Breaking Bad, Season 3, Episode 10 -- Fly

The Harsh Buzz of Conscience and Consequence

This episode was many things, but the one it wasn't was to advance the main plots of Season 3, such as Gus Frings building and reinforcing his Southwest methamphetamine empire, and Hank's recovery. Instead "Fly" was like a one act play, a character study, a Big Theme exploration and even filler to pad out the 13-episode commitment to AMC. It took place mostly in the meth lab, which gave it a claustrophobic, crazed feel.

Walt suffers from insomnia, annoyed at home by the blinking red light on his smoke detector. Coming to the lab, he becomes preoccupied with contamination, as he first hears and later spots the tiny "villain" shown in the opening scenes: a gray and black striped face fly (so called because it infests the faces of livestock). There must be no cooking until the impurity is eliminated. The fly must be slain.

That is the Big Theme, of contamination. The fly is a diversion, a ludicrous obsession that Walt uses to ignore the contamination both within himself and outside in his family, the city of Albuquerque and the region itself. Plagued by guilt and a severe lack of sleep, Walt seems to become psychotic.

At first it isn't clear, as Walt manically scrubs and sterilizes the equipment and tells Jesse they can't cook until the contamination is gone. He also checks and rechecks figures on a paper with a coiled, nervous energy and tells Jesse that their yield is .14 percent short, or about 1/2 to 3/4 pounds of meth. He interrogates Jesse to see if he's been siphoning off some of the product, which he denies, but indeed he has in his foolhardy plan to deal with his lunkhead peers, Badger and Skinny Pete. Walt reminds him that the men for whom they work would offer no forgiveness for this sin, only death.

Walt stays in the lab all night, and his pursuit of the elusive fly reaches absurd heights, such as when he throws his shoe up to the ceiling to hit the bug. It shatters a light, shards rain down on him, and the footwear becomes entangled its wreckage. Walt goes to the top of the stairwell to retrieve the shoe, which, of course, is just out of reach. He tries to snag it with a broom and falls over the railing, landing on the floor below in what could have been a critical fall. I was more than amazed when he was up later, no bones broken.

When Jesse returns the next morning, a loony Walt is standing in the lab, holding a long handled plastic wrapped fly swatter he made himself. Jesse has to believe his partner is ready for the rubber room, when Walt strikes him painfully with the fly swatter.

They have their usual 200-pound quota of blue meth to make, and Walt is raving about catching a fly that just happens to hide away until it their conflict is at dangerous levels, till it finally alights on Walt's glasses. Jesse, still smarting from Walt's blow, hits him back, and the fly takes off again.

Walt gets worse, tricking Jesse into giving him his keys to the lab and locking him out. Jesse runs through the laundry, trying to ask for an "el axo" (axe) in pseudo-Spanish. He goes into a maintenance room, where first he picks up and checks the heft of a ball peen hammer, then a sledgehammer, until he sees the master circuit breakers. But even turning off the juice doesn't faze Walt.

Jesse is antsy (sorry, couldn't resist a bug pun) to get cooking, so he comes back with a bag full of bug weaponry -- a real swatter, sprays and packs of fly tape. Walt rules against the sprays, because why bring in more contamination to remove a small impurity. Jesse points out that what they manufacture there is, itself, poison for humans, so what is the difference?

Soon the lab's ceiling is festooned with dozens of fly tape rolls. A desperate Jesse offers Walt a mug of coffee into which he sneaked a few sleeping pills. The product deadline is approaching, and Walt seems to be totally unhinged.

Walt looks back upon his cancer and his decision to start making the meth. He wonders aloud if maybe he has just lived too long. Cancer, a contamination of the human body, had affected both men.

Jesse remembers when his aunt -- the one whose house he now owns -- got cancer. There had been a kind of contamination there, too. A possum had moved in under the house, and its scavenging around the yard and scratching beneath the floor drove his aunt crazy. A pest control guy was brought in and told the aunt the animal had been removed, but she would not believe him. She claimed to still hear the possum and banged her broom on the floor to scare it away. She even named the phantom marsupial, dubbing it "Scrabble." It wasn't until the aunt was taken to the doctor that the family learned her cancer had spread to her brain, causing the hallucinations.

The pills take seemingly forever to take effect, so now the nutty lengths in which to catch the fly has Jesse setting up a stepladder on top of two file cabinets to reach the insect, which has retreated there for warmth. Jesse puts Walt into a chair after he falls. He climbs his precarious perch to get the bug, while a woozy Walt holds the ladder.

As Jesse swings, Walt descends further toward sleep. He talks about his decision to start producing meth, and not knowing when he will have enough money to leave his family. To quit kept being pushed back by need and life's events, such as Holly's birth or his own surgery.

The point, it seems, came the night Jane Margolis (Krystyn Ritter) died. That announcement turns Jesse cold, as he freezes in his swings at the fly, high above Walt.

Walt begins to remember the events in the Season 2 episode "Phoenix." On that night, Walt was still living in the family home, and Skyler sent him out to buy diapers for Holly. Before he left, he remembers that he heard Skyler singing a lullaby to their daughter over the baby monitor. He went to Jesse's apartment to give him his share of their payment.

Walt went to a bar and had a drink, meeting a man (John de Lancie, making any Star Trek fan forget Q with his tense performance). They had a drink together and talked about their families. They learned that they both had daughters.

Only later did Walt find out the man was Donald Margolis, Jane's father. And one thing Donald said, that stuck in his mind: family is the most important, and nothing else matters. This was what made Walt realize he needed to keep making money.

It was also on this night that the contamination from his activities began to spread. He returned to Jesse's apartment, where he found him and Jane in a drug induced stupor. Walt stood over their bed, watching Jane as she woke up and started to gasp and cough. Walt started toward Jane to help her, but then hesitated and watched her choke to death on her own vomit.

Whatever impulse drove him toward this was the sign of contamination within him. Jane had threatened to blackmail Walt and turn him in if he didn't give Jesse his share in their last payment. Her codependent relationship with Jesse was pushing them ever deeper into a swamp of hard drugs and personal destruction. That decision to let her die was the real turning point for Walt, who in an instant must have seen it as a way to eliminate a problem.

As the drugged Walt relates the story of meeting Donald, you almost think he will confess his part in Jane's death, but instead he expresses regret over other things -- his failed marriage, the blunder with the second cell phone, but not letting a young girl die.

Walt was haunted by Jane's death and his decision to let her die. He tried to ignore that contamination and how it spread to Donald, whose own reckless, impetuous behavior, fueled by a father's grief, had no place whatsoever in his profession -- air traffic controller. Donald's decision to let two planes collide over Albuquerque was the next wave of contamination that began with Walt's decision to make drugs. The contamination is reaching a crescendo this season as Gus Fring's multi-state network operating out of his Los Pollos Hermanos restaurants churns the potent blue meth out across the entire Southwest.

Jesse tries in his best way to support Walt, telling him that Jane's death wasn't his fault, and it was not his, either. What kind of irrational fury would have burst from him had Walt told him the entire story? The view of blame or fault for contamination, a horrifying act or event, would have shifted and brought yet another direction for that contamination to inflict more damage.

Jesse see the fly and finally scores a hit with the swatter. The insect drifts to the floor in slow motion and a shuddering sound. He exults in the kill and presents his quarry to Walt, but he has fallen asleep.

Jesse puts Walt to bed and does the cooking himself. Walt, back to his old self the next morning, grills Jesse and goes through a checklist to ensure his junior partner did things right. As they leave the laundry facility, Walt warns Jesse again that if he is stealing product, it must stop, because their bosses have zero tolerance, and he cannot protect him.

This episode was also a journey into Jesse's head. He too is trying to move on and stay sober. Early in the episode, he contemplates his life and past abuse as he pulls a cigarette butt out of his car's ashtray and stares at it. Perhaps it reminded him of a joint, or some other illegal substance he had used.

By the end of the episode, this often flighty man-child had to take the mature role in their relationship, normally held by Walt. He let Walt get a good night's sleep and filled their quota, presumably cooking up a just fine batch of blue meth. The fragility of their relationship is saved from shattering, and both leave.

Jesse, still clean and sober, has had an old wound reopened by Walt's recollections, and he must face the struggle with ice cold reality while preventing the monkey from returning to his back. And what will he do in regard to the stolen product and his own foolhardy idea to create his own little enterprise?

Walt goes home and finds himself lying in bed awake once again that night. The red light blinks on the smoke detector. He hears an annoying buzzing. Another fly! The detector light blinks and intermittently shows the silhouette of the insect upon it. The guilt, and the contamination, are still there.

[Photos: AMC]

Lost Season 6, Episode 17 -- The End (SERIES FINALE)

As Long As I Can See the Light

The Island was not purgatory for the castaways, Lindelof and Cuse kept assuring fans, since about Season 3, when that theory came up. The Island is a real place, and all events there are real in the context of the story.

