SPOILER ALERT – Lost Season 6 “The Candidate”

Noooooooooooooooooo! Worst episode EVER!!!!!! I hate Lost!

I’m lying – I still love Lost, but omg, how could they do this to us??? I know it’s not real, allegedly fiction and all, but HOW COULD THEY DO THIS TO US?????

Omg, I don’t know what to do with myself. I'm going to read the Entertainment Weekly thing about this episode. I haven't been reading the Lost blogs this season, except for bits and pieces when I’m confused, because I wanted to keep my Lost watching pure and my blog different and not influenced by others. I figured I might read them after the show is over and maybe write about them then. However, I have to read this one, to help me grieve.

I have only read the beginning of Doc Jensen’s EW article so far, and he explains why they did this to us. Apparently, the producers wanted to show us that they have the power to decide who lives and who dies; in other words, they wanted to play G-d, which, as Flanders said on The Simpsons this week, is the most evil thing you can do. Of course, the article doesn’t say all that; it just says the producers wanted to show people that they are willing to kill anyone off. I see through to their evil ways.

If you haven’t seen this week's episode of Lost, “The Candidate” yet, you shouldn’t be reading this, but if you have, then you know that Sun, Jin, Sayid, and Lapidus were killed off. As I watched Sun and Jin die, I thought to myself (though not aloud as usual), "Do 'Jin and Sun' mean 'Romeo and Juliet' in Korean?” We just watched the most wonderful reunion ever between Sun and Jin, and then they went and killed them. But on the bright side, at least they did get to be reunited before they died together, and at least they are probably and hopefully going to continue to live in the New Reality/Flash-Sideways.

When I mentioned my Romeo and Juliet thought to a friend, she wondered what Sun and Jin actually do mean in Korean. I googled, and I found a blog where someone links the names with the numbers on the cave wall with the corresponding psalms. It's really interesting. In it, it says that Jin means gold, Sun means goodness, and Kwon means authority. I’m not sure if they are translating from Korean, but those meanings definitely fit well with the characters; Sun and Jin are as good as gold, and are filled with goodness….I mean “were.” :-(

The author of that blog suggests that Sawyer will be the next Jacob, because the name James is derived from Jacob, which, as I’ve discussed previously, means “supplanter.” However, the author also provides the psalm that corresponds to the number associated with Hurley on the cave wall, a psalm that states, “What is man that you are mindful of him...You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You made him ruler over the works of your hands.” Clearly, that provides further evidence for my Hurley-is-the-New-Jacob theory, assuming that Jacob is not G-d, as I’ve suggested, but is a divine force that answers to a higher being, and that protects the world from evil. Of course, the author of that blog states that not all the characters fit nicely with the corresponding psalms, and the author also clearly states that the ones that do could very well be the result of coincidence.

The title of the episode, “The Candidate,” was completely misleading; I was all excited because I thought my theory that Hurley will be named as the new Jacob would finally be confirmed. However, this episode had nothing to do with naming the new Jacob at all, NOTHING! Well, it did eliminate some people as potential candidates, and Hurley was not eliminated, so at least it didn’t disprove my theory.

I don’t even know why they named the episode “The Candidate,” except that Jack in the New Reality/Flash-Sideways says that New Reality Real John Locke is a candidate for a new surgery that could allow him to possibly walk again, but that is not sufficient criteria to name the whole episode “The Candidate.” Thus, this is more evidence that the producers of Lost are evil. Obviously, my accusations of evilness stem directly from my grief and sadness for the loss of several beloved characters. I probably don't really believe the Lost producers are actually evil.

Real New Reality John Locke sort of disproved one of my smaller theories. I spoke of his acceptance of his disability, which allowed him to move on with his life, and I linked to another blog that suggested that he did not want Jack to fix him because clinging to potentially false hope would not allow him to accept his disability. We learned in this episode, however, that he insisted on remaining disabled in order to punish himself. In the New Reality/Flash-Sideways, Anthony Cooper didn’t defenestrate his son; rather, Locke was flying a plane with his father as his first passenger and crashed, causing Anthony Cooper to be far more crippled than Locke would become. Are you still stuck on “defenestrate”? I never thought I would have an opportunity to use that rather awesome word; it means to throw something out a window. Anyway, it turns out that Locke accepted his disability (which did allow him to move on with his life), but can’t accept the loss of his vegetable father.

