Flash-Sideways
As has been their habit, the show's producers once again created a misleading episode title. The candidate is John Locke... Jack tells him that he is a candidate for a new experimental spine surgery that Jack's believes could ultimately restore to John full use of his legs. John refuses. Jack, even in this timeline unable to let things be, has to find out why. He eventually discovers that John cannot forgive himself for causing his dad, Anthony Cooper, to end up in a vegetative state due to a plane crash caused by John right after having earned his license to fly.
Some interesting revelations:
- Jack & Claire run into each other. Claire shows Jack that the only thing their dad had left her was a music box. I think this is significant, but right now I don't know how.
- While researching the cause of John's paralysis, he runs into Bernard, who'd performed emergency oral surgery on John. Bernard refuses to breach patient confidentiality, but does tell Jack the name of the person who'd been brought in with John.
- Just before regaining consciousness, John can be heard muttering some comments he'd made while on the island in the normal timeline, such as "push the button" and then later "I wish you had believed me". Perhaps this plays into why Desmond ran him over... his attempt to have John experience his own near-death experience and begin having flashbacks of his time on the island.
Jack, Sayid and Fake Locke are now on the Hydra Station island. Sayid explains to Jack that everyone else in their group had either died during the mortar attack or had run off into the jungle. Then Fake Locke appears, telling them it's time to go rescue the others from Widmore.
Meanwhile...
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| different Sawyer |
After they're locked up in the cages, Sawyer confides to Kate that, in the cave where names of all past & current candidates were written, Kate's name had been crossed out.
Soon, the power goes out at Widmore's camp, which includes the power to the pylons that keep out the Smoke Monster, who appears and starts killing guards while Jack unlocks the cage and tells the others to follow him.
They rendezvous with Sayid and Fake Locke and make their way to the crashed plane. Fake Locke goes ahead of the group to take care of the guards, then enters the plane and discovers that it contains C4 explosives in a pack. Telling the others that there could be more explosives on the plane, Fake Locke insists that they'll instead leave the island using Widmore's submarine.
While on their way there, Sawyer pulls Jack aside and tells Jack his plan to leave the island without Fake Locke, and wants Jack to help by knocking Fake Locke into the water once they're at the dock, to which Jack agrees.
At the dock, Jack does knock Fake Locke into the water while the others rush toward the sub. A gunfight breaks out between their group and more of Widmore's men who were hiding in the jungle. Kate gets shot (in the shoulder, I think), so Jack carries her into the sub. Meanwhile, Claire gets separated from the group, trapped on the dock due to the gunfire. Sawyer decides Claire can't reach them without risking Fake Locke getting on board, closes the hatch and orders the sub to leave. As Claire runs after the sub, Fake Locke grabs her and says to her that "you don't want to be on that sub" and then smiles in an evil creepy way.
We soon found out why he said that to Claire. On the sub, Jack opens his pack to get out some medical supplies to mend Kate's bullet wound, and instead discovers the C4 Fake Locke had taken from the plane. Attached to the explosives is a timer counting down from about 3 1/2 minutes.
Due to his earlier conversation with Richard, Jack is convinced that the the bomb won't really work. That, instead, Fake Locke is hoping that they'll try to disarm it, and in so doing cause it to explode. Jack tells the others he believes that this had been Fake Locke's plan all along... to get them all together and to then trick them into killing themselves because Fake Locke cannot do it himself (probably due to Jacob's protection).
Sayid confirms that the bomb appears to be rigged to explode if the wires are tampered with. Sawyer doesn't want to wait for their doom and yanks out a wire. The clock stops, everyone breathes a sigh of relief, then the clock resumes its countdown only now doing that much faster than before.
Hoping they could toss the bomb out of the sub, Sawyer orders the sub to rise but it cannot rise fast enough. Sayid then tells Jack about Desmond still being alive sitting at the bottom of a well, and that they need to find him because Desmond must be dangerous to Fake Locke. Jack asks why Sayid is telling him this, and Sayid grabs the bomb and runs as far as he can away from them before the bomb explodes.
The sub ultimately is destroyed and sinks. Hurley, Kate, Jack and Sawyer make it back to shore. Frank was last seen on the sub, so don't know whether he survived. Sun had been trapped on the sub, and Jin decided he'd rather die with her than live without her, especially now that they'd just been reunited after having spent three years apart.
The episode ends with Fake Locke telling Claire that the sub has sunk but that there are survivors, and he needs to leave and finish what he started.
Next week's episode is "Across the Sea". It is supposed to focus on the struggle between Jacob and the Man in Black and reveal the Man in Black's real motives. And, I think, Jacob teaching the Man in Black how to play backgammon. Or Othello.Comments and Questions
Three main characters died in this episode: Sun, Jin and Sayid. Frank may or may not have died. After many episodes of assurances from Fake Locke, this episode leaves no doubt as to the Man in Black being evil, and that dire warnings about him are probably true.
What have Ben, Richard and Miles been up to? We haven't heard from them since they had headed off for the former Dharma/Others camp for more explosives.
When Michael warned Hurley about not blowing up the plane, was it because he knew that Fake Locke would then instead use the sub? Or, was it because they will still need the plane for something?
Though hinted at by Jack and later by Fake Locke, I believe that the Man in Black is trapped on the island (well, islands) as long as Jacob or any candidates remain alive.
In the flash-sideways, is John's dad the same Anthony Cooper who had caused the deaths of Sawyer's parents in that timeline? (May not really matter.)
I still think that Jack will be the actual replacement for Jacob. And that this all has something to do with Egyptian mythology.
