Writers: Carlton Cuse & Damon Lindelof
Director: Stephen WilliamsCast: Elizabeth Mitchell (Juliet), Evangeline Lilly (Kate), Harold Perrineau Jr. (Michael), Michael Emerson (Ben), Terry O'Quinn (Locke), Naveen Andrews (Sayid), Jorge Garcia (Hurley), Jeremy Davies (Faraday), Matthew Fox (Jack), Henry Ian Cusick (Desmond), Rebecca Mader (Charlotte), Yunjin Kim (Sun), Daniel Dae Kim (Jin), Josh Holloway (Sawyer), Ken Leung (Miles), Kevin Durand (Keamy), Anthony Azizi (Omar), Nestor Carbonell (Richard Alpert), L. Scott Caldwell (Rose), Jeff Fahey (Frank), Andrea Gabriel (Nadia), Noah Craft (Hendricks), Susan Duerden (Carole Littleton), Michelle Forbes (Karen Decker), Veronica Hamel (Margo Shephard), Cheech Marin (David Reyes), Lillian Hurst (Carmen Reyes), June Kyoko Lu (Mrs. Paik) & Byron Chung (Mr. Paik)
Ben, Hurley and Sawyer head to the Orchid, Jack and Kate head off in pursuit of the helicopter, Sayid arrives to evacuate the beach-dwellers, and flashforwards reveal the Oceanic Six's cover story..."John, how many times do I have to tell you? I always have a plan."
-- Ben (Michael Emerson)
It's part 1 of a three-part finale, as the Oceanic Six's extraordinary story is revealed and the island becomes a hive of activity as competing forces converge on the infamous Orchid station...
We start in flashforward as an carrying the Oceanic Six – Jack (Matthew Fox), Kate (Evangeline Lilly), Sayid (Naveen Andrews), Hurley (Jorge Garcia), Sun (Yunjin Kim) and baby Aaron – are being transported to a press conference by their Oceanic Airlines rep Karen Decker (Michelle Forbes). Jack reminds the group that they have to all stick to their agreed story, and if there are any difficult questions don't answer them.
At the airport, the Six are met by Oceanic officials, the press and their families. Many of the Oceanic Six are reunited with their loved ones, although nobody is there for Sayid and Kate, who holds Aaron alone.
In the present day, the beach-dwellers decide to use the sat-phone dropped from the helicopter to call whoever's on the other end. Faraday (Jeremy Davies) makes the adjustments and they listen in on conversation from the chopper, where Keamy (Kevin Durand) mentions going to the Orchid. Juliet (Elizabeth Mitchell) has no idea what the Orchid is, so Jack decides to investigate with Kate – despite Juliet's warning that his stitches need to heal from his recent appendectomy. Faraday secretly mentions to Charlotte (Rebecca Mader) that if Keamy's heading to the Orchid, it means they're using the secondary protocol – which means they have to get off the island, immediately.
Jack and Kate head off into the jungle and stumble upon Sawyer (Josh Holloway) with Aaron and Miles (Ken Leung). He explains how Claire walked off alone into the jungle and Sawyer reveals that Keamy's team attached them, just as Locke said they would. Jack, guilty over putting Sayid and Desmond on the freighter, wants them both to return to the beach and let him go alone. However, Sawyer decides to go with Jack and passes Aaron to Kate to look after.
At the Oceanic Six press conference, Karen reads a statement about what happened to the survivors: Flight 815 crashed in the Sunda Trench, but the survivors were carried by ocean currents to an uninhabited island in the Lesser Sunda Islands called Membata. Kate's baby was born there. On day 103, a typhoon washed up pieces of an old fishing boat, which the survivors used to travel to Sumba, coming ashore near a village called Manukangga. They were then flown by US authorities to Honolulu.
The press begin asking questions, which reveals that Sun is pretending that Jin (Daniel Dae Kim) never made it off the plane when it crashed. Another reported works out that Kate must have been 6 months pregnant when she was arrested by the Marshall, but Karen interjects to prevent Kate having to answer that tricky question. After the conference, Sayid is taken outside to meet someone who's not on the list of family members, and he's overjoyed to discover it's his long-lost love Nadia (Andrea Gabriel).
