“There’s No Place Like Home, Part 2” | The A.V. Club by Noel Murray once again am impressed by hist write up

A year ago, Lost’s third season ended with Jack making two phone calls. Off the island, in a flash-forward, he called Kate, and told her they had to “go back.” On the island, he called Charles Widmore’s freighter and asked their people to come rescue his people.
Would it surprise you to know that from the moment Jack called the boat to the moment he headed off into the jungle in part one of this year's season finale, only nine days passed? It’s been a crazy nine days too, during which the castaways have split into factions, the island saw a population explosion meaning the four freighties & the mercenaries?, old friends died who? Clare? oh also Rousseau & Karl & Alex, old friends returned Michael, and Jack had outpatient surgery.
Off the island, meanwhile, Jack and Kate have had an on-and-off relationship, Hurley went crazy again, Sayid got married then widowed then drafted into Ben’s army of international assassins, and Sun had a baby and bought a controlling stake in her dad’s company. good sum. All of which happened before Jack grew a beard, became a pillhead, and made that fateful call to Kate.

The second part of the Season Four finale picks up where last year’s finale left off, with Kate and Jack bickering by the airport. And right off the bat, Kate spills the beans about whose obituary Jack’s been carrying around: “Jeremy Bentham.” According to Kate, Bentham visited her, and she thinks he’s crazy. Bentham also apparently visited Taller Non-Ghost Walt, who later contacts Hurley in Santa Rosa to ask why the Oceanic Six has been lying to the world (and why none of them came to see him once they got home). Bentham is also known to Sayid, who shows up in Santa Rosa to spirit Hurley away in reaction to Bentham's demise. Just who is Jeremy Bentham? Well, that’s one of tonight’s big twists, and how you feel about that twist may determine how you feel about “There’s No Place Like Home.”
Your opinion probably also hinges on what you thought about the on-island action, which featured punch-outs, gun-fights, a selfless Sawyer sacrifice, and a whopping piece of mystical ju-ju. Let’s address the ju-ju first. In one of the most straightforward demonstrations we’ve yet seen of the island’s supernatural properties, Ben blasts a hole in the wall of the subterranean Orchid station, crawls down into an icy cave, turns a big wheel, and causes the island to disappear. We all knew this moment was coming, and yet the literalizing of such a strange procedure—even more so than Desmond turning the fail-safe key at the end of Season Two—may well strike some as…well, goofy.
For me though, all the business with Ben and Locke at The Orchid was maybe my favorite part of the episode. I liked Locke and Jack talking “leader stuff.” I liked Ben’s exasperation at John’s inability to find the entrance. I loved Locke's "I don't know what they *look* like." in response to Ben's "You couldn't find the ~amyrisms (kind of flowered plant), could you?" I loved Locke watching Ben act in contradictiony to everything “Edgar Halliwax” was saying on The Orchid orientation film, by loading the time travel chamber with inorganic matter.And yes, I loved the big wheel. And the disappearing island. And the helicopter crash that followed.
But I was less enamored of some of the other island business, which felt a little rushed to me. As I’ve said before, I’m not necessarily convinced that Lost works best as a straightforward action-adventure show yes I tht sth like this during the rnning-thru-jungle scenes, that I guess other fans want action-packed episodes but not v int to me, because while I recognize that those action scenes are necessary to move the story forward, the more people yell at each other and shoot at each other on Lost, the more the show veers towards run-of-the-mill pulp yes. Tonight’s episode had one decent action sequence yes, when Richard and his band of merry Others came whispering out of the jungle to put the kapow on Keamy’s Commandos. Otherwise, the action seemed to consist of a lot of running back and forth, and hurried goodbyes.

The best part of the rescue sequence? The unexpected appearance of Penny and her boat “Searcher,” which brought her and Desmond together at last. (Did anyone see that coming? I didn’t, and I thought it was a terrific surprise.)

What about Daniel and his cargo of redshirts, who apparently moved along with the island (since Frank and his passengers didn't see them) yes that's what I think even though they were in the water when the move happened?

In an unfortunately rushed scene, Charlotte tells Daniel she’s staying on the island because she’s “still looking for where I was born,” which is something Miles—who is so awesome, by the way—had apparently already guessed. When Miles tells Charlotte that he thought she'd been eager to get back to the island, she says, “What do you mean?” and he says, in that inimitably smart-ass Miles way, “What do I mean?” Man I hope there’s more of Miles next year. As well as Charlotte’s quest for homecoming.

Some guesses as to what’s going to happen next year, besides what I already mentioned about Charlotte searching for her past:
The Widmore/Paik alliance will work overtime to prevent the Ben/Jack alliance from finding the island before they can, though Jack will eventually wear Sun down. that's int: is Sun really allied with Widmore? against Ben & Jack? ...*just read (& added in post below) cmmt on AlanS blog:
-If Locke was Bentham and he visited all Oceanic Six folks, then that means he told Sun that Ben knowingly killed Keamy and thus blew up the boat. ah. good. *that* is how Sun would know & blame Ben for Jin's death. been reading speculation that she is uniting with Widmore bcs blames Ben, but cldn't see how she'd know that Ben was responsible for the explosion. this makes very good sense, she learned from J Bentham, then went to see Widmore. the common interests she spoke of (I tht she was not sincere, now am thinking she was) may be mainly this: they share an enmity against Ben.
In order to find the island, Jack will have to locate the surviving members of the Dharma Initiative. hmm. hits me as out of left field but possible. In the island flashbacks, we’ll see all-out war between Sawyer’s camp and Locke’s camp as resources dwindle. ~ dunno about that. Sawyer's camp is awfully small, wldn't they just join up with Locke & Richard & Others?
And as much as I hate to say it, I think Penny’s going to die, bringing Desmond back into the fold with Jack (even though it may well be Sayid who does the killing). It’ll be brother against brother and the secrets of Dharma, coming in ’09.

A fond farewell:
I don’t have the exact numbers, but judging by the number of comments and what I hear from the bosses, this Lost blog has been the most popular in the brief history of the TV Club, and much of the credit for that goes to all of you...not just for reading, but for contributing what to my mind is some of the best Lost-chat on the net. I’m not saying that just to butter you up. I read a lot of Lost blogs, and even the best of them—like Jeff Jensen’s always-provocative posts at ew.com—tend to draw mostly inane one-liners, half-cocked nitpicking and general asshattery. In terms of quantity mixed with quality, I think we had almost every other site beat.
Now gouge away. You can gouge away.*

* I love repetition. & oh this is a reference to song used in episode, per cmmt on AlanS post -the six-to-seven seconds of "Gouge Away" blasting from Jack's jeep seemed pretty relevant to the story for me. "Gouge Away" is about the story of Samson and Delilah, and Locke makes for a nice Samson: a man of faith who gets his strength from an unlikely source, in Locke's case, of course it's the island.

1039 Comments

-Bentham quote: 'Take me forward, I entreat you, to the future -- do not let me go back to the past.' that's cool.

-polar bears! by Noel Murray: Having finished my post, I just read the comments over on Alan Sepinwall's blog (where the commenters are also good, if not as numerous) and commenter "Myles" pointed out that Dharma must've used their polar bears to move the island. Hence the bear skeleton in Tunisia.
-but i wonder why they used polar bears?
-Noel Murray: I don't think they *needed* polar bears, but since whomever moves the wheel leaves the island for good ah right, why not a bear instead of a person?