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!

Fringe Season 2, Episode 22 -- Over There, Part 1

Smack Down in Blimp Town

There definitely is more than one of everything in Fringe, such as the New York City that seems a cross between Caprica City and the deco Big Apple of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. (Maybe the resemblance to the former is because Vancouver is used for both Fringe and Caprica? I keep expecting Vipers to show up.)

Dirigibles floating everywhere. World Trade Center, a hotel never built here but prominent in the skyline there, and a totally copper clad Statue of Liberty. There's a surviving Charlie Francis, infested with arachnids, much like our late, murdered Charlie had worms in Season 1. There is his utterly loyal partner, Olivia Dunham, with her extremely long, straight strawberry blonde hair, badass dark clothing and a tattoo on the nape of her neck.

Olive Long Locks, as I found myself dubbing her, along with Buggy Charlie and their supervisor, Lincoln Lee, have been dispatched by the U.S. Department of Defense's Fringe Division to a concert hall in Brooklyn to investigate and correct a "molecular anomaly."

Alt Broyles is chief of this division, and his right hand woman is Astrid, who is literally sitting on that side of him and wearing a sleek beret.

The Fringe Squad has some very advanced equipment, reminiscent of Star Trek tricorders, that we probably won't have for 10 or 20 years. Their arrival is oddly circus like, in a truck with a garish Fringe Division logo, not so much a tone of law enforcement professionalism as one of a microscopic car pulling up under the big top and discharging 20 clowns.

Long Locks, Alt Charlie and Lee are prepared to establish a quarantine and take measures that sound like setting off a bomb that could kill 10,000 people. Long Locks regrets she didn't update her will, and they have one of those alt-verse silver dollars with Richard Nixon on the front.

The molecular degeneration vanishes, and the quarantine event is called off after Astrid's careful deliberation (she has some kind of special power for this). They find the body of James Heath, the New Cancer Man (as opposed to Spender, the Old Cancer Man of this show's direct spiritual ancestor, The X-Files.) Heath's face is covered in the sarcomas he caused in other Cortexiphan alumni earlier in the season.

Lee pulls Heath's wallet out. There is no "Show Me" identification card, which all alt-verse people in the U.S. have. He discovers a $20 bill. "Who the hell is Jackson?" he says.

Opening credits, which are blood red and not quite the same, because we are Over There.

At Harvard University, 36 hours earlier, as the title indicates, our Walter watches a video of Walternate talking to Peter and inviting him to the alt-verse, and suddenly they vanish. Walter looks crushed. Suddenly he jumps up and starts to frantically search through files.

Olivia is drinking alone at a bar, and an Observer comes in and silently leaves a page from a manuscript on the counter. It shows a picture of a machine shaped a bit like a Apollo lunar lander, an eggbeater, and a drawing of Peter's face. She takes the paper to Walter, who is trying to remember something about Peter and how he could be the cause of the end of the world. Olivia has exactly what Walter was trying to remember.

A rampaging Broyles charges through the executive offices of Massive Dynamic with the paper from the Observer. He goes straight into Nina Sharp's office and accuses the company of manufacturing weapons for the alt-verse. Nina confirms William Bell created the technology, but they never built it.

It is back to the MD laboratories, where science geek Brandon must give one of his incisive explanations. To go to the alt-verse, our and their worlds must overlap, and people must literally pass through this space, much like water passing through an object. This causes a molecular breakdown, and cells will not come back together with the proper cohesion once the passage has occurred. He uses a coffee mug as a representation of a person, and it explodes during the "crossover." Bell has crossed back and forth so many times that he probably fears blowing up like the mug, Brandon says.

Walter speculates if they rounded up more of the Cortexiphan Kids, they could summon enough psychic energy to safely cross over. He believes that everybody on earth once had powers like them, such as mind control or ESP -- but the "aliens" took it away from them!

Massive Dynamic comes once again to their aid, taking the Fringe team to a training facility with three Cortexiphan Kids who have been rehabilitated -- Heath, the Cancer Man, who can now heal instead of infect; Nick Lane, the mind controller, and Sally Clark, who is pyrokinetic, sort of like a grownup version of Drew Barrymore's little girl in the old Firestarter movie. Nick can make people feel good about themselves now, instead of inducing suicides, and he makes Broyles burst out laughing.

Walter apologizes to the Cortexiphan Kids for his guinea pig work, but that the intention had been good -- the world would someday need guardians to protect it. The day for which they had created has now arrived, and he asks them if they will help save his son, and ultimately the entire world. Overcome with grief, Walter walks away to "go have a cry."

"That's not the guy I remember," Nick says.

"No, he's exactly the same," James counters.

The Cortexiphan Kids ask for one last night of leisure before sliding to their date with William Bell. James goes to a hospital and heals people, Nick and Sally make intense love, and Olivia visits her sister's house and bestows her mom's old cross necklace on her niece, Ella. Rachel seems upset when she discovers Olivia gave Ella the cross.

Walter and the Cortephixan Kids gather at a version of the same concert hall the alt Fringe Division was investigating (this one was being renovated). And almost as if they're kids, Walter tells them to spread their arms out to each other, clear their minds and concentrate only on his voice:

"Think back to when you were just young children. Back to when you were just young boys and girls. Think back to when your imagination could take you wherever you wanted to go. Imagine this universe slipping away, opening like a curtain. Allow the universe to pass right through you, allow your imagination to take you to the other side."

It seems nothing happens, but James topples to the floor, weakened and going into a seizure. There are sarcomas all over his face. Olivia looks up through a great round skylight and sees a blimp slowly cruise by. "We made it," James gasps, and dies.

Alerted to the Alt Fringe Squad's arrival, Walter and the Cortexiphan Kids flee. Sally is feeling sick and must be supported by Nick, who no longer has any more mental powers.

