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Jack - Matthew Fox Kate - Evangeline Lilly Locke - Terry O'Quinn Sayid - Naveen Andrews Sawyer - Josh Holloway Hurley - Jorge Garcia Charlie - Dominic Monaghan Walt - Malcolm David Kelley Sun - Yunjin Kim Jin - Daniel Dae Kim Claire - Emilie de Ravin Benjamin Linus - Michael Emerson Juliet - Elizabeth Mitchell Desmond- Henry Ian Cusick 
OTHER LOST SEASONS Season 1 Season 2 Season 3 Season 4 Season 6 OTHER LOST TRAVELLERS The Fantastic Journey Logan's Run 
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Because You Left/The LieBen tells Jack that the consequences will be huge if everyone who left the island doesn't return. Getting them all together isn't going to be easy and Hurley and Sayid are on the run from the police for murder and Kate is on the run from someone who wants to take her surrogate son away. Back on the island, the people have become stuck in time, bouncing around between the past and the future, something that is by turns disquieting and close to fatal. LOST returns and it's like it never went away. There are some revelations at the beginning (the Dharma initiative were building near to an underground power source powerful enough to allow time travel), but it then all gets muddied down with everyone's agendas running into each other and over each other without a single explanatory conversation ever getting finished. Just when someone announces that they know what's going on something intervenes and the running starts. The time twisting nature of this double bill opening night means that we get some fun stuff for fans such as Locke getting to see the plane crash that he first discovered back in SEASON 1 or the appearance of forgotten characters like Ethan. In the real world Hurley is also seeing ghosts (never has the phrase 'Libby says hi' actually been delivered so easily and yet been so chilling) and Ben is taking orders from nuns. It's business as usual, then, which means that anyone coming to this late will have no chance of getting the most, or any sense at all, out of it, but it remains compulsive, almost addictive, viewing for anyone who has stuck with it this long. Oh and Josh Holloway spends most of the time wandering around without a shirt for the ladies. TopJugheadThe inhabitants of the island get bounced back to the 1950s where they meet the original 'Others', amongst whom happens to be one Charles Whitmore. Daniel Faraday tells them that he is their only chance to disarm the hydrogen bomb that is currently falling apart and Locke tells their leader that he is really their leader. Back in the present, Desmond follows Daniel's instructions to find his mother in Oxford, but learns far more about Daniel and his past than he could possibly have wanted. You know there are times when you think that there might be a chink of light, of understanding, shining faintly in the mist of confusion that is LOST. These are fleeting and are merely the mythology of the show referencing itself rather than any real sense of knowing what is going on. It therefore feels important that Charles Whitmore is found to be one of the 'Others' on the island in the 50s, but it really doesn't explain anything at all. Even so, the narrative remains compelling and the cast continue to make the whole thing utterly convincing. The twists may make no sense whatsoever, but they remain shocking. LOST is just as addictive as it has always been. TopThe Little PrinceWhilst the people they left behind on the island continue to bounce around in time, events conspire to bring Jack back into Kate's life in time for him to help find out who is trying to take Aaron away from her. There are three aspects to this episode that combine to keep the addiction that is LOST something that the Government should consider putting on the controlled substances list. The adventures of the team on the island still seem a bit pointless, more like time filling in rather than having any real point to them. The time travelling does, however, allow for a shock meeting between two 'dead' characters. That's the big reveal and does open some interesting questions about where that might take us. The story around Kate and Claire's baby also feels artificial, but it is enough to bring the escapees back together for a meeting that promises to be more than dramatic and guarantees that we have to come back next time. TopThis Place is DeathJin bounces through time in the company of Danielle Rousseau before catching up with his contemporaries on their way to the Orchid Station where John looks for a way off the island. Ben, meanwhile manages to gather the Oceanic 6 together only to find half of them won't go back and one of them is more intent on blowing his head off. The faint whiff that suggest LOST hasn't got enough real material to meet its running time is getting stronger as Jin's bouncing through the history of Danielle Rousseau may fill in some raher unnecessary background, but moves no story forward at all and doesn't explain why Danielle never recognised Jin when she saw him in her future. The main story, as Ben continues to wheel and deal to get his group back together and Locke tries to get to the Orchid to put right what has been unbalanced