowns stop at 2 seconds to go, to have a bomb programmed to fast-track detonation is something I’ve never seen before, and I laughed out loud.
The return of Action Jack. As with Sayid’s zombie existence, I’d gotten so used to Jack’s passivity, which appears to be in full swing even at the beginning of this episode, that when he pushed Locke into the water I punched the air and whooped. It’s possible, though I feel strange saying so, that I am fully on board with the return of Jack as the show’s hero.
(Huh. I just remembered my dream last night involved getting chased by zombies in some sort of mountain village and barricading myself and others inside a school. I’m going to blame Buffy, Lost, and my addiction to Plants vs. Zombies for this.)
Yay, Bernard!
And seriously, for all my meh-ing about Sun and Jin dying, the submarine scenes were truly Lost at its best. They recalled Charlie’s death, they reminded us that the water is always ominous on this show, and they were excellently dramatic and intense.
I am a little pissed off that Frank seems to be dead, though.
And I only have one question/potential problem: a few episodes ago (“Everybody Loves Hugo,” to be precise) Richard and Ben and Miles trooped off to blow up the plane. Clearly they didn’t accomplish that goal. So what the hell happened to them and where the hell are they?
UPDATE: OK, I can’t believe I went and posted this thing without mentioning the biggest part of this whole episode, namely that now we know for sure that a) Smokey always intended to kill all the candidates and b) that he can’t actually do this himself. I think I neglected to include it earlier because it’s something that we all pretty much already knew, right? Or at least suspected? I’ve been working with that theory from the beginning, so. Yeah. Still. That’s pretty huge. And it looks like next week is going to be more about Jacob and the Man in Black, perhaps giving us more from MiB’s perspective. Can’t wait.
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