Returning to the scene where Long Locks and Lee look at Heath's body, Long Locks wonders who would go to such trouble to make a counterfeit $20 bill... Their version of this currency has Martin Luther King Jr. on it.

The Secretary of Defense summons Buggy Charlie, Long Locks and Lee to his office under the copper Statue of Liberty. And he is Walternate. He quizzes Long Locks about why Fringe Devision was found, she notes that it was founded in 1985 after the "Reiden Lake Incident" (when Peter was snatched), and it addresses natural and environmental disasters caused by holes in the fabric of the universe.

Walternate shows them his 1995 book, ZFT (which was just an little-known manuscript about super soldiers and alt-verses in our world) and says the universe tears are man made. ZFT is true. There is another world much like theirs, and they are responsible for the destruction.

"I'm not the lover of war, but I have reason to belive these invaders are not peaceful."

"We'll get them, sir!" Buggy Charlie says.

Walter and the Cortexiphan Kids wait at a bus shelter, which promotes the "re-election special" on The West Wing (the program ended here in 2006). The bus driver asks to scan their special "Show Me" ID cards, but being strangers in a strange land, they can't and instead must walk the 3 miles to 59th and Central Park to meet Bell.

Peter wakes up from his coma in what first looks like a hospital room but is really at Walternate's house. Alt Elizabeth is in the kitchen, and they have a tearful reunion. She offers him bacon and eggs, remembering how that was his favorite boyhood breakfast. Peter tells her that he thought having bacon was a dream, because being a vegetarian, the Elizabeth he knew would never serve it.

He tells Alt Mom that she was very good to him and loved him very much, but 10 years ago committed suicide. She gives Peter a set of plans from Walternate and tells him his dad wants him to look them over. He goes off to pore over the drawings, which are for the machine that incensed Broyles in our world.

As the Cortexiphan Kids walk down the street, Sally is getting weaker. She sees a giant display of Cabbage Patch Kids in a window and asks Nick to get her one. [These dolls were a huge fad in our world circa 1983, only to taper off to a quietly steady seller to this day. Maybe they're still the big toy in alt-verse.] They can't go back home, and they'll have to stay in that world. "I know, baby, I know," Nick says wearily. They must press on for their rendezvous with Bell, so no doll for you, Sally.

At Central Park, Bell is a no-show, and the Fringe Division and cops show up instead. A gunfight ensues, Walter is shot in the gut by Long Locks, and Nick is seriously wounded on a bridge in the park. Sally comforts him as Lincoln Lee aims his gun on her, telling her that he doesn't want to hurt her.

"Screw you!" she shrieks and throws a fireball at him, incinerating him and killing herself and Nick.

Olivia hides in the woods, and Walter wanders off erratically, talking to himself about the onset of hemorrhagic shock. He collapses at the front entrance of a hospital emergency room.

Olivia goes to a high tech phone booth, which has a touchscreen menu and a local directory that seems a product placement for the alt-verse AT&T. Long Locks goes home to her boyfriend. She says the anomaly was caused by a defective fuel cell. Lee had third degree burns over 30 percent of his body and will go into a "nanite chamber" for treatment and will make a full recovery. She asks for a back rub, which reveals the odd tattoo on her neck (which everyone on this side has).

Outside we find out whose address Olivia sought. She is a Peeping Thomasina, watching her double in the arms of her boyfriend and probably realizing how alone she is here and back in our world.

Then William Bell pops up out of nowhere.

Bell says he couldn't come to the park for fear of his own capture. He tells her Walter is in trouble, and "I'm quite confident we don't have much time."

Back at Copper Lady Liberty, Walternate looks at a copy of the same document that the Observer gave to Olivia. He looks across the expansive room, and there is the machine. Massive Dynamic may not have built it, but those alt-verse people certainly did.

As Walter's 1985 lab assistant quoted atom bomb team leader J. Robert Oppenheimer, who in turn quoted the Bhagavad Gita: "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds..."

The word spelled out by the glyphs this week is WEAPON.

The Observer sighting was at the bar where Olivia was.

Breaking Bad Season 3, Episode 8 -- I See You

This is my rather late posting on this week's Breaking Bad, and it is more of my impressions than a straight recap.

I am impressed by the savvy and the well-honed manipulation by Gus Frings in this episode. Under the meticulously assembled guise of benevolent philanthropist and prominent local businessman -- operator of the Los Pollos Hermanos fast food chain -- Gus literally had the competition blown away, and solidified his position as the undisputed meth kingpin of Albuquerque.

During the marathon vigil over the critically wounded Hank at the hospital, Walter Jr. showed his copy of Mark Bowden's Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World's Greatest Outlaw to his dad.

The book focuses on the hunt and downfall of Pablo Escobar. If you discussed cocaine in the 1980s, the name of Escobar quickly would pop up. The polar opposite of Gus, this lord of the Colombian Medellin cartel flouted law enforcement and gleefully used his earnings to curry favor with the Medellin poor by building soccer fields and churches and sponsoring sports teams.

That is the only thing that Gus and Escobar have in common. They win hearts and minds in their communities, but Gus "hides in plan sight, the same as you" as he tells Walter. Sponsor a local fun run, sell a ton of meth!

While Escobar was flamboyant and lived in a glitzy mansion in Medellin and was clad in fancy clothing, Gus is low key, dressed in muted garments that would look at home on the Sears sales rack. He virtually blends into the shadows. He deliberates each strategy carefully and quietly. Early in the season, when Walter and Jesse sought out the main local distributors, who would have guessed the head guy of Los Pollos Hermanos where they ate was their man? He even shows up at the hospital, comforting Marie and offering $10,000 reward toward apprehension of Hank's assailants -- and feeds all the cops gathered there too. It has enjoyable to watch Giancarlo Esposito immerse himself in this well modulated character.

