“There’s No Place Like Home”
Lost: Season 4, Episode #13
This review & commentary contains spoilers. If you don’t want to know what happens in this episode, don’t read this review.
Why?
We were avid fans of Lost through the first and into the second season. We tried hard to like the third season and forced our way through the fourth. At that point we pretty much gave up, we barely watched any of Season Five and haven’t looked back.
Having been tasked with a “Lost-inspired” bit of graphic design and at the encouragement of two good friends, I decided to give the show one last chance and start from where, I am told, it “starts to get good again”. So, this chronicle begins as I re-watch the last episode of the fourth season, in preparation to try to get through all of season five and catch-up with season six.
The rub against Lost has been that the story is pointless. It is one mystery after another, one plot device after the next, none of them connecting to one another squarely. Oblique-vague connections maybe, but mostly each new thing compounds more pseudo-drama on top of the already unresolved pseudo-drama. Mix in a little science, occult and fantasy and you have… a show that bottomed out somewhere (by most accounts) between seasons three and four. This notion (whether it is true or not) is compounded by the idea that there aren’t really a lot of things to like about the main characters. While it is okay to have flawed characters, all of these characters are really flawed and if they weren’t so dang hot, chances are none of us would let them anywhere near our dinner table. These really are just train-wrecks of people, who for the most part look like underwear models. To make matters even worse, there seems to be an endless parade of super-models waiting to show up on this island with their own backstories and new drama to just further complicate an already losing proposition. That being said, here we go…
The Review
The season four finale was our last straw. And now I remember why. As an episode it is actually pretty good. There is a lot of drama all the characters are involved and there is plenty of action. And then there is the new rub, the “flashes” home. More mystery… and Lost, as a show, had run out of credibility chits to redeem so we cashed in.
The episode itself was indeed good, for Lost. For any show. really. If you aren’t bogged down by the baggage that the first four seasons of the show are burdened with, “There’s no place like home” (parts 1 & 2) wraps up the season and launches the story into the next season as well as could be hoped. One shining beacon of hope lies in that by the time this story was written the “end date” for Lost had already been determined, so the viewer is (even here) starting to get the sense that the meandering of the writers is about to come to an end.
Moving the island was cool and completely ridiculous at the same time. The whole helicopter drama was just… ugh, bad. The set-up from the “mainland” story isn’t really good at this point (especially Ben’s pronouncement of everyone having to go back). You can see the creators working, re-introducing us to the familiar lead characters with new backstories/sub-plots (because that’s what they need…), trying to put the past drama (say, season two and three maybe?) behind them.
Characters
Jack and Locke are the central characters in “There’s no place like home”, despite a number of subplots going on with Desmond/Jin/Michael and everyone else wandering about the island. Kate kind of floats through the story as so much flotsam and Sawyer, Hurley and Sayid are more garnish than side dishes throughout the two hour finale.
Grade: C+
Running Commentary (or Greg’s Inner-monologue)
Mysterious intro, survivors off the island. WTF? That’s what this show needs is more things you can’t explain.
Back on the Island.
Great fight scene. Sayid v. the GI Joe guy was awesome.
Off the Island.
Walt!!! Yay! It’s Walt!
Oh, it’s a mystery and a cover-up. Like shredded wheats, sugar on one side, wheat on the other. Great.
Back on the Island. “Do you believe in miracles? Sexy thing…”
Locke is creepy.
Strike that, Ben is creepy, Locke is looney.
On the ship.
Sun & Michael. Okay, maybe starting at the very last episode of Season Four was a bad idea, I have absolutely no idea what they are talking about. (Said as if that it would matter).
Michael has come a long way from being a failed artist or whatever to figuring out that he can freeze a bomb and it won’t go off. Michael and Desmond are homemade bomb-experts. I bet they watched a show on
Queue nautical music. Have Russell Crowe and company hold off on the horizon for their cueue.
