Episode Report Card Cindy McLennan: A+ | 2 USERS: C YOU GRADE IT I'm So Dizzy My Head Is Spinnin'
By Cindy McLennan | Season 5 | Episode 15 | Aired on 05.06.2009
Daniel,
No matter what, remember I will always love you.
Mother
Eloise is looking from the journal to Daniel's lifeless eyes, and then at Richard, when Widmore arrives back at camp, calling her name. Richard catches him up on what happened with Daniel, and then Charles catches Eloise and Richard up on his brand new prisoners. Eloise asks Jack and Kate if they came here with "this man" -- meaning Daniel. Corpse is more specific now, Mommy Dearest. When Jack says yes, she orders the Other-Goon to put them in her tent. Alice Evans has pretty blue eyes, but the color is only evident when the lighting is right. The rest of the time, they nearly look black. My husband Scott keeps babbling about Black-Eyed Willow and various demons on Supernatural. I think my devotion to crazy TV has finally broken his brain. Tsk. It was a nice brain. That's just too bad. I hope he can still work, because this mortgage ain't gonna pay itself. Anyhow, when Charles asks Eloise why the Dharma Initiative seems to have declared war on them, she seems to take great pains to remain polite as she explains to him, "These people aren't from the Dharma Initiative, Charles." The moron is implied. Ellie, Charles and Richard all look around, waiting for the dramatic music to start, which it does and we jump to...
Thirty Years Later; Camp Richard By-The-Sea:: While sitting in his beachside tent (at a table!) Richard builds a ship in a bottle. So are you saying Richard arrived on Craphole via The Black Rock, Show? I was figuring him for an Egyptian, what with his affinity for kohl and all. A young woman we've never before seen, Vanessa (Elisabeth Blake), runs up to Richard and informs him that He's here.
It's Locke and he comes bearing dead boar, but even with all the crazy time shifts on this show, leave it to our boy Johnny to choose to return during a moment in which a Swine Flu joke just isn't timely. Thanks for nothing, Locke.Richard says it's been three years since they've seen one another and he wants some exposition, but Locke says they have an errand to do, so he'll catch him up later. Richard notices "something different" about Locke. Locke explains that he's found his "purpose," but my references to The Jerk are tiring even me, and I'm not feeling a Rick Warren reference here (although you can make your own out of that segue if you're so inclined) so I'm adopting Locke's we're burning daylight here, people attitude and getting on with it.
Sun and Ben follow in Locke's wake and Richard seems surprised to see Ben, so Locke explains Ben "helped" him get back, but he leaves out the part where he murdered him. Meanwhile, Sun asks Ben why Locke keeps calling Ben's people his own people. Ben says that once he left, Locke "stepped in." He also tells her Richard's name and describes him as an "advisor" of sorts. "And he has had that job for a very, very long time."
Sun unzips her pack and removes the 1997 photo of the Dharma recruits, brings it to Richard and explains she's looking for her husband Jin Kwon. She asks Richard if he was around in 1977 -- if he recognizes Jack, Hurley and Kate. Richard remembers them quite clearly. "I watched them all die." Locke and Richard both seem to look regretful, but it's hard to tell with the nearly-natives, isn't it? Dun.
2007; Camp Richard By-The-Sea: Lost in thought, Sun plays idly with Jin's wedding band, as is her wont. When Locke joins her, she wonders if it's true -- if "they're all dead." Locke tells her he doesn't think they've gone through all this for nothing. He asks Richard if he still has the old compass he gave him. Richard says it's a little rusty but it can still find north. Could it ever really find north on that island, what with all the magic electro-magnetism? Locke tells Sun to sit tight and invites Ben on the expedition he'll be taking with Richard. Ben snits about Locke not trusting him with his former people. "Afraid I'll stage a coup?" Locke says he's no longer afraid of anything Ben can do, which is just awesome. Ben fakes enthusiasm for Locke's errand which is even more awesome, and then Locke assures Sun that if there's any way for him to find their people (that he means the Oceanic 815 people is implicit in the context) he'll do it. They leave Sun alone to worry (less awesome), and we jump to...
1977; Camp Richard In-The-Verge: Other-Goon is rough with Kate as he escorts her into Ellie's tent, so Jack shouts for him to take it easy on her. Other-Goon only takes orders from Ellie, Richard, Charles, and all the other Others, so he doesn't like being bossed around and kicks Jack in the freaking head! He leaves him and Kate with an order not to talk, so, of course, they talk. Jack thinks if they can do what Faraday said (blow up the energy source at the Swan site before the incident), their plane will never crash, Oceanic 815 will land in L.A. and everyone they've lost since they crashed on Craphole will still be alive. Kate wonders, "What about us," and I want to go inside my TV set and ask her if she means her-and-Jack us or Lost-aways us or the Returnees us or well, just I need a solid definition, okay? It doesn't matter. I'm not getting one here and now. "We just go on living our life, because we've never met?" Jack's all for that, because they can kiss all the misery they've been through goodbye. Kate protests. "It was not all misery." Does it feel like they swapped roles here? Whatever. Jack's so over her this minute. Maybe the kick to the head did it. Harking back to her comment about it not being all misery, Jack says, "Enough of it was."
Their sweet-nothings are interrupted by Ellie. She asks Jack about the man she shot and why he needed the bomb. Jack's all, Lady, it's way too crazy; you'd never believe me. Since bizarre confessions are the island's secret handshake, Ellie spills her own crazy about how when she was 17, she took Daniel to the bomb, he told her to bury it, then he disappeared before her eyes, and now 23 years later, even though the man hasn't aged a day, she's shot him in the back, and listened as he claimed with his dying breath to be her son. She shows Jack the journal and wonders how the inscription is in her hand-writing even though she doesn't remember writing it. Jack explains that she hasn't written it yet, and that killing Daniel was an accident, but there's a way for her to take it all back. "If we do what's written in that journal, none of this will have happened." Ellie asks Kate if Jack knows what he's talking about. Kate frowns. "He thinks he does." Jack tries not to laugh at her, when her faint praise doesn't damn him in Ellie's eyes, but instead convinces Ellie. She'll take them to where the bomb is buried. The only problem is that Dharmaville is sitting right on top if it, these days. Huh. I wonder if that's why none of the modern-day Others can have babies, there. Jack has to disabuse Ellie of the notion that he and Kate have a viable cover with the Dharma Initiative, so the musical director helps him out. Bah bah bah bah Bah Bah BAH! And we cut to...