But that did not mean that L & C couldn't put purgatory, or a place like it, somewhere else in the Losties' world. And it didn't have to look like a bleak or dark place, a void without any tangible rooms, structures, outdoors, what have you. Sideways Los Angeles, as a stepping stone to The Light, heaven, nirvana, etc., would do for them. It looks like a city, has cars and buildings and jets like a city, makes noise like a city. But it isn't really a city, not the physical Los Angeles, California, but a fantasy version of it, a Matrix-like world that the Losties somehow built for themselves. So says Christian Shephard, living up to his name, as he guides his son to his friends to The Light.

The castaways really did go through the six seasons of convoluted struggle on the Island. And due to Jack, Desmond, Hurley, and a redeemed Ben, it did not make a voyage to the bottom of the sea, as shown in the first scene of "LA X."

Presumably, it is still there, with Hurley as the new Jacob, and Ben as the new Richard. There also appears to be no new Smoke Monster. Rose and Bernard are still there, with Vincent, and maybe Cindy the flight attendant and those two kids.

But we still don't have answers to all the Lost Mysteries (though some might be addressed on the Season 6 DVD/Blu-ray sets to be released in August).

"The End" was a heavy-duty tearjerker, with its multiple reunions and awakenings of characters to their Island memories. I found it a frustrating but strong finale, with all actors expending maximum effort, even as the show drifted full tilt into the spiritualism that L & C pondered all season long.

You had a sacrifice in the style of Jesus -- Jack going down to the Cave of Wonders to plug up the Island "drain," knowing he was going to die. He was beaten and stabbed in the side of his belly, like Jesus was at the hands of soldiers, but in this case by the Man in Black.

Other rituals were baptism (Jack being washed "clean" by the water in the cave's mini-pool once he put the plug/cork back), communion (Jack passing the Island guardianship to Hurley through a drink of water) and confession and absolution (Ben tells Locke he's sorry for killing him, and the latter forgives him and releases him from guilt), and even a kind of rite of marriage, as the Constants all were joined, "two shall be as one," as their memories returned.

And why not throw all subtlety to the wind and set your final scenes in a religious structure and have things expounded by a guy named CHRISTIAN?

The conclusion of Lost will divide fans and be dissected for years to come, just as other gimmicky or frustrating endings have sparked debate. Six years of medical drama inside an autistic boy's head (St. Elsewhere), an eight-year dream of running a New England inn (Newhart), a Mafia don and his family, either enjoying dinner together or all being whacked (The Sopranos), a scientist/physician bouncing around in time never gets home (Quantum Leap). You're always going to have unrest and cries of "What were they thinking?" when show creators throw out artsy-fartsy or twist endings.

The closest thing I can compare Season 6 of Lost to is Jacob's Ladder (1990), starring Tim Robbins in the title role, and directed by Adrian Lyne (Flashdance, Fatal Attraction). Jacob Singer is serving in Vietnam at the Mekong Delta in the late 1960s, but he is also a veteran living in Brooklyn in 1975 and works for the U.S. Postal Service. Jacob starts to have more and more frightening hallucinations. The movie jumps between Vietnam and NYC, until the end, when it is revealed that the civilian Big Apple life was Jacob's hallucination as he died in Vietnam as a result of being bayoneted by fellow soldier (they had been given psychotropic drugs as an Army experiment).

Jacob's dead son (a very young and unknown Macaulay Culkin) comes to him to take up a staircase -- his "ladder" -- up into a bright light. This is much like the castaways, who are exposed to a blazing light as Christian Shephard (John Terry) opens the doors at the back of the church as the episode ends.

I did notice that survivors of the Island escape were at the church -- you saw Kate, Sawyer and Claire. Yet they also flew away on the Ajira jet. There is no "now" in Sideways L.A., as Christian put it. They are alive and dead simultaneously, because the events are not taking place at the same "time."

Put a candle in the window
But I feel I've got to move
Though I'm going, going
I'll be coming home soon
Long as I can see the light

Pack my bag and let's get movin'
'Cause I'm bound to drift a while
Well, I'm gone, gone
You don't have to worry, no
Long as I can see the light

--"Long As I can See the Light," Creedence Clearwater Revival, 1970

Recap Part 1: Artificial Purgatory Sideways L.A.
And Everything Emptying Into White

Christian's casket makes the journey from LAX and to a church, which is the same one where the DHARMA Lamp Post station was located. Images alternate between this artificial world and the Island -- Jack looks at a skull X-ray at St. Sebastian, Jack looks at his hands after washing his face in a jungle river. Ben is in his kitchen at home, Ben is getting ammunition handy while standing behind Smokey. Locke is being prepped for surgery. Sawyer looks at himself in the still cracked mirror in the police station locker room; Sawyer helps Kate tend to her shoulder wound, Kate is wearing the black cocktail dress and sitting in Hurley's Camaro.

Desmond signs for Christian's casket and tells the deliveryman to "take it around to the back."

Kate can't believe the deceased's name is "Christian Shephard." She wants to know why he brought her there.

"No on can tell you why you're here, Kate. Certainly not me."

"You're the one who brought me here."

"I'm not talking about the church. I'm talking about 'here.' "

"Who are you? What do you want?"

"My name is Desmond Hume, and even if you don't realize it, I'm your friend. And as for what I want, I want to leave."

"Leave and go where?"

"Let me show you."

At the Flightline Motel (where Locke met his dad, and Claire stayed in earlier episodes), Hurley is staking out Charlie's apartment. Sayid is with him. Hurley shows Sayid a tranquilizer gun and asks if it rings a bell. It doesn't. "Stick with me, and you'll be happy you did."

Hurley goes to Charlie's room, 102, and reminds him that he has a concert to perform. "What if I told you that playing this show is the most important thing you'll ever do?"

"Sod off," Charlie says. Hurley tranqs the recalcitrant rock star and loads him up in the back of the Hummer.

As Hurley comes to the concert site at the Golden State Museum of Natural History, Miles, who is there as son of the museum director, sees Sayid sitting in the Hummer. He calls James and tells him he just saw the guy who killed four men in cold blood and tells him to go make sure that Sun Paik is safe.

At St. Sebastian, Sun is still in a room recovering. She tells Jin in Korean that she anticipates them always having to be on the run from her father. Her physician enters the room and is Dr. Juliet -- Carlson (maiden name). She understands they don't know English, so she won't say much (at a real L.A. hospital they'd probably have a translator). As Juliet performs an ultrasound, and Sun sees the baby, she FLASHES, and Island memories start pouring back, including their deaths. She gasps. "I remember!" she says.

"Remember what?" Jin says. He looks at the the ultrasound image, and he FLASHES too, with images of the freighter blowing up, their reunion at the beach.

Juliet tells them the baby is perfectly fine, and she has gotten back the amniocentesis report. Do they want to know if it's a boy or a girl?

"It's a girl," Sun suddenly says in English.

"Her name is Ji-Yeon," Jin also says in English.

Jack stops by Locke just before he goes under anesthesia, and he says to call him "John." Jack assures him the surgery will work. He mentions his dad's casket was found, and "I'll see you on the other side ... If I can fix you, that's all the peace I need."

Jack is at the counter of a nurses' station, when Juliet shows up with David. She is his mom! Jack has to go into surgery with John, so he suggests that Juliet can go with Claire, the sister that Juliet never heard of.

As Juliet and David get on the elevator, James is getting off, and he nods at Juliet as he seems to recognize her. He goes to the nurses' station and asks for Sun's records.

At nightfall, Hurley and Sayid are outside a dive bar by a dingy alley. Sayid wants to know why they are there, but Hurley says he's not allowed to tell him.

"There are rules, dude."

"Whose rules?"

"Don't worry about it. Just trust me, okay? I trust you."

When Sayid wants to know why he trusts him, Hurley says he thinks he is a good guy. "You know, a lot of people have told you that you're not. Maybe you've heard it so many times you've started believing it. You can't let other people tell you what you are, dude! You have to decide that for yourself."

Still, Sayid will no believe him, and says he does not know anything about him, but Sayid counters, "I know a lot about you, dude."

A fight breaks out between two men, and one of them is Boone Carlyle. Shannon Rutherford runs out of the bar and yells at the man to leave her brother alone, and he starts to attack her. The man attacks her and Sayid runs over to the fight and punches the aggressor out. As he helps Shannon up, she says his name, and he says hers, and they FLASH to their Island days.

Boone complains about being "pounded," Hurley took forever to get there, and it was a "pain in the ass" to get Shannon back from Australia. "Yeah, but dude, it was worth it." (Boone already had full Island memories, just like Hurley.)

At the museum, Claire, David and Juliet arrive, but Juliet gets a phone call that she must go back to the hospital. Charlotte wakes an unconscious Charlie up in the dressing room, and he sort of recognizes her. Daniel (Faraday) Widmore shows up, and they introduce themselves to each other. There is a slight glimmer of recognition.