Back on the shore
Dan brings the boat ashore, aw he’s being helpful. Lingering pause as he walks up the beach. Totally a dead guy walking.
Red-head: What do you mean trying to get back here?”
Mysterious look from Asian jerk-face: “What do I mean?”
Oh, good more mystery. Are we supposed to care about these guys too!?! F’r cryn’ out loud just how big do these guys think my attention span is? I do have FB status to keep updating, hello…
Station! (said, in the voice of “Death from Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey”)
An informative video, these remind me of when we were kids and we would be playing with Star Wars guys. We’d have this cool story all going on and then all of a sudden play would lull and we’d go, “Okay, let’s pretend that didn’t happen.” Or “Instead, this happened.” … or when you’re playing D&D and the party gets clobbered when the DM hadn’t expected it, then miraculously there is a healing pool around the corner. There, that’ll fix it. It’s even better when there is technical difficulties and we don’t actually get to see the time-travelling bunnies.
Chopper
Awesome, it’s a reunion.
Dude is still working on the handcuffs? Good thing Sawyer showed up. Too bad no one else (like the guy sitting next to it) thought about looking in the tool chest. I guess everyone needs to have a moment of being important.
Hurley: After we drop everyone off at the boat, we can come back and look for Claire right?
Jack: Absolutelly
Jack’s figured out this whole lying thing already, he’s going to be great at it. Oh wait, he’s the one whose life is a wreck and wants to go back… Darn.
Station!
He’s not dead! Shocking.
The visual imagery and direction is really good. Man this guy talks a lot. Good thing that he had all this time to explain all this before someone just ambushed him. As if he knew where the ambush would be. Or maybe this is like the sixth time he’s done this little speech.
Do you think he was embarrassed that it gave his little speech and it wasn’t Ben, but Locke?
When he says, “I’ve never been one much for talk…” was he not paying attention for the last two minutes while he rambled about in his little monologue?
Guys I don’t care about
There are so many characters with so much going on, even back when I was watching the show regularly, the newcomers sounded liked this: blah blah blah nothing’s forever blah blah still looking for where I was born blah blah blah.
One of the other’s last new group is staying too. Oh well.
Boat
Desmond: I just don’t know enough!
Really?
Chopper
Because there really needed to be more drama, the chopper has a fuel leak, which apparently no one noticed all the time they were standing around the chopper.
Pilot (another guy whose name I deign not to learn): I’d feel a hell of a lot better if we were a few hundred pounds lighter!
Camera pans on Hurley. C’mon that’s not nice!
Sawyer, if I can’t get the brunette, I’m going to swim back for the blonde, better whisper something sweet to Kate. Make her sad she picked Jack. Not that picking Jack isn’t going to make her sad anyway, trainwreck of a human being that he is.
Santa Rosa Mental Institute
Sayid made it back and is apparently angry at some guy sitting alone in his car at night.
Hurley’s been playing chess with Mr. Eco. That’s kind of cool.
Chopper
Oh good they see the boat.
Station!
News update: The guy who wasn’t dead the first time, still isn’t dead.
Ben is creepy. Did I mention that?
Okay, he’s dead now. Or is he?
Bomb guys
Desmond, Jin and Michael are not the last people in fantasy land I would like trying to keep a bomb from exploding, but they’d be in the bottom ten. Seriously what do these guys do that actually turns out the way these three plan?
One good thing about the whole flash-foward thing is… you can kind of guess that the bomb guys do pull this off… seeing as how all the boat people (Kate, Sayid, Hurley, and Jack) are still alive. Just sayin’…
Queue music reminiscent of the end of Wraith of Khan for Michael. The needs of the many man, the needs of the many!!!
Wait, they got the hole in the chopper fixed? And got it re-fueled? Okay, scratch my previous incredulity and re-insert that last sentence in the previous paragraph please.
