Episode 14 - There's No Place Like Home (3)
30 March 2012
Present: Keamy dies and Michael remains to use up the last of the liquid nitrogen on the bomb. The chopper lands on the freighter as Desmond yells at them that the bomb is about to explode. Frank hastily patches up the holes and refuels. The Oceanic Six, Desmond and Frank take off as Jin rushes on to the deck. Christian appears and tells Michael he can go now. The freighter explodes much to the mourning of those in the chopper and Juliet and Sawyer on the beach. Ben blows a whole in the chamber in the Orchid station. Locke goes to join the Others as Richard says “welcome home.” Ben heads through the hole and down a passage deep underground. There he pushes a “frozen donkey wheel” which moves the island and means he can never come back. The sky turns white and the island disappears leaving the chopper over the empty sea. The eight survivors make it to the life raft and are rescued by Penny’s boat. Desmond and Penny embrace and Jack tells everyone that they must lie to protect themselves and those on the island. A week later and the Oceanic Six head out to the island of Membato.
Flashback: Sayid comes to see Hurley at night and tells him that Bentham warned him that they were being watched. Hurley admits to having regular conversations with dead people as Sayid takes him away somewhere safe. Kate gets a call in the night. It is a backwards voice urging her to return to the island. She hears someone in Aaron’s room and goes in to find Claire. She tells Kate not to bring him back. Finally Jack returns to the funeral home to get one last look at Jeremy Bentham. Ben appears and asks what Bentham told him. Jack says that Bentham told him that after he left, terrible things happened on the island and that now he must go back. Ben tells him that they must all return to the island and he will help them. But they must also bring Bentham who we discover is John Locke.
The Good: At the end of last season the writers pulled off a clever feat. We witnessed Jack standing on the island telling the freighter where they were and anticipating rescue. We then jumped forward in time to find Jack in terrible shape and telling Kate it was a mistake to leave and that they had to go back. It set up season four as existing mainly to answer the question of what went so wrong with their escape. This episode answers that question and sets up the next season with an identical question.
We see John Locke walk out of the Orchid and become leader of the Others. Richard Alpert, the man who was present when he was a baby (411) welcomes him home. And yet we now know that in the future Locke is dead and blames Jack leaving for causing terrible things to occur on the island. In the one twist at the end of season three, the writers seem to have created two seasons worth of material. Now we will have the chance of seeing either in flashback the fate of those on the island or in flash-forward how the Oceanic Six will return. Or perhaps something different entirely. Either way the writers do a tremendous job making you want to watch again next year.
As for the episode itself, it is full of great moments as you would expect. None more so than the sequence which leads to the freighter blowing up. Poor Michael bequeaths his moral code to Jin, telling him to go and protect his child but does so too late. Or does he? It would seem that Jin is dead but there are no guarantees in Lost. It seems though that Christian Shepherd’s parting words to Michael are there to set him free. He wanted to die for what he had done and now he finally can.
Sun’s reaction to Jin’s presumed death is absolutely stunning. Her screaming and denial of what has happened is chilling. The explosion itself is a suitably dramatic spectacle. It leaves open the question of whether the people on the island know that anyone survived at all. In the future we see what looks like Sun conspiring with Charles Widmore. He asks the question which we would all like to know, which is why she would want to help him. She mentions someone else leaving the island. Is she trying to take revenge on Jack, Ben or even Locke for Jin’s death? We know that Sun can be as morally grey as the next Lost character (see 318 for example) so it is a very intriguing development.
Ben’s goodbye is quite sad, especially if he really can’t return to the island. As he turns the “frozen donkey wheel” he cries and asks Jacob if he is now happy. Of course we have our reasons to hate Ben but we know that the island gave his life meaning and now he is being forced to say goodbye to it. His apology to John is nice too, even if it is not entirely genuine. Ben tries to justify all the mistakes and bad things he has done by saying “Sometimes good command decisions get compromised by bad emotional responses.” It’s the first time he has approached admitting that not all of the things he does make him a good guy.
Desmond and Penny’s reunion is a big moment for the show. Many had assumed that would be one of the final moments of Lost just as we all once assumed the survivors going home would be. As ever Desmond and Penny’s romance seems heart warming and not sickening. Jack’s goodbye words to Desmond are very fitting too – “see you in another life brother” (see 203).
We have waited a season to understand why the survivors have been lying and the explanation seems a logical fit. Keamy’s orders to kill all the survivors indicate that Charles Widmore was responsible for the faked plane wreckage. He wanted the survivors out of the way in order to reclaim the island. So in order not to disturb Widmore’s scam, the survivors decide to lie. They assume that Widmore won’t then kill them to protect his fraud. If all true it means Ben told Michael the truth (408) and to some extent is better than Widmore because he didn’t kill the survivors when he had the chance.