Kate, Claire, Desmond and David are all at the same table, number 23 (a Lost Number). Kate recognizes Claire immediately as Dr. Pierre Chang announces the show by Daniel and DriveShaft. It's a mix of classical piano and Charlie and Liam Pace on guitar. As Charlie plays, he looks out into the audience and sees Claire, and a glimmer of recognition begins. Claire gets a contraction and leaves the table to go to the restroom. Kate gets up and follows her.

Eloise comes to table 23 and sits next to Desmond. She knows what is going on, and thought he was going to stop what was going on. He plans to stop once everyone know what happened in the Island world. Eloise asks for assurance he won't take Daniel, and he says he doesn't plan to take him along.

Claire is in serious labor, and Kate is attending her, much like she did on the Island in Season 1. Kate orders Charlie, who has come backstage, to go get water and blankets. As Kate urges Claire to push -- she just seems to know how to do this -- she FLASHES and sees the birth of Aaron on the Island. Claire feels the edge of a FLASH but does not fully until Charlie returns. As these constants look at each other, the FLASH returns both of their sets of memories. He kisses her upon recognition.

Desmond arrives and asks Kate if she understands what is going on. "It's one hour." (Probably before the Island would sink, and one hour before going to the church.)

At St. Sebastian, a nurse compliments Jack on his work on Locke, who is waking up right away, despite being under full anesthesia. Jack tells him not to move yet, but Locke tells him he knows the surgery works and says he feels his legs. He moves his feet, and Locke FLASHES into his Island memories. He asks Jack if he remembers yet, and Jack does not. He tells him he needs to go with him. Jack says he needs to go to his son, to which Locke says, "You don't have a son, Jack. ... I hope someone does for you what you just did for me."

James goes into Sun's room but finds her getting ready to leave. He says he is there to protect her, and Sun says in perfect English that he doesn't have to do that. "I'll see you there," she adds.

"See me where?" a puzzled James says as Sun and Jin depart.

James passes Jack in the hall and asks about the cafeteria, but that is closed, so Jack directs him to a vending machine. He thanks Jack and calls him "doc," perhaps a bit of the Island World creeping in.

James picks an Apollo bar -- reflecting the scene when Jacob visited Jack at the hospital -- and the candy gets stuck. Juliet shows up and asks him what he's doing. James says he's a cop and he's trying to get his candy.

"Maybe you should read the machine its rights," she says.

She tells him that if he unplugs the machine and plugs it back in, the candy bar will just drop out. He does that, and Juliet takes the candy and gives it to him. They briefly FLASH as their hands make contact. James asks her to coffee some time. And she agrees to do it and "go Dutch."

Juliet and James go into full FLASH mode and see everything, up to the Incident. "I had you, I had you, baby," James says, as he recalls holding her at the top of the pit where Jughead sat. They kiss passionately.

Jack arrives at the museum, but Kate tells him that the concert is over. She reminds him that she stole his pen after they left Oceanic 815. She puts her hands on his face, and he starts to FLASH but winces and pulls away. He asks Kate what is happening and who she is, and she says that he will understand if he comes with her.

A cab pulls up beside the church where Christian's casket is, and the driver helps Locke get into his wheelchair. He wheels over to Ben, who sits pensively outside. He tells Locke that most of them are there.

"I'm very sorry for what I did to you, John" Ben says, about strangling him. "I was selfish, jealous. I wanted everything you had."

"What did I have?"

"You were special, Jack, and I wasn't."

"Well, if it helps, Ben, I forgive you."

"Thank you, John. That does help. It matters more than I can say."

Ben says he will stay outside, because he still "has some things I have to work out." As Locke starts to wheel away, Ben reminds him that he doesn't need the chair anymore. Locke gets up and starts walking to the church. They say goodbye.

Hurley comes out and tells Ben that everyone is inside, but Ben still will not come in. "You were a really good number two," Hurley says.

"You were a great number one."

"Thanks, dude. I'll see you."

Kate and Jack come to the church. He recognizes it as the place where they were to have Christian's funeral. She tells him to go around the back to get inside. The rest, she adds, are waiting for him.

Jack goes into the back room, which appears to be office and storage and has multiple religious objects there -- a cross, rosary, menorah, figure of the Hindu god Ganesh, etc. A stained glass window contains symbols of the world's major religions: cross (Christianity), crescent moon and star (Islam), Star of David (Judaism), Om character (Hinduism), yin yang (Taoism) and a wheel (Buddhism). [Other recappers wondered if this referred to the donkey wheel, but here I believe the wheel means Buddhism.]

Jack sees his dad's casket and places his hand on it. He FLASHES and finally, finally, gets his Island memories! The last ones show him with Kate, which means the "Skaters" win and rejoice! He opens the casket, only to find it empty. A voice says, "Hey, kiddo."

It's his dad, and upon realizing Christian is dead, Jack knows he has died, too. He starts to cry, and Christian offers comfort. Jack asks if anything is real.

"You're real, everything that's ever happened to you is real. All those people in the church, they're all real, too."

"They're all dead?"

"Everyone dies sometime, kiddo. Some of them before you, some long after you."

"Then why are they all here now?"

"Well ... there is no 'now' here."

Jack is overwhelmed, still trying to sort things out. "Where are we, Dad?"

"This is the place that you all made together, so that you could find one another. The most important part of your life was the time that you spend with these people. That's why all of you are here. Nobody does it alone, Jack. You needed all of them, and they needed you."

"For what?"

"To remember -- and, to let go."

"Kate -- she said we were leaving."

"Not leaving, no -- moving on."

"Where are we going?"

"Let's go find out."

As they go into the sanctuary, Jack sees all kinds of embracing and reunions taking place. Jack shares embraces with all his friends and takes a seat at the front of the church. The constants are all with each other -- Penny and Desmond, Charlie and Claire with baby Aaron, Sun and Jin, Rose and Bernard, Juliet and Sawyer (Team Suliet members, say "hurrah!"). Locke is alone but quietly content.

[Missing: Eko, Michael, Walt, Cindy the flight attendant and the two kids she was watching, Richard, Ana Lucia, Vincent.]

Christian walks to the back of the church and opens the doors. A blindingly bright light enters and bathes all of the people in it..

Recap, Part 2: The Real Island
And When I Die

Sawyer and Kate see Jack looking over a pond and into the jungle. Jack says he doesn't feel any different. Sawyer says, "How about you come down off the mountaintop and tell us what the burning bush had to say for itself."

Jack explains that they have to go the place just beyond the bamboo field to the Cave of Wonders and protect it, so the Smoke Man can't put it out and destroy Everything. They also must find Desmond and keep Smokey from getting him. The lack of specific strategy or suggestions causes Hurley to muse that Jacob is "worse than Yoda."

They decide to split up. "Y'all head to heart of the Island," Sawyer tells Jack, Kate and Hurley, "and I'll go get the magic leprechaun out of that well."

Kate and Sawyer flirt a bit, and Hurley goes the Star Wars route again: "I've got a bad feeling about this."

While walking through the jungle for about the millionth time, Jack tells Kate he took the Guardian job because he had to do it, and it was the only thing he had not ruined. Kate disagrees and says, "Nothing is irreversible."

"This would be so sweet if we weren't about to die," Hurley says.

Sawyer approaches the well and finds it empty, only to be caught at gunpoint by Ben. Smokey appears and asks why Sawyer is there, and he says he heard Desmond was there. "I guess someone beat us both to the punch. Oh, well."

Smokey says that he plans to use Desmond to sink the Island and watch its demise from his boat. He invites Sawyer to come with him, but he turns him down. Sawyer strikes Ben, grabs his rifle and runs away. Smokey notices an animal track near the well and quickly deduces it belongs to a dog.

And his name is Vincent. The dog wakes Desmond up, and he's at Rose and Bernard Nadler's Cozy Jungle Haven. Rose sends Bernard out to get some food for breakfast.

Rose says they built the house in 1975, lived there a couple years, and the sky lit up agian. "Only God knows when it is now." She says she broke their rule of not getting involved by rescuing Desmond.

As Bernard comes back from checking their fish traps, he apologizes as Smokey strides into the front yard. He threatens to hurt Rose and Bernard, to make it hurt, if Desmond does not come along. Rose tells Desmond to defy the monster, but he promises to go with Smokey if he will never touch the couple again, so he agrees.

As they walk through the jungle, there is the sound of static. Ben assures Smokey that it's nothing. Desmond says he knows they are going to a place with very bright light.

The static was Miles, who is trying to contact Ben on the walkie talkie he took. [Ben is doing the Severus Snape thing -- pretending to help the bad guy while still secretly supporting the heroes.] He finds Richard, who is dazed and can't remember the assault by Smokey in the New Otherton ruins. He still wants to take the C4 to Hydra Island and blow up the jet so Smokey can't escape.

Sawyer goes back to Jack and tells him that he found Locke, and the creature is going to try to destroy the Island. Jack says they are all going to the same place, and "then it ends."

At the dock near New Otherton, Richard and Miles get an outrigger ready to go to Hydra. Miles leans over and says, "Welcome to the club." He plucks a hair out of Richard's head. "Looks like you got your first gray hair." Richard smiles and tells Miles that he just realized he wants to live.

