Lost 6x14: "The Candidate"

[Danny99]

OMG Lost has gone on a klling spree after 6 years we lose Sun, Jin and Sayid...Also I guess we loss Frank I don't believe it. To the few who are complaining about bad writing your just pissed main characters have died, this is LOST, people die no matter who you are.

The people in charge have a huge set of balls right now and I guess this means more will die

That's exactly why I'm pissed. It shows the writers have no plan.

 

[firehawk12]

I haven't been here since season 4, but the idiocy in this episode's ending got me going.

How the hell did Locke come up with a plan that depended on the one guy WHO DOESN'T WANT TO GO INTO THE SUB to go into the sub? Did he shoot Kate? Did he also somehow stop bullets from hitting Jack as he stood there like a cheap Rambo knockoff?

I've already given up on the show so I don't know why I'm so worked up... but man, as the show nears its end, it really does seem like they just made it up as they went along just to have "dramatic scenes". I'm sure the deaths of three major characters would have had more impact if I wasn't bothered by how stupidly they died.

Is Sayid dead again?

Looks like it. Guess they'll just have to pick up the pieces and move on.

Eww.

 

[Obiwanshinobi]

Lemme ask you guys a question. How would you guys have handled this episode and the death of these characters? Knowing what you know that everybodys fate looks pretty grim.

 

[Starbreaker]

The writers have no plan because things didn't turn out exactly like you expected... okay. Weird.

 

[Stone_Cold_Sisko]

THAT's Jin and Sun's fate? After waiting all this time for them to be re-united, fighting through hell and back, they finally get re-united last week..... just so she can get stuck and they drown?



Wow, talk about the opposite of a payoff. I sure hope there's more to Jin and Sun because that is an insanely crappy payoff to the whole storyline.

 

[Brent]

Poor

If killing off four main characters is the writer's way of ending this, I am extremely disappointed. I never watched BSG, so I won't get those references, but this was just horrible writing. If they weren't dying, they were spitting out heavy handed dialogue in heavy handed scenes.

You are assuming the show ends on this reality, which I don't think it will. They are alive in the other reality.




Well, looks like Smokey is getting his way, if they are right and he has to KILL all the candidates to get off the Island, then he is doing a pretty good job of that right now! NOT good! They are playing right into his hand.

 

[Aragorn]

So alt-Locke throwing his pilot's license out there has to mean something in lieu of Frank's death, doesn't it?

 

[Mallet]

THAT's Jin and Sun's fate? After waiting all this time for them to be re-united, fighting through hell and back, they finally get re-united last week..... just so she can get stuck and they drown?



Wow, talk about the opposite of a payoff. I sure hope there's more to Jin and Sun because that is an insanely crappy payoff to the whole storyline.

This kind of thought/discussion gets brought up from time to time on writing (screen & novel) forums from time to time.

It's always kind of interesting to get peoples different views.

Having characters live and have a big "payoff" (live happily ever after, ride off into the sun set, etc...) is the standard "rule", almost cliche, way of writing and telling stories. Why? because it makes the audience happy, even if it is not realistic.

So writers occasionally change things up and "break the rules" and have things happen that are random and realistic. Illana, Sun & Jin, Frank, Boone, Shannon are all examples of the writers on Lost trying to not go the standard way.

Does it always work? From the posts here, obviously not.

But it's a hard choice for them to make. If everyone got off the island and lived happily ever after, then lots of people would say it was dumb, not dramatic and unrealistic. But if they kill people off, in almost a random way, then they say it is unplanned, cheap and no good.

The writers really can't win either way they go.

The fact of the matter is no one in real life is a "star" of a show or tv series or novel. Anyone can die any time in real life, whether they are a bum living on the streets or a rich businessman or a newly wed couple on their way to their honeymoon or the guy who just got a big promotion 2 hours earlier. A car crash, plane crash, accident, brain clot, or whatever can kill anyone anytime. It's just life. Life doesn't wait for a big "payoff" or for you to complete a big goal or for you to "fulfill your destiny" or anything like that. People die. Sometimes randomly.

