Episode 5* of the Final Season of LOST

SPOILER ALERT!!!!  This blog posts contains everything you ever thought you knew to be true about LOST.  Actually, that’s a lie.  This will get you nowhere close to understanding what is happening in LOST.  In fact, it is likely to bring you further away from understanding if the episode itself didn’t already.

The words are on the lawn. More a temple than a shrine, really.

Some housekeeping.  You’ll notice this is labeled Episode 5 instead of Episode 4.  A friend of mine informed that I have been mislabeling episodes. Apparently what I thought was a 2 hour super-episode was actually two different ones.  Seems odd to me since my cable guide had it as one block with one title.  I’m reluctantly relabeling from now on for accuracy and so we all know how close we are to the end (dry those eyes).  I am leaving the old entries as-is so we always have this living shrine to my incompetence.

After last week and figuring I had this totally solved, it turns out I was wrong.  Last week’s episode had nothing to do with the series.  We’re back this week to apparently what is the real story on the island, Jack and Hurley’s budding friendship.

Overall What is Happening

The island is upping its game by having not one, but TWO plot lines.  Which is really throwing me off because now I have to do three different story recaps.  By the finale we’re going to have so many unrelated stories we’re gonna feel like we’re watching Kentucky Fried Movie.

Last week we learned the secret of LOST.  Jacob is holding auditions to be the caretaker of a tropical island.  Strangely, no one seems interested.  Not much more this week outside of the fact that there is a crazy woman in the woods who is baby obsessed.  She and the Sad Day Monster have bonded over this shared trait.

At the same time, Hurley and Jack go on a super adventure across the island to get to a lighthouse. That’s it. No, really.  That’s all that happened.

Back in Snoozeville, we get another Jack episode.  We learn that he is as bad a parent as he is a doctor.

More Detailed Episode Recap

Things start off on land and who is this episode about? Drumroooooll… Jack! Wait.  Again?  Based on my new episode numbering system that will make 3 episodes about him and we’re not even to the halfway point.  Alright. Whatever.  We’ll roll with it.

Jack gets home and is wearing a scrub shirt with jeans (pretty unprofessional) and notices that he has a scar.  Since he is not an accredited doctor he doesn’t know how it got there.  His mom knows (they always do) and tells him it was an appendix surgery when he was seven.  We also learn that Jack has a pretty crappy exercise bike in his house.  Get a Bowflex, boss.

Jack goes to pick up his son David at his prep school.  This kid must hang out with Sawyer cuz he’s a total rebel.  We soon learn that David hates his dad, hates baseball, but is totally into Alice in Wonderland.  Which is the epitome of teenage rebellion.  Jack says he is going over to his mom’s house, David is all like “whatevs, I’m staying here.” Jack lets him.  Jack is apparently in a competition with himself to see which he can be worse at, parenting or doctoring.  Vegas has the line at -140 for parenting.  Those are good odds.

Over at Jack’s mom’s house, we find out that David is probably afraid of Jack.  Jack can’t understand why.  I can.  He’s terrible at everything.  Mrs. Shephard finds Mr. Shephard’s will.  There’s a mention of Claire Littleton.  I guess if you’re gonna have an affair, might as well put it in your will.  Of course, it being an affair is an assumption because rather than trying to solve this mystery we just go back to the island.

Jack leaves the awkward situation and comes home with pizza and soda for David.  Teenagers love pizza.  +1 for Jack.  Hopefully you didn’t place your bet.  Jack then finds out David isn’t there.  Apparently when you leave a teenager unsupervised, they act out or runaway.  Oops.

Upon finding out his teenage son is missing, Jack spends the next five hours getting drunk in his den and looking out the window over the city.  Maybe he thought he would see David down there, I dunno.  After a while he decides to give David a ring.  No answer.  Bummer.  Well, guess you should probably just leave a voicemail saying you’ll check his mom’s house. Jack is a terrible problem solver.  This is the same guy who proposed getting off an island by detonating a bomb, so maybe I shouldn’t be surprised.

Jack gets to David’s mom’s house and breaks in using a key under a bunny.  Much to his surprise David wasn’t in there.  Maybe we should have checked here sooner because we’ve lost a lot of valuable time to organize a search party.  After violating his son’s privacy by listening to his voicemail, Jack learns that his son has a conservatory audition.  Then Jack listens to a voicemail he left for David and gets uncomfortable because everyone thinks they sound weird when they listen to a recording of themselves.