As they paddle toward Hydra, you get the feeling that someone might shoot at them, as shown during the time jumping last season. But no, the only dramatic thing is the discovery of a dead body and submarine wreckage. The corpse is the sub commander.

A voice yells for help, and it's Frank Lapidus, clinging to some flotsam! They get him aboard and tell him they're going blow up the plane.

"Well, if we leave, then that thing won't have a plane anymore," Chesty tells them.

"And how do we going to that?" Richard says.

"In case you haven't noticed, I'm a pilot."

The Final Showdown of Opponents, as Jack, Kate, Sawyer and Hurley meet Smokey and Ben in a great, rolling meadow. At first sight, Kate shoots at Ben and Desmond, who duck, and Smokey, who keeps walking toward them and says to her, "You might want to save your bullets."

Jack tells Smokey that he volunteered to replace Jacob, and he can't stop him from going to the Heart of the Island, so he wants to go with him.

"You think that you're going to destroy the Island. ... That's not what's going to happen."

"Then what's going to happen, Jack?"

"I'm going to kill you."

"How you plan to do that?"

"That's a surprise."

"Okay, let's get on with it."

As they head to the Cave of Wonders, Sawyer asks if Desmond was bait to draw them, and Jack says no, he is a weapon. "That's a hell of a long con, doc," Sawyer says.

Thunder rumbles overhead as they approach the bamboo field and the Cave of Wonders. "Going to be a bad one," he says of the storm, and perhaps of the Island's demise?

A rope is tied to Desmond, and another end to a stout tree. They all go into the Cave of Wonders, with no ill effect. Des is more than willing to go, telling them that he'll go on to a place where there is someone he loves, and he'll never have to deal with the Island again. He tells Jack that he could try and find a way to bring him over to that place, too.

Jack disagrees. "There are no short cuts, no do overs. What happened, happened. Trust me, I know. All of this matters."

As they lower Desmond into the pit, the Smoke Man asks Jack if it reminds him of another subterranean place: the Swan, where there was a fight over whether or not to push the button. It's just like old times, he says.

"You're not John Locke," Jack says. "You disrespect his memory by wearing his face. He was right about everything. I just wish I could have told him that when he was alive."

"He wasn't right about anything, and when this island drops into the ocean, and you drop with it, you're finally going to realize that."

"Well, we'll just have to which one of us is right, then."

Inside the Cave of Wonders is a seemingly bottomless pit with a waterfall on one side. Desmond reaches the bottom of this chasm. He sees skeletons of those who came before him. He finds a kind of room that mixes natural rock formations in fantastic shapes with carvings of an ancient civilization. There are four different conduits in a row, as if to carry water somewhere else (the Temple and its pool?), and a pool full of golden, glowing light in the center.

Ben tries to contact Miles on the walkie talkie and urges them not to blow up the jet. Miles says he already knows that, and that Frank is going to get the plane going. Their talk is suddenly interrupted by Bad Hair Claire, who emerges from the jungle and shoots at Miles, Richard and Frank. Richard calms her and tries to get her to come with them, but she resolutely refuses.

In the cave, Desmond steps into the pool, and the water churns as a rumbling and shaking commences. It gets worse as he goes toward a carved stone plug -- or cork? -- and pulls it out of a hole in the pool's center. The water all drains out, and a great light shoots out of the how and glows like the inside of a volcano. Or like that electromagnetic blast in Widmore's shack.

"No! No!" he screams, as the energy and the whole world seem to come apart.

Higher up, Smokey says, "Looks like you were wrong. Goodbye, Jack." As the ground rumbles like an earthquake, and boulders tumble. Smokey dashes out of the cave. Jack comes out and attacks him, punching him in the mouth. And ... the rules have changed. The Smoke Man is mortal now, and he's bleeding from his mouth!

"Looks like you were wrong, too," Jack says as he tries to choke him. Smokey grabs a rock, knocks Jack out and leaves.

The tremor rocks the earth, and Kate dodges a tree, but another one falls on top of Ben. Hurley, Sawyer and Kate pull it off him. At the cave, Jack wakes up and calls down to Desmond, who doesn't answer.

Sawyer complains that "Flocke" was right, and the Island is going down. Miles calls them and tells them to come to Hydra, because Lapidus is readying the plane. Frank tells Miles that he needs five or six hours to inspect electronic and hydraulic systems, and Miles delivers the bleak news -- he has maybe one hour.

Sawyer is frustrated and asks how they could get there. Ben says Locke has a boat -- Desmond's old vessel, the Elizabeth.

As they start toward the boat, Smokey is there at the cliffs near Jacob's cave, looking out at the boat. Jack approaches him, Smokey takes out his knife, and they both charge at each other great bounds, like superhero and supervillian about to collide.

Jack scores a punch on Smokey and starts to choke him again, but the monster turns the tables and makes Jack his punching bag. A part of the cliff collapses into the sea just in front of them. Smokey stabs Jack in the gut and is about to cut his throat.

"I want you to know, Jack, you died for nothing." The knife makes a shallow cut on Jack's neck ... right at where Sideways Jack keeps having a bleeding wound.

A shot rings out, and Smokey drops to the ground. Kate lowers her rifle and says, "I saved you a bullet!"

"You're too late," Smokey says.

Jack kicks the monster off the cliff, and he falls down and lands on another one close to the sea. Dr. Frankenstein, it's not alive!

Kate looks at Jack's abdominal wound and declares it pretty serious. "Find me some thread, and I can count to five," he says, saying the line in the pilot episode where he told her how he got over being afraid of giving stitches. As Sawyer arrives, Kate tells him Smokey is dead, and everything is over.

A tremor knocks them all down. "Sure don't feel like it's over!" Sawyer says.

On Hydra Island, Frank finds a problem with one of the landing gear, and he sends Miles -- whose mechanical experience was two summers with a contractor -- with some tools and duct tape to fix it.

Sawyer and Kate decide to take the Elizabeth to Hydra, and Hurley, who can't and won't climb high cliffs or the ladders clinging to them, will stay with Jack. Ben says he'll go down with the Island, if it does go down.

Jack orders Kate to convince Claire to get on the plane, and thus fulfill her reason for coming to the Island. "Tell me I'll see you again," she says, and Jack says nothing, but they kiss (Jaters, rejoice). She and Sawyer realize the only way get to the Elizabeth is to jump into the ocean, so down they go.

Miles labors over the landing gear at Hydra. "I don't believe in a lot of things," he says as he tapes up the wheel, "but I do believe in duct tape."

Frank gets the plane to start and says that they have power only enough for that. As the engines hum, he says, "That, my friends, is pure music."

Returning to the Cave of Wonders, Jack tells Hurley and Ben he will go alone. He will be a sacrifice. He tells Hurley the Island needs him, and urges him to take over the Guardian's job. Hurley agrees only if Jack will go down into the light, come back, and then return the position to Jack. They do the water ritual, with Hurley drinking out of an old, leftover Oceanic bottle.

"Now you're like me," he tells Hugo.

In the Luminous Pool Chamber, Jack finds an unconscious Desmond. The Scot wakes up and is upset that he didn't cross into Sideways World. Jack ties the rope around him and tells him to go home to his wife and son.

"What about you, Jack?"

"See you in another life, brother," Jack says, and smiles.

Kate goes to Claire, who is on the beach. She is still hung up and how the Island made her crazy, and she does not want Aaron to see her like this. (She confessed about the same thing to Smokey). Kate says that Claire will not be alone, and the first time being a mother isn't always easy. She will help her. Claire finally agrees to go.

Sawyer tries to contact Frank, but the walkie talkie is out of earshot. They decide to make a run for the jet. Frank has backed up the jet as if it were a Buick in a parking lot and is now taxiing down the Hydra runway, when he is stunned to see Claire, Sawyer and Kate running toward the plane. In a dramatic Run Along the Vehicle and Hop On at the Last Minute Rush, everyone is pulled aboard.

"Way to wait till the last second!" Miles says.

"Nice to see you too, Enos!" Sawyer retorts.

In the cave, the walls are cracking, rocks are falling, and fire and hellish, lava-like glow are coming from the Island drain. Jack, with all that is in him, heaves the stone drain plug over to the fiery hole and jams it home. The rumbling ends, and water starts to flow back into the pool. With relief, Jack falls down and cries bittersweet tears as the water rises around him. (The light dappled pool is like its larger counterpart in the Temple.)

"He did it. The light's back on," Ben says. Hurley and Ben pull the rope up, only to find the person on the other end is Desmond. Hurley calls out to Jack, but no one responds.

Ben carries Desmond to a clearing, lays him down, and says he will be okay. As Ben confirms that Jack is dead, Hurley has his second great sob (the first being after Jin and Sun's departure from that veil of tears). Hurley is confused and doesn't know what to do as guardian. Ben suggests that maybe Hurley could find a way to send Desmond off the Island. Hurley says he thought people couldn't leave the Island, but Ben says that was what Jacob did.

