Thursday, May 24, 2007

Lost: "Through the Looking Glass" - airdate 05/23/07

Flash: Jack is on a plane and then on a bridge, with an ugly beard, a drinking problem and apparently an urge to kill himself. On Island: Preparations are underway to hike to the radio tower. Sayid tells Jack that he is willing to sacrifice his life, if necessary, to ensure rescue for the group. There seems to be a lot of that going around: has he been talking to Charlie? Jack moves his people out – oh, look, there’s Vincent! – as Sayid, Jin and Bernard watch them go.

Naomi shows Jack how her sat-phone works, in case something happens to her: they’re just waiting for Charlie to clear the signal. Charlie, however, is busy being worked over by the two gorgeous women manning the Looking-glass Station. They are quite unfriendly, and the blonde (Tracey Middendorf) was in Angel S1E1. The women decide to call Ben for orders and Charlie gets a glimpse of the flashing yellow light and the switch he is destined to turn off. In the Others’ camp, Ben gets the call and bugs his eyes out a little more. He sends Mikhail to clean things up. Mikhail points out that Ben told everyone that the Looking-glass Station was flooded. “I lied,” snaps Ben. He then tries to call Tom and the Other commandos at the beach to let them know his plans are unraveling. They have their walkies off, however, as they stealthily infiltrate the Losties' camp. The snipers wait … wait … then BOOM BOOM! Fantastic explosions and flying bodies as Sayid and Bernard, using rifles, detonate their tents. Poor Jin cannot get his pistol to shoot straight and is soon captured. Bernard runs for the hills but doesn’t get far; Sayid is nabbed as well. Up in the mountains, the Losties see the two explosions. Rose says, “There were supposed to be three” while Kate, horrified, breathes “It didn’t work!”

Flash: Bearded-Jack is getting stitched up after having rescued a woman and her child from a car wreck. His heroism is marred by the fact that the woman crashed because she was distracted by seeing him on the bridge preparing to jump. On Island: The Losties are panicking but Jack keeps them moving towards the radio tower. Where did Kate get that clean hoodie? Sun and Rose are extremely concerned about their sniper husbands. Back underwater, Charlie is amazingly confident as he continues to get pounded on. The commando Others report to Ben that the explosions killed all but three of the raiding party and that the only Losties still on the beach are the three snipers. Ben, who is looking increasingly unstable, tells Tom to kill Jin to make the other two spill the Losties’ location. Bernard totally caves and gives up not only the Losties’ destination but that Carl helped them. Ben’s head is about to explode and he gives Alex a look of pure fury.

Ben decides to go after the Losties and tells Richard to continue taking the Others to the temple as they’d planned. Alex wants to go with Ben and, surprisingly, he agrees. He claims he will talk the Losties out of being rescued. During a break for water, Kate tells Sawyer she wants to go back to help Sayid et al. Sawyer is pretty withdrawn and isn’t interested. She gets upset, saying he hasn’t been himself since returning with Juliet’s tape and, trying to draw him out, reminds him that Juliet was going to test her for pregnancy too. Sawyer glares at her: let’s hope you’re not. Desmond finally comes to on the outrigger, and is promptly shot at by Mikhail. Desmond dives for the Looking-glass hatch and, fortuitously, comes up while the women are arguing in another room. Charlie, thrilled to see him, tells him to hide; he ducks out of sight and Charlie gets punched some more. Boy, there are a lot of commercials.

Flash: Bearded-Jack pops some pills. A doctor, played by the second Las Vegas actor to make a guest appearance on this show (Naomi being the first), checks in on him. Jack wants to do the surgery on the woman he rescued; Dr. Las Vegas says nope. On Island: The Losties are still hiking. Why do so few of them wear their backpacks correctly, on both shoulders? It’s much more comfortable that way. Sawyer decides to go back to the beach; Kate wants to go too but, with a haunted look, he tells her he doesn’t want to go with her. Jack, cheerful as ever, says it would be a suicide mission to go back without guns. Juliet pipes up that she knows where some guns are hidden. She and Jack smooch, and then she and Sawyer head back down the mountain. Kate tries not to be jealous of either. At the Looking-glass, Mikhail scubas up and asks where [Desmond] is. Thinking quickly, Charlie suggests that a better question might be why Ben lied to the Others about this hatch, and why they are jamming signals coming to and from the Island. Mikhail, being a communications guy, does not like the sound of that. When Ben calls them, Mikhail pretty much asks, what the fuck, dude? Ben says he’s doing it all to protect the Island. He goes on to say that he needs Mikhail’s help to clean up his mess: first kill Charlie, then kill Bonnie (the blonde) and Greta (the brunette) so they can’t report back to any of the Others. Mikhail hesitates but seems ready to obey. I wish he would put his eye-patch back on – ick.

Sawyer and Juliet zing each other a couple of times and then Juliet admits that there are no guns. She lied so Jack would let them go. Hurley shows up, wanting to help, but Sawyer dismisses him, saying he’ll get them killed. Sawyer is pretty tense these days. Alex asks Ben why he’s letting her tag along; he says he’s going to hand her over to her new Lostie family, since she likes them so much. She asks why he won’t just let them leave the Island. “Because I can’t,” he snarls. Back in the ditch of dead Dharma-ites, Locke is still alive (of course)! He can’t move his legs, though. He finds an old pistol among the corpses and in despair moves to shoot himself. Suddenly, it’s Walt! He tells Locke to put the gun down and get up, you have work to do. The magic of the Island has aged him several years in the month or so since he and Michael boated away; the Island has not, however, made him a better actor.