continues to fascinate, however, and at least it makes good on its title. Top316Those who have escaped the island come together at the newest Dharma outpost to be discovered to be told that there is a way back, but it will only succeed if they can replicate the original manner of their arrival. There is a small window of opportunity, but it requires as many of them as possible to go and not everyone is convinced that's what they want. And so a complete stranger (Fionnula Flanagan) waltzes into the show and spills a whole load of back history that may, or may not, explain a lot about LOST. There are places scattered across the globe that are places of power and energy, all of them connected. The island is one such place, but it is a place moves in space and time. It is possible to predict the location of the island using a complex mathematical equation and it is possible that the numbers being input into the machine by Desmond for so long were the spatial and temporal co-ordinates where the island was being anchored. It seems a somehow inelegant way to finally get some clarity, but answers are answers and we are glad for them. Especially since the rest of the episode is about Jack coming to terms with his doubts and deciding to get on the plane. Kate joins him, demanding that he doesn't ask about Aaron and Sayid ends up there in handcuffs whilst Ben is covered with bruises and cuts. There's a story there that we're going to find out sooner or later. Now that the gang's all back we can't wait to see where the story takes us next. TopThe Life and Death of Jeremy BenthamWhat happened to John Locke in the time between his leaving the island and Jack finding his body in a coffin at the end of Season 4? Having escaped, he is contacted by Charles Whitmore who offers him aid in finding the others who have left and getting them to go back. Walt, he decides not to bother and Sun he has promised to leave alone and so he starts with the others who all say no, one by one. Discouraged at his failure, he decides to take his own life, just as he was told it might cost him, but then Ben appears to talk him out of it. This is one long flashback that fills in some gaps in the narration, but advances the main story not at all and doesn't give any further insight into anything at all. That leaves it without any real impact or momentum to speak of. Since we know John is dead before anyone decides to go back we know that he's going to fail and so his fruitless attempts become less and less interesting. Only the finale in which two enemies come face to face again is classic LOST. TopLaFleurThe island has stopped its shifting through time, but where does that leave those who were left behind? They find themselves inside the Dharma Initiative before the Others took over and Sawyer is forced to take on their leader after killing two of his men. Hopefully the last of the flashback stories, this is the one that tells the final tale of those who were left behind before they all meet up again. Spread between two time periods three years apart there are parts of the plot that seems irrelevant to anything at all, but it very nicely and very sneakily builds up a relationship between Sawyer and Juliette that you just know is going to end in tears now that Kate is back. All of this is carried off with typical LOST brio and takes the story off in directions that couldn't be predicted. TopNamasteNow that Kate, Hurley and Jack are back on the island, Sawyer and Jin have to find a way to get them integrated into the Dharma Initiative without ruining the life they have built for the last three years. Sayid might manage that for them as he gets himself caught as one of the 'hostiles' and Sawyer has his work cut out just keeping him alive. There's a real highlight in this episode when Sun does what we've wanted to do for so long and whacks Ben over the head with an oar. Everyone cheer. She then goes on to meet up with Jack's father who promises that she needs to go on a journey. As for the rest, there's some setting up of the four way love square between Jack, Sawyer, Kate and Juliet and not a lot else. Still, this is LOST and a total lack of plot development doesn't mean that there's not an awful lot going on. It just doesn't feel like it means a lot. TopHe's Our YouLocked in the Dharma Initiative's prison, Sayid waits for Sawyer to figure out some way to get around the story that he's one of the 'Others' and therefore a threat. Sayid doesn't exactly help his cause either, although he does make contact with a young boy called Ben. Just as the members of the Initiative vote to execute him, Sayid accepts Ben's help to escape and then... There's far too much flashback in this episode, filling in the history of Sayid between when he started to work for Ben Linus and turning up on the plane that brought him back to the island in handcuffs. None of it is particularly new - we knew that he was a killer and that he was working for Ben - and it doesn't add much to either the character or the narrative. This being LOST, of course, the twists then start to pile up and the last five minutes absolutely ensure that you are going to come back to find out what happens next. TopWhatever Happened, HappenedShot by