In other words, Hurley can make up his own new rules: it's his game!

Hurley says he needs someone with experience and asks Ben to be his number two. Ben says he would be honored. Hugo Reyes, the new Jacob. Benjamin Linus, the new Richard.

Jack -- still alive! -- wakes up outside the cave. His face and clothing bloody, the exhausted former Guardian walks until he stumbles into the bamboo field, where his Path of Learning began. He falls to the ground, satisfied at the outcome of things, and he is ready to die. Mirroring the very first scene, Vincent emerges from the jungle. He runs toward Jack and lies down next to him.

As Jack gazes skyward, the Ajira jet roars overhead, taking Miles, Sawyer, Kate, Claire, Frank and Richard to a place called home. He smiles, knowing they've left, and he can see into the reunion in the Sideways world. The last shot is Jack's eye in closeup as it slowly closes.

A fade to black with LOST title card, with no booming sound, and silent end credits showing the abandoned remains of Oceanic 815 on the shore. J.J. Abrams' little scarlet Bad Robot shows up, but no kid voice says "Bad Robot." A requiem, quietly, for all who have given their lives. While Lost.

And when I die
Ad when I'm dead, dead and gone
There'll be one child born
And a world to carry on, to carry on
I'm not scared of dying
And I don't really care

If it's peace you find in dying
Well, then let the time be near
If it's peace you find in dying
When dying time is here

Just bundle up my coffin
'Cause it's cold way down there
I hear that's it's cold way down there,
Yeah, crazy cold way down there

And when I die
And when I'm gone
There'll be one child born
And a world to carry on, to carry on

My troubles are many
They're as deep as a well
I can swear there ain't no heaven
But I pray there ain't no hell
Swear there ain't no heaven
And pray there ain't no hell

But I'll never know by living
Oonly my dying will tell
Only my dying will tell
Yeah, only my dying will tell

--"And When I Die," Laura Nyro, 1967

[Photos: ABC; lost-media.com]

Fringe Season 2, Episode 23 -- Over There, Part II (SEASON FINALE)

She Will Come Like a Thief in the Night

When Olivia and Peter kissed at the end of this episode, I groaned. I thought of the disaster that resulted in Scully and Mulder sleeping together in The X-Files, and because I'm old enough to remember, Maddie and David on the old private eye dramedy Moonlighting. Both shows went into serious freefall after that, what is also known as jumping the shark.

But it was just a kiss, I have to remind myself, and maybe we won't go over that large carnivorous fish next year. Additionally Abrams, Orci and Kurtzman have, I believe, topped the World Trade Center reveal of last year. Writer-director Akiva Goldsman gave us a great finale that keep attention to the very end.

The Olivia who came home is actually Olive Long Locks, as I dubbed Alternate Olivia last week. Ever faithful to her boss, "Walternate" Bishop, Secretary of Defense, she tricked William Bell, Peter and our Walter into sending her to our side. Bell sacrificed himself for the greater good so they could come back here, and it supposedly is Leonard Nimoy's last TV role ever. I hope that's just hearsay.

Our Olivia is in a claustrophobic holding chamber in the alt-verse, where Walternate can keep an eye on her. Next fall, I am hoping that in just a couple episodes, Olivia escapes, Long Locks is defeated, and we're back to our crew investigating pieces of "The Pattern." Don't draw this out, just get our favorites back together! Don't leave them in polar bear cages or feudal Japan for hours on end!

At the beginning of the show, Peter gets a bird's eye view of Manhatan (that's how it's spelled Over There), with a fancy helicopter with image recognition of the skyline and vocal commentary. He is going to see Walternate at the Department of Defense. Through the "revived eminent domain" provision of the "Earth Protection Act of 1989," Liberty Island has indeed become DOD headquarters. I guess the al Qaeda of this universe really leveled the Pentagon in 2001.

Among the sights of Manhatan are the Grand Hotel, a real project imagined for New York and designed by Spanish architect Antonio Gaudi in 1908 but never built here. Madison Square Garden, Fringe Event 89722, site of a "permanent wormhole" event in 1999, is encased in a peculiar quarantine amber that preserves 10,000 people who were recently declared legally dead. The "Long Island Triangle," Fringe Event 2461, is a semi-permanent thin spot, off limits to the public.

As Peter is being brought to see Walternate, he gets a report of a "high priority" person checked into New York General Hospital, that somehow is him. (Alt-verse touches: a photo of an elderly, never assassinated John F. Kennedy on Walternate's desk, and the nurses at the hospital wear old fashioned white dresses and caps as opposed to the multi-colored scrubs you see over here.)

Long Locks is summoned by Broyles to go with Alt Charlie to get Walter from the hospital. It's Sunday, and she gets the call over a fancy LCD phone/alarm clock that plays "Science Fiction Double Feature," the opening song from The Rocky Horror Picture Show, sung by its composer, Richard O'Brien. (Frank N. Furter stalks that universe too, kiddies.)

A race is on between William Bell and Olivia and Long Locks and Alt Charlie to get Walter. They arrive at New York General, and Bell flashes his high level "Show Me" ID card at the nurse to get inside. As Olivia finds Walter in the emergency room, Long Locks and Alt Charlie arrive. Bell has to stall them and goes into a discourse about their Model 76 Pulse handguns, which he happened to have designed, noting their major flaw is the lack of a phase repeater.

Walter is impressed with the accelerated healing techniques and drugs at the alt hospital, but Olivia just wants to get him out. They leave and meet up with Bell in the parking lot just before Alt Charlie locks down the hospital, and Long Locks examines the security footage. There she is floored to see her double spiriting Walter away.

"Looks like you just saw a ghost," Alt Charlie says.

At Walternate's office, Peter learns that most of of Boston is quarantined. Walternate tells Peter that when Walter kidnapped him in 1985, it started to cause soft spots in our world and much worse catastrophes in the alt-verse. He says that Peter is the key to "heal the problems of the world."

"I don't know what you've heard, but changing the laws of physics might be a little beyond my abilities," Peter says.

Walternate urges Peter to continue studying the blueprints for the machine that could fix the alt-verse (and is really a doomsday device to destroy us). The machine lacks an energy source, and he wants Peter to figure out exactly what it is, as the alt-verse engineers could not.

Long Locks arrives to escort Peter to an apartment. He is stunned by this second Olivia, and he tells her he thinks he likes her hair better. Long Locks tells Walternate that Walter and the rest escaped the hospital.

He tells her that Peter is the son who had been abducted over 20 years earlier. He warns her, "I told you there would be invaders ... but I didn't tell you they would be us. They're our doubles, alternate versions of ourselves. But don't be deceived ... They're monsters in our skin. They'll do anything, say anything to gain our trust, but can't be trusted."

In an alt-verse product placement, Bell, Walter and Olivia have lunch at a KFC. (Walter is wearing a blue baseball cap with a white B on it, which suggests that maybe the Brooklyn Dodgers never left the city and went to Los Angeles, as happened here. Or it could be weird Boston Red Sox colors?) Wlater murmurs about how back in 1983, he was able to identify last 11 secret herbs and spices in the Colonel's recipe.

Olivia suggests splitting up. She will look for Peter, while Bell and Walter find a way to cross back over, to get something to enhance Olivia's power to cross between the worlds, since the Cortexiphan Kids are all dead, and an energy source is needed.

"We need a doorstop, something to hold the door open, where Olivia has already provided a crack," Bell says.

Walter says he needs a particle accelerator, and Bell says he knows where one is located. Walter figures it was through an alt-verse Massive Dynamic, so Bell could "get rich and famous while I was rotting away in a padded cell."

They set aside their conflict and agree to meet back at the opera house where they originally crossed over 12 hours from that time.

Long Locks takes Peter to his fancy digs, which have UV-proof glass, top-line fire prevention technology, air filtration and viral purging. She says Walternate will get him for dinner at 8 p.m. and asks about what the other world is like.

"Slightly different," Peter says, as he looks at framed covers of alt-verse comic book covers on the wall. "It's subtle, but slightly different."

Such as the alternate superheroes Red Lantern and Red Arrow, and the fact that the Transamerica Pyramid is in New York and not San Francisco, as Peter sees out his picture window.

Long Locks says Peter is going to be very famous, because his kidnapping is very well known by the public, and the tabloids will go crazy over him. Peter asks if that's like the Lindbergh baby, and Long Locks doesn't know what he's talking about. (Pilot Charles Lindbergh's son, Charles Jr., was abducted from the family home in New Jersey in March 1932, and his remains were found nearby about 2-1/2 months later.)

Long Locks asks what our Olivia is like.

"She's a lot like you, darker in the eyes, maybe. She's always trying to make up for something, right some imaginary wrong. Haunted, I guess. Maybe she's nothing like you at all."

Walter and Bell head for the heavily quarantined Greater Boston area. They go to Walternate's old lab at Harvard, which is right next to one of those odd walls of amber, full of people in a kind of suspended animation.

