Don't Fear the Reaper

Damn. I knew we were going to be losing some personnel near the end, but this was unprecedented. The writers just killed off half the characters remaining on this show, in a bloodbath unseen since Michael killed Libby and Ana Lucia. And those two were secondary characters. Yeesh.

The fact that the writers killed Sayid, the Kwons, and oh hey, I think they also killed Lapidus, really helps remind everyone of the stakes this story is playing with. Not everyone is going to get a happy ending, and this episode underscored the point that not everyone is going to make it to the finish line.

Jack. I'm still not quite getting the good doctor's motivation. He almost looks like an exasperated host, shepherding every houseguest out of his Island so he can go back to pondering his place in the world. Why he wants to stay on the Island while he wants everyone else to leave is suspect -- after all, since they all came in on the same boat plane, then wouldn't it stand to reason that either they all serve a purpose or none of them do?

In any case, Jack has never been blessed with great reasoning skills, so I guess we can chalk up his motivations to general confusion.

Speaking of reasoning skills, in the great Sawyer-Jack debate about "What should we do about this bomb?" It turns out Jack was (maybe) right. It ended up badly -- now there's an understatement. But if there's a bomb on the bus, and one guy is saying disarm that fucker, and the other guy is saying, just let it be, I'd tend to side with Team Disarmament. It would have bit me in the ass, granted, but just letting the bomb explode is the most illogical thing I ever heard.

Of course, if Hurley jumped in and said, "Being completely illogical worked for Jack at the Black Rock before," we might not have a dead Iraqi and two dead Koreans. Way to back up Jack there, Hugo.

Locke. Fucker is evil. Smocke decisively shed the ambiguous hat from his bald head and fully took possession of the cloak of unremitting evil. He's been playing these castaways for weeks and everything finally came together for him. And it all started with his good fortune in finding a bomb.

Dude, don't you know you can't say bomb on an airplane? Smocke proved himself to the Department of Homeland Security by finding a bomb in the overhead bins. Team Widmore must have put the bomb there. But couldn't they have done a better job of it? They hid that bomb like a middle-schooler hides a hickey -- in a way that is entirely conspicuous and will guarantee that everybody sees it. So why did they do that?

But this one is on the castaways. Smocke comes out and he's like, "I found a bomb on the airplane. Here it is. Therefore there are more bombs on the airplane, and even though I found one within two minutes, there's nothing we can do about the rest of them. So the plane is completely useless now." And everyone is like, oh, that makes sense. Sure. Let's go see if our airline pilot can drive a submarine.

And even worse? Nobody said anything when Smocke put the bomb back in his backpack. WHAT THE HELL. If anyone in my crew says, I just found a bomb, and then is like, why wouldn't I bring it along? Dude, NO. No bombs. Duh.

But it all worked perfectly. Smocke. You sneaky bastard. You planned this all along didn't you? This is exactly what you wanted to happen.

We kind of have to give Smocke props there. When Jack opens the backpack in the sub and pulls out the bomb, that was one of Lost's great moments. He brings out the bomb, and I'm like wait. What? Oh... OH DAMN.

Remember when Smocke said, "He wants to get us in the same place at the same time. A nice confined space we have no hope of getting out of. And then he wants to kill us."

Hi, pot! Hi, kettle!

Smocke's plan half-succeeded -- half the people on that sub reenacted the Titanic, after all. But the last scene in the dock, when he senses that not all of them died, and stalks off "to finish the job," that's straight up Keyser Soze right there. Well played, Smocke. Well played indeed.

Over in the other universe that seemed incredibly superfluous this episode, how creepy was it when Sideways Locke was murmuring, "I wish you had believed me," in his sleep?

I've been told I occasionally talk in my sleep. So I'd just like to ask the next lucky lady who witnesses that to pay attention to what I say. If I'm saying what are my sideways incarnation's last words, kindly wake me up. Please.

Sideways Locke's confession about what happened to Daddy Cooper was tremendous.

Jin and Sun. Here today, Kwon tomorrow.

And so we bid farewell to Jin and Sun. The one quibble with this scene (besides the English speaking), is that neither of them seemed to remember that they have a child. Yeah, Jin, it's kind of awesome that you will never leave your wife again, but don't you think your little girl might need her daddy, especially with a dead mommy? Just saying.

Other than that, this was a pretty emotional scene. Nobody saw this one coming. The writers reunite Jin and Sun after three years, just to kill them both the very next episode. That was a little brutal, even for this show. Additionally, the Kwons (with the exception of Hurley) are the single least objectionable characters on the show. That is, they're the only ones without a dark past, without revenge fantasies, without (too much) blood on their hands. And they have a newborn baby. And they're the ones who get offed?

Nobody said life was fair, and I'm going to give the writers credit from not shying away from the fact that the world can be a cruel place and bad things often happen to good people. Few shows have the balls to do something like what Lost just did. So kudos to them.

