You Thought You Heard a Sound, There's No One Else Around

(The White Stripes, This Protector)

I think one of the reasons I’m looking forward to this show being over (gasp!) is that this season, I have been travelling just about every Tuesday night, and I haven’t been able to see the show until either very late at night, or the next night, or sometimes even two nights later, let alone have time to spend in front of a computer to bang out a recap. And when I see it a day or two late, I feel like writing my blog post isn’t really as fun, but I still want to write it, but then I just sort of do a half-assed job, like it’s homework or something. (Homework. Man, that sure sucked.) Anyway, I promise (never too late) to do my best on the two remaining posts (including this one) before this show joins the ranks of Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Wire, The West Wing, MASH (I guess), Remmington Steele, and Manimal as one of The Greatest Shows In The History of TV That Are No Longer On TV.

Again we get an episode opening with the opening of an eye, and again, as in the pilot episode and many others since, it was Jack’s eye. Jack’s eye opening has sort of been the running subplot of this entire season, as he has finally begun to understand and embrace the fact that he is the one who will save The Island and/or the entirety of humanity.

After Jack woke up, he went into the bathroom and noticed the same cut on his neck as he saw in the season premiere, while on the flight from Sydney to LA. He didn’t know then how he got cut, and he didn’t seem to know this time either. But he cleaned himself up and went downstairs for a nice family breakfast with his son and pregnant half-sister. David wanted to make sure Jack was coming to his concert tomorrow night. Jack assured him he would be there, then asked if David’s mom was coming. Of course she is. And I don’t think I’m jumping out on a very big limb by saying that not only will she be there, she is going to meet one James Ford, LAPD, and they are going to decide that at some point in the future (past?) they are going to go dutch on some coffee. Because David’s mother is Juliet.

(Side note: My mind is going to explode several times on Sunday night. I might need to wear a helmet in case I pass out and fall over.)

Then Desmond, posing as an Oceanic Airlines rep, calls Jack and said that they found his father’s coffin, and he can pick it up at LAX later that day. Weird, sure. But I’m not sure how this really helps Des put things where they need to be. I guess we will find out on Sunday.

After hanging up with Jack, we find out that Des is once again parked outside of John Locke and Dr. Ben Linus’s school, like some sort of perv. But he’s not there for any freaky reasons, unless you count running down a man in a wheelchair and beating up an unsuspecting history teacher as freaky. In addition to Desmond’s pounding fists, Ben is also hit with a deja vu type of sensation, when he remembers Des beating the shit out of him on the pier, after he came to kill Penny.

Des is a weird dude, though. He may be out there doing the good work and fighting the good fight, but he’s a creepy Scotsman. I love that he turned himself in to Sawyer so he could be locked up with Sayid and Kate, only to be broken out again by Hurley and dirty cop Ana Lucia (who, incidentally, was in the movie SWAT, where a similar breakout was staged for a payoff by prisoners in transport).

And my last question about Des: Where the hell is he on The Island? He wasn’t with Jack, Jacob, Kate, Sawyer and Hurley at the friendship circle, and he wasn’t in the well when Esau and his new buddy Ben went to find him. Hmm. I bet he just comes and goes as he pleases.

Ok, we’re done with LA for now. Let’s talk about The Island.

First of all, RIP Richard. Man, that smoke came barrelling through there like a freight train and took that mother out. Made me think of the Jimi Hendrix song “Hear My Train A-Comin.” Not for any lyrical content, it just looked like a train. But after he plowed into Richard, I loved the way that Ben had that wide-eyed expression and just slowly walked back to the porch, like he was getting out of the way. Michael Emerson is amazing.

Speaking of Ben, he’s back to being a badguy now? I can barely keep up. But he killed Widmore (which once upon a time, he was not allowed to do – remember?), and it seems like he killed him because he wanted Esau to kill Penny, in revenge for Alex’s murder by Widmore’s mercenary, Keamy. Ah, Keamy. Good times. And now it seems like Ben is a willing assassin for Esau, much like Sayid used to be a willing assassin for Ben. Motivated by Esau’s promise that Ben could have The Island for himself. But then Esau told him he was going to destroy The Island. I don’t think Ben liked that very much, and I think he’s got plans of his own.