Bell says that Walternate had been working on trying to cross over, and the equipment they need should be in the lab. He notes that Alt William Bell never worked with Walternate because he died in a car accident as a young man, and they never met.

Bell claims founding Massive Dynamic was not his idea. Walter says instead of using alt-verse technology to help our world, Bell stole it to make a massive fortune. He accuses him of crating the shape shifters that keep invading our world.

Bell says he came back to the alt-verse to stop a war with our universe and end the chaos created by Walter kidnapping Peter. He did work on the shape shifters, but only to keep an eye on Walternate and remain valuable to him.

Walter is angriest at Bell for his memory removals. "You robbed me of my memories of my wife, my son, my past!"

They find the machine needed for the doorstop, which looks like an art deco style power generator crossed with a canister vacuum cleaner and a propane tank.

Olivia sneaks into Long Locks' apartment, finding that she hides a key in the same place as she -- above the doorframe. She confronts Long Locks and asks for her help to get to Peter. Olivia finds out her mother's double is still alive in the alt-verse, and her sister Rachel's double died in childbirth. They both have their beloved niece, Ella. But their backup guns aren't the same -- Olivia's is in her purse, and Long Locks' piece is in her coat. More gun pointing ensues.

Long Locks calls to the Fringe Squad for assistance. They have a big fight, Olivia is nearly choked to death by Long Locks, but she manages to knock her doppelganger out. She ties up Long Locks, dyes her hair to look like her and steals her clothes. When Alt Charlie arrives, she goes with him to Peter's apartment, lying that Walternate wants them to move him because he is not safe.

Peter is recording himself -- on an old-timey reel-to-reel tape recorder -- as he looks at the power supply for Walternate's energy machine. He discovers the machine is symbiotic, a combination of mechanical and organic, and that the required power supply was tailored exactly to one person's genome -- his own.

As Charlie drives Olivia to Peter's place, he says he has been a Fringe agent for 10 years and now feels obsolete as the job has changed to fighting people from alternate universes. When they arrive, Olivia knocks Alt Charlie out. He tells her that he realized that Walternate wants to use him to destory our world. He feels he doesn't belong in either the alt-verse or our world.

Olivia appeals to Peter to come home with her. She say thought of "100 reasons" he should return, to take care of Walter, fight the shape shifters, to save the world. "But in the end, you have to come back ... because you belong with me."

Bell and Walter get the accelerator back to the opera house, just as Long Locks reports to Walternate, who tells Alt Broyles and the Fringe Squad that Peter and Olivia are on the run, because her Show Me card was swiped in a city sector. A team is dispatched to the opera house.

Peter and Olivia arrive shortly after Bell and Walter. "Hello, Peter, I haven't seen you in many years," Bell says. "You're looking better than I would have thought."

"What's a little universe hopping between friends?" Peter says.

Bell sends Walter and Peter into the building with the accelerator to set it up. He shows Olivia the Model 77 Pulse gun -- and Fringe Division has only the 76. He also gives her phosphorous grenades and warns they are very unstable prototypes.

Bell blasts a Fringe team SUV to bits, but more agents are arriving. Olivia runs out of ammunition, and Long Locks sneaks up behind them. Olivia warns Bell to get down, and he turns and sees two Olivias! He is suddenly knocked unconscious by a colossal blast.

When Bell awakens, Olivia is standing over him and says she used one of the grenades. The entire area is utterly devastated, and everyone is dead. "I think I bought us a few minutes," she says.

As they get inside, Walter and Bell have gotten the accelerator running, but Walter seriously doubts Olivia has enough energy to keep the "crack" open. Bell says they definitely do -- and he is the key. He is the power. His body has been destablized by numerous crossovers, and he will sacrifice himself to keep the door back home open.

"You taught me that there are as many atoms in the body, as there are stars in the sky," Bell says. "That's how many atom bombs I am. That should be enough power to get you home."

Walter concedes he never should have doubted Bell. "That's okay, Walter. You were always as stubborn as a donkey with a nail in its head."

He also adds quickly that he took Walter's memories out of him, because Walter asked him to, because he was afraid of what he was becoming...

Just as the Fringe Squad bursts into the auditorium, they cross back over to the opera house in our world and are welcomed home by Broyles.

At Walter's Harvard lab, Astrid keeps stuffing Peter with pie; she bakes when she is nervous. She has been making pies for a week. Peter is still sorting things out and plans to walk home. He asks Astrid to drive Walter home.

He tells Walter, "I'm trying to see this your way, Walter, but I can't. But you did cross universes twice to save my life. That's got to count for something."

As Peter walks away, he says, "Thank you, Peter." His face becomes melancholy. "My son."

Olivia -- who is really Long Locks -- goes to the musty typewriter repair shop and asks the clerk for an IBM Selectric Model 251. He gives her a key to the back room where the Ultra-Power Inter-Universe Inter-Comm Touch Typing System is located. (It's an old IBM electric typewriter next to a mirror, but it is amazing!) She sends a simple message: INFILTRATION ACHIEVED. AWAITING ORDERS. A message is typed back, but we don't see what it is.

In the alt-verse, our Olivia is locked in a cell and keeps yelling to be let out. Walternate looks through the one-way mirror at her, and she yells at him, knowing he is there, but to no avail. The Secretary of Defense closes up the surveillance window and walks away, ignoring her continuing pleas.

Glyph world of the week is WEISS, which is the German word for white. At first I was trying to figure out what white had to do with the episode and was perhaps a clue related to the German ZFT manuscript, but searching further, it really is a reference to Sam Weiss (Kevin Corrigan), the physical therapist that Nina Sharp recommended to Olivia at the beginning of the season, when she was still recovering from her first return from the alt-verse.

A fan indicated that there is a coded message, "A demon's twists rusts," in Walternate's old lab. It contains the letters that spell out "Sam Weiss," and the rest of the letters, when unscrambled, say "don't trust." So this suggests that this character will be important -- more than likely, an adversary -- in the struggle to defeat Long Locks and get Olivia out of the other world.

[Photos: FOX]

Lost Season 6, Episode 16 -- What They Died For

For a Gigantic Cave of Swirling Golden Stuff

Again there seemed to be something off or blah about this penultimate episode, just like last week's backstory. It seemed rushed, as Lindelof and Cuse had run out of time. (Lucky they have an additional half hour for the finale on Sunday.) There were some high points, however, despite the off-kilter pacing.

Jacob has a successor. Widmore and Jungle Liz Lemon are gone, and more than likely, Richard. Ben is back on the dark side.

Or is he? Ben Linus' decision to join up with Smokey was rather abrupt, after being on a path to redemption. Unless he is like Severus Snape, the wizard in the Harry Potter series who perfectly feigned allegiance to Lord Voldemort while actually always being loyal to Dumbledore. It is possible that Ben is still helping the castaways by using a lifetime of carefully honed slyness and manipulation. The Ben in Sideways L.A. ironically is labeled "the nicest guy I know" by Alex Rousseau, and he is now pondering deeper things after getting a beating from Desmond and seeing himself in the Island timeline.

Jack is the new Island Guardian, having participated in the communion-like ritual with Jacob that the latter shared with his Mommie Dearest last week in "Across the Sea." In the earliest season, Jack Shephard lived up to his name as he took on first major duty of a shepherd -- guide the "flock." He led the Losties to establish a camp and secure basic supplies. Along with that duty, he now takes on the shepherd's second major task -- protection of that flock, and additionally shield the Island itself.

In Sideways Los Angeles, Desmond is tirelessly forcing the Oceanic 815 alumni together. With a little help from his friends -- Hurley and Ana Lucia Cortez -- he engineers a nifty little escape from police custody. People will be congregating at David Shephard's concert, which appears to be at Pierre Chang's museum (and still maybe the hospital?).

A classic Lost image -- an eyeball closeup -- opens the episode, and it is Jack in Sideways L.A. He has that mysterious cut on his neck, and he looks at it in the mirror, yet another image for characters in this split-worlds Season 6. He enjoys cereal with David and assures him that he'll be at his concert. David's mom will be there too (more than likely it is Juliet, taking time off from fighting reptile aliens in NYC.) Claire joins them, but the morning meal is interrupted by a phone call from "Oceanic Airlines," which is really Desmond pretending to contact Jack about the company finally finding Christian's casket.

His next stop is the high school, where Locke is returning to work for the first time after the hit and run. Ben sees Desmond parked nearby and confronts him. Desmond says he doesn't plan to run John over again. Ben wants to know who he is and tries to make a citizen's arrest.

"You want to know who I am?" Desmond says, and starts to punch Ben in the face over and over, causing Dr. Linus to flash Desmond trashing him in the Season 4 episode "Dead Is Dead." He tells Ben he wasn't trying to hurt Locke, but for him to start to "let go."

Ben goes to the school infirmary for patching up by the school nurse. After his treatment, he is the second character of the night to look into a mirror. Locke wheels in and asks him what happened. Locke insists they call the police, which Ben says he probably should not do. "The man told me he wasn't trying to hurt you. He was trying to get you to let go, and for some reason I believed him. ... Does that mean something to you?"