Uhm, Jack’s dad? Oh yeah, I was sooo wrong about the bomb. It’s okay Sun, it’s Lost. No one stays dead. Not even guys who were dead before the show started. Uhm, Jack’s dad…?
Alright, I’m still having a bit of a problem with the ridiculous helicopter problems. So bad that it can’t make it to the ship with Sawyer. Not so bad that simply re-fueling makes it all hunky-dorey? Or they just happened to have an extra fuel thing and Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s pit crew on hand to do a quick repair.
Whitmore
Go Sun!!!
Sun: We’re not the only ones who left the island.
YES!!! More mystery!!! Whatever happens, please don’t explain anything because then we’d have an empty spot on the mystery shelf and we’d have to go out and get more mystery.
Island
I really liked Elizabeth Mitchell best in E.R., I enjoy her as an actor, but on Lost she’s just one more person whose name and backstory I don’t want to deal with.
Going somewhere cold
Okay, I remember this part.
Oh yeah, I had forgotten about Jacob.
Ben: Whoever moves the island can never come back.
Is that never like you’d be dead, see you next week?
Jacob? Oh yeah… I’m so glad we go to the bottom of that… what’s that you say? Still a mystery. Oh shoot. I’m running out of room on the mystery shelf. What this island really needs is Scooby Doo and company!
A View from the Chopper
I suppose that was as good a place as any to be when the island moved. I’m not sure why no one is freaking out. I mean, sure the pilot is freaking out about where he’s going to land… but no screaming? Heck, I don’t think Sayid, Sun or Hurley even made a sound. I think if I saw the crazy island disappear, I’d say something.
These guys have been in a plane wreck together, a boat they were just on exploded, a submarine (that they weren’t actually on exploded) and now their chopper crashes. If I were any of these guys, I would never travel with these people again. Ever. If I ever got off my couch, that is.
Oh no, Desmond looks dead. I’m sure he’ll be fine. Even if he’s dead.
How in the heck did Sun hold on to that baby!?!?
When was the last time you heard: “Helicopter crashes, no casualties.” At least everyone has a cute little cut on their forehead.
Back to the future
After all Kate has been through, she seriously keeps gun that far away at night!?!
OMG! It’s Claire! But wait, she’s dead. Sucker! It was just a dream. Of course it was a dream… Kate keeps her gun under her pillow (She may not be back yet, but I’m sure Claire will be back sooner or later).
Chopper Crash Survivors
Kate: It’s a miracle
Jack makes a I’m sooo sick of miracles face.
Yay! They’re rescued!!! Jack looks so happy about it. Holy smokes!
Pilot: I know I’m new to this group, but isn’t this the point where everyone jumps up and down?
You know, he’s kind of right. Jump first, panic second. Or if that had all been weighing on Jack you’d have figured he might have killed some of the mind-numbing cold silence out on the shark infested waters by explaining that before they were found.
Penny? See a penny pick it up… hey, she’s from Flashforward! That was a good book.
Penny: Are you okay?
(in my head, Desmond: Yeh, I was dead earlier, I’m better now that you’ found me.Oh, I do have this little cut on my forehead.)
Desmond: Penny, this is Jack
Penny: Hi. (paraphrased, I was too busy mocking)
Jack: Hi. We need to talk.
Alright Jack is either completely lost his marbles and/or is just really really badly written.
Rescued
Jack: (to Desmond) I’ll see you in another life brother.
That would make three for them right?
Back to the future
Jack has an owwie on his forehead too. How did I miss that before?!?
Queue dramatic music, sounds like flies buzzing around. Probably not the sound you want to hear at a mortuary.
Ben! Wow! I hope that’s not who Jack expected to see in the box.
Ben: All of you have to go back.
Does one learn to speak Island as a child? Can you take a community college course? I’d like to learn how to speak mountain actually.
Ben has a few ideas. I can’t imagine listening to Ben being a good idea. I mean it has worked out so well for everyone so far…
Oh look! It’s Locke!
The End.
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