But when they apply real life rules to entertainment it doesn't always work.

It's a tough nut to crack.

 

[Stone_Cold_Sisko]

This kind of thought/discussion gets brought up from time to time on writing (screen & novel) forums from time to time.

It's always kind of interesting to get peoples different views.

Having characters live and have a big "payoff" (live happily ever after, ride off into the sun set, etc...) is the standard "rule", almost cliche, way of writing and telling stories. Why? because it makes the audience happy, even if it is not realistic.

So writers occasionally change things up and "break the rules" and have things happen that are random and realistic. Illana, Sun & Jin, Frank, Boone, Shannon are all examples of the writers on Lost trying to not go the standard way.

Does it always work? From the posts here, obviously not.

But it's a hard choice for them to make. If everyone got off the island and lived happily ever after, then lots of people would say it was dumb, not dramatic and unrealistic. But if they kill people off, in almost a random way, then they say it is unplanned, cheap and no good.

The writers really can't win either way they go.

The fact of the matter is no one in real life is a "star" of a show or tv series or novel. Anyone can die any time in real life, whether they are a bum living on the streets or a rich businessman or a newly wed couple on their way to their honeymoon or the guy who just got a big promotion 2 hours earlier. A car crash, plane crash, accident, brain clot, or whatever can kill anyone anytime. It's just life. Life doesn't wait for a big "payoff" or for you to complete a big goal or for you to "fulfill your destiny" or anything like that. People die. Sometimes randomly.

But when they apply real life rules to entertainment it doesn't always work.

It's a tough nut to crack.

When I say "payoff" doesn't necessarily mean a happy ending. Charlie's death, for instance, was a hell of a payoff to the season-long "Charlie's supposed to die" storyline. The big payoff to Sawyer's letter storyline was him meeting Anthony Cooper and strangling him to death.

It's about an emotional payoff, the feeling that there was some purpose to this long ass storyline.

It's just as much about execution. The whole "jin and sun are apart for two years" just feels like wasted space now. Then again, a LOT of stuff is starting to feel like wasted space. That's why we followed this storyline for two years and they clawed through hell and time and years to find each other... SO SUN COULD GET HER LEG STUCK IN A DROWNING SUB!?!?!?!

Also, I'm sorry but "she got her leg stuck in a sinking boat" is pretty damn cliche to me. It's just as much a reaction to the lameness of her death as their death itself. Remember all those twists and turns with Sun and Ben and Widmore and the rest off island? Her kid? Desperate to find Jin? All of it, leading up to this stupid ending. *groan* What's more is this creeping realization that so much of what of we've watched over the past years... pointless.

The whole thing just feels "cheap". It's a very "cheap" end to two beloved characters.

 

[Seven of Five]

I didn't think it was cheap, I thought it was so sad! After nearly two years of being seperated I didn't think Sun and Jin would be swimming in the death pool, but it was a good curveball from the writers. All that mattered to them both after all that time apart was that they didn't leave each other again, and so there they were.

Can't believe we also lost Sayid (again?!?) and Lapidus. These are hard times!

Damn good episode though, absolutely loved it. The direction was top-notch this week to add to the tension throughout. I sort of figured that Locke needed the other candidates dead back when he was exposing to Sawyer a few episodes back about the candidates. MIB is a bad muthafucka!

Loved the sideflash this week too. Locke and Anthony Cooper were on good terms before the crash, which left his Dad in a mess of his own doing. Nice role-reversal! The scenes between Locke and Jack were very emotional, and the small one with Jack and Clare was very sweet. In fact between this and Jack's growing role on-island, he's probably one of the most interesting characters this season.

And now I might throw up.

 

[chrisspringob]

Off the top of my head, here are all the only original 815 survivors who are still alive:

Jack
Kate
Sawyer
Hurley
Claire
Walt
Bernard
Rose
Vincent

possibly alive:
Cindy, the kids she was with, and any other 815ers who were "absorbed into the Others"

 

[Mr Light]

Killing four characters at once, I dunno, it's a bit overkill. I'd say kill Sun but let Jin survive to raise their daughter. Sayid sacrificing himself is fine. Why kill Frank? Also, I kept expecting them to put the bomb in the torpedo tube and shoot it out into the water. Or does that mini-sub not have a torpedo tube? It's Widmore's, and we know it has a mortar cannon, so why wouldn't it have torpedoes?