The Losties are still hiking and I wish Kate would put all that hair in a ponytail. She looks a little sad and Jack tells her that Sawyer didn’t mean what he said, he was just trying to protect her. She smiles, “Why are you sticking up for Sawyer? He wouldn’t do it for you.” Jack says, “Because I love you.” Whatever. Flash: Bearded-Jack keeps looking at an obituary he tore from a newspaper. He walks into a funeral home and keeps popping pills. Who’s in the casket? On Island: Rousseau says that they’re nearing the tower but she’s not leaving when the rest of them get rescued. Just then, Ben and Alex appear, causing much consternation among the Losties. Jack goes to parlay with Ben.

Mikhail dons his patch (thank you!), kills Greta and shoots Bonnie in the back. Desmond pops out of his hiding place and nails him with a spear-gun. Nice! Charlie tells Des not to kill Bonnie since they need to get the code out of her to turn off the signal jammer. Ben and Jack go off to talk alone. Flash: There are no Oxycodone refills left for Bearded-Jack and he is very cranky about it. On Island: Ben asks Jack why he wants to leave the Island when there is nothing left for him out there: no father, no wife. He goes on to say that Naomi is not who she says she is and if she’s allowed to call her ship, the Bad Guys on it will kill every living person on the Island, Lostie and Other alike; he wants Jack to get the sat-phone and give it to Ben. Jack: no f’in way. Ben calls Tom on the beach and tells him to kill Sayid et al. if Jack doesn’t do what he says. Jack continues to refuse; Ben says he is not bluffing, and three shots are heard over the walkie. Jack goes insane and beats Ben senseless. He calls Tom: “I am getting my people rescued and then I am going to find you and kill you.”

Underwater, Bonnie gives up the code but Charlie can’t write it down fast enough. With her dying breath she tells him it’s to the tune of “Good Vibrations,” that the keypad was programmed by a musician. How serendipitous! Jack drags Ben back to the group. Ben groggily looks up to see Rousseau and introduces Alex to her mother. Away from the group, Jack tells Kate that he heard Sayid et al. being killed. On the beach, however, Sayid et al. have not been killed and, in fact, Ben had instructed the commando Others to fake the executions. Tom thinks they should have done it anyway – he thinks Ben’s lost it. Juliet and Sawyer lurk in the bushes, trying to figure out how to rescue their guys. Just then, Hurley busts in, driving his Dharma VW van! Yay, Hurley! He runs over one Other and Sayid manages to snap the second Other’s neck. Seeing all is for naught, Tom surrenders to Juliet, and then Sawyer shoots him anyway: “That’s for taking the kid off the raft.” Hurley is astounded: “Dude, it was over, he gave up.” Sawyer: “I didn’t believe him.” I love new scary Sawyer.

Flash: Bearded-Jack is stealing Oxycodone from the hospital. Dr. Las Vegas tells him he knows Jack was trying to kill himself. Jack says Dr. Las Vegas can’t help him. On Island: Dear god, they’re still hiking. Hurley calls in over Ben’s walkie and reports that everyone, including Sayid et al., is okay. Claire asks him about Charlie. In the hatch, Desmond readies the scuba gear while Charlie plays “Good Vibrations” on the keypad. He clears the signal and a transmission comes through immediately: it’s Penny! And she didn’t send any boat! Damn, I hate when Ben is right. Desmond notices that Mikhail’s body is gone; that’s because he’s in a scuba mask outside the hatch with a grenade. Charlie realizes what Mikhail is going to do, and closes the blast door as Mikhail blows a hole in the wall. As sea water floods the communications room, Charlie writes “Not Penny’s boat” on his hand and holds it up to the window for Desmond to see. Des, stricken and helpless, watches his friend drown.

The Losties turn off Rousseau’s distress call and Naomi goes back outside to make her call. Locke staggers out of the jungle and throws his knife, killing her. Jack picks up the phone and Locke points his gun at him: put down the phone or I will kill you. Ben, who is now tied to a tree, practically begs Jack not to contact the ship. Locke, true to form, is unable to kill Jack (although I really thought he was going to go through with it this time) and Jack speaks with someone on the boat, joy and relief washing over his face. Flash: Bearded-Jack is sitting in his apartment, drinking expensive tequila, surrounded by maps. He calls someone and pleads with them to meet him at the airport. It is night, and he parks at the end of a runway. Someone drives up: it’s Kate, clean, combed, wearing makeup. She’d read about him rescuing the woman from the car accident. He smiles faintly, “Just can’t stop pulling people from wreckage.” Holy crap – these have been flash-FORWARDS? He says he thought she’d go to the funeral. Kate is incredulous – why would I do that? Jack says he’s been flying a lot, every weekend, hoping to crash again. He’s making Kate uncomfortable, and she says she has to get back, “he’ll wonder where I went.” Jack speaks more urgently as she backs away: they made a mistake; they were never supposed to leave the Island. “We have to go back!”

My first reaction: who was in the fracking casket?! I think, since these flashes were forward, is that it’s Ben in the casket. That might account for Clean-Kate’s scorn for the funeral. Or maybe it’s Locke, since he and Jack crossed each other’s science/faith lines on several occasions. Also, who is Clean-Kate’s “he” – Sawyer? A non-Lostie (maybe she got back together with Nathan Fillion – ooh!)? Now that Charlie’s gone, I miss him. His character was allowed to be interesting again in the last couple of episodes, and Dominic Monaghan did a great job; I loved Charlie’s confidence in himself and his destiny down in the hatch, all the way to the end. I wish, and I suspect I am not alone, that more of Season 3’s episodes had the movement that this one did (although the Jack-flashes were a little tedious, at least they were fairly brief). Hopefully Season 4 will keep the momentum going.

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