In the present, Sayid arrives by his powered-dinghy on the beach, telling everyone they have to leave immediately because the men on the helicopter are intent on killing them all. Faraday agrees to organize continuous trips to the freighter. Sayid is upset to learn Jack and Kate are headed to the helicopter, as they're in grave danger.
Elsewhere on the island, Hurley, Ben (Michael Emerson) and Locke (Terry O'Quinn) are headed to the Orchid station to "move the island" as Jacob told Locke to do. Ben explains that moving the island is dangerous and unpredictable, that's why he didn't do it before the freighter arrived. Ben stops to uncover a wooden chest under some rocks and takes out some old crackers, binoculars and a mirror. He uses the mirror to signal someone high up on a ridge, with glints of sunlight – but he's unwilling to tell Locke what he communicated.
On the beach, Sayid wants to catch up with Jack and Kate to warn them about Keamy's intentions. At that moment, Kate arrives back with Miles and Aaron. She explains what Sawyer and Jack are doing, then agrees to go back with Sayid to help them both, leaving Aaron with Sun.
A flashforward takes us to Sun, who arrives to see her father Mr Paik (Byron Chung) at his office. Her father asks about the baby, but Sun doesn't want to hear him pretend to be interested. She knows he always hated Jin, and reveals that Oceanic Airlines have awarded her a large settlement over the Flight 815 disaster. She blames him for everything that happened and reveals she's just bought half his company, effectively making her his new business partner.
Also in flashforward, Hurley returns home to find his house strangely empty. In one room, he hears the same ominous whispers that occurred on the island, but the tension is broken when it's revealed everyone is hiding as part of a surprise birthday party – with guests that include Sayid and Nadia. Later, his dad (Cheech Marin) takes him to the garage, where he shows him a red Camara that he fixed as a memorial to him. Hurley gets inside excitedly, but it freaked out when he sees the odometer reading: 48151.6 and 234.2. The numbers. Hurley runs off, much to father's confusion.
On the freighter in the present, Sun and Jin are amongst the first group to arrive aboard. They notice Michael (Harold Perrineau) is part of the freighter crew, which comes as quite a surprise. Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick) hears about some RF interference, meaning they won't be able to steer the ship near to the reefs now that Michael has fixed the engines. Investigating, he discovers a huge bomb of C4 explosives, which could destroy the whole ship.
In flashforward, Jack arrives at his father's overdue memorial. He gives a touching speech about his dead father Christian, before meeting a woman called Carole Littleton (Susan Duerden), who tells him his father was in Sydney before he died to see his daughter. Jack is astonished to discover his dad had a secret daughter, but is truly rocked when Carole reveals that, by an extraordinary coincidence, his half-sister was actually aboard Flight 815 when it crashed: Claire. Jack is left in a daze, as Carole leaves.
In the jungle, Jack and Sawyer find the landed helicopter with Frank (Jeff Fahey) handcuffed inside. He tells them Keamy's team have gone to the greenhouse to grab Ben, and that Hurley is with Ben. Jack can't allow Hurley to come to harm, so their first thought to just leave on the helicopter has to be forgotten.
Elsewhere, Kate and Sayid are following Jack and Sawyer's trail, until Kate stops in confusion. The tracks are different now and doubling back behind them. Sayid pulls his gun and demands their followers show themselves. Richard Alpert (Nestor Carbonell) steps out of the foliage, revealing that they're surrounded by more of the Others. Alpert takes their guns.
Ben stops Hurley and Locke as they approach the Orchid. Ben spots Keamy's team with his binoculars. He gives Locke instructions on how to get down to the Orchid station beneath the greenhouse and then leaves. Ben approaches the greenhouse with his hands up, as Keamy's team notice his presence. Keamy steps out in front of his men, as Ben turns himself in, before knocking Ben out with a blow to the head.
Knowing how this fourth season was intended to run for 16 episodes, but lost 3 episodes because of the writer's strike, then gained another due to the producer's work ethic, I think it's safe to assume that the finale was never intended to be three episodes long. Consequently, this first part is very much a chess piece moving exercise on the island, with characters bumping it each other and realigning, before everything builds to a focus in the last 10 minutes.
Fortunately, the off-island flashforwards are some of the strongest, in terms of answering questions. We're finally given a plausible cover-story for how the Oceanic Six survived, and it would appear that even Oceanic Airlines truly believe Flight 815 is in that underwater trench. It just remains to be seen why Jack and the other survivors have chosen to lie to the world and their families about what happened on the island.