 

[Jenee]

Oh that reminds me, isn't it a little selfish of Jin/Sun to let their baby be raised without a parent? Shouldn't Sun have said Jin you've never even seen your daughter yet you have to survive to raise her!

Yeah, it was selfish.

Not really. Their daughter is being well taken care of by Sun's mother.

Would you rather she be raised by a man who isn't really there - a man lost to the world by the death of his wife?

And, would you be able to just swim away knowing the love of your life was going to drown? alone!

 

[Mojochi]

Being that the 2nd to last episode is titled "What they died for" I reserve final judgment on how all these main characters are meeting their prime reality ends. Besides, LOST has been killing off main characters for 6 years. This whole show has been nothing but killing characters off.

One might say it's all part of the game, that the pieces get knocked out, as it nears its finish. So yeah, the most important pieces get knocked out last. The "Game" metaphors have been there all along. I expect another huge sacrifice still to come.

Anyway, it was a rare action packed episode for this season, & there was some rather touching moments too, albeit a bit rushed & heavy handed. All in all, I'm still on board, & not at all pessimistic yet. It's still a fun ride. It's maybe not the ride I'd have written, but they don't exactly pay me to write shows like LOST

 

[label]

Wow. Definitely a sad episode but packed with a ton of action. If the show ends with the people in the alternate universe receiving all of the minds of the main universe and the main universe ceases to exist, then I suppose I'm ok with the deaths, though it's not 100% clear that Lapidus actually died that way. Sayid partially redeems himself with his sacrifice, though one might argue that they wouldn't be in that situation without Sayid assisting Locke in the first place.

Still, some heroism in the end is better than none.

Based on this episode, my (and many others) theory that many more of the main characters are going to bite it seems pretty likely. I'm pretty sure Locke can't directly kill any of the candidates directly but obviously he's going to do everything he can to end each of the candidates life.

Kate can't be long for this world (YEAH!!) as she's not needed by either side. My guess is that Widmore's team will be completely annihilated (including Widmore I would think) after they convey some useful information to our candidates and then the endgame will play out in the finale.

All in all, very good episode.

9.2/10

 

[trekkiebaggio]

I'd say above average, I agree with those who have said the deaths felt flat.

Sayid's I thought was handled well.

Sun's was okay, although I thought they would have at least mentioned their daughter in their final conversation. And what was the point of her losing the ability to speak English again?

Frank's was just...well I don't even know why he's been around so long really all he's lucky if he's had one line an episode this season. And no-one asked about him on the beach. Poor Frank

I think best bit of the episode was either when Sawyer took the geek's gun or when Jack said "John Locke told me" and pushed Fake Locke into the water.

 

[Tom Hendricks]

Do you think the reason Sayid was able to be redeemed was because he was outside of NotLockes influence? He seamed a different man on the sub, no longer a zombie.

 

[PlainSimpleJoel]

Just wow. I was kinder spoiled about the deaths. Even so it's still sad to see those 4 characters die like that.

 

[Obiwanshinobi]

Say Jin listened to Sun and left her to die alone, so that he could "survive" to go off and raise Ji Yeon. How in the hell is he even supposed to leave the island?

 

[LitmusDragon]

Above Average. I'm willing to reserve judgment to see how it plays into the overall arc of the series.

This article gives some insight into what the producers were actually thinking in regards to the events in last night's episode. Apparently the main intent was to make not-Locke's intentions clear.

My kneejerk reaction to not-Locke's overall plan was that it didn't make sense. Even Widmore was convinced he really was trying to leave the island. Then when I thought about it more, I realized something bad probably would have happened if he left the island, but that this was never his intention. This is what makes it a good plan.

One point bugs me- how does not-Lock, this ancient being, know how to build a bomb out of C4 and a wristwatch?