Sayid, the young Ben lies at death's door. He needs a surgeon, but Jack refuses to help. Kate determines to take the child to the 'Others' in the hope that they can help him. Sawyer goes after her. Back story is being filled in by the barrelful, but that isn't adding up to a lot of answers. There is a nice sequence in which Hurley tries to get his head around the temporal mechanics of what is happening to them and this does bring up one problem that the script then goes on to solve in an altogether clunky way. It is very nice, however, to see that Sayid, in shooting Ben, did the one thing that he was trying to prevent. The flashbacks are to Kate's time off the island, answering the questions of what Sawyer asked her to do and why she came back at all. This is all fascinating stuff for long time viewers, but anyone who hasn't been watching since the beginning really ought to go and watch something else instead because there is no chance of appreciating it from this point on. TopDead is DeadBenjamin Linus has been a very bad man, but the one bad thing that he did which causes him the most disquiet is allowing the death of the girl that he considered to be his daughter. He decides to go and face up to the smoke monster, the island's way of judging those that have served it. Locke, back from the dead, decides to go with him. Since it was Ben that killed Locke, good natured banter is likely to be not in evidence. Telling the story of Ben's bad behaviour off the island and his current search for some sort of absolution (redemption not being an option) this episode at least keeps things down to two time zones for the main part. It's rivetting stuff, too, though it advances none of the main stories in any direction, except to underline that the island has chosen John Locke for something and now not even Ben is allowed to stand against him. Why is he important? What is he needed for? Hopefully someone knows the answers to that because there's no hint of them coming out here. Ben has always been one of the most interesting characters, but his incessant evil is becoming a little two dimensional. The sequence with the smoke monster is the closest that the show has come to being openly genre since the time-shifting. TopSome Like It HothIt's 1977 and the Dharma Initiative has been rocked by the shooting and abduction of Ben Linus. Whilst Sawyer is forced to take ever more drastic steps to keep the survivors' secret, Miles learns that the Initiative is carrying out operations that break the truce with the 'Others'. Miles has been around in the background for quite some time, his ability to speak to the dead, or at least hear from them, having proven to be all but useless to the plot and so he has been relegated to a slightly sardonic pain in the butt. He gets his chance to shine in an episode that tells his back story, but since we haven't gotten to know him and really don't care too much about him that back story and the flashbacks become tedious and a pain in the butt. His relationship with Hurley, however, provides some good lines and is the highlight of an episode that can only be described as filler. TopThe VariableDaniel Faraday is back on the island. He has a plan to put everything back the way it ought to be. He knows what happened to cause the show's whole plotline and thinks that he can stop it. All he has to do is speak to his mother. When the Dharma Initiative breached a pocket of the island's natural energies, they were forced to contain it using a machine that had to be continually reset. This was done by Desmond inside what the plane crash survivors calling the hatch. When he failed to carry out the reset one time, the energy was released, causing the crash of the Oceanic flight right back at the beginning. This is the single longest explanation of the backstory to LOST, tying together many of the hints that have been given so far. There's still lots to learn, but this is the most significant example so far to suggest that answers are coming. Answers that are long overdue and that the loyal long-standing audience deserves after 100 episodes. Yes, this was episode 100 and at times it feels like year 100, but at times it also feels like five minutes. This episode is more the latter than the former. This is contained in a typical LOST episode that has exciting action and plot twists on the island, backed up with flashbacks of varying relevance. These flashbacks are all about the relationship between Daniel (one of the minor characters introduced from the freighter) and his manipulative mother. These prove to be (as most of the LOST flashbacks have proven to be in the past) dull and apparently pointless. With the final seconds of the episode, however, their relevance becomes clear. Daniel also gets a lovely moment with a young Charlotte who is destined to die in his arms unless he can change time. All of this will, of course, be utterly opaque to anyone who hasn't been following the show to this point. TopFollow the LeaderCaught by the Others, Jack persuades Faraday's mother that the only way forward is to carry out her son's plan and detonate the nuclear weapon hidden on the island. Back from the dead John Locke takes care of a time paradox loop and then sets out to