I mistakenly thought that Hank was a dead duck and even said so in a recap of Lost, of all things, but I am -- pardon the pun -- dead wrong. Hank's doctors appeared at regular intervals through the show to give nervous bulletins that the gravely wounded DEA agent was hanging on. Walter juggled an awkward transition of assistants for the Giant Secret Cavern Laboratory, and sitting in solidarity with his clan while Hank was being treated.

The sword of Damocles over his head was to make 200 pounds of blue meth over the weekend, and his leisurely attitude toward the whole thing considerably bothered Gus' assistant, who kept checking in on the Secret Cavern Lab and wondering why no production was going on.

The assistant was also puzzled and perturbed why Walt dumped Gale as his assistant, as was the nerdy chemist himself. Neither could understand how Walt could trade in a mature guy with two degrees in organic chemistry for a seeming man-child who dashed about the expanses of the lab, acting like a 10-year-old in the action figures department at Toys "R" Us. Not to mention doing goofy, juvenile stunts, such as inflating his yellow safety suit with a vacuum device and, it is implied, nearly pulling his manhood up into said same machine.

David Costabile, as Gale, was more befuddled than his character in Flight of the Conchords ever will be in understanding why his wife is obsessed with the title folk duo. And his anger could lead to something worse. As karma has repeatedly magnified consequences of actions in this show, Gale could spell real trouble for Walt later this season.

Walt has his reasons to reunite with Jesse, as he knows the guy is puerile but also sticks to procedure and follows orders -- usually -- without much trouble. And after going through a reign of terror with Tuco Salamanca and a harrowing evasion of Hank as he tracked down their old RV, the bond between exiled high school chemistry teacher and recovering addict is potent. They are known quantities to each other, a team that fate seems to dictate must stay intact.

Some of the best scenes involved Daniel Moncada as Leonel, the one surviving cousin of Tuco. A patient is brought into the hospital, and the staff is talking about having to cut his boots off. I was trying to remember: was Hank wearing boots in his showdown with the Cousins? Then a cut to a long leather boot topped with a steel death's head. It was him, the one who didn't get the top of his head ripped off by a hollow point bullet.

In perhaps the best scene of the season, Walt is taken by the massive troop of law enforcement personnel to see the patient they repeatedly dub a "piece of shit." Leonel, his face baleful, sits in his hospital bed.

The camera pans down to -- two stumps instead of legs. Seeing "Heisenberg" standing at the front of his unwanted visitors, Leonel yanks out his IV, drops out of the bed and laboriously, furiously pulls himself toward Walt, leaving a bloody trail behind, and never saying a word.

All there is is that look of relentless vengeance as he moves toward the man he and his brother targeted in their petition to Santa Muerte (the deity seen in the village shrine in episode 1). Even as an amputee, only revenge fuels his existence. Leonel is a human Terminator, though now a very wounded one.

Either some excellent CGI, prosthetics or a stand-in amputee made Moncada look as if he had no legs. It was a stunning sequence in this engrossing show.

While Gus' assistant questions whether Walt can deliver, and if he's lost his mind in bringing that clown Jesse into the Secret Cavern Lab, Walt counters to Frings that give him a few days, and he'll double the amount of product to a whopping 400 pounds. I do believe he'll do it, even if the previews show that Jesse will flake out over that much blue meth and might get into some stupid shenanigans with Skinny Pete.

The hospital is just jam packed with DEA and Albuquerque city cops, showing that domineering, passionate and sometimes ostentatious construct of brotherhood exhibited by law enforcement and fire personnel. These men are loud and unapologetic, and there are no tears when Leonel finally goes into cardiac rest, effectively ending the Cousins' vendetta.

It was after Leonel bought it that I got the inkling great breadth of Gus' plan to sever ties with the Mexican cartel and take over. I originally thought that maybe one of those many cops sneaked in and took care of Leonel, but it seems it was Mike the Cleaner, Gus' go-to guy for dirty deeds. He cannily offers a DEA agent to the Cousins, thereby shielding Walt and knowing that his manufacturer is safe. And by having the Cousins try to murder a lawman, now the attention of his "brothers" on both sides of the border is tilted toward the cartel.

A frightened Juan Bolsa phones Gus that the federales are literally on his doorstep, and he accuses him of engineering the Cousins' attack on Hank. Gus tranquilly denies it, but Juan is totally right, a bitter realization that must pass through his head as he opens his door and meets up with a hail of bullets, which we never see but hear over Gus' phone.

For Gus, it is a sweet thought that the cartel is either gone or seriously crippled, as he hears Juan's shooting, and proceeds to calmly and leisurely snap the cell phone in half and throw it in a trash bin.

I also cannot forget as Hank's stretcher is pulled out of the ambulance, Jesse is sitting in a wheelchair, waiting for Skinny Pete to give him a ride. Jesse gets up, looks at the patient, and a look of joy spreads across his face as he recognizes the man who made mincemeat of his face in the last episode. He follows the emergency crew practically into the ER, amazed at the ways of karma and payback.

The episode's conclusion is with Hank's significant others filing into his hospital room, and he is only partially visible. The only sound is the hissing of his respirator.

With five more episodes left, will Walt keep his partnership together and meet his quota? What is Jesse going to do, and how will Walt control him? And what is up with the 18 wheeler in this week's previews, the most menacing I've seen since that old Steven Spielberg TV movie, Duel?

Lost Season 6, Episode 15 -- Across the Sea

A Long Time Ago on an Island Far, Far Away

For an episode that was supposed to answer so many questions, "Across the Sea" was a letdown in not covering total early Island mythology. The teens who played young Jacob (Kenton Duty, who also has been Ghostly Jungle Boy in previous shows) and Boy in Black (Ryan Bradford) were somewhat wooden.