Ew. Creepy.

Jack gets to the conservatory just in time to hear David’s audition.  This dude can jam.  Some creepy kid in a sweater vest tells Jack that his kid is really good.  Jack’s response should have been “Stay away from my kid, weirdo”, but I think he just said “Thanks.”  Turns out Creepy Kid is Toga’s son (Toga = Pretentious Asian).  It turns out Toga is a really cool dude.  He talks with Jack about parenting stuff and how much pressure kids are under.  Jack stares blankly since he is a deadbeat.  Toga asks how long David has been tickling the ivories.  Jack says he doesn’t know.  Toga looks angry.  In fact, I am pretty sure this is the point where Toga stopped speaking English and started hating white people.

While David is stealing another kid’s bike Jack comes out to have a heart to heart.  Jack admits he was terrified that David disappeared.  So terrified, in fact, that he sat around and got tanked for a while just to calm his nerves.  David admits he didn’t want Jack to see him fail.  Jack admits he never wanted his dad to see him fail.  Hopefully his dad hasn’t seen him try to practice medicine or find a runaway kid.  After reconnecting over their inability to succeed, Jack says they have some pizza waiting at home.  It’s been sitting on the kitchen counter with a six-pack of soda on top all day, but I’m sure it’s still good.

Back on the island, Claire helps Jin out of the bear trap.  Apparently Claire has been out there for three years.  K.  Jin, channeling Jack’s medical expertise, tries to walk on a severely wounded leg and passes out.  No surprise there.

Jin wakes up and looks around.  He finds some medical scissors, a paddle, and a baby made out of some skulls.  Claire comes back with the black dude she shot.  I guess he got drowned in the hot tub the same way Said did and came back to life.  Claire tells Jin that he could get an infection and that it will spread (take notes, Jack).

While away to get supplies, the Black Dude asks Jin to untie him.  Jin “Why would I do that?” Black Dude “Because she is gonna kill me.”  Jin “Not a good enough reason.”  Then Black Dude says he is gonna snap Claire’s neck.  He definitely just talked himself out of a sale.  Claire does a great job dressing Jin’s wound and says she is looking for her baby that these guys took.  I’m pretty sure a dingo has it but Claire says she is sure they have it because her father and her friend told her so.  Claire gets an ax to get some answers.  At this point, you should just lie.

As Claire is winding up to give the ol’ chop chop, Jin says that Kate has Aaron (her kid) and he is three.  Claire is obviously very emotional about all of this.  Before I could finish typing “Black Dude needs to be quiet, you should never try to reason with an emotional woman” Claire dug that ax right into his spleen.  That has to hurt like a bastard.  That seemed like an unusually cruel way to kill him.  He’s basically sitting there with a ruptured spleen waiting to bleed to death.  Not cool, Claire. Not cool.

A little while later (I assume about three hours since Black Dude is finally dead) Jin admits he lied because he wanted to save the Black Dude’s life. FAIL.  He says that they have Aaron at the temple and he will take her there.  Sad Day Monster shows up without Sawyer. If you remember, Sawyer left the island last week.  I guess Sad Day Monster had second thoughts.  He and Claire are friends.  Everyone wants to be Claire’s friend.  She’s totes popular.

Jumping over to the third unrelated plot in this episode, it’s a rainy day in paradise. This must be why everyone wants to leave.  While playing a little tic-tac-toe (they need to play bags), Hurley says he is hungry.  C’mon.  Stop it, LOST writers.  Fine.  If we’re all gonna make fun of his weight, then let’s do this thing.  Hurley goes inside and asks someone if there’s a kitchen.  Turns out it was Ghost Jacob.  Even ghosts like a good tubbin’ from time to time.  Jacob says that he needs Hurley’s help and needs him to write some stuff down.  He’s probably trying to keep track of all the plots in this episode.

Outside the temple, Said is uncomfortable because people are staring at him.  They talk about the poison and someone else was infected.  That’s pretty much it.  It’s not Said’s turn to hang out with Jack this week, so that is pretty much the end of that interaction.

Back to Hurley, he is walking down a hallway by himself looking for stuff.  Toga totally busts him and tells him to go back to the courtyard.  Hurley debates him 10-year-old style (YOU go back to the courtyard) and wins when Toga is disqualified for not speaking English.  Nice win, Hurley.  Jacob had Hurley’s back this whole time and tells Hurley he is a candidate.  Probably for a wing eating contest.

