Lost season 5 episode 15 review

Those hoping that Daniel might have cheated death despite being shot last episode will be saddened to see a fast-becoming-standard extended scene where his corpse lies around living characters, just to comfortably emphasise that yes, he is dead. Anyone still clinging onto that comicon video as evidence that he’s alive can also give up: it’s been explicitly described as a “continuity error” by the producers.

Which isn’t to say, of course, that Daniel’s gone for good. Time travel and flashbacks aside, there’s one way he could come back to life: if he never goes to the island in the first place. Lost has spent a few episodes now building up the idea of an alternate timeline where Flight 815 never crashed – it’s not much of a stretch to think that we might see Daniel back next season as a result.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. After Daniel’s death, Jack takes charge of the efforts to detonate the hydrogen bomb, oddly assisted by Miss Fatalist 2007 herself, Eloise Hawking. It’s not clear why Jack has turned into such a dick recently, even by his own low standards of likeability. Nonetheless, his recent bitchiness gave us a couple of great character moments in this episode that were ultimately worth the cost of having him on screen.

Sayid’s return to the show was a little too convenient and timely, although it’s possible we’ll get some explanation as to what, if anything, he was doing out in the woods for several days that allowed him to turn up at exactly the right second. At least he’s there to help with the bomb, although Hawking’s presence does throw doubt on their plan, since something has to have turned her into the fate-obsessed woman we met in the ‘present’ – was it the failure of their plan? Or even the realisation that she could manipulate the variables ‘next’ time around? Either way, it’s going to be interesting to discover.

Broadly speaking, Lost has always had a place for Hurley as the comic relief of the show, and it’s always made for some hilarious and quotable moments. This episode, the scene where Chang confronts Hurley was a complete comedy masterstroke, producing a scene so brilliant that it’ll stand proudly alongside any of the show’s trademark twists and reveals whenever the top moments of Lost are compiled – or at least, it will if there’s any justice.

Meanwhile, in the other ‘great moments’ stakes, there can be no better moment of schadenfreude in the series than Kate arriving on the sub, interrupting Juliet and Sawyer’s tender moment shortly before the trio disappeared into a wave of poor CGI. Let’s not be surprised if we don’t see these guys in the finale, because it seems like there are other plans at work.

Case in point: Locke’s plan to kill Jacob. Easily the most impenetrable element of Lost besides the Smoke Monster, Jacob’s appearances have been few and far between, as well as completely indecipherable. Locke’s plan to kill him seems to make more sense if you remember him saying “help me” to Locke all those episodes ago, but exactly why killing Jacob will help him is a question that we can’t begin to answer. At least, not until next week…

Check out a review of episode 14 here.