Lost: Season 5, Episode 16: "The Incident: Parts 1 and 2"

Lost:
Season 5, Episode 16/17: “The Incident Parts 1 and 2”:
Grade: 8.9

Where do I even begin? I have no idea. I have no idea what is going on anymore. I had prepared myself for two things. One was for Juliet’s death. We still do not for sure whether or not she is dead because well, if they have reversed everything and since she was technically alive before she set off the H bomb will she still be alive when we see how things are reversed now that they have changed time in 1977 and thus the present? Or is Miles right and did the H Bomb going off simply create the Incident rather than destroy it? He cannot be right otherwise everyone is dead. So basically these people are on a time loop? Ugh I have no idea. All I know is that I think Juliet is dead and I guess Locke is dead even though OtherLocke is walking around now. And what about Sayid who we last say bleeding to death? Ok let us just get right into it. I am going to be all over the place here.

First of all what did I think? Well overall I thought the 2 hour finale was fantastic for many reasons but in the long run I was hoping for more answers. I knew that the finale would be a cliffhanger. I figured that the bomb would go off but that we would not see the effects of it. But I was hoping I would get a few more answers to things that will tide me over until February. Instead I have a few reveals that lead to infinite amounts of questions. I am hoping Lost can pull this story off in its last season and does not leave me utterly disappointed with its answers the way Battlestar Galactica did. I mean that show always did an amazing job with its characters and it delivered on those moments in the final eps but the answers I received felt rushed and confusing. Even though Battlestar is still one of the most criminally underwatched and underrated shows to ever come around, its flaws are something that I hope Lost can o in a different direction with. So anyways overall there were many things going on here to make for some incredible TV and a lot of that has to do with Jacob.

So we finally meet Jacob. And guess what? He’s not one of the characters we already know. It’s some guy that has been around for a long time. Some being. Oh God I cannot even begin to go into it. But nevertheless I thought Mark Pellegrino nailed it. Second cast member from Mullholland Drive! He was so awesome in this role. My favorite moments of the episode were the ones in which Jacob visits each of the characters at different points, key moments in their lives. And he touches every single one of them. He visits young Kate as she steals for the first time and tells her not to steal. He gives young Sawyer a new pen to write his note to “Mr. Sawyer” at his parents funeral, he touches Locke right after he is thrown out the window by his father. I would argue he brings him back to life actually. He visits Jin and Sun on their wedding day, he asks Sayid how to get somewhere on a map which causes Nadia to get hit by the car, he visits Jack on the day of the “angel hair pasta” incident in surgery that Jack speaks of in the very first episode of the show and finally he visits Hurley most recently after he gets out of jail and tells him to go back to the island and gives him Charlie’s guitar case which probably has something else in it besides Charlie’s guitar. Oh and he visits Ilana which I will get to when I talk about her later. He does not visit Juliet or Miles I would guess because they were not on the original 815 flight. He visits all of them. Why? To get them on the island? To set them on specific paths? And is he good or bad? He seems good. He was wearing white in the very first scene, a scene which I will talk about in a second and a scene which I believe will be easily the most dissected during the 8 months we have to mull over Season 5 of Lost.

The first scene took place I believe when the Black Rock first crashed onto the island. The Black Rock has to be ridiculously important to the end of the series. I think that the castaways were originally on the Black Rock. I think they are in a time loop and Jacob and the man in black somehow are watching and waiting for something to eventually happen with this group of people as they witness this cycle over and over again as these same people make it back time and time again over hundreds of years for some grand purpose while they slowly make progress towards the ultimate goal. Do not ask me how any of this makes sense. I have no idea But this is my grand theory of Lost and I am sticking to it. I believe the H Bomb going off propels the castaways to their final loop where, because OtherLocke fucked things up, everything will come to a head in the next cycle which I believe will constitute Season 6. I think the season will begin with the castaways still on the island but returning in 2007 on the island with everyone else somehow. I literally have no idea how any of this can make any sense but I really do believe that the show will eventually get to a grand plan that is something along these lines.
So that first scene. People are assuming the man in black was Esau, Jacob’s brother in the book of Genesis. Jacob is wearing white. “Esau” is wearing black. They discuss extremely ambiguous stuff that I will not get into because all of the other reviews certainly are. But the man says “Do you know how badly I want to kill you?” and Jacob says “Yes”. He talks about finding a loophole someday and being able to do this. This for me confirms that the man in black or “Esau” is actually OtherLocke. Why? Well, because he has Ben kill Jacob, that’s why, and it harkens back directly to that first scene. Somehow he is not allowed to kill Jacob and Ben and his situation provided the loophole he wanted. Jacob seemed to allow himself to die though. And furthermore, he egged Ben on to do it. We had that brilliant character moment with Ben when he asks “What about me?” to Jacob and Jacob says “What about you?” not in a mean way but with an honesty that felt sincere but for Ben that was enough to kill him. Jacob then says “they’re coming” most likely referring to Jack and company. This did not make OtherLocke happy as he pushed dead Jacob into the fire. So enough about Jacob; let us get into other stuff.

