I wasn’t expecting anything to come of it the second time around, but it kind of disappointed me that nothing was done with the concept of our Losties being in two teams. Team Jacob is this sad lonely little team with a dead figurehead, consisting of an interesting collection of original Losties, former Others, Freighter folk, and an Ajira Survivor. Team Man in Black has an imposing leader, strength in numbers, and most of the original characters, some there of their own free will, some out to play both sides for their own gain. That plus Widmore’s presence, and it feels like there’s a big conflict brewing.

Turns out, these groups aren’t opposed so much as divided. The set-up seemed to be there for something to happen, but it doesn’t really pan out. Instead, the momentum after Sundown is kind of squandered. But while Dr. Linus was low key but a great character study, Recon is just… low key.

Most of the island story is concerned with Sawyer doing a little recon (Oh, Re-Con! I get it!) over at Hydra Island. There are a handful of interesting discoveries. Another group of extras (the Ajira folk) have been wiped out, there’s some filthy, bespectacled, lady who manages to lure Sawyer into a trap (I kept waiting for the moment in which Zoe appear all cleaned up in the Afterlife, some sort of Hot Librarian type moment, but alas). And Sawyer is brought before Widmore, where he begins to pit him and Flocke against each other. I forget who suggested that removing Dr. Linus’s last scene would have both strengthened that episode and made this one all the more surprising, but I agree.

“…Eleven graves a diggin’…”

Dr. Linus kicks off two trends that last through Happily Ever After, one positive, one negative. The positive: there are a number of strong episodes that intensely focus on one character ahead of us. The negative, the momentum of the overall plot comes to a crawl for a little while, aside from the arrival of Widmore and Desmond. Still, Dr. Linus works really well as a character study, especially since it’s the culmination of the great Benjamin Linus arc that was set in motion during The Shape of Things to Come.

It’s mostly an episode about Ben as the fallen emperor, adjusting to not being in charge, trying to forge relationships with the likes of Miles and Frank (who gets more than two lines). But Ilana has discovered that Ben was responsible for killing Jacob, and demands that he dig his own grave, so the journey is an uphill one, to say the least.

Meanwhile, there’s a good subplot with Richard nearly killing himself in the Black Rock. I enjoyed Cool Richard in Seasons 3-5, but it’s great to see him start to become an actual character. Even better is Jack’s crazy confidence that the island has a plan and won’t let him die.

“…Twelve Others a killin’…”

Unfortunately for Sayid, his arc this season, both in the AU and the island, is the most muddled. When I look at the entire season as a whole, I think I can see what they were trying to do with him. Sadly, there are factors that undermine his character development. So it’s perhaps lucky that his centric episode is filled to the brim with wicked cool kick ass action. Oh wicked cool kick ass action, you always make the dissatisfaction go away.

The first time we see the episode, the present day story seems straightforward and even simplistic. Sayid is, against his will, succumbing to an evil inside of him as a result of his resurrection, and Dogen keeps trying to kill him because of this. He sends Sayid out to try and kill MiB, fails, and Sayid has to admit that Dogen put him up to it. Regrettably, Flocke does not put on a Colonel Klink voice and intone “Dooogeeeeen,” instead sending Sayid back to the Temple to deliver an ultimatum; clear out by sundown or die. At this point, Sayid has gone full on evil, murders Dogen, and chaos commences.

But given Sayid’s later actions and final sacrifice, it can no longer be that simple. Looking back, I believe that the Sayid who was resurrected was exactly the same man he always was, and would have remained so. But the Others in the temple were convinced otherwise. So they tortured him and they convinced him that he would descend into darkness and they tried to kill him three times. Through all of this, Sayid desperately needed somebody to believe that he was capable of goodness, but the two characters who would likely continue to support him, Jack and Hurley, had both left. The only person left who was willing to offer Sayid another chance of any kind was the Man in Black. Cue Sayid’s final descent into complete nihilism as he kills Dogen and Lennon, which due to the sudden brutality of the act and Dogen’s sympathetic story beforehand, seems like disproportionate retribution. Until you remember all that they did to him.

Another Season 6 episode, which means another episode that’s quite good on all fronts, but never quite attains Outstanding status. Still, character development and character interaction against the backdrop of mythological resolution continues to be the name of the game, which is a good thing indeed.

Jacob appears to Hurley yet again, so he and Jack traipse off through the jungle. I’m having a lot of trouble thinking of an episode in which just these two characters were sharing screentime, but it’s great stuff. Hurley is playing the audience proxy again, seemingly the only person on the island who is interested in speculating about all the weird s*** and what makes the characters tick. And Jack reveals where he is right now, after the failure of The Incident, he’s back to being skeptical that the island can fix him. Along the way, there’s a brief encounter with Kate, then it’s off to the caves where Adam and Eve get a shoutout, and Jack finds Shannon’s inhaler.

