Lost: Season 5, Episode 6 Review: 316
316
Original Airdate: February 18, 2009
Writers: Damon Lindelof & Carlton Cuse
Director: Stephen Williams
Jack’s desire to return to the island and his guilt over not having listened to Locke have been his driving motivations for most of his flash forwards, so in this episode he revisits much of it as his dream of returning to the island comes true. That said, this information has been so clear that devoting the whole episode to it and not much else feels like over kill. This is what happens when the character heavy format works against them. They need to devote an episode to a character and while the premiere was more plot heavy, that’s something they don’t want to do too often. This episode, and the two following, bridge the flash forward gap, and with the three major parties involved, it was probably best for their formula to split it up among the Oceanic Six, Island Five and Locke than as three subplots in as many episodes (it’s also probably more cost efficient if they had to pay guest stars for one episode than three).
“316” picks up where “This Place is Death” left off with Jack, Sun, Ben & Desmond meeting Mrs. Hawking, who prepares to begin the long awaited return. Hawking informs them that their mission is to board a plane that will fly over where they think the island will be within 36 hours. It might’ve added some stakes with them not knowing for sure that it’d work, but the prologue took a lot of air out of that. Those expecting it to take a season to get them back might’ve been pleasantly surprised to see it only took a third of the season, but they undercut that moment for the sake of the “how did we get here” prologue, which in this circumstance doesn’t make sense to do.
Hawking’s conclusion comes from the latest (to the viewer) Dharma station The Lamp Post, the first not on either island, whose function is to locate the always moving island. Besides the question of how they were able to continue to operate this after Dharma was massacred, how it was built is also up for speculation. With the twist at the end, some have speculated that Daniel was the “very clever fellow” who built it. However, if they traveled back to when Dharma was already there, Daniel could really only offer calculations to finding the island since Dharma would have to be there to get him off the island.
Instead of being the leader, Jack is tasked with the heavy lifting of this assignment: getting Locke’s body, setting him up to be a proxy to his father, and getting him on a plane despite not having any legal right to do so. That Jack would go so far out of his way to do this shows how much he’s changed. In many ways this is the episode that makes Jack a believer. He’s stubbornly refused to believe anything that Locke said and now he blames that attitude for Locke’s death. Everything he’s done in the flash forwards from “Through the Looking Glass” onward (which, hard to believe, was only a week earlier in the timeline) has been to redeem that mistake.
This could explain why “316” was chosen as the flight and episode number. Three-sixteen is connected to the most famous Bible verse John 3:16, the “Christianity sound byte”. It reads (King James Version): “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.” It could be read that Locke is Christ, the island is God, and Jack is “whosoever believeth in him”. The flight being a metaphor for Jack’s faith.
Of course, the plan to return has one more voice of disapproval, with Desmond adamantly refusing to do more than deliver Daniel’s message. In a nice visual metaphor of “the rules” not applying to him, Desmond walks around the pendulum locating the right spot for the island to show up, but doesn’t interact with it. Hawking warns that the island “isn’t done with [him]”, but not much else is explored because of, as expected, the character focus on Jack.
As Jack prepares to return, he finds out his grandfather is acting up in the nursing home. This is a nitpick, but it’s one that took me out of the action: no way is Ray old enough to be Jack’s grandfather. He would have to look at his youngest in his eighties, and the actor is only four years older than the actor playing Christian. Couldn’t he have been Christian’s older brother? Somehow, the similar dilemma between the ages of Terry O’Quinn & Kevin Tighe (8 years) doesn’t bother me as much, but maybe that’s because there’s only one generation between their characters.
A lot of people have claimed that Ray is somehow important to the mythology, but really his role is a plot device to get Jack to face things about himself, specifically his father and his desire to escape. I can understand why people are trying to link him to something bigger, but it doesn’t seem likely Ray will ever figure into the show again, making this element jarring. Then again, watch me eat those words in the final season.
They didn’t want to wait all season to get them back, so in that rush everyone suddenly is on board except for Aaron. Hurley is now enthusiastic and bringing a guitar case. Sayid is being extradited to Guam like Kate was on Flight 815. Kate, without Aaron, drops all her reservations about the return. The biggest mystery is a bloodied Ben popping up just as the plane door closes. A lot of people complained about all these elements being too rushed. Like those complaining about the sci-fi, I wonder what these people have been watching the past four and a half years. Did they not think that there wouldn’t be flashbacks to connect the dots? I’d only agree with them as far as their reasons probably could’ve made up for the lagging Jack bits like the prologue and his grandfather.
Obviously the writers wanted us to notice Caesar, the man who offers his condolences to Jack and is one of two people in the front section of the plane we haven’t seen before. The obvious connection is that he is tied to one of the opposing forces of the show: Ben or Widmore. At this point, it’s expected that some will roll their eyes at another new character introduced on the show, which is bursting with its huge ensemble.