Locke gives up his call, which is to the very precinct where James and Miles are detectives. Miles is putting on a tie and tells James that he is going to a benefit concert for his dad's museum, with Charlotte as his date (and I am sure David Shephard will be tickling the ivories there too, along with proud papa Jack in the audience). James gladly tells Miles he can have that redhead.

Desmond strolls in and turns himself for the Locke hit and run and the Ben assault. James puts him in the lockup, where his cellmate is Sayid, and their neighbor is Kate. "Thanks for saving the taxpayers the trouble of hunting you down," James tells him.

At the end of the school day, Ben struggles with his things, because his arm is in a sling. Alex comes to his aid and insists that her mother give him a ride home. It is a normal, mellow Danielle Rousseau who pulls up, who decides not only will she give Ben a ride, but she is going to cook him dinner.

Danielle is happy she can cook for someone else than just Alex, who is being studious in the living room. She adds that Ben is "the closest thing to a father Alex ever had," because her biological dad died when she was very young. Ben starts to mist up, obviously moved by this comment, and in fumbling manner tells Danielle that the onions must be causing his eyes to water.

Locke goes to Jack's office for the consultation he was promised back on "LA X." He recounts all the coincidental things that have piled up -- the hit and run, the resulting surgery, Jack's pleas to "fix" Locke, the attack on Ben and Desmond's claim that he wasn't trying to hurt anyone but to get Locke to "let go." The same thing that Jack told him. He assures Jack he doesn't think he sent Desmond to hurt him.

"Maybe this happened for a reason," Locke says. "May you're supposed to fix me."

"You're mistaking coincidence for fate," Jack says, repeating a Lost catch phrase.

"I think I'm ready to get out of this chair."

At the police station, James goes to the jail cells with the announcement that Sayid, Desmond and Kate are headed for the county. "Vaya con dios and the best of luck," he says, as a guard opens their cells.

Kate begs James once more to help her escape, reminding him that she said she was innocent. He says he can't do that because he is a cop and has to do his job.

While riding in the paddy wagon to the county jail, Desmond states that it is now time to leave. Sayid says Desmond is a crazy person, and Kate wants to know if he is just going to tell the driver to stop and let them out. He gets both of them to promise they will do what he says, and the van abruptly comes to a stop.

Ana-Lucia (Michelle Rodriguez in a cameo) is the driver, and she has pulled the van up to what looks like the same shoreline where Charlie and Desmond went Car Diving earlier in the season. A Hummer pulls up, and it's Hurley, who hands off a $125,000 payoff to Ana Lucia. "Do I know you, tubby?" she asks, as so many of these Oceanic people in Sideways World keep asking.

Hurley turns his vehicle over to Sayid. He offers the pride and joy of his youth, his early 1970s red Camaro, to Desmond.

He says that Kate is with him and hands her a hanger with the classic little black dress on it. "We are going to a concert." And 10 to 1 that this concert is at a museum. Headed by Dr. Pierre Chang. And attended by some people named Shephard. (Also recall in Season 3 Ben gave her a nice dress and insisted Kate wear it for a beachfront brunch.)

On the Island, war is definitely coming, and Smokey is gearing up to destroy the Island and leave. Jack, Kate, Hurley and Sawyer are on the beach, still feeling blue and regrouping after the sub explosion. Jack fixes Kate's shoulder wound, noting that the bullet went clean through, and he has to clean it out to avoid infection. (Reflects the pilot episode, where she has to clean and sew up Jack's wound.) She muses that Ji-Yeon is young and alone now, and Jin never even met her.

"Locke did this to them. We have to kill him, Jack," she says.

"I know."

As flotsam from the submarine drifts toward the shore, Sawyer looks out to sea. An empty life jacket is among the debris, suggesting no more survivors. Jack says it is time to head out in the jungle to the well where Desmond is located.

Miles, Ben and Richard go to the abandoned New Otherton, and Miles asks Ben if he is sure that his short cut will work. Ben says he lived in the barracks for a long time, and Miles reminds him he lived there 30 years before that, "otherwise known as last week."

Ben tells Richard he has enough C4 to "more than destroy it 10 times over and keep it from ever leaving this Island."

Miles asks about where he put the explosives. "Let me guess -- a cookie jar."

"Don't be ridiculous. It's in a secret room behind my bookcase."

As they enter New Otherton, Miles hears hissing and rushing sounds and tells them he gets "wonky around dead stuff." Richard says that after Alex was shot, he buried her in what could be called the town square. Ben thanks Richard for that kindness.

In Ben's house, they go into the secret room, and Miles spots the opening in the wall for calling to Smokey.

"What's that, a 'secreter' room?"

"It's where I was told I could summon the monster," Ben says. "That's before I learned that it was the one summoning me."

After deciding they were going to blow the plane to hell, they take all the explosives, and discover Jungle Liz Lemon in the kitchen. Widmore quickly joins her. Ben is furious to see his old adversary, but Widmore says if Ben shoots him, his last chance for survival is gone. He says Jacob came to him and told him he needed to come to the Island to save it from Smokey.

After Ben says they were going to blow up the plane, Widmore says he already rigged the jet with explosives. "I'm always three steps ahead of you, Ben."

Jungle Liz Lemon tells them that Smokey has pulled up to the dock, where he sees Widmore's outrigger. Miles decides to run away, and he's out of there quickly. Richard will try talking to the Smoke Man, claiming that he knows him well enough and might be able to divert his attention. Ben tells Jungle Liz and Widmore their best bet is to hide in his special secret room.

Ben and Richard go outside and look about very cautiously. Richard is suddenly knocked across the entire length of New Otherton and into the jungle by a cantankerous Smokey. Chances are that that Guyliner is permanently out of the picture.

Ben sits on his front porch and is approached by the creature, now back in John Locke's form. "Welcome to the colony," Ben says. "Can I get you a glass of lemonade?"

Smokey tells Ben that if he helps him defeat Widmore and kill some people, he can be in charge of the Island after he leaves.

Ben takes the monster to Widmore and Zoe, and Smokey says, "What a pleasant surprise! How nice to talk without these fences between us."

He asks Jungle Liz who she is, and Widmore tells her not to say a thing. She starts to talk, and Smokey slits her throat from ear to ear, and this unlikeable character is GONE. (Proving that indeed she was merely a geophysicist, and not a mercenary/soldier, and wasn't of much use to Charles.)

When Ben asks why he did that, the Smoke Man says Widmore told her not to talk, and she was pointless after that. He promises Charles that the first thing he'll do when he leaves the Island is kill Penny, unless he tells him why he brought Desmond back.

Assuring Charles that he won't hurt Penny, Widmore tells Smokey that Desmond has electromagnetic resistance, and, not trusting Ben, whispers into the creature's ear that Des is the "failsafe" in protecting the Island.

Ben pumps three bullets into Widmore, who crumples to the ground. "He doesn't get to save his daughter," he says sneeringly.

As they leave Ben's old place, he asks Smokey, "Did you say there were some other people to kill?"

As Jack and Sawyer walk through the jungle, the latter asks about the location of Desmond's well. Jack thinks it is about an hour from the original Smokey camp. Sawyer, calling him "Flocke" -- a tip to the fans? -- asks if he wanted Des dead, why didn't he just kill him. Might be one of his rules, Jack says.

Sawyer is still feeling guilty over the sub disaster. "I killed them, didn't I?"

"No, he killed them," Jack says.

Hurley sees Junior Jacob in the jungle. The teen approaches Hurley and demands the ashes he took from Ilana's stuff. He grabs the bag from Hurley's hand and takes off.

Hurley pursues the kid, until he comes to a clearing, where Jacob has not taken his adult form and has a fire going.

"You getter get your friends," Jacob says. "We're very close to the end, you know."

Hurley gets everyone to Jacob, who greets Jack, Kate and Sawyer as they enter the site. Hurley is about to interpret, until he finds out that everyone can now see Jacob.

Kate confirms that Jacob is the one who wrote everyone's names on the cave walls, and she wants his assurance that their deaths were not in vain.

"I'll tell you what they died for," Jacob says. "I'll tell you why I chose them, and why I chose you., and I'll tell you everything you need to know to protect this Island. Because by the time the fire burns out, one of you is going to have to start doing it."

He tells the quartet that they were made candidates because of his mistake depicted in "Across the Sea," the accidental creation of Smokey. He also says that the time was coming for someone to replace him.

Sawyer is angry and demands to know why he would be punished for Jacob's screwup.

Jacob counters, "I didn't pluck any of you out of a happy existence. You were all flawed. I chose you because you were like me. You were all alone. You were looking for something you couldn't find out there. I chose you because you needed this place as much as it needed you."

He adds that Kate's name was crossed off after she took the responsibilities of motherhood, but it was "just a line of chalk in a cave," and the job was still open if she wanted it.