Except for some startling kills/attacks, and the chemistry between Mark Pellegrino and Titus Welliver (the adult rivals), and a stellar Overbearing Mom role by Allison Janney, I just didn't think this was one of Season 6's best. With its premise of Island origin stories, and even with a script by Lindelof and Cuse, something was just off. I found it to be a real blah show, with some metaphysical wackadoo about an illuminated Fount of Life, the Universe and Everything Else in some Incredible, Magical, Mystical Cave of Wonders. (Imagine the song Alan Menken and Howard Ashman could have written about that.)

Near the end we received answers to a big mystery -- the identities of Adam and Eve -- who aren't any of our castaways who experienced time travel or anything. Also, we learned that ironically the Island's own protector, Jacob, created Smokey. We learned that Jacob and MIB are siblings. But L & C followed a continued pattern of solving several mysteries while opening even more new ones!

To wit:

--What is the Man in Black's real name?
--What is the name of their adoptive mother?
--What is that glowing electromagnetic Cave of Wonders the Island guardian must protect, and what is that weird golden light bathing it?
--Where are the temple, the statue of Tawaret (Jacob's house) and the lighthouse, and who built them? (I don't think it was MIB's people, as they were still living in their primitive village, despite being "very smart," as MIB called them.)
--What was the deal with Smokey dropping his old human body on the river?
--How is it that the bodies of Mommie Dearest and MIB completely rotted away, but the little bag of game stones that Jacob placed with them, and was found nearly 2,000 years later by Jack, didn't decay at all? Is this the very same magic that caused a wooden sailing ship to smash into a solid stone statue, shear it off, and then land nearly intact on a desert isle?

In several cases, Smokey was telling the truth in his various conversations with the castaways. Yes, he once had been human. Yes, his mother (adoptive) was a manipulative nutjob, who recalled two recent off-their-rocker mothers -- Danielle and Bad Hair Claire. And yes, for centuries all this guy wanted to do was go across the sea (the meaning of the title, a reference to the world beyond the Island) and go back home.

Jacob and MIB as brothers mines a whole long tradition of sibling rivalry going back to Cain/Abel and Jacob/Esau in the Book of Genesis. The parallel to the latter boys is even more applicable, considering they were fraternal twins. Jacob was slight and intellectual, remaining in the camp with his mother, while Esau had a ruddy complexion, was hairy and burly, and was the hunter of the family. And eventually he left home, some time after Jacob persuaded him to give up his birthright in exchange for a bowl of stew, and later deceived their father, Isaac, into giving Jacob the blessing that Esau should have received. This was a scheme engineered by -- his mother Rebecca. (Further, Isaac also expanded his wealth by running a well digging business.)

Claudia (Lela Loren) is among a whole mass of people who are shipwrecked on the Island in the first century A.D. (implied by online leaks and spoilers, and the fact that they speak Latin). Hugely pregnant, she comes ashore to a beach covered in ship timbers and pottery.

She is immediately taken in by a mystery woman (Janney, who has quit as President Bartlett's press secretary and has gone back in time to serve as the official, current Island Guardian). While Claudia introduces herself, for some reason she doesn't ask her hostess' name. Well, I'll call her Mommie Dearest. Meanwhile, the other survivors, who are cultivated in this show as yet another type of "Others," construct a village.

Future Mommie Dearest offers Claudia a drink of water, and they suddenly switch from Latin to English for our convenience. Indirectly, this answers another Lost Question -- why learning Latin was mandatory for joining the Others. It was Jacob's original language.

Claudia wants to know how Mommie Dearest got to the Island, and she says, like anyone else, it was by accident. When she asks where the other people are, she is told, "Every question I answer will lead to another question," which is how fans feel when they watch these episodes.

Claudia goes into labor, closely attended by Mommie Dearest. She punches out the calmest, smoothest looking newborn you ever saw. She immediately says his name will be Jacob. Just as she is about to ask MD to hold him, she is slammed with another contraction.

Mommie Dearest, in her Captain Obvious exclamation, tells Claudia, "There's another baby in there!" Well, possible, as they didn't have ultrasound in 23 A.D., and Claudia hadn't been to a doctor lately because she was busy sailing on a ship.

Baby MIB comes out howling loudly. When asked what he will be called, an exhausted Claudia says, "I only picked one name." He is placed next to his brother, wrapped in a black blanket. And Jacob, who is tranquil and doesn't cry at all, has a white one. (And these become their Clothing Colors for Life, which could be like those old black hat/white hat westerns, but probably isn't. After all, "Man in White" Jacob turns his bro into Smokey, gets potential candidates repeatedly killed for centuries, and later orders the gassing of Dharmaville.

Boy in Black doesn't get a name? What the hell? I think for this recap I'll call him Black Bart. Short for Bartholomew, which was a name you might have found back then.

Mommie Dearest looks at Claudia and says, "I"m sorry," and then fatally brains her with a huge rock.

After the word from our sponsors, a now 13-year-old Black Bart, who, of course is wearing clothes of that color, is walking down the beach, when he finds a backgammon set among the old wreckage of his people's ship. It contains one each large black and white stones. (The recapper for TIME magazine says that it is the ancient Egyptian game called Senet, which ties into all that other Land of the Pyramids stuff on the Island.) Jacob wants to know what it is and how it's played. Bart says knows how to play it, and when Jacob asks him how he does, he replies that he just does. If Jacob won't tell on him to Mommie Dearest, who would take it away, he'll teach him how to play. They set up the game and try it out.

Back at their camp, Mommie Dearest is weaving. He asks her if he can help, and she has him sort threads. She grills Jacob, who says he was down at the beach and staring at the ocean, and oh, Bart was just taking a walk. She quickly discerns what happened.