The two arrive at a lighthouse, it has this really awesome magic mirror that Jacob used to look in on potential candidates. I was just wondering, do you suppose Mikhail was a candidate at some point? And if so, do you think Jacob looked in on him during his childhood? You know what that means, Jacob really CAN see Russia from his house! Jack, meanwhile, is not nearly as enamoured with the mirror as I am, and smashes it to pieces. Classic Shephard, suddenly getting angry and doing something really impulsive, but this time, I completely emphasize with his frustration.

That was a really long way to go for a pretty lame Sarah Palin joke in that last paragraph. I’m sorry about that.

“…Fourteen ladders a snappin’…”

I may wind up changing my tune on Season 6. I’ve already experienced that subconscious disappointment of, “Hey, Lost may not be going in the right direction.” Now, I know Darlton’s intentions, and all I can do is share my opinion on how well they tell their story, not my expectations of what I thought the story would be. And my dissatisfaction at certain loose ends, as you’ve been seeing, is now distributed throughout every season. For example, I used to hate how Season 6 failed to address Libby’s backstory or the outrigger, but now I put those down as failings of Season 2 and 5, respectively.

It’s easy to forget, but Season 6 actually does address a the big picture mysteries. LA X 1 confirmed the Monster’s identity, LA X 2 gave us the Temple, WKD gave us the Sickness, and The Substitute answers possibly the question of the series… why these characters? As annoyingly dismissive as Darlton can sometimes be (specifically, the “Oh, fans are obsessed, they still want to know about Kate’s plane” type comments), it’s getting easier to see their perspective. They actually do advance the story and mythology a lot, and our newfound knowledge becomes really easy to take for granted. If anything, it’s the mysteries confined to Season 6 that dissatisfy, the long term mythology may actually hold up.

“…Fifteen pokers a scorchin’…”

Here was a nice little surprise. Like most, I initially wasn’t crazy about the episode, but an awful lot of that hinged on something I couldn’t believe at all, Afterlife Claire willingly getting into a car and riding around with Afterlife Kate, after she held guns on everyone and stole her cab and all. Now, we that we know more about this place, and that all of these characters are actually knew each other and are being drawn together, it didn’t bother me at all. So with that little writing choice vindicated, I now find What Kate Does to be a solid transitional episode.

It’s Kate centric of course, but I don’t think a character has ever been so marginalized in her own episode. It’s really an episode about Claire and Sawyer, and often Jack and Sayid, and Kate’s role is to be there to witness a lot of their development. After her growth in Whatever Happened, Happened, it’s too bad she’s back to being a reactive character, but maybe that one was meant to be the culminating moment for her. It might be enough that she just keeps a low profile in Season 6 and doesn’t fall into any old habits.

The alternate universe has Kate back on the run, but aside the scene where she holds a gun on a surprisingly badass mechanic (an original character, which might mean he’s some kind of guardian angel?), it’s mostly about getting to see Claire again. That is, the lovely innocent woman as we knew her, which gives her appearance on the island a lot more punch.

Ooooooooooh…

On the sixteenth day of Lost Again, my true love gave to me:

Sixteen bodyguards impalin’…

After a spectacular first hour that at times felt like a continuation of “The Incident,” now we’re branching out and setting up the new status quo for Season 6. That means it’s an episode that is long on set-up and heavy on moving from place to place, but luckily, things avoid getting tedious.

Dudes, Sayid got shot four reviews ago, and I’m running out of ways to type “Sayid continues to be on Death’s Door.” The Losties take pity on me and decide to resolve this story, loading Sayid onto a stretcher and heading over to the Temple. It’s a great journey for fans of continuity, you see Montand’s one armed corpse, and the cast has to avoid the hole in the floor that Ben fell through. But the group is captured, and taken to Dogen (we all have an opinion of him) and Lennon. Oh good, another long haired bespectacled jerkass, I was just starting to miss Rzinsdski.

Sawyer and Miles stay behind to bury Juliet, with Sawyer kicking off the trend this year’s trend of always having the male character’s hair soaking wet for no reason. Juliet’s dying words being dragged out seems to be an excuse to give Miles something to do, but I like his obvious hurt when he realizes Sawyer only wanted him to stay behind for his gift. Both get captured by the Others (offscreen).

Nestor Carbonell has been admitted to the main cast this season. Which means it’s time for his all knowing and calming aura to evaporate, as he has the **** scared out of him by the Man in Black and is knocked unconscious by a punch to the throat. Before that, Locke, who will hereafter be referred to by his fan preferred portmanteau “Flocke,” spends some time insulting his likeness’s memory. It is the best and creepiest moment of either of these two hours.

Welcome to final round of reviews! I hear this season is about two demi-god like figures battling for supremacy of the island. Sounds good, I can’t wait to see who Frank has to fight.

