Quick Take: Lost, "The Candidate"
"No, trust me, you don't want to be on board that sub." – Not Locke to Claire
Review: Lost, "The Candidate"
(S0614) This wasn't the best Lost episode of the season by a long shot (and, to be fair, there have been a number of brilliant ones in this final season), but it wasn't nearly at the level of that dreary-ish one that focused on Sun and Jin a few months ago now. "The Candidate" is fast paced and action packed and moves the storyline along, particularly in the "main" one featuring Not Locke and our band of misfit heroes trying to make one last gasp to escape and get home. Except for Jack (Matthew Fox), who's not "ready" to get home yet. Something tells me that no one's quite ready to go home, of course. Not quite yet.
We also lose several major characters – or at least seemingly so, as this is Lost after all. For the level of what that loss should have meant, story-wise and emotion-wise, I didn't quite feel the impact. Sayid's seeming "redemption" if we could call it such in grabbing the C4 and dying to save some of the others on the sub, for example, didn't have nearly the impact of Charlie (Dominic Mongahan) doing his underwater wave goodbye seasons ago. And Sun and Jin literally going down with the ship (again, we're not definitively sure of this!) was very rushed and didn't have the despairing and agonizing quality that you'd imagine would be spent on these two major characters drowning in a final lover's embrace, right? So does that tell us that somehow they're going to survive, or was there simply too much plot to pack into this episode and too many plot holes to fill up after six seasons of universal mysteries being spun out?
The alternate storyline was the much slower and character-driven section this week, and while it's always nice to see Matthew Fox and Terry O'Quinn (who plays both the "real" and Not versions of John Locke) get screen time together, I wasn't totally engaged in Jack's attempts to convince Locke that he could use his spinal surgeon's wizardry to help Locke walk again. The "candidate" has the double meaning of Locke's potential to have a successful surgery, as well as the developing notion of the mystic and mysterious names that appear on a wall back on the island. I would have liked to learn more about the latter than the former this week.
So, as a chief Lost fan and apologist, I'm more than willing to grant the show slack at this late date but have to say that this was a somewhat offbeat note in a mostly stellar final season.
More thoughts on "The Candidate":
Recap: Lost, "The Candidate"
When asked to perform a difficult task, Jack must decide whether or not to trust Locke.
Video: Lost, "The Candidate"
Catch the candidacy in action, from Hulu, while available:
From Around the Web: Lost, "The Candidate"