Unlike Bart's guess, she doesn't take the game away, because she was the one who left it for him on the beach. Jacob told her, because he can't lie. And she tells Bart that he is special.

"It came from you?"

"Of course it did. Where else would it come from?" Mommie Dearest says.

"From somewhere else. Across the sea."

"There is nowhere else. The Island is all there is."

"Then where did we come from?"

"You and your brother came from me, and I came from my mother."

"Where's she?

"She's dead."

"What's dead?" Bart says.

"Something you will never have to worry about," Mommie Dearest says, and plants a kiss on his cheek.

While hunting a boar in the jungle, Jacob and Black Bart hear voices, hide in some vegetation, and watch as other people take down the pig.

Back home the boys want know how the people are, and where they came from. Mommie Dearest says while these "Others" may look like them, they are not like them, and the brothers are with her for a reason.

As she leads the boys through the jungle, blindfolded, they ask about the people. Mommie Dearest tells them, "They come, they fight, they destroy, they corrupt, and it always ends the same." They are in another part of the Island for that reason.

Black Bart says, "We're people. Does that mean we could hurt each other?"

"They're people, and that's what they do. I've made it so you never hurt each other."

She takes them to the very CGI-looking Cave of Wonders, which glows just like the Emerald City, only gold and not bright green.

"What is down there?" Black Bart says.

"The warmest, brightest light you've ever seen or felt," says Mommie Dearest, adding that no one should ever find it.

Every person carries a small amount of the light within themselves, and if they got more of it, they would want more. (It's the Force, Luke! As Obi-Wan Kenobi said, "It's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together.") If the light goes out in the Cave of Wonders, it would go out everywhere. She can't protect it forever, and therefore one of the boys will have to succeed her.

(The idea that the light will go out also means that Charles Widmore was sort of telling the truth about the world going dark, since MIB later absorbs some of this light and is transformed into Smokey, and apparently his leaving the Island does something to the energy.)

After their visit at the Cave of Wonders, Jacob and Black Bart are playing backgammon. Bart tells Jacob that he's breaking the rules, which he created, because it's his game. Someday, Bart adds, Jacob can come up a game of his own and make up his own rules. (Sort of like the Game of Island Protectionism?)

Suddenly the ghost of Claudia appears, but visible only to Bart. Jacob asks what he saw, but Bart only says he is going to go "for a walk."

Phantom Claudia takes Black Bart to the village and explains the people were shipwrecked on the Island 13 years earlier. The people are from "across the sea," and he and Jacob also came with them.

"That's not what my mother told me," Bart says.

"She's not your mother," Phantom Claudia rebuts. "I am."

("No, I am your father!" -- Darth Vader)

That night, Black Bart has gathered up his things and is preparing to leave their camp. He wakes Jacob up and tells him their mother lied about everything and doesn't love them, and he plans to go the village. He invites him to leave. Furious, Jacob does not believe him and starts to punch Bart in the face repeatedly.

Mommie Dearest hauls Jacob off him. Bart tells her he knows they aren't really her sons, and he's going to his real people. He tells her that his real mother told him, and knows MD killed her. Jacob stands by Mommie Dearest and refuses to go with Bart.

"I'm going to go home," he says.

Mommie Dearest says that whatever he was told, he will never be able to leave the Island.

"That's not true!" Black Bart says. "One day I will prove it."

He stalks away, heading for the castaway village of "bad" people.

On the beach the next day, Jacob and Mommie Dearest have a heart to heart. Jacob thinks Black Bart will come back, which she refutes. She confirms that she did kill their birth mother, because she believes she would have taken them back to the village, where they would have become "very bad." She wanted them to stay "good."

Jacob, though, feels second rate and jealous. "Why do you love him more than me?"

"I love you in different ways. ... Will you stay with me, Jacob? Please?"

"Yes." She hugs him and cries, while he looks bitter. "For a while."

Thirty years pass, and now a 43-year-old Jacob (Pellegrino) is weaving. His mom, who's feeling her age and is tired, tells him it's very nice.

Jacob goes down to the village to watch his brother and later joins him for a game of backgammon on the game that is now one of his most highly valued posessions. Black Bart (Welliver) says he knows that Mommie Dearest knows he visits him regularly.

Bart acknowledges that the people are bad, a couple of them are even insane. They are greedy, manipulative, untrustworthy and selfish.

"Then why are you with them?" Jacob says.

"They're a means to an end."

"What end?"

"I'm leaving, Jacob. I found a way off the Island."

"No, that's impossible. There is no way off the Island."

He throws a dagger -- that same one that killed Jacob and should have killed Smokey -- which shoots toward a well in the village and sticks. That electromagnetism!

Black Bart says that though the people have their faults, there are "very smart men" among them who have discovered places on the Island where metal behaves oddly.

"What will you do when she dies?" he asks Jacob.

"She won't die. ... I never want to leave the Island. It's my home."

"Well, it's not mine!"

He goes back and tells him mom about Bart's plans.

On the next day, Mommie Dearest comes to the Island, where she goes down into a well that the "very smart men" have built with Black Bart. It leads into a cavern, where Bart is busy hardening the tip of a spear.

He says that though Mommie Dearest wouldn't show him the cave, he spent 30 years searching, walking the Island "from end to end." Then he thought, maybe the Light is beneath the ground. The very smart men found a way to dig down toward the Light. He removes a brick from the wall, revealing the Light. He also indicates a primitive donkey wheel, which he says will be attached to some equipment that the smart men constructed. The system will channel the water and the light. He turns the wheel, and voila, off the Island.

"How do you know it will work?" she asks.

"I'm special, Mother."

"Please don't do this. Don't go."

"I have to go."

"Why?"

