Episode Report Card Cindy McLennan: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT The Mirror of Erised
By Cindy McLennan | Season 6 | Episode 5 | Aired on 02.23.2010
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.L.A. Reality: Jack has an appendectomy scar, but it's from when he was a child, not a castaway, so unless Juliet was a Doogie Howser, she probably didn't do the deed. He's got the same mother (with better hair), and the same old Daddy Issues, too. But a few things are new -- like his waxed chest! Why did they do that to Foxy? First Rose's cancer, now this? This new reality is starting to suck.
Oh yeah, I should mention Jack has a tween or young teenaged son, David, and sees him once a month. They get along as exactly as well as you'd expect from a father-son Shephard team. David (who we later see reading The Annotated Alice) goes to school at St. Mary's Academy. We first meet him there, when Jack is late picking him up. The boy's mom (we don't find out who she is) is out of town, so he's staying with Jack, but that doesn't mean he wants to be with Jack any more than anyone on this show has, ever. Poor dear man. Come on over here and I'll feed you comfort food that, coincidentally, will put hair (back) on your chest.
Jack leaves David at home while he goes to help Mama Shephard find Christian's will. When they finally do, they puzzle over an unfamiliar name in it: Claire Littleton! When Jack gets back to his bachelor pad, David is gone. Jack locates him by sneaking into his ex-wife's house (she hides her key under a bunny statue) and listening to the kid's phone messages. David has an audition tonight (September 24th) at a local conservatory.
Upon arriving at the audition, Jack passes the sign that says, "Welcome Candidates" and enters the auditorium in time to hear the kid play. He's proud and moved, and he and another father -- a Japanese man -- DOGEN -- share a few words about how pressured kids sometimes feel. Outside, David tells Jack that he hates to play for him, because Jack enjoys it so much. No. Really. Jack does his best not to repeat the sins of the father, and tells David how Christian always told him he didn't have what it takes. He doesn't want things to be like that between them. He just wants David to know he loves him, is proud of him, and that he could never fail in Jack's eyes. Not a bad patch job, all things considered.
Island Reality: Jin is saved/captured by Claire -- who captures Justin, as well. Claire, who tends to Jin's wound as she fusses about the danger of infection, has a little bassinet in which she keeps a decorated...baby doll...baby boar corpse. She insists the Others have Aaron and she's going to kill Justin unless he comes clean. Jin explains that Kate took Aaron when the Oceanic 6 left the island, but Claire axes Justin, right in the stomach anyhow, which is too bad, since he's the first Other who ever acted like he might talk. Somewhere in there, Claire tells Jin about her father, and her other island friend who have been keeping her company lo these three years. All this helps Jin realize that Claire is insane in the membrane, so he lies that he was lying about Kate taking Aaron off island. Claire is relieved, because had Kate done so, Claire would have to kill her. Oops.
Meanwhile, Jacob sends Hurley on a secret mission to assist someone who must come to the island. Because he must convince Jack to join him, Hurley tells Jack the magic words: "You have what it takes," supplied by Jacob, naturally. Hurley has written all of Jacob's instructions on his arm, because it's a lot to remember. He also twists the truth (telling Jack that Jacob will meet up with them) to keep Jack in line. They stumble across Kate (who is looking for Claire!), the rape caves, Adam and Eve, Christian's coffin and Shannon's inhaler along the way, and finally arrive at a lighthouse which nobody but nobody has seen in the last five and a half years, but we're not bitter.
The lighthouse is old -- pre-electricity, so it uses a series of mirrors to get the job done. While Hurley is asking Jack for help in setting the dial to 108 degrees, Jack notices reflections in one of the mirrors. The first seems to be a church. Jack looks at the dial and realizes that there are names all around it. Shephard is at 23 degrees. He makes Hurley turn the dial to that setting and sees a reflection of his childhood home. It's a freaking Mirror or Erised! Jack flips out, because J.K. Rowling is likely to sue [and also maybe the family of Lewis Carroll -- Angel] and besides, he wants to know about Jacob and why he's been watching him throughout his life. Hurley has no answers, so Jack smashes the lighthouse mirrors to bits, storms out, and sulks on a nearby cliff.