Jacob asks Hurley where Jack is and says that Hurley has to bring Jack with him.  Ouch. This is like when you invite the ugly girl to the party because you think she’ll bring her hot friend, and then she doesn’t, and you’re mad at her so you confront her about it, then the ugly girl calls the friend.  Poor Hurley.  Hurley then goes into the courtyard to do the equivalent of calling the hot friend (the ugly always complies) and convinces Jack to go with him by saying “You have what it takes.”  To do what, I am not sure, but I can already cross two things off the list.

While on their adventure, Jack and Hurley come across Kate.  We’re putting the check in the box that she appears in this episode.  Jack invites her with them but Hurley points out that Jacob specifically requested no chicks (which is the point I stop following Hurley).  Besides, it’s Hurley’s turn to hang out with Jack.  She’ll have to go sit on the sideline with Said.  Instead she says she is going to go find Claire.  Not sure she wants to, but it’s her choice.

After this little interaction, Hurley apologizes for blowing up Jack’s game.  He also says Jack would be a good father.  He’s obviously not watching the other half of this episode.

They find an inhaler and it belongs to Shannon.  No clue who Shannon is but since the music changed, she must be important.  They’re outside the caves that they used to live in.  Ya know, before the real estate boom left all those condos that Sawyer was getting drunk in.  In the cave are some rotting corpses.  They say they forgot they were there.  I don’t know how.  Those seem like the kind of thing you would always see when you close your eyes.  Hurley proposes that maybe the carcasses are them.  That they traveled through time years ago and died and now this is their remains… C’mon Hurley, that’s ridiculous. Now get back to following the instructions that a ghost gave you at a temple with a life-restoring hot tub on a deserted island that has a murderous rain cloud where 50 people all ended up after surviving several plane crashes over the pacific ocean.

Back on the trail, Hurley asks Jack why he came back to the island.  Huh?  Jack wants to know why he did.  Hurley says because Jacob told him to.  Jack says he was broken and thought the island could fix him.  The correct answer is that you got back to land, realized you had to work, pay taxes, deal with pollution, deal with people telling you about pollution, and had to spend a fortune to spend a week on an island almost identical to the one you were on.  I’m completely clueless on how they got off, back on, and why they want to get back off again, but whatever.

I dunno. Lighthouse seems pretty obvious to me.

FINALLY, they get to the lighthouse.  This sucker is 100ft tall and they say they never noticed it before.  How?  You’ve been on this island for three years (someone said earlier) with nothing else to do but walk around and this HUGE lighthouse is on one of the coasts.  Little tip for people stuck on an island.  Walk along the beach (perimeter) because civilization is most likely to be there as opposed to the interior.  In your face, Bear Grylls.  So yeah, they should have found this a long time ago. Also, I have no idea if my survival tip is right.

Hurley can’t open the door so Jack goes all man on it and kicks it in.  Jack is a true gentleman and let’s anyone with breasts enter rooms before he does.  Hurley goes in the lighthouse. Jack follows.

They finally get to the top where apparently a dry shirt was awaiting Hurley.  Or it is so sweat stained that is all now one color.  There’s a contraption with mirrors and everyone’s name.  When it is set to Jack he can see his childhood house and three extra Jacks.  Everyone wins.  Jack freaks out Claire style and smashes up the mirror.  Which is really selfish because now we won’t be able to see the Friendly’s where Hurley spent his childhood.  Turns out all this was to get Jack to the lighthouse and everyone at the temple is doomed because someone is coming.

I think at this point it is pretty clear that Jacob wants Sawyer or Jack to take over the island.  This is like watching The Bachelorette and you know that she’s picked out the people she wants in the finals, but there’s still 10 people left so she has to go through the motions and still go on dates and pretend to like them. Hurley and Jack are on a double date right now.  Jack’s in the hot tub with the Bachelorette while Hurley pours himself more wine while he looks at the patio furniture.

Thoughts I Have

• A lot went on this episode.  I kept having to pause the show to jot stuff down. I hope this goes back to snail’s pace.
• Claire = Pregger.  Cool.  Got it.
• I don’t see the need to keep including other people in the Snoozeville portion of the show.  I really feel like watching John and Kate’s story was a complete waste now.
• Sawyer’s gone I guess.  I figured since last week ended with him saying “I’m out” and he wasn’t with Sad Day Monster, he hit the bricks.  Jacob is gonna be heartbroken.

Ghost Jacob needs some break up music to get over Sawyer leaving.