"Because I don't belong here!"

"Then I suppose this is goodbye."

She cries and embraces Black Bart. "I am so sorry," she says. Then she screams, shoves him across the chamber and smashes his head into the wall, just as she did to Claudia over 40 years ago!

Mommie Dearest takes Jacob down to the Cave of Wonders, where she conducts the Awesome and Sacred Wine Drinking Ceremony of Immortality. As she uncorks the bottle, it recalls the scene in "Ab Aeterno" where Jacob told Richard the Island was like a bottle of wine that needed to be kept corked to trap Smokey. She says some mumbo jumbo in a foreign tongue and coerces Jacob to drink it.

"What is down there?"

"Life, death, rebirth. It's the heart and source of the Island."

By taking that cup of vino, Jacob is pledged to protetct the Island until he finds a replacement. He doesn't at first, still bitter and convinced Mommie Dearest loved Black Bart more than him, and now she's picked him only because his brother bolted for the village.

"It always was supposed to be you," she says. "I see it now."

Finally, he drinks.

"Now you and I are the same." Mommie Dearest says.

(Religious overtones? In the story of Jesus, he prays in the Garden of Gethsemane, just before the crucifixion, that if it be the Father's will, "let this cup be taken from me." Later, after praying, Jesus realizes he must sacrifice himself. Sort of like Jacob resigning himself to Island protection. Not to mention that Jacob drinking the wine is halfway like taking communion; just need some bread there. L & C have not shied from throwing Bible analogies in there. )

Black Bart wakes up the next day, still living, and his special well and cavern are destroyed and charred. He returns to his village to find all the houses burned, and the entire population dead. He fishes his backgammon set out of the remains of his house, bursts into a rage and sobs.

Back at his former home, Mommie Dearest sends Jacob out to get firewood before a thunderstorm arrives. She returns to her camp and finds it trashed. She finds Black Bart's old game on the ground and looks at the black stone. Bart pops up behind her and stabs her in the back with his dagger.

She tumbles to the ground, mortally wounded.

"Why would you not let me leave, Mother?"

"Because I love you. (Gasp.) Thank you." A smile, a long sigh ... and she dies, perhaps grateful that her long, long job of Island guardianship is over.

Jacob comes back with the firewood and sees Bart over his dead mom.

"What did you do?" he screams and starts to repeatedly punch Bart in the face. "What did you do?"

Bart tells Jacob that Mommie Dearest is crazy and burned everyone up. "You can't kill me, Jacob. She made so you can't!"

He takes him down to the Cave of Wonders and says, "Don't worry, brother, I'm not going to kill you."

Bart asks if Mommie Dearest brought him back to the Cave, and he says she did, because she told him he has to protect it now. Jacob garbs Bart by the neck and throws him into the river that runs into the Cave of Wonders.

"You wanted to find light, you want to meet this place, brother? Then go!"

...And his body drifts into it, disappearing through what looks like an invisible barrier or force field. The ground rumbles beneath Jacob's feet, a primal roar is heard...

...And Smokey issues forth for the first time from the Cave of Wonders! GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR! WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH!!! Freight train-like noises as Smokey rushes past his old bro! The Smokey Express, comin' through!!

Jacob, still in shock over killing Bart, the debut of Smokey, death of Mommie Dearest, etc., stops to take a drink at yet another river. He looks, suprised to see Bart's body lying nearby.

He goes back to camp and gets his mother's body and the black and white stones, putting them into a small bag. He takes the bodies to a cave and neatly arranges them side by side. He puts a bag containing the black and white stones by them. Quick flashes to Season 1, showing Jack and Kate looking at skeletons in the cave.

John Locke comes the the cave opening and looks at the bodies. After Jack tells him one is female, he says, "Our very own Adam and Eve!"

Back to Jacob, who lovingly makes final adjustments to the corpses of the only family he ever knew. He gazes at them and says, "Goodbye, brother. Goodbye." Fade to black. (And I don't know why he didn't say farewell to Mom.)

And this is the end, beautiful friend, this is the end, my only friend, the end... Those lyrics from The Doors' "The End," effectively used at the beginning and end of Apocalypse Now, loudly and unsubtly announce the last regular episode next week, "What They Died For." Scenes quickly appear in what looks like submerged bubbles, so maybe water will be a huge factor in this upcoming show?

Lost Season 6, Episode 14 -- The Candidate, Or, Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow

The home stretch of an action oriented ensemble show often means deaths, and often of main characters. Just look at the body count on The Sopranos during the final season - Tony killed his own nephew, and the rival don's men shot down his brother-in-law. Just this week, a major character was killed off on Breaking Bad. We hate to see anyone go on shows, but sometimes these creators think it's necessary.

So it goes now on our controlling, enchanted isle. Smokey tried to keep his promise to Jacob back in 1867 that he will kill any candidates the dweller of the Big Foot House sends toward the Island. Some of our favorites now are in eternal rest in the deep, and now the Losties must fight back.

In Sideways Los Angeles, meanwhile, there's a cruel twist to the idea of You Only Hurt the Ones You Love, and Jack still desperately trying to "fix" things.

John Locke wakes up from surgery at St. Sebastian, where Jack is waiting for him. Locke's first words: "I think I know you," a phrase the Losties keep uttering to each other as they meet in Sideways World.

Jack says they met in the baggage claim after John's knives were lost. He tells him that he repaired Locke's ruptured dural sac, and that he is a candidate -- one reflection of the episode title -- for a new surgical technique that could restore feeling to his legs and perhaps even allow him to walk again.

Locke emphatically refuses this opportunity, and Helen arrives. She thanks Jack for the surgery and tells him he has done enough.

Jack wakes up in Island World, where Sayid is his greeter: "Welcome to Hydra Island. At least you didn't have to paddle."