If the Oceanic Six’s arrival to the island must be as close to the original as possible, why is Ben there? His arm in a sling may represent Locke’s handicap, but he came to the island first by Dharma submarine, which may be another wrench thrown in their plan. Ben has to return to the island for the sake of the story, but they forget a big piece Ben said last season, that whomever moved the island couldn’t return. What did he mean by that? Yes, Ben could’ve been lying, but what for, and why emphasize it as they did?
I could go on for all the comparisons to the original flight. Sun representing herself and Rose (holding the ring of her absent husband she has faith is still alive), Jack representing himself and Charlie (addict), Hurley miming Charlie with the guitar and himself down to the comic book Walt took, Sayid being lead like Kate, Jack having a relationship with his nephew’s adopted mother (a little like the non-incest Boone & Shannon). However, this is wide open for a lot of interpretations and is probably going to drag the review down. What would be worth discussing is why Jack didn’t tell everyone else about proxies. Is this him going down the route Locke took, where believing entitled him to keep secrets to the determent of others? Regardless of number of proxies, it’s not enough. With the Island Five in Dharma times, would their return in a perfect proxy bring everyone back to the same present timeline in 2008? Literally anything could’ve happened, which may be a nice question to leave unanswered.
The nice return of the episode was a shaven, sober Lapidus as the captain of the flight. This may give some credence to him needing to return as well, and it ties into 815 as he was the original pilot. However, it seems weird that he wouldn’t want to turn the plane around since he quickly surmised that they “weren’t going to Guam”. Yes they were friendly and didn’t have any weapons on them, but clearly the plane wasn’t going to its intended destination and he had to think about everyone on that plane. If only they had a few minutes to explain his motivation for not doing anything.
Hurley is the only person concerned about those unfortunate red shirts. Hurley, of course, wants to prevent anyone else from being on board to the point of spending tens of thousands on unsold tickets. Ben on the other hand, doesn’t care about anyone besides them returning, something that somehow surprises Jack. In his haze, Jack has conveniently forgotten that Ben is Ben and will do whatever it takes in what he sees as the island’s best interests until reminded here.
Half the Oceanic Six are accounted for by episode’s end, but none remember any crash. This draws parallels to Oceanic 815, as Kate only remembered that crash (at least judging by flashbacks). The Oceanic Six (well, some of them) were plucked out of the plane like The Rapture, only returning to the island.
Much like the Harry Potter books mirror themes, seasons of Lost mirror themes and elements. Seasons three and four connect with many pieces of Others history revealed. This season’s corresponding season is the second, which was heavily involved in Dharma by explaining the hatch. So what better way to illustrate Dharma fully than to take us to when Dharma was operating, as seen with Dharma Jin confronting the three?
This episode is effectively the first of a trilogy of episodes bringing everyone back to the island and in the “present”. Here we take the Oceanic Six from the cliffhanger in the church to the return of (at least) three of them to the island. It suffers a little bit from not enough unexplored territory to warrant a whole episode, but not playing good plot points because they’d fit into character centric episodes, some of which could’ve been put in while excising some of the lesser elements.
“316” picks up where “This Place is Death” left off with Jack, Sun, Ben & Desmond meeting Mrs. Hawking, who prepares to begin the long awaited return. Hawking informs them that their mission is to board a plane that will fly over where they think the island will be within 36 hours. It might’ve added some stakes with them not knowing for sure that it’d work, but the prologue took a lot of air out of that. Those expecting it to take a season to get them back might’ve been pleasantly surprised to see it only took a third of the season, but they undercut that moment for the sake of the “how did we get here” prologue, which in this circumstance doesn’t make sense to do.
Hawking’s conclusion comes from the latest (to the viewer) Dharma station The Lamp Post, the first not on either island, whose function is to locate the always moving island. Besides the question of how they were able to continue to operate this after Dharma was massacred, how it was built is also up for speculation. With the twist at the end, some have speculated that Daniel was the “very clever fellow” who built it. However, if they traveled back to when Dharma was already there, Daniel could really only offer calculations to finding the island since Dharma would have to be there to get him off the island.
Instead of being the leader, Jack is tasked with the heavy lifting of this assignment: getting Locke’s body, setting him up to be a proxy to his father, and getting him on a plane despite not having any legal right to do so. That Jack would go so far out of his way to do this shows how much he’s changed. In many ways this is the episode that makes Jack a believer. He’s stubbornly refused to believe anything that Locke said and now he blames that attitude for Locke’s death. Everything he’s done in the flash forwards from “Through the Looking Glass” onward (which, hard to believe, was only a week earlier in the timeline) has been to redeem that mistake.
This could explain why “316” was chosen as the flight and episode number. Three-sixteen is connected to the most famous Bible verse John 3:16, the “Christianity sound byte”. It reads (King James Version): “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.” It could be read that Locke is Christ, the island is God, and Jack is “whosoever believeth in him”. The flight being a metaphor for Jack’s faith.
Of course, the plan to return has one more voice of disapproval, with Desmond adamantly refusing to do more than deliver Daniel’s message. In a nice visual metaphor of “the rules” not applying to him, Desmond walks around the pendulum locating the right spot for the island to show up, but doesn’t interact with it. Hawking warns that the island “isn’t done with [him]”, but not much else is explored because of, as expected, the character focus on Jack.