I absolutely love LA X… Part 1. Part 2? We’ll see. But Part 1 is again in the style of the Season 4 and 5 premieres, showing us all the characters who were in play last year, resolving all the cliffhangers concerning them, not burdening us with too many new elements right at the beginning. Every scene advances the story, throws some interesting tidbits at us, sets up the major theme of the season, and is just a really well directed hour, atmospheric, exciting, or emotional wherever it’s appropriate.

The opening (or rather, the second opening) is one I love, what with Kate up in a tree for the first time since Season 1 (maybe) and the muffled sound and all. She and Miles quickly find that they’re in 2007, and the love triangle is actually resolved here in the first ten minutes. Jack and Sawyer are both lying unconscious side by side, and after looking between them briefly, Kate runs over and rouses Jack. That’s as much as I intend to say about the love triangle until the finale. Sawyer is understandably upset at Jack, but all is momentarily dropped when they hear Juliet crying out beneath the swan site wreckage.

Hurley is watching a gravely injured Sayid, who muses on what happens when he’ll die. That’s when Jacob appears. It’s really neat that Hurley’s ability to see the dead comes into play here, even if it does slightly undercut one part of The Incident. In a series like this, I love it when a major force of good is destroyed in the penultimate installment, leaving the force of evil an even bigger threat than usual. And yet he’s still around, providing advice, all of his rules are still binding the Candidates and the Man in Black. But anyway. Jacob tells Hurley to take Sayid to The Temple.

I can’t figure this out: Both parts of The Incident are approximately 42 minutes. But Part 2 contains only three flashbacks, compared to Part 1′s seven. The 2007 storyline is seen far less frequently in Part 2, there are only two brief scenes before the final act, and unlike Part 1, there is no subplot with Ilana/Frank until they appear at the end. Part 1 also features two storylines in 1977 that receive equal screentime, but both have converged in Part 2. And there’s no noticeable difference in pacing between both parts. So where does the running time in Part 2 come from, I wonder?

So, flashbacks. The one involving Jack brings us back to one of the first scenes in the Pilot, and the one with Hurley is one of the very last things to happen chronologically before the Oceanic 6 returned to the island. Neat, that. Notably, Hurley is the only with whom Jacob talks openly, foreshadowing that he may have an important part to play in the final season. ABRUPT TRANSITION. Sawyer leads Jack into a clearing to try and talk him out of his plan. When that doesn’t work, they have their long awaited showdown as bombastic music plays. Hot damn this finale is climactic.

The one thing in Season 5 that was spoiled for me was that The Incident would be Jacob-centric, and that he would show up in many characters flashbacks. I was mad as hell about that, thinking that we’d have two hours of our Losties coming across a figure who gave mysterious but benevolent advice, only to find out OMG IT WAS JACOB as the final plot twist. Instead, there he is in the first couple of minutes. And OMG there’s another guy who wants to kill him. And WHAOMG it’s the Black Rock. And O. M. G. It’s the four toed statue. I had no way of getting to a computer until later, but I would have loved to have seen the online explosion.

Anyway, Jacob and his mysterious rival have a conversation that’s just revealing enough to fuel eight months of speculation. They seem to be engaged in some kind of eternal debate about whether humanity is capable of good or inherently evil. That, along with the reveal that Jacob seems to have handpicked all the major characters, has some astounding implications for the series. And of course, they’re in the White/Black clothing, finally bringing back that bit of symbolism from the first few episodes. I like these guys as distant, symbolic characters that represent good and evil, hopefully the show doesn’t try to make us care about them as characters.

And with that, of course, we’re off into a series of flashbacks, the bulk of which are in the first half of the episode. With that possible series changing reveal out of the way in the opening, these go on to be less about Jacob and more about seeing crucial moments in the character’s lives that Jacob happens to show up in. It’s a very nice way of giving us scenes that deserved to be seen but didn’t really justify having a flashback built around them. There’s Sun and Jin’s wedding, Nadia’s death, Sawyer writing his letter, Kate getting her… lunchbox? Wow, she really is kind of a shallow character. Also, seeing that Jacob not only met John Locke, but actually revived him after his eight story fall gave us hope over the hiatus that he was more than just the Man in Black’s pawn. And of course there’s Jacob’s appearance in Ilana’s flashback, all but guaranteeing a pivotal role for her in the final HAHAHAHAHAHA. Sorry, I couldn’t get through that.

The Incident reminds me of the Season 2 finale, partly because of a climax involving magnetic energy, but mostly because a long alluded to and little seen mythological figure finally appears and is thrown into the limelight. Mark Pellegrino doesn’t have to carry the two hours like Henry Ian Cusick did, since the writers don’t opt to humanize him the way they did with Desmond, and the flashbacks are more about our regulars anyway. But he still has to get us to actually like Jacob enough to care about what happens to him at the very end. I think the moment where he won me over was that little “Yikes” look he gives Young Kate after she’s chewed out in the store. He brings a lot of nice little human touches like that to this role.