>: 113 WHAT THEY DIED FOR

Was just sure it was going to be Desmond Time, pt 1, so, quite thrown to open on Jack’s Eye, here and now. Am a fan of LA Jack’s mysteriously recurring bleeding (or misplaced stigmata, yah?), try not to think about David Lynch while watching those scenes and see how close it really is, the only difference is music.

Jack’s kid, David, I think, sells himself better in the first minute here than his entire first episode.

Desmond making that call is an insane way for the first scene to end. The Christian tease! What’s even the intent? Is that just madness or could there be actual follow-up?

Then cut to an inversion of Jack and Kate’s first scene, him sewing her up. Counting would have been too much, I like it right where it is all implicit and tucked away there.

Giacchino kills throughout this episode, that you’re even noticing the first time through lets you know how much he’s dropping.

So, Desmond even seemed to know that hitting Ben in something close to that same marina sequence would unlock him, as evidenced by his pre-slugfest “You want to know who I am?” They have done a fine fine job nailing down one of the best overall aspects of this show, Desmond as Puck, flashing back and forth between here and yon making mischief.

Hahah, Ben’s line about being ridiculous and the secret room behind the bookcase wins. Alpert’s lines force me to confront the fact that I’m not crazy about the way his character’s veered just this last season, the –centric was of course thunder, but I had hoped for more from this fellow at this point than Reckless Disillusioned Immortal.

Man, that whole Alex’s body sequence. Still during opening titles.

Speaking of, Sarnoff jumping on board the Kitsis/Horowitz Express was a surprise at this point, already wished them all well. They all kill it, of course, but something about all those names showing up here makes me shake my fist at Vaughan and Goddard for jumping islandship. Good on them for expanding their parameters and what not, but can’t you almost imagine how this season, maybe the dialogue IN THIS VERY EPISODE could have been better with those two whiz kids pounding away at their typewriters, making money for Lindelof/Cuse Enterprises?

Miles’s “secreter room” bit is great. The in-safe POV shot with Ben and Richard recalls the famous Jack & Locke Peering Down Upon Desmond & Mama Cass & The Inoculation By Torchlight shot that bridged the first and second seasons.

When Ben asks Charles what he’s doing, I want him to make a bigger deal out of, “I’m sitting here on My Island drinking TAP WATER OUT OF YOUR SINK, BOY!” After twenty years away, Widmore finally getting the Island underneath his legs isn’t given even like ten percent of the gravity that it deserves.

Insane how now the visual of Locke paddling up in a canoe is now analogous to the old rattling sound that would happen from time to time when folks ran through the jungle for whatever reason.

An incident in the parking lot, oh my goodness.

Ben & Locke cutting over to Desmond walking into Sawyer & Miles’s precinct makes it pretty clear which timeline is supposed to be our favorite, at the moment.

Brilliant writing, Desmond’s smile after Kate’s “Terrific,” uttered in these new cages, that exact smile is trying to break out on the face of everyone juxtaposing Charlie’s line before the first ever commercial break with shudders from the top of the third season, it’s all different over here but might just be bettah!

For the record, yeah, Sawyer did kill them. He certainly didn’t rig that C-4, but if he hadn’t told Jack that he wouldn’t believe in him and yanked out those pins, then the numbers would have elapsed without incident, and Sayid and Sun and Jin (and Lapidus?!?!?!? Doth yon hairy chest still rise and fall?) would not have blown up or drowned.

Yeah, don’t suppose I ever reckoned that Kid Jacob v. Hurley was going to be much of a matchup.

Oh, him saying, “We’re very close to the end, Hugo.” Was pulling for it this week as title if we were locked up with the finale and actually done, but since I don’t think that was the case, wouldn’t that be perfection for finale title? T H E E N D.

That scene with Ben & Charles is crazed, Miles hilariously calls out every established trope and then Ben’s delivery of, “Well, then I guess this is good-bye.” Stone cold.

The nonchalance with which Alpert got thrown is horrifying. Can this be the end of Richard Alpert?!?!? It would be a very hardcore and jarring way for them to go, but they certainly left the door open for a bit of Alpert Ex Machina Sunday night. We’ll see.

Ben & Locke on the porch is a much shorter but equally compelling inversion of that tour de force opening in Tarantino’s latest.

Ben Linus as Napoleon IS an excellent point. Rousseau as a well-adjusted single mom in LA is horrifying. Or shocking, I can’t decide. So bizarre, the chemistry between these two, here.

