Lost: ‘Cause This is Filler… Filler Night…

Next week is the two-hour Lost season finale. Accordingly, this episode was setup for that. It wasn’t particularly bad setup, but it wasn’t all that great, either.

The basics:

• In 2007, Locke, claiming he has a “purpose” now, struts around being smarmy and claiming his authority over the Others. (We aren’t told who’s been leading them in the three years since Locke vacated the island, but my suspicion is that Richard has been doing just fine on his own.) Locke does some time-travel mumbo-jumbo and then announces that he’s taking the entire group of Others to see Jacob, whom Locke is planning to kill. This does not go over well with Richard and Ben.
• In 1977, Jack and Kate team up with Eloise, Richard, and a newly arrived Sayid to carry out Daniel’s plan of blowing up the Swan with the hydrogen bomb. Kate ultimately defects, but the rest of them go to find the bomb, which is sitting in a tunnel directly under the Dharma barracks. Then they stare at it, because actually doing anything with it would throw off the action-packed rhythm Damon and Carlton have planned for the season finale.
• Jin, Miles, and Hurley are trying to go to the beach to get away from the Dharmas and the impending disaster, but Dr. Chang catches them and gets them to admit that they’re from the future and that Miles is his son. (He isn’t as concerned about that last part as he is about the upcoming disaster, though. Poor Miles. And Juliet’s island therapist won’t arrive for another 35 years to help him work through God only knows how many issues will stem from this.) Dr. Chang can’t force the rest of the Dharmas to stop the drilling at the Swan, but he evacuates most of the women and children from the island, including his wife and Lil’ Miles, as well as Lil’ Charlotte.
• Also, Radzinski beats up Sawyer and Juliet to get info from them about Kate’s whereabouts, because for some reason it’s All About Kate now. More importantly, Radzinski is crazier than ever and is also somehow now in charge of the Dharmas, even though Horace is standing right there and Dr. Chang is clearly the more knowledgeable one when it comes to electromagnetic disasters. (You know, I could watch an entire series just about the Dharmas, without a single member of the show’s main cast being involved, and I would still be thoroughly intrigued.) Anyway, Sawyer and Juliet agree to talk in exchange for being evacuated in the sub. Sawyer, taking his last look at the island, calls out “Good riddance!” Then Kate shows up in the sub, too. So the three of them are handcuffed and under water. Is there a worse way to travel than handcuffed in a submarine? I’m going to have nightmares just thinking about that.

The good:

• It was a mercifully flashback-free episode. As much as I enjoyed learning more about Daniel and Miles etc., I’ve always thought the flashback structure dramatically slows down the action on this show, when it’s not in itself an obvious substitute for any actual action. I can only think of, like, four really good flashbacks in the show’s entire history. (For the record: Raised by Another, Ji Yeon, The Man Behind the Curtain, and Numbers.)
• The scene between Hurley and Dr. Chang was one of the highlights of the episode, if not the season. Who would’ve imagined that that pairing would be comedy gold? Dr. Chang’s conclusion that these guys are indeed from the future stems from his quizzing of Hurley on such topics as his year of birth and the name of the current president. (And the latter was also funny, since Hurley predicted several episodes back that they would be asked this very question. Hurley can see the future too! Although, his failure to learn the president’s name after several days of living in the 70s could be seen as evidence that Hurley is, indeed, really very dumb. That, or the Dharmas are so closed-off from the real world that they never talk about such mundane topics as who the current American president is. I prefer the latter theory, because I don’t like it when they play Hurley as the dumb fat guy, and because the Dharmas really do seem that closed-off. It’s like Sawyer said, they think they’re the police.)
• When Kate tries to walk away from Eloise and the other Others, Eloise threatens her, yelling, “We’re not in the habit of telling our secrets to strangers and then just letting them saunter off!” (Eloise talks so funny, I love it) and Kate, exasperated, says, “I don’t care about your secrets, I just want to leave!” I liked Kate there more than I have in a long, long time, maybe ever. I like that she’s so indifferent to all the destiny crap. Despite the time-traveling, she just genuinely doesn’t care about any “magical” properties the island may have. I like that she’s so pragmatic, and I suspect a lot of it is due to her having a kid now. She knows what really matters in life, and she hasn’t given up on it. She’s the polar opposite of Locke, and now Jack, and there’s something very appealing about that.

The bad:

• It’s sort of a Richard episode, except not really. Parts of it are told from his point of view, and Ben informs us that Richard is “a kind of advisor,” which I’m interpreting to mean “consigliere,” but we don’t see anything about Richard’s past. I know his whole story will be revealed eventually, and it will be good when it happens, but I don’t like being teased like this.
• Daniel really is dead! For now anyway. Wah. Well, let’s just hold out hope that whatever climactic time-travel happens in the season finale resurrects at least some of our recent deaths. Actually, it would be kind of neat if all the dead characters from all five seasons showed up. Oh, and hey, since it’s a time-travel alternate-reality anyway, they could all play the characters the actors have played since leaving the show! Maggie Grace can show up pretending to be even younger than she did on Lost, and Dominic Monaghan can flutter his eyelids and play with lightbulbs, and Michelle Rodriguez can wrap a bandana around her face and cry in her jail cell.
• Some of the acting seemed a little off this week. The performance by the 30-something version of Eloise (Alice Evans) seemed consistently flat, and Elizabeth Mitchell was so obviously fake-crying during the fake-beating of Sawyer, and even the usually stellar François Chau (Dr. Chang) had a few bad notes. (You know who rocked, though, even though he only had like one line? Patrick Fischler as Phil. I really, really hope Phil gets an expanded role next season. In my fantasy series about the Dharma Initiative, he can be the protagonist.)
• When Kate shows up on the sub at the end of the episode, Sawyer and Juliet seriously look like they’re about to burst into tears. Guys, look, if your relationship can’t survive Kate’s very presence, then just accept that you aren’t right for each other and move on. I realize eHarmony hasn’t been invented yet but surely when you get back to the mainland you can go, like, flirt with people in discos or whatever.
• Sun is still hanging out with the 2007 Others. Locke is stringing her along promising her he’ll reunite her with Jin, while actually sparing no time for anything but his own random smarmy agenda. I don’t like it when people are mean to Sun.

The stuff that will matter next week:

• Uh… not that much, this time. I’m still confused about the principles of time travel on this show and how they’re changing, but I’m assuming it will all come together eventually.

Season 5, Episode 15: Follow the Leader (originally aired May 6, 2009)

For another take on this episode, check out Rub-a-dub-dub, Sawyer, Juliet, and Kate in a Sub by J.B. Perlow.

For more on Lost, click here.

Wednesdays, 9/8c on ABC

Photographs courtesy of ABC