Lost - There's No Place Like Home Part II & III
*** / ****
I had no idea how to write There's No Place Like Home Part II (or II & III; I have been following the show on Blu since the show left Netflix), quite frankly, so I'll go with a fragmented multi-review of the finale of Season Four until I get it all together.
Sawyer has just come so far since I started the show in October of last year. To think this tormented soul using wisecracks and attitude to hide deep-seeded resentment and a driving rage to get revenge could sacrifice himself so many times in Season Four really offers an alternative to the heroism of Jack who does go forth to The Orchid and helicopter despite ailing from an appendectomy, facing definite danger as a deranged psychopath with a device attached to his arm (monitoring his heart rate, whose signal, if he dies, sets off the explosives on the freighter), and soldiers with machine guns, Keamy, will do whatever it takes to secure Ben. Sawyer was willing to march alongside (or slightly behind him) Jack, facing that danger. The two of them encountered Frank, with Sawyer even breaking the handcuffs from his wrists, nicknaming him "Kenny Rogers". That had me laughing out loud.
While Sawyer and Jack do eventually arrive at The Orchid, Ben had done been bopped on the head by Keamy, after giving himself up, carried off to the helicopter. Sure enough, the Others would save the day by hiding within the woods around the chopper, taking care of Keamy's men. With Kate helping Ben escape Keamy into the woods, and Sayid doing battle with Keamy (almost dying with a stick to his throat if Alpert doesn't arrive in the nick of time to shoot Keamy in the back) in order to finish him off, Ben gives Kate and Sayid "permission" to leave in the helicopter. With Sawyer and Jack also getting on the chopper (Hurley leaves with Jack and Sawyer when Locke fails to convince them to stay on the island, at the Orchid), it appears they will finally "get off this rock".
The look on Kate's face when Sawyer shows up says it all: although she loves Jack, it is clear Sawyer has a piece of her heart as well. On the chopper, a gunshot hole leaking fuel, "weight" needed to be dumped in the ocean. Sawyer realizes that someone will need to go and sacrifices his safe passage home so that the others on the chopper could remain. He just wants Kate to tell the mother of his child he's sorry for his treatment towards her. He swims ashore to meet a disappointed Juliet, cracking wise, of course, but seeing the smoke from a distance turns his Cheshire cat grin into concern. That was unexpected.
With Ben turning the wheel deep within The Orchid, giving up his ever being on the island again (not sure why that is the case but I'll go with it...), causing a reaction that "disappears the island", what happens to Sawyer and Juliet definitely intrigues me. His adventures haven't ceased it doesn't appear.
But whatever bad happens on the island after Jack leaves, as told by Ben in the flash ahead at a funeral parlor in the dark evening when the casket opens to reveal Locke (I just couldn't react but with, "Of course it is Locke in the casket, this is Lost, isn't it?"), I do wonder just what happens to Sawyer during all that time. So Season 5 is certainly of definite interest to me in regards to how he and Juliet respond to the extraordinary island "move". I anticipate quite an unpredictable series of events ahead.
While on the helicopter, after deciding to jump into the drink, Sawyer and Kate share a passionate kiss. This isn't the kiss Kate would share with Jack. There's really something behind this kiss. It isn't wasted lip service. Serious affection is shared between those two. Just another sincere offering of feelings that Kate and Sawyer give freely to each other before separation.
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Getting on the chopper and taking possession of Aaron, understanding the gravity of such responsibility once Sun reached out begging to see if Jin is okay, relinquishing hold of the child was not exactly what Kate had prepared for but nonetheless was required in order to satisfy the lie Jack proposed to them in order to keep their secret regarding the island safe. Locke's appeal to Jack and his consideration of it shaped the return to civilization. Kate had to take on the burden when it shouldn't have been hers. Claire's island stay, unanticipated and enigmatic, remains quite fascinating to me. Why does she remain on the island in Jacob's cabin?
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I have had a gnawing in my gut since Michael re-emerged in
the fourth season. Granted, I loved Libby and felt she was a character deserved
of greater context. It was as if she was just on the cusp of significant
development. That scene in the institution when it is revealed she was patient
just across the room from Hurley knocked me for a loop. She had met several
different passengers at different intervals before even crashing on the island.
Enough with the whining, to say the series went out of its way to give Michael
redemption is an understatement. Jacob (I guess) in the form of Christian
Shepherd visits the freighter to give Michael his “wish” of dying. There was a
time and place for Michael to go out, so why not on the freighter?
