TV Club

Season 6: Lost’s Liquid Logic

Dear Seth and Chad: As the Lost submarine plunged toward its dark, watery grave, a half-dozen completely impossible things happened:

First, Hurley hefted the torso-shot Kate out of the blast hole that should have been Niagara-ing an impassible stream of H2O into the plunging vessel.

Second, Dr. Jack dragged the comatose Sawyer out of the same hole.

Third, Jin and Sun had a make-out session and spoke their final words to each other almost entirely in weepy English, when reality would demand that they should have been screaming for their lives in Korean.

Fourth, the two pairs of submarine escapees navigated the deep black water to the surface (and are we really supposed to buy that Jack and Hurley could apply those oxygen thingamajigs to Sawyer and Kate? Even if we buy it, there is no way that the unconscious Sawyer could use the apparatus).

Fifth, they all managed to dog-paddle to the same patch of beach despite ocean currents and differing headings that should have pushed them apart.

But enough ranting. Allow me to bring something to your attention, which you may have missed while boo-hoo-hooing over the death of the love-birds or mourning Sayid who (sixth!) suddenly and inexplicably resigned from Zombieland to sacrifice himself for the benefit of the other castaways. While all of these ridiculous things were happening, Lapidus’ death was not actually documented.

Yes, Lapidus got dinged pretty badly by an exploding hatch and was swamped by a torrent, but the dead don’t stay dead on Lost. I believe that he survived the ordeal—just as Hurley, Kate, Dr. Jack, and Sawyer did—and will miraculously turn up in a later episode to save somebody’s bacon. After all, we still need a pilot to fly that plane, right? Relatedly—albeit tangentially—why does Smokey assume that Widmore put the C4 on the plane, and is he right? My guess is that Richard, Miles, and Ben put it there.

Also, were either of you made suspicious by Locke’s flat reaction to the submarine’s fate? Looking out to sea (why are he and Claire still at the dock hours later?), he says in a monotone, “It sunk.” Shouldn’t he be celebrating? He seems almost surprised. Why is that? And how long has the audience known that one of the smoke monster’s powers is the ability to detect sinking submarines from miles away?

Moving on to other implausibilities, my friend John has a question. If Locke can kill anybody but the candidates with his smoke powers (seventh!), why does he use a gun at the submarine ambush?

Other than that, I sorta liked the episode. The show rang all of the required bells in Sidewaysville—Jin’s cameo in the hospital corridor; Claire and Jack peering into the mirror together; the inevitable return of the dural sac; another character struck speechless; the parallelism of the sideways candidates coming together as the island-bound characters do the same thing; and yet another plane crash (the novice Locke piloting himself and his father into the dirt).

Because I’m the first to file (our editor is hollering for copy, and it isn’t even midnight!), I’ve got a few questions for you:

What is the meaning of the repeated use of the song “Catch a Falling Star” in the series? The jewel box that Claire and Dr. Jack open plays it. We know from Lostpedia that it’s appeared in several other contexts. So what about it? Did you see any evidence that sideways Locke is connected to his island self other than when he mutters, “Push the button. I wish you had believed me.” And is there deeper meaning to the fact that Dr. Jack works at St. Sebastian Hospital? St. Sebastian is usually depicted tied to a post and pin-cushioned with arrows. If Sawyer knew that shoving Locke into the water would temporarily tame his powers, why didn’t he do it before? Last, and this is for my liberal friends, why did the show’s creators kill three people of color in the episode. Does this mean that Hurley and Miles are home free or merely doomed?

I attentively await your answers and theories.