The only chink in the armour is the chronology of Kate giving birth to Aaron, which at least the writers acknowledged with a reporter's question. But surely a look at the CCTV cameras at Sydney airport would show Kate wasn't 6-months pregnant when she boarded Flight 815? And I'm pretty sure worldwide news would have been poring through video-tapes of such a compelling mystery, too. But, for now, I can suspend my disbelief.
So, Keamy knows Ben's only hope is to get to the Orchid station. I'm guessing that the second protocol (probably written by Charles Widmore) explains that the last resort will be to "move the island", so Keamy's there to prevent Ben from doing that. Well, that's how it sounds to me. But if Widmore knows that moving the island is Ben's only viable solution to (part of) the problem, surely he'd know the Orchid is underneath the greenhouse exterior? I guess we'll have to wait and see exactly what the second protocol is, and what Keamy's next move will be now he has Ben captive.
Speaking of captives, the Others made a belated return to the show after apparently skulking about in the jungle. It was great to see Richard Alpert once again, after his flashback appearances last week, and I'm glad the show hasn't lost actor Nestor Carbonell to the (now defunct) TV show he left to star in. It really does seem like he's an important link to the history of the island, decades before DHARMA perhaps, as one of the island natives? I think he'll help Sayid and Kate, at least until the threat to the island has been eliminated. I'm also looking forward to Alpert meeting adult John Locke – who we know he visited to see as a young boy. Will Locke recognize Alpert? Probably not. But it'll be interesting to see how Alpert reacts to meeting Locke, and perhaps realizing that he was "special" after all.
In flashforwards, Hurley's storyline once again hinted that the dreaded Numbers are a harbinger of doom. Perhaps a way the island subliminally guides people its way? The whispers also returned off-island which, together with Christian's ghost (in later flashforwards we've seen) can be taken to mean the island's not finished with them yet. It all seems to be pushing us towards the "we have to go back!" mission statement from bearded Jack to Kate in the season 3 finale.
Perhaps the biggest moment in terms of gap-plugging in the mythology was seeing Jack finally learn that Claire was/is his half-sister. I suspect she's dead during these flashforwards, which would account for Jack's grief over getting this news so late, and the absence of her with baby Aaron. But, I suppose there's a chance she was somehow left behind on the island when the Oceanic Six escaped. Maybe that's another little reason why Jack wants to go back – because he left his half-sister behind, and decides Aaron needs his real mother? Questions for season 5, I suspect...
Overall, while structurally a bit ragged with the on-island activities, the flashforwards were wonderful and a few revelations were made along the way. The congregation on the Orchid from four angles worked very well, and wanting to know how the island will move (to another place, or through time?) should keep you gripped until part 3. The Orchid insignia was on Ben's DHARMA parka in The Shape Of Things To Come, remember – so I think that's where he time-travelled from, and perhaps expected a cold climate as the process is "unpredictable", as he mentioned in this episode.
I'm also wondering if the writers might surprise everyone and actually have the Oceanic Six escape the island in the last episode, meaning season 5 will abandon "flashforwards" and simply run two parallel stories (on the island, and off the island). Then, perhaps season 6 will see the Oceanic Six return to the island to rescue those they left behind, or just decide to stay there forever? But all that's a few years away yet. For now, this was a piece-moving episode with some wonderful moments for mythology-lovers, and an effective tease for the remaining two episodes.
Burning Questions
-- What is Ben's plan to "move the island"?
-- Who did Ben communicate with using the mirror?
-- Why were the Others wearing their native disguises?
-- Why does Faraday know what the secondary protocol is?
-- What does the Orchid station do? And why did Jacob suggest using it, if he hates technology?
-- Why are there explosives on the freighter? Who planted them there? What is causing the RF interference aboard the ship?
-- Why are the Oceanic Six lying about what happened to them? Who are the other 2 people who survived the crash, but died on the island, according to their cover-story?
-- What is Sun going to do now she co-owns her father's company? And who's the other person she blames for Jin's death, apart from her father?
-- Why did the press conference say Flight 815 crashed in the Indian Ocean, whereas during Kate's trial it was the South Pacific ocean? Writing error?
25 May 2008
Sky One, 9.00 pm