We learn from Ilana, Bram and crew that Locke is in fact still dead. They bring his body in a crate and show Richard the dead body as OtherLocke and Ben are in the statue. So this means Locke is dead. And this means that he won’t come back? Is that the end of his character? Because if so, I cannot even begin to describe how totally depressing and tragic that is. I seriously cannot handle the idea that it is not him. He thinks he has some grand purpose and he goes off the island, tries to get everyone back, fails, tries to kill himself but before he can Ben persuades him not to and then he kills Locke anyways? That is his end? Christ that sucks. And that new bad ass Locke that we were all loving? Not even Locke. This will seriously take me months to accept. Then we get the stuff with Ilana. Jacob visited her to ask for help. She clearly had known him before and she was wrapped up in bandages. Hmmm. She asks Richard “What lies in the shadow of the statue?” and he replies in Latin “He who will save us all”. She mentions candidates and such, whatever that means. Because of Ilana, Richard and company now know about the OtherLocke deception so hopefully that will come to a head as soon as things get organized next season.

I’ve pretty much gone through the 2007 stuff so let us get into 1977. So we got to see Rose and Bernard and VINCENT!!!!!!! I’m mostly excited about the Vincent part. Because Vincent rules. Basically they have been chilling for three years. Wow. What a twist. Notice the sarcasm there. Rose and Bernard are a little too okay with dying for my taste. It was cool to see them together with everyone again for a little while. Kate, Sawyer and Juliet go off the sub and find Rose and Bernard and eventually find Jack, Sayid, Hurley, Jin and Miles who all met up after a gunfight in which Sayid was shot. I will just point out here that Sayid’s part in the rest of the finale is to just bleed slowly to death. And furthermore as we shall see, everyone finds time to drudge up their love drama as Sayid bleeds to death and they do not even seem to mind. In fact when Sawyer asks for 5 minutes to talk to Jack , Jack does not even tell them that Sayid was shot. Everyone just leaves him in the van!

So now we have a section of the finale which focuses on everyone sorting out their issues and eventually deciding to go along with Jack’s plan. Here is where we get the Jack-Sawyer scene. It’s a great scene. It’s been a long time since Jack and Sawyer sat and had a talk. So this was a delight. Jack tells Sawyer that he wants to change everything because he wants to forget about Kate. Sawyer tells Jack to tell her how he feels but he says it is too late. Here is where we get the first of two characters who literally are willing to set off an H Bomb and will probably die as long as they can forget about a certain someone. Who are these people and why are they so insane? And I will never understand why Kate is worth all of this heartache. She sucks hardcore in this finale. Honestly, you can still see in her face just how undecided she still is about everything.
Then Jack and Sawyer get into a massive fight; easily the biggest they have ever had, with a possibility of being the most brutal beatdown in the shows history. They punch and kick for a while but eventually Sawyer gets the better of Jack and just beats the piss out of him. What an awesome scene this was. Truly one of the best scenes of the season. So emotionally charged and exciting at the same time. Then Juliet breaks up the fight. She thinks Jack is right. She has changed her mind. Why? Because she thinks that because of the way Sawyer looked at Kate that she realizes that even though Sawyer would never leave her, it’s more because he made a choice and he is sticking to it, not because it’s what his heart wants. I thought her flashback (the only non Jacob one in the bunch which tells me she is most likely dead) was a bit forced. We understood what was going on and I do not think we needed that scene from Juliet’s childhood to tell us about what she was going through. He denies this and she says if she never has to meet him than she never has to lose him. Jesus. And she would be the second person who literally is willing to blow up an H Bomb if it means that she never met another character in this case Sawyer. Some people are confused as to why she did this but it makes sense to me. I think Juliet just wanted to be in control this time around with what happened even though Sawyer would not have left her. It is just so totally depressing and she deserved so much more. If this was not enough, they had to give her one of the most depressing and painful death scenes I’ve seen on television. They all arrive at the station where Douchebag Radzinsky is still drilling. A gunfight ensues.

Jack gets to drop the bomb into the site. This particular moment before Jack drops the bomb in has got to be the best single moment of the finale. We see everyone’s faces as they look at each other knowing that these are either their last moments or that these are their last moments knowing each other. It is incredibly powerful and emotional. But it does not go off and instead the incident begins and everything metal begins to get pulled. Fuckhead Phil gets struck with a rebar in the chest. Yay! And Douchebag Radzinsky decides to get into a Jeep. Wow. You are an idiot. In the midst of everything, a chain wraps around Juliet’s midsection and drags her into the pit. Sawyer and Kate try to hold on. It is the most heartbreaking scene. Sawyer says “Don’t you dare let go!” Sawyer at this point is freaking out because he sees where this is going. In the meantime the chains are tightening around Juliet more and must be ludicrously painful for her. Elizabeth Mitchell is along with Claire Danes one of the top criers in the biz because her sobs during this scene were gut wrenching. This was not acting crying; this was real sobbing. This goes on for a while and she goes down and Sawyer emits the most emotion I have ever seen from him on the show. Along with “The Brig” which was more anger, this is his most emotive moment. He starts sobbing and I am sobbing and everyone is sobbing and it’s horrifying. It turns out that Juliet is still alive somehow and then has another gut wrenching scene in which she uses her last moments to beat the bomb into detonation as she sobs and screams in the last minute of the finale. She succeeds and the last thing we see is her face as it fades away because of the white light seemingly coming from the bomb as the Lost logo comes onto the screen in black against the new white background. This show will be the death of me. Incredible last 10 minutes. Incredible. Until February 2010 everyone!