Over at the old animal facility, the rest of the gang is under the gun by Seamus and the other Widmore goons, who want them to get into the cages. (I guess Jungle Liz Lemon is off working on the security fence, as we don't see her at all in this episode.) Sawyer, remembering the boring episodes of the first half of Season 3 (except for his Kate hookup), won't have any part of this and grabs Seamus' rifle. Widmore shows up, puts his handgun to Kate, and tells him to drop the gun. She isn't on anyone's lists, remember? Seamus gets back in charge, hits Sawyer in the stomach, and all are forced into the cage.

Widmore says he is doing this for their own good, but Sawyer doesn't believe it. Widmore is upset when Seamus says the security fence will be ready in an hour, and they don't have that long. "He's coming," Widmore says ominously.

In Sideways L.A., Bernard Nadler, DDS, is taking a small rotary tool to some dentures, when Dr. Jack shows up, looking for information on Locke, who had emergency oral surgery three years earlier. Bernard wants to know why Jack needs to know about Locke, and he says he met him on Oceanic 815. Bernard smiles and says he was on the same flight and noticed Jack flirting with Rose when he went to the restroom. Jack is stunned at meeting yet another 815 alumnus. Bernard can only say, "Pretty weird, isn't it?"

Bernard tells Jack there was another passenger in the "accident" that injured Locke. His name was Anthony Cooper.

On Hydra, Sayid tells Jack that Smokey saved his life, and the others who survived Widmore's mortar attack scattered into the jungle. The Smoke Man arrives and tells Jack that Widmore has "your people" in the cages, and they need to move fast to break them out. Jack says they aren't his people, and he is not leaving the Island. Smokey says the rest do want to leave, and he needs Jack's help to convince them to trust him.

"Why should I trust you?" Jack asks the Smoke Man.

"Because I could kill you, Jack, right here, right now, and I could kill every single one of your friends too. But instead of killing you, I saved your life, and I want to save their lives too. Will you help me?"

Jack says nothing, but he gets ready to go with Sayid and Smokey.

In the cages, Sawyer said he saw Kate's name in Jacob's cave, but it was crossed out. and he does not need her. Jin -- practicing his English, I guess -- tells Sun in that language that he saw pictures of Ji-Yeon on Sun's camera and thinks she's beautiful.

"I have your ring," Sun says, and puts it back on his finger. They clasp hands --

--And the generator goes out. A loud whooping, roaring sound, and the chain clanking racket. Smokey's on his way.

Understatement of the Night by Seamus: "We're dead."

And they are. The creature makes short work of the Widmore goons, tossing Seamus like a rag doll near the cage. Kate struggles to get Seamus' key while Frank takes the more direct route and starts to bash on the lock with a rock.

Jack shows up and unlocks the cage door. "What are you doing here?" Kate says.

"I'm with him," Jack says, indicating some very angry gray smoke.

After many commercials, the gang is now trooping through the jungle toward the Ajira jet. Jack keeps insisting that he'll go to the plane, but he's not leaving his precious Island. Sayid pops out of the jungle, which leads to more guns pointing, until Jack says the Wandering Zombie is with them too, and he was the one who took out Widmore's power supply.

In Sideways L.A., Jack is still snooping in the Life of John Locke. He is asking a woman at what appears to be a busy office about Anthony Cooper, when Helen shows up and again says Locke doesn't want the special surgery. Jack can't be satisfied and wants to know why.

"You saved his life, and that's enough," Helen says.

She takes him into an activity room full of senior citizens, and this doesn't bode well. We're at a nursing home. Helen introduces Jack to Anthony Cooper, who is in a wheelchair, virtually catatonic and barely able to smile. (He looks just like my dad did in the final months of his life before he died of Alzheimer's!)

Back on Hydra Island, Smokey approaches the Ajira jet while more Widmore goons shoot at him in vain. One gets his neck snapped by Smoke Man, and the other gets shot with his colleague's gun. Smokey goes inside the jet, where he finds a wire running along the ceiling in the passenger cabin, which is attached to some plastic explosives.

When the gang arrives, Smokey tells them that Widmore wanted to get them all in a confined place in order to kill them -- on the jet, in the air. His weapon? Four bricks of C4 explosives that would have gone off while flying. The alternative must be the submarine.

Hurley reminds everyone that Richard said Smokey must not leave the Island.

"Screw Alpert!" Smokey shouts, and starts to move out for the sub. Jack promises to help but again vows not to leave Craphole Island.

Claire apologizes to the Smoke Man, but he says he understands why she went with the others. Sawyer takes Jack aside and asks him to help prevent Smokey from getting on the sub.

"Just get it in the water, and I'll take care of the rest," Sawyer says.

In Sideways L.A., Locke wakes up, and Jack is there again as he murmurs, "Push the button ... I wish you had believed me..." Island memories seeping in, but not completely.

Claire shows up and wants to talk to Jack. She never even met Christian or knew him. Jack says their dad basically drank himself to death and was found in alley behind a bar in Sydney, and then the body was lost on the flight home!

Claire shows Jack a finely carved music box with contrasting wood inlays. She doesn't know why their dad left it for her She lifts the lid, and it plays "Catch a Falling Star," while a Mirror Moment occurs. Both siblings are smiling in their reflection as the music plays.

Jack invites Claire to come and stay with him.

"But I can't do that. We're strangers," she says.

"We're not strangers. We're family."

On Hydra Island, Sawyer leads a forward team to the sub, which is strangely unguarded. Smokey warns them that the goons may not be outside the sub, but they are probably inside. Sawyer easily takes the captain at gunpoint, and Frank knocks out the first mate. The rest begin to board the sub.