As Jack prepares to return, he finds out his grandfather is acting up in the nursing home. This is a nitpick, but it’s one that took me out of the action: no way is Ray old enough to be Jack’s grandfather. He would have to look at his youngest in his eighties, and the actor is only four years older than the actor playing Christian. Couldn’t he have been Christian’s older brother? Somehow, the similar dilemma between the ages of Terry O’Quinn & Kevin Tighe (8 years) doesn’t bother me as much, but maybe that’s because there’s only one generation between their characters.
A lot of people have claimed that Ray is somehow important to the mythology, but really his role is a plot device to get Jack to face things about himself, specifically his father and his desire to escape. I can understand why people are trying to link him to something bigger, but it doesn’t seem likely Ray will ever figure into the show again, making this element jarring. Then again, watch me eat those words in the final season.
They didn’t want to wait all season to get them back, so in that rush everyone suddenly is on board except for Aaron. Hurley is now enthusiastic and bringing a guitar case. Sayid is being extradited to Guam like Kate was on Flight 815. Kate, without Aaron, drops all her reservations about the return. The biggest mystery is a bloodied Ben popping up just as the plane door closes. A lot of people complained about all these elements being too rushed. Like those complaining about the sci-fi, I wonder what these people have been watching the past four and a half years. Did they not think that there wouldn’t be flashbacks to connect the dots? I’d only agree with them as far as their reasons probably could’ve made up for the lagging Jack bits like the prologue and his grandfather.
Obviously the writers wanted us to notice Caesar, the man who offers his condolences to Jack and is one of two people in the front section of the plane we haven’t seen before. The obvious connection is that he is tied to one of the opposing forces of the show: Ben or Widmore. At this point, it’s expected that some will roll their eyes at another new character introduced on the show, which is bursting with its huge ensemble.
If the Oceanic Six’s arrival to the island must be as close to the original as possible, why is Ben there? His arm in a sling may represent Locke’s handicap, but he came to the island first by Dharma submarine, which may be another wrench thrown in their plan. Ben has to return to the island for the sake of the story, but they forget a big piece Ben said last season, that whomever moved the island couldn’t return. What did he mean by that? Yes, Ben could’ve been lying, but what for, and why emphasize it as they did?
I could go on for all the comparisons to the original flight. Sun representing herself and Rose (holding the ring of her absent husband she has faith is still alive), Jack representing himself and Charlie (addict), Hurley miming Charlie with the guitar and himself down to the comic book Walt took, Sayid being lead like Kate, Jack having a relationship with his nephew’s adopted mother (a little like the non-incest Boone & Shannon). However, this is wide open for a lot of interpretations and is probably going to drag the review down. What would be worth discussing is why Jack didn’t tell everyone else about proxies. Is this him going down the route Locke took, where believing entitled him to keep secrets to the determent of others? Regardless of number of proxies, it’s not enough. With the Island Five in Dharma times, would their return in a perfect proxy bring everyone back to the same present timeline in 2008? Literally anything could’ve happened, which may be a nice question to leave unanswered.
The nice return of the episode was a shaven, sober Lapidus as the captain of the flight. This may give some credence to him needing to return as well, and it ties into 815 as he was the original pilot. However, it seems weird that he wouldn’t want to turn the plane around since he quickly surmised that they “weren’t going to Guam”. Yes they were friendly and didn’t have any weapons on them, but clearly the plane wasn’t going to its intended destination and he had to think about everyone on that plane. If only they had a few minutes to explain his motivation for not doing anything.
Hurley is the only person concerned about those unfortunate red shirts. Hurley, of course, wants to prevent anyone else from being on board to the point of spending tens of thousands on unsold tickets. Ben on the other hand, doesn’t care about anyone besides them returning, something that somehow surprises Jack. In his haze, Jack has conveniently forgotten that Ben is Ben and will do whatever it takes in what he sees as the island’s best interests until reminded here.
Half the Oceanic Six are accounted for by episode’s end, but none remember any crash. This draws parallels to Oceanic 815, as Kate only remembered that crash (at least judging by flashbacks). The Oceanic Six (well, some of them) were plucked out of the plane like The Rapture, only returning to the island.
Much like the Harry Potter books mirror themes, seasons of Lost mirror themes and elements. Seasons three and four connect with many pieces of Others history revealed. This season’s corresponding season is the second, which was heavily involved in Dharma by explaining the hatch. So what better way to illustrate Dharma fully than to take us to when Dharma was operating, as seen with Dharma Jin confronting the three?
This episode is effectively the first of a trilogy of episodes bringing everyone back to the island and in the “present”. Here we take the Oceanic Six from the cliffhanger in the church to the return of (at least) three of them to the island. It suffers a little bit from not enough unexplored territory to warrant a whole episode, but not playing good plot points because they’d fit into character centric episodes, some of which could’ve been put in while excising some of the lesser elements.
Overall Score: 7/10
posted by Matt @ 1:42 AM
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