meet the mysterious Jacob. Sawyer and Juliet are interrogated about the location of the Others and he gives up a map in place for a spot on the submarine evacuating the island. Events are moving, but in true LOST fashion they aren't moving anywhere particularly fast. The trip that John takes into the jungle with his new followers to save his own life is time looping for the sake of it, filling in time and very clever, but achieving no purpose. The love quadrangle between Kate, Jack, Sawyer and Juliet continues to rumble along and provides the real emotional heart of the show as everything else has turned very cerebral and is all about the labyrinthine plot that will eventually reveal itself (or not). Follow the Leader is typical LOST, full of what it would like to think is meaning, but which is actually just events and yet remaining compelling and vital. Go figure. TopThe Incident Part 1Two men sit on a beach and discuss weighty theological matters until one declares that he wants to kill the other and will search forever until he finds the loophole that will allow him to do so. The intended target is Jacob and he appeared to the main survivors of Flight 815 at important moments in their lives. Those survivors are now at other important moments in their lives. John Locke is leading Ben and the latest survivors to meet Jacob and to kill him. Sayid and Jack are planning to blow up a nuclear bomb in order to make it like none of this ever happened and Sawyer, Locke and Kate are determined to make sure that they fail. The penultimate episode of a show can so often be a let down because it's acting as the set up for the big finale, but this proves to as good as the show has been this whole season and a large part of that is down to the opening. We finally get to meet Jacob, the shadowy name that has been behind everything that has happened on the island. He's disappointingly ordinary-looking, but he has touched (literally) the survivors at different times in their lives and yet looks just the same whether he is watching a sailing ship coming in (that's got to be the Black Rock) or meeting Kate as a child or Jack recently qualified as a surgeon of Hurley just before his return to the island. He is clearly either a hell of a time traveller or something certainly not human. And that would make the other half of the conversation equally ethereal. Already you can hear the internet creaking under the weight of speculation as to whether they are God and Satan, the personification of Good and Evil or just two people who don't get along. There is so much deeper meaning to their conversation (humans struggling to evolve, cyclical streams of events looking for the one time they can be broken (hello BATTLESTAR GALACTICA)) that it distracts from what follows, which is a shame as there is some seriously quality plotting and the acting to go with it. Sayid gets shot and only Hurley's intervention saves him. Sawyer, Juliet and Kate struggle with their love triangle and there is as much said in a single glance as there is in the dialogue. The flashbacks have a point, but do get seriously repetitive. That, however, is of little importance in an episode that takes the whole concept of what LOST has been about and shakes it up. God, we love this show. TopThe Incident Part 2In the present, John Locke takes Ben down to meet Jacob face to face for the first time. Jack persuades the others that they have to explode the nuclear weapon, but things don't quite go to plan and we find out what's in the box. After the exceptional The Incident Part 1 this season finale was always likely to come as something of a disappointment, so it is wonderful that it doesn't manage to disappoint in any single way. Locke's journey down to see Jacob is the more personal journey and reveals a lot about both Locke and Ben. Michael Emerson gets a real moment to shine as the resentment that he feels towards Jacob comes flooding out and the way that Locke manipulates that to...ah but that would be telling. Suffice to say that this is surprising and smart storytelling. Add to that the contents of the box and this will leave the LOST fans' heads reeling. If you've not been following the show then missing out on this is your punishment. Jack's quest to close the history loop and save everyone is the more action-packed and straightforward segment of the story, but even here there are surprises in store for major characters. True, Jack is unlikely to leave a dying Sayid to step into the jungle to have a quiet word with Sawyer, but the resulting punch up is worth the momentary lapse in story logic (as if logic mattered any longer with this show). Again there are great character moments for Josh Holloway, Elizabeth Mitchell and Evangeline Lilly, but this strand is all about the plot and gives us the climax that ensures the final season will not lose a single one of the audience members who have made it this far. LOST has always been good, often infuriating and regularly obscure, but it feels like it's been with us forever and with the final season just over the horizon this is the kind of episode that makes us all remember the sheer joy that watching it can bring. Top |
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