Smokey asks Jack if he's sure he wants to stay, and he says he's sure -- and knocks the monster into the water. A shot rings out and hits Kate in the chest, and more Widmore goons start to fire. More gunfighting and running to the sub, Jack supporting Kate. The unstoppable Smokey clambers up out of the water, unhurt, shoots a whole bunch of red shirts, who just can't kill the beast (or stab it with their steely knives ... sorry, song lyric digression again).

Sawyer shuts the sub's door topside and tells Frank to dive, dive, dive! Smokey and Claire are on the dock as the submarine moves out. Claire is distressed, to which the Smoke man says, "Trust me, you don't want to be on that sub."

On board that sub, Jack is in ER mode and asks for a shirt from his pack to put pressure on Kate's chest wound. But instead of clothes...

...There's a bomb with a timer.

"We did exactly what he wanted," Jack says wearily.

As the timer goes to just over 3 minutes, Jack orders Frank to have the sub go to the surface. Sayid looks at the bomb and says it is a watch jury rigged to a battery, which is wired to the C4 explosives.

Jack warns them not to pull the wires out. His reasoning is Smokey couldn't kill them because they are candidates. The monster needed them in a confined space -- same words Smokey gave about Widmore's so-called jet trap -- and the he can't leave unless they are all dead.

Jack says the bomb is actually a test, a trick to get the Losties to all kill each other, instead of actually blowing them up. He tells them to leave the bomb alone, and nothing will happen, but Sawyer panics and yanks the wires out.

The bomb stops, they breathe sighs of relief, and then the device restarts, with the clock going double time!

Sayid tells them there is a well on the main Island, and Desmond is inside there -- alive. Good for Sayid, not killing our beloved Scot! Sayid says to get Desmond right away, because the monster wants him dead.

"Why are you telling me this?" Jack says.

"Because it's going to be you, Jack," Sayid replies. Like a running back, he scoops up the bomb and dashes down a corridor and as far to the other end of the sub as possible. Acting as a human shield, he takes the blast, and the water starts to gush in.

Jack immediately grabs Kate, but they discover Sun is trapped under a large machinery cabinet. Jack orders Hurley to take Kate to the surface. He wants to know where Sayid is, and Jack says, "There is no Sayid."

He turns to help Jin and Frank move the obstacle. But once they move it, they discover she is further pinned down by steel from the bulkhead that can't be removed.

Sun pleads with Jin to leave while Jack leaves the sinking vessel with an unconscious Sawyer. She keeps asking him to go, and he won't budge.

In Korean he repeats his line from the last episode: "I won't leave you. I won't ever leave you again."

"I love you Sun," he says in English.

"I love you, too." They kiss as the water levels rise, and Celine Dion begins to sing about how they are here in their hearts, love can touch them one time and last for a lifetime, and the heart will go on--

Oops, wrong show.

Gentle Michael Giacchino music, heavy with strings, plays as the sub drifts silently to the ocean bottom. Sun and Jin's hands are seen joined together in closeup, until death completely causes them to drift apart. And their hearts will go on... (Because love is always a bitch on the Island. Once two people hook up there, one or both of them always seem to get killed or badly injured. See: Libby and Hurley, Charlie and Claire, Shannon and Sayid.)

The death of Sayid seemed to parallel Michael's final redemption and explosive death in the Season 4 finale, while the quiet, almost lyrical drowning of Jin and Sun evoked Charlie's passing at the end of Season 3.

In Sideways L.A., John Locke is getting discharged. Helen was supposed to meet him but isn't there. Why?

Jack shows up to say goodbye. He confesses that he went and saw Anthony Cooper, because he had to understand why John didn't want the surgery, and why he was in the wheelchair.

Locke gets misty eyed and looks fragile as he tells Jack that he and Cooper were in a plane crash. (Holy Aircraft Failure, Batman! A plane crash wreaking havoc in Sideways world. I had assumed till this point the "accident" was in an automobile.) Locke had had his private pilot's license for just one week, when he convinced his plane fearing dad to go on a flight with him. He looked his dad right in the eye and told him to trust him.

"I don't know exactly what happened ... The man I loved can't walk or talk anymore, and it's my fault."

In one world, the father maliciously tosses his son out the window, assuming he will die. In another, the son makes the father a total invalid. I almost had a good feeling to see Kevin Tighe all discombobulated like that after his exploitations of so many others, but it was just not the right feeling for this Sideways Universe.

Jack says that when he heard Locke say that his father was gone, it hurt to hear that, but "what happened, happened," and he learned that you have to let go of things. Locke's father is also "gone," though in a different sense: alive but a vegetable.

"How do you know that letting go is easy?" Locke says.

"I don't know if it is, but maybe it'll be easier if you go first."

Locke shakes his head and laughs. "Goodbye, Dr. Shephard," he says, and wheels away.

Jack calls out, "I can help you, John! I wish you believed me."

Back on the Island, Jack brings Sawyer ashore, followed by Hurley with Kate. Jack tells Hurley was struck pretty hard in the head but is still breathing.

When Hurley asks where Sun and Jin are, Jack gets misty eyed and shakes his head. Kate, Jack and Hurley all begin to mourn. Jack leaves them, walks to the beach where it meets the ocean, looks up to the dark sky and cries aloud. (No certain status on Frank Lapidus, though. Our fine pilot just still may turn up, crawling out of the ocean.)

Back at the submarine dock, Smokey says matter of factly to Claire that the submarine sank. She asks if everyone is dead.

"Not all of them," the creature says.

"Where are you going?"

"To finish what I started!"

The monster stalks away. And fade to black.

Next week's show will involve little or no of the main cast, as they set the Wayback Machine to the year who knows what, and Jacob and the Man in Black's origin stories are told. Expect to see pint sized MIB and Jacob (already seen in previous shows, played by Kenton Duty). And some backgammon! And black and white!