Jin, it so appears, goes KABOOM with the freighter, or the show would lead us to believe this. Sun crying for Jin while up in the chopper, this finale sure went for the big dramatic [supposed] send-off. This sets Sun off, though, to take control of her father’s company and even travel to London to confront Charles Widmore, leaving her card, leaving a weighty declaration: that he knew her and the other five weren’t the only ones off the island. I had misunderstood this by thinking she was subtly implying Widmore had also been on the island before, but stood corrected.
Jin telling Sun she’d get off the island, only for him not to get home is the tragic irony setup previously. The explosion and following burning wreckage further sells the depth of the disaster quite prominently. This whole experience molded and shaped Sun into a stronger woman, and the tragedy certainly hardened her shell. When she looks dead into her father’s face and watches him bury into his chair, knowing she now has control over him…what an incredible moment!
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Jin, it so appears, goes KABOOM with the freighter, or the show would lead us to believe this. Sun crying for Jin while up in the chopper, this finale sure went for the big dramatic [supposed] send-off. This sets Sun off, though, to take control of her father’s company and even travel to London to confront Charles Widmore, leaving her card, leaving a weighty declaration: that he knew her and the other five weren’t the only ones off the island. I had misunderstood this by thinking she was subtly implying Widmore had also been on the island before, but stood corrected.
Jin telling Sun she’d get off the island, only for him not to get home is the tragic irony setup previously. The explosion and following burning wreckage further sells the depth of the disaster quite prominently. This whole experience molded and shaped Sun into a stronger woman, and the tragedy certainly hardened her shell. When she looks dead into her father’s face and watches him bury into his chair, knowing she now has control over him…what an incredible moment!
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This finale did give us the reuniting of two separated
loves: Desmond and Penny. Coincidentally (or is that fate?), Penny’s “searcher”
ship happened to be in the right place at the right time when Desmond (nearly
dying from drowning after Frank’s chopper goes down into the ocean after losing
fuel), Jack, Sun, Aaron, Frank, Kate, and Sayid’s raft is found in the middle
of ocean in need of help. That moment where Penny and Desmond embrace, the long
struggle to find each other finally over, it gives us at least one moment of
satisfaction when so much else seems to go so wrong. The return home for those
from the Oceanic who must lie to the press, orchestrating their path from the
island with Jack as their guide, it seems to go without a hitch. I guess at
least for Penny and Desmond there’s hope for a better conclusion. That kiss was
long overdue. You could just feel the relief and nirvana in the embrace.
*Although understandable from a storyline perspective, Keamy with the device that would destroy the freighter from where he was at in the Orchid is really far-fetched. We just have to go with it sometimes. But Ben defying Locke, and taking the knife to Keamy's throat with full vengeance unleashed, really made sense to me. Seriously, this guy has no reason to care. His "So?" had reason behind it. His people have died because of those on the freighter. So what concern should he have? Why would I defend the guy? I think many of his actions have been reprehensible. But he operates from a logic that dictates with calculation whatever benefits the island. Including his own dismissal from the island. He does apologize to Locke for all he's done to him! Hey, that's something. But what is his plan to get the Oceanic Six back to the island? Well Sayid found a safehouse for Hurley after executing a man watching outside the institution, so these two might can be convinced. I'm not sure Kate will want to take Aaron back or Sun returning after aquiring her dad's company seems rather unlikely. But Ben finds a way...and always has a plan.
*Although understandable from a storyline perspective, Keamy with the device that would destroy the freighter from where he was at in the Orchid is really far-fetched. We just have to go with it sometimes. But Ben defying Locke, and taking the knife to Keamy's throat with full vengeance unleashed, really made sense to me. Seriously, this guy has no reason to care. His "So?" had reason behind it. His people have died because of those on the freighter. So what concern should he have? Why would I defend the guy? I think many of his actions have been reprehensible. But he operates from a logic that dictates with calculation whatever benefits the island. Including his own dismissal from the island. He does apologize to Locke for all he's done to him! Hey, that's something. But what is his plan to get the Oceanic Six back to the island? Well Sayid found a safehouse for Hurley after executing a man watching outside the institution, so these two might can be convinced. I'm not sure Kate will want to take Aaron back or Sun returning after aquiring her dad's company seems rather unlikely. But Ben finds a way...and always has a plan.
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