Why can Jacob be seen now by Jack, Kate and Sawyer? Is it because his ashes are in the fire? That’s sort of a weird justification for it, but whatever. It’s too late to start pointing out lame plot points now. I mean, we have time travel and polar bears. We have long since abandoned any sense of disbelief. Whatever the reason, I was glad to see Jack stand and assume the role of the next protector. Sawyer had too much guilt over Sun and Jin’s death, and Hurley and Kate clearly didn’t want it. Jack’s eyes are open, he came back for a reason, and this is it. Just a quick sip of some fresh Island creek water, though? That’s all it took? I don’t want to complain too much, and I thought long ago that this is where we were headed, but some of this just feels a bit rushed. Ok, no more complaining.

Here’s my new(ish) theory (that you can immediately discard) on Ben. Ben killed Jacob, and he had his reasons, but he didn’t really know what Esau’s reasons were, because at the time, he didn’t really know he was Esau. Esau knew that he couldn’t kill Jacob, but he figured out at some point that he needed to convince someone to do it. (Actually, he seemed to have this figured out long, long ago, when he tried to get Richard to do it. Why it took him another 200 years to accomplish this goal I will never know.) But Ben doesn’t know that.

So, I think maybe Ben also kills Esau. I know, I know, I had my whole “Jack and Locke on the beach at the end of the show” theory. And I still have that theory. But I’m hedging my bets here, in an eleventh hour freakout. I think maybe Ben kills Esau, then somehow becomes the smoke monster himself, and it is Jack and Ben on the beach at the end of the show. These writers, they love their symmetry (speaking of symmetry: Kate stitched up Jack in the pilot, and Jack stiched Kate up last nigt). Ben kills Esau, sneaking up behind him and stabbing him with, oh, I don’t know, maybe some ancient dagger or something. Before he has the chance to speak. Maybe there’s a huge confrontational scene. Bear with me. Claire shows up (where the hell is Claire anyway?), goes apeshit and kills Kate (wishful thinking), and comes after Ben. Ben then kills Claire, and Jack, in trying to defend his sister, throws Ben into that creek that leads down into the light, and after his body falls down into the light, the smoke comes back out, throwing Ben’s body across The Island, and when he wakes up, he is the smoke monster.

Don’t get me wrong, I still like my “Jack and Locke” theory. And I am sticking with that one. But I wanted a backup, and this Ben theory seems as good as any.

Finally, speaking of the concert, I haven’t been this excited for a concert since we saw Wilco back in March. But a few weeks ago, when I said that whatever was going to go down was going down at the hospital, I seem to have been wrong. I thought they were all going to converge in each other’s lives at the hospital, which would spark some sort of massive group consciousness where they would all realize at once that they were in an alternate world, but now it seems like I had the right idea but the wrong location. They’re all going to be at the concert. Dr. Chang, it’s at his museum. Charlotte will be there, as will Miles, who is going to drag Sawyer with him. Jack will be there to see his son, David, as will David’s mom, Juliet. Des and Kate will be there, and I’m assuming Hurley will drive Sayid there in his massive yellow Hummer, but they have some sort of stop to make first. He’s probably also going to pick up Libby on the way, that’s just a hunch.

Now for the ones we don’t know about yet. Jin and Sun, will they make it to the concert? Probably, because I’m guessing they will all be there. Rose and Bernard? Sounds like a nice date for the happy couple. Claire? Rides with Jack, after they go to pick up the coffin. That’s plausible. Locke? No idea. But he seems like an important one. Ben, Alex and Danielle Rousseau? I could see it. They all seem cultured enough. Dogen could even be there, if his kid is performing as well.

But the big ticket item, the main reason this concert is going to be such an important event, is that Daniel Faraday is going to be playing piano at this concert as well, and his parents, Charles Widmore and Eloise Hawking will be there. His half-sister Penny will be there as well. I also think Charlie will be there, maybe with Driveshaft, but a few weeks ago we found out that Daniel Faraday was a big Driveshaft fan and wanted to play with Charlie so he could play classical piano fused with rock and roll.

So they all come together at the museum, and I envision one of those split scenes where we see and hear the music from the concert as things are also playing out on The Island, sort of like Cam singing Ave Maria while Mitchell destroyed a pigeon and his living room with a tennis racket and various decorative artifacts. Whether that happens or not, we know that not every question will be answered on Sunday night, and I will be back for one final recap with my thoughts on how it all goes down as well as my interpretations on whatever didn’t get answered. Until then, you kids have a nice weekend.