I hate it when I foresee one of LOST's Machiavellian narrative motifs but I don't get around to saying so in print.
As soon as Unlocke dropped Claire the hint that maybe Kate was still a possible target for vengeance once the group was aboard the plane, I thought, "It's the old shell game. Unlocke can't kill the candidates, though we know from previous episodes that he wants them dead-- but he can maneuver them into killing one another."
As it happened, the possible setup of Claire going after Kate wasn't even a vital part of Unlocke's plan. To be sure, I don't think any viewer could've foreseen the way Unlocke's actual plan would unfold, though, since it hinged on this whole "leap of faith" concept that Jack Shepard is now preaching, as received from the Testament of the One True John Locke.
It's a kind of "rock paper scissors" game of one-upmanship. One presumes that, had Jack managed to persuade all of his companions to ignore the bomb's countdown, the bomb would have failed to detonate as did the dynamite in the Black Rock when Jack played "truth or dare" alongside Richard. But because he couldn't persuade them to his newfound faith, the bomb goes off and Saint Jack is as much at risk as the others from being either blown up or drowned.
I have various problems with "The Candidate" episode, but I do admire the turnaround on Sawyer. At season's beginning Sawyer laid a heavy, and not fully justified, guilt trip on Shepard for Jack's alleged responsibility for Juliet's death. Later, Sawyer cops to his own survivors' guilt, but in "The Candidate" Sawyer is arguably pretty damn responsible for the deaths of Sayyid, Jin and Sun. (Maybe Lapidus too, though I find it hard to believe the writers dragged him across two islands without intending to make better use of him.) Will Sawyer walk a mile in Jack's shoes? He probably doesn't have the time to walk anywhere, much less expound on what he knew or didn't know about the "no kill the candidates" meme.
Jin and Sun's deaths-- I didn't call them either, but I pretty much expected them to "die together" after having "lived alone," or at least apart, for so long. The actors did a good job with what they were given but the setup wasn't especially resonant. Guess Widmore will do without whatever info he wanted from Jin.
Sayyid's death is more frustrating because I saw some openings whereby the writers could have resolved a lot of the vexing narrative questions about the whole "Nadia's death/Jacob's semi-intervention" business. While the topic might be touched upon in the remaining eps, I've a feeling that whole plotline is going end up as more fodder for DVD-commentary.
Hurley rescuing Sawyer from the briney deep reflects a little on the accident that originally caused Hurley's trip to the nuthouse, wherein Hurley's weight is a factor in the deaths of two innocents in the sea. Still, like the deaths of Jin and Sun it seemed more functional than poetic.
The incompetence of Charles Widmore's people seems to know no bounds, at least when it's convenient to the story. I certainly hope Charlie has something better up his sleeve than what we've seen so far.
Another journey into the dark night of John Locke's soul? Been there, done that.
At least we get more Man in Black next week.
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The mechanics were all fucked up on this one. In fact, this season has had the worse plotting of the entire series. Anyway, Locke secretly plants a bomb on them with, what, the hope that Kate gets shot, so Jack will look in his bag to discover the thing!?! And if all the group had carried the bomb to the other side of the submarine, it wouldn't have gone off? Is there some magical circumference which counts for an individual setting off the bomb? Really sloppy writing. Doesn't bode well for the dwindling time remaining.
Yeah, and that's even w/o mentioning that up to the point that Widmore's men attack, Jack isn't planning to depart with the sub, and Unlocke is practically pleading with Jack to change his mind so that Unlocke's brilliant plan will work!
Hey, Smokey, you want it to be on the sub, put the bomb in Sawyer's pack: he's the one hottest to leave! Maybe even give him some ambigious instructions that seem to be helping the escape plan: "oh, I put a special Jesus stick in your pack to help you navigate..." Not that that works either, but it's a slight improvement.
Better yet: don't bother with the pack nonsense at all. Smokey gets on the sub before anyone, plants the bomb where they can all see it. That way even if Jack doesn't go, the plan gets rid of most of the candidates.
I think the sudden sloppiness of both Smokey and Unlocke reflects a similar impairment on the part of their writers.
Yep. Or why wouldn't Lapidus starting the plane work? Is it a rule that Locke can't leave by a sub? He can clearly cross water using a boat. This episode drove me mad.
One other crucial problem: Jack couldn't kill himself by lighting dynamite, so why was Sawyer able to kill them by tampering with the bomb?
"Or why wouldn't Lapidus starting the plane work?"
My guess is that the plane is fully functional and Unlocke just lied about the possibility that more C-4 was stashed aboard. I think Lapidus will survive and fulfill his only reason for being in the story so long: to fly the plane out, whosoever may be aboard it.
It's possible that once all the candidates were killed as dead as Jacob, the "game" would be over and Smokey would no longer be bound by any "rules," including the ones that kept him from flying over water. In addition, since he told Ricardo an involved and maybe partly true story about how Jacob deprived Smokey of his body, it may be that Unlocke's ultimate purpose is to have a permanent body, one that won't be bound by any island-rules.
"so why was Sawyer able to kill them by tampering with the bomb?"
Good question. Michael was saved at least twice from attempted suicides, and Tom explains that "the island wasn't done with" him. Jack's resolution to test the Island's resolve to keep him alive pretty much falls into the same arena: the island saves Jack because it's not done with him. But since Jacob's successor hasn't been chosen, clearly the island can't be done with all of the castaways. Based on Michael's example, the island OUGHT to protect everyone in the sub in spite of Sawyer's boneheaded action. It would make a teeny bit of sense if one were dealing with a peevish deity, who decided to quit protecting the candidates when one of them stupidly cast the god's protection aside. But there's no evidence that the island has moods, peevish or otherwise.
My guess is that the plane is fully functional and Unlocke just lied about the possibility that more C-4 was stashed aboard. I think Lapidus will survive and fulfill his only reason for being in the story so long: to fly the plane out, whosoever may be aboard it.
I agree, but what I meant with that awkward sentence was why, if Locke's intention was to kill them all in one place, why not use the plane? Lapidus can kill the candidates. There's no problem with Locke having set the bomb. So the logical plan involving a bomb would've been to use the plane.
About the way any of this sort of works is if everything is determined. UnLocke knows the course of things (really, that's the only way the whole thing with his use of Locke makes much sense). Of course, then there's the problem of how knowing what will happen with a bomb makes him the cause for the death of Sayid, Jin and Sun. The show isn't being written by philosophers, though, so it's going to be a mess, I suspect.
I think the problem with using the plane (aside from the likelihood that the writers want to use it for something else) is that if it took off with the C-4 in it, the bomb wouldn't go off thanks to the island's meddling. The candidates had to be put in some situation through which they became aware of a bomb and then made the critical mistake of not trusting in the Island's power. That may be the main reason Unlocke bullshits them about the need to forget the plane and take the sub instead; it's a way to put them in a more chaotic situation so that they DO discover the explosives.
That's not to say that the way the candidates discover the bomb in Jack's pack makes a lot of sense, either, as we've agreed.
My brother wondered where either Smokey or John Locke (whose memories Smokey has) got the wherewithal to rig up a timed bomb at all...
I'm constrained to point out that good philosophers rarely make good artists, and vice versa.
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