John Locke being in the coffin is quite the twist. The build up to it by using the name Jeremy Bentham is clever (in the real world Jeremy Bentham was influenced by the work of John Locke). Of course now we want to know who killed him and who is watching the survivors and what went wrong on the island.
The Bad: I may be wrong but it looks to me like they use the same shot of Sun screaming twice. If so that is inexcusable. It cheapens an intense moment to think that they did that for whatever reason.
It is never made clear at which point the rest of the freighter crew become aware of the bomb. As Jin rushes toward the chopper the crew all seem to be putting on life jackets and making an orderly exit. If they were only recently informed wouldn’t they be likely to have swamped the chopper demanding rescue. Perhaps they are just very disciplined but it seemed odd.
Is Locke’s death a good thing for the show? Of course he may not really be dead (see The Unknown) but let’s assume that he is. If so it means his death will come as no shock to us and its impact will be greatly reduced. This could end up being the curse of the flash-forward. I have made my feelings clear, that Jack and Kate being together and Nadia’s death were both cheapened by their revelation in a flash-forward. John Locke is the second most important character on the show, perhaps the most important. His journey has certainly been the centre of the show. He was the one survivor who recognised the island for what it really was. If he is now dead then the show has lost a great deal. But then again, if any show deserves the benefit of the doubt until we know more, it is Lost.
However I still can’t help but feel that Lost has lost something with this season finale and this season as a whole. The first three season finales were full of possibilities. The appearance of the Others or the sight of the four-toed statue fired the imagination about what amazing things could be lying ahead for the show. “Through the Looking Glass” (322 and 323) seemed to hand us this strange and exciting future where Jack had become a mess. We all wondered how on earth he had got where he was, literally and figuratively. But season four has filled in that entire time period and we have ended up about an hour removed from the airport scene with Jack back at the funeral home. There is an inescapable feeling that somehow this season has had a much more limited feel to it. All the answers that we got were about that single question, how did Jack end up at the airport talking to Kate. We haven’t seen answers to questions about the more exciting and mysterious aspects of the show. The fact that we end up back in the future with bearded, drugged up Jack is bound to give off the impression that season four hasn’t accomplished all that much. Not that I’m saying it hasn’t, but it definitely gives off the impression that you are back where you started.
The Unknown: How long have you got? In order…Why is Hurley able to see multiple dead people? Why does Mr Eko have time to play chess with him? Is Sayid still working with Ben in the future? Is he actually just planning to take Hurley back to the island? Are Daniel Faraday and the other people on the zodiac with the island still? Were they able to pick up any survivors? Did Jin survive somehow? What is Sun up to in the future? The whispers seemed to accompany Christian as he said goodbye to Michael. Why was it him saying bye?
Can Ben really never come back to the island? If so, why? Does it mean that he is exposed to an electromagnetic force which somehow makes him unable to get through the “bubble” which the island exists within? How exactly did Ben know to blow a hole in the Orchid chamber? If he had done it before then who rebuilt it? Why is there a “frozen donkey wheel” (the name given to it outside the show by the producers) which can move the island? Did the Dharma Initiative know it was there? So Ben jumped about ten months into the future right (409)? How did the island disappear? Did it move in time or space or both?
The island seems to tell Kate to come back while Claire tells her not to bring Aaron back. Who is speaking on whose behalf? Is John Locke really dead? Could Claire actually be referring to John when she says “don’t bring him back?” How did Locke get off the island? If they take him back dead will he become a ghost that Miles can talk to? Will he become a whisper or part of the smoke monster or will the island resurrect him? Could Ben be lying in order to kill Penelope (see 409)? He tells Jack that they all have to go back. If he insists on Desmond returning it could all be a cunning plan to kill Penelope in order to get his revenge.
Best Moment: The freighter blows up with Jin on it. Sun’s screams sounds so real and so desperate. A wonderful piece of acting.
The Bottom Line: In many ways this season finale is quite different from all the ones before. While they took the show to new places, this finale was about filling in the blanks, linking what we saw at the end of season three to the present. There is a loss of some drama as a result. We knew Jin was likely to die. We knew the Oceanic Six would survive and Sawyer would choose to stay. We knew they would end up lying and we knew Ben would get off the island. It is still a compelling and entertaining piece of television. It still demands that viewers tune in next season to find out more. It is still full of fine performances and emotional moments.
But has something been lost with the flash-forward? I can’t help but think so. If John Locke is really dead then we have been robbed of the impact of his final breath. That is a moment we can never get back. As I said before Lost has earned our respect and the benefit of the doubt. But the producers have another great challenge to overcome if they are not to disappoint in the future.
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