Meanwhile, Jacob appears to Hurley and makes it clear that although he is waiting for someone to arrive on the island, "they" will have to find it without the lighthouse. His main objective in scheduling the field trip was twofold. First of all, Jack is here because he has to do something; he has to find that out for himself. Some people can learn that in the back of a cab; others need to sulk, seaside. Secondly, Jacob had to get Hurley and Jack out of the Temple, because SOMETHING BAD IS COMING!
Speaking of... Before Jin leads Claire off to the Temple (where he lies that Aaron is) Faucke shows up. Jin understandably addresses him as John, so Claire corrects him: "That's not John. This is my friend." Something bad is coming, indeed.
I haven't graded this episode yet. I've got to think on it some more, but don't let that hold you back. I am loving Hurley's growing confidence; he rocked his Temple scene with Dogen. "Why don't you go wait in the courtyard." The Jack-David reconciliation may have been every bit as moving as Helen and Live Locke's. Foxy certainly knocked it out of the park, but since we never knew David before now, I feel a little cheap for letting it manipulate me to the extent that it did. Cuse and Lindelof played this one a little too close to the vest for my liking. Hurley's: "Well, next time, how about you tell me everything upfront? I'm not big on secret plans," doesn't exactly speak for me, but at this late stage of the game, I need a little more than old asthma inhalers, and smashed coffins and numbers and names I already saw.
I'm starting the full recap now, so until then, please join us in the forums, where we keep our Mirror of Erised.
Watch the full episode now!
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Previously, on Lost: In the new reality, Oceanic Flight 815 lands and Jack learns that Christian's coffin has gone missing. Meanwhile, back on Craphole, the Losties make their way to the Temple. The Templars drown dip Sayid in the polluted spring a.k.a. Murky Mikvah. Oh noes, Sayid is dead. Oh hurrah, he was just kidding! Later, Dogen tortures Sayid. He's not kidding in the slightest on account of having no sense of humor. When Sayid cries out in pain at being shocked and branded, Dogen determines Sayid is infected. He gives Jack a green pill to administer to Sayid, saying it will kill the infection, but neglects to mention that it will do so by killing the host a.k.a. Sayid, since it's poison and all. When Jack wants to know what the hell is up with that, Dogen says there is a darkness growing in Sayid. Jack is all, "How do you know?" Dogen says, "It happened to your sister." Speaking of, Jin gets snared in a nasty trap. Before Templars Aldo and Justin and kill him, Feral Claire shoots them, killing Aldo and wounding Justin. When Jin turns to his savior, he can't believe his eyes. "Claire?"
Currently, on Lost; L.A. Reality: Jack arrives home from work. The camera pans through his apartment, making sure to linger lovingly on the worst photo-shopped picture I've seen on network TV. It's an old one of the family Shephard; Christian is in a light suit; Margo wears a brown dress; Jack is in a tuxedo. Is it a prom picture? A wedding shot of a young groom and his folks? I can't decide because I'm so distracted by the my fambly iz pasted on YAY!-ness of it all. There's also a picture of Jack and Christian at the hospital. They're... smiling. New reality, remember? Jack strips off his scrub shirt and throws on a blue-and-white striped button-down, shirt. And WHY OH WHY HAVE THEY WAXED MATTHEW FOX'S CHEST? Reader Joyce sent me an email reminder that Jack was similarly bare-chested in "Something Nice Back Home." She thinks this is a link between the two realities and says Kate must prefer the baby-ass smoothness she experienced with Sawyer's (waxed) chest. I say pshaw. You know Kate wouldn't mind some conveniently located hair to pull. Anyhow, Jack washes his face and then looks in the mirror, because that's what this season -- this final season -- this show -- is all about: smoke and mirrors. I'm working furiously to enjoy the ride, which necessitates remaining in denial about how much of time I've devoted to smoke and mirrors, so let's get back to Jack. He's now pondering his appendectomy scar, which we know he got on the island, courtesy of Juliet. How does it all shake out on this side of the looking glass?