Lost season 4 episode 10 review

“Ah, that’s the great puzzle.”                -Jack Shephard

Ten episodes in, four more to go. With the silly season of television finales straight ahead, everything seems to be falling into place for Lost‘s three-part (!!!) end-of-season blowout following the most recent installment, entitled “Something Nice Back Home”. Which is nice to see, because I’m not falling into place – a lot is going on with university at the moment, so you’re getting a concise and mostly jumbled recap this week. Let’s make with the quickness, then!

1. Jate is fate (but it’s also doomed from the start)

So, there we have it – Kate chose Jack.

But, seeing as this is Lost, it’s never ever that simple, seeing how Jack didn’t choose Kate. Jack, as always, ended up choosing Jack in his off-island life. What I mean by this is that Jack couldn’t really live a proper, satisfied life, plagued incessantly by both his time on the island and his soul-crushing relationship with his Drinky Doctor Dad (trademarks pending). Watch his face when he’s asking Kate for her hand in marriage – it seems as if he wants her to say yes just so someone will want to keep him about, as if he’s marrying for a sense of his own security. And his only way to get out of this conundrum… well, we saw the results of it in “Through the Looking Glass”.

Y’see, Jack Shephard is very much a quintessential 21st Century Man. On the outside, he’s both an example of masculinity and honesty; the problem is he’s never really been honest with anyone other than himself, keeping everything stored on the inside. That’s why he thinks he knows best by watching his own appendix get removed (which was… yechhh). That’s why he has a massive savior complex. In the off-island future, he could have easily told Kate about his fears concerning his father – hell, any of the fears he has – but he ends up alone and back where he started. When he shouts “we have to go back!” to Kate in the season three finale, you can hear it in his voice, see it in his eyes: the man just wants to be wanted.

Enough pseudo-psychology now!

2. The freighter fallout

Somebody shoot Keamy in the face. Please. As if executing Alex last week wasn’t enough, it was even worse having to come to the terms that, yup, Danielle is deader than the dodo. (And Karl too, but, c’mon, he’s no Danielle.) And even though I thought that Smokey had killed off some of the mercenaries when Ben brought him out, it seems not as they were trying to find the ‘copter. They’re dirty and injured but not dead. So, following Island rules, can the Monster need to have rules as to who it could kill? Do the mercenaries have a destiny to fulfil on the island?

I’m guessing they do, season finale and all that. Oh, and Lapidus is definitely one of the good guys. I think.

3. Jin seals his fate

Charlotte speaks Korean! And so does Jin, seeing how he’s from Korea and all that. So, really, they should be making friends right now. Except nobody on the beach trusts Charlotte and puppy-dog Daniel, and Jin’s bad at first impressions (example: Michael). So Jin decides to cut a deal with Charlotte – when the helicopter comes, Sun is off the island, no questions asked. If questions are asked, then Daniel gets his fingers broken. That’s a catch-22, methinks.

The thing that surprised me about this scene was Jin’s threats of violence – even though he was shooting a gun at the end of the third season, this was more menacing. I guess you can take the good guy away from the badness, but you can never really take the badness away from the good guy. Or something. Just don’t hurt Daniel. I want him and Charlotte to consummate already.

4. In search of a deaddad

So, Christian Shephard is well and truly back and he’s haunting his kids! In the future, he seems to be popping up to face Jack as some kind of omen, maybe calling him back to the island. Whatever he’s doing, it truly sets Jack off on a bad note, kickstarting his drug addiction and general apathy towards the world – I’m guessing Kate calls off the engagement soon after this. Sins of the father, Lost style.

And Claire wakes up in the middle of the night to see her estranged biological father holding Aaron. In the morning, Sawyer wakes up to find that she’s disappeared and left Aaron behind. Cue cliffhanger.

5. Rousseau is so dead

I said it earlier, but just… dammit.

Right, I’m running low on fuel, but I’ll try my hardest to squeeze another recap in two weeks time – next week, you’ll have to make do with someone else’s recaps as I’m at Give It A Name in London to see Glassjaw. If you’re reading this and are going, make sure to say hello and have a chat. Until then, the usual questions.

Was Miles’ interest in Claire have to do with Christian coming for her? Is the monster taking on the human forms of Christian on the island and Charlie off the island? Isn’t the medical station not powered by the Tempest, a/k/a the Hatch I Didn’t Understand? When Jack says Sawyer “chose to stay”, does that mean that him and other non-Oceanic Six folk are on the island still? Do you want Daniel and Charlotte to get to it already? Does anyone feel bad for Juliet? (I do, the poor thing. Too damn selfless.)

‘Til a couple of weeks from now, I’m Lost.