A few characters in the New Reality/Flash-Sideways have had visions and such of the reality we are familiar with, and now New Reality John Locke can be added to that list. As he was waking up while still in the hospital after Jack fixed the new problems Desmond caused when he crashed into Locke, Locke muttered something about pushing the button, and wishing that Jack had believed him. Of course, Jack later says he wished Locke would believe him when he said he could fix his disability and that he doesn’t need to punish himself.

I don’t believe Jack has had any visions of the reality we are familiar with; however, he is noticing the many strange coincidences involving himself and the other passengers of Oceanic 815, since he keeps running into them. Much like in the reality we are familiar with, Jack is beginning to believe in something bigger than himself and science.

I mentioned previously that Jack learned to follow and trust other potential leaders, thereby adding to his natural leadership skills. Additionally, Hurley learned to lead, and therefore also became more well rounded. However, Sawyer has not learned to both follow and lead as his fellow candidates have. That flippin’ idiot Sawyer should have trusted Jack when the latter figured out that if the bomb were left un-tampered with, they would not die, since Fake John Locke/The Smoke Monster/Man in Black probably cannot kill the Jacob candidates, just as he/they could not kill Jacob. This was another loophole; Fake Locke/Smoke Monster/Man in Black arranged to get the Jacob candidates to kill each other. Sawyer had to hold onto real-world logic and non-crazy thinking despite the illogical and crazy nature of their experiences and of the island.

Jack and Hurley are better men and better Jacob candidates than Sawyer is. Jack, a natural leader and a man of science, was able to let go of the rules of the life he was familiar with and accept bizarre truths and faith; he was able to let go of his need to lead and learn that trusting others and following rather than leading are necessary at times. Hurley essentially did the inverse; he overcame his lack of confidence and took on a leadership role, thus complementing his faith and willingness to follow directions. Sawyer, however, did not grow as Jack and Hurley did; he maintained his stubborn need to lead, and he refused to accept the bizarre logic of the island. He did not learn to have faith.

In this episode, we learned that Infected Sayid still has Good in his soul. Perhaps Desmond, whom Sayid did not kill after all, found it when he apparently got through to him in “The Last Recruit.” In “The Candidate,” Sayid sacrificed his own life, and therefore the unlikely possibility that Fake John Locke/The Smoke Monster would follow through with his promise of retuning Nadia to him, to save his friends. Despite being infected with Evil, Sayid’s final choice was Good.

Okay, I think I feel a bit better now. Maybe I don’t need to read the rest of that EW article right now after all. I will read the rest of it after the Lost finale, probably. For now, I can remain somewhat pure.

Regarding my “Worst episode ever” proclamation above, now that I have calmed down, I can see that it was not really the worst episode ever. In terms of great TV and great drama, it was a great episode. However, in terms of content and things happening that I don’t like, “The Candidate” was indeed, the worst episode ever.

UPDATE May 8, 2010


I’ve been thinking more about Lost, and I realized a couple of things that might be obvious to some people.

Firstly, I previously assumed that Fake John Locke/The Smoke Monster was recruiting people to be on Team Evil, and thus, to become indebted to this probable Devil and do his bidding. However, we learned in “The Candidate” that he was simply recruiting our special characters so that he could gather them together in a small confined space where he would arrange for them to kill each other, since he probably cannot kill them himself. In my blog posting about “The Last Recruit,” I had doubt that Jack was really Fake Locke’s last recruit; I felt that Jack would not go with Fake Locke and do his bidding. However, Jack was his last recruit; all Fake Locke needed him to do was to be in that confined space with the other candidates. Fake Locke/The Smoke Monster didn’t need to get off the island with the candidates; he needs the candidates to be dead like Jacob in order to be free. This seems so obvious now that I finally thought about it. Duh.

Secondly, in my blog posting about “Lighthouse,” I mentioned that another website noticed that Kate’s name was crossed off the list o’ candidates on the cave wall, but not on the lighthouse thingie. I wondered at the time if the cave list was created by someone other than Jacob, such as the Man in Black/The Smoke Monster/Fake John Locke. Now I realize that Fake John Locke/The Smoke Monster was probably the one who crossed her name off, regardless of who made the list. Fake Locke showed the cave list to Sawyer; so clearly, he wanted to make Sawyer believe that Kate doesn’t have the protections of being a candidate, thereby allowing Fake Locke to use threats to Kate’s life to manipulate Sawyer. Sawyer, the skilled con man, was conned by Fake John Locke/The Smoke Monster/Man in Black. I’m really quite angry with Sawyer for inadvertently causing the deaths of Sun, Jin, Sayid, and Lapidus just because he stubbornly refused to trust Jack, can you tell?