Then that shot of Ben and Locke walking into the secret room all in silhouette, prime slasher archetypal business right there, as perfect as I can recall.

A MEASURE OF LAST RESORT, Widmore quoting Ben from CABIN FEVER two years ago (my pick that week, by the way), how can you not latch onto this as penultimate title?

The Ben & Locke team-up seems in hindsight the most obvious thing in the world. Doom & Magneto. More Luthor & Braniac, actually.

Christian Shephard shows up! In a photograph, wine blasted at Thanksgiving! COULD THIS BE IT?!?!?

LA Locke drops a great performance breaking it all down for Jack. Was certainly looking for the Everything Happens For A Reason paraphrase, but Jack coming back with Eko’s old gem of not mistaking coincidence for fate was a nice little thrill, there.

You hope so, Jacob? You hope that they can kill your brother? Haven’t you been The Boss for the past couple millennia? Don’t you have any say in the matter?

Man, Giacchino. The swells are knocking me out.

AH, the light was just over the ridge from the opening shot. Seamless way to sew that in there, fair play.

Jack as Keeper of the Island is the least shocking choice amongst the candidates (I had my money on Hurley), but still really quite wild.

Desmond’s exchange with Kate and Sayid in the back of the cruiser, man, the guy never lets up. Just right now, I’ve decided. Favorite Character, overall. He just keeps showing up and doing it for me with more consistency than anyone else.

So, Hurley’s kiss with Libby completely woke him up and he’s down with parallel universe island shenanigans on a level comparable to Desmond? That wasn’t apparent, good to know. Ana-Lucia! She’s not ready yet? Ah, so many threads to dangle. Leave dangling.

Desmond & Kate at the pier, him telling her they’re going to a concert over those strident almost FRINGE strings, meaning these individuals are on a collision course with my man Marvin Candle Pierre Chang, Miles, Charlotte, and probably even Sawyer, such tantalizing sweet promise wrapped up in these very few beats.

And of course, should have thought about it, but what could the final cliffhanger be BUT Locke telling Ben that he’s going to destroy the Island? Eminently logical escalation, and again cutting back to 4.12. And back to talking about the ol Failsafe.

So, going into the finale blind, as ever, transcendent titles would be THE END (please), LET GO, or now FAILSAFE. Or anything else by George Harrison.

I had to buy old Doc Jensen’s big wrap-up issue of ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY when I saw it at the grocery store today. I remember getting #815 in the mail back in Spring ‘05, being so crushed to see all those dudes on the cover with the caption LOST BOYS, the sudden weight of it all too much. I remember walking back from my mailbox the morning after Mr. Eko died and opening up the issue to an article that started on Page 42, and just the way that the idea had mutated, germinated outside its medium, the fact that I was nowhere near my television and suddenly confronted with that shot of that character, that person, with whom I had achieved total empathy, a stark and striking enough experience in and of itself, but then, coupled with the pagination, just almost more than I could bear.

Just talking around it. I’m so sad about this. Has to happen but I’m going to miss it so much. The thrill of what’s to come, all the possibilities blooming there full-formed but not yet crystallized just over the edge of the horizon, only we’re finally here, the mirage is just beginning to dissipate and there’s no water here, we have arrived and just Namaste Namaste Namaste, dear ones, I am now running on reserve battery power, but there’s enough to send this transmission out to you. The timer says (0:08). I hope that the Locke in Black doesn’t destroy the Island. And that Desmond calls someone Brothah at a crucial moment before making the ultimate sacrifice. I hope we get to see Eko’s face again and look into his eyes just for a second, and that Kate and Sawyer finally after all of this choose each other, if only for a few seconds, and that Miles comes running up out of the woods to save them all from Benjamin Linus, and that they move the Island again and we get to see more DHARMA coveralls and that there’s one last perfect montage though of course there really can’t be, not what I’m thinking about, everyone sitting around in firelight at the end of the day, that ship has sailed, most of all, just as hard as I can, I hope that it works out, we all find closure and contentment and permanent delight in the perfection with which this great yawning expanse that has thrilled and frustrated and delighted us down through the years ties itself up into a perfect circle in a way that’s profound and utterly crushing at first but completely obvious in hindsight, and most of all beautiful, all that we have to do is open ourselves up to it, let the final pieces slide into place and marvel at the elegant simplicity of the entire convoluted epic coming at last to a resolution that is both earned and devastating.

Open your eyes. It is of the utmost importance.