Also, props to the cinematographer. That still shot of Jin and Sun's hands intertwined, then softly drifting away underwater? Tremendous stuff.

Sayid. The whole submarine scene was terrific, with everyone panicking and the quick cuts and the what the heck just happened vibe to the show. While everyone is still trying to sort out what the heck is happening and how the hell did we end up on a submarine with a bomb that is taking the "time sure flies when you're having fun" adage literally, Sayid scoops up the bomb, tells Jack Desmond is still in a well somewhere, and runs off and gets himself exploded.

This is the kind of redemptive end that a character like Sayid can only dream of. This was complete selflessness, throwing himself on a grenade and going out like a hero. And he did it without thinking, no premeditation, just on pure instinct.

Some are saying that Sayid went from Dead-eyed Zombie to Noble Hero with no explanation as to the transformation. But they're forgetting the conversation he had last episode with Desmond, when he did not know what he would say to Nadia when she asked what he did to bring her back. Maybe it's a bit simplistic, but it does seem like something that would make Sayid, who has been consistently tortured about the morality of his being, snap out of it. So, for me, Sayid's noble sacrifice did not quite come out of nowhere.

Also, I do hereby solemnly swear to use the line "THERE IS NO SAYID" sometime this week, in some place where it is inappropriately out of context. You've been warned.

Kate. Who else thought Kate bought it when she got shot? Everyone? She seemed pretty perky on the beach despite having been shot clear through the chest, so I think she's going to be OK.

Of course, as the hours dwindle, my great white hope of seeing Claire and Kate have the catfight to end all catfights is receding. Oh well.

Claire. Are the mercenaries guarding the sub the worst shooters in the world? Claire and Sawyer just kind of stood there on the dock, bewildered, while literally dozens of bullets missed them. Maybe the shooters were drunk.

The only other explanation was that every one of those mercenaries was a fan of the show. Therefore, they were all aiming for Kate. God knows I would. After I dispatched Jack, of course.

And this may be because I'm an asshole, but I sure laughed when Sawyer popped out of the sub, saw Claire, saw Smocke right behind him, went, oh hell no! and slammed the hatch shut. It's like when you and a bunch of friends are walking to a party and then suddenly you see some girl you kind of like and are about to call out to her to come along and then you realize she's with Johnny Buzzkill. All of a sudden, everyone's cell phones all ring at the same time. It's great.

Also, Sideways Claire is completely OK with people throwing indecent proposals her way, isn't she? First we had her accept a car ride from her hijacker, Kate. Then she agreed to use uber-sketchy Desmond's lawyer even though Desmond was coming on to her at two ticks under rapist. And now she accepts room and board from her half-brother who she met five minutes ago? Girl seems easy to convince. Maybe that's how she got pregnant.

Stranger: Hi, pleased to meet you. We should have sex.
Claire: Really? Why?
Stranger: I dunno ... because we're talking?
Claire: (thinks for a minute) Ok. I can dig that. Your place or mine?

Sawyer. Sawyer kind of blew it this episode, didn't he?

Like I said before, this was an instance of right move, wrong result. There is no way anyone in their right mind would ever just let a bomb be. Did they not watch The Hurt Locker?

It's as if you are down two runs in the bottom of the 9th. You have to intentionally walk Pujols to load the bases. You have to. Sure, Matt Holliday may hit a grand slam that not only costs you the game, but also somehow hits something that explodes and now everything is blowing up and half the stadium is gone and oh no, Chipper Jones is on fire and OH THE HUMANITY.

That's kind of what happened this episode. Sawyer intentionally walked Pujols and now half the castaways are dead.

I wonder how they're going to bring Sawyer out of this one. If anyone needs redemption now it's the guy who drowned the Kwons, right? He got clowned by the Locke-Ness Monster, he totally FUBARed the bomb, and now the only person on that Island worth saving is Hurley. My prediction is they'll give Sawyer a Sayid-like sacrifice to have him wake up in a coffee shop with Juliet, but who knows.

Also, being trapped in a cage with your ex in the same spot where you first consummated your relationship has to rank up there in the annals of awkwardness, doesn't it?

Hurley. The sight of Hurley sobbing is going to haunt me forever. Damn.

Lapidus. Did Lapidus get fragged by a door? Is that the way he goes? Granted, I'm not going to dig his grave until I see confirmation of his death -- for all we know he escaped through the breach in the ship's hull and is going to show up out of nowhere to save someone else at the last possible minute. But I think we might have seen the last of our good buddy, the pilot.

If he did die, though, he chose to do it in the worst possible episode, with all the other deaths, ensuring that no one will talk about him. He kind of got Farrah Fawcett-ed on this one. Sorry, Frank.

On to next week, where we get the backstory of Jacob in the Man in Black. By this time next week, we have to know what's going on, right? Right?

Probably not.