He tells them that the job is protecting the Island from Smokey, and Jack quickly figures out that part of that "protection" is to kill the monster. Jacob said he did not select any particular person, because he wanted them to have what he never did -- a choice. Free will, one of the things he has debated for centuries with his brother.

Jack steps forward and says he will be the replacement. "That is why I'm here. This is what I was supposed to do."

"Is that a question, Jack?" Jacob says.

"No."

"Good. Then it's time."

Jacob takes the candidates inland and tells them that the heart of the Island (the Cave of Wonders Full of Life, the Universe 'n' Everything) is just beyond the bamboo field where Jack regained consciousness in the show's very first scene. Jack says there is nothing there, but becoming Guardian will make it visible to him.

This is what they must protect from the monster. Sawyer mutters about if Jack "had a god complex before..." and Hurley is just relieved that he's not the successor.

Jack offers Jacob a cup, he scoops up water, over which he says his prayer or incantation, just as his mom did in "Across the Sea," and puts it into the cup for Jack.

"How long am I going to have to do this job?"

"As long as you can."

Jack drinks the water, and an awed look comes over his face, as if all that is known is now revealed.

"Now you're like me," Jacob says.

Smokey and Ben walk in the jungle toward Desmond's well. "If you can turn yourself into smoke whenever you want, why do you bother walking?"

"I like the feel of my feet on the ground. It reminds me that I was human."

As they approach the well, Ben says, "Are you thirsty?"

Smokey says this is the well where Desmond was, and Sayid obviously did not kill our favorite Scot. "It looks like someone helped him out," Ben says.

"No, Ben," the Smoke man says, "Someone helped me out."

He explains that Widmore was going to use Desmond as the "failsafe," Jacob's last resort if he succeeded in killing all the "beloved" candidates, one final way to make sure he never leaves.

"Then why are you happy that he's still alive?"

"Because I'm gonna find Desmond, and when I do, he's going to do the one thing that I could never do myself. ... I'm gonna destroy the Island."

Fade out, and then Linda Hunt's voice reminds us to tune in "The End" this Sunday night, 23 May 2010. That's this Sunday night, starting at 7 p.m./6 Central.

30 Rock Season 2, Episode 21 -- Emanuelle Goes to Dinosaur Land

This a show where you realize that definitely the actor is not the same as the character. Liz Lemon is the put-upon TV writer who is perpetually unlucky at love. Tina Fey also used to be chief writer on a sketch comedy show, but she has a little daughter and is happily married to the guy who composes all the background music.

Liz still faces the three weddings in one day, and while she took the advice of all those moms who were in the offices last week to lower her standards, she's still without a date.

Jack, for about the fourth week in a row, is still dithering over whether to pick the demure CNBC anchor Avery Jessup (Elizabeth Banks), descended from cool Swedish people from the valley, or hometown Boston gal Nancy Donovan (Julianne Moore), a red haired, hot tempered nut descended from Irish bog people. His indecision is annoying me and trying my patience with this normally funny show.

Tracy is also dithering and fidgeting with his EGOT necklace that he got some episodes ago. It's either do a script evoking his harsh South Bronx neighborhood -- and something like the bleak reality of the movie Precious -- or film motion capture scenes for Garfield 3: Feline Groovy. That movie has a clever title because, well, cats have grooves. Dot Com urges Tracy to do the urban film, so he can get the Oscar represented by the "O" in EGOT, but Tracy's life between 1975 and 1982 is a total blank, a massive bloc of repressed memories.

Liz tells Jenna she will get out her "Gentleman Rolodex" of former lovers and search for a date, now that her standards are not sky high. Seeking out an ex would be like "sexual time travel," much like Jenna says depicted in that famous Cinemax softcore movie, that is the title of this episode.

So Liz goes searching for a plus one. She finds Beeper King Dennis Duffy (Dean Winters) working on some kind of tinfoil covered box in a park. A kid named Jose pops out, and Dennis shoves him back inside. He tells Liz the boy is from a program that matches children to troubled adults, and that he is making a balloon that this time will really have a child inside when he launches it. He invites Liz to join him and become a "millionaire." Needless to say, Liz is appalled and counters that Dennis isn't working a scientific research facility but a public park named after bad tempered NBA player Ron Artest.

Her next visit is to Don Draper--er, Drew Baird (Jon Hamm), the Dumbest Doctor on Planet Earth. She is shocked to see he has massive pirate hooks instead of hands. He also trashes half his apartment with those lethal prosthetics. Drew says he lost one hand to a helicopter rotor in a Doctors Without Borders trip as he landed in Zimbabwe, to a guy he mistook for a former coach. The other was a casualty of playing with fireworks with his friends. He begs her to give him a chance, because he's in line for a hand transplant from a strangler on death row.

As she leaves, Drew manages to touch her tenderly with one of those hooks, and it's hot from warming it in the oven. "Who's dumb now?" he says.

Avery is still mad at Jack over Nancy. He promises he will try to figure things out during the weekend. As she exits in an elevator, the other one opens and discharges a gleeful Nancy in an unexpected arrival.

At Jack's house, he tells Nancy he relaxes to John Philip Sousa marches and quickly cues one up with a remote. Nancy pops out in scarlet lingerie, ready to seduce him. Love to the rhythm of brass and drums!

Liz meets Jenna at Cerie's rehearsal dinner and complains, "I've been through every guy! There's no one left!"

"You sound like me at the Olympic village," Jenna says.

Giving up, she says, "So I go to Floyd's wedding alone. Maybe I'll just lean into it and bring a cat in a stroller."

The white English Wesley Snipes (Michael Sheen) pops up yet again and is very delighted to see her. He bobs and weaves crazily. "Quit doing that! You look idiotic!" Liz says.

"Of course I do," Wes says. "Excellent pantomime is supposed to look idiotic."

He says that he lost his job a couple days earlier and has a little bit of a residency program. He doesn't want to go back to England and can't deal with the 2012 London Olympics being chaotic, because the English just can't control the people as the Chinese government did at the opening ceremonies in Beijing. He agrees to go to the weddings with Liz, even though she hates him.

Wes says they're just like Ross and Rebecca in the English show Chums and goofily starts to sing the theme song to her: "I'll be here always, while the rains fall..."

Back at Jack's place, Nancy is content about making love with Jack and considers it a big step in their relationship.

Jack disagrees. "Sex is not a big deal right now. How can doing something animals do be a big deal? I mean, worms can do it with any other worm." [That is true about the annelids, or segmented worms, but many nematodes, the unsegmented worms, are only male or female. Your biology trivia of the day.]

For Nancy is was a very big deal, as Jack and her ex were the only two men she ever slept with. She confesses to the "sins" of going out with friends and dancing with a guy, and allowing a man to touch her hips early on a Sunday, the day set aside for the Lord. Catholic guilt is messing with her, she says.

Jack denies it messes with him, but then he stabs himself in the thigh with a fork over his perceived iniquities.

Kevin and Dot Com take Tracy to a copy shop in the South Bronx at 157th Street and "Lieutenant Uhura Avenue." It looks nothing like his old home in the projects, except for a hidden stairwell scrawled in graffiti. Suddenly Tracy starts to bawl and remember his awful childhood, when he slept in a dog bed stuffed with wigs and used a ribcage for a basketball hoop, and where he saw a prostitute stab a clown. And a guy with dreads electrocuted his pet fish.

Dot Com urges Tracy to use this agony to do the urban film, but he is still determined to make the Garfield movie. Later at the studio where he is rehearsing Feline Groovy, he's wearing a custom tailored green motion capture suit and starts to rant at the boy playing Nermal the kitten. On his own Tracy decides playing a cat who sleeps all the time and eats lasagna is just not right when he remembers that he saw a homeless guy cook a Hot Pocket over the third rail of the G Train.

Wes takes Liz to the church where Floyd is getting married. She says has to go to the front of the church because she is doing a reading, and Wes says maybe she'll find a date there. Liz finds the other reader, Mike, a bland looking single attorney with a great "head shape," but who is like all those other bizarros she meets. He's a "plushie," a guy who likes to dress up as a mascot and have orgies with other mascots at hotels and state parks, and they call sex "yiffing."

While Liz is reading out of 1 Corinthians 13, the classic chapter about love, Jack tells Nancy about Avery. She becomes as angry as Avery was last week. Jack texts Liz to stall the wedding Mass, so she tries to make "unscheduled" readings while Jack tries to keep Nancy from leaving.

Nothing she finds is right, as she reads about Onan laying with his brother's wife and spilling his semen on the ground (Genesis 38:9). Or Zipporah taking a flint and cutting off her son's foreskin (Exodus 4:25). And finally, "for he has sold us and indeed has devoured our money" (Genesis 31:15).

To be continued...

In the end credits, we learn of some of the other horrors Tracy witnesses as a child. A hooker ate a tire! A pack of wild dogs took over a Wendy's and successfully ran it! A baby gave another baby a tattoo, and they were both very drunk! His home in projects was named after Zachary Taylor, whom history acknowledges as the worst president ever!