Lost - The Final Four

What can I say the title just jumped out at me as the episode started. Here we are with two #1 seeds (The University of Sawyer Awesomes and The Jack Tech Heroes) a #2 (Hurley A&M Millionaires) and a #5 that snuck in there (yes I'm looking at you Kate State). Was there really much of a surprise I mean this was the NCAA not the international league so Sayid, Jin, and Sun you all had to get eliminated from the tournament. Ok yes I am stalling because when I post the notice up on Facebook it takes a couple of sentences and since I don't want to give out any spoilers I needed some filler. Otherwise I'd have to mention that the Universade de Ricardous was eliminated after it was determined that one of their players was well over the maximum age limit.

So what can I say I got it wrong on my Richard guess, oh well it "would" have been a great twist, damn writers never listen to me (goes off to pout), now I sound like my son, "You're not listening to me!" What?! Oh yeah Lost, sorry I have to be a little confusing to make up for what I would consider a pretty straight forward episode. Like when we saw Smokey, he went straight forward and sent Richard into orbit. Paging Mr. Strom, you might want to find yourself a red shirt because I think you're going to die before this is all over, guessing that it will be at the hands of not so redeemed Ben.

Ben? "What about you?" Well it seems like Ben has totally checked into the Dharma hotel, but let's be honest after a life of being a total jerk and murderer you were offered one of the Hawaii islands, what is a couple more deaths, I mean seriously, it's Oahu, not that crappy overly touristy Maui, who wouldn't take it! And in what had to be one of the coldest lines of the season, "I want to watch", oh that was chilly good, we got to see deaths from A (Alan Dale, the guy that plays Widmore) to Z (Zoe, don't really care who played her, happy to see her die though). I mentioned a couple weeks ago that I thought the deaths were going to become very frequent and it looks like I was right about something, in what has been a very very very violent season of Lost.

Oh and one other thing that I think I'm going to be right about, Jack is going to fix Locke. In my preseason preview write up (yes I was itching to use my new blog at the time) I put down that Jack was going to fix Locke's back. At the time I thought that it was just going to be special Mr. Fix it Jack that was going to do it, but I think that it now has to do with the fact that he is in fact the chosen one. With all the sideways stuff going back and forth, I think when Jack becomes like Jacob he actually gets his ability to heal the impossible. That might be a stretch though considering the other people that Jack has saved. I do think however that this is how Locke is able to walk on the island, in sideways world Jack fixes him and in this crossover in time and space the ability to walk gets converted over to Locke's island self.

So I think that we can now officially say that Jacob created Smokey when he killed him and tossed him into the light cave, also check out EW.com and you'll get to see some great material played out by the actors that play Jacob and Smokey, all in all it pretty much confirms that Jacob made Smokey. In the episode by the fire Jacob admits that it was his fault and that he brought everyone to the island because they were flawed like him. I think the redemption that he was looking for in himself he needed to see in the castaways so that he himself would know that he could be redeemed for his sins. It's like the conversation a couple weeks ago where Jack and Locke were talking in the hospital when Jack is trying to let go of his father and hopes that Locke can take that first step for them. By the castaways taking that first step, Jacob can be redeemed as well. Oh and Mike, not so biblical now is it. =P

Do we have time for a little more Ben? I hope so because I was thinking that it was very interesting that Ben made the comment that he discovered that the Smoke monster was actually summoning him. I am getting the feeling that Ben has always been in service of Smokey thinking that he was taking orders from Jacob. Best example of that is the cabin in the jungle, Ben took Locke to the cabin saying that he was trying to fool Locke so that he could maintain his power on the island, now Ben admits this to Locke, what is one thing that Ben never ever does, tell the truth. I think that he knew exactly what he was doing back then and that he had been in the service of Smokey all that time. How would he have known last season that he needed to go to the temple to be judged? Only for the Smoke to tell him to follow John. Why else send the people to the temple, where the Smoke monster resided. Not to mention that he killed all of those people in Dharma. Sure Jacob might have done it, but Jacob is too innocent and wants to let people play things out on their own. Richard may have been getting his directions from Jacob, but I'm not so sure that Ben was always taking those orders, after all again it's Ben. Anyway something to think about, Ben = Kaiser Souze, maybe...

But here is a little wrinkle in the Ben doing the bidding of Mr. Smoke. Mr Smoke offered him up the island, but in the end said that if he needed to, he'd destroy the island. Not sure that is going to sit to well with Mr. Linus, and I'm guessing that in the end, Ben is going to be the one that takes out Mr. Smoke when it looks like the island is going to be destroyed. Ben is crafty, don't know which way he'll go.

Ok now I'm going to complain a little bit, if you don't want to be jaded, time to stop reading...

While I liked tonight's episode something just left me a little upset, it's that the season seems to be ending too fast. Not that the show will be over by this time next week, but that they wasted so much time this season dealing with the temple and other junk sitting around in the jungle when they could have gotten to this point weeks ago and still had a compelling season. I'd have been fine with a couple weeks of Jack and the others on the run from Smokey rather than a one episode set up before the final confrontation. How cool would it have been to have them getting picked off one by one in their plans to stop Smokey before it's too late. Instead we got wait wait wait ok now race to the finish. It's like they had an endpoint in mind but still had to fill in the first half of the season. I don't know it all seemed to come together way to fast in the end rather than a slow buildup to a final event. That might just be me though and maybe in the early hours of Monday morning I'll see things differently after the last piece has been laid out, but I'm worried that we're headed for disappointment. If this doesn't end in some satisfying way I'm seriously going to stop watching TV unless it's Amazing Race or sports, because I'll never trust myself to be invested in another show again. How is that for some pressure!

OK YOU CAN READ AGAIN

Admit it, you didn't skip me ranting did you... I love you too. =) We're all in this together, or we'll die alone in front of our TV's crying that it's all over. Anyway I'll probably have some more later on Wednesday to read after I take a little more time to digest what I saw. I'm excited for Sunday, not as much as Tony, he's actually going to Hawaii on Sunday to watch the finale, now THAT is dedication!

Until next time my Lost buddies, namiste.